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Encroaching Darkness, Fading Light
Chapter thirty-eight - Care to come for a stroll?
Carla shuffled onto her back, the soft mattress underneath her supporting her body so she was in complete comfort.
Carla pulled the quilt close to her chest, yawning deeply, still with her eyes closed.
She reached out to pick up her phone and check the time.
But there was nothing there, even the bedside table was gone.
Carla snapped her eyes open.
The ceiling was foreign and unfamiliar.
She sat up straight, only to look straight at a white wall.
Carla turned around, looking around the room.
It was sparsely furnished and lacking of all forms of windows, as well as being completely white.
Carla swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed herself up onto her feet.
Where the hell was she?
She took a moment to think and remember the last thing that had happened.
The asylum, finding Russel with the others, then the vampire SWAT team arrived and Eric pretended to glamour her, she walked out of the building, down the driveway.
Then nothing.
Carla sighed, something must have happened, she couldn't remember.
She wandered over to the door of the room, and wrapped her hand around the door knob.
She tried to turn it, to push the door open.
It didn't budge.
So, what did she do now?
Carla turned around and looked into the corners of the room.
There was a dome like shape attached to the ceiling. She could faintly see the small glass lens inside, turned to her, watching her.
Carla sighed.
"So what is this? Hmm? You're watching me? How cowardly" Carla wandered closer to the camera.
"Well, your prisoner is awake, is there anything you want to tell her?" Carla asked, placing her hands on her hips.
As if on cue, the door behind her made a loud snapping sound as it demagnetized from the door frame and swung open.
A man stepped inside, one she had not expected to see so soon, or at all.
"Hello, Carla" Clive's voice was even lower than she remembered, gruff and gravelly.
Carla's jaw locked, she had a hard time stopping herself from immediately attacking the man.
"Don't worry, I'm not here to take you back to the barrier, on the contrary, we are closer to Bon Temps than you think. New Orleans"
"What, the fuck, am I doing here? Or better yet, what are you doing here?" Carla asked after a few seconds.
"You're here by the grace of Lilith and my lady Salome, we need you, we have tried long and hard to bring about the second coming of the progenitor and we need you to hurry it along, dear wife" Clive explained, swinging the door closed behind him, it magnetized again.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Carla asked, looking up and down the man, his eyes were wider than they used to be.
"I'm talking about the resurrection of the lord, Lilith. Salome knows that we are the key, our blood, it's special, it holds the key to resurrecting her and ushering in a new age of vampire supremacy and we will stand with them, we will be the creators of the new world, the resurrectors of a god" Clive explained, completely insane, his mind was broken, something had pushed him over the edge and it was now inhabiting his broken mind and causing this lunacy he was spewing.
"The lord? What do you mean? Clive, what's happened to you?" Carla asked, looking the man up and down, he began to pace back and forth in front of her.
"Don't you understand!" Clive shot towards her, pinning her back against the wall.
She grabbed him by the wrist and twisted.
He hissed and withdrew.
"Oh, I understand, I understand that you've lost your fucking mind!" Carla growled. "Rob told me you were dead, he thought I had killed you, explain!" She demanded.
He laughed.
"I sold you and your vampire out to Russel, I told him all about you, what you are and after I found out Northman had killed Talbot, well, I was willing to jump right in and save the day. I tracked his scent back to that bar, 'Fangtasia' and I told Russel exactly where to find him, not only was he pleased with my work, he told me to find him two nights later for my reward, after he had disposed of you all" Clive explained, his face red and his skin moist with sweat as if it was boiling in the room, when it was very cool.
"But what did I find when I came back to Fangtasia, where he told me to meet him? A van driving away, so, of course, I followed and I saw Northman, burying Russel under cement. That was where I met my lady Salome, she told me Russel's hour would come and that leaving him in the ground would be the best choice for now, we spent a year waiting for the right time" Clive grinned manically, a gesture that reminded her of Russel.
"And now it has come" Clive's grin grew even wider, which Carla didn't think was possible.
"Not only will the new world begin, it will be led by the Lilith herself" Carla took a step backwards.
"Praise her" He muttered to himself, now looking up towards the ceiling as if he was addressing some all-knowing heavenly force.
Carla stepped back again.
"What do you want with me?" She asked, unsure of what he actually wanted, as his insane ravings were making very little sense to her.
"Oh" Clive looked back down to her, frowning in mock hurt. "Poor Carla, all I want from you my dear is your blood, you see, I am going to be the vessel, and you, my dear, will be the one who gives the vessel the energy it needs to become Lilith herself!"
"What the hell has happened to you Clive?" Carla asked, looking the man up and down, with a worried look on her face.
"Revelation" the man raised his hands to the sky, as if praising some lord who had blessed him with such knowledge.
Carla was speechless, he was truly broken, and something had snapped his mind and created this monster before her, her son, Eric, was right, he was sick.
"Come with me, I must show you to Lady Salome, she will be so pleased to see you awake" Clive snatched her wrist, pulling something out of his back pocket, a pair of handcuffs.
Carla didn't have time to snatch her hands away, as he slapped them on faster than she could see, he must have had vampire blood, a lot of it.
He wrapped his hand around the links between both cuffs and yanked her forward, forcing her legs to respond or be thrown to the floor.
So many questions were running through her head.
Who was 'Lady Salome'? Where the hell was she? Yeah, Clive had said New Orleans, but where exactly in New Orleans? Did Eric know she was here? Was he here as well? Was he even alive? What about Sookie? Was she safe?
Gods knew.
After a long few minutes of being dragged quickly down corridors, past some silver holding cells, many sets of vampire guards and more white washed walls and furniture, Clive took the last stride around the corner, before pushing her back.
He forced his body next to hers and cupped his hand over her mouth.
"Never, you bible banging cunts." The gravelly voice that was so familiar and heart melting to her growled from within the room.
Carla's eyes widened and she tensed her muscles.
Eric! He was here! He was alive!
She was about to fling Clive's body away from her.
Clive raised his other hand from behind his back, laying a sharp metal shiv against her throat.
She looked down into the man's eyes.
He pressed it into her neck, close to breaking the skin.
Carla relaxed her muscles and remained quiet.
'Good girl' Clive mouthed.
"And you, Mr Compton?" A woman asked.
Bill was here too? Was this the vampire authority? Just maybe it was.
"I still believe that without peaceful co-existence between our two species, neither species will survive, mainstreaming is the only way" He explained, there was an awkward silence in the room, all of the people within seemed to be unsure of what to say next.
There was a short sigh let out by one of the occupants.
After a long pause in which you could feel the tenseness in the air, the same woman spoke up.
"There will be a ceremony tomorrow night, an initiation of sorts. I still would like to give you the option to participate" She explained, sounding full of authority and power.
She sounded much like a politician.
"Thank you Salome, you've shown great mercy" A more desperate and quaking voice replied, as if she had been holding her breath until that moment.
"No, Lilith has shown her mercy" The woman called Salome proclaimed.
"Hell yes… she has" Russels voice, it appeared that Eric had not been completely successful in his plan to end the vampire.
She couldn't say she was very surprised.
"Tomorrow night then?" Salome asked Bill and Eric, or so she assumed, as she could not see anything.
"Yes…" Bill replied.
"'Till tomorrow" Eric's calm voice added.
She heard footsteps from within the room and then the two of them walked around to corner and down the corridor opposite, their backs moving away from her.
Carla desperately tried to send a mental message to Eric, surely he could feel her?
Eric raised a hand and cupped it over his forehead, still moving away.
Their bond was not strong enough or he was too far away from her, or maybe the fact that Clive was practically laying on top of her was blocking the signal?
Fuck! Carla thought.
Clive waited for the two vampires to disappear down the corridor, then he slowly lowered the knife.
He sheathed it behind his back and straightened his shirt down.
Carla still had her eyes locked on where Eric and Bill had disappeared.
Clive pulled her head back to face him.
"Don't pine for him, you won't have long to, I promise you, it won't hurt for long and then this will all be over, for the new world" Clive smiled at her, his eyes full of madness but his words full of sincerity.
He grabbed Carla's wrist and yanked her into the room.
Carla's eyes met with Russel's, they then drifted to those of Eric's sister, Nora and then the only woman in the room she did not recognise, she assumed this was Salome.
"Lady Salome, I brought her to you, as you requested, when she awoke" Clive bowed low, down on his knees in front of the vampire.
"Ahh, yes, thank you Clive" The vampire smiled, she was wearing a tight black dress, with a low V-neck and high heels, the dress ended just above the knee. Around her neck was a curious looking pendant, like a golden spider with red gems encrusted in its surface.
"Oh how the tables do turn, my dear" Russel commented, looking at Carla.
Carla turned her eyes to the vampire.
"I could say the same about you, change with the wind, do we?" Carla growled back.
Russel chuckled. "Not quite, but I do wonder how long it will take for Mr Northman to change his tune, now he, my dear, is more of an opportunist that I will ever be" He taunted her.
Carla raised one of her legs, which were unbound and attempted to roundhouse kick Russel in the face.
He grabbed her ankle in mid-air, twisting it around, and with the pure power of it, the rest of her body spun.
She used this momentum and flung her other leg over the top, smashing the vampire in the nose, causing him to drop her foot in shock.
She landed on her side, unable to stop her fall as her hands were tied.
He recoiled back, holding his broken nose, which was shown by the two trails of blood that ran from it.
Clive grabbed her from behind, holding his arm around her throat, he pulled the shiv back out and dragged it across her shoulder, drawing blood.
Carla cried out in pain and the sheer depth of the cut.
"How dare you strike our vampire overlords! We are but servants to them until we bring about the resurrection, treat them with your utmost respect!" He growled into her ear, sounding nothing like the Clive she knew.
Carla stared into Russel's eyes, as he only just managed to control his three millennium old power and his lust for revenge for what little she had done to him both now and over a year ago.
"Do not think of doing it again" Clive warned.
"Clive, do leave the girl alone, she's probably still recovering from the Etorphine" Salome requested.
Clive released her almost instantly.
"I wish to speak to the girl, leave us" Salome ordered.
The other three left, Russel now wiping the blood away from his nose with a handkerchief, the break having healed quickly, but the blood lingering.
Salome perched on the corner of an old looking sofa which was still in excellent condition, as if it had barely been used in its long existence.
"Please, sit" Salome offered, patting a place on the sofa next to her.
Carla didn't move, she looked around the room, walking away from the woman.
"I am sorry to drag you here against your will, but we needed you for something… very important and we just couldn't afford you running away if we asked" The woman offered as a form of apology for drugging her and then bringing her to an unknown place to be kept prisoner.
"Of course, simply asking is boring and old fashioned, kidnapping and drugging are much more popular and modern" Carla joked.
Salome made a sad smile.
"No doubt Clive as explained why you are here?" Salome asked.
"Some babbling nonsense about a resurrection of a god named Lilith and that he is the vessel and I will give him the energy he needs to become her?" Carla asked, crossing her arms in front of herself.
"Yes, well, in his words, in my words, what will happen is; we will drain Clive of his blood, then with the right amount of your blood and the blood of Lilith, which this authority holds in a vault, to protect it, Clive will become Lilith herself" Salome explained, so sure she was right.
"It won't work" Carla assured her. "Do you not understand? We do not become exactly who we drink from, we are not the same consciousness, we are only a copy with the physical capabilities and, from what I have seen, we develop psychic links with vampires. But apart from that, they are still separate" Carla explained.
"But that is it, Clive will link with Lilith herself, then he will be able to channel her very being and consciousness into himself. Lilith is dead, she does not have a physical form, so with Clive having her blood inside him, she will be able to inhabit his body" Salome explained.
Carla shook her head.
"Don't worry, we will not need you for long. I assure you, it will be over very soon and then you will be free to go, I promise you"
"And what if I want to go now?" Carla asked.
"That cannot be allowed" Salome sighed. "I was hoping that I would not come to this, as I assure you that we are not here to harm you seriously, but, I have unparalleled access to Eric and I will be forced to harm if you do not comply"
"Strange, you seemed pretty sure that you wanted him on your side, from what I heard?" Carla asked, calling her bluff.
"Alas, that is only for Nora. She aided me greatly with my plans and so I am paying her back with giving Eric a chance to be a part of something bigger" Salome admitted. "But he is, shall we say… disposable"
Carla wasn't sure if she was being honest or if she was simply forcing her to bend to her will and be a part of these vampire experiments.
But she was sure, however, that she could not allow any harm to come to Eric as a fault of hers, not even if it was unlikely that Salome would. Considering how broken she had felt when she thought that Eric was moving away to run from the Authority, she didn't know how terrible she would feel if he actually met the true death.
"Fine" Carla said, agreeing to go along with the vampire's wishes, to avoid any harm coming to Eric and hinging on the weak promise that she may be set free once they had finished.
"Good to hear it" Salome smiled pleasantly, it was unknown whether it was genuine or sadistic.
Hours later Carla was sat in the room she had woken up in again, alone, staring intently at the camera that was focused on her, her back to the door.
There was no clock in the room so the hours seemed to blur together. She didn't know if it was day or night, morning or evening, today or tomorrow.
Eric probably didn't even know she was here, he probably thought she was home and safe with Sookie, how wrong he was.
She sighed, pulling her legs close to herself, balling up.
"Don't doubt Eric... he's been there when you have needed him before" Godric's voice sounded in her mind. Carla looked over at his glowing image in the corner of the room, beneath the camera.
Godric was right.
Carla couldn't lose faith, that was the short road to losing your mind.
"Tell me, did you find your redemption?" Carla used her telepathy to ask him, not wanting to speak out loud with the camera's glass eye watching her.
"Not the kind of redemption I had expected, more peace, a place without pain or regret" Godric replied, a passive smile on his face, calm.
"Life truly is suffering" Carla let out a small sigh.
"That is why you must focus on what makes all the suffering worth it" Carla nodded.
Suddenly the door behind her demagnetised and began to open.
She shot up and backed away, her muscles tense ready for what might be on the other side.
A soldier, much like the ones who had come to pick up Russel when they had found him was holding his gun aiming right at her, he took a single shot.
Completely unsuspecting of this, the shot hit her just below her collarbone.
Though it wasn't a normal bullet. She raised her hand and wrapped her fingers around it, pulling it out of her skin.
It was a blow dart, like you see people use on wild animals when they need to sedate them.
The drugs had been dispensed, as the vial attached to the needle was empty.
The drug was a very strong sedative, as it almost instantly kicked in, causing her muscles to relax completely, meaning she fell in a heap on the floor and then her consciousness faded as her eyes blinked shut.
The whole world was shaking furiously as if there was an earthquake. She felt her relaxed and aching muscles limply refusing to hold onto something for dear life.
Her head was lolling back, not being held up. Carla licked her lips, that were dry as a bone.
She let out a small cough, feeling the life slowly return to her.
"CARLA! WAKE UP!" She heard a voice yelling down to her.
She opened her eyes, only to find Eric's eyes looking straight down into hers.
She pulled her head up to look at him properly, blinking a few times.
"What happened?" She asked him, as if he might know.
Was it all a dream?
Carla glanced around the room, no indeed it was not.
She was still in the room, on the bed, in Eric's arms, he was down on his knees on the mattress.
"I don't know, I found you like this, what're you doing here, are you hurt?" He asked, his eyes running down her body.
Her clothes were stained with blood at the wrists, but she was without injuries.
"No, I must have been healed… How did you find me?" Carla asked, as he still had his strong arms around her, gratitude and hope ran through her.
"I tried to escape, with my sister one of the other vampires here who's not on board. Bill, turns out Bill is a traitor, he turned us into Salome and I was thrown in here, I found you laid out, unconscious" Eric explained.
"Oh, well it seems like there may have been a monumental fuck up. You weren't meant to know i was here, they must have taken my blood while I was out" Carla explained, not wanting to move from his hold and it looked like he wasn't moving soon either.
"Your blood? Why?" Eric asked, obviously completely unknowing of what had been happening.
"Clive is here, him and that woman called Salome are trying to bring about the resurrection of a god called Lilith, with my blood and Clive's body, they think that he will transform into Lilith herself. He's completely off the rails, he thinks that when he is close to death itself he will be able to become her" Carla explained, as best she could considering the simple insanity of the claim.
"Lilith…" Eric muttered, deep in thought.
"Who is she?" Carla asked, as Eric placed her back down on the bed, much to Carla's disappointment.
"She's written about in the vampire bible, she's called the progenitor, the first vampire and according to the book she was made in God's image, God being a vampire" Eric explained in short.
"Oh… yes, we have one of those, but not so pretentious" Carla said, speaking about the World Mother, their god, of which their people were fashioned and differentiated.
"These vampires are using Lilith as an excuse to start a full scale civil war with the humans, Bill had a bright idea to bomb all of the true blood factories, now mainstreaming vampires are feeding off humans" Eric added.
"So Bill's off the rails too? Trust the dedicated mainstreamer" Carla sighed. "Wait, you tried to escape, why haven't you been executed?" Carla asked, which was a little blunt, but it was what she would have expected.
"Nora and Bill claim that they will convert me, but I only have a short time to accept Lilith, or the other chancellors will push for my execution" Eric swung his legs over the side of the bed, glancing up at the camera that was intently watching them.
Carla sat next to him.
"Why didn't you try to escape?" Eric asked, looking the woman in the eyes.
"Salome threatened to kill you if I didn't comply" Carla said.
Eric blinked at her, as if he doubted only that would hold her back.
"No doubt after they are finished with me Russel will kill me, he's desperate to settle the score" Carla muttered, feeling the hope she had rekindled while Eric was holding her become sapped away again.
"Carla" Eric scolded, turning his body to place his palm on her cheek, letting it fall from her face slowly before pausing to stroke her lips with his thumb. "Don't be that way, I will do everything in my power to prevent that, and I will meet the true death before I let him harm you" Eric promised her.
Carla let out a small breath of air, lacing her arms under Eric's, as he wrapped his arms around her back, with one of them slowly stroking her hair.
Suddenly the door noisily demagnetised and slid open.
Eric shot up at vamp speed, in sheathing his fangs with a loud click, looking who was standing on the other side.
It was Nora.
She walked him and caught his arm.
"Come brother, it is time" she said in a calm voice, cuffing him in silver, which he didn't resist, as there would be little point.
He grimaced as the silver burnt him.
Carla stood up, moving closer, before noticing the guard standing outside, which his gun aimed straight at her.
"Please… Don't hurt him" Carla begged Nora, who looked up at her and blinked.
"Why would I? I'm saving him" Nora stated, before walking out of the room, her hand on Eric's arm, leading him away.
Eric took a last glance at Carla, winking at her quickly before he disappeared from the doorway and the door closed.
Carla had no idea how long she had been in that one room, many times she had been tranquilized and taken from the room, only to wake up again on that bed, her clothes covered with blood with no wounds to be found.
This was the norm for an unknowable amount of time, until there was a heavy thumping from the other side of the door.
Instead of the normal crackling and then swoosh of the door opening, it was more like the door was being broken down from the outside.
A large dent formed in the centre of the door and then with one final hit, it flew from its hinges and smashed into the wall opposite, creating a large dent in the concrete, from which debris puffed everywhere in a sooty shower.
Carla sat up from the bed, expecting the shape of Eric to appear on the other side, unfortunately, she was not that lucky.
A shorter, older frame walked in, with its usual casual saunter.
"Well, hello my little kitten, care to come for a stroll?"
Carla's eyes widened.
Oh dear.
So who can guess who it is who has come to get Carla? If it's not Eric, then who? :O
Please review and tell me what you thought, i love reading all reviews i get and thank you so much to all those who have!
I hope those who are reading my fiction are enjoying it and if so please tell me! It's good to know that you are enjoying what i write!
I have been watching True Blood and i am very sad that it's now finished for good. :(
Though i have now decided where i want Carla to be in the six month gap at the end of the sixth season, so i may soon be finished with this fanfic.
Thank you again and have a great day!
Until next time,
-Shad out ;)