Chapter Ten

Note: Things take a turn in this chapter. No copyright infringement is intended.

Disembodied, the atoms that made Carly what she was careened toward Eric as if he were a magnet drawing iron shavings to him, or as if she were a particle shot through an accelerator toward a target. When she solidified, she stood directly in front of him, inches from his naked body. He must have stood up from his bed as soon as the sun had set. She looked up into the North Sea blue of his eyes and reached up to his cheek. He grasped her wrist and sniffed.

"Why have you been with the bear?" After another breath, he added, "And Cataliades?" A flash of distress went across his face, but disappeared before it altered his expression too greatly. "What happened?"

"Adele didn't leave a fragrance as well? I'm surprised. She smells like lilacs." Carly stood on her tip-toes and kissed his chin. Please...one kiss.

Eric capitulated, but before their kiss deepened, he pulled away from her, although he drew her hips toward him with ferocity. "One kiss. But tell me, now. Cataliades would only be there if something very bad had happened."

"Someone broke into Adele's house."

"Again?"

"Again." Carly shrugged and moved Eric's hair behind his ear, her fingers lingering against his jaw. "But this was just a garden-variety human who happened to be a murderer."

"Are the women all right?"

Carly lifted her leg so that her hips caressed Eric's groin more insistently. "Yes, Jenya killed him before he hurt Adele. Sookie and Hadley weren't there."

Eric's forehead wrinkled and he shook his head. "But Cataliades?"

"The Bon Temps sheriff detained Jenya and took him to the station. Melissa dispatched Cataliades because he's the lawyer for 'bad things' for 'people like you.' Her words, not mine." Carly kissed Eric's neck. "Cataliades had me come and glamour the detective so that he wouldn't waste any more time on the investigation, since it was clearly a justified killing."

"Okay." Eric kissed her forehead tenderly. "That makes me feel somewhat better. When Cataliades is involved, things are usually dangerously complicated. And always expensive."

Eric picked her up completely, turned and brought her down on the bed. "I should make you wash those smells off before I bite you." Eric tore her blouse off and threw it in the corner.

"Eric!" Carly had learned that she shouldn't be attached to particular pieces of clothing, but she knew Pam was. "Pam just bought that for me!"

"I'll buy you both more."

As Eric kissed her, his hands moved swiftly down her body, divesting her of the rest of her clothing and swiftly bringing her to orgasm. "I need you to feed me, Carly. I'm hungry." He drew her up to sitting so that she could straddle him and bit her as he plunged inside her. He drank, and she climaxed, and then he spun her around so that he could feed from her more as she sucked blood from his wrist. As they moved, the blood and sex spun through them, inciting a whirlwind—fire, lust, devotion. The sound of her heartbeat resonated off the walls.

And the walls were wattle and daub, and the wind blew, stirring the edges of the thatched room, and they rolled around on sheepskins in a long house, a roaring fire in the fire-pit, and, as they reached ecstasy, a white wolf, standing beside a shadowy figure tucked into a corner, howled. As his howl quieted, the illusion subsided.

On their bed—in Shreveport, Louisiana—the two of them, vampire and valkyrie, panted, covered in blood and sweat and soot.

Carly reached up to Eric's chest, which was warm, but still. No heartbeat, but his chest swelled and shook as he laughed. "He likes a game and a show, apparently."

"Apparently." Carly concurred, quietly, and tried to quell the fear that she was a danger to her lover.

"No, Carly. We are safe-safe, and warm, and happy. Equipped with weapons our enemies cannot imagine with refuges they can never even conceive."

"What?" Carly pulled herself up. "Were you listening to me?"

Eric grinned. "Apparently."

Just as she inhaled a breath so she could interrogate him, his phone rang. The caller ID read "Dad."

"Oh, my god, New Orleans!" As Eric grabbed his phone, Carly seized hold of him and sent them hurtling across the state into his chambers in Godric's palace.

When they came into his view, Godric cut off the phone call. "I was hoping to find the two of you here," Godric spoke cooly, "in more presentable condition."

"It's my fault, Godric, I'm so sorry. I should have told him you needed us first, but I told him about Adele and Jenya..."

"And clearly that resulted in intercourse..." Godric sat down on the edge of the bed. "We must speak with some urgency. In twenty minutes, I will be receiving Nan Flanagan, one of the Chancellors, and one of her assistants, all of whom arrived shortly before dawn and who are out in my guest quarters. Cataliades is already here. I presume he still waits in the solarium. He wanted to soak his feet in the pool."

Eric moved to the wardrobe where he pulled out his own clothing and rapidly dressed himself before giving Carly an elegant pantsuit to wear.

"Have they offered to extend your territory?" Eric asked.

"Yes, in correspondence, but the visit is unusual. And upsetting." Godric radiated sadness once again. "If this was only related to the boundaries of the monarchy, I would have expected visitors from other territories as well, but they are not accompanied by representatives of Arkansas or the Caribbean."

Even though Godric's answer was informative, it seemed to lack alignment with his emotions. Carly couldn't resist the impulse to probe Godric's mind.

In all these centuries...one lie...beg his forgiveness...command his forgiveness...beg Carly's.

Eric asked, "Perhaps Arkansas and the Caribbean have no objection. But why is the Chancellors' visit upsetting?"

"Because I must face my only shame." Godric hung his head and the three sat in silence. "I have lied to you, Eric, and now I must face that lie and ask for your forgiveness."

With confusion visible on his face, Eric moved toward his maker and knelt. "Maker, please, do not cower in front of me. You know best. If you lied to me, you did it for a good reason."

"No, I did it for selfishness." Godric raised Eric's chin. "When Nora asked to leave, I released her. Your sister has not been mine since she left me—that is why her presence is invisible to me, not because she is far away or because of anything she has done." Godric stroked Eric's cheek, and his love for his progeny was clear, as was a deep and abiding sorrow. Once again, Carly grieved for the ancient vampire.

Grief, love, betrayal, desire-all compounded with rage that emanated from Eric's mind and resonated through Carly, along with images of Nora's making and the century the three spent together as family and lovers. She saw through Eric's eyes as he carried a tiny, limp woman, burning with fever and searched for Godric through streets flanked by boarded up buildings, the smell of rotting corpses mingling with the scent of glue that bound broadside invectives against Charles II, against religious dissenters, and women. A bell rang in Eric's memory and drew his attention upward to the tower that held it—the old St. Paul's Cathedral. Nora must have been made a vampire in England, between the last outbreak of plague and the Great Fire that destroyed the city. 1665. By comparison to Godric and Eric, she was young, but she was a century older than the United States.

Through gritted teeth, Eric whispered, "What?"

"When Nora asked to separate from me, I was angry, so angry. I made the greatest mistake of my existence. And now, she is here with the Chancellor."

Eric looked at his maker and then to Carly. Why? Why would he have done that?

Eric, I don't know what this means...

Godric stood and turned away from them. "I should have let her go without releasing her, but I was proud, and fearful, and didn't want to feel the betrayal of parting from one of my progeny again."

Carly felt a wave of guilt from her beloved and heard Leticia's mesmerizing voice whisper Eric's name. I can give you such pleasures, Eric, pleasures you have never imagined.

"I should not have left the two of you, especially not to go to Leticia. But Nora was strong, and confident, and knew how to be a vampire. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most makers release their progeny after a time. I understand your grief, my king, but I don't understand why you feel shame?"

"I should have told you what I had done." Godric placed his hand on Eric's shoulder and prompted him to rise. "But I could never sever ties to you. I promise, I keep nothing else from you." Godric smiled at Carly, "Or from you, Carly. Of course, there is nothing that I can keep from you."

And with that one phrase, Carly saw the scene replay through Godric's memory.

Master, I want to learn more about our origins. About where vampires come from. Leticia told me that there are secrets in Rome, and secret-keepers, who can teach me. May we go?

Never...I will never step in that city again. No.

Please let me go...Leticia gave me names. She says her sister...

Damn Leticia and all her kin.

Please...

Rage...flares of rage, hotter than hell-fire, taller than towers. Then I release you. Go.

Breaking away from the vision, Carly asked, "What does it mean when a vampire releases his progeny?" She brushed her hair and made herself presentable.

"It means there is no longer a connection between them. My commands have no force for Nora. I cannot call her to me, and she is free to make connections with other vampires, as if I had met my true death. She may be remade. And she has."

"Who?" Eric tried to modulate his voice, but his own feelings of guilt were clear. Even though he and Nora had once been lovers, he had never tried to find her, never noted or been particularly troubled by her absence. Godric's revelation explained why, perhaps. Perhaps with their common connection gone, they felt nothing for one another.

"The Chancellor—Salome."

Carly recollected exactly why Godric was so concerned. It was Salome who directed one of her progeny to save Nakamura, and it was one of her witches who deprived Sophie-Ann and Andre of their knowledge of the talisman that could summon fairies. After Nakamura disclosed its existence to them, they had activated it and summoned a fairy woman into Godric's study, so they knew that it was hidden somewhere beneath the floor of that room, but they couldn't pull up an entire floor in twenty minutes, nor could they guarantee that Salome couldn't activate the charm from elsewhere in the palace or on the palace grounds.

"So we have to find the talisman and get it out of the palace right now," Carly concluded. "That's why Cataliades asked me about whether I could 'excavate without a trowel.' How did he know about the talisman?"

Godric sighed loudly. "Cataliades requires only one thing as his retainer—full, complete disclosure. He knows all his clients' secrets. He protects them, but also uses them to protect himself and his own position. In order to use his services, I had to tell him everything. I'm sorry, Carly, but that also included everything that I knew about you."

"I figured it was Eric," Carly laughed as Eric backed away in shock. "Well, I knew you already had a demon lawyer! How many can there be?"

"Thankfully, only a handful—Cataliades and his brothers."

Carly laughed again as she imagined a cluster of equally round, equally sallow lawyers who bore a disquieting resemblance to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. "The Cataliadoi."

"Perhaps." The weight finally seemed to lift from Godric. "Although the three from the Authority expect to be summoned into my presence shortly, they will not come until I tell them we are ready, so perhaps we should try to find it and get it out of the palace now?"

Eric opened the door into the hallway and asked,"Only one question—where do we put it once we have it?"

"It seems unwise to keep it in our world. Carly, if we can find it, can you take it to the portal in Bon Temps and return it to the fairies?"

As Carly considered it, she decided that Godric's plan could work, but she reached a different conclusion. "Why can't we just summon Niall within the crystal palace or whatever it is that the Mystery gives us access to?"

"Hmm..." Godric thought a moment. "No, I think that it is too much of a risk to have a fairy anywhere in the vicinity, even if safely enclosed in that structure. He would likely leave behind some residue." Godric cocked his head to the side suddenly and said, "I wonder if you will draw their attention?"

"No one has commented upon Carly in some time," Eric volunteered. "Not since her final transformation."

"We shall hope that you are no longer a fragrant and tasty morsel to other vampires."

They proceeded to the study and closed and locked the door behind them.

"Okay..." Carly looked around at Godric's desk and bookshelves and his elegant carpets and realized she had no idea where to begin her search. "I don't really know how to do this."

"How have you located things before?" Godric asked. "How did you find Edgington the first time?"

Carly recalled the bonfire on her mother's farm, the blood of the condemned vampire artist Christophe crackling on the logs, the acrid smoke from duplicates of his paintings rising into the sky, catching on the wind, and taking her to Edgington's palace. "Do you have any candles? Something smoky?"

"Ah!" Godric zoomed to his desk and pulled out the bottom drawer. "The gift Octavia brought might assist!"

"Octavia, the witch?" Eric chuckled and said, "I doubt she is as formidable as her cousin."

Godric answered. "Well, yes, I think that she is quite as formidable, but she was generous with information and quite charming, actually." Godric stopped his search and directed his attention to Carly, "I will ask after your friend Tracy and her response to my gift after this is over." As he drew out a box, he continued, "She reminds me of the seer in my own tribe. After the unpleasantness you faced at your office, she agreed to meet, and we exchanged gifts."

Once the black box was on the table, he opened it, and transferred a blackish-gray candle onto the desk's blotter. "Eric, could you disconnect the smoke detector?" Godric opened the passageway into the dungeon. "Perhaps this will give us a draft as well."

When Godric lit the candle, a column of smoke infused with sage, licorice, and frankincense rose and expanded through the room, and Carly felt herself diffuse into the cloud, perhaps not physically, but psychically. She saw the room as if looking at it through a filter or a blacklight. Godric and Eric shimmered, as if they were figures made of oil, or coal ground up and speckled with diamonds. Both of them seemed almost liquid. A number of books on Godric's shelves glowed green, and she reached for them with smoky tentacles that cast the books of their shelves. And just in front of Godric's desk, Carly could see bright light radiating up from the floor-a star submerged.

She plunged toward it, through the carpet, between the floorboards and found herself encircling the talisman. She held tight to it and willed it into her physical hands.

"Please, Godric," Carly coughed. "Put out the candle. I have it." Carly opened her eyes and could barely see Eric or Godric through the haze. Without hesitation or consciousness of what she was doing, she summoned an unkindness of ravens out of the smoke who flapped their wings and drove it away. When the smoke cleared, the birds disappeared.

"Magnificent," Eric said with appreciation. "Is that a gift from our friend as well?"

"Friend?" Godric asked.

"Odin." Carly shook her head. "No, it isn't, but I don't think we have time to explain this right now, Godric."

She held the medal—her hands could encircle it- and noted its iconography: a sun bounded by repeating rhombuses on one side, a nine pointed star on the reverse, and unfamiliar, unrecognizable writing along the edge. It was heavy, metal, but seemed to vibrate, as if resonating at high speed, even though it was still. She thought that she could hear it scream as she held it.

And like any archaeologist or artist, she wanted to catalog it and study it rather than surrender it. "It's beautiful. I wish we knew its history."

"Carly, I am certain that it would be an extraordinary story, but we need it far away as quickly as possible. Can you take it to the portal?" Godric clearly felt anxious. "And get back to us quickly as well?"

"I think so, but I need a Plan B if I can't get it into the portal. I'm not leaving it with the Stackhouses or burying it somewhere on their property. It needs to be locked up securely and secretly."

Eric suggested, "Perhaps Jean-Jacques could secure it."

"To be honest," Carly admitted, "I like that plan better. I don't trust the fairies, but I do trust him."

Godric looked at the books strewn across the floor. "Eric, could you stack those up and place them on the other side of the door to the dungeon? They must have some significance. We will examine them later."

Frustrated that Godric's attention seemed to have been misdirected, Carly prompted, "Well? Can you call him?"

Godric nodded in assent. "Yes, I think that you are right. But I have to be circumspect."

"Ask him if he can store one of my father's first editions in his safe. Tell him that it's urgent—I'm worried about flooding." Carly thought back to her father's treasured book collection and the joy she felt when she saw some of the volumes on Jean-Jacques's shelf.

"Yes. But I will have to figure out if he is alone." Godric chose his land-line rather than his cellphone and dialed and activated the speaker. The three listened as the New York King's phone rang.

"Bon soir, mon ami. Godric, it is a pleasure," Jean-Jacques answered with joy in his voice.

"Yes, and a pleasure to speak to you. I hope you are not indisposed or otherwise occupied."

"No," Jean-Jacques paused before adding, "I am finishing a few tasks before a social engagement. I'm escorting Edna to a family gathering she was reluctant to attend and that Abdullah has boycotted. She tells me I will be presented as her fairy-godfather, and I am very amused."

"That is a coincidence," Godric responded, "Carly is with me now and is very concerned about our upcoming weather, particularly the threat of flooding. She is hoping that she can transport one of her father's first editions to you for safe-keeping—in your vault."

"Ah!" Jean-Jacques seemed to confirm his understanding. "I am happy to oblige her. I know she has a very swift courier for such things."

"Thank you, Jean-Jacques."

Carly mouthed "Where is he?" to Godric, who added, "I have enjoyed having my library here in the palace so that I can keep my work separate from my living space where I dress and rest. How do you manage, my friend?"

"Well, yes, typically I am in my study, but I have a phone and a desk in my chambers upstairs. I can't recall when you were last here, Godric? Had I renovated the staircase and installed my new door to my chambers?"

Carly immediately recognized what the king described—a massive, carved oak door, repurposed from a European monastery that had become a private home-, so she smiled to Eric and Godric and willed herself to the space within the New York palace. With as firm a grip on the talisman as she had when she disappeared from New Orleans, Carly materialized in front of the monumental oak door at the top of Jean-Jacques grand staircase. She knocked and the king opened the door, still on the phone to Godric.

"Well, my friend, I'm called by my obligations. I hope to see you soon." The king disconnected the call, opened his arms and embraced her. "Ma belle! You are a gift. Let us go below before you tell me your tale."

After giving her a kiss, Jean-Jacques took her by the arm and led her down the grand staircase and through a door concealed behind a built-in shelf beneath the stairs. A metal staircase took them down two stories, past a basement and into an even deeper level. Carly could feel as they descended into the schist, the rough edges of the rock within her reach. Jean-Jacques's home literally grew out of Manhattan's bedrock.

Jean-Jacques typed a code on a keypad next to a heavy metal door which opened with an echoing thump. Within a narrow anteroom, they faced three more doors—two like the one that they passed through, while the third door was like a bank vault. Once Jean-Jacques the vault door open, he finally spoke.

"We should be safe here, if there is any safety to be had in our world. What do you wish me to hide?"

Carly handed Jean-Jacques the talisman. He inspected one side, and then the other, and then held the disk at arms length and read along the side, turning the disk to the right as he peered at the text.

"Where did this come from?"

"Godric's palace. It was in the floor—I guess Sophie-Ann took it from a Dutch vampire in the 18th century. But—" she paused "—damn, this is so complicated. Salome made them forget it. We discovered it right after we were initiated in the Mystery."

"I will not read it aloud for fear of conjuring something, but I gather the charm is written on the edge."

"You can read that?" Carly couldn't surpress her amazement. "I've never seen a script like that."

"An equally complicated story, my friend. How did you retrieve it?"

Carly shook her head. "I guess I can become some kind of smoke monster—I really don't know. Godric lit a candle, and it filled up the room with a cloud of smoke, and I found it." She shrugged. "I still don't understand three quarters of what I do."

"What did Godric and Eric see when you did that?" Jean-Jacques expressed equal parts concern and curiousity.

"I don't know. We're trying to get this done before Salome comes for her visit tonight." Carly reached for Jean-Jacques's watch so she could read it. "I don't have a lot of time. I think Godric wants me back. And I guess you have to get to my mom."

"If Salome Agrippa has come to Godric, you must return immediately. Salome is dangerous and her fixation on the Book of Lilith is a danger to us." Jean-Jacques moved into the vault, pulled out a drawer, placed the talisman within, and locked it, removing a key as he did.

"Wait," Carly felt herself reeling. It had never occurred to her that Salome was THE Salome. "She's—" Carly couldn't finish the sentence.

As Jean-Jacques closed up the vault and moved toward the door furthest from him, he finished her thought. "Herod's step-daughter, the blood-thirsty monster responsible for the death of the Baptist. Yes. That is she."

"So you don't have a high opnion of her?" Carly began to laugh.

"No. Blood-thirsty monster. Seductress. Conspirator. She secured a seat on the council by seducing the Guardian to her cult. He and I are related. His maker and mine are brothers—brothers in life and faith and as vampire. The Pythia took his maker first, who begged her to take his brother. After ten years, she did, and I bless her for it."

"Brothers in faith?" Of course-Carly remembered the preference for clergy within the Pythia's line. The Oracle of Delphi would certainly wish to find two progeny who understood the universe to be a grand and mysterious place.

"Yes, they were Roman flamines, dedicated to the worship of Jupiter, made vampire in the second century of the Republic. The Guardian is younger than I, by a few hundred years. Once he showed his political aspirations, his maker determined he was unworthy of the Mystery and released him." Jean-Jacques deposited the key in yet another box and then closed both doors. "No one may enter this floor without me, so the talisman is safe until we know whether it may be destroyed."

"Any lock is breakable, unfortunately." Carly didn't want to chastise the king, but she knew that security could always be breached.

"Ah, yes, locks and doors are breakable. Curses are more challenging to face!" Jean-Jacques laughed and added, "Thankfully, the Witches of New York are still my friends. Godric must cultivate them in New Orleans—they are tremendous allies and formidable foes."

"I think he has at least one on his side."

"Good." Jean-Jacques gestured for her to retreat through the outside door and return upstairs to the main floor. "You won't be able to depart until you are above the stone. While few creatures can transport themselves as you do, the witches have guarded my vaults from them nonetheless."

As they emerged into Jean-Jacques's grand foyer, he cautioned her. "The Mystery insulates us from Salome's charms, and we cannot be contaminated by Lilith's blood. But Eric and Godric will be pained if they ingest it. Warn them."

"I'm sorry—what?" Carly stared at Jean-Jacques, horrified and dumbfounded.

"I am sure you will see her attempt soon—do not allow it to transpire. Warn Godric! She must think that he can be converted to her cause." Jean-Jacques laughed heartily. "She gave up on me five hundred years ago, thankfully. And the Magister has fooled her, but I believe Godric has the ability to unseat her and her fellows from the council. If he can, the world will be much safer."

The King kissed her on both cheeks and said, "Off! Go with my blessings. I will kiss your mother for you!"

Carly returned to Eric and Godric, but just as she was about to speak, she doubled-over in pain.

"Carly!" Eric rushed to her side. "What is wrong?"

The pain subsided after a few moments but left a gnawing hunger. "I need to eat. I guess I burned out my batteries. Give me a second."

As a valkyrie, Carly needed only one thing to survive—the energy left behind by death. She consumed it from spaces where it lingered, from people to whom it clung, and from the bodies of the newly dead. It churned within her, fueled her, but left her renewed— full of pure life, ready to refill the universe. If she surrendered to her hunger, it would guide her to the nearest source of the energy she needed. The last time she did it – just let the hunger guide her –she found herself with a woman who had died from an aneurysm just a few hours before a short distance from where she had been.

So she surrendered to the hunger again.

Carly found herself a few feet from three women—one she recognized immediately from television: Nan Flanagan. The other two women were slight, with raven hair, and dark eyes. One could have been cast in any BBC Murder Mystery or Regency Drama. She was the perfect English rose. The other looked as if she could have been Egyptian—and she shimmered and glistened with the energy left behind by death. Carly had learned only a short time before that if a vampire killed without feeding on their victim, the victim's energy would cling to them. When Longshadow stopped a werewolf by breaking his neck, death hung tight to him. Nonetheless, Carly couldn't work out how she could be in their presence without their knowledge and how she was supposed to gather the energy without touching the woman. She looked down at her hands, as if to question them, and she couldn't see them. Arianna had told her that she could be invisible if she needed to be, so perhaps she was also incorporeal. Carly wished to be in the opposite corner of the room, and she was. She wished to be between the three of them, and she was. She willed herself to the edge of the energy radiating from Salome, and she siphoned the death from her like a vacuum.

The deaths were all identical—but there were so many. Naked, bound, she knelt beside a cold stone altar carved so that her head would tilt toward a channel. A swift cut to her carotid artery and her blood pumped into a channel. Over and over and over.

Filled with energy, Carly willed herself into a different perspective within the rooms where the victims died, and watched as more and more young men and women bled out into the altar. Salome stood over them, slit their throats and let the blood pump across the altar and into a crystal vessel. Then she walked across the room, carrying it above her head, her eyes closed, her lips moving in supplication. She opened another vessel filled with a crust of dried blood and poured the blood of the sacrificed into it. After a few drops, the crust broke, and blackened blood surged up, rapidly consuming the sacrifice.

Returning to consciousness between the three vampires, still invisible, but buzzing with energy, Carly finally paid attention to their speech.

"Godric explicitly forbade his subjects to create new progeny without his consent." The English Rose spoke first. "Do you think you will be able to change his mind?"

Salome smiled. "If anyone can be brought to share our position, it is Godric. He recalls what it is like for an Empire to hold power. I think he will have no objection, even though we ask him to surrender the palace."

"I still don't understand why you want this place—or New Orleans." Nan Flanagan turned away from the other two and walked toward a window. "It's all going to be underwater in fifty years."

"Sophie-Ann's collection will be useful to me, Nan."

"Salome, are you angling to become Guardian yourself?" Nan turned to face her and laughed. "I don't know why you care about any of her baubles. Just ask him for what you want and I'm sure he'd trade something for it." Nan looked toward Nora. "I bet he'd take her back in a second."

And with that, Carly felt an irrepressible rage rise within her and she fled the room to return to the king and his sheriff.

"How much did you eat?" Eric asked quietly, not in a whisper, but close to it.

As the energy surged and fell and surged again within her, Carly realized that she'd consumed thousands of victims—all similar to one another. All 18 days older than their 18th birthdays; all murdered below ground; all murdered against the same stone. Over and over and over again.

"Thousands," Carly answered her lover. "She's sacrificed thousands of people. Why?"

"Who?" Eric reached out to comfort her, even though she was alight, flames crackling through her hair. As he neared her, a force repelled him. "Carly, you're on fire, and I can't touch you. You need help."

Godric placed his hand over his heart—tracing the nearly invisible scar of the Pythia's knife. "Please—come to our aid."

Carly continued to burn without burning –tongues of fire crawled up and down her arms without consuming her but heating the room so much Eric feared the books would begin to burn. But then they heard a crack, a clink, the sound of crystal assembling itself into a structure that contained them. When the last pane grew into place, Friagabi and one of the hives appeared to them.

"Great-grand-mother," Carly's voice creaked as she spoke. "How do I do this? How do I change this?"

"The rage, my child, calm your rage. You cannot change their fate, and you cannot punish their killer as you are." Friagabi began to sing—low, pulsing notes—and as the melody climbed Carly transformed. Wings emerged from her back and twitched and flapped slowly in rhythm to the Valkyrie's song.

Through Friagabi's song, Eric, Godric, and the Hive perceived all Carly had seen: the sacrifices, the glass vessel filled with blood, the stone, the knife, Salome.

Details of the victim's lives rose to the surface of Carly's mind as her rage began to subside. The young woman who fled marriage to an old man, who came to the convent on the Quirinal Hill seeking shelter, seeking safety, seeking salvation through her Christian piety, only to find death in a catacomb below. The wood carver's apprentice dragged from his candlelit work into a crypt where death awaited him. The prostitute, the soldier, the farmer...all stripped and gagged and dragged below ground and murdered. And more and more. As their lives and deaths passed through her mind, the energy slowly turned again to life, and as she changed the last of their deaths into something that would fuel the universe, the flames subsided and her wings disappeared.

Friagabi extended her hands toward her great-grand-daughter, palms up, and told her, "Give it to me and I will send it out into the world."

A burst of light passed between their hands when Carly held hers above her ancestor's.

Eric moved to Carly's side as soon as the light disappeared and took her up into his arms.

"Yes, vampire, comfort your mate. She has seen horrors—or the same horror repeated again and again." Friagabi gestured toward the Hive, "I came for my daughter. Did you come for your sons?"

With a frantic buzzing, the Hive replied, "Yes. The sacrifices she saw feed one of the first of us who burst through to this world, but who has lost form, met what you call the true death, but never met the sun, never been destroyed. Her priestess believes she can be resurrected by the right sacrifice. But you must stop her. If she walks once more, she will enslave this world and destroy the balance between realms."

"I apologize, my lord," Godric bowed his head to the Hive, "but I do not understand your warning. How can a vampire who has met the true death continue to feed?"

"Since the time the first of us pierced this world, much of what we are seems to have been lost. This is our form, this is what lives within you, what preserves you." The Hive expanded, stretched itself thin and wrapped itself around Godric. "If you were to lose form, you would not lose existence, just motion, intention—unless the sun destroys you."

Carly, still off balance from her ordeal, felt Eric buckle beside her. "So a vampire who loses integrity of form—who is staked or burned or loses his head—still lives?"

"Lives? The wrong word. Exists—senses, hungers—yes. Unless the sun burns them away." The Hive shifted and approached Eric. "If they are strong and wise, they may summon their Hive to the boundary between that separates our realms and rejoin them. But otherwise, they remain here—"

"In hell," Eric concluded the sentence.

"You, Viking, have felt the pull of the Hive. We feel it." The Hive spread itself out and encircled both vampires. "The two of you will rejoin us if you do not take another body," the Hive reassured them and shifted back to the edge of the crystal structure, reassembling itself into a shapeless blob of darkness. "The Mystery makes that so. You have nothing to fear."

"How would a vampire take another body?" Godric asked without raising his eyes.

"A progeny may oversee the reseeding of a body with the remains of a broken hive just as the maker seeded the first body." The Hive moved toward Carly before adding, "The monster in a jar has no surviving progeny. Her progeny burned, although they made others."

Godric sought clarification. "So only immediate progeny may help a vampire take another body."

"Not vampire..." The Hive flattened out again. "The hive and the body together make a vampire. But only the body the vampire has seeded may assist."

Carly finally spoke. "Why is Salome dangerous? I mean..." Carly paused. "Obviously, she's murdering people, but how can she bring this thing back to life if she isn't its child?"

"Fairy blood...or a fairy body... That is what the broken hive sought before, why it burst forth into this realm. We do not know how, but this is likely what the priestess now seeks. This is what you are sworn to stop."

"Yes, master," Godric agreed. "And we shall stop it."

"You suffer?" The Hive questioned and moved back toward Godric. "We feel it. Why?"

Without hestitation, Godric answered: "I love a fairy."

"Keep her a secret from Salome. But take her strength and make it your weapon. You have sworn yourself to the Mystery, so you will not fall to perversion like the broken hive." The Hive shifted to Carly and Eric. "And use the weapons you have been given."

After that final injunction, the Valkyrie and the Hive disappeared and the crystalline structure that enclosed them disassembled. The pungent aroma of Octavia's candle persisted, although the air was clear. The three initiates to the Mystery stood quietly, each immersed in their own thoughts and fears.

Godric contemplated his love for Sookie, how he was going to bring her to him, whether he should bring her to him, whether she should stay in Bon Temps, out of sight and out of the knowledge of the Authority. Eric wondered at his true immortality, a prospect more terrifying than anything he had ever contemplated. He realized that his mind—his history, his thoughts—was not his essence, and he grieved. Carly contemplated her new instability of form, contemplated the broken barriers between the self she manifested in the cave—wherever the home of her ancestors might be—and the self that traveled through the human world.

All the threats that Eric and Carly had faced together—Christophe, Russell, the werewolves—seemed like nothing, like momentary inconveniences, while Salome was a genuine existential threat.

Carly addressed Godric. "They're going to offer you Nora in exchange for the palace."

"She is not a commodity," Godric replied, "nor is she a hostage. She is not mine." Godric packed away the remains of the candle. "And if she has been party to Salome's cult, I do not want her."

"I couldn't tell what their motives were." Carly added, "I don't think that she and Nan have the same intentions. They seem much different."

Eric contributed, "Nan is a pragmatist and has never had much interest in magic or religion. Her only concerns are power and appetite."

"I probably should have asked this before," Carly said, "but what is the Guardian guarding? Why is he at the top of the hierarchy. He's younger than the two of you, Jean-Jacques, and Thalia?"

"No," Godric responded to her question. "He was made vampire in the 1300s in Rome. He was an official in the Vatican library, and he is called the Guardian because he holds the only copy of the text that claims to explain our origins. Although I do not believe it is entirely accurate."

"The Book of Lilith," Eric added. "And her cult has never had more than a handful of adherents. As we know, first-hand, there are competing beliefs."

"Jean-Jacques said you would be unaffected by her blood, but consuming it would pain you. You have to hide it."

Godric seemed to understand. "When I agreed to be king, they made me swear on the blood. I presumed the sludge within the flask was like the Christian relics—like the forest of fragments of the True Cross I have seen over the centuries. Salome did not suggest that I consume any of it."

Carly felt a shiver and resisted shaking. "She must have been between sacrifices."

"Have we," Godric looked to Eric and Carly, "come to some peace with our task?"

Eric answered first. "Carly and I will remain connected. The entity refused to touch Longshadow, but I cannot imagine it would refuse to aid us against Salome."

"Yes," Carly affirmed, "and I will try to drill into her head and get a sense of her real intentions." An image of Cataliades came to her suddenly. "If she thinks in something other than English, I may ask for your help, Godric."

"I do not see how I could assist you. We need to conceal what you can do and I cannot speak while she is in the room."

Carly concentrated and sent Godric a silent message. Can you hear me in your head? Respond.

Godric nodded and Carly tried to sort through the different channels in his mind. The loudest responded. Yes. Can you hear me in return?

"Okay, let's try one more thing before they come in." Carly reached toward Eric's mind. Eric, sing a song or recite a poem. Carly visualized a tunnel that extended from Eric's skull, through her own, and into Godric's.

"Yes," Godric spoke aloud. "Yes, I can hear that." We will do our best, Carly. I am grateful you are Eric's.

"We're family, Godric." Carly extended herself toward Godric and when he gave her his hand, she squeezed both Eric's and his makers, sending them both her love, faith and respect.

"Yes, we are. Children, we face our foes together."