I decided against calling for a Service car to make the journey east to unfashionable Clerkenwell on the basis that our destination would not look good on an expenses claim. Despite its location, Trade was the hippest gay bar of the moment so naturally it was heaving, packed out with a late night party crowd. I spotted Julian across the bar, talking to a handsome young man in leathers, his usual type. John turned plenty of heads as we pushed our way through, while I picked lots of nasty thoughts about how fag hags were ruining the atmosphere.

"Byron would have loved it here," he whispered to me with a grin.

Julian quickly swopped phone numbers with his new friend, then followed us outside round the back to where the bins were stored. I opened my mouth to speak, but John beat me to it.

"I need to take Sookie away for a few days, she has done enough, put her life at risk for us, it is too much to expect."

"It's out of the question, we have a fortnight to find this vampire and neutralise the threat, Sookie is needed here."

My lover and my best friend were arguing about what was best for me as if I wasn't even there with them.

"Do I get a say?" I asked, with a sarcastic snort.

I thought for a moment they were both going to say 'no', but their mouths opened and closed without uttering a word.

I took the opportunity to dive in with my point of view. "Could I maybe just take a long weekend, I could do with getting out of the city for a few days. I'll be back on Tuesday; that will still give us time." I knew exactly what I wanted to do. "John can take me back to the Forest."

The old house where I'd lived with Gran had been tied to Granddad's job, just as Mum and Dad's had been. I'd heard that both cottages been converted for holiday rentals, which would at least mean that they now had proper heating, running water that didn't turn brown when it rained too hard, and electrical systems which didn't give you a shock every time you connected a plug. Out of season, there was a good chance they would be available.

Julian pursed his lips. He wasn't happy with me being out of town, but he acknowledged that I needed a break, away from everything. Reluctantly he agreed, but not before making it clear that if John didn't keep me safe he would personally stake him. He even promised to cover for me at work – he would take my place in the interrogation room for the next few days and come up with some plausible explanation for my absence.

John dropped me safely home, then disappeared in the night, assuring me that he had a safe place to rest and would call for me soon after nightfall the next day.

It took a few phone calls the next day, and a bit of persuasion, to book the cottage at such short notice. Once that was done, I went back to bed. I wanted to shift to vampire time to make the most of the hours we would have together. By the time I woke it was fully dark. I regained consciousness just a couple of minutes before I heard John outside, so that left just enough time to throw together a bag of warm clothes and then we were on our way. Driving at night the M4 wouldn't be busy and I was confident we could make the four-hour journey well before dawn. Julian was obviously feeling guilty about his attitude the previous night as he'd agreed to lend me the second-hand Aston Martin that was his pride and joy. It was pretty scary at first, driving such a powerful car, but it didn't take long for me to remember my childhood James Bond fantasies. I just hoped I didn't get a speeding ticket as that would really piss Julian off.

We made it in record time, and I coaxed the suspension carefully over the rutted old forest tracks leading to what I still thought of as my cottage.

It's an odd sensation, seeing something once so familiar now look so different. The pair of cottages had been re-roofed and had matching new front doors, painted dark green. The windows looked new as well, which I wasn't sorry to see. They'd been rotting badly when I left and it wasn't unknown to wake up in the morning with the distinctive silver trail of a slug or snail across the blankets.

Inside they had the kind of identikit décor that someone had decided was appropriate for an English country cottage – lots of chintz and clashing floral patterns on the curtains, carpet and three piece suite. It had central heating now, a real bonus in my book, although they had retained the huge old Aga stove in the kitchen. I fancied I could still smell my Gran's home-made bread even though it wasn't possible.

There were still a few hours before dawn, and I won't deny that I was hoping for a passionate reunion with my vampire lover. John, however, had other ideas. After a careful check that the cellar was indeed light tight, he asked me to walk with him in the forest.

I hesitated briefly. As a child I'd been scared of the dark. One day I had wandered off alone and got hopelessly lost in the forest tracks. Mum and Dad had still been alive then, and he'd called on several workmates to help him search for me. When he finally found me, sheltering in the hollow of a tree, he gave me the worst beating of my life. To be fair it was the only time he ever raised a hand to me, and I forgave him, as I knew from his thoughts that it was only because he'd been so worried that something terrible had happened to me.

My recent terrifying experience had left its mark. I thought I'd recovered well, but as we walked down the path and out of the gate, even John's presence and his tight grip on my hand wasn't enough to prevent me seizing up inside. He must have sensed it as he transferred his grip to slip an arm around my waist, holding me even closer to him.

"Don't worry, I'd know if he was near," he said, addressing my unspoken fears. My head told me that his protection might not be enough, but his quiet determination reassured me.

"Can you feel it?" John asked, as we walked hand in hand amongst the trees. It was a cloudless night and a waxing moon gave just enough light to see. Nevertheless I would have tripped several times over old tree roots if his perfect vision hadn't guided me around the obstacles.

There was something odd in the air, something that brought back childhood memories which I'd never really understood. "I can feel something, but I don't know what," I confirmed.

"It's the old magic. It's been driven out of most parts of the country but there are places where it still lingers."

"Really," I didn't sound surprised any more. I was gradually coming to terms with the idea that there were many things in the world that most humans had no idea existed.

"Yes. In isolated places like this the last few fairy people live; there are other creatures too, nymphs, sprites, elves as well, although they are very hard to spot."

It was all getting a little too Disney for me, but there was one creature he mentioned which did spark my interest, reminding me of something Appius had said. "Have you ever met a Fairy?" I asked.

John gave me an odd half-smile. "My maker has a certain…" he paused to think of the right word, "…obsession with fairies. He kept one captive for several years. That was in India, soon after he made me. We needed to be out of Europe for a while."

I can't say I was very interested in his travels, but Appius' interest in fairies made me shudder, even though I didn't understand why. I had to know what had happened to the creature, although I didn't expect to like the answer. Sure enough John confirmed my fears.

"He drank from her regularly," he explained. "The blood seemed to give him additional strength. He could even tolerate the daylight, only at dusk and dawn, never in full sun, but it gave him a freedom denied to other vampires and that was something he relished."

"What happened to her?" I was pretty certain the story wouldn't have a happy ending, and naturally I was right.

"Eventually he took too much blood, she just wasted away. He couldn't seem to stop himself, he needed more and more."

I knew without having to ask that would have been my fate if I hadn't escaped. John must have felt my fear as he slipped his arm back around my waist and pulled me back into his tight embrace.

"It won't happen again," he tried to sound reassuring; "you will have better protection in future, and besides you know what to expect now."

"He called me Fae, you know."

John looked at me oddly. "Of course. Surely you have wondered what it is that makes you different, what gives you your talent. Did your Grandmother never explain this to you?"

I shook my head. I was convinced now that she had known, but for some reason had chosen not to share it with me. Perhaps she'd thought I wasn't ready, but before the time came she was taken from me.

John hadn't finished though, "Have you not considered how strange it was that you, a mere human, could defend yourself against one of the most powerful vampires in existence? He could have killed you with the merest flick of his wrist and yet from somewhere you summoned the power to fend him off. You must surely recognise that this sets you apart."

Of course I had; not at first when I was so overcome with the shock of first my capture and then my escape that I couldn't even process what had happened. Afterwards I had gone over and over it in my mind; trying to make sense of the experience. I'd even spent a few hours walking in an isolated part of the Palace gardens trying to recreate the incredible power and energy I'd felt, but without success.

I knew this wasn't the last talk we would have on the subject, but it was now less that two hours until dawn and I was in the mood for some vampire loving before John had to disappear for the day. I nuzzled his neck, and then turned my face to kiss him. It didn't take long to get him into a loving kind of mood. He picked me up effortlessly and in what seemed like only seconds we were back at the cottage, up the stairs and into the bedroom.

With so little time, we had sex with a wild uninhibited, clothes-tearing passion which seemed very out of character for my sensitive poet. Believe me, it's something I could get used to, even though I expected to be stiff and sore for most of the next day.

Surprisingly when I woke up I wasn't, although I slept for so long that my body had plenty of recovery time. By the time I got up I had just enough time to drive to the nearest supermarket and get some supplies before nightfall. I had to force myself to drive carefully, sticking to the speed limit, as the horror of my parents' deaths came back to me. John had already risen when I got back. The speed with which he jumped up from the sofa suggested that he'd been worried about me. I felt bad for not leaving him a note and I told him so.

"I am surprised that you agreed to come here with me. I thought you would hate me after what happened." He sounded wistful, and strangely vulnerable for a creature who was nearly two hundred years old, and almost impossible to kill. It had the effect on me which I suspect it would have had on most women – I felt myself melting inside.

"I'm certainly not happy about it, that's for sure," I agreed, trying to sound stern, "but I couldn't hate you for it. You didn't expect or want it to happen, any more than I did."

The look on his face confirmed that I was right about that. There was more I needed to say to him though. I'd been holding back, almost as if I was scared to admit it to myself, the whole situation being so unfamiliar to me. Now it all came tumbling out. I blamed the forest magic.

"The thing is John, I care about you, and I've never really felt this way about anyone before. I know you've loved other women but that doesn't matter to me. Whatever happens I won't let anyone come between us." It was a good thing he had acute vampire hearing, as I'm not sure most people would have been able to keep up as I gabbled away.

Even so, he didn't reply immediately. He didn't even meet my eyes as he stood up and walked to the window. He gave a hollow laugh and then fell silent. I had the feeling he was struggling to say something.

"Everyone I have ever loved has suffered on my account."

I had to supress the urge to roll my eyes. Just because he was a poet there was really no need to be so melodramatic.

"Just because it happened in the past doesn't mean it will happen again. Besides, are you sure that everything that happened to them was because of you? People have to take responsibility for their own lives, and I think I'm pretty good at looking after myself."

He turned to me looking a little deflated, which made me feel guilty for being so unromantic.

"Perhaps you're right, in which case we need to focus on your protection. Come outside, I want to try something."

I won't deny that disappointed me, as personally my preference would have been to stay inside and try some other, more familiar things. He walked towards the door in nothing but the shirt and trousers he was wearing, while I darted off to find a warm sweater, coat and scarf. He might not feel the cold, but I most certainly did.

Just like the previous night, he kept me very close as we walked down the path away from the cottage and into the forest. His touch was light but I was constantly aware of it. He stopped when we reached a clearing.

"You need to attempt to use your powers again, show me what you can do."

I looked down at my feet, feeling rather stupid. "I'm not quite sure what it is that I can do," I confessed.

"Why don't you start by showing me how you managed to escape from Appius."

"Okay," I said, drawing out the word very slowly to give myself time to think. "I just, well, I just got angry. He said he was going to kill us both and that made me really, really furious." For a moment I was back there in that windowless room as the sensations I'd felt then swept over me. I felt an odd tingle in the tips of my fingers. I tried to channel it, but as my anger faded the feeling disappeared.

John was gazing at me with that unnerving, unblinking stare he had sometimes.

"I can't really explain what happened next. It was as if I had electricity flowing through my arms and out of my fingertips and when I pointed at him, it hit him and almost knocked him out."

"Try to show me," he asked quietly.

"It's not that easy, I can't just call it up to order. It only happened because I was so angry." I flexed my fingers as I spoke, as if that might bring the sensation back into them.

"Well I shall have to make you angry again. I want you to imagine that tree is Appius." He pointed at a stunted old oak tree, gnarled and ugly.

I smiled at the comparison but the smile was wiped off my face as he began his story. He told me how Appius had found him near to death in a lodging room in Rome. The ancient vampire had tracked him down, having decided to add him to his 'collection' of children. Every one of them had been chosen for some special talent: a great fighter, an artist, a member of an ancient royal line. Then he told me what Appius had done to him when he first became vampire; how he had abused and humiliated him. It was the master's way of imposing his will, by degrading his own children.

I could sense the pain John still felt and sure enough the anger grew in me. I focussed on the tree, imagining it truly was my former captor. My heart beat faster as the tingling sensation developed. It was in my hands at first, then my wrists, then spreading up my arms until it reached my elbows. I flung out my hands straight in front of me and two bolts of blue tinged light shot out, hitting the tree hard enough to take a chunk out of the bark.

The effort made me dizzy. My legs began to give way, as my whole body shook from the effort. John was at my side before I hit the ground, his arms around me, pulling me up. He held me gently until the shock waves subsided.

"That was impressive," John said, sounding genuinely impressed, which gave me a little glow of pride.

We spent a lot of time during the remaining nights practising my powers in the forest. With some concentration I found I could control them. I needed to think about something that made me angry, but as long as I could call up a memory from some time in my life that was possible – quite a lot of things had made me angry over the years so there was a ready store.

I switched entirely to vampire time, sleeping all day so I wouldn't waste a minute of the brief time we had together. John was equally determined not to fritter it away, and we spent most of the time when we weren't in the woods in bed.

Sometimes, lying in the afterglow of sex, I wondered what Gran would think if she could see me. I liked to think she would have approved of John, vampire or not. He was a wonderful lover. They only thing I had to compare him with were the men who girls at work talked about. I'd got the impression for their words, and even more from their thoughts, that finding love was a very hit and miss affair.

A handsome man certainly didn't seem to guarantee a good lover – far from it. Vicky, who was undoubtedly the most gorgeous girl in the office, was dating an Arsenal player. He was only in the second team, but even so he messed her about something rotten. Everyone knew that he was regularly cheating on her with girls he picked up in nightclubs. She knew too, but chose to deny it. She did admit that he wasn't that good in bed though, or so Amy had told me, after a particularly drunken girls' night out.

John seemed quite happy to devote hours to my pleasure. He got to know every inch of my body, delighting in finding all the places where the lightest of touches could turn me on, not to mention the places that were really ticklish. Returning the attention gave me just as much pleasure. If I'd had a human lover I might have found the coolness of his skin and the lack of a heartbeat more strange, but it was what I was getting used to. His body still bore the scars of his troubled human life giving him the appearance of frailty which was quite misleading.

I was happy to let him feed from me. He was careful only to take a little, and he always cleaned the marks – vampire saliva has healing properties, I discovered. It was a powerfully erotic experience and I found myself craving it more and more.

There was one thought that kept bringing me back to reality, however hard I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

"We do need a plan, you know." I said, for at least the fourth time, feeling just a little guilty for taking this time out, when there was the urgent matter of a vampire serial killer to attend to.

"That woman," I assumed he meant Nan Flanagan, "she has no idea of the threat he poses. She honestly thinks all vampires can behave as humans do. I have discussed this with the Northman and we have some idea. The Americans will be visiting many countries in the next two weeks, he is going to use the opportunity to contact Appius' other children."

"Does he have many?"

"Oh yes. He is easily bored, once he tires of one favourite he quickly moves on to make another. Some will have met their final death by now, but who knows how many still exist. He was always restless, moving from one country to another and as a result his children are scattered widely around the world."

The more I heard about Appius, the more I hated him. I was determined not to judge all vampire against his standard though, any more than I would judge all men by the standards of Peter Sutcliffe or Fred West. I had more confidence in our ability to defeat him now that I'd met Eric Northman, but having experienced his power at first hand it would need more than him and my lover.

"The Northman has a plan and I believe it has a chance of success. Most of Appius' children grow to despise him. If we can bring enough of us together there is a chance we can defeat him."

Silently I hoped it would be more successful than his last plan, but I said nothing.

My heart was heavy as we left the Forest and crossed the Severn Bridge heading back towards civilisation. I'm only a telepath, not a psychic but I had the feeling that it would be a long time before John and I would be left alone together in peace.

"You must be looking forward to seeing your brother again," I commented, trying to focus on the positive.

John snorted in amusement. "Vampire families are not like human families, Sookie, and even if they were I doubt if Eric Northman and I would ever be close."

I thought of how different my brother Jason and I had turned out to be and nodded sympathetically. "He does seem rather full of himself," I observed.

"He is a powerful and ancient vampire. He is rich and handsome; I think he has every reason to have a good opinion of himself." John sounded as if he was struggling to be fair to his sibling.

"Well let's just hope he can use his many talents to keep us safe from Appius." That probably sounded more sarcastic than I intended. I might not like the American vampire that much, but there was something about him which did inspire confidence. I was sure that if anyone could come up with a plan to deal with their evil maker, it would be him.

Thanks so much to everyone who posted feedback on Chapter 9. I'm so sorry I haven't replied to all the reviews, but I'm still trying to work out how Eric, John and their siblings are going to defeat Appius, or at least neutralise the threat he represents.