"We need sanctuary," Eric says.
The jacket slips from Pam's arms. "Oh my god, what have you done?" She sounds more bewildered than frightened, which should comfort me, maybe, but it's too late – Fear has already found my heart and coiled around it, squeezing, squeezing, like a snake with prey.
And Eric, Eric paces. With fervor. He wants to do too much, move too much – he feels too much to be in a room this small, it can't quite contain him, and his energy is making me vibrate – making me tremble. "I staked a vampire. The lover of Russell Edgington." With his next step, the crown happens to catch the light of the overhead fluorescents and glint some of it my way, almost like a wink. Remember me, Annika? We're old friends, aren't we?
The lover of . . .
"Talbot?" I accidentally mumble.
Pam drowns me out, anyway. "Are you insane –"
"WHERE can we GO?!"
Bellowing, Eric is bellowing, the air shakes, and I pull my legs into me like I'm trying to fit somewhere small. From my dry mouth comes the word, "Eric," and that's it, and it's weak and little, and I don't know why I say it or what I want, I don't, but it gets my guardian to turn my way and snap, "You are fine!" before swallowing and repeating, far more calmly, "You are fine."
But my heart says something different. My heart says, Something bad is going to happen, because I don't think it heard Eric, I think it's too occupied by being strangled. I lay my hand on my chest, then dig my fingernails into my skin. Something bad is already happening.
"A human home would be safest!" Pam stutters, which is oh so strange, because Pam doesn't stutter. "We've both been invited into Sookie's – "
"No!" Eric says before the name has finished leaving Pam's mouth. "That's out of the question – Annika." He stops at the end of the desk and points at something over my head. He speaks, but . . . I miss it. I hear his voice, I see his lips move, but the words somehow don't make it to the part of my brain that handles those sorts of things, probably because my brain, my brain is quite crowded at the moment, quite crowded and hectic, and clogged with fog, too, freezing thick fog that's floated up from my chest and all the feelings there – the fear –
I squeeze my eyes shut. We need sanctuary – I killed the lover of Russell Edgington – Russell Edgington, the King, who glows with power, who killed the magister, who has said or will say 'We-will-eat-you-after-we-eat-your-children' – We need sanctuary – sanctuary –
"Sanctuary?" I breathe. There is no sanctuary from someone like that. There is. No. Sanctuary.
"You never panic," I hear Pam say. To Eric. Strong Eric. "Should I be panicking?"
My chair moves on its own, and I gasp and open my eyes to see that Eric has gotten closer, much closer, he stretches over me and pulls back with a roll of paper towels. He tears one off and uses it to dab blood from his face. Is Pam right? Is he panicking? He's contained. But he's vibrating. And he bellowed. And . . . Panic. That word is like a ticking clock, isn't it? Pan-ic, pan-ic, pan-ic.
Something bad is happening.
And you thought the worst might be over. Stupid little girl. Little fool.
Pan-ic, pan-ic, pan-ic.
Far away, maybe from outside the room, something clatters against the cement floor. Eric looks to the door. I don't, I keep looking at him. His lifts his chin and speaks smoothly, steadily, deceptively –
– He's lying, he's panicked –
"Ginger, dear. Where do you live?"
"Across the river in Bossier – why?" comes Ginger's familiar voice, confused but not hesitant. I didn't even know she was here, she must have just gotten here, they must have –
They? I try to chase that thought, to pin it and find out where it came from, but it's too fast and slippery and I lose it to the rest of my mind.
"We need your house," Pam says. Eric sets the crown on his desk while his other hand finds my shoulder, flattens against my back, presses. "Now-ish," I think Pam adds, and Eric stops pressing and takes a handful of my shirt and pulls me to my feet. I stumble, he holds me up, he clasps his hand onto the side of my face and tilts my head back, but when I try to give him what he wants, try to meet his eyes, I find they've found something behind me. I follow where they point, and there's the computer monitor.
No results found for 'Annika Pamela Klein.' Search for Annika Pamela Klein(without quotes)?
When I turn back to Eric, his jaw is set. Was it set before? In quite that way? He looks down at me with an expression that could be hard for any number of reasons, but before either of us can make another move Ginger asks, "Is this because of the V-Feds?" and with that short question jabs into this moment between Eric and I and pops it like a bubble. His hand falls from my face, rests on my shoulder, and finally slides down my arm all the way to his side. He and Pam are both still.
The words Annika Pamela Klein politely step out of the way and allow The V-Feds the space at the front of my mind, but, as chaotic as my mind is, no other words or even pictures leap forward to match with the term V-Feds. I don't know who they are – but Eric and Pam do. They're talking with their eyes. It's not a pleasant conversation, and it ends quickly.
Eric takes off the blood-spattered shirt and finds a plain black racerback in the closet. Pam finishes putting on her tracksuit. That all happens in about twenty seconds, with neither moving as fast as possible, but not slowly, either. Methodically, might be a fitting term. Methodically and wordlessly. Ginger asks if they want her to tell the V-Feds anything. Ginger asks what's going on. Ginger asks what kind of trouble they're in. Ginger is ignored three times. And I stand quietly behind the desk and do nothing at all.
Eric catches my eye on his way to the door. "Stay here . . . No. Come. Stay behind us and don't speak." He exits, and Pam, after a glance in my direction, follows. And I follow her, past Ginger, who whisper-asks loudly if I know what's happening and, for her trouble, is ignored a fourth time.
Pan-ic. Pan-ic. Pan-ic.
Like a ticking clock. Like a thudding heart.
Down the hall, Eric pushes through the door to the bar, as does Pam, as do I. I have to uncross my arms to do so, and then I make them stay uncrossed, because I really wasn't crossing them so much as hugging myself.
There is. No. Sanctuary.
There's a man to my left, a silhouette in front of a glowing-red jukebox. I narrow my eyes to see him better, and at first, because of what he's wearing – a helmet, sunglasses-or-goggles, and head-to-toe padding – I think he's some sort of soldier. But that's not right. His outfit – his uniform – is too dark, absolute black, I think, not green or camouflage.
But he's holding a rifle like a soldier might.
My next step forward is taken at an angle, carrying me away from the not-soldier, but that's no use. There are a dozen others just like him spread across the floor. Half are scattered around the room's edges – blocking the exits, a voice in my head whispers – and half of them are lined up like fenceposts from the EMPLOYEES ONLY door, which we just came through, out to the tables – two here, two here, two here. It's like a runway.
And at the end of the runway, a woman sits in a chair. No, rises from a chair. I can't see more than her shape – the room is currently lit only by the floor lights on the stage behind her and the emergency lights above the bar to my right. As Eric halts in between the first pair of not-soldiers, the woman strides towards us exactly, exactly as if the runway really is a runway, as if she's in a fashion show, as if she owns the place. Clack, clack, clack, go her heels – quite angrily – against the floor, until she plants them in a spot just out of Eric's reach, a spot where a beam of light happens to fall and really lets me see her. Lets me recognize her. Nan Flanagan. The vampire from the American Vampire League – the vampire who leads the American Vampire League, or at least who most often speaks in public on its behalf. Her blonde hair is pulled into a tight updo. Her lips are too red, her eyes are too lined – and as cold as their ice-blue color would suggest. Severe. She defines the word.
And she's here for us.
Eric and Pam are both between Nan Flanagan and me, Pam standing to the right and a stride behind Eric. I inch closer to her as Eric says, "I'm sorry, Ms. Flanagan, the bar is closed."
"Thank you, I already ate." Nan Flanagan's voice is flat. Her eyes flicker to the closest not-soldier and she adds, "True Blood only, of course . . ." before focusing again on Eric and sort of twitching her head – I think it's her way of shaking it. "Can't stay out of trouble, can you? The VRA is two states away from ratification. I should be kissing asses in Oregon, not cleaning up after you in fucking Louisiana."
"Oh, I promise, there is nothing amiss in my area –"
"Shut up," Nan Flanagan spits. "You're making my head hurt – Officers!" She tosses that word like a rock into water, and ripples roll through the room, stirring the not-soldiers, none so much as the one to Eric's left. He steps closer to my guardian. Nan Flanagan puts a hand on her hip, juts her chin up, and says, "Silver him."
The not-soldier presses something into Eric's neck.
"No," I breathe, and why I step forward, what I think I'm going to do, I have no idea, but Pam jerks me back into place before I can find out. Eric, meanwhile, starts to growl. Only – it's not a growl, of course, growls are ferocious and threatening. This is a sound that sounds like a growl but is really just the sound of someone holding back a scream. Smoke curls up from Eric's skin, and one knee buckles beneath him, and that's when the growling swells into a yell, a roar – no. Roaring is for times of attack. This is a howl.
Eric collapses, and behind me, Ginger screams at the top of her lungs, screams in utter terror, screams in a way that makes me hate her, because she gets to do it and I don't. I don't have that luxury. All I get to do is stand here with my forearm pressed against my mouth and Pam's hand clamped over my shoulder. Stand here and watch smoke rise from Eric, listen to him make sounds he is not supposed to make. Stand here and try – desperately try – to rip the silver-something from the not-soldier's hand with my mind.
But I fail.