Chapter Nine
The wattle and daub walls that separated Carly and Eric from the outside world breathed in and out with the force of the wind that blew outside them. The ebb and flow of that pressure kept Carly asleep, or in between sleep and wakefulness, or in the dream where she found herself, but she felt the warmth of her lover's body along her chest and belly and the heat and pulse of another body along her back. When she opened her eyes and turned to look behind her, Carly saw long white fur that rose in a crest around a massive skull, the skull of a wolf whose body was longer than her own, as long as her beloved's, which was breathing and quietly snoring beside her.
They lay snuggled into a pallet of smooth textiles and sheepskins at one end of a wooden long house, the embers of an dying fire in the center, and thin wisps of smoke that separated them from a figure who sat along the far wall. She pulled herself from Eric's embrace and sat up, a sheepskin falling away from her body.
The shadowy figure leaned forward and said, "Did I disturb your rest?"
"Where have you brought us?" Carly realized that she wasn't concerned for her modesty, although she and Eric were naked.
"This isn't my doing, valkyrie, but his." The figure pointed to Eric.
"So is this his dream?"
"What are dreams?" He replied, rising and stepping forward to the firepit. He threw a log into the coals and sparks rose up to illuminate him more. One spark lingered on the rim of his hat.
Yes, Carly thought, what are dreams? According to the other valkyries, or whatever they were called—the Erinyes, the Gathering Women, the Banshees—she'd never dreamed. Of course, they hadn't really explained what she'd done instead. Had she traveled into memory? Traveled through time? Through dimensions? Instead of getting angry, Carly turned her attention to the wolf, gently petting its head. Like a sleeping dog, it stretched its snout upward at her touch and caught her hand with its paw, twice the size of her hand. "So who is this?"
"You only seem to ask questions when you already know the answer."
"So this is what comes out when we are bound together?" Carly lifted up her arm to look at the bracelet, which seemed brand new. "Eric called it our baby."
"Of a sort, I suppose."
"Thank you for this," she shook the bracelet and looked up at him through the smoke. As his features became more visible, she realized that she still had power in this world, wherever they were. She felt the force of the winds rise up from within her, heat and fire that rushed toward him and blew his hat from his head. She laughed as the figure scrambled toward the door to retrieve it. "Can I get a better look at you?"
With his back to her, he responded. "That was quite unfair, little valkyrie." He slowly turned toward her... and her alarm sounded, summoning her back to Eric's bedroom in Shreveport, Louisiana.
In their own world once again, Eric lay immobile, his body cool, although still warm where she'd laid against him through the few hours they'd rested.
As Carly gathered herself together to head into the medical examiner's office, she thought back to the exchange a few hours before between Eric and Frank Capelli, the leader of the Shreveport Pack. Although he told Eric he would arrive an hour after they'd talked on the phone, he'd sent a number of texts to report he was delayed, and then arrived just after the last of the bar's patrons departed.
When Capelli banged on the front door, Eric opened it, "On your own clock once again, I see, Capelli."
"Suck it, Northman. I'm here." Capelli strode into the bar with confidence that was in contrast to his physical presence. Even with the two inch heels on his cowboy boots, Capelli was shorter than Carly, with a wrinkled, drawn face, and a skinny frame. His sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, and his tendons were visible, hard ropes that linked muscle to bone. As he walked, he flexed his fingers, extending and contracting them into fists repetively. "I can't put them all up, so I had to reach out to the other members of the pack. The sibs will stay together with my niece and her cubs. But the two others are getting farmed out."
"I really don't care," Eric led Capelli toward the basement. The three of them descended the steps and saw the wolves in the center of the basement floor, sitting together in matching Walmart t-shirts and sweat pants. Empty pizza boxes surrounded them.
Thalia stood in a darkened corner of the basement, nearly invisible, but when Capelli came into her view she growled.
"Northman, you didn't tell me the little Greek psycho was here." Capelli stopped on the final step.
"Thalia has been guarding the wolves much of the time they have been here." Eric chuckled quietly and added, "I forgot you're acquainted with her."
"Acquainted—lucky to be alive. Call it what you will." With a sharp gesture, Capelli summoned the wolves to their feet. "Up! You're coming with me."
When all of them, including Thalia, were out of the basement and back on the club floor, Capelli called over his shoulder, "I'll get back in touch in a month. That should be enough time for us to know how they'll do."
Before he left the nightclub, Phil turned and ran back to Eric and fell to his knees, "Thank you, Mr. Northman."
Eric reached out and touched his head, but quickly brought his hand back. "Go. Be good."
"Stop groveling to the vampire, kid," Capelli snapped at him. "Come on, or I'm leaving you here to rot."
Once Eric had locked the door, Thalia said, "I do not know why I let him live."
"We all make mistakes, Thalia." Eric smiled at the tiny vampire. "Nevertheless, I, for one, have been grateful that you can be merciful."
Someday, Carly, thought, I'll find out what he did to her and what she did to him in return. But in the meantime, she had to prepare herself to meet Dr. Clovis Thibodeaux, the seventh of his name and profession, acting medical examiner, filling in for Dr. Ellen Watson as she underwent treatment for cancer.
As Carly drove into the office, she replayed her dream or Eric's dream that she shared. Eric slept as a man, breathing, with beating heart, snoring, as the massive wolf cuddled to her like a clingy toddler. The long house should have had a large family within it, but the three of them were alone, apart from the trickster responsible for the gift of the bracelet: Odin, or Loki, or some combination thereof. But what they became together wasn't a child—it was the product of magic, a will to vengeance, an entity that bored into a creature's innermost being and ripped it apart. It was a monster, not an oversized puppy-dog. According to the valkyries, Odin just "wanted to play," but he seemed to be playing a very long, elaborate game. And she couldn't find the rulebook.
Carly swiped her access card and opened the door into the medical examiner's office and was greeted by Tracy's enthusiastic laughter accompanied by a chorus of exclamations from the other employees of the office.
"No!" Bob declared, disbelief clear in his voice.
"Honest to Pete," an unfamiliar voice affirmed. "There I was, in the middle of the bayou, with one hand on a body and another on a shotgun, aimed straight for the gator holding onto its leg!"
"Carly!" Tracy called to her as she came into view. "Come meet Dr. Thibodeaux!"
A elderly, but hale and hearty gentleman, with a broad smile, with elegantly waved gray hair greeted her with arms extended before him. "Our resident artist arrives! It's my pleasure, Ms. Michael!"
Carly returned his smile and shook his hand. "The pleasure is all mine, sir. I didn't mean to cut your story short."
As Carly withdrew her hand, she saw the familiar waves of energy travel across the distance from his fingertips to hers. She struggled to keep her eyes on him as she felt the energy encircle her wrist and climb, like a snake, up her arm to her chest. With a breath, she felt overpowering grief weigh down her heart, grief accompanied by the fuzzy image of Clovis Thibodeaux seated next to her, holding her hand, squeezing it in rhythm to her last breaths.
Carly held her own breath as the energy turned and churned within her, transforming from death into life ready to be exhaled into the world.
"Are you all right, my dear? You look a little green?" Clovis expressed his concern.
Holding tight to the energy, Carly replied, "I'm sorry. I forgot something in my car. I'll be right back."
Carly darted outside the building, ran around to the back where a there was a tiny patch of grass against the building. She leaned down, touched it, and watched as the late fall grass greened and grew. She remained there for a moment, crouching, with eyes closed, holding fast to Lila Thibodeaux's last memory. With eyes fixed on her husband, Lila blessed him, thanked him for a long, happy marriage and the comfort of his presence as her brain slowly shut down and killed her body.
Prepared to hear the inevitable hushed voices about "the peculiar girl," Carly returned to the building and wasn't surprised, although she was disappointed, that the festive atmosphere had dissapeared. Bob and Aliya were back at their posts, and Tracy was quietly explaining Carly's lovelife to the doctor.
"She's attached to a vampire. He's a good man—takes good care of her, but I'm not sure she gets enough rest." Tracy popped her head out of her office and spotted Carly, who was grateful Tracy didn't conceal their conversation. "I was just telling Dr. Thibodeaux about that man of yours."
Carly joined them and smiled, "Yes, I guess I have a hard time keeping business hours and vampire hours at the same time."
Thibodeaux looked over his glasses at her. "Ellen told me about the quality of your work. As long as you keep up the clearance rate you have, you can take naps whenever you like." Clovis hit his thighs for emphasis and said, "Well, I suppose social hour has come to a close. Bob tells me I have guests downstairs who need attention. Ladies."
Once the doctor was gone, Tracy shook her head and said, "What was that all about?"
"I'm just tired, like you said, forgetful." Carly started toward her own office, "I've got work too."
"Carly," Tracy sighed. She added silently, I'm accustomed to keeping secrets. I'm here if you need to talk.
"Thank you, Tracy. I appreciate the offer. I suspect Octavia could tell you everything you need to know."
Tracy laughed and threw her head back, "Like I got time for that woman's theatrics!"
Once back at her own desk, Carly booted up her computer to check her email. She was expecting to hear from her contact in New Orleans, who wanted to make arrangements for her to visit and work with some remains that they couldn't link up with graves.
Dear Dr. Michael,
As we discussed in our prior email, we would prefer to have you work on site rather than incur the shipping charges back and forth to Shreveport. Please let us know your preferred date of arrival and we'll make arrangements for your accommodation. We have to put out a bid to our partner hotels, so we'll need at least two weeks notice for that.
Carly did not want to stay in some Metaire Motel 6, but she also didn't want to disclose to New Orleans authorities any more details of her life than she needed to. She shot off an email to Melissa to see if she could use Eric's quarters in Godric's palace.
Dear Melissa,
I'm going to need to go to New Orleans in a couple of weeks for work. Would it be okay if I stayed at the palace in Eric's room? I'd be much more comfortable in a familiar space.
Within 90 seconds, Melissa replied:
dear carly, of course! godric told me that it's just as much your room as eric's! you're welcome to use it any time you need. just send me a text and i'll make sure it's freshly dusted! things are pretty good here, although we have some visitors i'm not too crazy about. i really hope you and eric can pop in to see us sooner rather than later. tonight would be good. ;)
So Melissa wanted the two of them in New Orleans tonight, and she knew that Carly could bring them there instantly. Had she told Melissa what she could do? Had Godric? Or did she just figure it out herself? Carly realized that she had to stop being so sloppy and keep tighter control of who knew what about her abilities. Perhaps this is why Arianna kept saying that eventually Carly would no longer be able to live life "as a human"—in other words, Carly could no longer be part of human society.
In the meantime, she had remains from Catahoula Parish to identify in the auxiliary examination room in the basement. Carly took her laptop and camera and descended the stairs as quietly as she could. For some reason, she wanted to maintain as much distance between herself and Dr. Thibodeaux as possible. She just had to make it three months. Of course, she hadn't even been in Shreveport three months, and she'd already revealed herself to Ellen Watson and bound her to secrecy. So, perhaps, Carly needed to take this day by day.
Carly hoped that all three sets of remains that had been sent to her were part of the same crime so that she could justify her identification of Mary Dolores Pecarro from her femur alone, but something told her that wasn't the case. If Mary's remains were in a mass grave of some sort, they would have been complete, like the other two skeletons, but they weren't.
Since she knew that the femur wasn't part of the other two sets of remains, she completed her examination of it first. She measured its length, described its shape, and concluded that it belonged to a child or early adolescent between the ages of 10 and 14, but that was all she could legitimately conclude, since there aren't any decisive gender markers on a bone of that age. It showed evidence of average musculature, but also evidence of dissection—post-mortem knife marks at the major muscle attachment points. Whoever killed Mary also butchered her.
"Fabulous. Fucking cannibals." Carly groaned, grateful that barbarity was hidden from her, or at least not immediately accessible.
Carly laid Mary's bone aside and returned to cleaning the rest of the remains, examining them as she proceeded for similar knife marks, which were happily absent. The bones also seemed newer and the accretions that surrounded them included fragments of leather and cloth. They were a man and woman, post-adolescent, but younger than forty. The woman showed no evidence of having had children. Both skeletons had stab wounds on the ribs, sternum, vertebrae, and pelvis. She'd counted sixty-four wounds on the woman when Dr. Thibodeaux interrupted her. She jumped a little when he spoke.
"Dear girl, I had no idea you had to do this kind of work. I'm so sorry." The coroner looked over the bones and then spotted the evidence bags that she'd meticulously labeled. "Who sent these to you?"
"Catahoula Parish Sheriff's Department." Carly quickly noted her tally of wounds and the vertebra where she had paused. "They've been in their custody ten years, but they never seemed to have been in a coroner's office at all. They were still in the mud."
"Shameful, but not surprising." Dr. Thibodeaux clicked his tongue in disapproval. "So you have three people?"
"Looks like that." Carly pointed to the child's remains. "I'm not sure they're from the same crime, although these two," indicating the complete skeletons, "seem to show the same injuries."
Dr. Thibodeaux picked up the child's femur, "Ten or twelve year old girl," he paused. "Good lord almighty! Thank goodness she was dead already, although who knows how the poor child died." He put down the bone and turned back to the complete skeleton. "Not the same kind of knife at all."
Carly struggled to contain how impressed she was. Medical examiners were usually best when they worked with soft tissue, but Dr. Thibodeaux seemed to be able to draw conclusions from bones as quickly as any forensic anthropologist she'd studied with. "How do you know it belonged to a girl?" Carly wondered sincerely, since the consensus was that gender differences weren't clear until later in life.
"She's a dancer." He picked up the bone and pointed to its lower end. "Do you see the femoral condyle?" He laughed, "Of course, I'm probably showing the chauvinism of a man my age, but I don't know that many little boys in Catahoula Parish take classical ballet."
With genuine admiration, Carly said, "That's very good, sir. I'll take note of that and do some more research. I've never had a chance to work with a dancer's skeleton before, so I haven't ever seen it."
"Well, I hope you never have to see it again." Dr. Thibodeaux smiled sadly. "I've been away long enough that I've forgotten the horror of this job. I thought it would get my mind off my wife's death, and it has a little, but then I see things like this." He shook his head. "She loved ballet and would have loved to have had a little girl who danced, but instead, she raised a football player who wound up raising more little football players. Not a girl to be found in the family."
"So is there a Clovis Thibodeaux, the eighth?"
The doctor laughed. "Not initially, but he demanded we change his name when he was fourteen! We'd called him Avery Thibodeaux, but he decided it was unlucky to break the streak. The ninth is headed into high school this fall."
"That's really amazing, sir." Carly smiled and tried to seal herself off from his thoughts, but she failed.
Sweet girl...taken up with a vampire? Just don't know how she can give away having a family. It is really the only comfort I have.
"Well, I should let you get back to your work. " Dr. Thibodeaux paused after he turned to leave. "I'm probably being impertinent, Ms. Michael—"
"Please, call me Carly," she would let the second snub of her doctorate pass uncommented upon.
"Carly," Dr. Thibodeaux smiled, "thank you. And please do call me Clovis. I know my advanced years might make that a little difficult."
"Sure, Clovis it is." Carly tried to provide him with a graceful transition. "I know a lot of social changes the last few months have been hard for people, especially after the vampires revealed themselves."
"Yes!" Clovis laughed, his relief that she introduced the subject clear on his face. "I haven't actually met any. I've been keeping to myself a great deal, or spending time with my children and my grandchildren. My youngest daughter-in-law, especially, has been patient with me. They got a late start, so their kids are little."
"So no time for being a night-owl?"
"No," Clovis seemed relieved that Carly put it in those terms. "And her family hasn't taken the changes well. They're Texan. I've forgiven her." Clovis smiled broadly. "So what are they like?"
"Hoo..." Carly exhaled loudly. "Some of them are just as boring and silly as anyone else you would want to meet. But some..." Carly shrugged. "I think I have a bias."
"Cassandra told me your Mr. Northern—"
"Northman," Carly corrected.
"Ah, yes, Northman. She said he was an authority figure of some sort and had been very helpful to her, although she was initially opposed to his ideas."
Before answering, Carly checked in to see if he was fishing for something specific, and whether she should avoid giving an answer that would be a disservice to the district attorney.
Cassie is so darned certain everyone is out to get her...don't know why she'd be surprised that someone would want to help her...
Relieved, Carly answered, "Yes. The vampires have had a pretty complicated social structure for a long time, and he has been the main authority figure in Northern Louisiana."
"So," Clovis paused, "there are districts?"
"Something like that—I don't actually know if they call them 'shires' or not," Carly giggled at the memory of Eric's Sheriff of Nottingham references what seemed so long ago. "He's called a Sheriff. I think that is okay for me to tell you." Carly could feel her "secret-sealing powers" start to rise to the surface and she stifled them.
"Hmmm..." Clovis scratched his chin and thought. "How many 'shires' in the state?"
"Just five." Carly laughed out loud this time. "I really shouldn't be telling you any of this, Clovis, so please keep it to yourself."
"I'm just thinking about when I go back to Baton Rouge." He shook his head. "I'm guessing there's one there as well."
"Yes," Carly affirmed. "I met her a while ago. We didn't really get to talk, but I know that Eric respects her very much. I don't know where she's from originally, but she's been in Louisiana a very long time."
"How long?"
"Longer than Eric." Carly decided this would be the last of her disclosures. "I think that's about all that I should say, but her name is Victoria Farinelli. You should look her up when you get back there. I think she owns a theater."
"No!" Clovis exclaimed. "She's a vampire! I had no idea!"
"Have you been in Baton Rouge the last six months?"
"No, my son lives in Lafayette, and I've had friends looking in on my house." The disbelief was clear on his face. "You know, she only started coming out to introduce the performances two or three years ago, but it has always been Farinelli's Cabaret. Always..." He laughed again. "Once, it was a house of ill-repute. We have a family legend where it features prominently."
"Really, that sounds like an exciting story!"
"Clovis Thibodeaux, the third, was the Marquis de Lafayette's personal physician." Clovis stood a little taller as he said it. "When the Marquis visited Baton Rouge in 1825, Clovis accompanied him, and he accompanied him to the Cabaret. When the Marquis departed, he was nowhere to be found, having fallen into the bed of one of Madame Farinelli's entertainers. He finally emerged two weeks later having literally missed the boat back home. He hung his shingle, and nine months later, Clovis Thibodeaux, the fourth, arrived on his doorstep!"
"You should send her a card!"
"Yes, Great-Aunt Farinelli!" Clovis smiled and added, "Thank you very much. I have something to look foward to when I go back. I've dreaded it, otherwise."
"I understand." Carly wiped away a tear. "I know you loved her very much."
"Yes, yes, I did." Clovis raised his chin slightly and added, "Still do."
The rest of the day proceeded uneventfully, and Carly decided that she wouldn't handle the unidentified bones without gloves. For some reason, her conversation with Dr. Thibodeaux left her emotional and longing for family, and the idea of reliving two more deaths was more than she could bear. She kept thinking about his story and what it said about the closeness of his family from generation to generation. To be able to trace back eight generations? To have two generations following you? What would that be like? To have such a vivid sense of the character of the people who came before you?
Carly was much closer to her great aunts and uncles than to any other members of her family. Her mom had been an only child—and her grandmother was always distant and judgemental. While she wasn't explicitly estranged from Edna and Carly, she was not engaged with them. She lacked the joie de vivre of her siblings, particularly her brother Benjamin, whom Carly loved so dearly. While Carly knew basic facts about her family history—facts that appeared in social registers or newspaper announcements and obituaries—she had nothing at all like Dr. Thibodeaux's amusing anecdote. And to think that his ancestor took in a baby and raised him as his own named heir on nothing more than a note! And here Carly recognized she was drifting away, inventing details that the doctor had never shared. She felt her tenuous hold on the present begin to slip, so she gripped even tighter.
She finished her measurements, counted the wounds on the bodies—a grand total of 127 stab wounds between the two of them—and set aside soil samples to send out for testing. Perhaps there was something that could yield information about the age of the bodies. Tomorrow, she told herself, tomorrow, I'll find out who they were.
With an hour and a half until Eric awoke, Carly had time to return home, shower, find something suitable for court, and call Melissa and, while she was reluctant to, Sookie.
As the phone rang, Carly tried to think out how she would apologize to Adele for popping away without warning.
"Hello?" Adele's voice sounded strangely cautious.
"Adele? This is Carly. Are you okay?"
"Oh, my word, Carly, it's good to hear from you. We've had quite a day. Quite a day."
"Adele," Carly paused, thinking about the damage she was causing to the dear old woman's heart, "can I come out there right now and see you?"
"Well, Carly, that's very sweet of you. But with the drive, won't you be away from Eric when he wakes up?"
"No, Adele," Carly wanted to shake her, "I mean RIGHT now! Just how I went away."
"Oh!" Adele's breath was audible on the phone. "Would you mind going out on the porch and then knocking? I think I might not make it if I see you do that again."
Carly quickly wrote a note for Eric, put it next to him, shoved her "court-appropriate outfit" in a bag and then willed herself to stand beside Adele's well-worn washing machine."
She dutifully knocked, and Adele came rushing to let her in.
"I just don't know if I'm going to get used to that, Carly!" Adele embraced her tightly and a wave of death energy hit her violently—both because of how unexpected it was and because of the manner of death.
Full of rage and lust and vengeance, Carly burst through the front door of the Stackhouses' home, and rushed inside. She saw Adele, and ran toward her with a belt in her hand, and Adele screamed. And then all was black.
"Oh my god, Adele, are you okay?"
And then a second wave of energy hit her, another death. Struggling against arms, the tattoo, her brother's tattoo, her brother's belt strangling her, Drew...why?
"Jenya came running the minute he heard me, sweetheart, and, well, what's been hard is explaining it all." Adele finally pushed Carly away.
"But what happened?"
Adele looked quizzical. "I thought you could tell all that?"
"No," Carly could feel the two deaths pulsing through her, but her confusion and fear kept them from coming to refinement, coming to the point where she could release the energy back into the world. "No, well, yes, I know someone died. Someone named Drew?"
"That's just it, Carly, we thought his name was René Lenier, a Cajun. He'd rolled into town not long ago, but none of us realized that he was really Drew Marshall from Arkansas. He'd grown a beard, and, well, he just wasn't that interesting, and none of us have been keeping up with the news. Although, the sheriff's office should have known!"
The name seemed familiar, and Carly struggled to place it, but couldn't. "Drew Marshall?"
"He killed his sister! His own sister!"
"And he went after you?" Carly felt nauseated as the energy churned and Drew Marshall's memories rose to her mind. Drew was fixated on his sister, had come close to molesting her or raping her any number of times, and when he discovered she'd had a fling with a vampire, he murdered her. Strangled her with his belt, a belt with a buckle their father had given him. The customers at Merlotte's had been gossiping about Sookie, and he'd decided to repeat the process, but encountered Adele—and her bear—instead.
"Where's Jenya? And Sookie?"
"They've been out doing errands all day. I know Sookie and Hadley planned to take Hunter to the library." Adele flushed red, "Oh, my lord, she doesn't know. Why didn't I realize she doesn't know?"
"But Jenya?"
"They took him!" Adele started to tear up a little bit. "They took him a few minutes ago—maybe ten or twenty. They took him and the body!"
And at that moment, Adele started to shake, and cry. "I think I need Sookie to get a cellphone."
Carly led her toward a chair and seated her. "Adele! I need you to look at me, please!"
With as much concentration as she could muster, Carly drilled into Adele's mind, looking for the path to the library. One she'd seen it, she sent a bit of her mind down the route as fast as she could, under the door of the library, around the stacks, searching for the children's section—but Sookie wasn't there. Up and down the aisles, finally, Carly found Sookie among the mysteries. She had to keep the message short and clear.
Adele needs you! Get home NOW!
Once again all together, back in the Stackhouse home, Carly got Adele tissues and found her a glass of tea—and swept up the broken glass and mopped up the spilled tea on the parlor floor. She must have had a glass in her hand when she was attacked. Once Carly was done, she came back to Adele and held her hand. Carly hadn't felt this powerless in a very long time. With a shock, she knew what else she could do. Melissa!
Melissa picked up the phone after four rings and said, "Carly, I'm on the phone with a lawyer for Yvgeny. I know what's happened. It's going to be okay. Let me call you back in a second after I know he's gotten there."
So all she could do was wait—wait for Sookie to come home, wait for Melissa to call her back, wait for the sun to set. And Carly hoped that her waiting would end in that order and that she could find her way back to Eric—and then on to New Orleans—as quickly as possible.
"Carly," Adele inhaled deeply and closed her eyes to staunch the flow of tears, "I don't know if this house out in the country is the safest place for us anymore, especially for Sookie. Jenya can't stay out here with us forever—Godric's gonna need him back. If there are people like this after Sookie—" her voice cracked.
"Adele," Carly counseled, "Sookie needs to make her own decisions about whether or not to stay here, and she can't make them based on her safety. She's going to have to make them for love."
Nearly simultaneously, Carly heard the gravel crunch in the driveway and her phone ring.
Sookie burst through the door violently, directing her toughts toward Carly and her voice toward her grandmother. What happened? Where's Jenya. "Gran!"
The Stackhouse women embraced and Carly answered her phone. It's Melissa, Sookie, she'll be able to give us an update on Jenya.
And as she thought this toward Sookie, she heard Adele's voice refracted through the young telepath. Oh, it was horrible, killed his sister...came after you...Jenya saved me...and Carly came right away.
"Melissa," Carly answered, straining to keep all the threads of thought clear one from another. "What is happening?"
"Okay, Godric left me the names of lawyers—one of them for really serious issues related to people like...well, people like Godric and Yvgeny, and he's already there."
"That's wonderful!" Carly was relieved.
"Well, um," Melissa hesitated.
"What?"
"Well, Mr. Cataliades says he wants you there immediately—as soon as we're off the phone."
"He knows who I am?"
"Yes," Melissa added, "he said he needs you to guarantee the detectives remember things to his satisfaction."
"Okay," So Carly had to add someone she didn't know to the list of people who knew her secrets. If he was Godric's lawyer, he must be good at keeping secrets, or at least she hoped he was. "It's going to take me a few minutes to figure out how to get there inconspicuously."
"Oh!" Melissa exclaimed. "He said if you concentrate on his name when you're moving, he's already given you a 'landing spot.' I don't know what that means, Carly. But he was insistent—his name is Desmond Cataliades."
"It's going to be a few minutes more. I need to say good bye and make sure Adele, Sookie, and Hadley are okay."
When Carly turned back to the three of them and Hadley's son, she could tell they expected an update. "Melissa's sent Jenya a lawyer, but he wants me there right away to help. It's going to be sundown soon, so I'm going to have to get back to Eric." She looked at Sookie, "But we have to go to New Orleans, so I can make sure that Godric calls you, or I could send him a message?"
Carly could tell that Sookie held back from her—that she had been practicing the shielding techniques Carly had told her about and demonstrated to her. It took a great deal of self-control not to burst through them as she knew that she could.
"Sookie," Adele prompted, "I think you need to swallow your pride and reach out to him. He isn't going to corner you. He promised you that."
Sookie straightened herself up and stood. "You're right, Gran, I know. I'll call when the sun goes down."
He has guests that are making Melissa uncomfortable, so if he can't talk with you too long, know that's the reason. He's sincere in how he feels about you, Sookie...
I know...I've been thinking a lot about him...
"Okay," Carly moved toward the door. "I have to get down to the station. I'm probably already late."
As Carly stepped through the door, she concentrated, thinking Desmond Cataliades as clearly as she could. On the other side of the threshold, she stood in a single-user institutional restroom with high, frosted glass windows that capped gray-painted cinderblock walls. By instinct, she flushed the toilet and washed her hands and then exited into the vestibule of the Bon Temps Sheriff's Office.
Kenya stood outside the restroom. "Where did you come from, Dr. Michael!"
Carly pointed to the restroom door. "I really had to go."
With confusion and frustration on her face, Kenya replied, "Well, you've got to sign in. I'm guessing you're here because of Adele Stackhouse."
"Yes, Yvgeny's lawyer asked me to come as soon as I could. He thought that I could be of some assistance."
"How?" Kenya crossed her arms. "Isn't he a lawyer?"
Translation. Child, please, think on your feet a little bit. I was told you were clever.
Great...another telepath?
Of a sort. Now, please, quickly. I do not have all day.
"Translation. Mr. Cataliades doesn't speak Russian."
Kenya surveyed her again and replied, "Oh, and you do?"
"Da." And with that one affirmative, Carly exhausted her supply of Russian.
Kenya begrudgingly led her into a very, very crowded and over-warm interview room. Yvgeny, with all his extraordinary mass, sat on one side of the table, along with a perfectly round, perfectly bald, perfectly terrifying lawyer, who resembled something between lutfisk just pulled from the barrel and a volleyball.
It is rude to stare, Dr. Michael.
I'm sorry...you're not human...or a vampire...so?
Demon...and I really have little patience for all of this, so if we may proceed...
"Ah, Dr. Michael," Cataliades, with some difficulty, stood.
At that moment, Carly saw that Yvgeny was cuffed to the table, and she remembered a flash of the terror and horror she felt when she spoke to Anna in the Shreveport interrogation room.
Cataliades winced. I'm very sorry, Dr. Michael. That is a horrible thing to witness. We must make this quick. Yvgeny has cooperated physically, but has refused to speak to the detectives. I'm going to feed you what to say. "I appreciate your willingness to translate." Please say as closely as you can—what does this man know from Russian, anyway- Pozhaluysta, rasskazhite nam, chto sluchilos.
"Yvgeny, Pozhaluysta, rasskazhite nam, chto sluchilos," Carly repeated as closely as she could.
As Yvgeny replied in Russian, Cataliades translated for her telepathically, and Carly repeated it out loud.
"Grandmother Stackhouse asked me to cut back vines in her flower bed. I heard her yell. I ran inside, and the dead man was trying to get his belt over her head. I struck him, and he fell."
The detective asked, "What did you strike him with?"
Carly once again repeated the Russian phrase Cataliades fed her and then the translation that he offered. "My fist."
Yvgeny raised his hand a few centimeters before the cuffs gave resistance, although the entire table rose as well.
"Hot damn!" The detective looked at Yvgeny and shook his head. "I guess that would do it."
Carly couldn't resist any longer. "What were his injuries, detective?"
"When we got there, his head was all cattywompus. Our coroner said it looked like an 'internal decapitation,' which I didn't even know was a thing!" The detective gathered his papers together again officiously and asked, "What did you do then?"
The false translation procedure repeated, "Called 911 to get you and made Grandmother Stackhouse sit down. Sookie and Hadley don't have cellphones. I should have called Sam, but I didn't think of it at the time. Just Melissa."
At that point, Cataliades interjected, "Melissa is the personal assistant to Yvgeny's employer, who retains my services. With luck, I was in the area on other matters and was able to get here expeditiously."
"And what is your relationship to the Stackhouses? You were there when they had the break-in too."
Cataliades answered once again. "Yvgeny's employer, and, now, I suppose, Yvgeny, are friends of the Stackhouses and came to visit recently. Jason Stackhouse is now in my client's employ, and he was concerned that Adele needed assistance for her fall home maintenance. Yvgeny has taken a few weeks away from his responsibilities in New Orleans to assist her. As you can imagine, he has substantial talents in construction and maintenance." Cataliades smiled broadly, but in the way one would imagine a shark would smile just before it ate you.
"And your employer?" The detective shifted his attention to Carly, "He wouldn't happen to be that vampire who was out here with you a bit ago?"
"No," Carly replied, but before she could add more, Cataliades interrupted.
"His name is Godfrey de Gaulle, and he is a recently transplant to New Orleans, most recently of Dallas, Texas. He knew her husband years ago when he served in the Army."
Carly kept her face stony because she had no idea where Cataliades was going with this story.
"When he moved here, he decided to pay her a visit." Cataliades pointed to Carly and added, "He and Carly's partner are close friends, so that adds an additional family connection, since Carly is a distant relation to Adele and Sookie."
"Is that so?"
"Other side of the blanket," Cataliades chuckled, "on the Hale side, of course. Earl's family was much too respectable for such a thing."
"I suppose so," the detective concurred.
"So, Detective Bellefleur, I have patiently tolerated your efforts to detain," Cataliades pointed to the cuffs, "and restrain my client, I presume that your investigation has ended?"
"Well," the detective paused.
"Since the members of your department failed to recognize Mr. Marshall, despite the bulletin distributed by the Arkansas State Police, and failed to detain him, and failed to protect your citizens, I am certain that you will not fail to release my client and rule Mr. Marshall's death a justifiable homicide."
The detective began to grouse and puff out his chest, "Well, I have to show this to the local prosecutor, so that's gonna take a couple of—"
Carly, I have tired of this man, can you please intercede? We both need to get to New Orleans.
"—hours before we know—"
"Detective Bellefleur," Carly interrupted. She placed her hand on his shoulder so that he turned to look up at her. She seized hold of his mind and commanded him: "You are going to write down on your report, right now, that Yvgeny was defending Adele Stackhouse, that this was a justified homicide, and that there is no further investigation necessary. And that is what you are going to believe."
When she released her hold on him, he hurriedly wrote on the paper in front of him, and then said, "Oh, yeah, I should let you out of this, sir. I'm sorry. It was just a precaution. You understand, right?"
"Entirely," Cataliades answered for Yvgeny. "Now, are we free to go?"
"Yes," Detective Bellefleur rushed to open the door, and Carly burst out of it, freeing herself from the claustrophobic space.
"As a matter of curiosity," Cataliades asked as they walked toward the exit, "What has become of the young woman who was arrested at Adele's house. Mr. de Gaulle has asked me to inquire after her."
"Oh, man, well," Detective Bellefleur shuffled, "she's been sent over to the state hospital. She bit one of the deputies as we were booking her. Tore a big hunk out of him. So she's on a mental health hold."
Cataliades nodded and asked, "Did you get a name? Or take her fingerprints?"
"We didn't get to that point, sir, no."
"I shall just call the hospital and inquire after any rabid women they have in their facility. That should narrow the field, slightly."
Cataliades extended his hand to the detective, who shook it hesitantly. The detective then looked up to Yvgeny, who extended his and, Carly could tell, gently shook Bellefleur's hand with only three fingers of his massive bear paw.
As they exited, Carly saw the sun hovering above the western horizon and felt herself pulled toward Eric. She resisted her natural inclination toward him and turned her attention to Cataliades.
"Thank you, Dr. Michael. While I have many skills, the glamour is not one of them. I fear it has its origins in empathy, and that is a trait my kind sorely lack. Or perhaps sympathy? We anticipate what you others will do, and we watch, and wait, but we have no, what do they say? Skin in the game, so to speak."
"So you are the neutral ones?"
"We aren't joiners." Cataliades smiled again, and Carly resisted the impulse to step back. "I'll return Yvgeny to Adele and her grand-daughters. It will be nice to see her again, although I doubt she remembers my accompanying Fintan when he met the children. His radiance usually blocked out lesser lights."
"And you expect to be in New Orleans tonight?"
"Speaking of joiners?" Cataliades laughed. "Godric has to entertain representatives of the Authority. The monarchs have decided to saddle him with Mississippi as well as Louisiana. My guess is they want his palace. You also have some skills in archaeology, I hear?"
"Yes, why?"
"Can you do it without a trowel?" Cataliades winked at her, cocked his head to Yvgeny, and headed toward the car.
Yvgeny took her up in a big embrace and stopped just short of smothering her. "Thank you, Carly. You are a good friend to me."