Part 46

I was the first Vampire to arrive at Merlotte's; I had expected that. Most eyes turned to me as I entered, through the front door, my leather bundle slung anachronistically across a hand tailored black suit shoulder. My eyes sought out only one person, Sookie, who was not in the main room, though Alcide was, behind the bar, speaking with Sookie's brother Jason. I went for him, ignoring everyone else, walking around the counter, nodding at the wolf, putting my parcel under the shelf, then standing to talk. My journey over had not taken long, but I had searched my bond with Sookie for any sign of distress, and I had found none, at least no more than I had expected to find.

"Has she been well today Alcide?" His expression on seeing me was tight lipped, not in an angry way but in a determined one, I suppose it was a look I had worn myself at times. It was that of a soldier.

"She has." His reply was short.

"Nothing untoward?"

"Unless you count Maxine Fortenberry," Alcide nodded his head towards a large woman, holding court over at one of the tables I had moved around on the previous night. "Strange woman that one." He continued, "Has insisted on expressing her condolences to Sookie a good half dozen times and asking very leading questions about what she thinks might have happened to Sam."

"Do you think she knows something?" I stared at the woman, not really caring what she thought about me in return, I was beyond the niceties of social interaction for appearances' sake. If she had anything I could use, I would take it from her. She glanced up at me, shuddered, and averted her eyes, beginning her whispering anew.

"No, I don't think she knows anything, but I think she wants to, in a busybody sort of way." Alcide's assessment seemed sound. I nodded, understanding completely, without even having to listen in on the conversation she was directing. She was harmless.

"And where is Sookie?"

"Just went back to the office for a moment. She said that you were coming." He looked at me with narrowed eyes, "How did she know that Eric?"

I had no desire to share the intricacies of our bond with Alcide, so I simply replied, 'the sunset' and went to find her. It had been hard enough to ask for his help in the first place, I was not about to reveal anything more than was necessary. I was not used to sharing myself with anyone, besides Pam, and of course Sookie, and I was not altogether comfortable with doing so. I paused outside the door, remembering all that was within. I could hear her pacing, like a caged animal, held by her own will and not bars and as I opened the door she turned to me and flew into my open arms. It felt as though we had been apart for weeks, not just hours and I held her to my chest, stroking her hair.

"I have missed you my Beauty."

"I missed you too Eric." She whispered.

It was glorious just to hold her in silence for those few moments, to smell her hair and the lavender shampoo she had used, and the perfume of her body, a scent that continues to enthrall me, no matter how accustomed I have become to its presence around me.

"Alcide was a great help today, thank you Eric for sending him." She leaned back from my embrace to look into my eyes, finally wearing a smile, albeit a small one. It was no less charming.

"I would never leave you alone Sookie. I would have been with you if there had been any way, you know that."

"I do Eric. It doesn't matter, it was a very quiet day." She released some of the tension she had been holding in her shoulders and allowed me to lead her to sit in the office chair as I leaned on the desk near to her. For a moment a respite of calm reigned over the small office, and it could have been quite a normal evening, but for what we both knew was coming.

"Tell me what you did?" I wanted to assure myself that she was not hiding distress from me, thinking that it might draw away my focus from the task to come.

"Nothing really. I had breakfast, I got dressed, Alcide arrived at about nine. I was surprised to see him, but he explained everything. We had a chance to talk for a bit and then we came over here and started setting up. Terry came about four, and he and Alcide got the bar set up. I guess they needed to replace the kegs and check the lines for the mix." She shrugged her shoulders and smiled with the memory. "Alcide was pretty good at it, like he'd done it before, and it was great not having to worry about Terry stumbling through it all." She sighed, "He is still so upset Eric, he hardly seems to know how to put one foot in front of the other."

"And you Sookie?" Perhaps it was selfish, me not exactly caring how Terry Bellefleur was managing, even though he was important to Sookie. I am a selfish creature then, or perhaps just a focused one.

"I'm sad, I'm scared, I'm trying to hold it together Eric, I have to, for everyone else here, and for you." She pursed her lips together.

"Not for me Sookie. Never for me. It will be over soon."

"Please don't say that Eric. It frightens me."

I pulled her up from the chair and back into my arms. I had not meant to imply anything sinister, only that the wake would be over in a few hours, hopefully with the outcome I had planned for, and then her responsibilities to Bon Temps would finally be at an end. Or at least I hoped they would have been. But of course, my words had an altogether different meaning for her, and my apology was feeble, with a kiss and a whispered 'I'm sorry, that isn't what I meant.'

I heard a bit of a noise from the bar just then, and so my attempts to make amends were cut short. Taking Sookie by the hand I returned to the public space, I did not expect that it was the Banshee so soon; it was too quiet for that. It was just a generalized movement of bodies in the bar, and collective emotions. I had not taken a great deal of time to survey the place as I had entered, I had been so concerned with seeing Sookie again and establishing her well being that I had neglected that, but it became quickly apparent to me what had happened, both by my own visualizations, and the sudden sense in my head of my child. Pam and Jessica had arrived.

If my own arrival had done little to stir the crowds, the same could not be said for Pam and Jessica. Perhaps not so much Jessica as Pam. My child was dressed all in black leather, with the same plastic, disdainful smile she reserved for all large groups of humans, be they at Fangtasia or anywhere else she was forced to attend. The color choice was about the only thing that lent itself to the funereal aspect of the evening. The rest was more downtown Harley Davidson than Spenser Funeral Parlor; but she did look awfully good in it, and I could see a few human men turn their eyes as she strode across the room to me. A good many people began to pack up at that point, now that there were three Vampires in the room. It struck me as rather ironic, that we were the force to scare them away when they were taking their drinks from a werewolf, and feting the life of a shapeshifter; at least we were what we looked like, no hiding our aspect.

As the mundane folk of Bon Temps made their way out of the bar in a slow stream, attempting to not look nearly as obvious as they did look, fleeing the monsters, I had a chance to finally survey the hardiest of the group. Jason had moved to sit at a table with some of his friends. I recognized Hoyt, from the descriptions that had been given to me, and of course I saw Lafayette, well into his liquor, I did not stop to examine which kind. I had more important things to attend to. I greeted Pam and Jessica, the latter of which, I noticed, was not looking at either Jason or Hoyt, she was looking directly at me. Her jaw clenched as if to keep her from uttering something she desperately didn't want to. I did not have time to concern myself with her social life just then.

"Pam?" I didn't even have to finish my question; she knew immediately what I needed. She pulled a chain from the pocket of her leather jacket, and handed it over to me. I let the pendant on the end of it fall to swinging as I showed it to Sookie. It was not a fine piece of jewelry, but on short notice it was functional if not aesthetically pleasing. An iron cross, I hung it over Sookie's neck.

"It will help keep them away from you." I told her as I turned back to Pam, I had not meant to be dismissive of her, but I still needed to know if Pam had brought the other items I had asked for.

"Yes Eric, we both have the daggers." I didn't ask where they had hidden them; I did not want to know. I had told Pam to ensure she brought iron blades for herself and Jessica to wield. I had my sword, previously delivered by Mr. Cataliadies, hidden away. We were as prepared as we were going to be, and all that remained to do was wait. Wait and watch the humans get drunk.

I kept Sookie in my sights for the next few hours, not in a stalker sort of way, but as a means to an end. I did not know when the Banshee was going to reappear, though I suspected it would be at midnight, as she had the two nights before, but I was taking no chances. People came and went, some came and stayed for a while and then went, and others just got more and more drunk as the minutes passed. I sipped on a Tru Blood, and memorized the location of every object in the bar.

I remember being drunk, it wasn't on fine wine, it was more beer and ethanol spirits, not that we knew that's what they were called back then, back when I was human. I remember the momentary freedom the alcohol gave you; it made you stronger, more courageous, more foolhardy, it made you the hero, at least in your own mind. It was for celebrations, and though it often caused fighting, it never caused tears, not that I could remember. That night it brought an abundance of them. I could see what Sookie had meant by needing to stay strong, especially as Terry fell apart.

Andy had come, but he had no idea how to deal with his cousin. I would have felt for his predicament, but I had other, far more pressing things to concern me then. He steered a wide berth around the crumbling man, which left Sookie and Lafayette to keep him together, though Lafayette was slowing down as well. His eyes were darting about between Sookie, his cousin Tara (who had been ignoring me, much to my happiness), Terry and myself, though the alcohol he had imbibed also found them glancing at Alcide, still behind the bar, still looking his alpha self. The time was growing short and I had had enough, I slid over to Lafayette and whispered to him,

"He really isn't your type."

"Everyone is my type, given the right motivation." He whispered back, some of the words slurring as he spoke them. I didn't begrudge him the eye candy or the alcohol. At least he could get drunk and forget his world for a night.

"I think it might be time for you to be going Lafayette." I encouraged him, not actually glamouring him just then, though my serious look was apparently just as good. He sighed, realizing that his only company that night was going to be his 'drunk-assed cousin' as he put it to me, and Terry Bellefleur. I had Andy take them all home. He had been looking for an excuse to leave. It wasn't hard to see that he felt that every eye looking at him was somehow blaming him for not solving the murder already. And of course I knew he never would. But I wasn't about to put any more deaths on his roll, and so I encouraged a few others to start finishing up their drinks with an eye to hitting the road.

"Alcide? You'd best be going to now. This isn't your fight."

"If it's all the same to you Eric, I'll stay." I was not about to chase off a good pair of hands, or in this case, teeth. Sookie encouraged her brother to leave, and he did, with Hoyt, but not without looking back at Jessica, who I knew wanted to be with him and not me just then. But she stayed behind. She helped Pam and Alcide clear away the tables, I wanted a clean fighting surface should it come to that, while I took Sookie into the kitchen for one last moment together before the end. I wanted her to have some of my blood in her system, perhaps as much for me as for the strength I knew it would give her. I wanted that physical connection; I wanted that part of me inside her. I wanted the brief euphoria of her mouth on me, and she gave it to me. Nothing was going to hurt her, even if it cost me my own life.

Now I was ready.

The bar was quiet, so when the howling came it was easy to hear, cutting across the black night, cutting into my marrow. Even Alcide bristled and I saw him clench his jaw and tighten his fists. I liked that he was ready to pounce, and I appreciated the loyalty he had to my Beloved. I came up from my position at the side of the bar to stand front and center, my Vampire child, and stepchild flanking me as the door burst open. She had brought company, just like the last time I had seen her, two other women, standing with her, in parallel to me. I heard Jessica hiss. The howling had stopped before she had come into the building, and her mouth's work had been replaced by a wicked smile that betrayed a great deal of confidence, whatever the truth of her situation was.

"We meet again Night walker, and again you have brought friends. Even the half-breed is here. Will you offer her to me in sacrifice so that I spare the rest of you?"

Alcide began to growl, I held my ground.

"I offer you nothing but the chance to walk away before I end your existence in all planes."

She laughed.

"You will not have her." I emphasized.

"I will have you all." She surveyed the room, not taking stock of the objects within as I had, but seeing the people, and judging them.

"Night walkers, a werewolf and the abomination, not much of an army to raise against me."

"I need no army."

"Are you certain of that?"

I could see Jessica in my peripheral vision, vibrating.

"You have no idea what powers you are up against." My voice did not tremble; I would not give her quarter.

"I have an excellent idea. And I see nothing to inspire fear." She countered.

"Then you are a fool."

"Give me the girl and I will leave the rest of you unharmed."

"Why do you want her?"

"The death of my friend is on her shoulders."

"I haven't killed anyone." Sookie cried out from behind me.

"Your simple being will cause her death, as sure as if you had pushed the blade through her chest yourself." An interesting analogy this Banshee had chosen, considering that was exactly the death I had in mind for her.

"So you're punishing me for something I haven't even done yet?"

"For me time is not linear as it is for mortals, what will happen, has happened, and the guilt remains."

"That isn't right!" Jessica called out, and the women whipped her head around to glare at her. "She's innocent!"

"None of you are innocent."

"Bitch, you are getting on my nerves." Pam finally spoke. I could see and feel that she was itching for a fight. Standing around, contemplating one for several hours had done nothing for her mood. Neither had being hit on by the liquid courage that had replaced the common sense of some of the former patrons of the celebration.

"If you will not give her to me, then I will take her."

"I'd like to see you try." Alcide put in his two cents as he stepped beside me, further shielding Sookie from any direct blow. I heard a growl then, but it had not come from Alcide, so I became confused, at least until the doors to the bar were filled with two further shadows, one I recognized, (I never forget a figure), and one I did not, but all wolves look the same to me. The Banshee spun, now startled at yet another pair of supernaturals.

"Amelia!" Sookie shouted. The girl waved back, as casually as if they had spotted each other across the mall. I began to wonder if the little witchlet was ever going to mature.

"Turn and go girl, and I may let you and your wolf escape unharmed." The Banshee warned, which only drew another growl from the roan wolf. He was obviously a Were just like Alcide. And I think my Were had placed him, he seemed to be making a deep eye contact, wrinkling his nose, which said to me that they were familiar with each other. With his own roar, and after he peeled off his shirt, Alcide shifted as well. And suddenly the room did not seem so big as it had.

"Oh hell no lady, you are not about to take my friend here."

It was a leap on Amelia's part, a big leap, but I appreciated the sentiment, and the extra targets. Three Banshees versus three vampires, two weres, a witch and a fairy; our odds were getting better by the moment. That was until the woman unleashed her voice.

I had known what to expect, it had been hurled at me before. Jessica had heard it, but not at full strength, so it brought her to her knees momentarily. Pam was older, it did not cripple her, but shook her up for a moment before she compensated for the annoyance and leapt at her target, the figure on my left, just as we had planned. The Weres were stunned for a little longer, their hearing, especially of the high-pitched harmonics that I knew were a part of the wail, is quite sensitive. Sookie and Amelia didn't suffer nearly as much as the rest of us, and I saw Amelia beginning some kind of incantation. From that point everything happened so quickly that it is hard for me to describe adequately, but I shall of course, endeavor to do it.

Pam's intended victim took the first blow from the iron dagger. Because they were not full fairies it did not have the immediate effect that iron usually did, but the blade itself tore a red gash that quieted the thing and sent her reeling. (Another effect of them not being full fairies was the fact that their blood was not so intoxicating as it spilled, thankfully.) With the decrease in screaming Alcide tore at that one as Pam stood off to the side. His powerful jaws had her throat in moments, black blood leaking around his teeth in thick rivulets. She was of no further concern as I advanced on my target, the primary one, the one that wanted to kill Sookie, and myself.

"Do you see, you wild bitch, that you cannot defeat me!" I intended to provoke her to complete, irrational anger so that she would be at her weakest for me. "I have the power over the future, and I control what you see!"

Her eyes were wild and while I could withstand the effects of her scream partially, she had grown stronger than the first time I had met her, and as Sookie could, she raised her palms to me, and generated some type of blast that threw me backwards, as I had planned, with enough force to hurl me over the bar. I heard Sookie scream, I tried to reassure her through our bond, but there was so much other noise from the wailing and the strain that I don't know if I got through. I had to trust that she would be safe for those few seconds. I heard the commotion of a second Were, I have come to know his name is Trey, a pack friend of Alcide's and a lover to Amelia. The sound of flesh tearing followed the roar. I rose from behind the bar, the ancient long sword in my hands, and I leapt at the Banshee, holding the blade above my head and swinging it downwards, using gravity and my own power to strengthen the flight. But she was fast.

The blow I had intended to bifurcate her, fell to her right, and though it severed a slab of flesh from her arm it did not stop her, or kill her. In fact it only enraged her. But of course rage often leads to carelessness. She lashed out at me again as I landed, flinging me backwards into the wall with a terrible thud and subsequent trembling of the edifice's foundation. Fortunately there was no oubliette for me to be flung into, unlike poor Liam. As I gathered my head about me I could see Jessica and Trey hacking at the second of her soldiers. She was obviously the older of the two; sadly the youngest had fallen to Pam, who, along with Alcide, had dispatched her quickly. Pam was making her way over to me, I would have preferred she attend to Sookie, but there wasn't time to order it. I looked for my target again as the stars faded from my mind and found her wheeling on Amelia who had obviously cast some sort of annoying spell. I did not know the substance of the thing, but it had bought me time, and for that I was grateful. I stood, retested my blade in my hands and went for her a second time.

Again I contacted, and again she was weakened by the blow, but again she flung me away. And that time she advanced on Sookie. I could hear my beauty scream. The Banshee's blow against me had not been as powerful as the first, and so I recovered myself much more quickly and sought her out, seeing her hands reaching hesitantly for Sookie; drained perhaps by the energy she had spent on me, or perhaps by the iron cross? I could feel fear in my Sookie, but something else, some little measure of defiance, a determination that she was not going to be a victim again; that she was not going to be punished again for something she had not done; whether it was her relationship with me, or the circumstances of her lineage. I watched as, in a move as fast as my own might have been, she drew two fists towards the Banshee and pushed them against her throat, lights flaring, and something else scattering, something yellow. I could not help but smile, even as I thrust my blade forward again. She had remembered the lemons, and she had crushed them against the Banshee's naked skin, searing the juices there with her lights. The howl of pain was nothing like the deathly wail, and I was only too happy to force my sword through her body. As she crumpled I checked on her last companion, now fully under the control of Trey and Jessica, her own life ebbing as well.

Satisfied, I grabbed up the Banshee by the raw skin of her neck and held her to my face.

"You have lost." I roared at her.

"I will not let her kill Claudine." She spat at me, trying to muster the energy to make her lights again, but I tightened my grip on her throat, cutting off what little air she could still choke down.

"Claudine?" I was astounded. Of course the name was not unknown to me, but how could Sookie kill her own fairy godmother? The Fairy was ancient by my reckoning, and cunning, and would not let herself be taken easily.

"How?" I would have the answers if they came on the bitch's last breath.

"There will be a war, they will come for her, Claudine will stand against them, she can do no less. She will die, her child will die in her womb, it has been foretold. I cannot lose her." Tears rolled down the withering face, the eyes fluttered, she was dying in my grasp, and though I felt a sudden spark of sympathy, it was no more than a spark. I let her go and she was ash before she hit the floor.

A new wailing arose from outside.