It is fog land I have seen,

fog heart that I have eaten.

from The Land of Fog by Ingeborg Bachmann

A/N- Thanks so much to Sephyir for helping to improve the German!!! She's the best!

VIII.

I sat for hours while many aspects of their plans were discussed only a few meters away from me. What better evidence did I require that they would never let me live, I thought? Even if I was only a lowly human, I had heard far too much. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but could not. Once, I tried to relax by thinking of home but lapsed into thinking of Eric. Dieter walked over and slapped me, as if he could feel my thoughts. I was just numb. I hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours, had had only a few handfuls of water and I felt literally beaten down. When everyone began to leave during the last hour or two before dawn, I began steeling myself for being left alone with Dieter and Helga. Instead, I was surprised by Quinn telling Dieter he 'wanted' me with him. Since I guess I was so befouled with the vampire bond, Dieter didn't even seem to care. I knew he had been thinking of dreadful things to do with me but it seemed as if I disgusted him too much to act on them at the moment.

I could barely walk and so Quinn carried me into a nearby room and put me on a couch. He tried to get me to eat and gave me a soda. I didn't want anything but finally drank some of the soda. I didn't want to be alone with him. He brought some ice and put it on my face, in a wet towel. I didn't even want him to touch me and pulled away from him. We didn't talk. I could see that he was conflicted when looking at me. Good, I thought. Let him be. He should be, to have involved himself with such people.

He sat in a chair and propped his feet up on a second chair, leaving me the couch, and turned out the light.

In the darkness, he said "I didn't know. Just so you know, I didn't know that he planned to acquire you. I didn't know that you were Niall Brigant's great-grandchild. I thought you'd be safe in Vegas when it all went down. I'll try to get him to give you to me when he's done. Then you can just go home."

This was no different from shifting into a tiger the night of the Nevada takeover, I thought to myself. You talk to me in the dark because you're ashamed. Acquisition? Please. I've been kidnapped, starved, magicked and beaten half senseless. But in spite of my anger, I thought to myself that he had kept me away from Dieter for the immediate present, and for that, I would be forever grateful. I still didn't have any hope that Dieter would ever let me live and or let Quinn take me home. He hated Niall too much for that. I was too valuable to give back. Quinn was just looking at Dieter from the outside, I thought to myself. He really didn't know what he'd bought into. He was just going to be serving a different, and perhaps much more demanding master switching from vampires to the Fae. I had met a fair number of unpleasant vampires, and horrible humans, but I had never met anyone as awful as Dieter. He had set the high water mark in my 27 years on this earth, I thought to myself. You really could have evil embodied in a corporeal form. And a member of my own family had given me to him.

I felt so empty inside, lying there in that dark room. Hollowed out, and empty. I cried in the dark, as silently as I could. After a time, I fell into a deep sleep and did not awake for many hours. There was nothing worth waking for…


I awoke with Helga kicking at me. Literally. She kicked me in the abdomen. She pulled me up by the shirt I was wearing, slapped me several times while I groaned and told me that my presence was required. When I still moved too slowly for her, she grabbed my arm and her fingers left burn marks on my wrist that looked almost like cigarette burns and which made me cry out as my skin blistered under her touch. I felt dizzy with the pain as she pulled me along with her through the hall and back into the meeting room, which was brightly illuminated by the early afternoon sun through windows near the ceiling. I blinked, feeling lost.

Dieter grabbed me roughly, as usual, and slammed me down in a seat at the table. He turned my face up to him by roughly grabbing my chin and then said something to me in what I guessed was German but I didn't understand it. I only knew that it snapped me into a state of greater mental clarity.

"You will read this lynx. You will tell me if he is with us or against us."

I tried to focus on the person he seemed to be referring to, a werelynx. He had been there the day before but was now back and looking rather miserable. He was of medium height with dark blonde hair, middle aged and appeared to be stressed. I could hardly even get a fix on his thought signature, between my own lightheadedness and the man's apprehension.

"I need to touch him," I said weakly. I was already determined to say the guy was fine, no matter what, because I'd seen enough of what Dieter did to people he didn't like and I couldn't see consigning anyone to that, let alone someone who would work against Dieter. But I had appear to make the effort.

Dieter yanked me out of the chair and pulled me over to where the werelynx stood. So much for thinking about the welfare of your reader, I thought to myself. Clearly, Dieter hadn't had much experience with telepaths, or didn't have any idea of what lack of clarity because of rough treatment might do for the ability to read someone. My arms were so bruised from his and Helga's pulling me around.

I started to reach out to the werelynx and then realized I should ask first.

"May I touch you?" I asked weakly.

The man looked at me with poorly disguised pity, and nodded.

He was afraid, I felt, as I touched his hand. He had not wanted to make the agreement to fight after meeting Dieter, no matter what Quinn said. But he had been sent out recruiting. I had the impression, in the form of an image, that he had spoken to Calvin Norris. He did not feel the cause was right when such forces were involved. He had talked frankly to Calvin. I saw his thoughts mostly in images. He did not like Dieter, much as he respected Quinn. No surprise there.

"It's fine'" I said to Dieter. Dieter slowly turned on me, grabbing me again by the throat. His eyes bore into me. And he knew I had lied... I shuddered, unable to stop myself. Without even looking at the werelynx he said to Quinn,

"Kill him. Here. Right now." And then he picked me up and threw me, like a ragdoll, against the wall.

I was rather incoherent for several minutes after, my eyes seeing stars and my ears ringing… I felt a trickle of blood run down my neck and trace out onto my collarbone and pool in that hollow where your collarbone meets your neck. I could see Dieter standing over me and could make out his words but only slowly, like sound through water,

"…will fucking break her. How does she resist? Die verbohrte Hure! Helga…"

No, no, not more Helga… I fell unconscious and for a time there was nothing.

I awoke upright, in the chair, and came around slowly. My ribs and abdomen ached with a dull sensation. I was not further burned, though. My throat was dry and I was so parched. I felt dried blood crusted around my neck. I looked down and saw my shirt was stained with blood again. I remembered hitting the wall. Actually I hurt everywhere but the laceration at the back of my head was especially painful. It was now later in the day because the sun was much lower. It looked like it must be getting close to sunset, I thought. I must have been unconscious for a while. As soon as I was fairly alert again, it seemed Dieter knew. He wheeled around in the middle of a conversation with someone and loomed over me, his face too close to mine for comfort.

He murmured something "Tiefer, tiefer in dich hinein…" and I felt that sledgehammer feeling again in my mind. It was like he was burrowing deeper and deeper into my mind as he said it. But somehow, I was so gone from my body and my mind that I managed to sidestep it a bit. He took my face in his two hands and shook his head. "She is so strong for a human, this one. She finds tricks around me… Eine gescheite Schlampe" he murmured to himself. He knelt before me on one knee, placed his hands around my cheeks and and looked into my eyes. He whispered in this slitheringly powerful voice, "Ich zwinge dich. I compel you. Hörst du mir zu? Are you listening to me? You will do my bidding."

I slowly nodded, and I felt this swirling inside my head but I was so out of my own body at this point that I just shifted away from him in my mind, as well. My acknowledgement was empty and without meaningful agreement. Without looking up at him, I felt his strange fascination with my resistance. My resistance was marginal at best, compared to how unaffected I was by vampire glamour, but the fact that it was there at all had captured his interest. I now felt heavy and slow, and had to make conscious effort to think my own thoughts. But in spite of him, I still could. When Dieter was distracted by the entry of a number of other weres, I tried to center my mind. I thought about setting things up at Merlotte's for lunch. Checking stock for Sam at the bar. Making sure we had plenty of True Bloods… Bill... Pam… Eric… I saw Dieter turn to me sharply when I said Eric's name in my mind. I was really getting worn down by his hitting me. So I focused on Pam. I was not bound to Pam by anything other than love and friendship. I remembered our recent shopping trip. I thought of her eyes and the way she laughed. I focused on her voice, her sharp humor and tried not to let it slip into Eric's voice, his face, his eyes. I felt stronger and straightened myself in the chair, looking at the blood on the floor where the werelynx had been. Well, at least he didn't burn to death I thought. I wondered what it would be like to die by burning... then tried to push the thought way from my mind. I was holding on. I just had to keep holding on, though for what I didn't even know. I sighed internally. Next, I thought of my Gran, and baking pies in the kitchen. I kept holding on to simple thoughts, comforting thoughts.

At various times throughout the evening Dieter eyed me, spoke to me, attempted further magic on me. He kept touching me, which was making me more and more frightened of him. By the time Alcide arrived, I was trying my best to keep myself remote so Dieter would just leave me alone. Alcide came in, talking to Quinn, and was introduced to Dieter. I thought it curious that he appeared not to even give me the slightest attention. It was odd. Finally, after even Quinn began to notice it, Alcide asked Quinn about why I was there and said I did not look well. Quinn made excuses for how I looked but regarded him suspiciously. Alcide quickly made reference to the fact that he had briefly dated me and that his sister really liked me. He said he felt bad to see me looking so… ill. He said he didn't want to offend Dieter, but that I did not look like a good advertisement for their cause. That seemed to take the edge of Quinn's suspicions.

As they conversed about the Shreveport packs numbers, which appeared crucial as part of the Area 5 neutralization, I began to have the strangest sensation. I felt as if I had been in the bathtub, soaking in water for a very long time, and suddenly the water started to drain away. Slowly, but as if the level of the magic used on me was dropping steadily, I felt slightly better mental clarity. It was odd. I would have shaken my head, but given how attentive Dieter now seemed to my every thought, I went on trying to focus on just feeling thick and slow on other things. If I was throwing off the Dieter's glamour, I didn't want to chance him being aware of it.

Alcide drew Quinn outside with him and I heard the cry of a wolf. Dieter looked startled but appeared to feel there was nothing all that untoward. He glanced back at me. I lazily looked around the room, which was filled with at least twenty people. Mostly Fae, a few weres. Helga looked at me darkly from her position at the side of the table. She hated me, hated Niall. I looked away from her. Even Dermot seemed very afraid of her and I had hardly seen him for the past day. She seemed to sense Dieter's growing fascination with me. I was beginning to think that she was an even greater risk to my longevity than he was. She had burned someone to death last night. Because she didn't like them, she'd said, laughing as flames had emanated from her long fingers. The room still smelled of the scent of burning flesh to me. I had her fingerprints on my wrist in painful blisters from earlier in the day.

Gradually, everyone in the large meeting room became aware of some sort of fracas outside, with another howl from a wolf. Several people went out, the doors closing behind them. As if from some instinct I couldn't explain, I called out to Dieter, distracting him for a moment.

"May I have some water, please?" I asked faintly. There was a pitcher on the table and several glasses. They had haunted me for hours.

Dieter turned to me and smiled. "What will you give me if I give you a glass, little one? What would you do for me?" His eyes sparkled. He poured out a glass of water and left it on the table in front of me for me to see.

He drew closer and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, renewed anger in Helga's face. His face was very near mine as he loomed over me while I sat leaning back into the chair… "Ergib dich mir. Surrender to me, little one. You will have water, food, whatever you desire. Gib auf, give in… give into me." He wanted to be sure I understood.

I just stared at him, his eyes were like polished obsidian. He was mesmerizing. He grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet, and stared down at me. I felt revulsion as this wash of desire from him poured over me. He was putting aside the vampire contamination issue in his mind. He was latched on to my power to resist him instead. He wanted to break that resistance. He put his hand at the back of my neck, and the other around my waist. With his face so close to mine he could have kissed me, he murmured "Ich will dich nageln" Well, I didn't need that one translated from the way he was looking at me, touching me. I started shaking uncontrollably. Please, please, let Quinn come back in this room, I thought to myself. However angry Quinn was with me, I could not believe that he would just stand by and say nothing while the sadistic fairy raped me. I couldn't. Suddenly a door opened and alarmed voices distracted him when something was tossed into the room. He let go of me abruptly as whatever it was caught his attention. He walked away from me.

I swayed and tried to focus my eyes on an object that had rolled across the floor and come to a stop about a meter away from the table. I blinked, trying to take in what I was seeing. I took a deep breath and again felt as if that imaginary water level had dropped even further. It looked like a head, I thought slowly to myself. But how could that be? As I allowed myself to focus clearly I felt Dieter's immense anger and took in the meaning of what I saw.

The head was Quinn's. Someone had decapitated him and tossed his head back into the room. I felt this strange stirring then somewhere inside, while in the same moment that I felt an empty nausea at the understanding of what I was seeing. I shamefully thought not about Quinn, but that the last bar to Dieter doing whatever he wanted with me was gone. My eyes started to sting with tears and I felt a moment of pure terror looking at Quinn's wide-open eyes. Not for what had happened to him. But for what would happen to me without him there anymore.

Then the door to the large room opened and I let out a gasp.