Chapter Five

Carly heard a series of high-pitched "clinks" as the crystal structure disassembled itself around her and Niall Brigant, ruling prince of the fairies and fellow initiate in the mystery. As the structure disappeared, exterior sounds amplified, and Carly heard the crunch of car tires on gravel as Kenya, the county sheriff's deputy, drove toward the Stackhouse home.

Bounding out of the bushes toward the cruiser, Carly waved her arms to get Kenya's attention. "Hey, stop here!"

The cruiser lurched into park, but Kenya didn't stop the engine before she exited. "Ms. Michael, did you call?"

"Yes, officer, I came to check to see if Sookie was back from New Orleans, but I found an intruder."

Kenya reached toward her pistol. "Where?"

"She ran past me a moment ago." Carly shook her head. "You're not going to believe this, but she's naked."

At that moment, the naked wolf-woman darted into the house and slammed the door.

"Well, hell. Mrs. Stackhouse is not going to appreciate that at all." Kenya turned off her engine and strode purposefully toward Carly. "Ms. Michael, you have a habit of turning up at the wrong place at the wrong time."

"So I've heard." Carly smiled with some embarrassment and turned back toward Niall Brigant, who was nowhere to be found.

"Are you here alone?"

Carly nodded. "Yes, I hiked over from Merlotte's."

"Why?"

"Exercise."

The two women stood shoulder to shoulder, and Carly let Kenya's thoughts wash over her. Adele's got at least one shotgun in there, if not a couple of pistols. Should probably call for backup, but everybody in the office would give Michael shit. She's creepy as all hell, but not bad…Not worth getting shot…

"Mrs. Stackhouse has at least one shotgun, so I'm not going to risk it. We need backup." Kenya turned back toward her cruiser, but, as if summoned, an RV lumbered onto the drive from the main road.

"I think that's the best backup you could ask for."

Yvgeny, Godric's bodyguard, who also happened to be a bear part-time, drove the massive vehicle toward them, but Adele Stackhouse peered forward over the dashboard of the Winnebago, her eyes wide with concern and not a touch of anger.

As soon as Yvgeny put the transmission in park, Adele climbed out of the passenger door. "Kenya Jones, what is going on here?"

"Mrs. Stackhouse," Kenya nodded in deference to the Stackhouse matriarch, "you've got an intruder in your house. Ms. Michael found her and called the sheriff's office."

Adele glared and Carly and squinted her eyes. Carly felt the older woman's thoughts push toward her: What is going on Carly? Does this have something to do with these horrible werewolves?

Carly couldn't answer her out loud, and she'd never before tried to communicate inaudibly to a human with whom she didn't have a telepathic connection, but she strained nevertheless. Unfortunately, yes, Adele. You have a naked werewolf inside your house.

"Kenya," Adele nodded toward Carly in understanding and then sent her the thought, Well, I've got my bear with me, "I've got more than one gun in that house."

"I know, Mrs. Stackhouse, that's why I didn't force my way in." Kenya's eyes widened as she watched Yvgeny move around the front of the RV.

"Problem, Baba?" The bear asked.

"A stranger's in my house, Jenya." The strident householder melted into a loving grandma as Adele looked at "her bear." "Is Sookie still asleep?"

Yvgeny nodded once and responded forcefully. "I fix." Yvgeny started toward the front door.

"No, Jenya," Adele reached out toward him and scurried to his side. "I don't know if she's found my shotgun."

"Then Carly help me." Yvgeny patted Adele's hand with a little condescension and then pointed toward the door. "You help me, yes?"

Carly sighed, "Yea, sure, I'll help you, Yvgeny."

"Sorry, Ms. Michael, but I can't let you go in there." The sheriff's deputy tried to take back control of the situation.

"No, we fix." Yvgeny strode toward the door with Carly in his wake. Without any hesitation, Yvgeny took all three porch steps at once. Turning to Carly at the last moment, "Where the wolf?"

"How did you know?" Carly whispered.

"Smell." Yvgeny wrinkled his nose. "Everywhere. Where now, I can't tell."

Carly quieted her mind and spread her consciousness through the house. The woman leaned against a sideboard in the parlor, slugging from a bottle of bourbon. Her thoughts ranged quickly and without organization. The king…Cooter…they said…that smoke…the smoke filling the closet…the house…so hungry…should shift and find a vamp…

"In the parlor, Jenya," Carly reported in a whisper, but it was still too loud.

Carly felt the wolf's mind shift back to her immediate surroundings. Can't be…daytime…but that smell…so good.

With a gesture, Carly suggested that she go first into the house. With unexpected energy, Carly burst through the front door and toward the werewolf with Yvgeny close behind.

The werewolf drooled and snarled. "Aren't you a special thing. Up in the daytime." She leapt toward Carly-eyes glowing in bloodlust-oblivious to the presence of the massive Russian were-bear in the doorway.

In the split-second that Carly looked at the naked woman, she recognized the werewolf who had aided in Jamie's torture and captivity. In the vision Carly glimpsed from her failed kidnapper, this woman held Jamie's toddler as he screamed and struggled to get to her mother. Carly wondered if the wolf woman she'd freed—Jamie-was still safe with her brother, the werewolf who now worked as a mechanic at Teterboro airport in New Jersey.

As the unnamed wolf woman reached for Carly's throat, Yvgeny caught her by her own and lifted her off the ground. "Bad wolf." Slamming her down onto the floor and knocking her unconscious, Yvgeny loosened his grip on the woman's neck and caught her by her arm instead. He reached into the his boot and took out a thin silver spike, which he threaded through the skin between her shoulder blades. "Baba can give bandage."

"I don't know how we're going to explain the spike to Kenya." Carly took off her own blouse and wiped down the wolf's back to conceal what they'd done. The incision marks still oozed blood, but they were less distinct than they had been.

Yvgeny shrugged. "Better than wolf."

"You're right." Carly went back outside in her camisole and yelled to the bystanders. "We've got her. Everything's clear, but she needs a bandage and some clothes."

Barking instructions, Adele scurried toward the house. "The Band-Aids are all under the bathroom sink in the first aid kid. And wrap her in a sheet—the linen closet next to my room has a big stack. The ratty ones are in the back. I'm not putting any of Sookie's clothes on some thieving tramp."

Kenya reinserted herself into the discussion and jogged to keep up with Adele. "Folks, I've got to take her down to the station and book her for breaking and entering." When Kenya crossed the threshold and spotted the unconscious woman, she said (suspicion clear in her voice), "What did you two do to her."

"Hit her head," Yvgeny replied, while still holding the limp body with one hand. "She attack Carly, so I hit her head."

Kenya took the woman's pulse. "Well, she's alive, but she's bloody all over." Kenya reached for her back. "Did you put this bar under her skin?"

"No." The bear's sharp, authoritative answer seemed to discourage Kenya from asking any more questions.

Carly returned from the closet with the requested ratty sheet and wrapped the werewolf in it as tightly and as modestly as she could. By the time Adele brought a bandage, Yvgeny's handling of the woman had worked the sliver spike so far under the skin that the silver ends were no longer visible. A doctor would need to remove the object.

"We need to get her to the hospital, Adele, because she's not coming to." Kenya radioed for assistance from a paramedic unit that could transport her.

Into this strange scene—a triptych of werewolf, werebear, and valkyrie all flanked by two stunned humans turned in opposite directions as they tried to assess the state of the house—walked a just-awakened and disoriented Sookie. "Gran? What's going on?"

"Darlin'," Adele moved toward her grand-daughter, "just some looney-bin broke into the house. We pulled up just a few minutes ago."

"Carly" Sookie cocked her head to once side in the odd way that infantilized her, "I thought you were with Eric?"

Sookie, this is all hard to explain. Without words, Carly showed her a highly censored sketch of the events that had unfolded in the last twelve hours: werewolves pouring over the border from Mississippi into Louisiana in search of vampires they could consume. "Eric's still in Shreveport, but I drove out here to see if you were back."

Sookie's eyes widened and she looked down at the unconscious woman. "So is she a threat to us? Is she alone?"

"We don't know."

Yvgeny contributed, "I stay here until Godric says I go."

"Thank you, Jenya," Adele chimed in, "I'm glad there will be a man around the house."

"Where's Jason?" Kenya asked.

With a broad smile, Adele reported, "Jason's taken a job in New Orleans. He'll be working on reconstruction with a city leader."
"The hell you say?" Kenya's disbelief registered loudly. "Jason Stackhouse in New Orleans. I never thought I'd see that happen."

"Neither did I, Kenya," Adele admitted, "but his boss thinks he can do it, and I think Mr. de Gaulle is a very good judge of character."

"If you say so," the deputy conceded.

The limp were-bitch groaned as she slowly came back to consciousness and strained against Yvgeny, who rolled her onto her belly.

"Handcuff?" Yvgeny asked.

Kenya stooped forward and cuffed the woman.

The moment Yvgeny released his hold, the werewolf began to roll and kick. "What the fuck have you done to me?" She thrashed and rolled onto her back. "What did you put in me?"

"Young lady," Adele chastised her, "you have no position to speak. You had no right to break into my house, drink my bourbon, and rampage around my property in your birthday suit."

"Fuck you, old lady!" The wolf screamed, kicking violently, until Yvgeny grasped her ankles and held them together in his right hand.

"Respect Baba!" Yvgeny slapped the wolf's thighs, and she quieted.

"Sir," Kenya reproached, "I appreciate your help, but I've got to make an arrest here."

"Carly, is that the best thing to do?" Adele wondered out loud.

"Mrs. Stackhouse," the deputy objected, "I don't know why you're asking Carly here whether I can arrest someone who has broken into your house."

Knowing where Adele was going, Carly dreaded the idea of glamouring the deputy, since she respected Kenya and thought altering her experience of the break-in and apprehension would probably backfire somehow. Perhaps she'd start with the truth.

"Part of the reason I came out here today was that the Shreveport police have been flooded by reports of bikers—drugged up bikers—who have been difficult to handle."

"Ms. Michael, I saw the bulletin from the state police," Kenya squared her shoulders. "I know what's been going on, even in Shreveport."

"Really?"

"My cousin's a Shreveport cop, and he called me a bit ago and told me one nearly tore the jail down." Kenya looked down at the squirming woman and added, "He also told me a New York city girl working for the ME's office was there. So how many New York city girls they got working in that office?"

"Just me," Carly conceded. "I was there. He died on top of me."

"Like I said, you always seem to turn up in the wrong place at the wrong time." Kenya took another long look at the wolf and asked, "You gonna tear down my jail, girl?"

"I want a lawyer," the wolf spat, "I didn't do nothing. I was just cold and hungry, and the door was open."

"You look like you need a doctor first." Kenya looked down at the woman with concern. "What's your name?"

"I'm good. I just want a lawyer."

Carly wondered why the wolf now seemed so tame, so quiet, so she peered into her thoughts. Just get in the car, rip her throat out, come back here and spend some time with this bitch smells so much like vampire—can't be, but maybe she got enough in her…

"Then let's get you up and down to the station." Kenya cocked her chin at Yvgeny, "You gotta let her up."

Yvgeny lifted the wolf-woman up by her elbows to standing and shoved her toward the door.

"I can take it from here," Kenya asserted her authority again.

"Can I go with you, officer?"

"No, Carly, you've done enough, and I got your number already if I need it."

Nonetheless, Carly followed the deputy to the cruiser, uneasy whether the slender silver bar threaded between her shoulder blades would be enough to keep the werewolf from her plans to transform and murder the officer. As Kenya put the woman in the car, she looked up at Carly with a combination of hate and desire that inflamed virulent anger in the valkyrie. As Kenya fastened the seatbelt across the woman's lap, Carly watched the wolf's eyes change shape and then recede back to their human structure while a look of panic spread across the rest of the wolf's face.

"What did you do to me?"

Carly didn't respond, she just stared at the woman, willing her into passivity. Carly felt her wrist, enclosed beneath her bracelet, begin to tingle, as if a vine crawled along her skin. The invisible vine connected the two women—wolf and valkyrie—and Carly constrained her opponent with it. You will comply, remain human, and disclose everything you know about the other wolves.

"They didn't do anything to you," Kenya responded in a monotone. "I think that big guy could have broken your neck, so you should count yourself lucky."

Shutting the door, Kenya turned to face Carly. "Keep out of trouble." She closed the distance between them slightly and added, "But keep Adele safe."

"I will."

When Carly returned to the house, she found Sookie taking inventory while Adele directed Yvgeny to right overturned furniture. Adele held a bucket and rag, both redolent of Pine Sol, with which she scrubbed away the blood from the walls and furniture.

"I don't know what this girl was thinking," Adele marveled. "Why anyone would traipse through the woods naked as the day she was born is beyond me."

"Fur protects skin," Yvgeny added, "should stay wolf."

"That's right, Jenya." Adele nodded in agreement. "Why didn't she stay a wolf?"

"Wolves don't have thumbs, Adele." Carly chuckled. "It's probably hard to break into a house without them."

Once the house had been returned to its previous state (apart from the broken window that had allowed the wolf access to the house), Adele announced that she was going to make tea. Yvgeny brought in a number of grocery bags and emptied them into the refrigerator, but Sookie continued to wander around the house aimlessly.

"What's wrong, Sookie?" Carly asked.

We're not safe here.

We can have a conversation out loud, Sookie. Your grandmother and Yvgeny can participate too.

But we should have stayed in New Orleans, shouldn't we?

No, you wanted your life back.

I'm never going to have my life back—it's changed forever—I can't get it back.

Carly's exasperation mounted and she didn't hold back. Was it the best life? Weren't you lonely and angry, holding back what had happened to you, keeping the truth from your brother. Now you're honest with yourself and him and you have someone who loves you very much.

But he's in New Orleans, and I'm here…

Carly laughed. "He can fly."

Adele came out with a tray of iced tea and four glasses. "Are you girls whispering to each other again?"

"We were just talking about whether or not it was safe to be here, Adele," Carly disclosed.

"We'll get the window fixed and the lock changed, and we'll be just fine. Jenya's staying on to keep an eye on things, aren't you, honey." Adele handed the bear a glass of tea.

"Yes, my English will get better." Jenya smiled lovingly at his newly adopted grandmother. "Godric always speaks Russian. And no woods in New Orleans."

"See, there you are, Sookie. We'll be just fine." Adele smiled at her grand-daughter with as much reassurance as she could muster, but both Carly and Sookie could tell that her own concerns were close to the surface of her mind.

"Okay, Gran." Sookie looked out the front window and crossed her arms, drawing her shoulders up to her ears in a shrug before relaxing and sighing. "I didn't think I'd miss Godric already."

Carly sympathized with her friend, because she knew how changed she'd been by the sudden and unexpected onslaught of love, how Eric's attentions had transformed her, how she felt alive and engaged in the world for the first time.

"I'm sure he misses you too, Sookie."

With another sigh, Sookie said, "He's asleep. Maybe when he wakes up he'll miss me a little."

"You can always go back to New Orleans too," Carly reminded her. "Jason's there, and I know that Godric would be happy for you to work for him too."

"I couldn't leave Gran by herself." Even as Sookie said the words aloud, her mind raced back to the night when Sam had come to the house, to the horrifying images he'd conjured up of Eric and Godric, of the venom that he directed toward the two vampires. Gran's not safe anymore either, Carly, I can feel it.

"Sookie," Gran interjected, "every child grows up and starts her own life. If you want to go back, you can go back. He's a good man, and I'm an old woman. You're entitled to a life of your own."

Sookie's eyes began to tear up and tears started down her face. But I'll never have babies with him…what use is a man when he can't give you a family? "I know, Gran."

Even though she knew it would be better to speak publicly, Carly directed her thoughts to Sookie alone: Do you really want children when you can hear every horrible thing they think about you when they're teenagers?

Carly! That's horrible! Despite Sookie's psychic protests, her mind returned immediately to her elementary school experience, to the memory of other children and the derisive, hateful things they thought about the pretty blond girl with the strange affect, the girl who always seemed to know their deepest secrets. But I want someone to love.

You have Godric, Sookie. Start there and then worry about children later…

But he can't give me children.

Your grandfather couldn't father children either, so your Gran got a donor. They can do the same thing in a lab now, Sookie. And we already know Godric's a great father, so get over it and move on. You either want to be with him or you don't.

"Carly!" Sookie's eyes widened, and she stomped upstairs in anger, slamming the door behind her.

Gran took ion a sharp breath and then laughed. "What did you do now, Carly?"

"I told her that she could get babies from a test-tube today and didn't need to worry about getting them from a husband."

Adele walked over to the mantle and took down her family portrait. "No, she shouldn't."

The afternoon turned into evening, and Carly and Yvgeny continued to help Adele with chores around the house and the property as a whole. Yvgeny mowed the lawn, split the logs from the tree Jason felled before they left for New Orleans, and cleaned the gutters around the periphery of the roof. After he was done, he came back inside and said, "We need new ladder. I bend."

Carly's tasks were more mundane, but equally adapted to her height. She brought down dishes from an upper shelf, damp-dusted the shelf, washed the dishes and replaced them; she cleaned the tops of the refrigerator and water-heater, and dusted the tops of moldings throughout the house, except for Sookie's room, where the young woman continued to ruminate over her future with Godric. Every few minutes, Carly caught a phrase, image, or sensation from her. As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, Carly felt Eric awaken, a sensation of warmth and love anchoring her to him. Within seconds her cellphone rang.

When she answered it, he asked, "Where are you, lover?"

"Bon Temps, at the Stackhouses'. They had a visitor."

"Ah…is it disposed of?"

"Incarcerated. But that wasn't the only excitement today." A few moments of silence passed between the two of them. "Eric?"

"Yes, I believe I was with you. Were you at the police station in Shreveport?"

"I was." Carly thought back to the encounter with the werewolf who rattled himself out of his cage. "What did you see?"

"Felt, perhaps." Eric's voice was hesitant. "And heard. That creature is dead, yes?"

"Yeah," Carly agreed. "Both he and the one here thought that I was a vampire. Why do they keep thinking that?"

"I don't know, Carly. Does it upset you?"

"No," Carly thought about it more. In the grand scheme of things, it was probably better for her to be misrecognized than to explain what she was. "I guess I worry that they'll ascribe powers to vampires that you all don't have, and that will attract attention."

Carly heard Thalia's strident voice in the background, although she couldn't understand the language she was speaking. "Carly," Eric translated, "we seem to have visitors. I must go."

Eric hung up the phone without further explanation.

"Adele," Carly called out, frantic. "I've got to go back to Shreveport right now."

As soon as their eyes met and Adele nodded in acknowledgement, Carly sent herself hurtling through space to Eric's office. She materialized next to his desk and heard Thalia's sharp inhalation in surprise.

"Beloved, I didn't expect you so quickly."

"Why not?"

"I just hung up the phone." Eric looked at his watch and then at the phone on his desk. "Perhaps twenty seconds elapsed."

"Well," Carly stumbled toward the sofa, "who's here?"

"Police," Thalia said blankly, "someone named Andrews with uniformed men."

"Invite them in," Eric directed.

"No," Thalia answered, "not with wolves in basement. You go to meet them outside—and you," Thalia pointed toward Carly, "need food."

Carly hadn't realized how much her stomach churned and ached, but feeding would have to wait. "No, I'm fine. I'll go with you."

Eric took her hand and moved toward the door. "You're filthy, lover."

"I was helping Adele clean house."

"I'm certain she's a taskmaster," Eric laughed. "Perhaps not as commanding as Thalia, but nearly."

"I'm surprised you let Thalia order you around that way."

Eric shook his head, "She's right. If they heard something, we could have some difficulty. While we have an arrangement regarding V dealers, I doubt the police would be pleased to discover I maintained a dungeon."

"They probably wouldn't be," Carly agreed.

The door of the club opened out onto the parking lot, warmly lit by four sodium lamps in each corner. Detective Andrews leaned against a gray Ford LTD police cruiser, inconspicuous apart from the flood lamp on the driver's side and the siren affixed to the dash that peeked through the front windshield.

"My apologies if you have waited long." Eric nodded to each of the uniformed officers that flanked the detective, and then shook the detective's hand firmly. "Why the personal visit, detective?"

"I'm guessing your girlfriend's told you about the circus earlier today at the station." Detective Andrews hooked his thumbs into the top of his trousers.

"Not entirely. I just awoke a few minutes ago."

"Well, we've got all hell breaking loose, so any help you can offer would be much appreciated." The detective shook his head. "We got a report about an hour ago of three bikers breaking into a house down by Shreves Cutoff. Neighbors called it in, so we sent three cars—six officers—" Detective Andrews's distress came out as his voice cracked. "Two of them are dead, two still inside, two just seem to have lost their…" he drifted off. "The tactical team's out there, but I don't know what we're gonna do."

Eric squinted at the detective. "Why do you think we can be of help?"

Detective Andrews cocked his chin at Thalia, "Because I'm guessing your little friend there's the one who threw a guy fifty feet."

"Thalia?" Eric inquired, looking down at the top of her head.

"Perhaps," Thalia responded without commitment. "Do you wish me to throw more men?"

"To be honest, I don't give a damn what you do to them as long as they don't hurt any more Shreveport cops." Andrews shook his head in frustration. "Is it yes or no, people?"

Eric looked squarely at the detective and held his gaze. "Thalia?"

"I will help."

Carly, I need you with me, but I don't want to expose your secret to the humans. I don't know how strong these wolves are. Pam will meet us there, so there will be three vampires. I fear if they're in a vampire residence they may be fortified with blood and even stronger than they would be otherwise.

"My associate will meet us there. Give me the address." After calling Pam and directing her to the home invasion, Eric asked Detective Andrews to drive them.

Shouldn't we fly? Carly didn't understand why the three of them delayed if so many people were at risk. Eric grasped her hand and whispered in her ear, "I'm not Superman, Carly."

Even though she wished to respond in a million different ways—Eric was as close to a superhero as she'd ever encountered—Carly simply grasped his hand and held it as she looked out the window into the languorous Shreveport evening they sped through with siren wailing. Her insides churned in hunger and every shimmer of energy in the city captured her attention, even making her mouth water, but she dare not ask the police to pause while she harvested death that rose from the sidewalks. Within a few minutes, the car arrived at the scene.

Red and blue police lights swirled on the tops of cars and trucks that blocked the street and secured a perimeter around the house from view. An ambulance—luminescent with death—was stranded between two tactical vehicles, and Carly felt herself pulled to it the moment the car stopped.

"You have to let me out, Andrews," Carly begged, desperate for the detective to unlock the back doors to the cruiser as quickly as possible.

"Okay," he said without understanding. He opened the rear door locks and turned to Eric for explanation.

"Car sick," Eric smiled with the lie. "She gets that way."

Carly ran to the ambulance and leaned against it, soaking in the energy like a dry sponge in a puddle. She sent Eric a silent message—Stop me if I start glowing…

Images from the two dead police officers swam in her mind. The neighbor's frantic call relayed through the dispatcher, the passenger activating the siren and beacon, the driver speeding along the East King's Highway and screeching around the corner onto the sleepy residential circle. Other police cruisers pulled up alongside and they conferred—violent noises emanating from the house as they surrounded it. The voice of one of the dead men, Officer Newhouse, identifying himself, demanding entrance, demanding an accounting of events.

Gunshots from the back of the house rattle the narrative, which jumps ahead to the foyer of the house—covered in gore—Officer Newhouse grasping his neck, gasping for air as more gunshots sound—a werewolf plunges in for the kill, tearing his head from his body.

"Carly," Eric whispered in her ear. "You have to stop." Pulling her from the ambulance and onto the lawn, Eric encircled her in his arms. "Can you release it?"

The energy pulsed through Carly's limbs, churning, refining, until all that was left was the essence, life ready to be returned to the world. Carly stepped out of her shoes and sent it through the soles of her feet into the ground.

She separated from her beloved's embrace and swept off her feet. "I don't know how I'm going to explain that."

"I think some call it 'earthing.'" Eric shrugged, "Perhaps it's a way for you to relieve your nausea from the drive."

Pam joined the group after removing her heels and depositing them, along with her bag, in the trunk of her pink Mercedes. As she sauntered up, she extended her keys to Eric. "Please don't lose them." When Carly and Thalia looked blankly at her, Pam lifted her arms, twirled and said, "Pockets aren't flattering."

Taking charge, as usual, Eric found the tactical officer in charge of the siege. "What do we know?"

The officer looked to Andrews and then back to Eric once Andrews nodded. "Two of our men are inside, and the two who dragged out the Newhouse and Smith were incoherent. They've already been hauled off to the hospital."

"How?" Eric asked.

"In a car," the officer answered with a deadpan tone.

"No," Eric responded with some frustration, "how were they incoherent?"

Andrews answered for the tactical officer, "They only brought out Newhouse's body. His head's still inside. They said that wolves ripped it off."

"So they're clearly traumatized," Eric commiserated without offering further insight. "Do we know where the officers are being held?" Eric reached for Carly's hand and brushed his thumb against her wrist. Can you locate them?

Carly scanned the house and quickly identified five minds, five distinct consciousnesses radiant in the chaos—three werewolves, one human, and one vampire. Both the human and the vampire were weakened considerably, but still awake. She focused all her energy on the vampire, desperate to identify him or her to offer Eric as much information as possible.

She filtered through the static and found a faint entreaty. Get to the phone…Pam's on favorites…the sheriff will help me…the sheriff will kill them. Rising above the desperate thread, Carly saw youth, inexperience, a new vampire, longing for Eric's protection rather than that of his own maker who had turned him on a whim.

"There's a vampire in there too, Eric, named Jimmy Watson," Carly reported.

A twitch of regret animated Eric's face, "That poor creature. I exiled his maker for turning him and abandoning him. He has little strength already. If he's injured, he'll be unable to help himself."

The tactical officer demanded an explanation. "How do you know that?"

Carly's eyes darted for assistance, first to the house for identifying marks, then to Pam.

"She's been here with me." Pam drawled. "Jimmy's a sad-sack, and we took pity on him, brought him True Blood because he was afraid to leave the house."

While the tactical officer groused, Eric remained still and silent, and Carly couldn't penetrate his mind as he jumped from thought to thought, formulating a strategy as quickly as he can.

Finally, he spoke. "Andrews, we need to enter the house, but we can't be seen by humans. Can you withdraw the officers from the rear of the house?"

The order radioed to the officers in the back of the house, the three vampires and the valkyrie headed into the back yard, bounded by woods and the water of Shreves Cutoff.

"I want us to do this without shedding innocent blood, Carly," Eric said quietly as he grasped hold of her bracelet. Their minds fused and Carly could feel the separate consciousness rise between them, her own mind independent of the third entity that they became.

Thalia and Pam, Eric spoke silently to the two other vampires, do not get into our way. Rescue the injured once we have the wolves to heel.

Neither spoke in response. Instead, they each stepped to the side, flanking the power that stood between them.

As Eric's voice quieted, tendrils of power grew toward the back door, insinuated themselves through the gaps between the frame and the door itself, and ripped it from the structure. The tentacles took root inside the house and levered the Wolfmaster up and through the door as if Eric and Carly had become a massive, locomoting plant, surging with energy.

Carly's mind was just a passenger within the angry creature they had become, a creature demanding compliance, requiring the subjection of lesser beings. The power that surrounded the two of them terrified her, but she resisted the impulse to pull away from Eric, the impulse to break the connection and return to self and the safety of her own will.

The dismembered and partially consumed corpse of the other officer lay in the center of the floor, two wolves lapping at the blood that pooled around the torso, while the third, in human form, lapped at a wound on the vampire's arm. Seemingly unaware of the presence of the hybrid being that Eric and Carly had become, the wolves didn't move from their prey until Carly felt a sudden wave of fury rise from their shared being. They had been invisible to all around them until that moment.

"Beasts!" their shared voice boomed. "Cease and submit, or die!"

The two werewolves in their animal form stared at the Wolfmaster in shock and then flipped onto their bellies in submission while the man lunged toward them hissing. A limb made of nothing but will grasped hold of him midair and slammed him to the ground.

"Submit or die!" Their voice insisted again.

"Fuck you!" the werewolf whined, his voice barely audible.

"Then die!" echoed through the house and shook it to the foundation. His head and each of his limbs shot out from his torso and hit the walls leaving bloody craters in the drywall.

The attention of the Wolfmaster returned to the submissive wolves who groveled on the floor before them. "Shift into human form and surrender yourselves to the authorities."

The two wolves twitched and convulsed, their fur retreating back into their bodies as their legs lengthened into human form, their jaws retreated, and their foreheads extended. They still groveled on their backs as they scooted toward the door, their hands raised into the air.

imposing their will on the two men in a wave, Carly and Eric ripped away their memories of their capture. Once they were arrested, they wouldn't be able to explain how the siege had come to an end, just that their ringleader was dead, that they were responsible for the deaths inside, and that they were unapologetic cannibals who required a lifetime of incarceration or death.

Eric released Carly's wrist and their shared existence melted away and they returned to themselves. "Pam," Eric ordered, "open the door quickly so that the dogs can be seen."

"I could have kept my fucking shoes on for this, Eric." Pam nearly flew to the door and opened it, yelling in her loudest and shrillest voice. "All clear! They're coming out. We need EMTs in here for the one cop who's still alive and at least three True Bloods." Returning her attention to Eric, "I'm not touching any of them."