XI.
I awoke around noon to the sound of Claudine laughing softly in bed next to me. She was reading my library book, Seabiscuit. She was dressed in pajamas, her hair was kind of messy, and it really looked like she had slept in the bed for a while next to me. Even though I'd hardly stirred, she reached out and stroked my cheek.
"You are healing well, little one. How do you feel?" she said, smiling down at me.
I cringed. Her choice of endearments was unfortunate. The last person to call me 'little one' was Dieter, when I had asked for water and he... I tried to steel myself internally. No, I would not slide down that path…
I looked up at her and regarded her carefully. I had always thought that she possessed a good heart. She said she wanted to be an angel, right? But I had realized in the past few days that I really knew so little about anything. So little about what the Fae really were like, so little about my family and how it got to where it was. I didn't even know much about Eric, other that I loved him and that I believed that he was one of only a few people I really trusted. The mental tally of people I trusted was now painfully low: Eric, Sam, Pam, and... ? Maybe Amelia and Claudine. Amelia had never done me wrong. But I had not known her for all that long, much as I liked her. Claudine had been taking care of me for sometime and was kind and fierce when needed. But Claudine was Niall's granddaughter and Niall… currently in my mind Niall was listed as Preston's procurer. He had tricked me and let a fairy do magic on me and according to Preston it had been his intent that I be seduced. Between good fairy Niall and bad fairy Dieter, I was not feeling too confident that associating with fairies was in my best interest. And then there was the half-fairy. I didn't even want to get started on that one. But Claudine had always been wonderful to me. Of course, Niall had told her to be. Was she paid, I wondered? Was I just a job to her? And had she known about Niall's little plan with Preston? Had she been fine with the idea? She knew how much Bill's 'job' for Sophie-Anne had hurt me. She'd seen me in New Orleans right after I'd found out. Could she have been okay with Niall doing something similar even if the goal was different?
Claudine's smile evaporated as she seemed to see so many things fleeting across my face.
"Sookie, I give you my word that I did not know. About Preston. I did not know. I would never have allowed it to take place if I had known. I give you my word."
I just looked at her quietly, pulled myself up in bed and leaned back against the headboard. I glanced out the window and saw it was slightly overcast. I stretched a bit and realized I was still very achy. My left shoulder and ribs ached. I looked at my wrist and noticed that while the burns from Helga's fingers were healed from Eric's blood, the skin was still discolored with marks that almost looked like ash smudges. I traced the outline of one with my left index finger, noting the chipped soft pink nail polish that Pam had put on my nails on Tuesday night. Only a lifetime ago, I said to myself. It was now Saturday afternoon and I felt like a cat on its tenth life.
I glanced over at her. She had tears in her eyes as she looked at me searchingly.
"I believe you." I said quietly.
I got up and went to the bathroom. While washing my hands I glanced at my face. A lot of the swelling was gone. My split lip had healed. I looked at my lateral incisor, which had been loosened by Dieter's parting gift. It was still tender but seemed firmly anchored in place. I remembered Jason got punched at a bar once and even though the loosened tooth seemed to heal he ended up having to get a root canal. I was hoping vampire blood could prevent that. I looked at my neck, which had a faint pattern of bruises that looked like fingerprints. But they were fading away. My throat was still a bit tender, but overall, all my bruises were fading extremely quickly thanks to Eric. With a hand mirror I checked out the laceration on my scalp but that one seemed to be just fine. Just a thin, inch and a half long mark where it had been. It would probably be gone by sunset.
I came back out of the bathroom and put on my bathrobe then sat in the rocker in the corner, near the window. I rocked. I idly traced the burned smudges on my right wrist while thinking about the past few days. Were there more enemies like Dieter, I wondered?
Claudine got up from the bed and then knelt down next to me and examined my wrist in the filtered sunlight.
"I don't know how to get rid of these. But I'm sure the Prince will know."
I drew my wrist back from her. "Then I guess I'm keeping them."
I rose, got my slippers out of the closet and left to get something to drink in the kitchen.
It was about an hour after sunset and Eric, Pam and Thalia sat on the front porch of Sookie's house, drinking True Bloods. Pam looked slightly haggard, having had her first experience with waking up after having had too much fae blood.
"So what are you going to tell her," Pam asked quietly.
"Well, he has to stay there for at least a few more days. He didn't flake, so I'm sure he'll recover," Eric said quietly. "But he's going to be pretty weak for quite some time. He's lucky that you found him, otherwise we might have just thought he was gone and lost in the debris.
Pam grimaced. "She had been so angry at him." She shook her head.
"She had good reasons to be angry at him, Pam. But I don't think it will be a problem anymore. I don't think any of it will be a problem. Dieter was enough to firmly grind thoughts of caution into anyone."
"She'll feel bad about Indira," Pam said softly.
Thalia turned to the two of them. "She really likes us, doesn't she? It's so odd. To think she comes from a Fae lineage and she likes us. Bond or no. She is a very odd creature. To have survived that long in Dieter's hands and still be talking back to him. A human that strong? I like her."
Pam looked amused at the idea of Thalia liking a human. She usually considered them vermin. But yes, they had all been amazed to overhear Sookie snapping back at Dieter's question about to whom she belonged. It had been one of those moments where you were comfortable saying that that human was your friend, she thought to herself.
Eric nodded but was silent. Three dead vampires, Bill Compton almost dead. Really, all things considered, they had done well. There had been twenty-five to take out, not including the weres. He'd personally gotten half of them. They had been less than half the number of the Fae and yet they had managed to prevail thanks to the witches and Niall's very artful skills. His real concern at present, however, was how to spin this to Felipe de Castro. Sooner or later, someone was going to talk. It would be better if he talked first and no one talked after him.
On the one hand, Sookie had been kidnapped and it was reasonable to assume that she could be tracked because of the bond. They were under orders to protect her in Felipe's name. Justifiable actions to recover her would, of course, include taking out whoever was responsible. But too many people had been through that room and knew that Dieter was involved and had seen Sookie in his presence. It couldn't just be pinned on a rogue group of weres. That he had taken on an allied group of weres and Fae, in defense of his state, and presumably his human, was not the issue. The issue was that he had won. They had recovered the protected human, averted a war and done this against incredible odds given their numbers. Felipe would be threatened by his abilities and by the fact that he had not needed the King's help, and had not even notified him. Claiming a quickly evolving situation and little time could only take him so far. And the details of how it was all accomplished? How to keep the assistance of the other Fae faction out of it? How to prevent Felipe from knowing that Sookie was related to Niall, Prince of the Fae? This situation had to be very carefully managed. Information would need to be meted out carefully. That meant that he had to plug any potential leaks.
At the scene they had meticulously killed everyone not with their alliance. So that left their alliance as a potential source of trouble. He knew that the shifter, for all of his dislike of shifters, was wholly trustworthy on any point that involved Sookie. And he knew that Alcide was unlikely to talk because of the fact that he had basically gone against his own kind, aiding in a vampire-driven bloodbath of weres that had even killed the famous John Quinn. The witches? Well, after showing them how to weaken Fae magical energy Niall had, of course, instructed the fairy guardians to glamour the hell out of every one of those witches. Even Amelia now had no clear recollection of anything other than what they had done was really helpful. They had even managed to make her incurious of what had she had done, an adept bit of work. All of the writing on their printouts of the chant had disappeared as soon as he had called out to Amelia to cease their spell. The paper itself then disappeared when they were popped back to their gathering place in Bon Temps. Certainly none of the Fae would want to leak information that they were fighting with vampires. No, if anyone would talk, it was from within his own vampire group. The one with the most to gain was Rasul. In his expedience in trying to line up experienced fighters, especially those experienced with the Fae, Rasul might have been a miscalculation. The two dead vampires from Arkansas would tell no tales and the third, an 800 year old loner named Stefano, had always proven quiet and uninvolved in politics other than being a very reliable spy utilized by Sophie-Anne to keep track of things in Arkansas long before her ill-fated marriage to Peter Threadgill. No Rasul was the one he had to worry about.
"Thalia," said Eric, "I have a job for you."
Thalia turned to regard him circumspectly.
"I want you to go down to Baton Rouge and keep an eye on Rasul. He seemed to like you, yes?"
Thalia made a somewhat disgusted face. "I really had too much of Helga. I don't even like men, really. Especially not vampire men."
"Did you have his blood?" Eric asked cautiously.
Thalia looked appalled. "Of course I didn't! I may have been drunk but I am not stupid." She looked insulted.
"Good. I want you to go to Baton Rouge and try to see if you can stay close to, or even with, Rasul. If you see any sign of his using the information about our little raid on the Magnolia compound- any sign- I want you to let me know."
Thalia looked puzzled. "You want me to let you know? Wouldn't it be more expedient if I just killed him? Letting you know takes a hell of lot of time and in the mean time, if he gets wind of my reporting to you, he can try to kill me. How about, if I don't like how he's acting, I just kill him for you. Much better."
Eric chortled. "Really Thalia, I have to say that this entire experience has been quite enlightening. And the thought that you were frolicking with him just last night and are now proposing to kill him if he's plotting against us is just…"
She cut him off, "Just wise?" She looked at him darkly.
Eric smiled. "Yes, wise. Alright, I give you carte blanche to decide what to do with that situation. If you feel something's not right, I leave it to your judgment. If you want help, you call us."
Thalia hesitated.
"What is it?" Eric asked charily. What was she going to expect in return, he wondered?
"When I come back, I would like to have a different job than the bar. I would like to continue to work in the Area. I selected to work for you because you are reasonable to work for and you do not impose. But I hate the bar. I hate the tourists. I spend my entire night filled with thoughts of disappointment over the fact that I cannot drain any of the people who approach me. I dislike them all intensely. I would like a better job. I will do this for you, if I can have a better job."
Eric looked at her and smiled. "Thalia, when you come back, I'll put you in charge of security. You'll manage the security in Shreveport and perhaps here in Bon Temps. Eventually maybe the entire Area. I would have put you in security months ago if I had known more of your real skills. You never said anything about your background. You were only a face in the database."
"You do not mind having a security person who is so small?" she asked suspiciously.
He looked surprised. "Thalia, Sophie-Anne LeClerq was your size and she was the most devious person I have ever met. It is no problem for me whatsoever. In fact, it can be quite useful to appear unimposing, at times."
Thalia rose and bowed to him, and turned to depart. Then she turned back.
"Could I just kill him and come straight back?"
Eric made a face and then shook his head. "Bad form."
She looked disappointed, but nodded her agreement.
As she walked across the cemetery to the Compton house to gather her things, Eric turned to Pam, who was just shaking her head.
"What?" he said.
"I think I'm going to keep a stake close by my side from now on…"
He chuckled.
It was 8:30 pm according to the digital clock on my nightstand. The room was pretty dark. The house was quiet. I had fallen back to sleep after having a little more soup in the early afternoon. I'd hugged Claudine so she knew I wasn't upset with her, but had just gone back to bed, unwilling to talk. I drifted off to sleep listening to her talk, in the living room to Amelia and Octavia about their craft.
I turned over in the bed to find Eric stretched out and reading a book in the dark. Those eyes, I thought to myself... As soon as I turned, he reached over and stroked my hair.
"Lover, do you want the light on?" he said softly.
"No, it's okay. What are you reading?" sleepily.
"The horse book. Seabiscuit. Claudine is right. It's an interesting book. If that is possible for a book about a horse…"
I chuckled softly. I just lay there, silently for a while. My mind kept sinking back into what I'd been through. Part of me wanted to ask about the fight and if everyone was alright. But before I had even been able to formulate the question I would just start thinking about Dieter and Helga and feel literally sick. How could such beings exist in this world, so filled with hatred? Were they just the Fae equivalent of the very worst humans? I hoped they were the worst. Were they examples of what humans who wrote of demons had encountered? Embodiments of evil? I touched the marks on my wrist again. I have more scars than the ones that show, I thought to myself.
Finally Eric spoke. "Sookie, Claudine says she would like to have Niall remove the burn marks but that you refused."
"I don't want anything from him. Anything at all."
Eric was silent for a moment and then said, "We should get up. You need to eat. You haven't eaten enough since your return." He rose from the bed. He was still in the clothes he had changed into when he got back to my house close to dawn, I noted. I guess Claudine watched me during the day and that Eric had hung around after sunset. They had clearly spoken upon his rising, if the book was any indication.
I sighed and got up, put my slippers back on and then thought better of it. I went to the dresser and got socks. Then we went toward the kitchen. I glanced around the living room, which was now quite clean. I paused at the hole in the wall and turned to Eric.
"Can you explain this?" I asked, my eyes narrow and my head tipped slightly to the side.
He walked over, made a fist and put his fist through the hole in the wall. Then withdrew his fist and turned to me, looking at me without even a trace of humor.
I shook my head. "You know, I know I really got hit in the head a lot of times, but I think I had that part figured out, Eric. I meant the why part. Why were you pulling an iron rebar out of my wall?"
He paused for an instant to think about how to explain it.
"I suppose the best way to describe it is to say that I was trying to capture your grandfather's full attention in a manner that also assured my personal safety," he said in a cool tone.
"So you were arguing with him. Because of Preston and Dermot?"
"It was the whole thing, Lover. The entire situation." He shook his head as if thinking back on the moment still disturbed him.
"So you used iron on my great-grandfather?"
He hesitated, clearly trying to feel through the bond where this was headed. I could see that my present state of mind was not lending itself to clarity there. Perhaps he thought that it would upset me? Part of me wondered it Eric's perception of me through the bond was still not quite what it had been. If Dieter had damaged something. But I threw that concern off to look up at him and hear his reply.
He nodded slowly. He looked down at me and said quietly, as if hoping not to upset me too much, "I did, yes. It weakened him enough so that I could make my points clearly to him. So I did use the iron bar on him, yes."
Well, high points for honesty. I could be equally honest.
"Good." I walked on into the kitchen.
I rooted around in the kitchen and finally just decided to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and have a glass of milk. I wanted comfort food. As I sat eating my sandwich, I could feel Eric's puzzlement. Finally, looking as if he just wasn't getting very far sorting me out, he said,
"I actually burned him. On his cheek. I was very angry. You don't have a problem with it, I take it?"
I put down my sandwich and looked at him.
"The iron? No. Basically, I think if he let you walk alone, into a room with more than fifteen fairies, to rescue his great-granddaughter who his own son kidnapped and gave to Dieter, he deserves whatever you'd want to do to him. I think I'm not sure I ever want to see him again. Frankly, I'm pretty much thinking I wish I'd never met him. I know there was that whole 'war thing' you also had to deal with, but the reason I was there was his fault. They found me because of Preston. And Preston was his fault, too. It's really hard to look back at 36 hours in hell and not think that it was all my grandfather's fault. And then he sent you in to fix it all? Alone, initially? To face Dieter and Helga? No. Bring on the iron if you want."
Just thinking about Eric having to enter that room on his own made my blood boil. I really didn't care how brave he was or what the plan was. I didn't even care if Eric offered to do it. I was beginning to see that the whole possessive thing was a two way street. And Niall was dragging someone who was mine into his mess. I wasn't feeling very forgiving on the topic. Not in the least. I'd have to say that to the contrary, the more I ruminated on it, the angrier I was feeling about it.
Eric paused as if considering something very carefully. He looked over at me and gave me an odd smile and then finally said,
"Sookie, I wasn't exactly alone."