Author's Note : Hopefully this worked as intended and everyone with this story on 'Alert' got a email about the update to Chapter 25. I was tempted to just continue forward from where I left off but one of my very rare perfectionist moments I decided it would be better to end the chapter correctly and post 26 later. Don't worry, half of 26 is already written, I just wanted to get this out since I finished editing it. Next update will definitely be quicker!
Thanks so much for the reviews and well wishes about my family. I really don't know what to say but thank you from the bottom of my heart.
If anyone doesn't feel like re-reading the portion of this chapter that was out previously, look for the line that says "I let down all of my own shields and reached out to the Huntress." It's almost exactly half-way down.
Last Chapter : The Huntress flexes some mental muscle.
This Chapter : Details, details.
I decided that I was tired of playing the bystander and hastily gathered my thoughts to broadcast to Eric. "What is she talking about? What treaty? What 'true meaning behind the Great Revelation'? And how the heck does she know you?"
"Don't know, not the time, later, only guesses." he sent back cryptically, his blue eyes never leaving the Huntress where she stood vibrating with anger and staring down Felipe de Castro. The King was doing his best not to look intimidated but I think it would have been better for him if he just cowered. I took another chance and dipped into his mind, since Eric was preoccupied.
The tomb is sealed. It can't be opened, surely she knows... Is it worth my life to not let it get out? I care nothing for the blood-sacks she has. Bitch! She's offering me wood chips in exchange of gold.
Confused, I decided to relay to Eric.
"Felipe is thinking about a tomb that he says can't be opened. And that he doesn't care about the humans the Huntress has."
I felt Eric's appreciation rumble over our bond. Bill's eyes glanced over at me but luckily the Huntress was too absorbed with the King to notice. He must have felt the echo from Eric. It was time to let the cat out the bag again.
"Bill," was all I cautiously sent. I didn't want him to jump up or shout, or do anything else that might attract attention. Thankfully vampires are even more practiced at controlling their reactions than I was. All I saw was a slight widening of his eyes.
Suddenly Eric's thoughts were clamoring for attention. "You're telling him?"
"Yes." I didn't really care if Eric was annoyed or not so he was just going to have to suck it up if he didn't like that Bill knew this little secret.
But he didn't say anything against it and all I got back was, "Fine." The rest of Eric's brain was buzzing while he tried to puzzle out what was going on, how to get us out alive, and what to do about Cory. He was too busy to shield from me so I did my best to ignore him and turned my focus back to Bill.
"Don't freak out, but I found a new side effect of vampire blood. If you think directly at me, it'll be easier to 'hear' you."
"This is fascinating. Did that work?" His eyes looked very eager.
"Loud and clear." I had to try not to smile but at that moment the Huntress decided to make a more vocal move against Felipe and distracted us from our brief moment of show-and-tell.
"Clearly you are intent on trying my patience. I am not amused." I thought that was an understatement considering the expression on her face and her body language were shouting the polar opposite of amused. And her eyes were starting to glow again, this time I was positive that I wasn't imagining it.
"Since you know it is there," Felipe replied slowly, "perhaps I could show it to you. But I would need assurances."
Maive smiled and it sent a chill down my spine. "You think you are in a bargaining position?"
"You do not know everything," said the King sharply. I frowned, wondering what he was talking about now. Time to do some more thought sifting.
Xan should be ready by now.
I think I succeeded in keeping my face blank but I couldn't help myself as I reacted internally with alarm. Bill and Eric both sensed it and tensed in anticipation.
"What?" came from Eric and, "Sookie?" from Bill.
The Huntress laughed and her musical voice sounded genuinely amused. "You can play hard to get all you want but I know your type, Felipe. You will show me its location and you won't stand in the way of my freeing him. In return you get to keep your little kingdom, and yourself, relatively intact. If you continue to bait me I will have no choice but to have your humans killed and displayed around the city, probably in multiple pieces." She paused briefly, and when she spoke again her voice was even more contemptuous. "And when the human law enforcement investigates their deaths they will have no doubt that the murders were committed by vampires."
Felipe went rigid. I wanted to take advantage of the silence to tell Bill and Eric what else I had heard but this was going to get annoying if I had to keep broadcasting to them individually. I decided to try something else. "I'm trying to talk to you both at the same time, so I hope this works. Apparently Xan has been tasked by Felipe to do …well, something. He just thought 'Xan should be ready by now'."
Eric relaxed fractionally but Bill didn't so I wondered if he hadn't heard me. I got ready to tell him individually when he sent, "Sookie, your friend…"
Whatever else he might have wanted to say was lost to the sudden commotion.
One of the hunters collapsed. I didn't see what happened but suddenly Eric was shoving me under the table. The fangbangers must have been released from their glamour because they started screaming. It belatedly occurred to me that they weren't there to offend the sensibilities of the hunters – they were there to provide more chaos when the attack started.
Cory joined me under the table a second later and both Bill and Eric's legs disappeared. At least the club's custodians took good care of the place because I didn't see a single piece of gum underneath. There was a large bang close by and a down pour of blood splashed onto the floor in front of us. I heard Cory gag. It made me really wonder about my life that I could just say 'hey, look, blood spatter, moving on' but this wasn't exactly a constructive time to reflect on it.
The scent of fresh blood seemed to sever the last remnants of the vampires' control. Something crashed onto the top of our table and I had a sudden image of it collapsing on top of us but thankfully it didn't. Cory and I noticed a feminine arm now dangled over the edge and rested on the seat where I had been sitting just a moment before. It didn't move.
Oh fuck, they're killing them all. Dammit Xan! Damn you! Fuck! Cory's thoughts were spinning out of control and I could tell she was getting ready to try and do something rash. I grabbed her upper arms and shook her, hard, watching as her eyes slowly focused on mine. Two pairs of legs appeared just beyond our meager hiding place and after a second another body crashed to the floor. It took me a second of looking at it to realize why it looked funny.
It had no head and it was beginning to flake apart. Okay, there was the stomach heave.
I forced myself to look away. "Cory we can't go out there. All the vamps are in bloodlust and we'd be dead before we got two steps," I whispered at her urgently, hoping it was loud enough for her to hear but not loud enough for it to attract unwanted attention. "The best thing we can do is stay here and wait for this to be done."
"N-no, I can't stay here." I was about to start reasoning with her again when she blurted, "I have to help Xan! He needs me to do something."
That would have been nice to know earlier. I cursed at myself for being too preoccupied earlier to listen. "Sweetie, what do you need to do?" Her thoughts were a snarled blue mess now and I couldn't pick out a single coherent one. "Cory!" I said urgently.
She closed her eyes and visibly tried to calm herself. When she spoke again it was marginally more controlled. "H-he needs me to project at the Huntress. I was supposed to try and figure out if my ability worked on her before the fight started but I didn't get an opportunity," she finished miserably.
While it was somewhat comforting to know that it wasn't just my vampires who were too distracted by the Huntress to think straight, in this particular instance it could easily mean that we were all about to die. "Cory, did he need you to do something specific? What was it?"
"Nothing specific. He just needs me to distract her in –" she looked down at the watch on her wrist, "- about two minutes."
In two minutes this could all be over, I thought to myself. "Okay, so what is he gonna do if your gift doesn't work?"
"The same thing. I was just extra insurance since I had to be here anyway." Talking seemed to help Cory ignore most of what was going on just feet away from us and I could hear her thoughts calming.
"Right," I said, thinking rapidly. An idea suddenly occurred to me. "Cory, our gifts work basically the same way, right?"
"Sure, from what we've talked about." She frowned, not following my train of thought.
"I'm going to try and read her thoughts. If it works, your projecting should too."
"Oh, Sookie, I can't let you risk that for me! What if she, I dunno, senses it somehow?" Cory was also worried about this possibility regarding her ability.
"Then we'll deal with it," I said with a lot more confidence than I was feeling. But I couldn't just stand by and watch Cory and Xan get hurt if there was something simple I could do that might help them. I shifted around so I could look out into the crowd, trying to find Maive in the sea of activity.
It didn't take much. She was standing at the center of the maelstrom in a bubble of what appeared to be protective energy. I'd heard crackling in the air not long after the confrontation started but it never occurred to me that it might be something related to the Huntress. I really should have known better.
Vampires were throwing themselves at the bubble in an attempt to break through it but as I watched one of the Nevada vamps I didn't know charge at it he bounced off harmlessly, flying off the roof in the process. I hoped he could levitate.
I did notice that the Huntress seemed to reel back with the blow which must mean that the bubble was connected to her beyond just its creation. Suddenly three vampires hit it at the same time, from almost the same direction, and Maive stumbled back about four feet. This resulted in one of the remaining hunters being caught outside of the bubble as an easy target. Two other vampires dove at him before he could step back under it and he ended up in two pieces and very, very dead.
Several of the vampires gathered around the bleeding body pieces and latched on, not wanting to waste the blood spilling out. I noticed that Bill was one of them.
Eric was on the other side of the room with Synar and they were hurling anything they could get their hands on at the bubble. It seemed to be slowly forcing Maive towards one side of the room but I didn't know if their intention was just to get her to move or if they were trying to weaken the shield.
I let down all of my own shields and reached out to the Huntress.
Whatever I might have been expecting it wasn't what I found. But I had to assume she did hear me somehow, or sensed me or felt me, because her brilliant green eyes snapped over to mine with an intensity that I could practically feel projecting through the energy she had bubbled around herself. And I didn't have a chance to react or pull back before she was suddenly in…MY…HEAD.
You know what a headache feels like? The kind you get when you might have had a little too much to drink the night before and when you wake up it feels like your brain is trying to pulse outside of your skull? Well imagine that amplified by about a hundred. My head throbbed so hard I actually shouted out in pain, clasping my hands to either side of my ears as though it might somehow shut her out. There was no shielding from this, nothing I could do. One minute I was myself and the next I was sharing my brain with another being.
Because that was the one thing I realized for certain. Maive was not remotely human.
I used to be.
Oh God it hurt.
Forgive me, I've never used this particular ability this way.
The ringing subsided somewhat and I became aware of Cory frantically whispering my name but I couldn't respond.
Ah, it appears I entered you a bit too completely. My right arm suddenly rose of its own will and terror gripped me. What the hell was that?
Do not be alarmed, Sookie. Can I call you Sookie?
Out, out!
I see. Yes. Do not worry. Niall told me of you. We shall speak again.
And suddenly it was over. My chest was heaving as I sucked in deep lungfuls of air and tried to put myself back together. "Sookie!" came another desperate whisper.
"Cory, shh," I couldn't think of a better reply than that and I was interrupted from responding further by another body joining us under the table. We both shrieked and scrambled further from the opening until we recognized who it was.
"Bill you almost scared me to death!" I said a little louder than I intended.
"Are you all right, Sookie?" Bill was very pink and looked more excited than concerned but I knew it was because of his bloodlust not an actual lack of worry.
"Yes, I'm fine, now, I think." I stumbled over my words a bit but I sounded mostly okay, at least to my own ears. Inside I was still reeling.
"You were in pain," he said as he began peering at me closer.
Cory saved me from answering. "Could you hear her?"
"Not really," I said evasively.
Cory looked disappointed. "So my ability probably won't work either."
"You tried to listen to the Huntress's thoughts?" Bill asked in a strained voice. I couldn't tell if the strain was out of anger, excitement, or plain old curiosity but I wasn't in the mood for any 'I-told-you-so's.
"I just wanted to see if I could hear her since Cory is supposed to help Xan and we figured our abilities worked about the same." I met Bill's eyes evenly now, daring him to tell me I shouldn't have risked it.
He remained silent a moment and then decided not to say anything. Turning to Cory he asked, "What has Xan been instructed to do?"
"Kill her of course," she said as though it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.
Bill fixed her with a gaze that would have made water boil. "And just how was he going to do that when twelve of us can't even manage to herd her into a corner?"
Cory's mouth opened and then snapped shut but my shields were still down and I could hear her just fine. He's a shadowdancer, what do you think he can do? Does he really not know what that means? Am I allowed to tell him? Does Sookie not know? Oh, right, well… Her eyes met mine and I tried to look apologetic.
"Sweetie, we don't know what it means to be a shaowdancer. Can't you tell us?"
"You should probably just ask Eric. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you, it's supposed to be one of those things I don't talk about," she said sheepishly. "Besides, you'll see it soon."
"How soon?" Bill wanted to know.
Cory glanced at her watch again. "Less than a minute."
Bill nodded tersely. "Stay here." And with that he ducked back out into the melee. We watched as he dodged and fought his way over to Eric. The fangbangers were making a huge mess of things alright, even the ones dead on the floor. Maive was also down to two hunters with her under the shield but there were a few others still up and kicking. The group of them was completely cut off from the stairs that were the only exit from the room, besides the open roof.
That was when I noticed what I had missed earlier when I glanced around the room. Of the ten original hunters there were six still alive. The two under the shield looked just to be helping Maive maintain some sort of steady footing against the pounding from the vampires who were still attempting to break through the barrier. It didn't look like they were helping much. Those that were outside of the shield appeared to be wielding what looked like beams of energy similar to what was surrounding Maive. It seemed impossible but I had to assume that she had created the 'weapons' in the same manner she had created her shield. And judging by the number of flaking corpses on the ground they knew how to use them as effectively as if they were actually tempered swords (I watched a Samurai movie once, I know what tempered means). None of them were more than a few feet away from the shield and I watched as they dipped in and out of it whenever a vampire they couldn't handle came too close. I sort of wondered how the shield knew the difference between friendly and unfriendly breaches.
I eventually spotted Bill's back again and saw that he was over with Eric engaging in a rushed conversation. Ice blue eyes framed by blond locks glanced in my direction and our gazes met. It looked like he was going to say something, or think something to me but a sudden change in the room distracted him.
Two of the hunters outside the shield dropped their weapons, one dead, the other clutching at a bullet wound the size of my fist that suddenly appeared in his arm. Maive tried to surge forward to get the shield over their bodies but her two 'helpful' companions worked against her not realizing that she was trying to jump forward on her own. We could all hear her voice raised in a stream of curses as vampires descended on the bodies in the fraction of a second the hunters had delayed her. Then silence echoed through the room.
Xan stepped out of the shadows back near the bar. Literally. One minute he wasn't in the room and the next minute he was. I tried not to gape. Well now I guess I know why they call them shadowdancers.
It didn't take long for Maive to notice him. The remaining hunters ducked under the shield while three of the vampires were focused on the blood of the two newest corpses. A path opened between the two beings as the remaining fangbanger finally had a chance to leave the room. The other five still undead stood together surveying the scene as one vampire shadowdancer and one part-fey Huntress faced off. Eric and Bill were part of the group toward the back of the room near the bar and were fairly close to Xan but Cory and I were under a table near the front of the room closer to the Huntress.
"I see you finally managed to join the party," Maive called out suddenly.
"Yes, please do forgive my tardiness. I was otherwise occupied," Xan replied smoothly, his voice lilting out in its normal tempo. You wouldn't have known to listen to him that he was glaring daggers across the room.
Maive sneered cruelly and I shuddered, remembering the feeling of her in my head. Connected to my great-grandfather or not she still gave me a case of the creeps. "Feeding you pets?" she taunted.
"Oh no," he grinned back showing fully extended fangs, "They specifically went hungry so that when they tasted you it would be that much sweeter."
I barely had time to think, what?, before the conversation moved on.
"Would we perhaps be able to come to an agreement regarding my father's hunters before we get started?" the Huntress asked but not very hopefully. She was greeted by cruel laughter from the vampires.
Synar suddenly stepped forward from the cluster near the back. "Xan you let us know if you need help. But please do us all a favor and tear this bitch a new one. We'll take care of her lackeys."
Xan nodded at her in response and then turned back to the Huntress. "I'm afraid not, Maive. It appears they have prior commitments."
"I expected as much." The shield disappeared leaving the four living hunters and the Huntress herself relatively exposed. If they had any illusions about staying brave in the face of the remaining vampires they started disappearing quickly. However the Huntress appeared relatively unfazed. "Your move."
"If you insist." Too quickly for me to see, Xan raised his guns into a firing position and started shooting, causing the human hunters to dive to the floor. But when the guns clicked empty Maive was still standing in exactly the same spot and smiling coyly, completely unscathed.
I started to feel like I was watching a tennis match as I looked back to Xan, who was still grinning. If any human had that same look on their face I would sign them up for the funny-farm but on a vampire it just looked frightening. "Would you like to see them?" he asked ambiguously.
Maive appeared to understand exactly what he was referring to. "Might as well. No reason to keep dragging this out."
"Yes, I agree," Xan nodded once, his grin disappearing into a much more somber expression. His chin ducked towards his chest and he appeared to be talking to himself but at that moment Cory's thoughts spiked into my awareness. I turned to look at her.
Her eyes were wide with fear and anticipation and I had time to pick out one thought from her mind before a primal terror flooded into the room and griped me like a vice.
She was thinking, 'Puppies!', in a tone that was irrationally giddy.
Disclaimer : Charlaine Harris retains sole rights to the SVM and its characters and I am in no way attempting to infringe on the world she has created. Her characters are being borrowed as creative inspirations, and are being portrayed here merely through my interpretation of their interactions. Cory and Xan are my own creation solely for use in this fanfic. Thanks for reading.