This should really come between Chapters 8 and 9 but I wasn't sure that it would work. Well you can decide for yourself!

It was the smell I noticed first. That distinctive scent of warm earth and rotting vegitation overlaid with the sharper smell of newly cut grass. I was moving slowly, rocking comfortably back and fore. I opened my eyes to find myself sitting in a swing. It felt natural to be here, familiar somehow. My bare feet brushed gently against rough wood with each swing. That was odd, I thought. Where were my shoes?

I looked down at myself to discover that I was wearing a rough, homespun shirt and heavy cotton trousers, held up with braces. Looking up I saw that the swing was on a porch...a long porch running across the front of a gracious old house. With something of a shock, I recognised it. This was my house! But no...this couldn't be right. The old wooden swing had long ago rotted away by the time I returned to my home in Bon Temps. I looked up at the house and saw that the curtains in the windows were freshly washed and the paintwork was bright and new.

"Where am I?" I muttered to myself, putting a hand up to my head.

"We are inside your mind William" said a voice. "This is one of your dearest memories. We need to talk and I thought you would be comfortable here."

I looked around me, puzzled. The far end of the porch was in darkness and as I watched a woman stepped out of the shadows and came towards me. She was naked and her smooth skin glistened with blood. Her long hair was slick with blood and hung loosely down her back.

"Lilith!" I breathed. "Why are you here?"

"You drank my blood William" she answered. "Don't you remember that?"

My head felt as though it was full of fluff but I vaguely recalled..."but wasn't Berenice...?"

She threw her head back and laughed, her long white fangs gleaming as the moonlight caught them. "Berenice has been one of my most faithful servants" she said. "But she was not suitable to become the vessel. You have a far greater knowledge of the world than she. You will be of much greater value to me."

I stiffened slightly at her tone. "I will?" I asked. "In what way?"

"You will give over to me the use of your body William" she said with a cold smile. "You will be the vessel for the Goddess."

I was horrified. "I'll do no such thing!" I said firmly.

"But William" she purred "you have no choice in the matter. You drank the blood."

I stared up at her. My mind felt blurred and confused but something wasn't right here.

"It seems so long ago..." I said weakly.

"Two nights" she replied.

I sat watching her carefully. "You have had control of me for two nights?" I asked. "If I have no choice in the matter, then why do you need to speak with me at all?"

Yes! There it was! A flash of anger and frustration in her eyes.

I gave her a little smile. "Is it not proving to be quite as easy as you anticipated?" I asked. I glanced up at the house in which I had spent the happiest years of my human life. "My wife always said that I was the most stubborn of men!"

Lilith crouched down before me and glared angrily into my eyes. "It's that girl isn't it?" she hissed. "Her blood has given you the strength to defy me!"

Alex! Suddenly I felt myself surrounded by her warmth. The delicious scent of her blood filled my nostrils, tinged with a slight hint of her perfume. I blinked and felt the fuzziness in my head beginning to clear.

Lilith put a hand on my knee. "You don't need her William!" she whispered. "I can give you all the strength, all the power you could ever need. You have only to ask."

"But you haven't though, have you?" I asked. "Alex didn't wait for me to ask for her help. She knew I needed her."

She stood up and backed away slightly, looking suddenly uncertain.

"Since you are a guest in my mind, perhaps you wouldn't mind putting some clothes on?" I asked with growing confidence. "I find that somewhat...distracting."

She gave a sly little smile and stood boldly before me, one hip thrust slightly forward. "Most males find it attractive" she said.

"I expect they do!" I said with a smile. "But for how long?"

She put her head on one side and regarded me with a new respect. "I knew that I had chosen well" she said. "You could be a true partner to me." She made a curious gesture and suddenly she was wearing a white linen robe of the type that Berenice used to wear. "Is that better?" she asked.

"Much better!" I said. "So why do you want me Lilith. What is it that you need me for?"

An old cane chair of the type that I remembered from Caroline's kitchen appeared behind her and she sat down gracefully. "My children must rise up William" she explained. "They must take their proper place as the rulers of this world. And I must lead them."

"Yes, I thought so." I sighed.

She put her arms on her knees and leaned forward gazing intently at me. "This is my destiny William!" she said urgently. "I was the firstborn. Adam's children were never meant to rule this earth. They murdered me William!" her eyes began to glow red in the darkness. I could see that, although this had happened many thousands of years ago, to her, it was as painful as any recent memory. "They destroyed me, tore my body into pieces. They must pay for this! They must be punished!"

"But Lilith! The men who did this to you are long dead!" I searched frantically for something which might appease her. "Perhaps this is their punishment. That they live such brief lives compared to us?"

She sat back a little and appeared to consider this. Glancing up at the house she asked casually "what is this place?"

"You're in my head" I said. "Don't you know?"

"I know that it is somewhere you loved, somewhere you made many happy memories. It is a place that means a lot to you, that is why I chose it for our talk. I felt that you would be happy to be here."

"This is my home" I explained. "The house where I was born, where I lived with my parents and my brother and sister and later with my wife and my own children."

She was watching me with her head on one side, clearly trying to understand my emotional attachment to this place. She looked up suddenly, startled by something beyond my senses. "She is waking!" she said.

As she spoke I felt darkness closing in on me. I blinked and found myself lying in the huge canopied bed in Darius's house, looking down at Alex. She was as pale as a ghost, her blue black hair spread out around her on the pillow and blood trickled from a pair of fang marks in her throat. What had I done? Just then she opened her eyes and looked up at me.

I smiled down at her. "Hello Alex!" I said...