Chapter 19: Lilith Rising

Eric snapped back to reality. He was still in Salome's room. An excruciatingly loud alarm was going off, there were sounds of guns shooting and screams from a distance. He felt the walls tremble around him. Raven was limp in his arms, lightly gurgling blood. He held the empty glass bottle in his hand. What have I done? Breathe left him as a chill went down his spine. Her lips were slightly blue and her heart rate was slowing down. He dropped the bottle which shattered into a million pieces when it hit the floor. He held Raven tighter, his knees gave out and he too, crumbled on the floor. What have I done?

"Raven? Raven wake up!" He ordered. The witch looked so small in his arms, the warmth of her body leaving her as seconds went by. He shook her. "Raven!"

Her eyes opened slightly and she looked a little more alive once she saw his face.

"You're okay," he told her. "You're fine."

He bit his hand hard and put it on her lips. As soon as she swallowed, her body heaved and she coughed it all out, moaning in pain.

"No, no, Raven you have to take it. You have to heal," he bit his hand again, but when he looked at her face, he stopped. Blood was coming from her tear duct, nose and ears. He could feel her magic pull drifting. Raven was dying and it was his fault.

"It's okay, Eric," she whispered. "In another life maybe…" her voice trailed off.

"In another life," he repeated holding her body closer, wishing he could make time stop. "I would have loved you so much more than this."

She nodded smiling. It looked like she was happy to see him. Did she even know he was the one who did this to her? Did she forgive him? "Just hold me," she asked.

And so he did. He gently rocked her, telling himself she was going to sleep. Her skin felt ice cold. Raven's heartbeat was fading away, he could no longer hear it with all the noise coming from the Authority. With his sleeve, he cleaned her face off blood. He watched Raven die before when Bill had shot her. And before that, he thought he lost her at Moon Goddess Emporium. He never felt so angry with himself for letting it happen again. And not only for not being able to save her this time, but being the one to do this to her. How could he do such a thing? Kill someone who was nothing but kind to him? How could there be a spell that compelled him to do this? If he ever saw Elijah Blackwood again, he would drain the son of a bitch, slowly and painfully. He would pay for this.

Eric couldn't help but ask himself: why? Why make her drink it? Did he not know what this was? Maybe he would have to torture the sorcerer a bit before. He hadn't waterboarded someone in a while. There was no way Elijah didn't know she would die if she took it. Who would do this to his own daughter? Eric would torture him slowly, and the pain would be agonizing. He would enjoy hearing him scream and beg him to stop - and he would not stop. No, it would last forever.

Then it hit him like a wave during a storm crashing against the rocks. The deep, unforgiving cold. The awful full-body chill. Their bond was shattered once again, by a higher, more powerful blood. It hurt every single bone in his body. It was like he was being held under freezing arctic water. He had to concentrate to get past it. Then the awful feeling stopped. It was gone. It was all gone. No more heartbeat, warmth, magic, no more pull. It had all stopped. Raven Blackwood was dead.

He took solace in thinking Raven was with her sisters now, dancing in a circle somewhere in the woods around a great big fire. And Godric would be there too. He would be happy to see his friend, and Raven would tell him all about Eric. Godric would be happy Eric loved her. He hoped Raven would forgive him for all the fucked up things he had done. For not saving her.

He felt a part of him die with her.

Eric got up, still holding her body tight. He carried her across the room towards the hallway. He was going to take her back and bury her somewhere nice. Perhaps a black marble mausoleum worthy of holding royalty. He then felt a strange prickle on his skin. The hair on the back of his neck raised quickly. There was something wrong - something was off.

He heard the sound of bones loudly cracking, and it was coming from Raven's body. Her eyes opened wide, but the eyes that looked at him were not Raven's sapphire blue eyes.

They were bright red.

Everything went quiet. When Holly opened her eyes, the room's lights went all out with the exception of the candles around them. The whole house had fallen into darkness. Lafayette looked as puzzled as she was.

"What happened? Why did you stop?" She asked him.

"But I didn't," he said. "What happened to all the lights?"

The house felt eerily quiet and small. It was like someone pushed all the furniture together, or the room shrunk somehow. Had the haunting gone wrong? She didn't think so. She remembered there were guards trying to get into the house, and spirits had locked every nook and cranny shut in that beautiful plantation home. She could remember Jessica running around the house like a mad woman, avoiding the Raven-looking creature they created who chased her by crawling quickly on the walls and ceilings like an enormous spider. Holly also felt incredibly cold, so she wrapped her cardigan around her tighter.

"Lucifer?!" Lafayette called out.

The little piglet looked asleep in the circle with them. He acted as an amplifier to their powers. Lafayette was a naturally born medium, but they had to perform the biggest magic ritual to date - and without Raven or Jesus. Lafayette poked the pig's belly gently, but his hand quickly recoiled.

"He's dead." His eyes opened wide. "Shit! Did we do this?"

Nonsense. Familiar's don't die unless… Lafayette got up and got his phone from the coffee table, and quickly dialled. Had they done this to him? Or had something absolutely terrible happened to Raven and Jesus? Holly couldn't look away from the little pig. He looked so small, and its colour was quickly fading away.

Fading away. She noticed the African violets on a shelf were now wilting. The grandfather clock had stopped ticking. Holly took notice of dust covering everything, as if they sat in the circle for years. Lafayette paced around the room.

"Answer the phone!" He grunted, pacing around, looking out the window to check they hadn't been discovered. There was no one out there. "Holly, neither of them are picking up,"

"Lafayette, look -" she called him into the study.

They both stood by the door looking at the room, knowing exactly what it all meant. Raven's witch den was empty. Every piece of magic artifact, book, every bottled potion, every ingredient, crystal and map - was gone. It is exactly what happened when a pureblood witch died and their house was left to no one. Everything disappeared with it so it would never be found by humans.

Raven Blackwood was dead.

Eric dropped the body instantly, but instead of falling, it floated upright in the air and then landed softly on her feet. The more he looked at Raven, the less she looked like herself. Her smile had changed to an evil and cold grin. The creature stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders as if it were adjusting herself to its new body. Her cold smile revealed long sharp vampire fangs. She had turned, somehow.

"Who are you?" Eric asked.

The creature hissed and made an inhuman noise. Kill her, Pam's voice told him in his head. He refused to kill Raven, but the woman standing in front of him was not her. No, she was someone else.

"Who are you?!" He roared, grabbing the stake quickly.

The woman lunged herself at him, jumping high and fast. With one swift motion, the stake went right through her heart. The creature stopped, her fangs still out angrily. She looked up at him, furiously. She pushed herself off, and Eric expected her to stumble and die. The stake impaled her but she didn't bleed. She didn't turn gray or started to wilt. The woman took out the stake as if it were just a topical wound.

Next, she waved her hand, and a gust of air lifted Eric and threw him six feet back, pinning him against a stone column. She approached slowly, eyeing him as if he were candy.

The creature's arm held the stake high, wounding up the strength to stab him in the chest, just as he did to her. Eric closed his eyes, waiting for his true death. Killed by God would be a fitting end. More than he bargained for, really. He tried to imagine someone else stabbing him. Raven was gone, and she wouldn't do this to him. Eric couldn't help but feel like he deserved to die.

But nothing happened. He opened his eyes again, and the creature was still there, stake raised high. She stabbed the air, the sharp tip of the wood hitting an invisible wall three inches from his. Eric noticed a red mark on her shoulder as if it were a scar glowing in the shape of an X just underneath her collarbone.

"The vow," he muttered.

Raven had made a vow to be his, and somehow this creature was bound by it. The woman hissed and growled like an animal. Whatever spell she put on him, started to fade away as his feet landed on the ground. He walked towards the woman, and she stepped back frightened at the realization that she could not hurt him.

Nora ran into the room. "Eric!" She cried. "What-" Nora examined Raven - or whatever she was now - and she dropped to her knees. "Lilith," Nora whispered, looking down at the ground. "You've returned."

The creature shrieked loudly, but somehow it spoke in a way only Nora understood. His sister looked frightened. The woman handed Nora the stake, and Eric had put two and two together. Lilith commanded Nora to finish him.

Red tears ran down Nora's face. "Please spare him, Mother," she begged.

The woman shrieked louder, and Nora flinched and got up at once. He was hurt that she would even consider doing this - killing her own brother. But Nora chose Lilith over him over, and over, and over again, why would this time around be any different?

"That's some God you have, Nora," he told Nora, disappointed in his sister.

Nora stopped, and she looked up meeting his eyes. She then turned around and faced Lilith again. "I can't Lilith. I've killed plenty for you, but I will not turn on my brother."

Before Lilith could act, Eric shoved the creature across the room, throwing her small body against the column with every ounce of strength he had. The column broke in half.

"Let's go!" He yelled at Nora, grabbing her arm.

They both ran away, leaving seconds before the ceiling in the room collapsed. They kept running, realizing the sound of guns and screams was only getting closer. Nora was still crying, looking back at the life she was leaving behind. Everything Salome had brainwashed her to believe in was a lie. But she had to keep it together now more than ever, they weren't out of the woods yet. He was going to take her to the control room so she could disarm the alarm and unlock the elevator.

"I don't understand, Eric." She told him. "I read the book a thousand times and nowhere it said anything about her resurrection. Why would Lilith want me to kill another vampire? We are all her children,"

"Oh, Lilith came back alright, Nora," he told her. "But not for you."

Jesus led all the prisoners to an emergency stairwell. He found the key card for it on the goop puddle of a guard he shot through the chest with silver bullets. Tara was killing some guards down the hall. They took a path of no return when they accidentally entered the wrong room and found all those people in cells. Rescuing the Authority's prisoners was not a part of Raven's plan then, but it was now.

"Sookie, aren't you coming?" He asked, holding the door open.

"Go," Sookie asked. "I gotta get Bill. Make sure it's safe up there?"

He nodded pointing at a mystery wooden box he was holding before disappearing behind the heavy fire escape door. Sookie ran down the hallway but didn't see Tara anywhere. She started to panic, being down here all alone with the alarm blaring. She tried to remember the layout of this maze - it wasn't as simple as Eric made it out to be. Bedrooms were on the lower floors, she remembered. She found a set of staircases leading that way. There were blood spatters everywhere, and fire damage. Fire? She heard voices coming from a room. The second she entered, she saw him. The only person is this whole place who mattered.

"Bill!" She cried in relief.

He looked scared to see her. There was so much pain in his eyes, what had happened to him in this place?

"Accerso!" Raven's father yelled. A bright green light shined in the room. Sookie didn't know what was going on, but she had a bad feeling about it. "Eric Northman, take Raven to the light."

"What?"

Eric's eyes were dark. She saw that look before, in the vampire zombies, Marnie made in her store. She wasn't sure what the wizard meant, but he was in control of Eric right now. Eric staked Bill on the leg, pinning him to the large bed. His scream of pain made her stomach turn.

"Bill!" She ran to him after Eric ran after Raven.

"Sookie!" He held her face with both hands. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to get your sorry ass outta here," she told him, trying to get the stake off, but it was stuck on the bed. Eric really put it in there.

"I can't, Sookie," Bill whispered. "I need this, I was chosen. You have to go, if Lilith sees you she will kill you,"

"Then come with me! Come home Bill," she begged. "Jessica needs you…. I Need you. This isn't you."

Bill's face flushed with anger. "And what the fuck do you know about me? All I did to you was a calculated act,"

"No!" She yelled. "No, it was not Bill! You know it wasn't. You are stronger than this! You are compassionate and kind. You are unlike any vampire I've ever met," Bill said nothing, so she continued. "I love you, Bill Compton. I have always loved you, and I know in my heart I always will. Now please help me get this thing off you! Please!"

He shook his head. "I spent my entire life apologizing for existing. Believing I was inherently wrong. I lived in fear that God had forsaken me, that I was damned. But Lilith granted me the freedom to be who I really am."

"If your God doesn't want us to be together, then that's not a God you should believe in." A red tear rolled off his cheek. She could tell he was conflicted. "I thought pushing you away would make my life feel better but it didn't. Everything's worse. I should have never broken up with you. Now please, Bill, choose me, I am begging you."

Sookie put her forehead on his. After everything they've been through, how could he not? "Choose me. Choose us,"

He broke down, nodding. "Go help Raven, I'll have to push the stake all the way through and you won't wanna see that,"

Sookie nodded, relieved Bill was coming with her. She focused on her light. Maybe zapping him would break whatever spell the wizard did. Her light flickered weakly between her fingers but it wasn't enough. Dammit, did I use it all?! Raven was getting crushed by Eric's hand and she had to act quickly. Sookie ran and tackled Eric, trying to get him off the witch. She was their way out of here. As soon as she landed on his tall shoulders, he threw her off like a ragdoll. She felt her body land on a soft antique couch that flipped over with her.

"Sookie, get out of here!" Raven yelled. "Get Bill and GO!"

Bill let out a loud grunt as he got off the bed, leaving a 3-inch hole through his thigh that she could see straight through. Sookie got up, dizzy, stumbled to Bill, put his arm around her shoulder and helped him out of the room. Ten feet down the hallway his leg healed properly and they ran away together.

They heard a chilling animal noise echo through the alarms. Something really bad had happened. Sookie and Bill made it to the main elevator, trying to get out of this hell. The elevator took forever to come. Bill looked uneasy the entire time. He kept looking back at the hallway from where they just came from. She wondered if he regretted coming with her. Sookie was scared of what she would see upstairs, given they sounded the alarm when they rescued all the humans from the cells. Hopefully, Jesus had found a way to get everyone out of the compound before all the troops came back. Surely the Authority guards would have figured out their diversion and turned around. Finally, the doors opened and they hopped in.

"Wait!" A voice called out from the hallway.

Eric and another woman - who was not Raven - squeezed in the elevator with them. Was that Nora? Who was she?

"You are yourself again," Bill noticed.

"Are you?" He asked, towering Bill. Next, he glared at Sookie.

"Oh my, what are you?" Nora said, hypnotized. "You smell so good,"

"Back off lady!" Sookie yelled.

"Can you remind me what part of the fucking plan included sounding the alarm?!" Eric scolded Sookie. "And where's Pam?"

"I don't know. Where's Raven?! She was supposed to teleport us back to Shreveport!"

"Raven's dead," Nora spoke. Sookie's heart sank a bit. What the hell did Eric do? "And I don't know who that was, but that was not the Lilith depicted in the Book."

"Lilith returned?"

"In Raven's body," Nora explained.

Bill looked as if he was going to pass out, but Eric shook him by the shoulders. "Bill, how many bulletproof vans were left in the garage?" he asked.

"There should be at least one,"

"They will be waiting for us up there," Nora said.

The elevator doors opened and they could hear the alarm, sound of gunshots and people shouting very closely. They ran up the stairs and into the warehouse. The military was here, having a full-on war with the Authority guards. Sookie recognized a face on the floor. It was Jesus.

"No!" She cried, shaking his cold body. "No!" She cried again.

His neck had been broken. His blue eyes were cold, his fingers grasped a wooden box tight to his chest. Amidst the chaos, a van charged at them. The side door slid open, revealing Tara in the back and Pam on the wheel. Sookie took the box from Jesus, and suddenly everything shook. There was a big explosion underground and the building next to theirs caved in.

"We gotta go!" Tara yelled at Sookie. Everyone was in the van already, but her.

"Help me carry him!" Sookie cried. "We can't leave him!"

Tara ran out of the van and carried his body inside. Sookie followed him inside and slammed the doors shut.

"Let's ditch this party," Eric said, now behind the wheel. Tires screeched the ground as soon as the doors closed. Eric was trying desperately to find a way out, dodging both the Authority and the military. Sookie held Jesus's hand, completely heartbroken. He died trying to get all those people out while Sookie was too busy saving Bill. But how was she supposed to choose?

"What's that?" Nora asked, pointing at the box.

Sookie wiped away the tears and looked at her lap. For vampire emergencies only, it said. And then below were some words in a foreign language she didn't know. She had no idea what it was, all she knew is that Raven gave it to Jesus to keep him safe. Now they were both dead.

"If this ain't a vampire emergency, I don't know what is!" Tara said.

"Well, I don't know how to use it!" Sookie cried. She was too scared to open the box.

Sookie glanced at Bill, hoping he would know what to do, but he just stared off in the distance, in total and complete shock at the chaos surrounding him.

"Give it here," Nora took the box from her.

The van did a sharp turn and they all had to hold onto their seats. Nora studied the foreign words on the lid for a moment before taking the courage to say them. "Mortuus apes, mortuus apes, animari et vide, unus lamia, duo lamis, quaerens enim aurum."

Suddenly the box started to vibrate and buzz loudly like bees. Whatever it was Nora did, it sounded like a bomb was going to explode. Like a reflex, Nora opened the back door and tossed the box out. It broke open when it hit the concrete floor and about a thousand of shimmering insects swarmed the warehouse. They started attacking everyone, and Eric rolled up all the windows of the van before any insects could get it. A symphony of exploding bodies and screams echoed in the warehouse. They were enchanted silver bees. Thank God they didn't open the lid inside the van.

Eric turned on the windshield wiper, cleaning off dead silver bugs that hit against the glass. He found a breach between two now unmanned tanks and drove off the compound. Out of the back window, they could see a tower of blue light from the pile of rubble. It reached all the way to the sky.

"What do you think that is?" Sookie asked.

No one could tell, exactly. It was scary, and beautiful at the same time. A figure emerged from the rubble and flew upwards from the light. They didn't have to ask who that was - the white skin and long black hair didn't lie.

"That's Raven! She's alive!" Sookie yelled.

Eric said in a deep, disappointed voice. "Witches don't fly."

And he drove on. Was she a vampire now? Sookie wanted to ask what the hell happened back in the bunker. Why did the witch's father make Eric do whatever it is that he did, but she thought better not to. Bill looked at the floor, he looked devastated. She had never seen him so down. They drove on through the dark. Surrounding the compound was just wetlands and the barely lit dirt road they were on. Suddenly Eric stopped the van.

"Pam, take the wheel." He ordered, as he opened the door and got out of the van.

"Wait! Where are you going?!" Pam cried.

"I just spotted Elijah Blackwood in the rearview mirror," he told them, shutting the door. "I've got a witch to hunt."

And just like that, Eric was gone.

Eric saw Elijah walking in the middle of the road, from about 400 feet. The old man emerged from the woods somewhere and now walked towards the burning compound with its new tower of blue light. Eric ripped a 10-foot tall street lamp off the ground and faster than he ever moved before, he ran towards the warlock, wrapped the metal pole around his torso twice cutting off his magic. He never wanted so badly to kill someone. The man looked like he had a mental breakdown, crying, laughing and babbling random words at the same time.

The Bishop looked and pointed at the blue light, still visible a mile away. He could still hear explosions too. The two men were in the middle of nowhere, and Eric heard no cars coming from any direction. They seemed to be on the outskirts of an old abandoned industrial park. Elijah paid him absolutely no mind, it was like the old man was high or drunk, on his own doing. Eric slapped the man on his face, hard, leaving a cut on his cheekbone. It was enough to redirect his attention at the fact he was powerless and alone in the middle of a dirt road with the vampire he just tricked into killing his daughter. He stopped laughing when he met Eric's eyes. It took him everything he had not to tear his head off right now.

He crouched down, to look at him closely. "You have exactly five minutes to tell me what the hell you've done to her. Make it count."

The old man frowned. "Do you believe in destiny, Mr. Northman?" He asked calmly.

"No, I fucking don't."

The man chuckled, shaking his head. "Of course, you don't. Well, let me tell you a small passage from the Book of Prophecies: At cold Moon, the blood of Her covenant will be spilled, an immortal shall take Her vessel to the light and She will rise again. I don't expect you to be familiar with this, of course, most witches don't even remember this one. But when my lovely Marion found this on a mere footnote of the sacred Book she had this revelation-"

"You have three minutes left," Eric interrupted.

Elijah sighed. "The mortal human body can host the spirit of a mortal soul with more or less no damage. However, when even the lowest grade demons try to take mortal flesh as a host, their bodies quickly rot. Demons, not particularly far-sighted, they'll take human bodies anyway. Witches, however, have a natural resistance against the decay a demon soul would bring-"

"One minute."

"Raven was created to be the vessel for Lilith," the warlock confessed. "From her very conception, my daughter was born to fulfill this prophecy, you see? It was her destiny."

"Destiny? To do fucking what? Die?"

"For Lilith, to die for all of us. Raven brought us salvation!"

"So you're telling me that's a prophecy written somewhere, that somehow Raven Blackwood is some type of sacrificial lamb?"

"Yes! The second Marion found it, she received a vision from the Gods telling her it was true. We gathered a small following of believers who sacrificed themselves for the cause, and on that same night, Raven was conceived and born. It has cost me everything, Mr. Northman, but it was the only way to bring Lilith back,"

"Everything? Really? How very fucking convenient for you, isn't it? Having everyone make The Big Sacrifice while you are out here breathing?"

"You don't understand-"

"You are right, I don't. You are her father! How could you do this to her?!" Eric's voice echoed angrily.

The old man sat quietly, slumping down in defeat. "I felt like an absolute monster as soon as I first held her, you know? She was so small, Raven, when she was born. But she cried like a fighter, ever since she took her very first breath, I knew they were counted - and it was my fault. Raising her was impossible, I was growing too attached, I started to regret it…" his voice trailed off. Elijah Blackwood's head was down, but Eric knew he was close to crying by the heavy sorrow in his voice.

"So you gave her up," Eric concluded. "You gave Raven away to be raised by someone else."

"Yes," he confessed in a big sigh.

"So you wouldn't grow too attached to your own kid… So you wouldn't stop yourself."

The man nodded, tears rolling down his face. Eric could not believe it. He was seeing it with his own eyes, listening with his own ears, yet..

"This entire time, you orchestrated for all of this to happen. You lied to her, tricked her into coming here-"

"Yes! But now… We have been saved, Mr. Northman. The dark Mother will save us all, you'll see."

Save from who, exactly? Humans? Vampires? Eternal damnation? And at what cost? He had her red eyes burned in the back of his head forever. The sound of her high pitched shriek. Everything made sense now. Why she could always hear the blood ringing, why Raven could see Lilith without taking her blood. Why the demon looked so much like Raven, or rather, why Raven looked so much like her.

"Undo it." He ordered.

The man started laughing again. "Not even I can raise the dead!"

Dead. Raven was… Dead.

"Un. Fucking. Do it." He said through his teeth, gripping the man's knee ready to crush it.

He winced, in pain before telling him. "Prophecies can't be undone, Mr. Northman. Dying by the hand of a vampire was her destiny." The man suddenly grinned. "Why do you think I let her play with you this whole time?"

Eric let go of his leg and snapped his neck, feeling the bones break under his fingers. He craved more so he tore his whole head clean off, feeling the warm blood gush on his clothes. He tossed his head on the ditch by the side of the road.

That kill… That felt better than he thought it would.

A.N.: I never killed a character before, and in one chapter I killed a bunch :( the story will go in a different direction than you probably thought, and there will be time jumps in the next few chapters but don't worry, I know where I'm going with this I swear! Just keep reading

RIP Raven Blackwood

RIP Jesus Velasquez

RIP Salome Agrippa

RIP (but not really) Elijah Blackwood