Part 3
The sleep of the day is almost unbreakable for a vampire; it is our most vulnerable time because it is nearly impossible to wake, even to save yourself. I have done it on a few occasions, when my love called to me. I have had no reason to break it since she turned me away. The oblivion has actually been a blessing. When I sleep at least I do not have to think, the nights are long, and I stare at the sky and replay every mistake I have made. I suffer for the choices, perhaps not as much as I should, but I have shed many tears.
My hostess called me the solitary vampire across the cemetery, she is correct, but for emerging to receive my delivery of Tru Blood I go nowhere beyond my land. No one comes to see me. It is best that way; I am not good company. My hostess; I strained to hear her call Andy before I gave way to the nothingness, I needed to make certain that she would be safe.
And now I feel the sunset, only an instant it seems since I closed my eyes, and a fear runs through me, I am afraid of what I am going to find when I emerge from the hole, I wish for the earth to cave in over me, and swallow me, but no gods, angels or demons hear my entreaty. What I do hear are the gentle footsteps of my hostess, hesitant, as if she fears she will wake me. She continues to treat me as a guest it seems, not the monster that I am. I do not want to open the door above my head, but she is in the room, waiting, expectant, I can smell her scent. She uses lavender in something, I don't know if it's in her shampoo or her soap, or simply a perfume, but it hangs around her this evening. It is a perfect complement to her calm heartbeat. How can she be so calm? She has a vampire under her floorboards. I hear the springs of the bed shift just a little, she has sat down, to wait for me it seems. My hand rests on the door; I hesitate again, knowing what I have to do. I push on it and it lifts, the closet door is closed but she has heard me stirring, and again I hear her feet on the floorboards, coming to open the closet door. When she does it is dark, which doesn't matter to me, I can see her well enough.
"William? Are you there?" I know she cannot see me, but I neglect to take into account that I do not breathe, and I likely have no scent expect the dirt I have been sleeping in. She cannot tell I am here until I speak. I can easily move around her and run, she will be left wondering, but whole. It is what I should do, but I look at her, and I cannot.
"I am here Mistress." I whisper, I do not wish to startle her with my nearness. A smile lights her face, it is such a pity to know that she does not know how beautiful she is when she smiles, not that she isn't beautiful without it. I catch my thought then, it is condescending, she likely knows exactly how beautiful she is and I should never have entertained the idea that she did not.
"I'm so glad." She responds, and she holds a hand out to me, I take it because I am weak.
"I'm dirty." I apologize. She laughs at me in a quiet, nervous sort of way, perhaps she is aware of the danger I pose.
"You'll have to clean up after yourself then I guess." She offers me with the same quiet voice.
Her hand is warm and she urges me to my feet, I step from the secret crypt and straighten myself. I had not really looked at her that past morning, when I had first returned to this house, I had been more concerned with selfish things, and with her safety to really see anything beyond the terrified face she had worn. It is entirely different now. Mine may not be.
She has black hair, tonight she has it braided and it's sitting midway down her back. It was loose before, and wind whipped, and her eyes were wide, cheeks flushed with the fight. Now she is porcelain, and her eyes are soft and hazel. I can see the angry bruises on her neck, and it puts me quickly in mind of the assault, but I choose not to ask about them, I imagine they hurt her. They look so incongruous on her person.
"Did you call the sheriff?"
"I did. He came out right away. That man hadn't even woken up yet. I heard the ambulance that came to collect him." I step away from the closet and into the room proper. I cannot stop the shudder that runs through me.
"William?" She is still holding my hand, she has felt my discomfort; her unseeing eyes are focused on me. I cannot bring myself to call it eerie. I cannot be so insulting of her, even to myself.
"What is your name mistress?"
"My name?"
"Or what you would have me call you at least. If you would have me call you something."
"Elizabeth. My name is Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth. What did Andy say?"
"He told me not to worry." She pulls me over to the bed, sitting down herself. I join her. She pulls my hand into her lap, now grasping it with both of hers. I can pull it away, but I don't, I allow myself to enjoy the feeling of something living so close to me, it has been so long. She is trembling, she is remembering. "He said the man wasn't going to be going anywhere for a very long time."
"Did he ask you what happened?" I am worried that Andy is going to pay me a visit, I don't want to have to lie to him, or glamour him, it only adds to my sins.
"He did, but you don't have to worry William, I told him that I didn't know, that I hadn't seen who had pulled the man away from me, only that I'd run for the house as soon as he had let me go, and called him, Andy that is."
"He believed you?"
"Of course he did. I'm the blind girl in town." She laughs again, her voice sounds like bells.
"But why was that man trying to harm you?" She takes a long time to answer me, but continues to hold my hand. I can feel her heartbeat through her skin; it wavers against mine. It has been so long. She can have no idea what she is doing to me.
"I don't know William. But I felt much better knowing you were here today, even if you were sleeping." I feel certain just then, as I hear her words that I would have heard her had she screamed again. Being back here in this house, I feel attuned to it somehow, and her in turn as its new mistress. I wonder if the universe is giving me another chance in this place. But then I think that I do not deserve such a chance as hard as I try to hold onto the comfort the thought has given me. It is an addiction, this place, as is my desire to feel here as I once did, loved, and desired, and needed. Before I destroyed it all. Some part of me speaks, my dead heart perhaps, before my mind can object, and pull away as I should, to return to my destitution, and to my end.
"Did you want me to watch over you while you sleep Elizabeth, to ensure no one else tries to harm you?" The grip on my hand tightens, and she releases a long breath.
"I would be very grateful to you if you would William." I find I love hearing her say my name out loud. "I've spent the day trying to figure out why someone would attack me, and where he could have come from."
"Why were you outside at such an early hour if I may ask." If I am going to protect her perhaps it is all right for me to ask such questions?
"I was just coming home from a trip. The car left me at the front door, I was bringing my suitcase up when someone grabbed me." I had not noticed a suitcase, but I had not been looking for one.
"The driver did not wait to see you safely into your home?" I had always waited to hear the locks on Sookie's doors before I left her, on those days when I had been a welcome visitor.
"I told him that I would be alright. He just wanted to get home I imagine, my flight was late and my transportation from Shreveport out here was arranged by my company. I should have just stayed there till the morning, but I wanted to get home. It was foolish of me."
"Wanting to come home is not foolish Elizabeth."
"But for you William, it would have been fatal."
I cannot disagree with her, even without knowing the truth of the man's intentions. If it had been Sookie she would have known his motivation by digging into his head. That thought puts me in the mind of another possibility. Perhaps the man had believed that he was attacking Sookie Stackhouse. Even bonded to the Sheriff of Area Five, she was an enticing target. I let my shoulders slump on my frame, I have spent so many nights trying to convince myself that Sookie is where she needs to be, that she loves Eric and he her, but at moments like this, when I remember what my folly has cost me I cannot be still with the thought. I have to stand, and I have to move, I have to get out of the house before every vision makes me doubt my resolve. I move and pull my hand from Elizabeth's grasp.
"William?"
"I will check your woods, and then return to you, if I find anything we can call Andy."
"But wait." Her voice holds me back faster than her grasp. I stop. She seems to sense it. "You told me you would tell me why you were crying."
"Once I ensure your safety." I run. It is cruel, I know this because Elizabeth does not understand, but whatever else I have transcended it seems that pride is not part of the mix. I ensure I close the door, I wait on the porch to hear her turn the lock, which she does and then I run again, through the woods, along the paths, down to the far stream and up the road to Hummingbird lane. I take more time than it would normally take me, needing to clear my head and my heart. I find something, pulled just off the graveled drive, and only then do I return back to the porch. She hears me mount the steps. I note that they are in much better repair than my own, but of course they are, Sookie loves this house, and I know she will come back to it, as soon as I am gone.
"William?" She speaks to me through the door, waiting for my assurance that it is I. I am glad that she has the sense to wait behind the locked doors for me.
"Yes, I am here, please call the Sheriff again, I have found an abandoned vehicle."
The quad runner had been hidden, not well, just a few yards off the driveway. It has the same stale smell of sweat as the man I have taken down and it isn't a stretch for me to deduce it was how he had made his way to the Stackhouse land. It also means that he had to be local, or that he had stolen it from a local. Either way Andy will know and I am happy to give him the information. I know that it will bring questions, but I am beyond lying about it. Part of me actually wants to see Andy again. He is the closest thing I will ever have to family again. And for all the things others have said to question his ability, he is a better investigator than his meager training might indicate. He has an innate ability, I know better than to ascribe it to any genetics from me, even though I spent my time as an investigator as well.
I can hear her in the house, calling him, again her common sense pleases me, at least when it comes to getting help. Her continued desire to remain near me, as evidenced by her unlocking the door, and stepping outside to find me, scares me.
"William?" She calls again, and again I can choose to flee from her, but I don't.
"Thank you for calling Andy." There is no tone in my voice, I am fighting myself.
"What did you find?" She turns to me and takes a steady step. Her surety amazes me.
"A four wheeled vehicle, just near the turnoff to the house. The man was likely waiting for your arrival." I have other thoughts in my head, but I choose to save them for Andy's arrival. Further speculation serves no purpose.
"Will you wait for Andy with me?"
"I will."
I watch as she guides herself to one of the rattan chairs that still grace the porch. I remember seeing Adele on them before her passing. Sookie has always understood the need to preserve her memories; I would purge mine in fire, not that it will change anything. I stay leaning against the rail, I cannot go closer to her.
"Will you tell me now why you are trying to kill yourself?"
"My sins have been great. It seems only fair."
"Have you killed someone?"
"Is that the only sin which deserves death?" I muse more to myself with the question than I expect an answer from her.
"What could you have done? Do you hate your life so much?"
"My life ended years ago."
"When you were turned?"
"When I betrayed someone who loved me."
"Loved you in spite of these perceived faults?" Her words cut me, not that she knows it before she speaks them.
"No, I hid them from her, and I lied to her, and by the time I realized my horrible folly it was too late to apologize. She could not forgive me, and I do not blame her for that."
"Surely that is not enough to die for?"
"I am already dead, and besides that point, I have nothing to live for now."
"I thought the same thing when I lost my vision. But I was wrong." She holds out her hand for me, in the general direction of my voice I guess. I ignore it, briefly, but she turns her unseeing eyes on me again. And I bow my head in shame and approach, taking her hand and seating myself in the mate to the chair she occupies.
"Who was she?" She asks me in total innocence. I am astounded; surely Sookie has to have told her the truth. Is my mistress playing with me, or has Sookie been the better man, or woman, and left me my pride?
"She did not tell you?"
"Who?"
"The woman I hurt was Sookie Stackhouse." Elizabeth finally falls truly silent, I make to pull my hand away, but as before she continues to hold it fast. She takes a deep breath, probably deciding what to do now, now that she knows that the man she has invited into her home is a monster.
"I understand now why being in the house was so hard for you this morning."
"Yes." I nod my head, not that she can see it, but it is a habit. "I'll wait with you till Andy comes, and I will stay out here all night as I have promised. After that I will leave you to your peace Elizabeth."
"It's just a house William." She offers.
"It is her house."
Thankfully the crunching of the patrol car's tires brings an end to the conversation. I rise, finally dropping her hand; she rises as well, wrapping her arms around herself. Not because she is cold I don't think, but because she is just a little lost, I do not blame her either.
"Bill?" Andy's gruff voice has not changed over the months since I have seen him. He doesn't hold his hand out to me; he knows that vampires don't like to be touched. Elizabeth does not know it, but it seems that I have not found it a priority to correct her.
"Sheriff." I feel it is important to address him in his official capacity, perhaps I defer to him because he has always been forthright, if not brutally honest. He is a better man than me.
"Long time no see Bill."
"It was been." He turns his face to Elizabeth, preferring to ignore my presence, or at least to avoid having to think about what my presence means.
"You said you'd discovered something?" He asks her.
"William has discovered something." She tells him. Only then does Andy turn back to me, he looks reluctant to do so.
"And what would that be Bill?"
"There is a four wheeler abandoned up near the road, hidden in the brush a little bit. I wonder if it might belong to the person who attacked Elizabeth?"
"Really?" Andy sounds disappointed in himself, or whomever he had tasked with searching the property. "Show me." An order, not a request. I'm happy to oblige.
"I'll wait here for you two then shall I?"
"That'd be best ma'am." Andy is in full Sheriff mode. I welcome the chance to put some distance between the house and myself as I lead him out. I waste a good deal of time showing him my discovery, and asking his opinions about most everything. For his part he has questions for me.
"So Bill, did you hear a man got attacked out here this morning?"
"He was attacking Elizabeth."
"So you admit that it was you that beat the crap out of him?"
"It was. I had to stop him from hurting Elizabeth."
"And how do you know her?"
"I don't, I simply heard her screams and came to investigate."
"Lucky for her." His tone is trying to accuse me of something, but I don't think he knows just what himself. I try to help him out.
"He was on 'V' I could smell it on him."
"Well the docs were pretty sure he was high when we brought him in."
We walk back towards Andy's car, he wants to radio to the station to have someone come out with a flatbed to pick up the ATV. He also wants to ask me something else; I can see it in his eyes and the way he sets his jaw.
"Andy?"
"Why are you here Bill, why are you getting involved in things again? It's been quiet."
"I didn't intend to get involved Andy. I couldn't leave her to be killed."
"No, I 'spose you couldn't." he makes his call and then says he's going to wait by the ATV, but he says one more thing to me. "Don't hurt her too Bill." My shame knows no limits.
"I won't." I mean it. I intend to leave her once Andy can assure me of one thing.
"Will you keep watch over her Sheriff?"
"As I do for everyone in this Parish Bill." This does not fill me with confidence. I wonder if I shall be forced to endure the house and its memories for considerably longer than I want to.