Eric had met Alia many times in the past two weeks.
Chance. Coincidence. Fate. He did not believe in randomness or in destiny. However, Eric understood and respected time and recurrences, energies and desires at work. Interwoven forces and intent. Even blind intent.
The last three times she had avoided him altogether. Her move, then. Yet, he was sure to have seen something else beyond her eyes, her thin voice, her hidden, fragrant tears. Fear? Annoyance? Maybe.
Pamela had again urged him to take a stand in respect to the fae. She's still hurting, her child had said. What do you desire, maker? she had asked in that petulant tone of hers. She knew how to annoy him. Again, he had answered that he did not know. Find it out soon, then. It had sounded like a threat, but for whom?
When he had caught Pamela's hand on Sookie's shoulder a thin annoyance had nudged him, but when his child had embraced her a sense of betrayal had wormed its way through his body. He had not meant to get to their table and rebuke Pamela. But there he had gone of his own accord. An unconscious accord, obviously.
He feared what he desired. Now he knew.
A faint chime brought him back to the present time. He was in his study, at home. Karin's sweet face waved in the screen of his tablet and Eric was relieved to have an excuse to leave behind the thread of thoughts he could not silence anymore.
"Child."
"My favourite king," she countered him. "Edington's second-in-command called to confirm location and security details for the meeting."
"Good, I heard Rehema."
"Hunter told me he had no orders from you," Karin stated, the question implied.
"I was considering to ask Sookie this time," Eric said. "It's a mini summit and there will be a lot of people and—"
"You don't have to justify anything, Eric," Karin interjected. "Besides, it's been me to tell you that Alia is more talented and can handle better this kind of gatherings."
Eric nodded. "Fine. Call her and arrange everything. We'll be leaving two days before the meeting."
"Wouldn't it be better to call her yourself?"
Eric felt distinctly the uneasiness mounting from his guts, then up to the shoulders. "Why? You always handled this… detail personally."
"Eric, something has to change in this regard. It's time you face her… and yourself." The communication was cut abruptly and Eric watched the colourful screen stating the call's end.
Sometimes working with family was not comfortable.
Cat Island, in Mississippi, was a barrier island off the Gulf Coast, privately owned by the vampire king since 2035. Russell Edgington had turned it into one of his most protected residences, not allowing any commercial operator to land or dock there. Hurricane Bryar, in 2026, had easily eliminated the structures the oil company BP had erected fifteen years earlier to assist in the cleanup of a large oil spill and those that a touristic company had built to host up to two dozen guests. Even the National Park system had left due to lack of funds.
The king's architects had realised seven dwellings, self-sustainable in terms of energy and water supply, hidden under a flourishing vegetation increased in size and amount since human presence had drastically dropped to none, following the said pivotal hurricane. Edgington had even introduced a small colony of domesticated cats, fed and assisted in his houses, to give a reason to the namesake of the place.
Guests would arrive by private aircraft and would be hosted according to their importance and retinue size. Great Louisiana and Alabama, with an overall entourage of thirty five individuals (vampires, weres, humans and daemons) had been assigned two large houses facing the eastern beach and backed by a dense forest of pine and oak trees. Tennessee and Missouri, with smaller retinues, would occupy a single large house in the southern tip of the T shaped island. Mississippi, who would already be there, had a personal party of ten vampires and two dozen more (vampires and weres) as security. His husband and he would stay at their residence, hidden in the island western forests. The human staff counted over twenty persons and the donors service showed a list of over forty humans.
Alia paled while browsing the file listing almost a hundred humans to screen and monitor for five days, of which three full nights of summit proper. The only good news seemed that Alabama had sent her second-in-command instead of coming herself. At that thought Alia shook her head and tried to focus on the task at hand.
Hunter had already checked the human personnel of their joined retinues before leaving. Therefore Alia started the scrutiny of their were guards during take off. She had occupied the rear seats of the private jet they had boarded at a vampire-owned airport outside of Baton Rouge.
Alia had been informed of the impending assignment two days before, by a very pleased Cataliades. She did not know if being annoyed by the short notice or satisfied at the crown's show of trust as her godfather had been. At the end she opted for occupying her mind with mundane activities like choosing clothes and studying the information Desmond had left for her.
And now, observing the six were guards who filled a fourth of the plane, she felt contented. She had waken up a few hours before sunset and had already drunk two cups of coffee. As her body's circadian cycle had easily gotten used to the vampire reversed sleeping hours, her routine had included two hours of sunbathing each day. Therefore she felt centred and energetic. How much it depended on her sheer will and how much had to be ascribed at the prospect of some days in his company, she did not want to explore. Better focusing on the work at hand, avoiding sterile musings.
Robert Rock, a massive male in his late twenties, was old Ford's pupil and in charge of Eric's day security during the summit. Alia plunged into the were mind without finesse and roamed freely looking for loyalty issues and overall attitude towards the king and his immediate family. She had decided to screen the royal guard one by one, as their proximity to Eric suggested a thorough reading.
Eric, Pamela, Roxanne and five more vampires occupied three aft cabins, while Alia, Diantha, Latsis and the weres stayed in the largest central area equipped with sofas and low tables. A few humans were in a small forward cabin, napping by the signature of their minds. The screening busied Alia for the entire flight time and gave a light headache to most weres.
"Sookie, wake up," the whisper caressed her ear and sent a shiver along her spine. Eric's mind was a calm, warm void at her side, and Alia did not dare opening her eyes.
"I've just finished screening your day-guards," she muttered.
"Thank you," he said. "Did you eat something?"
Alia opened her eyes to find his blue gaze on her. "No, I…"
"Karin said you tended to forget feeding properly," Eric continued without diverting his eyes from hers. "Please, don't do that anymore. You already lost some pounds and—"
"What?"
"—since I saw you the first time, more than four months ago. Eat properly. I need you strong and healthy." His voice was low and rich, a whisper that fondled her inner organs with a light touch. "Is there something you'd like eating for dinner?"
Alia did not know what to think, therefore asked for a dish she had longed for since a few months. "Jambalaya."
The following days Alia could barely sleep, but every eight hours someone presented her with a delicious fish meal, wherever she was, in her room, in her assigned office, in a living room or sunbathing on the beach. It was wonderful and infuriating.
She read all the humans in the island, from service personnel to donors, included a few humans some monarchs had in their retinues as assistants or personal meal. It was this last vampire habit, hard to break, that allowed Alia to capture several recent and less fresh memories in those human pets.
The fae did not know what caused this carelessness in most living beings, but vampires (along with fairies, daemons, humans) tended to lower their guard after a situation consolidated in their lives. Humans they fed from could easily became as irrelevant as a piece of furniture and vampires did not associated to them any other skill beyond being a drink and a fuck. They forgot, if ever they took it into consideration, that a brain works incessantly, with or without the conscious participation of its host. The decadent practise to have around humans while discussing business over the phone or in private rooms, just to drink from them and have them perform sexual acts for their guests' sake, resulted in minds full of images and words connected to those events, even if the human was occupied in activities other than listening and watching purposefully around them. Brains never ceased to function.
Alia had had a full insight in the way the brain worked when Rhiannon had showed her how to dig deeper and deeper in a mind. It was a universe full of every moment the brain had gone through in every plane of consciousness, and unconsciousness. Everything was knitted and mingled at different levels of depth, according to the impact the event had in the mind. Though, following a thread of memories in a distracted or otherwise busied human was not easy. Nor always productive of pertinent material.
What emerged from certain humans in Tennessee's party was that the king was plotting something with Colorado and something else with a Colorado's underling, unbeknownst to his master. What was exactly the scheme was quite patchy and vague, from the humans' point of view. Alia, though, remembered what she had heard up in the space station and noticed the same image in the back of the man's mind in the Colorado payroll: a classical ballet dancer jumping and spinning with graceful nimbleness. Now, it was not normal to find such an incongruous image, especially given the circumstance that the dancer was suffused with unpredictable and untrustworthy feelings. Alia had discarded it the first time, but now it could mean something.
Alia wrote or dictated to Diantha all she had retrieved during her mental probings and the little daemon organised the information, sometimes patchy and seemingly unrelated, in a spreadsheet. Instead of rows and columns, data appeared in sets and assemblies with eventual correlation and/or paths to link them according to source, subject, timing, situation. What they came out with was submitted to Latsis, who gave his contribution. Then Eric and Pamela checked and discussed it with Alia.
It was the end of the second night of the official meeting, the forth day of intense work for the fae. Alia was hungry and sleepy at the same time, but she could not yet go to sleep without examining the day's findings with Eric. At four o'clock in the morning the house was not in full swing anymore, and a pleasantly noisy night followed her through corridors and rooms: crickets, owls, night-herons. Most human personnel had left and no one was available to serve her something to nibble and drink. Therefore she set to find a fridge.
The cottage they occupied was indeed a large house. White washed boards that were not wood and old style French windows opening over patios and patches of scented vegetation. The interior decor was what an eighteen century vampire thought as classy and exotic at once. Alia passed rooms and hallways, trying to remember the map of the house from the personnel minds she had read.
But the average chaos of human minds offered her the exact location of cheeses and wines, but not that of the kitchen. For the first time she wished to have a vampire nose: she would have followed the scent of a ripe fruit.
She finally arrived to the kitchen, in the west wing of the house, and perused through countertops, cupboards, fridges. She was thinking about the swirling dancer and something to nibble, trying to compare the memory she had found in the man's mind up in EOne and the one she had read the day before. There was something she could smell but not see in that image.
A movement at her right side made her turn and a woman in a maid outfit asked if she could be of help. Sure, she was looking for something to munch, even a fruit was fine. And something else started nagging at the back of her mind. It was useless to push for it, though. The brain was also a spoiled child and, when tired, was even more fickle. Maybe tomorrow she would remember something more.
Then the woman, whom Alia was trying to find on her mental spreadsheet, opened a drawer, took a knife and stabbed the telepath.
The night was almost over, but its background music was still rumbling in the air. Far from humans, in fact, animals liked to communicate whatever was that they felt like yelling at each other. Owls, night-heron, pigeons, bats, cicadas, crickets, frogs, squirrels. And more.
Eric closed the window of the sitting room and watched Pamela, who was reading the telepath's report as commented by Latsis. They were in the northern extension of the house, facing the noisy forest, waiting for the telepath. Reviewing her findings together, at the end of the night, had become a sort of ritual he waited for since sunset.
The fairy had relented and appeared more relaxed in his presence. The previous night she had even laughed at his jokes and joined his child in teasing him for his habit to walk while talking over the phone. For a moment he had forgotten the reason she was there and had let his mind wander in dangerous places.
"Tennessee," murmured Pamela. "Something is not right here."
Eric watched the tablet. "She's late."
"Tennessee has never been one to take charge."
"And hasn't answered my message," said Eric.
"What did you ask him?" asked Pamela turning her unfolded tablet to have a better view of the spreadsheet she was analysing.
"Sookie. I asked her to meet us here."
"Kitchen. She was hungry," said Pamela. "Tennessee is working for someone."
"That's what I thought. Nevada, maybe. Adrianne mentioned something."
"I still wonder why you haven't eliminated that shit," said Pamela.
"I made him insignificant," replied Eric eyeing his handheld. "Better a known enemy than a new one."
"Bullshit."
"I don't like her around in a house full of vampires. Join her."
"Be my guest," replied Pamela.
"I wasn't asking."
"I was suggesting."
Eric considered it. Then told himself he was just making sure she was fine.
"But it's unlikely Nevada has something to offer Tennessee nowadays. I'd check closer." Eric got to the door in a few lazy paces and turned. "Besides, Tennessee has a long border with Moshup." He left the room heading west.
It took him less than a minute to feel his blood running cold. All his internal alerts set off at once and he darted along the long corridor to the kitchen, his mind in a murderous haze.
Eric found Alia slumped over the cupboard and the floor, a pool of blood widening at her side, her eyes wide open but opaque. He could barely hold himself. The fae scent was sweetly infiltrating his nostrils, penetrating his body through the skin and running directly up to his head, calling his name.
Eric staggered and tried to clear his mind. And then he saw the housemaid. Leaned over the countertop, a bleeding knife in her hand.
A servant with a knife, an injured fairy and a house full of vampires.
He proceeded rapidly, striving not to succumb to the blood calling. He moved a large antique cupboard to cover the main door to the kitchen and some other furniture to block the two secondary entrances, then kneeled to Sookie's side.
Her heartbeat was fluttering and her hand over the cut was loosing strength.
"Sookie, look at me," Eric pressed his hand over hers, trying to stop the blood spill. "You have to drink my blood, as much as you can." He slashed his wrist and pushed it over her mouth. "Drink."
Eric cut open his wrist three more times, cradling the fae in his arms and monitoring her body response to his blood. He was holding his breath and his thoughts and did not feel the time passing, nor the tears rolling over his cheeks. After a while the blood loss stopped. Time felt viscous. Spilling over him like a drizzle announcing a storm that was slowly gathering its winds.
At a certain point Eric realised the automatic blinds had shut down and Xeres Macon was shouting and trying to enter the kitchen.
Sookie was still unconscious.