A/N: Hey, anyone else been getting a lot of reading done? I've finished 3 books in the last week. Anyway, I don't want to waste too much times so I'm just going to swan-dive into the reviews.
KEZZ1: Thanks! You were my first review. *trumpets go off and cheering arises*
Melmela: My heart goes out to you. These times are uncertain and dark and I've been keeping up with the news enough to know that Italy is facing a waking nightmare that many of us couldn't imagine. I may seem distant but my prayers for you and your country are strong and constant. I hope that my chapters can create a little bit of light and at the least distraction for you and some of my other readers.
Girlintheshadows: Thank you very much.
Riddick-gurl1988: I feel like I get the prayer for Godric every time I publish a chapter lol. As his appearance gets closer, the comments just increase more and more.
Molly: Thank you!
Valerie Michaelis: Ah, my bad. I actually got a little afraid that you were going to leave a bad review when I read your first sentence lol. I hope this chapter makes up for it!
Lestatsgirl15: I don't think anyone could have realized what chaos this virus was going to cause. It's like I've fallen into an apocalypse dream and I just can't wake up. All I hope for is that you all have a bit of escape with the chapters I release.
Chapter 22: Time to Meet Your Maker
"She's been in there too long."
"Reverend Newlin is a blow-hard. He'll take all day to get them through the church alone."
"They have been in there since 8 am," I hissed, barely containing the venom in my voice as I reeled on Isabela, my fingers tensing into fists as I sneered at her. It was hard being in the same space as her and not trying to gauge out her eyes every time they rolled when I spoke. If it wasn't for the calculated way that Eric had stayed between us and his constant but pointedly silent warnings, I'm sure one of us would have already been dead.
Her well-manicured brows rose. "Your point?"
Her outfit for the night was almost a laughable contrast to her white dress from the previous night. Isabela had apparently gotten the leather jacket, dark tank memo and had followed it to the t, letting her dark hair hang loose, the sides cinched back in an edgy way that screamed: hey, I'm pretty but I'll like, totally kick your ass.
"If I wasn't with Eric right now, lady-" Even saying it made my teeth gnash. Because if I was being honest, my anger was a living, beating animal and it would eventually get away from me if I had to remain within the same thinking space as this useless but yet somehow politically powerful vampire.
As if sensing my mounting instability, Eric gave an exasperated grunt, his bored gaze sharpening as he slid a cutting glare over at the darker-haired vampire. "If you continue to aggravate my pet then you'll start to aggravate me, Isabela. I haven't yet lost my temper with you and I would hate to have to issue an apology to Godric upon our reunion."
I could almost see the memory of the night before flashing across her mind, followed by disbelief and then uncertainty. If she thought that Eric calling them children was even a demonstration of him losing his temper then she had a long way to go. I pondered for a moment introducing her to Lafayette.
Wisely, Isabela fell silent, her bottom lip rolling outward in a pathetic pout as she crossed her arms and stared disdainfully at the Fellowship camp that sat just before us. Remarkably enough, they had chosen a location in the middle of a dense wood just off of the main interstate. Stupidly, they had situated their main camp with lodging and everything just against the swell of a hill. Which was where we were currently situated, close enough to make out the shape of the tiny humans scrambling around below us like little ants.
I resisted the urge to do a pout of my own as Eric's gaze shifted to me, his body blocking out the other woman as he turned a bit. His eyes were shadowed in the gloom of the night, a bit exasperated.
"Really, lover," he drawled, putting a bit more of a dark emphasis on the endearment. "I expected better of you."
"You know I have a temper," I snapped, my eyes roaming the area swiftly, catching on the little humans below with their weapons. They swerved and stopped in unorganized clusters, clearly very invested in the overall thrill of feeling like they were moments away from sacrificing themselves for the greater good but uneducated in how to do it in a productive way. My lips thinned as I tried to keep all of the aching, beating fear of this place out of my subconscious. I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my jaw at the yawning hole this place was. Lowering my voice, I turned a bit toward Eric, waiting for him to lean down, his eyes searching, dark in the moonlight. "It's - it's this place. It… it's hard to concentrate."
His eyes narrowed, flicking to where Isabela stood, trying to pretend like vampires didn't have supersonic hearing. His shoulders rolled in agitation before he turned back to me, his brows crinkling with worry. "Just a bit longer, pet."
His fingers ran along my cheek lovingly, rough against my skin. There was a softness to his face that made my insides melt. As if he was genuinely worried about me. Moments like these could really fuck with the realm of denial that I had cocooned myself in for the last couple of months.
"I don't see any of them." Eric and I drew apart at the gentle whoosh of air signaling Bill's return. He had been highly agitated since that morning. Or more to the point since the spike of fear that had ran through him that morning. His face was pulled into a scowl that was firmly leveled at Eric, his dark hair touseled in the night wind. "You said she would be out-"
"I made no such guarantee," Eric snapped, his teeth flashing in a snarl as he rounded on the vampire. "How was I to know that she would go galavanting through the whole cursed place without a care-"
"Hugo would not waste time like this," Isabela defended, her shoulders going up as they flicked between all three of us.
"Well, apparently he has." Bill's accent was a thing to behold when he got this angry, thickening to a molasses drawl that feigned sweetness. I'm sure my own had spiked on more than one occasion but there was a sort of gentile dignity to his that put mine to shame.
Eric's hands tensed into a fist, loosening and then curling again in a rhythm that was all too apparent. He was thinking about beating the daylight right out of the two. Both Bill and Isabela settled into a warm squabble, apparently gearing up to waste a bit more time. Out of the three vampires, it was only slightly amusing that one of them had been able to keep their pet in sight. The only thing that made the whole thing less laughable was the fact that it was Eric and apparently I was in the lead for best dog in show. Woof woof.
I didn't have time for this.
It wasn't lost on me that apparently the only one who was able to properly gauge this situation and react was currently me. At the moment, my sister was MIA and all three vampires that I was with were unable to do anything more than wait and watch. Guess who that left?
I turned, eyes narrowing on the grand building that made up the Fellowships church. It was a gray monstrosity that had a massive sloped roof. The front was made with cylindrical designs that bracketed an intricate strip of windows. The foundation of the building was more of a marvel than the actual construction though. It was raised up on brick pillars to sit high above the ground, making the church resemble a concrete treehouse.
The smell of long-lost sunlight filled my nose as I shut my eyes, diving deeper into the pool of my own power. It was like sinking into myself, curling back into the recesses of my own mind as I inched along the planes around us until I breached the walls of the Fellowship church. My range was finicky in this new terrain. I had grown used to the valleys and houses of Bon Temp and in the casual knowledge, I had grown sedative. It wasn't hard finding my way through the trailer parks of bars that dotted the bayou.
Here everything seemed new, fresher along my senses like the burst of a ripe apple when you were expecting something older, closer to decay. Distantly, I felt Eric curl an arm around my waist. For a moment, I thought I heard his voice, his breath cool against my ear. Don't get lost, little mare.
I pushed it away, creeping along the church's opulent halls. There weren't many people in the building, to my surprise just a few last-minute worshippers and… A little bit of muscle. Newlin was obviously paranoid if the number of bodyguards he had roaming the church was any indication. Considering the force of three full-grown vampires was currently taking a stroll along his lawn, I wasn't sure if I could judge him.
The place was a lot bigger than I had thought and for a moment, I stalled out in the middle of the lobby, feeling the cavernous space around me and shrinking from the numerous routes that I could go. Tentative, I stretched out my powers a bit more, trying to pinpoint on any nightmares, any flashes of fear that would allow me-
"Oh. Oooohhhhh…" There was a lower addition to the church. That was why it had been raised from the ground. Below, down a corridor just to the left of the lobby was a storage unit and in that storage unit.
I took off, my powers snapping into me with a quickness that made me dizzy for a moment as I took the hill at a run, ignoring the echoed hisses of surprise behind me. For a moment, Eric let me go, his growl enough to make even me think twice. Luckily for me, I could multitask.
"I think your pet is running away, Eric," Isabela called snidely, her eye-roll obnoxiously apparent in the jab.
"Shut the fuck up, Isabela," I heard Eric snarl which got a deep snort from Bill.
My breath sawed unevenly from me as I forced a bit more speed into my legs. Multi-tasking. I resisted the aching pain that flared in my gut, sensing Eric's approach moments before he cut me off. Gravel slid everywhere, my legs wobbling for a moment as I skidded to a halt, some dirt clouding around us as I narrowly avoided being caught in his big bear arms. If he caught me, he would drag me into a car or something and then it would take longer for me to get Sookie and that snake Hugo.
His gaze was intense in the low light, his fangs out as he loomed in front of me. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he rumbled in old Swedish, his syllables sharp and deep. Oh, he was mad.
"Sookie's in there," I snapped quickly, feeling that tingling fuzz start to ark through my arms and legs. The splutter of purple flickered to life, lighting the darkness around us. His eyes instantly found the sparks, his face cast in a witchy purple hue even as he gave a shock snarl, his mind minutes behind mine. "She's in the basement. They locked her up. Hugo's a traitor."
And that was it before I let my powers completely go, the fuse inside me popping as Eric lunged for me, his teeth bared as he tried to make a wild grab for my now invisible body. It was too good he hadn't seen the signs a second sooner. He would have caught me.
Gritting, I leapt away, diving through the brush soundlessly as I ran headfirst into the walls of the Fellowship. My senses sharpened something carnal and angry beating through me as sunk into the walls. For a moment, everything went dark, the feeling of brick and mortar cocooning me.
And then it was nothing but screaming. My sister's screaming. And then Hugo's voice, whining: "Gabe! Oh thank god you're here!"
Feral anger ripped through me my eyes darting around the bare corridor before I dove through the next wall in front of me. The basement of the church was a construction of zig-zags, each corridor leading into another and another. So that meant that eventually, I would get to her.
"You and your moron brother think that you can make an asshole out of me?" I crashed through the final wall, almost running head-first into a chain-link storage area before I realized that I could actually do that and be completely fine. "That's what you think, huh?"
My head gave a dull throb at the mention of my brother. That meant that he was here. Fuck. Had he really gone off and joined the Fellowship of the Sun?
"Get your filthy hands off of me!" Sookie gave a sharp scream as the big boulder of a man inside lifted her and tossed her like a bag of potatoes onto the hard concrete floor. He had ripped her dress open on the way down, his yank intentional in all manners of the word. A leer worked it's way onto his face as he gazed down at Sookie's dazed figure.
I gave a snarl, crashing through the fencing. My skin tingled as I let go of that power, materializing seemingly out of thin air in the room. Gabe. Hugo had called him Gabe. Gabe was a gorilla of a man, taller than me by a foot at least and built with muscles that could rival Eric's. His eyes widened, his feet skittering back at the sight of me. "What the fuck-"
It would have been stupid of me to wait until he was back in the right state of mind. Even if that right state of mind seemed to be murder and attempted rape. Snarling, I leapt forward, my knee driving up into his stomach as I dug my fingers into the soft material of his shirt.
"You bitch-" I didn't have time to brace, barely had time enough to stop myself from biting into the top layer of my tongue as he drove a meaty fist into my side. Desperately, I tried to call my powers up, trying to sink into his mind. But to dredge of fears took time. And time in the middle of a fight with a sumo wrestler wasn't exactly on my side.
His fist slammed once more into my side, an odd crack filtering to my brain moments before I switched it off, zeroing down on my options. Time to go to plan b.
"Runa!" I resisted the urge to snap at Sookie, my biceps straining as I heaved myself higher onto Gabe's chest, somehow hanging on to him as he got a bit more of a grip on my leg and drove me into the wall to our backs. Sharp pain burst along my shoulder blades before settling into a bruising ache. Yowzah, that hurt like a bitch. His shoulder plowed into my stomach as he drove into me once more, making the croissant and eggs that I ate this morning give a merry hello to the back of my throat.
"I am tired of you supernatural freaks-!" I lunged, the sharp tips of my teeth ripping through the vulnerable skin at his jugular with an ease that frightened even me. Too late to stop, I gave a snarl and clamped my jaw shut, feeling the tendons and muscles of his adams apple wiggle against my tongue moments before I jerked back.
Blood squirted into my face, a wet gurgling filling the air as he slumped forward sending me back into the wall once more. Against my side, his fists had gone slack, his fists turning into grasping hands like a child searching desperately for something to hold onto in the wake of a storm.
Warm, thick blood filled my vision. Metal and something deeper, earthier - human flesh - burst along my tongue. Reflexively, I swallowed, gagging as I realized that I probably had half of Gabe's throat in my mouth. Choking, half-sobbing as turned to the side and spat, watching in revulsion as a chunk of meat and blood landed on the concrete beside me. Oh Jesus, help me.
"Oh my god, Runa," Sookie was panting somewhere in the room, her voice soft and warbling. "Oh my god. What did you do? Oh my god. You just ripped out his throat. You just ripped out his throat with your teeth."
I would have probably said something along the lines of: Yeah. I know, if it hadn't been for the fact that Gabe was still choking over me, his full 300 plus pounds pressing me into the wall with a suffocating force. Desperately, his hands groped along my side as if the material there might repair the massive hole that I had created out of his windpipe.
"Sook," I choked, my hands scrambling desperately at Gabe's shoulders. Out of the corner of my eyes, nearly overtaken by the massive shadow that Gabe created all around me, I saw my sister inch closer.
A dull, vague thought crept into my head as I saw her fingers curl into his shirt, tugging uselessly as his still wiggling, choking body. This man was about to die on top of me, bleeding and spitting all over my face. Panic took root quickly after that. My legs kicked uselessly at the air from where I had wrapped them around Gabe's waist, both me and my sister letting out whimpered pants as we tried to haul him off of me. As if sensing our effort, the big, hulking man let out a squelching grunt using some last, dying reserve of strength to lean a bit further into me, the open wound at his neck pressing into the side of my face.
Horrified, my mind spun dumbly. He's going to die on top of me. I can't- Choking back a sob, I pounded desperately at him, the space around me seeming small and filled with his raw, bloody scent-
I stalled out for a moment sensing a sudden void in the room before I heard the quiet shuffle of feet. When I had gone with Eric to the tribunal, it had been my first time coming against vampires so old. People that old had conquered their fears in a way that made them harder to find, pushing them farther and farther down until I could only glean them vaguely.
Whoever had just come into the room was so old that their very fears had been lost, blown away like sand in a desert. I gulped, fighting a bit harder to get free of the man above me, my lungs burning as Gabe gave another gurgled groan, the open meat at his neck splattering my chest in another wave of blood.
Suddenly, Sookie let out a sharp gasp. And then my vision popped with the blinding light of the fluorescent bulbs overhead as Gabe went crashing into the wall behind us.
And that was when my whole world seemed to tip forward on itself.
Standing in front of me was a quietly handsome boy - no man. I gulped, my mouth tingling as I swallowed down another metallic layer of Gabe's blood. My mind seemed to debate on the phrasing for a confusing moment. Dark hair matched even darker eyes, his body strangely muscled even beneath the loose cotton tunic and pants. The rolled-up sleeves gave hints of crude, archaic tattoos beneath, the same strikingly simple designs circling his neck.
Sookie jerked in front of me, her hands shaking as she eyed the newest addition to our little gathering. For a moment, the man eyed her, a hint of amusement twinkling through his eyes as he remained otherwise expressionless. I could see the breath sawing in and out of my sister, her body almost fully in front of mine. After a moment longer of silence, the man leaned a bit to the side, his dark gaze running along me and narrowing.
"You smell like my child beneath all that human blood." His voice was quiet, sure and lightly accented although I couldn't place it. Maybe an older form of German or… But it were his words that sent a thrill as cold as ice through my veins, my hands reaching out to clutch at Sookie's arm as she whipped around with a quizzical stare.
Eric, my mind buzzed. This was Eric's maker. This was Godric.
Suddenly all of the air left me as I stared up at the man, my mind-numbing and thawing in intervals so short that I thought my body might combust. This was the vampire that had turned Eric. He hardly looked old enough to drink. More than that, there was a softness - a gentleness that made me take pause. He wasn't a monster. Was that what I had begun to expect of a person that could have created Eric?
My stomach churned as I realized that yes. In my mind's eyes, the only thing that could have led to such devotion from a creature such as Eric Northman was an ogre, a mutant fiend who bathed in the blood of his enemies.
But Godric was none of those things. There was a quiet sort of sadness that seemed to suffuse the air around him, tinging his movements which were slow and deliberate. He didn't move from where he stood at the open door of our cage and I realized suddenly that he didn't want to scare us. He didn't want to make any sudden movements that would cause fear. My wonder grew as I knelt a bit forward, my powers reaching out without even a conscious decision from me.
Dully, my fingers sparked as Godric's eyes narrowed on me, his head tipping to the side as I touched along that eternal void that seemed to surround him. He wasn't afraid of death. No. The more based in the physical realm, the easier it was for me to draw out a person's inner nightmares. But Godric had no such base instincts.
His dark eyes tracked my movements as I inched a little closer, keeping beside my sister. I could tell by the way her own brows had furrowed that she was trying to reach out to explore the church above us, to see if we would be able to exit without any interruptions.
"You should not have come," he said softly, a rueful smile turning his lips up.
All at once, the tender space that we had been living in cracked like an egg, all three of us whipping toward the cage door as the air was pierced by a high, feminine scream. I hadn't noticed before but to the left of the door, a stairwell climbed up, working toward the church area.
"Bill!" Sookie exclaimed, scrambling to her feet as she eyed the corridor hopefully.
"No," Godric mused, drawing in a breath as he shut his eyes. His voice rose a pitch higher as if he were speaking to someone just in the other room. "I'm here, my child. Down here."
"Eric," I muttered, taking Sookie's hands gratefully as she helped me stand, my legs gave an ache, my body yawning with fatigue. I hadn't run that far but using my powers to dive through those walls was taxing. Not to mention getting slammed multiple times into a concrete wall wasn't exactly a good time either.
Sookie's eyes widened, her lips clamping shut as she turned a curious glance to me. "His maker?"
I nodded, feeling the blood running down my neck and across the lower half of my face starting to dry, making my skin feel like it was coated in a thin layer of paint. Worriedly, Sookie straightened my tank top, trying in vain to clean up the blood that had soaked across my cleavage but aiding only in smearing it more.
"Godric." Sookie's drew in an unsteady breath, her eyes zeroing in on the entrance of the cage as it was crowded in the hulking figure of Eric Northman. Gulping, we both took a step back, wedging ourselves into the corner of the tiny storage room as Eric fell to his knees in front of the dark-haired vampire.
It was like the whole universe had been turned on its axis, my world shifting condensing to this one moment. Godric was over 2000 years old and Eric was over 1000 years old, each a vacuum of physical power. It was as if my very cells could sense the shift in power, my mare instinct kicking up, begging me to dissolve into the wall behind me.
Because if they wanted to, they could tear Sookie and me to shreds.
If they wanted to, they could set this church on fire and watch it burn.
"You were a fool for sending humans after me." It was a statement, spoken softly enough that I thought for a moment that they were talking about something entirely separate. No one ever criticized Eric. No one ever called him a fool.
Eric's head bowed, his expression slightly dazed. "I had no other choice. These savages, they-" His head raised even as he stayed kneeling. "They seek to destroy you."
"I'm aware of what they had planned," he said calmly and I felt that answer like a physical blow, my brows crinkling. nONCHALANTLY, he gestured to where Hugo was still crumpled on the ground. "This one, he betrayed you."
A small smile curled Eric lips, his expression one of bemusement. "I'm aware. My pet told me moments before she…" His eyes wandered around the cell as he was speaking, finally stopping on where I stood with Sookie. His brows furrowed slowly, the smile curling his lips burning away quickly as he caught sight of my bloody appearance. He was in front of me in a moment, my sister squeaking as she flinched away. His fingers curled beneath my jaw, tipping my chin up as he examined the mess."What happened?"
Before I could answer, a soft, melodic voice carried across the space, the edges of his voice tipped with amusement. "She ripped out one of the human's throats as he was about to rape your sister. Got here moments before I did."
"You smell like a filthy human," he rumbled and before I could think to object his tongue was lapping at the blood painting my cheeks. He grimaced, drawing back. "Tastes like a pig."
Still, he went back to work, his tongue warm and sure as it ran along my skin.
Scrunching up my nose, I tried to wiggle away from him, only getting a warning rumble in return and a restraining arm along my waist. "Really, Eric this isn't the time."
"I never thought I'd see the day that you were coddling someone in such a way." I blushed, trying not to shiver as Eric's teeth scraped along my throat, his licks turning into hungry kisses. My stomach gave a flip, something low inside of me heating to an aching point as he gave a soft grunt, working lower until he was ducking down, nearly sucking at the top swell of my breasts.
Beside me, I heard my sister give a disgusted groan. "Really, bad enough that-"
The sudden flash of floodlights snapped across my vision seconds before an alarm started to blare. Grumbling softly, Eric leaned away, his tongue running along his bottom lip as he glanced around, his arm still holding me tightly to his chest. Godric's expression had steeled, his eyes flicking around briefly before he was turning back to Eric.
"Save the human," he commanded and I stiffened. How could such a gentle voice carry such authority? Briefly, his eyes narrowed on me. "And your pet… Go on."
From where he stood, Godric shuffled, his shoulders rolling as if he were a caged animal that had just seen the first glimpse of freedom.
"I am not leaving your side," Eric snapped, his head whipping around as he stared at his maker. But there was something beneath his words that I felt - a thread of desperation so thin that I thought for a moment that he had issued a plea.
"I can take care of myself," Godric hissed and for some reason, even though I had just met him, even though he looked like he was barely old enough to see an R-rated movie, I believed him.
Sookie leapt forward, her hands clenching at her side as she eyed the confined spaces of the walls around us. If it weren't for my abilities to slip through walls, I would have been feeling the same way. As if we were in a cave that was about to collapse in, leaving us buried alive. "We have to go. Runa, come on."
Unwanted, my eyes drifted to Eric, his expression one of extreme agony as his eyes stayed glued to Godric. His jaw tightened, his fingers gripping my waist as if he were barely holding himself in check.
Nervously, I met Godric's gaze. "We-we can't just leave you."
The dark-haired man smiled softly. "Yet you will." His eyes flicked back to his progeny, his smile fading and his words going sharp. "Spill no blood on your way out. Go now."
Against me, Eric tensed, his eyes hardening to a cold blue before his jaw gave a twitch, his throat working around unspoken words. For a moment, I thought he wouldn't move. But then he was jerking his chin toward the door in a quiet command, sending Sookie rushing out. Silently, he released me giving me a gentle push toward the door.
Stubbornly, I resisted, my eyes glued to Godric as he stood calmly by the exit. "But-"
"Go, pet." It was only Eric's words that pushed me forward. Only his presence at my back that kept me going, stumbling clumsily up the narrow staircase.
Listen, I wanted to end this chapter by saying that these times are hard. With the addition of social media, this is a scary, confusing whirlwind of information and reports. I've been online, I've seen the nay-sayers and the people who are saying this virus isn't real or that it's a conspiracy or that we're all going to die. I've seen it and what I want to say to you, my lovely, intelligent, strong readers is that you are smarter and braver and you will make it through this time. This virus holds its power in the fear of the unknown and even if these days are rough and unforgiving, you will see next year when this is but a book on a shelf in Barnes and Noble.
Stay sane, stay strong and don't let fear make you any less brave, or beautiful or kind.
