A/N No copyright infringement is intended. This is an A/U O/C story based on characters from True Blood and the Southern Vampire Mysteries Series.

Chapter Eight

When Eric and Carly pulled her Subaru into Jim Kelsey's driveway, nothing seemed amiss. They saw a few lights on throughout the house—the main entry way, the kitchen—but Carly didn't sense any presences in the home other than Jim, his wife, and their cook. What she thought was peculiar, though, was that all of their minds were concentrated together, clustered in a small space in the exact center of the house.

"There isn't anyone but them in the house, Eric. But they're all together—right in the middle."

"Maybe we need a different vantage point." Eric held out his arms toward Carly. "Let's go up."

Carly held on tight to Eric's neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. The two rose about fifty or sixty feet above the house and moved slowly outward from the house to the property line. At its edge, Carly sensed a consciousness, but not a thinking mind as she would recognize it. "There," she pointed. "Something's down there."

Eric reached up and grasped Carly's braceleted wrist and the third entity built of the two of them emerged to control their bodies and they slowly descended to the ground.

In their shared vision, they saw slender tentacles of energy exploring the underbrush along the fence-line. One of them wrapped around a canine leg and pulled. The beast yelped and snapped futilely at the entity that encircled it.

Eric and Carly turned away from the wolf and walked slowly into the illumination of a patio, dragging the protesting creature behind them. Once they were fully in the light, the entity they were together—the Wolfmaster—drew the wolf before them and raised the beast so that it stood on its hind legs. In a voice that echoed through the space, the composite entity demanded, "Transform!"

With a convulsion, the wolf's body began to shift into its human form: the beast-man's bones rattled against each other, its muscles strained and popped, and its hair thinned. Finally, a naked man stood encircled within their grip.

"Why are you here?" The entity yelled.

"I...I..." the werewolf stuttered, "was looking for you." The werewolf looked at Carly.

"Why?" The tentacle around the werewolf's belly tightened. "Why?"

"I followed the smell from the bar...I'm looking for the rest of my pack." The werewolf started weeping. "They're all gone...I'm alone."

Carly forced herself into the werewolf's mind and memory—his name was Phil—and saw his sense of separation, his longing to be at the center of the pack, and his longing for a mate and children. She also witnessed those moments where his half-brother forced Russell's blood into his mouth even though he refused it. Russell's blood left some hunger in him, but he didn't thirst for vampire blood in the same way as his fellows, as those held in the basement of Fangtasia or those whom they had already killed. He was as close to a harmless werewolf as one could find.

The tentacles of energy went lax, although they still held him in place. "Did you make the phone calls to this house today?"

"No," Phil responded. As the pressure loosened around his chest and belly, he sucked down gulps of air. "No. I've just been out here the last two days. I haven't called anyone."

Shall we try? Eric reached out to Carly across the chasm of their shared mind and with that tiny suggestion, the two of them experienced the same shift in consciousness. In less than an instant, they were the tentacles, and the tentacles became needles that ripped into the werewolf's body, branching out smaller and smaller —still carrying their consciousness with them. When they reached their smallest point, they became hooks. Instead of flesh and blood, the barbs attached to crystalline spirals that Carly understood as something between DNA and spirit.

Carly was suddenly aware the two of them were poised to do irreparable violence to Phil—either to tear him apart from within or tear away that which made him a werewolf. No. He's done nothing to harm anyone, Eric. We can control this.

Carly's mind asserted itself and stopped the entity from proceeding. The tentacles wrapped around and within the molecules that linked together Phil's werewolf nature with his human nature. On top of every string of DNA, they sensed a shadow, an alternate code that seemed to occupy two dimensions at once. As the entity's talons grasped it, visions of wolves, echoes of howling, and the taste of blood flooded Carly's and Eric's shared consciousness. With one sharp pull, their combined will could rip away Phil's beastly nature. But Carly held firm and Phil remained a werewolf, although he remained in their thrall. They both felt a shift of attention, back to the blood, to Russell's blood that lingered within Phil. They lay hold of it and refused to let go.

With what remained of Edgington within their grasp, the tentacles withdrew and released Phil's body, which collapsed to the ground. Their intrusion into his essence rendered him unconscious. As the tentacles retreated back to their source, they heated and the blood vaporized with an accompanying scream. Eric released Carly's bracelet and the entity faded away.

Eric pulled the man up and brought him over to a chaise lounge next to the Kelseys' pool. "He's alive." Eric called Kelsey on his cellphone and asked him to come out to confer. He also asked Kelsey to bring a change of clothes with him.

After a few minutes, Kelsey emerged from his house with a matching set of Tulane University sweats.

"What in God's green earth?" Kelsey exclaimed, looking down at the naked, unconscious man. "This is what had Phyllis losing her mind? She swore up and down that she saw a wolf in the yard after I left for the office. She's spent most of the day holed up in that safe room you got installed last year. She said she wouldn't come out until you told her she could. I'll tell you, Eric, you have undermined my status as man of the house." Kelsey laughed.

"It happens," Eric said without affect. "She isn't wrong. She did see a wolf, but it appears as if we have neutralized it for the time being." Eric slipped the sweatshirt over Phil's head and the sweatpants up over his legs. "Shall I go tell Phyllis that all is well?"

"I think we've skipped a step, Eric." Kelsey squatted next to the trespasser. "Are you saying he is a werewolf and you've done something to him?"

"Yes."

"Do we have to tell Phyllis that there are werewolves in this world?"

"No." Eric looked to Carly.

She struggled to invent a plausible story. "Maybe he had a big dog with him? We called the pound and they've already picked it up." Carly looked over to Kelsey. "Do you think she'll buy that?"

"Shreveport animal control come promptly?" Kelsey shook his head. "No, we better say it ran off. I'll go get her. I don't want you," Kelsey nodded toward Carly, "alone with him if he wakes up."

Eric pulled a chair up next to the chaise and sat. "Come. Sit with me, Carly." Eric gathered her up in his arms and she curled up against him.

Carly looked up at him and caught a glint of light in his eyes. "You look sad," she said.

"No." Eric said slowly, "I'm frightened. And I don't quite understand that feeling or why I have it."

Carly held his cheek in her hand and nuzzled into his neck.

Please, Carly, can you help me understand this fear?

She kissed his collarbone softly. I'll try.

Carly closed her eyes and listened to Eric's mind, the familiar multi-layered humming that she found so beautiful. She bored into his recent memory, curious if his perception of the experience of the third entity was identical to hers—it wasn't.

Looking through Eric's eyes, Carly felt herself shrink and shoot in a million directions, pressed into needles that tore into the wolf's body. Unlike Carly's experience, Eric's was excruciatingly painful and each bit of himself, separated into a million points, vibrated with agony and the fear—there was the fear—that he would never come back together, that he would melt into a puddle of cells, conscious but unable to move, unable to feel, unable to touch, unable to be loved. Eric feared becoming disembodied, disaggregated, but there was another fear behind that. He felt an attraction, a desire to rejoin something, to disappear into a larger whole. And at that moment, Carly understood.

"I think you're afraid someone can do the same thing to you—to rip you in half—to rip your vampire nature away from you." Carly kissed him and sent him all the love she felt for him, all the peace that she could conjure. "But I don't think that's possible. I think I understand what animates vampires, Eric. Those hives..."

"Perhaps that is a story that should wait for another occasion," Eric said quietly as the door closed and Phyllis and Kelsey emerged from the house.

"Oh, Eric," Phyllis seemed overwrought. "I am so glad you are here."

Eric stood, allowing Carly to slip off his lap, so that he could embrace Phyllis. "Phyllis, everything is okay now."

"Maybe here!" She let go of Eric and wrapped Carly in a tight embrace. "Have you seen the news? That Nazi in New York? And a crime wave all through the south? Horrible things on the news, just horrible! And in Shreveport! That home invasion?"

"I understand, Phyllis," Eric replied calmly while Mrs. Kelsey still embraced Carly. "But I don't think this man is a threat to you anymore."

"Jim said you ran his dog off?"

"Yes," Carly replied and tried to push Phyllis away.

"I don't believe you!" Phyllis exclaimed. "I don't think there was a dog. Barbara Andrews told me that her husband is having nightmares about werewolves!"

"Phyllis," Carly tried to calm her. "Does that make sense to you?"

"Vampires don't make sense! Mind-readers don't make sense!" Phyllis pointed at Carly with disapproval and a little fear. "Don't you think I don't know what's going on with you, young lady!"

"I think I need to visit with Detective Andrews," Eric sighed. Carly, what should I do? Should I make her forget what she's seen?

Does Kelsey know about the glamour? How would he react to knowing that you can change what people believe?

I've never used it on him or in front of him. I have never lied to him.

Then don't start now.

Eric sighed loudly and pulled Phyllis down into the empty chair and said, "You must calm down, Phyllis, before we explain this to you."

"I'm calm," Phyllis said with a shaking voice.

With a faint smile, Eric explained. "A group of werewolves from Mississippi have been dispersed across the south. There are not many of them. Perhaps fifty, perhaps fewer, and at least fifteen are accounted for in Louisiana. Others have been captured in other states," Eric explained calmly.

"But why were they here?"

"Only one—" Eric pointed to the unconscious man, "only one was here and he was looking for the rest of his pack. He'd followed Carly's scent. He is relatively harmless. I don't think he poses a threat."

"How?"

"Phyllis," Eric took her hand, "I can't tell you that. But I can tell you that you are safe here. Carly is no longer living here, so her scent will disappear after another day or two."

Jim cleared his throat. "There is also the matter of the phone calls."

Eric's attention shifted. "Yes, you haven't explained those."

"We got a bunch of hang-ups, but we also got two calls asking for your contact information, for your phone number and address. We refused, of course."

"Of course." Eric stood. "I believe we should consider these to be separate issues. He knew nothing of any phone calls."

Phil groaned and shifted slightly before sitting up and opening his eyes. "What? Who are you?"

Eric stood menacingly over him. "I am Eric Northman and you have trespassed at my attorney's home. Who are you? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm Phil Weiss. I'm sorry..." He moved his legs so that his feet were flat on the concrete patio. He pushed his feet back and forth and then looked up at Eric. "I'm looking for my people. I'm all alone."

"Do you mean your pack?" Eric clarified.

"Yeah, I guess." Phil looked over to Carly. "Do I know you? I'm really confused."

Carly tuned into his brain and saw much of what she had seen before, but all slightly changed. His desire for family was just as strong, but his hunger for vampire blood was entirely gone, as was his memory of ever having tasted it. He had no recollection of why he'd followed Carly's scent to the Kelseys' or of his interaction with the shared consciousness that Carly and Eric became when they linked together. When he looked at the two of them, the vampire and valkyrie, he looked at them as if they were parents or teachers.

Eric, I think he's imprinted on us. Like a puppy.

It would be nice to have one fewer werewolf to torture. It's getting tiresome. We will figure out what to do with him—whether he has any skills. Perhaps we can send him to David in New Jersey or to Jackson to be with the Long Tooth Pack. If they are willing, the Shreveport pack can make the judgment.

"Phyllis," Eric returned attention to his lawyer's wife. "I think that this would be a good time for you to get away and go visit your daughter in Paris. You have the keys to my apartment. Please make yourself at home as long as you would like."

"I think Eric's right, honey," Jim agreed. "Let's go book you a ticket."

As Jim Kelsey and his wife turned away, Eric's cellphone buzzed. "Shit. I forgot Longshadow." Eric pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jim, can you quickly draw up a buyout agreement for Longshadow?"

"How much?"

"I'll be generous to get him out of my hair." Eric paused while he did the math. "He put up $100,000, so we'll give him one full year's return-$160,000."

"Too generous, Northman." Jim shook his head. "I'll draw up a couple of versions. That bastard doesn't deserve a penny over $125,000. That should be your only offer. I'll shoot them over to you in an email."

The two men shared an affirming nod, and then departed in opposite directions.

When they got into the car, Eric opened the front passenger door for Phil. "Phil, we can trust you, can't we?"

"Yeah, why would I hurt you?" Phil looked at Eric and then turned to Carly, sorrowfully. "You're helping me. You could have called the cops."

Carly, I know you won't have much room, but please sit behind me so we can touch. I still worry that he might have a change of heart.

Carly crawled into the narrow space that remained once Eric's seat was pushed to its furthest limits and reclined enough for him to wedge himself into the driver's seat and placed her hands on either side of Eric's neck.

"Thank you, lover." Eric moaned appreciatively. "That is comforting."

Phil asked, "How long have you been together?"

"Forever," Eric replied with a soft smile. "We are together forever."

"I'd like that," Phil seemed about to cry. "That's not usually how it works for my kind. I wish it could be."

Rather than burrowing into Phil's mind again, Carly thought she might push him to volunteer information aloud. "How does it usually work?"

"Women get passed around..." Phil paused, then added, "but there aren't that many of them."

"Why?"

The werewolf shrugged. "I'm not sure, really. When I was little, there were about a dozen of us kids in the pack, and only four were girls. The Long Tooth Pack had a few more who've taken up with us, or packs that drift in. The King always sent out recruiters." Phil scoffed, "Although I think they killed more wolves than they brought in."

"So your mom?" Carly asked gently.

"She's been dead years now." Phil wiped away a tear. "I guess that's part of it. She had Jedd and then me and Meg a year apart—but the last baby got stuck and she died. I guess I was seven."

"And your dad?"

Phil stared out the window of the car. After a long silence, he replied, "The King killed him three years ago. He was protecting me."

"I'm really sorry, Phil." Carly was sincere, and she could feel Eric's sympathy as well. She peered into the wolf's mind to make sure that the "Meg" in Eric's basement was, in fact, Phil's half-sister. When she searched for the verification, she stumbled into his memory of his father's death.

Phil knelt on a sharp stone—a flat, garden path stone—with his father beside him, flat on his stomach. And Russell Edgington, king and terror of Mississippi, loomed over the two of them yelling and spitting, ripping the leaves from a topiary that stood beside the path. "I told you I wanted fucking symmetry! And flowers! On the inside! The only flowers on this goddamned thing are on the outside. Which of you dogs did this?" Phil's father raised his hand—visible just in his son's peripheral vision. "Not the dimwitted boy? The stupid old man did it?" Russell seemed to calm. "Well, you've outlived your usefulness." Russell raised his leg and stomped on Phil's dad's head—over and over again until there was just a puddle of bone and brain and blood. "Phil, clean this shit up and turn this so I can see the fucking flowers!"

Carly reached across the gap and squeezed Phil on the shoulder to offer comfort. Eric stiffened, and Carly could feel a vibration from him, a soft growl of disappointment that she had offered consolation to someone else, that was quickly displaced by compassion for the wolf.

I see it too, Carly. Poor boy.

"Phil," Eric began, "when we get back to the club, we will need some time to figure out what we're going to do with you."

"Yeah. I wish I knew where my people were." Phil looked out of the car window and sighed. "Although they're kind of assholes..."

"Yes," Eric agreed. "It appears many of them were also murderers and rapists." As they turned into the driveway that led to the alley behind the club. "I do not believe that you are any of those things. Are you?"

Phil shook his head. "No. I'm not."

"So what are you?"

The wolf shrugged. "I took over from my dad with the king's gardens—I took care of the shrubs. That's about all I know how to do, but it's more than a lot of my people."

"And your sister? Meg? When was the last time you saw her?" Eric tried to prepare Phil for the scene in the basement, or for their reunification.

"I don't know."

For the first time, Phil seemed truly exhausted, and Carly realized that he was probably also hungry.

"Think back, Phil," Eric prompted. "It's important."

"The king sent eight wolves out here—" Phil paused "—I think a week ago, maybe eight days. He made a big deal about it. Then when all the black SUVs started coming onto the place, a bitch and I took a car and headed out. I dropped her off by the highway and kept going." Phil pointed laconically, "The car's over that way a couple of blocks."

"So Meg was among those eight?" Eric followed up with another question when Phil nodded his head. "Did she have a specific task?"

"Meg's got more education than most of us. Her dad's not a wolf, so she went to school. She's a nurse's aid—she worked for a baby doctor's office in Jackson. I think she was supposed to take care of some pregnant lady."

Eric turned off the car and shifted to turn toward Phil, at the same time that he brought his hand up to Carly's wrist and traced the outline of her bracelet. "Phil, I believe that Meg and her associates were asked to kidnap a pair of siblings and hold them captive until they produced a child."

"Gross." Phil shrugged again and added, "But that's the kind of shit the king asked us to do. I'm not shocked. Did you kill them?"

"No," Eric's certainty wavered a little and then he added, "not all of them. Meg, Jake, and two others are our prisoners. One other was violent—had violated and murdered a woman—and he is dead."

"I hope it's Lister." Phil's voice didn't change pitch to convey anything other than resignation. "Bastard deserves it."

"It was." Eric knew that the next bit of information he had to share might not be so well-received. "Two wolves attacked us prior. I fear that one of them was your brother."

"Jedd?" Phil's voice was equally flat. "He was an asshole too—always..."

Carly peered within him and saw him grapple to access the lost memory of consuming the vampire king's blood against his will.

"So you feel no need for vengeance against us?" Eric asked.

"No." Phil looked away again. "I know my people are no good—and the king was a monster. My dad told me stories about how his grandmother came to the US—how the king had her bred in Germany..." Turning back to Eric, he said, "I got nothing against you. I just want to find a reason to live." After a few beats, he added, "And I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to be bad just so I have people."

Carly could feel Eric's compassion and feel an echo of how Eric had felt in the past when encountering nests of vampires—the desire for companionship tempered by suspicion or disapproval or even disgust.

"I fear for your safety if you stay with us inside the club. Your pack has done a great deal of harm to the vampires in this area, and they may not be as sympathetic to you as we have been. May we lock you in the basement with the others? We will not restrain you. You may sit on the stairs so that you don't have to see the condition they are in."

The werewolf agreed without hesitation, and the three of them entered the club. Eric grasped Carly's arm and said, "Let me get him there quickly." He kissed her on the top of the head and then grabbed the wolf and disappeared toward the basement.

Carly felt Longshadow's angry presence on the other side of the door into Eric's office, so she leaned against the wall and waited for Eric to return. If she couldn't assist Eric in getting Phil settled, she would collect some intelligence he could use in his negotiations with Longshadow.

She concentrated on the hum on the other side of the door, expecting that the symphony would settle into a recognizable pattern she could penetrate. But once the different channels sorted themselves out, she realized that none of them were in English. She'd never done any substantial linguistic anthropology, so she wasn't good with differentiating unfamiliar languages, but she figured that there had to be at least two or three Native American languages going on at one time. The voices in Longshadow's inner conversation began to alternate with one another, like voices in a duet, but then a French chorus would chime in every few measures. L'autorité...Reine du sang...la résurrection...fin de l'humanité...

Eric kissed her gently, disrupting her concentration. "What have you found for us?"

"Who is the Queen of Blood?"

"Is that what he's thinking about?" Eric straightened as he asked, looking toward the door with heightened vigilance. "I always thought of Longshadow as something of an anarchist. Perhaps I miscalculated."

"It's only fragments. He doesn't think in English." Carly grasped Eric's wrist tightly and made herself into a conduit, amplifying what she heard and broadcasting it into Eric, who winced in discomfort.

After a few moments, Eric pushed her had away. "I'm the wrong person, I'm afraid. I don't understand anything other than the fragments of French. He's clearly preoccupied with the Authority, but I can't tell why. I can, however, tell that he is very angry and impatient, so we ought to begin."

Eric directed Carly behind him, and then opened and strode through the office door.

"Where the hell have you been, viking?"

As Eric sat, he countered, "I'm in no mood, Longshadow. This will take a moment for me to retrieve the buyout offer and to write the check." Eric drew Carly in close to him, pointed under the desk, and whispered, "Do you have enough room down there, my sweet?" I don't trust him, so I want a barrier between you and him.

Carly didn't reply, but squeezed into the space below the desk and slid her hand beneath the cuff of his jeans so she grasped Eric's leg. Thank you for keeping me safe. But remember that we can send him across the room if we want to.

Eric stroked Carly's hair while Longshadow grunted in apparent disgust. Once his computer was back online, Eric downloaded and printed the document that Kelsey had named "buyout offer," leaving a second named "counter," alone. "I spoke to my attorney, who recommended that I return your investment without additional compensation."

"That's bullshit. This place has pulled in a fortune in less than a month, and you know it."

Eric reached down to a file drawer and pulled out a thick blue folder. "Our original contract stipulated a two year commitment for each partner. If the establishment were profitable, the investment would be returned proportionately, anticipating that we would see a return on our investment by the end of the second year."

"I want $150,000." Longshadow crossed his arms. "150 K or else."

"Or else, what?"

Carly could feel the heat of Eric's temper flare. He was perfectly happy giving Longshadow more than that, so Eric was confused that the bartender had immediately moved into a threatening poster.

"Or else I tell the Authority what your pet is."

Carly's own anger rose up to meet Eric's as it climbed.

Eric backed his chair up so that Carly could slide up his leg to his lap. When she settled in comfortably, she turned to meet Longshadow's gaze. Eric ran his hand down from her shoulder to her wrist to grasp her bracelet. The vengeful entity rose up when they joined together and its powerful tentacles reached out toward Longshadow, but when they were an inch or so away from him, they retreated, as if disinterested.

As their shared power retreated, leaving Longshadow unscathed, Carly could feel her own abilities rise up, but amplified through the entity's presence. Carly felt the hot vortex of power swirl around her as she completed the lock on Longshadow's mind, and then she asked, "And what am I?"

When Longshadow attempted to speak, a look of confusion and loss spread across his face. The winds subsided and he whispered, "You're a nobody human."

"Exactly, Longshadow." Eric concurred and then released Carly's wrist when Longshadow blinked. The entity they became lingered for a moment and then disappeared.

The three of them remained silent and unmoving for a few moments, and then Longshadow said, "I'll take $125,000, and you'll never hear from me again."

"Satisfactory."

Eric and Longshadow signed the contract, and Carly witnessed it. Once Longshadow had the check in hand, he was gone.

"Let's move to the sofa, lover," Eric directed. He stretched out along the length of the sofa and Carly moved to straddle him so they could see one another clearly. They leaned their foreheads against one another and then kissed one another lightly.

"Do you think it can answer questions?"

Caressing her head and neck with his fingertips, Eric replied, "Perhaps. Do you wish to try? But I think I understand why it betrayed us."

With another kiss, Carly asked, "Why?"

"I think it only has one purpose—to seek vengeance against Edgington and his blood. Everything else we must do ourselves."

Carly giggled quietly, "It did feel like it gave me a bull-horn. Maybe the pins and needles are only for Edgington's blood."

"Yes, that may be. I don't know what happens once Edgington's blood is gone." Eric shook his head and laughed, "I never thought I could feel so sorry for someone as I do for Phil. You're a bad influence on me, Carly."

"Has the great Eric Northman been infected by human pity?"

Carly tried to tickle him but he very quickly had her on her back and completely caged and subdued.

"Never!" After a deep, immobilizing, electric kiss, Eric said, insistently, "A valkyrie's mercy."

Although both of them wanted to continue to kiss and eventually to make love, they also wanted to be rid of the wolves.

"Let me make some calls. Go spend some time with Pam."

After one more overlong kiss, Carly headed out into the bar. Just as on the night before, the bar had a higher than usual number of vampires in attendance, which seemed to lend itself to an even bigger human crowd. Two of Fangtasia's human employees—two burly men who looked like idealized versions of bar bouncers—worked the door, where a crowd pressed for admission. Only as customers departed were new ones admitted.

Carly stood at the edge of the stage and waited for Pam to recognize her, but the vampire's attention seemed focused on the bar, so she didn't acknowledge her friend.

"Yo, Pam!" Carly yelled over the discordant music.

With clear annoyance in her eyes, that quickly evaporated when she saw her friend, Pam said, "Sorry." Pam hurried to the edge of the stage and jumped down.

"What is up you, Pam? You look worried."

Pam pointed at the bar. "I am, a little."

Where Longshadow had reigned the night before, glowering sullenly as he filled drinks for humans and offered blood for the vampires, Jimmy Watson now smiled broadly, confidently filling drink orders and flirting away with customers, male, female, and unreadable—human and vampire alike. When she had met him the night before, broken and bloodied, she hadn't really believed Pam's assertion that Jimmy was "pretty." But now, remade by Thalia, Jimmy was radiant.

"Wow!" Carly smiled at her friend. "He looks terrific!"

"Yeah," Pam responded slowly. "It's, well, scary how well he's doing. We didn't really have a plan to replace Longshadow. I was stupid and thought Alan would be able to keep up, but he couldn't. He kept flubbing recipes and leaving the beer tap running. He made a god-awful fucking mess in ten minutes. But then Thalia and Jimmy came in. She went to the basement, and he took over like he was Tom Cruise or something."

"Why is that scary?"

With a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, Pam said, "I guess I expected he'd be a mini-her—full of menace and foreigner talk, but he's not—but he isn't like he was either."

"He's probably not sad anymore." Carly resisted the impulse to tap into his thoughts, deciding instead to just feel happiness for him.

"Well, he's damn good for business, that's for sure. If this keeps up, we won't even have to recapitalize what Longshadow took."

Pam was right. While Carly had sensed before how much desire animated the Fangtasia crowd, it was so often desire with an undercurrent of envy—desire to take what others had—immortality, sex, beauty. But, tonight, the crowd seemed to be ebullient with desire fueled by joy, and Carly could feel Jimmy as its focal point. She laughed, "Eric's going to get jealous!"

With the shadow of smile, Pam said, "He'll probably be relieved!"

"What has my women so amused?" Eric wrapped his arms around the two of them and stooped to put his head between theirs.

Once again, Pam just pointed.

"Wow!"

"That seems to be the word of the night, Eric," Pam affirmed. "And look at the crowd. We're over capacity."

Before Eric could scold her, Pam added, "I interpreted the fire code to mean 'human capacity.' I didn't want any vampires waiting outside. And since the fire inspector and his wife are at the end of the bar, drinking and flirting with Jimmy, I think we're good."

Eric stood at full height and surveyed the room. Carly could tell he was counting, trying to determine if all the vampires who had locked themselves into the bank vault were present.

Pam took a piece of paper out of the black clutch that she carried. "Esther gave me a list of who is here and who isn't and where those are. Six didn't want to miss work, including Emmie and Charlie. Liam and his nest mates have come out to keep an eye on the cleaners and make sure that they're okay."

"Not my favorites, but they're strong."

"They also want to screw them, so it isn't altruism." Pam sighed unnecessarily. "I'm hungry. Can I use your office?"

"Yes, but don't take too long."

"You're no fun." Without hesitation, Pam sauntered over to the fire inspector and initiated a conversation, but wrapped her arm around his petite, red-haired wife. After a few moments, she retreated to the office hand-in-hand with the two of them.

"She's incorrigible." Eric squeezed Carly and added, "I have no idea where she learned it."

Rising on her tip-toes to kiss him, Carly whispered, "No idea whatsoever." They enjoyed a kiss full of longing and then embraced, rocking back and forth slowly in answer to the music.

What are we going to do about the wolves, Eric?

Eric answered her silent question in images rather than language. She saw the two of them in the basement, holding each other, and the Wolfmaster rose up in power, emerging from them and enveloping them. Within Eric's mind, it was a massive, wolf-headed creature with a hundred arms of blue flame that reached out and grasped the wolves, breaking them open like porcelain dolls. Pools of blood accumulated around their broken bodies and then burst into flame. When the last bit of blood burned away, the fiery tentacles solidified into dexterous hands that reassembled and smoothed the broken wolves into their original forms.

Is that what you see?

No, it's what I feel. The pack leader of the Shreveport pack will be here in an hour and will take them off our hands. Godric is willing to take them in if they can prove themselves worthy. Few wolves live in New Orleans since the flooding.

So let's do it...

Carly and Eric opened the basement door and found Phil trying to recover his balance. He'd apparently been sitting on the top step, leaning on the door.

"Phil," Eric addressed him, "please move down a few steps so we can join you."

"Sure."

Carly, we should test our limits.

Positioning her bracelet under Eric's palm, Carly prepared for the Wolfmaster's emergence, which arrived with force that knocked her breath away. Their tentacles slid down the steps and encircled Jimmy's limbs and torso, exerting just enough force to lift him from the stairs without causing him pain.

"Whoa! What's happening?"

Their shared voice spoke, "Phil, we will carry you into the basement, and now you must sleep until we wake you. You will not hear or remember anything that happens while we are in this space."

With that command, Phil went limp. They descended the stairs, Phil preceding them. When they reached the floor, the tentacles extended to the back of the basement and pulled blankets into a nest where they placed him gently."

Thalia was visible in the corner of Carly's vision. She acknowledged their arrival and then turned to face the wall.

Meg saw her brother and cried out, "No! Please don't hurt him! Phil never hurt anybody!"

Their response echoed. "We know. But you have conspired to kidnap and breed your captives. What do you say to that, Meg."

From within the cocoon of their shared consciousness, Carly could see how badly the four wolves were faring. Their thighs, beneath the spikes to their knees, were swollen and mottled red and black and green, and the smell of infected flesh filled the dank basement. They were all on the verge of gangrene or septic shock. All of them burned with fever, but only Meg was conscious.

The wolf-woman shook as she wept, "I'm sorry. I would do anything to take it back. Please...I don't want to die."

The Wolfmaster's will expanded and the tentacles transformed, some of them into the same kind of probes that had removed Edgington's blood from Phil and others into supports and lock picks and surgical instruments. Once removed from the manacles that held her in place, Meg levitated across the room, impaled by countless spikes of power that branched and branched until they moved into the spaces between her cells. Once their microscopic hooks had found Edgington's blood, they ripped it away, destroying it in a white hot conflagration that consumed everything that remained of the vampire within her. The tiny hooks recalibrated and sought out infection within her. A green sludge pumped out of her body and made the invisible tentacles visible as it dripped along them onto the floor. Another set of tentacles punctured the wolf's hip and thigh and knit the bone and tissue back together, bringing it back to health. Finally, the tentacles carried her over to join Phil on the blanket.

The entity shifted its attention to the other wolves and followed the same process, one by one, until only Jake was left. As their tentacles reduced in circumference down to sharp needles, and then hooks that probed through the wolf's DNA into its spirit, Jake's memories flooded the shared consciousness of viking and valkyrie: they felt themselves inside ten-year old Jake, who circled the other children in the pack as they wrestled over an object, playing keep away from another child who screamed and cried. Finally, the oldest children in the pack transformed into wolf cubs and bit into the thing they fought over, tearing it apart. Only when the blood hit the ground did was it recognizable as a baby...

In disgust, their shared consciousness flooded Jake's mind with a blue fire that obliterated that memory and others of equal horror. The last vestiges of Russell Edgington and his monstrous court burned away and the Wolfmaster rebuilt Jake cell by cell into something that could survive.

Eric loosened his hand from Carly's bracelet, but the entity remained, so the viking and valkyrie watched as its tentacles spread across the floor, translucent limbs of energy that burned as they faded away, vaporizing the blood, muck, infection, and sorrow that lingered on the concrete. When the last of it was gone, the Wolfmaster disappeared, and Eric and Carly fell into one another in exhaustion.

"It looks like our baby has a life of its own," Eric whispered as he embraced Carly.