Dead with the Vikings – Chapter 26
A/N:
I just loved your reviews after the last chapter. Appius would definitely meet his final death if he met any of you :-D Thank you so much for taking the time to sending me all those beautiful reviews. This story now has more than 2000. It`s amazing and I`m very grateful!
I also want to thank Rascalthemutant for reading and correcting all my silly mistakes. And the day after tomorrow I will finally get to see her face to face when she is coming to Oslo. YAY!
And look at the pretty banner Alby90 made for this story. I love the banner so much - and hug Alby for making it! http : // img186 . imageshack . us/img186/1264/dead4 . jpg
From the previous chapter:
I had thought I could stake Appius. I had thought I could rid us of the problem that had been such a threat to us for so long. And then I couldn`t. I had a stake and I had a vampire in need of a stake, but I couldn`t connect the two.
Suddenly the doorbell rang. It was as if it woke me from a deep dream. The door bell rang and maybe the person behind the door would have a solution. Maybe it would be Sjur and he could….
I got up and ran towards the door and opened it without even checking first who it was first. I was so sure it would be Sjur.
Instead it was a stranger. A stranger with a huge smile.
"Yes?" I asked while I tried to read the thoughts of the person outside. I barely managed to keep my smile plastered on my face when I realized what kind of creature had rung my doorbell.
A fairie.
Chapter 27:
"Hi Sookie," the fairie smiled. "I`m Kenneth." He stuck out his hand to me. Kenneth was a tall guy and even if his light brown hair covered what would be his pointy ears, he still carried the signs of being a fairie. He was hypnotically handsome.
"Hi," I said, but I didn`t give him my hand.
He looked at his empty hand with surprise.
"Oh, I`m sorry. I should have told you. Niall sent me. He sensed that you are in danger and he told me to come and get you."
Relief ran through my body. My fairy great-grandfather hadn`t deserted me. He had watched over me the whole time and I was saved. Now I just had to figure out a way to save Eric too.
"He did?" I opened the door more. "Welcome. Come in."
"Well, we can`t really stay long. I mean, we need to be far away before the … you know, your … vampire`s master wakes up."
"Sure. I just need to pack my stuff and we`ll be off." I pointed towards the living room, but he wasn`t going in there.
"You know, you can just buy new stuff. We really need to be off."
A nervous tick at his eye made me stop. Why would he have a nervous tick?
"How did you find me?" I had my crazy-Sookie-smile on now.
Kenneth smiled back "Your cousin gave me your address."
"Claude?" I didn`t understand it. Claude didn`t have my address, so how could he give it to me? "You went to see Claude?"
"Yes, Claude and I go way back. And now that we are the only ones left on this side, we`ve practically become brothers. He sends you a lot of hugs and kisses. He misses you so much and wants you back in Louisiana as soon as possible."
Now I had to work hard to keep my smile plastered on my face. Claude had not missed a person in his life and he would never send me hugs or kisses. He probably hadn`t even noticed I was gone.
"I miss Claude too," I lied. "Are we going back home?"
"We are. You know, I will keep you safe from whatever you were running from. With Niall`s help, of course. But we have to leave now. I have my car ready outside."
Kenneth was very convincing and his smile was warm. I almost wanted to believe him, but that was just not possible. My heart started beating harder when I started thinking about … the incident. I was not going to be the victim of any more fairy violence.
"Sure," I smiled. "I just need to get my medication. It`s in the fridge." I let my hand run over my belly to indicate that the medicine was for my pregnancy or for the baby.
I walked out to the kitchen before Kenneth, if that was his name, could say anything. I opened the door to the fridge and smiled when I saw that little yellow plastic bottle with lemon juice I had bought for the shrimp I ate with Sjur this summer. I had wanted to throw it away so many times because who really uses lemon juice from a bottle? But now it would be my finest weapon.
I unscrewed the green lid when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around as quickly as my stomach permitted it and squeezed the lemon bottle as hard as I could.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" Kenneth yelled. With a quick sense of satisfaction, I saw that I had managed to get lemon juice into his eyes and he couldn`t see anything. He staggered in my direction, but I poured the rest of the lemon juice over his head and pushed him very hard so that he fell backwards into the kitchen table.
I ran to get the stake I had wanted to use on Appius. What I really needed was something made out of iron, but I couldn`t think of anything in my house. So the stake was my closest weapon.
I found the stake on the floor outside the guest room, picked it up and ran towards the living room and away from Eric. As much as I didn`t want to get hurt myself, leaving Kenneth behind with Eric, was not an option.
When I came to the living room, I heard Kenneth stumble his way towards me and I steadied myself with the stake. I was as ready as I had ever been to kill a fairy. I was not putting myself in the position of getting tortured. Not again.
Kenneth has lost his eye-sight and he was mad.
"I know you are there and I will fucking kill you, bitch," he shouted. "I hear that killing pregnant women is fun. I didn`t get to kill Claudine, but it will be a joy to tear that baby out of your stomach and watch your half-breed face while I do it. You will die slowly. I can promise you that."
His words about Claudine were painful, but they didn`t scare me. They made me all the more determined that Kenneth was not going to walk out of my house alive.
"I know you`re in here," he shouted. "I can hear your breath and your heartbeat."
"And so what?" I shouted back. If he could hear my breath, he might as well hear my contempt too. "That just means that my breath and my heartbeat will be the last things you hear before you die."
He laughed, but it wasn`t exactly a happy laugh.
"You stupid bitch. You are going to die just like your moron cousin, Claude."
"You killed Claude?" I gasped.
"Yeah, he`s with his sisters now."
"What the hell did Claude ever do to you?" I was back to shouting.
"He refused to tell me where you were!"
"He didn`t know, you fool! I never told him I was leaving." I wanted to throw something at Kenneth.
"Oops, my bad," Kenneth chuckled.
He was moving slowly, but getting closer and closer. His face looked awful, as if I had thrown acid on it and not lemon juice. I couldn`t help rejoicing just a little bit over the pain he was in.
"How did you know I was here?" I shouted.
That really had him laughing. "That stupid vampire, your lover`s master, he did all the ground work. I just needed to follow him and…" he waved out his hand at me "… here you were."
"You followed Appius?"
"Yeah, that was his name. I was trying to find your brother to torture him some when Appius beat me to it. And that was how I knew I could let him find you and just follow in his tracks."
"Appius tortured Jason?" I had put Jason in danger?
"He was still alive the last I saw him. But he won`t be after I`m finished here."
And suddenly Kenneth was close enough for me to reach him. I shoved the stake into his stomach, which made him scream out in pain. Then he hit me so hard, I could hear a bone crack somewhere in my head. I silently prayed it was my jaw or my nose and not my skull. The pain was everywhere as if something had exploded inside my skull.
Kenneth landed on top of me and pulled me down on the floor. I shoved at the stake again, trying to damage as many vital organs as possible, not really knowing what kind of vital organs a fairie had. His hands were on my chest and moved closer for my neck which made me scream. I screamed as loudly as I could and hit Kenneth in the face. I pulled his fairie ears and turned them around and screamed while I did it.
I screamed in pain and in desperation, but most of all, I screamed as old warriors screamed when they ran into battle. This was a fight I could very well lose, but I would not lose it without giving it all I had. And my scream was a part of my fight.
Suddenly my scream was no longer. Kenneth`s hands were on my throat and I was choking. I kicked and I pulled out the stake and tried to push it in again. I couldn`t push it into his chest, but used his weight on me to stab him in the shoulder. I had his blood all over me and his screams in my ear.
Then my vision started to blur. I could still hear very well, but my eyesight got grey and then black.
Just as it all turned dark, I saw Eric tumbling into the living room. He was like a sleepwalker, but there was determination in his step. The curtains were still drawn, so the sun didn`t hurt him. But the pull of the day made him slow and weak.
That was the last my brain registered before it gave in.
Xxxx
The last thing I lost and the first thing I got back was my hearing and I did not like what I heard. Eric and Kenneth were screaming and shouting. Things were breaking and being thrown around in the room. I tried to get up and just when I got to my feet, my eyesight kicked in again.
I was standing between the couch and the coffee table. I had no idea how I had gotten there, but I was glad I could lean on the couch on my way up.
The living room looked like a war zone. There were holes in the plaster on the wall, the floorboards were broken, furniture was scattered and in the middle Eric and Kenneth were at each other`s throats. Kenneth, weakened by the wounds I had given him and by his loss of eyesight and Eric, by the pull of the day.
In spite of his damages, Kenneth looked as if he was winning the fight. Eric was bleeding from his chest and his neck and his movements were sluggish at best. The stake was still in Kenneth and I hoped he wouldn`t connect the dots and use it on Eric.
I picked up a steel lamp, swearing that I would buy more iron furniture if I survived this, and made my way over to the fight, determined to knock Kenneth down. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. I was in poorer shape than I had thought. I was nauseous and I wanted to scream from the pain in my head, but I couldn`t lie back now. Kenneth was killing Eric and I couldn`t allow that to happen.
I was trying to convince my feet to move, but just then, Kenneth got up with Eric in his arms and the next thing I knew was Eric flying through the air and it was not by his own power. He came in my direction and even if I tried to duck, Eric`s knee knocked the wind out of me and I landed on the couch.
Eric made an alarming sound when he crashed onto the floor where I had just crawled up from. I looked at him, but he seemed gone. If it was because of his wounds or the fact that it was daytime, I wasn`t sure, but my heart froze. I was afraid it was the wounds that caused him to be immobile and it broke my spirit.
This would explain why I wasn`t more worried for my own life. Eric was out and Kenneth was coming towards me to kill me. It was just, seeing Eric on the floor, halfway under the coffee table, with his legs in an unnatural position – I knew I couldn`t go on living in a world that didn`t have Eric in it.
I didn`t want to live without Eric.
I had always depended on myself and now I was responsible for the little child I was carrying, but there, in just that minute, I didn`t care. What was the point if Eric was dead?
Kenneth had the meanest smile on his lips when he got up to his knees and turned his head in my direction and I just smiled back. So what if he was going to kill me? I was dead inside anyway.
Then I started having the weirdest hallucination.
Another person entered the room.
Another vampire.
Appius.
Kenneth`s smile suddenly looked like the smile of a kindergarten kid compared to the one Appius sported. He looked lethal, which was what he was.
Appius also had a slightly sluggish walk, but his age apparently made him more awake than Eric had been. Just as Eric was easier to wake up than Pam when I tried to get them both out before the bombs went off in Rhodes.
"What is all this shouting and screaming?" he asked as if he wondered who had turned on the television when it was supposed to be off. "I can hardly sleep." He looked at Eric under the table. "Did someone apart from me try to kill my child?" His voice was mildly scolding. Then he saw Kenneth. "Ah, Sookie. You called for take-away for me. How very nice of you. And fairy – my favorite!"
The next I knew Appius was on top of Kenneth, biting into his neck and Kenneth was trying to shake him off.
I was dizzy and had to sit down. The couch was soft and good and I felt as if I could sit there forever. My hand slid down to Eric`s cheek and I caressed it slowly, up and down, up and down, while I watched the two fighters on the floor. I didn`t even know which of them I wanted to win.
Kenneth would kill me now if he won, but Appius would do it in the long run. He would kill me slowly and painfully. I could always hope he wouldn`t, but wasn`t a quick death now better than a slow death in the future?
Suddenly I felt a hand on mine and looked down. Eric had moved. He wasn`t dead. Well, at least not dead-dead. Joy welled up in me and I smiled. Then I noticed his lips were moving and I bent down to hear what he was trying to say. I kissed his cheek on the way.
"The curtains, Sookie. The curtains," he whispered.
"What?"
I looked up and saw Kenneth not moving on the floor and Appius sucking so hard on his neck it sounded like a kid using a straw to get the last out of his milkshake. Then I looked at the curtains. The curtains that held the sun out from the room. The sun that would kill vampires.
I nodded even if Eric couldn`t see me. I couldn`t stake Appius, but I could kill him anyway.
I got up from the couch and walked towards the windows. Then I looked back at Eric. He was on the floor and even if the coffee-table would give him some cover, he was still just as much in danger from the sun as Appius was.
I stumbled back, got the afghan I had bought because it reminded me of the one I had back home in Bon Temps, and pulled it over Eric`s head and hands. He had clothes on his legs and feet and I hoped they would save him. My afghan wasn`t long enough to cover both Eric`s head and his feet.
Then I walked towards the windows again, glancing down at Appius who was too busy getting the last drops of fairy blood out of Kenneth to pay attention to me. Faster than I would have believed I could move, I was over at the heavy curtains and I quickly pulled them aside.
It was a sunny day and since the sun was low in the autumn in Norway, the rays went straight in through the windows and landed on Appius`s skin.
Smoke soon came up from Appius together with the most terrifying scream I had heard. I got goosebumps all over my skin from the sound. Or maybe it was from some terrible happiness I felt inside. The wicked witch of the West was dying. Or at least the wicked vampire from Rome.
Suddenly he burst up in flames and I started to worry about Eric again. He wasn`t flame-proof. But just as I was making my way over to Eric, to protect him from getting burned, a deep pain ran through my body.
I fell to the floor and went straight into fetal position. My head was hurting and so was my chest from Eric being thrown into me, but this was something else. I had had my first contraction.
I was going to give birth to my child.
A/N:
I am so sorry for giving you yet another cliffhanger, but this story just seems to run from cliffie to cliffie. At least Appius is dead now. And Kenneth. I hope that is a consolation?
Having children in Scandinavia
I`ve had people ask me about the rules for maternity/paternity leaves here in Scandinavia and that is a fitting subject now that Sookie is going to have a child. I have tried to find the latest updated rules, but since they change all the time, I give no guarantees.
Norway
One of the parents has the right to stay at home for 46 weeks, if they want their full wages or 56 weeks if they want 80% of their wages. If they didn`t have a job (being unemployed and getting benefits counts as having a job) and earned money before the childbirth, they get a sum of money instead, which is around 35,000 Norwegian kroner.
The mother has to stay at home 3 weeks before the birth and 6 weeks after. The father has to stay at home for 10 weeks. The parents can choose who is taking the rest of the weeks, but the fathers are encouraged to take out at least a third.
Every month parents get around 1000 Norwegian kroner per child from the state, up until the children are 18 years old. Single parents get twice the amount of money.
Parents can stay at home for 10 days a year each, with full pay, if the child is sick – 15 days for each parent if they have 3 or more children. Single parents get the double amount of time.
Denmark
One of the parents has the right to stay at home with the child for 52 weeks after the child is born. They will get a sum that is called "daymoney" in that period. This is the same amount you get when you are unemployed. If the parents worked before they had the child, they will get their full wages for 36 weeks. Some companies offer full wages all of the 52 weeks.
The mother has the right to stay at home for 4 weeks before the baby is born and 14 weeks after and the father has the right to stay at home for 2 weeks. The parents will have to agree on who is going to stay at home the rest of the time. Fathers are encouraged to take out (much) more than their 2 weeks.
Every year Danish parents get between 10,000 and 17,000 Danish kroner (amount varies with the child`s age) per child from the state.
Danish parents can stay at home one day each, every time the child is sick.
Sweden
Swedish parents have the right to stay at home with the child for 480 days after the child is born. The mother has to take 60 days and the father has to take 60 days. The parents will have to agree on who is going to stay at home for the rest of the time.
For 390 days they get 80% of their wages and for the 90 days left, they get 180 Swedish kroner per day. If the parents didn`t earn any money before they had the child, they get 180 Swedish kroner per day for the full period.
Swedish parents get around 1000 Swedish kroner each month for each child they have. They get an extra amount if they have many children.
Swedish parents can stay at home with sick kids and I couldn`t find limitations to this rule, though it seems as if they have a pretty bureaucratic system where you have to notify the authorities when the kid is sick. In Denmark and Norway you just notify the employer.
Kindergartens
In all of Scandinavia the politicians have worked pretty to ensure enough kindergartens for everyone and to make sure they are not too expensive. Norway has the most expensive kindergartens (around 2,300 Norwegian kroner a month). In Sweden and Denmark it`s almost half the price.
Most of the kindergartens are run by the cities, but also private entrepreneurs, churches and other organizations run kindergartens. All (approved) kindergartens get public funding on top of whatever the parents pay.
Scandinavian women work almost as much as Scandinavian men so kindergartens have been looked upon as one of the most important ways to ensure that there are kids born in Scandinavia. It seems to have been a wise decision because Scandinavia does have a pretty high birth rate compared to other European countries.
Marriage
We don`t get married, though. Around half the children in our part of the world are born out of wedlock. That doesn`t mean that they grow up without both parents or that their parents don`t get married later on in life. I suppose we are just too busy having sex and giving birth to children to bother getting married too.