Acknowledgements as always to PMR, who reminded me while reading this chapter that there are definite limits to vampiric globe-trotting.
It didn't look like much - mostly just Amelia staring intently at Eric and occasionally passing a hand over him. After a while, she muttered something and he was briefly illuminated from within, his skin faintly glowing a light shade of blue as she stepped around the desk to get a closer look at him. Finally, she sniffed once, spit out a final syllable, and stepped back.
"Well?" If it was possible that anyone was more irritated with the situation than me, it was Pam, and she was not about to let any findings wait just to build up suspense.
"It's a good news, bad news situation." Pam glared at her, and we heard a small click as her fangs ran down behind her lips. "Bad news: I can't fix him. It's a geas, which can only be broken by the caster's will or death. Good news, though, is that I can put a general damping spell on him that should kick the compulsions down to the urge level, so he'll still want to be ridiculous, but he'll be able to stop himself."
"So do it."
"Okay, maybe I should have said 'good news, bad news, slightly-less-good news.' I can't do it right now. For one, I don't have the equipment with me," Pam looked slightly murderous, and Amelia valiantly ignored her, "and for two, even though it's a general spell, I'll need time to tailor it to him so it stands a chance against the generic geas already there."
"I see. And how long until you can perform this spell?"
"Tomorrow. As soon after sundown as you'll have me."
"Fine. You will be here half an hour after sunset, ready to perform the spell. Sookie will make sure you get inside."
I nodded, glancing at Eric, since he had been oddly quiet. He was staring at his computer screen, and I was hesitant to lean over and see what had him so occupied. Fortunately, Amelia saved me from my curiousity.
"Alright. I'll be going, then, and you folks can get back to work. Sookie, is the spare key in the same place?"
"Sure is. I'll just walk you out."
~~~ИΞEN~~~
The call came in just over an hour later. It was fortunate that I was on break, otherwise I wouldn't have heard the phone ring, and for Amelia to call so soon after getting in to Bon Temps, it had to be important. I fumbled it out of my purse and snapped it open, my heart jumping into my throat.
"Amelia? What's wrong? Please tell me Gran hasn't had another heart attack."
"No, no, your Gran's fine. She was awake and watching TV when I came in."
That was a little weird, but not unheard of - sometimes she couldn't sleep, and the kind of programming on this late helped her turn off her brain. I sucked my lip between my teeth, then rephrased the question. "So what's up?"
"Do you have a pen and paper?"
"No. Why?"
"You're going to want to write this down."
I sighed. "Hold on." Back to Bruce's office. "Is there anything you can tell me before I get the paper?"
There was a prolonged silence on the other end, and I just knew she was shuffling her toes, trying to figure out the best way to tell me. It was moments like this that I almost - almost - wished that my telepathy worked over the phone. "Well, it's what your Gran was watching. There's this big story about vampires on CNN, and I thought you'd want to know?"
I frowned. "I appreciate the thought, but why would I need to know at work? Are we like to be attacked?"
"Um, no. I don't think so. But trust me, you want to know. Do you have paper yet?"
"Yes," I sighed, pulling a pen out of the little mug with "#1 Dad" written on it and peeling off a Post-It. "Go."
"Okay. It's a bunch of names. The first one is Zyanya Castro, then Cesar Medina, then Nathaniel Guerra," she kept going, pausing in between each name so I had enough time to write it down, until I had a list nine names long.
"Amelia, who are these people? And why am I writing down their names?"
"Vampires. From all over North America, and I guess the world, since Paolo Tosetti is some big Italian playboy. Cope introduced us a couple years ago in Milan. I guess he was doing something in New York this week."
"Yes, but why, Ames? Why do I need these names?"
I thought I could hear her gulp. "They're all acting like Eric. I think so, anyway. I mean, these are respected businesspeople, and they're doing some really ridiculous things. Elizabeth Verracruz went swimming, and suddenly she was surrounded by dolphins - no one knows where they came from. Paolo Tosetti was cited in the tabloid report for a party he couldn't possibly have attended - it was in L.A. - and more than half the people who actually were there swear that he was the life of the party."
"That could be a lookalike."
"No, they all admit he wasn't there. And Felicks Zuraw, he's this bar owner in Cancun, and all of a sudden he was speaking French, but it was in Russian."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"I know, but that's what the news is saying. I just thought you and your bosses would want to know. I'm going to sleep for a few hours now, and I'll get to work on the damping spell in the morning."
"Okay. Okay. You're right, they need to know. Make sure Gran gets to bed, okay?"
"Oh, didn't I say? She went, right after I came in. I told her I'd call you, and she decided that there wasn't much point staying up if I was going to tell you." That was just like Gran, staying up way too late just to make sure I got the important news. I sighed.
"That's good, then. I need to get off the phone now and get back to work, right after I tell Pam and Eric."
"Right. Sorry. I've kept you too long. 'Bye."
"Good night." I snapped the phone shut again, rubbing the back of my hand against my forehead. It wasn't my problem, not yet, but I knew I'd get dragged into it. I opened the phone and sent Pam a text, telling her to meet me at Eric's office, then walked the short distance down the hall to wait - no way was I going in there by myself, especially with him acting like he was. I wasn't waiting long.
Pam got right to the point, indicating that I should get on with it before the door was all the way shut.
"Amelia called."
"She has the damping spell ready?"
"No. She hasn't started on it yet - she only just got in. She called to give me this list," I waved the Post-It, "of vampires who seem to be acting like Eric, from all over the US and Mexico."
Pam snatched the paper, and if she had any color, I'm sure it would have drained. As it was, her face went completely blank. "Where did she get this?" There was a hint of something in her voice, and if I had to guess, it was worry.
"CNN. Sounds like it's a big story. Who are they?" She'd handed the paper to Eric, and for once he seemed focused on the business at hand.
"Old vampires. Powerful ones. There are four monarchs on this list, and most of the rest are in some position of authority."
Pam's response was brief: "Fuck."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
Amelia and I pulled up to Fangtasia caravan-style about forty-five minutes before sundown. She said it wouldn't take that long to set up the ritual for the damping spell, but I wanted to make sure there was plenty of time for it to be perfect before Pam and Eric showed up, even if they were early. Well, that and I'd thought of something else I should have her do while she was up - namely, to see if the geas was on any of the rest of the stock of Equis Rojos.
We got to work right away: laying down the circle, lighting candles, arranging the various herb bundles near where they'd need to be, setting out a mop and bucket to clean the chalk off the floor before the club opened. Amelia had proposed setting everything up in Eric's office, for greater privacy, but Bobby was working in there and Bruce's office was too small, so we cleared some space on the main floor and did it in the middle of the club, surrounded by a ring of smushed-together tables and chairs.
Fortunately, we finished with plenty of time to spare, so right around sunset I led Amelia into the stock room and pointed her at the half-dozen or so cases of Equis Rojos we had. While she was gazing around at the myriad varieties of synthetic blood we had (and the occasional blend), I oh-so-casually checked the expiration dates on the Equis Rojos; honestly, it wasn't selling that well, and if it was all spelled, we were going to be losing a fair amount of money because I sure as shit wasn't going to keep it behind my bar. We had a few weeks, though, so maybe if we were able to get it un-spelled quickly, we'd be able to offload it on special before it went bad.
The magic was a little showier this time around, with the anemic glow Eric had shown manifesting now in a bright, full-bodied blue light emanating from each and every bottle we had in stock. All six cases, one of which was about half-empty. I had stopped selling it after the arm-curl incident, which meant that there were potentially upwards of a dozen vampires wandering around the Shreveport area with this geas on them that we could have caught before Eric. I may have sworn under my breath, and Amelia may have echoed my sentiment.
"That...is not good."
"No, it's definitely not."
"Has anyone else been acting off?"
I thought long and hard about that. Luka had been caught feeding on the premises, but that was more a scheduled event than unusual behavior. And while Long Shadow's conduct had been decidedly 'off,' it wasn't the same kind of 'off' as Eric practicing his game face or shipping in a supercar from Dallas. As for other vampires...they weren't necessarily in the bar often enough for me to notice any patterns of behavior, so I wouldn't know if they were acting out of character.
"I don't think so, but I can't know for sure. I'll ask later."
She just nodded, back to staring at the still-glowing cases. "You know, I might be able to get a better read on the spell if I take a case back to New Orleans with me."
"What do you mean? Didn't you already get a good read from Eric?"
"Well, yes, but that was pretty quick-and-dirty. If I've got enough volume to work with, I might be able to work out more of the specifics - even if I can't break it - and possibly track it back to its point of origin."
"Point of origin? Do you mean physically, or the person who put the spell on it?"
"The spellcaster, or possibly spellcasters, and with that their location. Can't be sure right now, but I might be able to find out."
I frowned again, staring sideways at the floor while I considered. Amelia was dangling a lot of valuable information in front of me, and I really wanted to let her have a case. The problem was that they weren't mine to give, so I'd either need to get approval or pay the bar back for the loss of merchandise. On a whim, I crouched down to have a look at the sell-by date on the nearest case, which turned out to be quite soon. Since I didn't think we'd get this solved within the next couple of days, I had no reason to believe Eric and Pam would be stingy with their otherwise-unusable stock - if they were going to lose money on it anyway, why bother charging me? And if they didn't see it like that...well, I'd find a way to stretch my finances.
"Do you think you need a full case, or could you take what's left of this one?" I pushed upright and poked the half-empty box with my toe.
"Hmmm. I'd rather have the full case, so I don't have to worry about running out of samples, but I could certainly make do with the what, dozen or so left in there?"
"Okay. I'll talk to the bosses about that, too, but I'm sure they'll want to know everything you can find out. You'll definitely get something to work with."
~~~ИΞEN~~~
In the few minutes of dead time we got, I parked myself behind the bar. My hands were going through the motions of getting ready to open, even though that wouldn't be for hours, but my mind was elsewhere. There was something poking at the back of my brain, something about the geas. Even if I didn't remember specifically who I'd sold it to, I was positive that it hadn't just been Eric, if only because the one he'd had couldn't possibly account for the half-empty case, nor could the half a dozen I still had sitting in the cooler. By all rights, there should be more vampires acting out of sorts just in Shreveport, and definitely more than the ten total cases I knew about worldwide. Either there were a lot of vampires wandering around who were way better than Eric at hiding their symptoms (unlikely), or there was something else at work here.
But what?
The problem boiled down to a lack of data, not to mention a small sample size. No matter how I turned the individual facts around in my head, I couldn't get them to assemble into a coherent whole. What was it that Amelia had said? That the magic tasted 'spicy'? What did that even mean? The stuff was obviously from Mexico, it said so right on the bottle, so was that it? Mexican witches? But was it bottled in Mexico, too? Spicy could refer to anywhere in the southwest, if magic flavor was like food flavor. Hell, it could mean Lousiana, too. Or a good portion of southeast Asia. "Spicy" was really not a helpful adjective.
Okay, different tack. The victims - ten of them counting Eric, sort of radiating out from Mexico, and probably more that hadn't made the news, like Eric. We hadn't yet confirmed the Equis Rojos connection, but it was taken as read, since we knew for sure that it was the source of Eric's geas. What else did they have in common? Four of them were monarchs, and the rest powerful in some other way - I was curious as to the specifics of that, but I knew I wouldn't get anything out of Eric or Pam - probably Sheriffs or equivalent, but the vampire hierarchy was enough of a mystery to me that I wouldn't stake money on it. So they were all powerful, and influential...and old.
The sound of the back door banging open startled me out of my reverie, and I cast out with my mind on reflex, checking for malicious intent from the intruders (not that thieves would make so much noise so soon, but it was a habit leftover from Bourbon Street - if the noise was loud enough to hear over the music, then it was worth checking). All I found was a pair of voids, which I could only assume were the undead proprieters.
"We're set up in here," I called down the hall. Pam and Eric swept into the room not a moment later, and Amelia hopped out of the booth where she'd sat down to wait, tracing symbols in the condensation that dripped from her glass to the table.
Eric and Pam parted a few steps into the room, she to look over the stuff on the floor, and he to invade my personal space behind the bar. I immediately stopped what I was doing, carefully setting down the glass and dishcloth before pointedly removing his hands from my hips and doing a little pirouette to get away from him and his roaming lips.
"Not the time, Eric."
He frowned at me, almost pouting. "Do you even realize what you're implying when you say that? You never follow through and tell me when it is the time. Is it any wonder I keep picking my own?"
I sighed very heavily. As usual, he had a valid point, but I really didn't want to deal with it. "Well, maybe when you're acting like yourself we can discuss it. The sooner you get out from behind my bar and into that circle, the sooner I'll consider it, alright?"
Eric nodded, seeming almost mournful, and stepped away from where he'd practically pinned me against the bar. When he was nearly past me, he paused, leaning down to kiss me. He was tall enough that he could do it while maintaining the distance between us, and he kept it quick - just a brief press of his lips against mine and the light flick of his tongue across my lower lip as he pulled away. He smiled at my stunned expression, saying only, "Now you can consider properly," before crossing the room to the chalk circle.
I pulled myself together quickly, talking two very deep breaths before I went to stand beside Amelia.
"Do you need me to do anything?"
She shook her head. "Just stay out of the way. Once I start the incantation, I can't stop to tell you which bundle to burn, so it's easier if I just do the whole thing."
"Okay." She took a couple steps toward the circle, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket and proceeding to check that everything was in order, her eyes flicking between the sheet and the circle while her lips formed silent words. Her thoughts mimicked her actions, running through everything at lightning speed. If I hadn't already know, the frantic review would have clued me in to her perfectionism, and that layer of throwing everything together last-minute just added an extra note of panic.
I stepped back from Amelia's mind and gave a start when I realized that Pam had appeared next to me, her tiny presence managing to loom despite the fact that her heels still left her a couple inches shorter than me.
"She knows what she is doing, your witchy friend?"
"Yep." I nodded vigorously, trying not to remember the Bob Jessup incident back in college. It had been years since then, and Amelia had a much better handle on her power. Pam glanced skeptically at me, but didn't say anything. Apparently bored with standing in the circle with no one to fawn over him, Eric spoke up.
"Pam, I've been thinking. I'd like to spend some time in Cambodia teaching those people up in the hills to play hnefatafl. It occurs to me that I'm probably the only one who knows how to play it properly anymore. Tawl-Bwrdd just isn't the same."
"Perhaps you could hold off on the trip and teach our employees to play. I'm sure it would do them some good to think every once in a while."
"Perhaps. It's been so long since I've been to southeast Asia, though."
"Yes, and as I recall, there was a very good reason for that." Her head swiveled toward Amelia. "Miss Carmichael?"
"Broadway," she corrected automatically.
"Broadway," Pam agreed pleasantly. "I had assumed that your early arrival would mean we could conduct this ritual immediately. What is the delay?" I had an urge to slap my hand over Pam's mouth, but not only would that be a bad idea employment-wise, it would clue her in to the fact that I was not entirely confident in my friend.
Amelia blinked at her sheet of paper. "No delay."
"So you will begin now?"
She held up a finger. "Just one second...yeah. Eric, are you ready?"
He smiled charmingly, looking past her to meet my eyes. I shivered. "Always."
"Good. Let's do this."
Pam's tone was dry. "Yes, let's."
As I was beginning to realize, most magic wasn't much to look at. It's nothing like in the movies - no wind suddenly kicking up, no glowing hands, no hovering a couple feet above the floor. Mostly it was just Amelia chanting Latin in a voice barely loud enough to hear, with the occasional highlight when she bent down to light one of the herb bundles with the nearest candle. She'd told me once that the words didn't matter as much as the intent but that most witches chose a dead language to work in, and since Latin and Greek were so well-documented they were the go-to choice.
Eric went into downtime while she worked, staring blankly ahead for the fifteen minutes or so it took all the bundles to burn out, leaving the room smokey and aromatic, not necessarily in a good way. I was rubbing my eyes and holding my nose shut to stop up the snot that was threatening to run out of it when she finished, saying the last line of the incantation with a notable finality before stepping forward to scuff out a bit of the circle with her shoe.
Pam was the first to speak. "Is it done, then?"
"Uh, yeah. Should be. Eric, how do you feel?"
He blinked lazily as she addressed him, shifting his gaze from the wall in front of him to first me, then his child. "Fine. It smells of hippie in here."
Characters included in the above are the sole property of Ms. Charlaine Harris, long may she write (but not too long, lest her books become like Deuteronomy or Laurell K. Hamilton's work). This work of fiction was intended to amuse without providing monetary gain, and any lawyers who should come to read this are politely asked to keep that in mind.
