Annnd I'm back. Finally!
Have I written to the end of this like I wanted? Have I heck. But I have couple of chapters in hand and I'll post every Friday until those run out while I write like a demon on the rest.
Thank you for the reviews. And a big thank you for nominating my stories in the You Want Blood Awards. Padfoot has done us all proud again and the first round of voting is open until 30th Setember. So go check out the nominations, there's lots of great stories to choose from.
Now, without further ado, Chapter 46.
You Think You Know Someone
Flicking his hand in a sharp and impatient gesture, Eric strode away from the female vampire who had clearly attracted his displeasure. Watching from the farmhouse, I smiled wryly to myself. Challenging Eric's authority after the night he'd had wasn't the wisest thing to do and I could just imagine his scathing dismissal.
Eric had taken command of the clean-up team Stan had sent as soon as they arrived and tasked them with destroying any speck of evidence that might lead Tabner's cronies to us, whether those cronies were official FBI ones or sketchy black-ops agents. Consequently tonight's cover-up operation was a mite more complicated than pouring gasoline over the mess Callisto made of that ill-fated orgy in Bon Temps, let me tell you. Three Texan werewolves were currently setting explosives in the remains of the steel workshop and there were plans to blow the propane tank behind the farmhouse too, raise the whole place to the ground.
Admirably thorough and I approved whole-heartedly as I watched from the sidelines. From the sidelines and in the dark – the night was moonless and I hadn't turned on the light when I wandered in here, fully intending to pass out on a couch.
One peek outside and I'd gotten hooked on the Eric Northman Show. It was a rare opportunity. Vampires usually watched me from the shadows, not the other way round.
Somewhere a floorboard creaked softly, a comforting reminder of another old farmhouse that settled and breathed at night. Leaning against the windowsill, I let out a sigh of my own. I was bone-tired, but I couldn't drag myself away. Eric was in his element out there, large and in charge. As he moved across the packed dirt, I tugged the drapes apart to keep him in sight. He looked to be barking orders at the hapless wolves. The dim lights they'd set up to work by caught his hair as he spoke and it flashed pale in the darkness.
Just as it had when he descended from the hills to snap Chico's neck, like some decidedly ungodly Angel of Death.
Then, that flash of blond sent my heart leaping. Now, I wondered if that surge of hope was entirely due to the prospect of rescue or if it owed more to the identity of my rescuer. Eric had an unsettling ability to call forth the strongest reactions from me, but what this particular one meant I couldn't say for sure. The painkillers I'd taken had dulled more than the throbbing in my arm and I wasn't up to delicate emotional calculations.
A floorboard creaked behind me, out of step with the settling house. I had company.
Rory, her mind slippery and impenetrable. She joined me at the window, tilting her head to peer between the drapes, and I felt unreasonably annoyed by the intrusion. Her hair was damp and she'd exchanged her bloodied scrubs for clean jeans and a dark sweater. She smiled fondly, her eyes on the vampire of the moment as she said: "Eric was born to lead."
The pride in her voice ruffled my feathers further, but I kept my reply even. "He was happy being sheriff, once upon a time."
"That makes him a better king, don't you think? Those who seek power are never worthy of it, as Plato said."
If name-dropping Greek philosophers was a dig at my lack of education, I was too exhausted to rise to it. "How's Daisy?" I asked, letting the drapes fall shut. Pete was tending to his sister in the kitchen.
"She needs rest." Rory tutted disapprovingly. "She should never have attempted that incantation tonight; it drained her dry."
According to Rory, summoning enough magical oomph for Digger to shift under a new moon was too much for any human witch, even one as powerful as Daisy.
Digger. What a waste.
I sighed softly, mourning the big wolf's passing all over again. I had liked him and poor Brandy was going to miss her godfather something awful. At least Thalia had eased his passing; Digger had been grateful for that small mercy at the end. I'd picked that up from his fading consciousness, his mind darkening as he lay in his own cooling blood, his body swimming with pain as Thalia's hands closed firmly around his neck.
A chill ran down my spine and I rubbed at my arms, chasing away goose-flesh erupting in the wake of my morbid thoughts. Staying in contact with a mind on the brink of death wasn't the wisest thing to do.
"There's hot chocolate on the stove," Rory said over her shoulder, already halfway across the room. "Come get some."
Lord knew I was dead on my feet, but I resented her bossy tone and followed her somewhat grudgingly. The front door clattered open and quick footsteps brought Eric into the kitchen just as I reached it. He glanced at Daisy and then at me, but I went to the stove and busied myself filling a cup.
"The wolves brought a spare vehicle," he announced to the room, holding up a set of car keys. "You should leave. I will stay to supervise."
Rory took the keys from him and asked, "Where will you spend the day?"
Eric shrugged. "With Stan's people."
"Is that wise, after the attempt on you at the summit?" She was frowning and as pale as a vamp under the fluorescent lights, her freckles showing dark through near-translucent skin.
Eric raised an eyebrow, a milder reaction to her questioning his decisions than I expected. "I may go to ground with Thalia. She is staying here to finish some, ah, business."
That would be taking her pound of flesh from Lanzo, the assassin who'd killed her child. Literally, knowing Thalia. I shivered again and wrapped my hands around the cup of chocolate, holding it close.
"Thalia can't protect you in the day," Rory said, her frowning deepening. "I can. You will be safer with me."
Eric looked like he was going to argue for a moment. "Fine," he said irritably, turning to go. "I will find you before dawn."
"Wait," I blurted out, taking a step forwards but faltering when that penetrating blue gaze focused on me. I cleared my throat. "Digger. He deserves a decent burial. Jack too."
"That is in hand," Eric said without missing a beat. "Their bodies will be returned to Houston, to their people." He looked at Daisy. "And Hector to his."
Pete squeezed Daisy's shoulder and said gruffly, "We won't forget this, Northman."
Eric gave them a curt nod and left.
"Wait here while I check this vehicle out," Rory ordered the room, grabbing her hold-all, and I pursed my lips as I watched her scuttle after him. That was an excuse to speak to him alone if I ever heard one.
Daisy chuckled softly, interrupting my train of thought. "Someone," she said nudging Pete, "must have brought a silver bowl. Northman has already severed the tie between us."
"He has?" I asked, surprised she could tell. But then I remembered Eric clutching his head after she took his blood. "It disagreed with him, didn't it?"
"Yes." Daisy tapped her chest significantly. "Too many pulling on him. Not many can bear this weight."
Oh. That figured. Having Eric, his Maker and Alexei 'pulling' on me had been unpleasant enough; Daisy had a whole horde of ancestors hitching a ride with her.
"Not too much for you though," Pete said, giving his sister a proud look. She's irreplaceable. Unique. Thank fuck Northman understood what we'd lose if she died.
…
Rory drove. Daisy stretched out in back, her head on Pete's lap. I rode shotgun, staring blindly at the scrub sliding past, dark and desolate like my mood.
It had been a helluva long night. Good men had been killed. Bad men had been if not actually tortured to death in front of me, certainly brutalised and beaten to within an inch of it.
Thalia and Eric had slipped so naturally into that bad-cop, even-worse-cop routine of theirs. I hadn't enjoyed witnessing that one bit, particularly when Eric jabbed his fingers into Lanzo's wounds. That had taken me right back to that shack in Arkansas and my own double act of fairy tormentors. Worse, Eric's face had been turned away from me and my imagination, bitch that it was, had painted it with a combination of Neave's cruelty and Lochlan's naked hunger.
The image had shaken me badly. I knew we had to crack Tabner. I knew Eric wasn't inflicting pain for kicks, that his actions had a higher purpose. My head knew that, but my heart skipped the memo, and anguish at the parallels my subconscious had drawn had added an extra dose of venom to our argument.
My diatribe about Eric's high-handedness had amused Thalia no end, but I regretted it as soon as she made a pointed comment about how calm Rory was — a comment that shamed me into making an apology.
Not that I was letting Eric off the hook for withholding crucial information, far from it, but Thalia had a point. It hadn't been the time or place to tear strips off him.
Neither Daisy and Rory had needed to be told that. Eyeing their ghostly reflections in the window beside me, I envied them their self-control.
Daisy had held it together with a sheet of steel embedded in her side, for heaven's sake. Even when she learned that Hector, the man she loved, was dead. Rory had arrived at a scene straight out of Dante, torn-up dirt strewn with blood and molten steel, death and destruction all around, and she'd calmly knuckled down to treating her patient. She didn't pepper Eric with questions, didn't argue, didn't baulk. She even handled Daisy and Pete's mistrust without rancour or complaint.
My doubts that she was what she claimed to be were way off base too. She popped in, exactly like a fairy.
A fairy who'd had Eric's blood.
I shifted in my seat, turning completely towards the window. Eric said he would find her before dawn, I hadn't missed that. Nor had I missed how carefully he'd cradled her when she collapsed, how swiftly he carried her to the hose, how gently he'd washed her clean of blood.
No, that damn irrational jealousy slithering darkly in my guts hadn't let me miss a lick of that.
If Rory and Eric's closeness was hard to witness, his interactions with Daisy left me perplexed. He'd treated her as a means to an ends while we were investigating the murders, nothing more. Yet tonight he'd given her his blood, something he did rarely and never lightly.
Or so I'd thought. Maybe I wasn't so special in that regard after all.
Sure, he hadn't let Daisy drink directly from his wrist, but my ego rated that small consolation when he'd been so insistent she take his blood. Almost as if he was honour-bound to save her. But why? For what Daisy's grandmother had meant to him, for an old flame's sake?
I highly doubted that. Eric had never struck me as the sentimental type. There was something between Daisy and him though, something I didn't understand. That conversation they'd had in her mother tongue didn't sit right with me. It sounded like a deal was being struck, but over what? A debt?
Perhaps Eric felt indebted to her for the explosion that saved all our asses, his included.
But something was fishy there too. When I listened to Stan's wolves, checking they meant us no harm, one of them was puzzling over the explosion. Particularly the absence of any chemical that could generate enough force to tear that steel workshop apart.
I'd caught Pete wondering about it too. He'd never seen Daisy heat that necklace of hers when it was so far away from her. So if it wasn't Daisy's necklace that triggered the explosion, what was it? Some magic she didn't want to reveal?
Whatever it was, we wouldn't be here without it. That had to be why Eric intervened to save her. Unless Pete had the right of it and it was because Daisy was irreplaceable.
The last of her line. A rarity. Unique.
Oh hell. That stung, too close to how I'd first caught Eric's attention. Was I just the latest in a line of women whose rare supernatural talents pricked his interest? It sure looked like he had a taste for those, didn't it? The more I chewed it over, the more sure I was that that was it. He'd intervened because Daisy was unique.
But with an eye to earning himself a favour too, of course.
A purely altruistic act didn't square with the Eric I knew, the one who always put himself and his retinue first. And I should know him pretty darn well after our time together, our decidedly intimate time.
But did I? We hadn't been together long, not in terms of Eric's age, and he was a complicated guy who, like all vampires, kept his cards close to his chest. Oh, it wasn't as if he'd deliberately hidden his true nature from me the way Bill did to further his 'mission'. It was just that there was more to Eric than showed on the surface, that he was…
Bigger than I'd let myself see. I didn't like what that said about me, that I'd been in love with him and never really opened my eyes to who he was.
With an impatient noise, I straightened up in my seat. There were lights ahead, a town. Ugh. Too many mysteries with Eric at the heart of them, and I'd wasted the drive thinking about those instead of the information I'd fished out of Tabner's head.
Information I hadn't fully shared with Eric, information I'd kept to myself so I could decide what to do with it for the best. Eric wasn't the only one who could be high-handed.
…
"I could use your help," Rory said as we pulled up at a motel that had seen better days.
"Sure," I said, "anything to speed up my over-due rendezvous with a bed."
I scrambled out of the car, setting the untouched bucket of chicken I'd had on my lap on the seat. Pete had already wolfed half of his — or should that be beared? — and Daisy, who wasn't allowed solid food just yet, was sipping tentatively at a coke.
Rory had stopped at a drive-thru, the only one open this late, where she'd asked for directions to a motel that took cash. None of us wanted to leave a paper trail, not with the FBI potentially on our tails. We'd pooled our funds such as they were, Rory apologising that she'd left Shreveport in a hurry and only had a few bucks on her. Fortunately, the motel was real cheap and we had enough to cover two rooms.
The middle-aged man behind the counter wasn't a bit fazed by dishevelled guests arriving in the early hours sans luggage and eager to pay cash. But most of his capacity for rational thought went out the window once Rory turned on the charm.
I should ask her for lessons, I thought sourly.
The man, Todd according to his name-tag, was balding and dough-faced, and couldn't take his eyes off her. Tripped over his words, fumbled his pen. Took me right back to Merlotte's and the regulars hanging on Claudine's every word. I got a little misty-eyed at that, exhaustion amplifying my emotions as Todd answered all Rory's not-so-subtle questions about room layouts, where the exits and windows were and such.
Like most low-rent motels, this one had a few light-tight rooms fitted with steel window shutters. Shutters that kept out the sun, but were real obvious. Older vamps wouldn't be caught dead in those rooms, knowing full well what a bad idea it was to advertise their presence, and after a couple of high-profile attacks even naïve newborns began avoiding them like the plague. These days shuttered rooms were occupied by folks willing to pay extra for the privacy they gave, night or day. Mostly married people having affairs and the like.
Or, as I picked out of Todd's head, drug dealers and pimps. Geez, this place was classy.
Once motel owners cottoned on that vamps wouldn't pay through the nose to be sitting ducks, they'd come up with more discreet accommodation for their sun-intolerant customers. In a cheap place like this, that meant some regular rooms had beds with flimsy light-tight compartments built into the bases. Less sturdy than coffins and a tight fit for someone Eric's size, but also far less likely to attract unwanted attention. Especially if a breathing companion occupied the room as cover.
Needless to say, Rory asked for two of those once she'd satisfied herself on the particulars and Todd didn't blink once at the obviously fake names she gave him. When he turned away to get our keys, she nudged me and pointed at his back with her chin, whispering, "No ill intent towards those of the non-breathing persuasion?"
I shook my head. "And he thinks the sun shines out of your rear, so we're good."
"Thank the Realm," she said under her breath, sagging against the desk. "I'm weak as a kitten. Lucky I can count on you, eh?" Before I could ask what she meant, Todd came back and she straightened up, smiling sweetly at him as he handed her the keys. "Thank you, Todd. You're a star."
"Y-you're welcome." He flushed and beamed at her, pleased as punch that she'd used his name. "Have a nice day, er, I mean night, ma'am."
…
I wasn't real happy to be sharing a room with Rory, but she was kind enough to lend me a t-shirt and she was taller than me so it made for reasonably modest sleepwear. We didn't speak much as we took turns in the bathroom. The shower was hot and I pretended not to see the stains on the tiles. When I came out, Rory was sitting cross-legged on the nearest bed, the bucket of chicken in her lap and a half-gnawed drumstick in her hand. The TV was on real low, the remote and her phone beside her on the quilt.
"Want some?" she offered, waving the bucket in my direction. She'd made quite a dent in it.
I shook my head, yawning. "What I want is sleep."
"Not much left anyway." Grimacing, she dropped the drumstick in the bucket and got up to dump the lot in the trash. "That healing really took it out of me."
Guess Daisy wasn't the only one who'd over-reached herself. Remembering how Rory had stood barefoot on the lawn back home I asked, "You can't do that recharging thing?"
"Not inside a building. Fried chicken and shut-eye will have to do for now. Speaking of which…" She got into bed and curled up.
I got acquainted with my pillows too, and that was the last I knew until a brisk knock dragged me half-awake.
There was a void outside. Eric.
I staggered out of bed, but Rory beat me to the door and opened it. The sky was greying to the east and Eric was still in the singed jeans and t-shirt he'd worn earlier. His hair was a mess too; he must've flown.
"Cutting it fine, aren't you?" Rory sounded far too perky for the scant hour of sleep we'd had.
"This was the best you could do?" Eric shot back as he stepped past her, curling his lip at the room. He stilled when he saw me.
Rory pointed back outside. "There's a dusty hillside with your name on it if you'd rather."
"This will suffice," he murmured, his eyes lingering on me as she closed the door.
The cold air had raised more than goosebumps on my arms and his eyes flicked unmistakeably to my chest. I was suddenly very aware that all I had on was a thin layer of cotton and that he looked distinctly pale. A familiar heat was building in his eyes and that traitorous slithering beast whispered gleefully in my ear:
He's not looking at Rory like he wants to eat her, is he?
A second door clicked shut. Rory had vanished into the bathroom. We were alone.
"What a lovely sight to take to my rest," Eric practically purred. His fangs down, he took a single step towards me with all the lithe grace of a predator. Shit. I was the gazelle and he was one very hungry lion.
Still sleep-befuddled, I stepped back.
A mistake, a dumb one when I knew what the thrill of a chase did to him.
Eric, his eyes glowing with lust, stepped forward. I retreated again, but he matched me step for step in a silent stalking dance that ended when the back of my calves hit the bed. He leaned slowly towards me.
I couldn't look away or stop the furious patter of my heart.
Once his lips were within a whisker of mine, he smirked and the son of a bitch changed tack, twisting to the side to look past me at the bed. "Am I to die beneath you for the day?" he said in voice deep enough to do his leering for him. "How delightful."
As my scrambled brain searched desperately for a sharp retort, Rory came out of the bathroom. Faster than an eye-blink, Eric put some distance between us and I breathed a little easier.
"You're in the tub," she informed him.
"Not one of the beds?" he asked, hands in his pockets, all nonchalance now.
"Don't complain," she said, rolling her eyes. "I put a pillow and a blanket in there. You'll be comfortable enough."
"I will be dead, woman, I will not care. Why the tub?"
"Last place anyone will look and it's better protected. There's no window in there, only an air vent and I've blocked that. And I can do this."
She turned her back to us, did something I couldn't see, then raised a hand and traced two fingertips over the closed bathroom door at shoulder height. They left a dark, glistening trail. As she marked out a complicated design of twisting lines, drips formed and rolled slowly down the surface, the rest of the liquid soaking oddly into the wood. Something caught the light as she moved: a dagger, held loosely in her other hand, down at her side.
She was finger-painting with her own blood.
"There goes the room deposit," I joked weakly. Neither of them laughed.
"Blood wards," Eric said, folding his arms. It was not quite a question.
"Crude but effective," Rory replied as if it was, tilting her head to inspect her bloody handiwork. "Best I can do tonight, but it'll last the day."
"Short on mojo?" he asked lightly.
"Uh-huh. We can use the bathroom next door." She winked at him over her shoulder. "But don't worry. One of us will stay here, ready to rush to your side if there's an attack. Right, Sookie?"
"Oh sure," I muttered and for some reason that amused the heck out of Eric, who began to laugh quietly.
I glared at him, but no amount of scowling or threats about sharpening a stake could shut him up. Rory ignored us both, daubing more of her blood around the window and on the inside of the outer door. "There," she said in a satisfied tone when she was finished. "You're as safe as I can make you."
"Thank you," Eric said, bowing to her with a flourish. Then he disappeared into the bathroom, still chuckling.
Just what in the Sam Hill was so goddamn funny?
Rory sucked her fingers clean of blood and wiped off her dagger. The sky was lightening properly as she settled herself in a chair and said: "You sleep and I'll watch."
…
Daylight, weak and grey, shone around the thin drapes when Rory woke me. I sat up and groaned. My arm, the one Lanzo had slashed, was sore and stiff and my bladder was clamouring about an imminent overflow of hot chocolate.
"Be a love and fetch breakfast while you're next door," Rory said, holding out a pile of clothes.
"Huh?" I said as I took them. I was never at my best just woken.
"Breakfast," she said with exaggerated patience. "Pete has it. I called down to my new friend Todd and had him order in for us. I could eat a horse."
She wasn't the only one.
Mumbling an agreement, I tugged on yesterday's stale jeans before I remembered to check them over. They were grubby, but miraculously free of blood. Unlike my blouse, which was beyond saving. Forgoing a bra for now, I pulled on the pale green sweater Rory was apparently lending me, grateful for the warmth even if the sleeves were too long.
"Is the coast clear out there?" she asked, standing ready at the door. The symbol she'd drawn on it still glistened wetly.
Slipping on my shoes, I took a moment to sweep the area outside mentally. "All quiet. No-one around."
"Knock twice when you come back." She tapped the symbol quickly in three places and an iridescent shine rippled across it before she opened the door.
I stepped out into daylight, blinking. The sky was blanketed in clouds, but it was about midday from the shadows. My back prickled as the door shut firmly behind me, so I reckoned Rory had reactivated the blood ward already.
She was taking Eric's safety pretty seriously, wasn't she?
When Pete opened their door, I pushed straight past him. "Bathroom break," I threw over my shoulder, high-tailing it in there.
I came out a while later, bladder emptied, face washed and teeth given a vigorous rub with my finger in lieu of a toothbrush. Daisy was in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, but with colour in her cheeks I was pleased to see. Pete was over by the table. With coffee.
"My hero," I said, taking the cup he held out to me.
"Guess your bathroom is occupied," he said and I nodded between gulps.
"You could pee with the dead man in there," Daisy said. "He wouldn't know."
"He would too." I pulled a face and tapped my nose. "I doubt Rory would let me in there anyway. She's fussing over him like a mother hen."
"The fairy cares about him," Daisy said, shrugging. Then she gave me a shrewd woman-to-woman look. "You'd do the same for someone you cared about."
Pete, too busy gathering our food to catch her meaning, chuckled. "You sayin' that protective instinct is a fairy thing, sis? It ain't. It's a woman thing and you know it. Here you go, Sookie." He handed me a promisingly grease-stained paper bag and a second cup of coffee.
"Thanks," I said, grateful for the excuse to avoid Daisy's eyes. I knew exactly what she was getting at. I'd faced down a loaded gun for Eric last night.
Tabner and that effing taser. My hands clenched on the bag as the memory came, unstoppable as the tide: Eric on the ground, felled like a tree. Still, so awful still for someone so full of life. A sudden, terrible, paralysing fear. He'd been staked! A desperate second, my eyes raking over him, searching for ash, finding wires. Then he snarled and I wanted to tear those silver barbs out of his chest and shove them into Tabner's eyes.
I shook the memory away. "So what's the plan?"
Pete shrugged. "Stay here, lick our wounds. Least for today." Daisy pulled a face to show what she thought of that.
"Sounds good to me," I said. "See y'all later."
…
"Can I ask you something?" I asked Rory. The paper bag had lived up to its promise. The bacon- and egg-filled croissants Todd had gotten us were heavenly and the little table we were sitting at was strewn with crumbs.
"Feel free," she said, taking a bite. The gal could put it away; that was her third.
I fidgeted with my empty cup, finding the words to begin. You see, I was contemplating giving her a heads-up about Iowa.
Oh, not because we'd bonded over breakfast and I didn't want to see another woman in the position I'd been in. No, it wasn't that. Honestly? I just couldn't bear for Eric to mess up another chance at happiness on account of all that vampire bullshit his Maker spent centuries drilling into him.
Sure, Eric said Rory wasn't his significant other.
But I didn't believe that for a second. His promise to tell me the truth whenever he could had expired long ago. Heck, he'd told me enough lies before he left for Oklahoma to prove that.
No, these days I trusted Eric's actions over his words and he'd sure as hell acted like Rory was pretty damn significant to him last night. Rory was highly protective of him too, that much was clear. And all those months ago at Sanctum she'd scolded me for letting him go, so I figured she would fight to keep him if things were even half-way mutual between them.
But that was a big if. I needed a clearer idea of what I was stepping into, however little enthusiasm I had for prying into their relationship. Screwing up my courage, I put my cup down and went for broke.
"Eric gave you his blood."
She froze for a second, then finished her mouthful real slow. I couldn't read her mind, but I could sure as hell read her actions. She was taken off-guard and playing for time.
But she met my eyes when she answered, "He did. Once."
My mouth was dry and I wished I had some coffee left, but I soldiered on. "You were hurt?"
She shook her head.
"I thought not," I said evenly, hiding my dismay. A willing donation, then, with all that implied. "You're dear to him."
"Eric is certainly dear to me," she said slowly, "but what I am to Eric is for him to say, don't you think? You should ask him."
My chuckle was dry as dust. "Oh no. That wouldn't go down at all well." I was sure we'd been seconds from a shouting match when what she was to him had come up at the summit.
"I think you'd be surprised." She smiled encouragingly as she said it, but her smile fell away. "Sookie, whatever I am to Eric, you don't know him very well if you think he would sign away a century for a passing fancy."
It was my turn to be taken off-guard, mostly by the lack of malice in her tone. It was gentle even. Wasn't the current girlfriend supposed to be jealous of the ex? She'd certainly seemed so the last time we spoke.
Shepherd of Judea, I was almost starting to like her.
And that meant I should really clear the air. Wiping my hands on a napkin, I hunted for the right words. "Our … difference of opinion at Sanctum," I began, stopping when she gave me a wry smile.
"That's a generous description."
"It is." I cleared my throat. "Some of the things you said that night weren't … completely wide of the mark. I didn't try to stop Eric leaving, not as much as I should have. I refused to see how awful Oklahoma would be for him. He hid that part from me, you know."
"That I can believe. He has his pride." Green eyes watched me closely. "Are you angry with him for that?"
"Not now, no. It was partly my fault. I made it pretty clear I wasn't interested in all of that vampire bullshit."
She grinned briefly at that, then tilted her head. "Was there no-one else to explain it?"
"Not really. And at the time I felt it was between me and Eric." Gran always said a lady didn't air her dirty laundry for the whole parish to see, that what was between a man and a woman should stay that way. I'd taken that to heart more than I realised. I sighed, looking down at my empty cup. "I didn't fully understand what being a consort meant. I'm not a supe, I was new to all that, and I had no idea how it all worked. Still don't, really."
"A foot in two worlds," she said softly. "That can be very lonely."
"It sure is," I said with feeling. Keeping the human and supe halves of my life separate was an effort, one that left me without anyone to confide in a lot of the time.
When I looked up, Rory's expression was distant. She came back to herself and gave me a rueful look. "I understand. More than you know."
Maybe she did. I sat back and watched her for a moment, but there were no red flags, no crazy girlfriend vibes. She cared about Eric, no doubt about that. Decision made I admitted, "I should've known Eric would hide the worst from me. I was too angry to push for the truth and I guess in the end I just didn't know him well enough." I paused. "Maybe you don't either."
She looked surprised. "How so?"
I took a deep breath. "He's about to sign away another century."
"He is?" She didn't seem upset, more puzzled. "Oh. The summit, of course. Who?"
"Iowa. She, um, assured me it wouldn't be anything like Oklahoma."
"You spoke to her?" Her eyebrows shot up, and she glanced towards the bathroom. "Does he know that?"
"No. And I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself. In exchange for the warning."
"That would be a fair trade, wouldn't it?" She considered me for a long moment. "You have too many secrets, Sookie Stackhouse. They weigh on you."
"Comes with the territory," I said, tapping my temple. "Here, have the last pastry. I'll clear up."
…
"Rory," I hissed, late in the afternoon.
She sat up, instantly awake, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. "What is it?"
"Demon. Coming up the stairs." I'd been scanning our surroundings while she slept and the rapidly approaching fuzzy mind had rung alarm bells.
Touching a finger to her lips, she slid a hand under her pillow and pulled out that dagger. I nodded grimly, wishing my arm was healed and I had a better weapon than the lamp I was clutching. Rory slipped out of bed and moved silently to the door, her body taut with tension. She was barefoot and her pale blue nightgown swirled round her ankles.
Footsteps outside, quick and purposeful. A shadow fell across the window.
Rory gasped. Before I knew what was happening, she'd opened the door and yanked a dark-haired man inside.
"Sebastian!" She slammed the door, reactivating the ward with a tap. "What are you doing here? Did Eric send for you?"
Sebastian, whoever the hell he was, hardly spare me a glance. He grabbed Rory by the arms and growled something harsh that wasn't in any language I knew. Expecting a fight, expecting Rory to skewer him with her dagger any second, I raised the lamp and stepped forward, ready to whack him over the head for good measure.
Then I saw Rory's expression.
It wasn't fierce, or angry, or even scared. Nope, none of those. It was quietly pleased, her eyes alight. A slow smile graced her lips as the demon, still muttering guttural words under his breath, held her at arm's length and looked her over from head to toe. I didn't need to speak his language to know what was going on. He was checking her for injuries, behaviour I recognised from all the times it had been directed at me.
He cared about her. Now wasn't that interesting.
Feeling ridiculous, I lowered the lamp and finally saw past the denim and the cowboy boots he was wearing — a rancher look that would blend in with the locals but was at odds with briefcase he'd dropped by the door. I did know him and his neat goatee.
Mr Cataliades' replacement and Eric's new lawyer, Sebastian Mithradates.
"You didn't come for Eric," Rory said softly, pressing her knuckles to his cheek as he let her go.
"No," he said intently, catching her hand and kissing her fingertips. "You are weak. You shouldn't be here."
She shook her head and gestured at the bathroom. "I stay until sunset."
The look he gave her wasn't exactly approving, but he only said, "Then I stay too. Eric and I spoke last night. There are leads he wished me to chase, but that can be done here as well as anywhere."
"Thank you." She put a hand on his chest and stared into his eyes. Deep into his eyes, while he stared right back.
Ookaay. That certainly looked mutual. Rory cared for Sebastian.
Sebastian and Eric?
My flash of indignation on Eric's behalf, inexplicable as it was, faded quickly to puzzlement. I'd always suspected fairies weren't monogamous, but Eric was not one to share. Well, he hadn't been with me, but I was a lowly human. Maybe it was different with other supes, maybe he couldn't demand exclusivity. I had no idea.
Nor had I any idea if open relationships were something Eric merely tolerated or enthusiastically enjoyed. His relationship history was a can of worms I hadn't opened when I was actually with him and it was certainly none of my business now.
Even if I was curious as all get out over the love triangle I was apparently witnessing. Rory looked about ready to kiss tall, dark and handsome.
Guess that explained why she wasn't too upset about Iowa.
Shit. I'd been too quick to let that cat out of the bag. Well, too late to stuff it back in now.
Not in the mood to play gooseberry, I put the lamp down on the table a little hard. The clatter popped the bubble the love-birds were busy floating in and Rory turned to me, her expression still soft.
"Sookie. This is—"
"Mr Mithradates," I said politely, pronouncing it Mith-ra-day-tees, just like Jephson had when he introduced us at the summit. "We've met."
"Miss Stackhouse." The lawyer nodded to me politely, looking not one whit embarrassed. "I hear you had an interesting night. Are you well?"
"I've been better." Suddenly suspicious I asked, "How did you find us?"
Given what I'd just witnessed, Sebastian might have reason to wish Eric harm. And Rory, for all her protectiveness, might be blind to that. Had she told him where we were?
"An excellent question." His sharp eyes met mine so directly, I wondered again if he was a telepath as he answered my unspoken thought: "Miss Kingfisher was careful not to reveal where she was when she called me last night."
"I was," Rory said, narrowing her eyes at him. "Very careful. So how…? Ah. My phone. You traced the call."
He shrugged, eyes twinkling. "I might have."
Shit, she had that phone at the farmhouse and it was essential none of us could be placed there.
I was free and clear. My cell was safely back in Houston and no-one, not even Tabner's shadowy associates, could link me to the phone Eric had given me — that was the whole point of burner phones. Daisy and Pete had had their own phones with them when we were captured, but Eric had taken care of that. One of Stan's people was removing anything incriminating from the phone company's records, how I didn't want to know.
I didn't think Eric had included Rory's phone in that. I sucked in a breath. "Rory, if that phone can be traced to you, we need to–"
"It's protected," she interrupted. "No human can trace it."
"Are you sure? Tabner had a witch working for him, and if Mr Mithradates here could—"
"Yes, I'm sure." She smiled fondly at the lawyer. "Sebastian has hidden talents."
"Speaking of which," he said, picking up that briefcase of his and tapping it. "I should get to work."
"Of course," Rory replied graciously. Then she grinned. "Let me put on something less distracting."
In an eye-blink she was dressed in jeans and cream sweater.
That was one fairy ability I wouldn't mind sharing.
Sebastian smiled back at her for a moment. Then he got out a laptop and sat at the table, his long legs folded tightly to fit underneath it. Rory sat cross-legged on her bed, braiding her hair like she hadn't a care in the world, but an awkwardness descended over the room.
The lawyer tapped away at his keyboard while I stood at the window, fidgeting with the drapes and pretending to scan the parking lot, half-listening to the noise of his typing. An odd rhythm in it caught my attention — clickety, clickety, click, click, click — and the weirdest feeling came over me, all the hairs on my arms lifting at once.
I turned away from the window and plopped down on the bed. Rory shot me an odd look that I ignored. Sebastian was hunched over his laptop, forehead creasing as row after row of numbers scrolled up the screen.
For all the sense they made to me, I might as well have been trapped in the Matrix.
Clearing my throat I said, "I didn't know demons were into computing. Are you working on what we found out last night?"
"Yes, some of it." He glanced up. "Have you encountered many demons, Miss Stackhouse?"
"Only Desmond Cataliades and his niece Diantha."
"Ah yes." He frowned at the screen, but I got the impression he was listening to me intently. "You met Desmond through Sophie-Ann, of course?"
"Er, yes. But he's…" Unsure of what I should reveal, I finished lamely: "A friend of the family."
"Your human family?"
I hesitated. And he looked at Rory, much to my surprise.
In the way of couples who know each other off by heart, a whole conversation that I had no part in passed between them in a single glance. At the end of it he raised an eyebrow and said simply, "Fintan."
Rory gave me an apologetic look, but answered nevertheless. "He and Desmond were very close."
Damn it. She'd claimed to be a friend of Fintan's, but I'd disbelieved her at the time and had forgotten it since.
"Ah." Sebastian sat back in his chair and studied me. "That explains much."
Oh-oh. My telepathy. He'd figured out where, or rather who it came from. I stiffened, sure I'd let slip something that could cause trouble for Mr Cataliades.
Sebastian raised a hand in a calming gesture. "You have not given anything important away, Miss Stackhouse. Desmond is my mentor and we are on good terms, else I would not have realised the, ah, nature of your connection to him. But you should be more circumspect about that. We demons guard our abilities jealously."
"From each other or from other supes?"
A smile brightened his face. "You are a perceptive woman, Miss Stackhouse. From both, if we can."
I looked pointedly at Rory, who was keeping real quiet. She was a supe.
He chuckled. "I think we are safe there. Miss Kingfisher has known Desmond far longer than I."
"She has?" I said snippily. "Small world, huh?"
"It's not so surprising. Miss Kingfisher is more than twice my age." His smile became mischievous and his hazel eyes lit up. Wow, what a handsome guy he was. "You know how it is, once a cougar sets her sights on you there's no escape."
Rory laughed, but before she could say anything a noise had us all turning to the window.
A pop, the distinctive pop of a fairy teleporting.
I scrambled to my feet as Sebastian, moving faster than I could track, took up a position behind the door. Rory was at the window, dagger in hand as she twitched the drapes aside and confirmed what I already suspected from the mental signatures:
"It's for you, Sookie."
