Whatever I had expected—it was not this. The place, sure. If someone had pressed me on offering a prediction, I would have said three to one odds on the Bon Temps cemetery. That's where all the dreams, including the one from this afternoon, had been set. That's where I had last seen my Great-grandfather, where I had accepted the gift to defeat whatever had been coming my way, that unstoppable thing that had now arrived. But the fairy bulb outdoor lights strung prettily above the graves, forming a kind of tent with their formation? No. The relaxed, chatty vibe of the attendees, mulling under the tent of light, catching up with their fellow witchy naturists, some holding flutes of champagne in their hands, or goblets of blood for the dozen or so nameless vampires sprinkled amongst the crowd of about fifty? No. The similar chiffon shifts as I was wearing on every man, woman, and vampire alike—the only difference in the absence of embroidery on the others' outfits? No. Expect the unexpected, or so the saying goes.

My guide/guard Stephanie had pelted me with question after question about Bill during our short walk from my front door to my row of family plots within the cemetery, the conspicuous center of the tent set-up, the strands of light gathering to a point almost directly above Sam's headstone. "What's his favorite movie? Does he prefer Type O or Type AB? Or a different type? How long had we dated? Could I give her a head's up on his bedroom preferences? As annoying and impertinent as her questions had been, they had kept my focus on something other than the certain pain that lay in my near future. My responses had been short and not so sweet: Any old movie. Type Me. Too long. Me in his bedroom. The witch hadn't cared for most of my answers, and I hadn't cared that she had.

The thought of running this late in the game hadn't entered my calculations—not with the image of Riley as someone's frizzy-haired filet mignon, or with the dozen minds I could sense lurking in the shade of the forest along my slow march. I was beginning to recognize the witches' spelled minds, different than the vampiric void, more like an old analog television tuned on a static channel—the static in the trees distinctly menacing and aimed at me. Skirting into the center of the tent with my guide, I had not noticed a single person—vampire or human—who I knew, though I had searched the crowd for someone, anyone, even Bill was a no-show. When Stephanie had escorted me to the side of "her most high priestess Lune," the moon-sick witch had stomped away, with the excuse that she had to robe herself in the ceremonial garb.

"Pauvre mignonette, were you very mean to her, Sookie?" the coven leader frowned, her shift wrapping around her long, brown legs as a cool breeze blew on this windless, warm December night. "She is such a sensitive soul, and a hopeless romantic. Be gentle next time."

I frowned, or glared, depending on the perspective. "Will there be a next time, Harriet?" If she treated me so familiarly, I sure as a witch's tit is hard would treat her the same. Manners be damned. I was her elder, anyway.

"There is always a next time to choose gentility," the witch replied, her low voice dropping a note at the end of the remark, as her nickel gaze slicked over me, unpleasant as turpentine. "I can see why the creatures of the shadows are so drawn to you—your skin shines as sunlight on sand in the gloom of night."

The witch's mouth had rasped this into my ear, and when I turned to her, I did not flinch away at her closeness. Ever since leaving my house, a vibrant force had been growing inside me. Maybe it was the nearness of death. It invigorated; it enlivened me, and like a drug, was making me reckless.

"If you look at, touch or speak to me again begging to get off, I swear, I'll rip your throat open right before I feed you to the vampires you buy as henchmen."

"I do not need to buy them. They have pledged fealty to their priestess."

"The same goes for my children as grandchildren. If that vampire you have threatening my grand babies loses control, you will lose your limbs. "

"Rest assured, you obey, and your family will be blessed." The witch smirked and leaned back then. "Your attraction has made me forget myself at times today. Apologies, dear Sookie. I will so miss your spunk."

As if that snarky send-off had been the sign, the entire atmosphere in the cemetery heightened. I couldn't see what had effected the shift, but trained my wary gaze on the dark point beyond the fairy lights (had the decor been intentional?) where all other attendees had looked.

A dreadful anticipation wicked my mouth dry, and drove my heart through my chest. I knew before I saw that I would discover those vampires in power who had orchestrated my demise, in concert with the spooky bitch at my side. But when he stepped into the aura of lights, his body cloaked in the chiffon shift, I struggled to believe my eyes. Expect the unexpected, as the saying goes.

The royal vampire approached me directly, and took my warm hands in his cold grip. "My dear, it has been well over fifty years, but I do declare, you don't look a day older than the last time I saw you!" His Mississippi accent spread over my hearing as soft butter over toast, and Russell Edgington kissed me on the cheek. "Your scent, it is positively heavenly!"

The King dropped my hands, nodded cordially at his witchy partner in crime, and put his arm around the vampire who had been standing at his rear. Another jolt of surprise. "Joe, my Son, old Hollywood scoundrel, you failed to mention the extent of Miss Stackhouse's—pardon me—Mrs. Merlotte's appetizing bouquet."

"I did try, Master, but how can one describe perfection? One can only experience it."

My mind was short-circuiting already as I watched the actor my Gran had swooned over for my entire shared existence with her, dressed in that damn transparent get-up, reach for my limp hand and sweep his lips against my knuckles, his own personal tent propping up on his body.

Completely unembarrassed, Joe slipped behind his Maker to blend in as best he could with the rest of the entourage. I noticed some of the vampires whose names I didn't know but whose faces I had seen less than twenty-four hours ago dancing under the strobe lighting of a disco ball. No Vincent, though.

The King brushed my cheek and his dark eyes pierced me. All the southern charm seeped out of his voice as he said, "Madame Lune, if your little ceremony goes awry and you fail to deliver," he looked to the witch, "I will burn you before the dawn after I have drained you." I shivered, try as I might to appear unphased, and saw the coven leader, for the first time, show a sliver of doubt.

"Your majesty, it will be as we discussed." Lune bowed her sleek, white head. "By the time the moon has set, you will have an eternal supply of her blood."

"Well then," the King announced, gesturing at me with flare, "Let's get on with the show."

And here I thought his son was the dramatic one.

At the King's announcement, a new rise of interest rolled through the crowd, the excitement as a wave at a baseball stadium; the collective attention of all present watching the shape of the spectators move up and down, an organism of the many reduced to the movement of the one. The anonymous audience of my oncoming, unknown end buckled around me. Since my entrance into the center of the tent of lights, the casual conversations and wandering freedoms had been dwindling, the indeterminate numbers of vague faces and matching shifts circling tighter and tighter in a concentric, chiffon prison.

I had been aware of my encroaching captivity, more tangible, and as sinister as the feeling of those eyes watching me from the forest on my path here, even as I had been distracted—the movement always in my periphery. When the final snap happened and I was truly locked into the middle, my hand reached out to Sam's headstone and I rested against its granite strength. Escape had moved from improbable to impossible. My last hope resided in me. Who knew where Eric or Pam or Alex or Karin was—or even Heidi. Not Freyda. She could rot for all I cared. Their benevolent host had proven to be the traitor—the spy. No leading man role for him this time. He had been cast as the villain. My worry for the vampires, however, had to hop in the backseat. They were fine, I assured myself. Eric would always be fine.

All this hushed situating had taken maybe two minutes, time moving in that surreal stop and go rhythm of a dying clock or an early movie camera. Lune remained at my side, a steady and unwelcome constant. The waiting for something was beginning to undo me. I had this flying, falling sensation riling my blood, wild and carefree and stuck in neutral. How could I prepare? Or plan? Or fight without knowing anything of what was coming—just then something did come. Another vampire. My breath blew a little easier from my lips; if nothing else, I was in the company of someone I knew.

The prison parted as Bill approached, his black eyes scanning the scene, his expression as inscrutable as ever, that onyx gaze resting awhile longer on me. Aside from his late arrival, he stood out because he wore clothes—one of his svelt, silk suits. He was not alone, in clothes or person, two massive vampire guards trailed behind him, as did Miss Priss Stephanie Gale, in her shift. The glam volume of her auburn hair was flattened, a paleness defined her cheeks, and even from this distance, I saw the red entrance wounds of fangs on her neck. She had got what she had wanted—and deserved. Now I noticed, in the glow of the white lights, the slight pink on Bill's papery skin, and with another glance at me, his quick mind add up the total outcome.

"There is a royal edict decreed on Mrs. Merlotte's behalf," the King of Louisiana turned to the King of Mississippi. "Tell me, why am I fighting against the impression that some gathered here mean her harm?"

Edgington smiled, palming up his hands. "Mea culpa, my fellow Majesty. I do know what this human once meant to you. I remember quite clearly her determination to set you free."

"That is neither here nor there at present. Last we spoke, I told you I was uninterested in your business endeavors, and if you attempted to infiltrate my state, I'd deal with you myself."

"This is no turf war, I assure you, and I am well within my rights of the edict, good King." Edgington winked at me. He knew about that loophole—I was certain Eric (wherever he was—he had to be safe, right?) did not blab about the fine print in his contract, which meant someone had told Edgington about it. "I tasted her before the edict was issued, therefore, I am able to feed from her, so long as she is willing."

"Sookie," Bill said, "are you—"

Bam! Like that the King of Louisiana fell flat on his face. I screamed, Edgington cursed, and the witch beside me said, "Good work, Stephanie." Bill's guards growled, ready to spring, when four of the indistinguishable vampires from my prison wall, tackled and subdued the behemoths with silver. Everything had happened in a minute's spin. Lungs hollow, I raced to Bill and rolled him over. The King was obsessed with me; his offer had been selfish and slippery, but he did not deserve this. He had been trying to reason a way out of this for me. No marks on him. No blood. No anything.

"What did you do to him?" I demanded Lune.

"I did nothing. Miss Gale was unaware the king had already declined our offer last year. She corrected her mistake in inviting him here tonight."

"Yeah. Well, I'll remake it for her."

A piece of an eroding headstone had splintered onto the grass near me. I grabbed the jagged shaft and raised it into the air to stab at my skin to revive Bill, when my arm was stopped by the bracing hold of Lune's grip.

"You will not heal him." She wrenched me up onto my feet, the shaft falling to the ground, and pulled me flush against her. The cushiony crush of her breasts pressed into my soft chest and the layer of chiffon chaffed my skin. My stomach churned at the forced intimacy. I knew I would be unable to stifle the white heat bowling ever faster within—and I didn't want to if I could—this was my power and she would not rook it from me. With a deep grunt, I yanked my arm away and shoved her over. She toppled onto her back and I stared down at her, the glory of my kin bright on my skin and strong in my blood.

"I warned you, witch."

A lusty smile spread below those hypnotic eyes. "Have you warned us all?"

Slowly I glanced around me, my shine quickly fading. There hadn't been a single distinct thought in the crowd tonight—a strange, exhilarating, horrifying thing for me. The minds were blank, or hummed as gibberish and noise. But right now, the noise hummed in sync; it hummed with sex. Sex with me. The vampires in the mass were jostling to come closer. Even the King of Mississippi stared at me with longing—and I was sure he hadn't been with a woman in centuries, if ever. The males around me could not disguise their desires. The cemetery was a damn campground. Tents for miles.

That's right, I reminded myself, I was trapped. I felt for Sam's headstone behind my back and rested against it as much as I could. Lune stood up, dusted off her shift, shouted something in French, and walked back to my side. I watched as two vampires rushed to Bill and lifted him by the shoulders and legs, carting him off somewhere. My gaze met Stephanie's troubled, lynx-like eyes. "Will the King be alright?" I asked, my attention on the other coven witch, the one I was beginning to wonder had been hoodwinked herself.

"Mais oui," Lune answered, "He will wake in his home tomorrow at sunset without any memory of tonight, but why should you care Sookie?"

Something hot and painful laced around my wrists behind me, and I keeled to the ground, the grass a sponge to my fall. "Distractions," I groaned.

Lune swayed above me, as did the starlit sky, the pain richocheting around my brain.

"No, Sookie, the time for distractions is past. The time for dedications is come." The crowd in front of me parted again. Clenching my jaw to block out the pain, I watched a procession of metal coffins stream towards me—six in all—and be positioned around me, as petals shooting out from a flower's pistol, Sam's grave and me that floral center. The shift-wearing pallbearers bowed to their priestess and retreated into the fluttering chiffon curtain of spectators, the curtain drawing shut again, but not before an additional guest appeared.

"Neal!" I gasped.

Bleeding, bitten, his scabbed and oozing skin hanging loosely from his skeleton, the torment of his body plain to see through the chiffon shift, my oldest son staggered through the shrinking path toward me, bumping into the audience and being shoved away. When as a mother that emptiness of something being off about her child gnaws in the gut, if she fails to follow up on the sensation, she will always live to regret it. From the moment Melly had told me Neal had taken that uncharacteristic car trip to visit his sister, I had known something was wrong. Angry with him, exhausted by everything else, I hadn't done what I normally would have done—and simply called to check in. Choose myself? Choose myself? I had chosen myself, and see what damage had been inflicted. Children may not pay for the sins of their fathers, but they always pay for the sins of their mothers.

My own pain evaporated, consumed by the pain I saw in my son's broken body. His eyes—his father's eyes—connected with mine but I could not read his thoughts. His brain was not asleep as Grace or that prison-guard from earlier; it buzzed like the witches' minds around me. His arms were bound behind his back, as my own were, and he tripped as he arrived in front of me, his wounded face skidding into the dirt. "Mommy," he wheezed, "I couldn't stop them."

It was the Mommy that did it. It had been probably forty-six years since my oldest had called me, Mommy. But I knew, in that instant, no matter what else happened, no matter if I died, the witch would die too, and at my hands. "Don't worry sugar, I'll stop them." I moved to caresses his cheek, forgetting momentarily that I was handcuffed with the poisonous binding, and after sucking in the sting from the attempt to move my hands, I caressed my son with my gaze.

"Sweet," Lune sighed above me.

My eyes flashed at her, hard as flint, and I stood on my feet, the pain so great it sliced down through my abdomen as a spear. "What have you done to him? What has bitten him?" Sweating and dizzy with agony, my voice held true.

"The better question, cher, is not what," she leaned over and caressed my son as I had wanted to, "but why."

"Get away from him!" I yelled, and for the first time, my fire ignited in my words. Lune's hand jerked away from Neal as if it had been shocked. She looked at me, her expression shrewd, wiggling the fingers on the affected hand. "For now," she said, and then she raised herself to her full height, and looked around at her congregation. The hum of the minds slowed; a snap of electricity sizzled. The witch was now a priestess.

"Children," she cried, her voice full of depth and conviction, "daughters and sons and shadows of nature, we are here to usher in a new dispensation of healing for our Mother, a new era of growth and harmony. We have prayed for her guidance, for the fortitude to seek out and find the eternal blessing of her renewal, not the counterfeit healing of the period of stabilization, this false miracle that so many of her children worship as the true and lasting redemption of her soil."

Lune was weaving in and out of the coffins, staring into the crowd, daring all to meet her eye, her expression as fierce as battle. I was one of the few not in rapture of her words, my attention on my son, whose breath labored to enter and leave his lungs, and whose consciousness ebbed and flowed with his suffering. I slid my foot beside his face and he rested his wounded cheek on my bare skin, curving it along the slope of my ankle. I willed whatever healing was in my body to seep into my son, but I could not tell if the fresh warmth on my foot was a sign of an answer to my inner plea or the heat of Neal's skin.

The Mississippi contingent, the King switching from bored, cleaning his nails, or hungry, licking his chops in my direction, were the only other attendees not into the whole eco-terrorism as religion—because the witch's sermon was really hitting its full bat-shit crazy stride about now, listing off the many ways in which humans and supernaturals had disappointed their Mother Earth and how to regain her trust. My love for peace amongst creatures and clean living was as sincere as the next person—and I was fairly sure most Mother Naturists were more a free love and pay it forward type of worshipper—but these radical witches and vampires had taken the call to treat nature with care and attention to next level insanity. Lune was actually talking about making love with trees—not a figurative tree-hugging type of devotion, but adoring the earth in a physical way by literally stripping and humping an oak.

I was being killed for this? Sam had died for this? Neal had been tortured and now bled on my foot, for this? If I wasn't on high alert, my brain speeding through Neal's and my limited options for coming out of this alive—unscathed was not on the table—I think I'd be insulted, not only for myself, but for the poor trees. What had they ever done to her? Something had gone wrong in this witch's mind as a child. She had learned a warped moral from the Giving Tree tale. Sadly for the elms and willows—who would surely be weeping about this (har-har?) —I had to think of other things. Option One: I shine, if I can figure out a way past the spine-cracking pain, and everybody is so distracted again that Neal can get away— but I'm left in the same spot. Option Two: I race over to that shard of tombstone somewhere on the grass, somehow pick it up with my restraints, race back over to Lune, stab her—and in the confusion that ensues, all the vampires ignore me? The best-tasting blood bag they'll ever meet? Option Three: Revisit one and two.

Lune was gearing up to a grand finale, and reeled me back into her wacked vortex. I tracked her with guarded eyes, and whispered words of encouragement to my son. He had finally succumbed to unconsciousness, which must only be a blessing. The priestess slammed her fists on one of the coffins to emphasize her belief in the symbiotic beauty of life, because nothing says working together for mutual good like an angry smack down on a coffin.

I wondered who was in those coffins—in at least five of them. I had known from the moment the pallbearers had appeared that Eric was in one of them. For all I knew, his clan was in there too. It was the only reason he wouldn't have shown up by now. The cemetery was too close to my home for him to be on the hunt for me, and on this night he would be on the hunt for me, and somehow overlook the sounds and smells and lights coming from here. I couldn't sense any life within the coffins, and suspected a cloaking spell like the one that had masked Alex was in use again. And it had taken Jennings and me to crack that nut.

"Children! That is why," Lune's crazed voice carried into the night and into my mind, "we have wandered far, hoped much, and sacrificed all, for this day, for this night, when we will finally meet our Mother in the flesh." The priestess pointed to me and all eyes followed, even the King's apathetic ones. "Her vessel stands before you—beautiful and powerful and a beacon of light on her own—renewed for this occasion, something I had never dreamed was possible. But the Mother chose this vessel. She chose to come to us, not in the wise elegance of age as we had once believed, but in the fertile vitality of youth. It is the Mother's will and her will shall be accepted."

Oh no. Was she saying what I thought she was? Lune approached me, stepping over my son as if he was a worm unworthy of her notice, and cupped my chin in her hand. I tugged away and she tugged me right back. I had to use all my energy not to lose it from the pain coiling through my body, a pain suffocating my flame.

"This creature is unlike any we have known before. Her vessel is unique." She released me and turned back to her audience—whose thick anticipation almost strangled me. "The spirit within this vessel will leave on the death of the body, and the spirit of our Mother will rise in the body with the solstice moon. Tonight, as we mark the death of nature for a new year, we will mark the rebirth of its Mother—who will save us all from ourselves."

Yes, yes, she was saying what I thought. I had been wrong. This wasn't about finding harmony by turning Eric human. Alex had been wrong, too. This wasn't about creating a supernatural super blood bond. She really was a mad, evil genius. She believed she could turn me into Mother fucking Nature. I guess calling myself a fairy goddess had been low-balling it.

"Now," Lune said, smiling greedily at me, "the ceremony begins!"

Cheers, applause, and amens erupted from the congregation, but I didn't think there was much to clap about at the moment. Even if my hands hadn't been tied around my back. Not much at all.

A kind warmth rushed at my side, feathers bristled against my cheek, and the pressure of talons dug into my shoulder. Silently the owl had flown into our midst and landed on me. And suddenly I was not alone.

I'd shout a hallelujah for that.

Note—I want to say someone guessed Edgington way back when I mentioned him in chapter 10. Of course, there is more to reveal. Who is in the coffins, the owl, if Bill is clueless, how the witch plans on swapping Sookie for MN. Let me know if you are enjoying: thanks to those especially who review every chapter. I appreciate it. Stay safe. And sorry if the f-bomb offends. I never know with a T rating and have resisted dropping a couple here or there so far. Anywho...reviews, love them.