Eric's Ghosts
Chapter Four
Victor looked concerned as he watched Eric carry Sookie into the house.
"Will she be okay?" he asked.
"Not sure, she's never done that before," Eric admitted.
"I'm fine," she said, "starting to come to. Just might have overstretched myself that time."
"Sookie, for a moment there I thought I'd lost you," Eric confessed.
"Never, viking," she told him, "Who'd look after you?"
"Look after me?" he grinned, "I don't remember anyone carrying me off the lawn."
"You don't remember, memory must be going then at your age," she teased.
"What now, Eric?" Victor asked.
"Now you get whatever people you have left here to clean up that mess outside, then close this house up. They'll be back, better they don't find anyone here," Eric told him.
"What about you, what will you do now?" Victor pressed him.
"We three are leaving too, you need to show me some things," Eric said.
In a little while the car was waiting for them at the front of the house. Sookie had no idea where Victor had gotten so much help from, but more than a dozen vampires were piling the corpses together on the lawn. She watched the grisly sight through the back window of the car as it took them off the estate.
"Where to?"
"Get us to a safe house for now, there's not enough of this night remaining. Tomorrow we go to the prison in town, see if we can start to unravel this mess from there," Eric told him.
"I'll see you get there, then I have duties to attend," Victor said.
"Not any more Williams, you stay with me from now until I don't need you further. It's been a long time since I was here, I'll need a guide and a go between. Your masters will understand."
The safe house was a little brick built mid terrace kitchen house. It was cold inside, and the rooms felt damp. Sookie made her way upstairs to one of two bedrooms, while Eric and Victor went to the recently excavated basement. At dark they had to waken her.
"Do you need more rest?" Eric asked, concerned at how tired she still looked.
"No, I need food, a shower, and later I'll want some time alone with you!"
Eric grinned at her, kissed her tenderly on the mouth, before leaving her to get ready.
"You love that human?" Victor asked.
"I'd die for her," Eric agreed.
"You might just," Victor laughed. "She looks like trouble."
It was raining again, cold rain that stung Sookie's cheeks. She wondered if either of her companions were troubled by it in the way that she was. Without a word they crossed the short distance to the cemetery.
On a night such as this there were no people about, to see the trio scale the gate. Inside Sookie was at first shocked at the change of atmosphere.
"Can you feel that?" she asked, seeing her companions both nod.
"It's like every soul here is waiting for something," she said.
None of the sounds from outside the cemetery wall could be heard inside. In here there were no cars, no people walking or talking, as if the stone wall around the perimeter closed out every trace of the living. Sookie felt a growing disquiet, she wasn't afraid of graveyards, but there was something really wrong with this one.
Victor took the lead, making his way down the flagged path to a crypt at the heart of the place. In the dark it was little more than a black shape against the night sky, but Sookie's feeling of dread grew with every step closer to it. They were at the steps before she could clearly see the marble doors, a faint inscription she couldn't read carved into the stone above them.
"Should this be lying open like this?" she asked.
"No," Eric told her, "these doors are the prison doors.
"What was here?" she asked. "It's as if a great evil lurks, can you feel it?"
"I feel it. The hounds and the firbolg were held here, along with a few others. This prison has been here a very long time, it feels like the evil has permeated the whole cemetery," Eric told them.
"Is it likely there's anything left in there?" Victor asked.
Sookie looked at him and shook her head. She'd decided she didn't like it when the vampires were afraid.
"I can't sense anything in there," she informed them, "but we better go look."
Nodding Eric pushed the marble door open, stepped into the gloom inside. At his heel Sookie walked in, out of the rain. Her eyes took a minute to adjust to the gloom.
"It's tiny," she said, "how did they all fit?"
"There's a door in the floor, this is just like an antechamber, where the guards would have been," he was looking at a dark stain on the floor.
"Someone they trusted betrayed them to get in here and kill them," he told them.
Seeing the stain Sookie shuddered, evidence of yet another death.
"Do you know how to open the other door?" Victor asked.
"Should do, it was me that sealed it!"
Sookie felt a whoosh of power as Eric spoke the latin phrase that opened the door. It swung up, revealing a flight of stone stairs that led steeply into the darkness below. There was a smell of damp
and decay in the air that escaped.
"Tell me we're not going down there," she said.
Eric nodded.
"We need to find out if everything got out of here, there's a few nasties I'd like to hope are still here."
"Why would they still be here?" Sookie asked, finding it was her turn to feel fear.
"Because I'm hoping that whoever opened it left them here before they resealed it. This door was locked again," Eric told her.
"Then why don't you just leave it locked?" Sookie demanded.
"I have to know," he told her.
Quietly he led them down the steep stone stairs, holding a hand out to guide Sookie when they found the stairs were damp at the bottom. Behind them came Victor. Sookie had read nothing but fear from his surface thoughts, she thought he might be a liability to them if they did meet anything unpleasant. With that thought she began opening doors in her head, just in case.
At the bottom of the stairs the stone floor was slimy and damp. Sookie stood close to Eric, allowing her eyes to adjust to the deeper gloom.
"You lot like your cliches," she observed.
"Made sense back then, at the time when we put this here the locals were frightened of graves, and we made sure they stayed frightened of this one, I imagine," Eric told her.
"Now Eric that's just wrong, you don't have to sound so pleased when you say something like that," she scolded.
"It's in my blood," he told her.
They were at the end of a sloping passage that stank of decay and death. The damp was in the walls, the floor, even dripping from the ceiling. Sookie had noticed that the air was weak down here, although she noted that her companions didn't seem worried about that either.
"Eric the air is bad in here," she said.
"Sookie lets hope its not the only thing that's bad in here," Eric said.
"You want whatever else you locked in here to still be here?" she questioned him.
"Better than it being lose out there, I'm hoping we're dealing with bastards, but not mad bastards!"
"But surely we're in danger then?" Victor asked.
"Of course we are, I nearly get Sookie killed all the time, you're just new to this," Eric laughed.
"I think something's listening to us," Sookie told them.
"Can you feel it?" Eric asked.
She nodded, trembling involuntarily with fear.
"It's ahead, but Eric it's evil, worst I've felt. And it's hungry."
"Now who's reaching for the cliches?" he laughed, freeing his massive blade from the scabbard he wore over his shoulder.
"We know it's here, can't we just go now?" Victor asked.
"Don't think so," Sookie informed him. "It's coming!"