A/N: All the regular disclaimers aply here. I'd like to thank all the lovely people who leave me reviews - you keep my fingers typing away, guys, and also those who alerted and favourited. And a special, Eric-shaped thank you goes to Kristen, who is truly a wonderful beta. Here's chapter 3, in which we finally see a lot of our dear Viking. Hope you enjoy.
Thank you to yahaira for pointing out a few things :) bad, bad inattentive me for leaving my beta comments in! All fixed now.
~oOo~
I ate my dinner in restless solitude. Claude had informed me right after we had finished improving Dermot's lodgings-to-be that he needed something from his home in Monroe and had driven off with a frown on his face. Putting Claude's share of fried chicken and roast potatoes in the oven, I realized I had cooked for three, as I got used to doing in the last few weeks. My poor tear ducts. I felt an already familiar prickle when I remembered that Dermot would not be joining us for his favorite simple meal tonight. Or ever.
Angrily swiping at my eyes, I stomped out of the kitchen in search of something to do. There was still over an hour to kill before sunset, and having done every possible chore around house, all I could do was kill time and fight all of my misgivings before Claude, whom I promised to wait for, returned.
I sat on the swings and tried to piece together what I knew about newborn vampires. As it appeared, I knew very little. I only ever heard of their 'waking' experiences first-hand from Pam. Then there was Jake Purifoy, the were-turned-vampire in Hadley's apartment who had attacked me after being held in stasis and ultimately awoken by Amelia Broadway's spell. And if I had any choice, this was not the knowledge I wanted to rely on in my dealings with Dermot tonight.
I wondered how hungry he would be and whether he'd be able to see it was me before he thought I'd pass for his first ever vampire snack. An unwelcome thought of Bill and me in the trunk of that Lincoln flickered through my mind, and I shuddered. I really had nothing to put against a hungry vampire. Letting my pride have his its way with me by not telling Eric of all this yesterday seemed like the stupidest thing I'd done in a while.
At that moment, a car pulled over into the driveway, and I ran to see that it was Claude. He hopped out gracefully from the driver's seat, and my eyes went wide with amazement. Claude was wearing a stunning knee-length chain mail suit made of what looked like pure silver. Its craftsmanship was a thing of beauty, and I doubted any form of modern human technology could have reached this level of finery yet. The chain mail was covered in an intricate design and had a flare to it that no metal should allow. Claude's dark chestnut hair was swept up into a high pony tail, and he looked like one of the shiny elves from Lord of the Rings movie. Except he looked better: those elves were played by humans, and Claude had this flawlessness about him that only being a full-blooded, born and bred fairy could give.
I scraped my jaw off the floor and said, "You certainly clean up well, cousin."
"You like what you see?" Claude was never one to dismiss a compliment, however off-handed. It tickled his vanity, which was much bigger than the slight fairy.
"What in the world is this? It looks silver," I asked, coming up to him and touching the hem of the unusual garment. It felt cool and smooth and something else, something which I couldn't define. Perhaps, the best word would be alien.
"It's my fighting gear, back from the old days. Made in Faery," Claude answered seriously.
"Your fighting gear?" I was hardly credulous.
Claude caught on my mistrust and said a bit acidly, "Yeah well, before I decided showing off my body for money was the best thing to do in the world, I participated in a war or five. And sometimes we even fought vampires."
I felt immediately ashamed. Claude was a world class jerk alright, and his social skills were in serious need of evolution, they were still on caveman (or cavefairy) level most of the time, but he meant well, at least where I was concerned. He saved fme and was there for me when I needed him most.
"I'm sorry, Claude, I didn't mean to be rude. It's just… astounding to see you like this." And it was astounding, trust me.
"'ss okay, cuz. You haven't known me long enough to know, right?" Claude was very benevolent today.
"I guess not." I gave out a sad laugh. He was one of my glaringly few surviving relatives, and I didn't even know how old he was. Some pathetic cousin I was. "How old are you anyway, Claude?" I asked in an attempt to rectify the situation.
"I'm actually just approaching my prime. I'm a little over two hundred years," he answered, with an unspoken 'so there's more depth to me than my shallow image suggests' firmly attached to it.
"So, fairy wars, huh?" I totally didn't know how to go about this conversation.
"Yep. I actually was a lieutenant to Niall," Claude said with not a little bit of pride. "I haven't worn this for over a century, though. I don't like wars, and it's a good thing we haven't had anything major to fight over of late. So, for the last hundred years or so, I've been living to the motto "make love, not war".
I snickered into my fist and decided to forego telling Claude that it hadn't even been fifty years of that particular one being tossed around.
"Aren't you a hippie," I said out loud instead.
"I'm not. But I still like to fuck more than to fight." That's my blunt fairy boy.
"So, I take it you're going with me?" I asked, giving his gorgeous outfit another look-over.
"You're not going alone. And Dermot is my uncle. I must be there."
"Aren't you afraid he's going to lose it as soon as he smells you?" I remembered how Eric and Pam were around Claudine. They didn't attack her right away, but judging by their glazed eyes and openly displayed fangs, it was an inevitable conclusion . And Eric and Pam were old, jaded, well-fed vampires, not a half-fairy fresh out of the grave.
"I'll stand far enough to pop out if something happens," Claude reassured me, "but you're not going alone.
"Okay," I replied and immediately felt better. If Eric didn't call before I absolutely had to go, at least I would not be alone. A fairy might have been more of a hazard than a means of protection in this situation, but it was a silver-clad fairy with experience in vampire-slaughter, and that had to mean something, right?
"You cooked fried chicken?" Claude asked at that moment, taking a whiff about the kitchen.
It snapped me out of some reverie, and, shooting a sunny smile in his general direction, I pulled his dinner out of the oven and fetched a jug of iced tea from the fridge.
"You are one demon of a cook, Sookie," Claude said, still looking beautiful, even when his mouth was stuffed with chicken and gravy was leaking out the corner.
Speaking of demons. A large manila envelope was still lying on top of my bed. I hastily excused myself, which was completely superfluous since my chicken and potatoes currently had Claude's undivided attention, and went to my bedroom.
Whatever was inside it was lightweight. I noticed that it didn't have a return address or the name of the sender on it. Just 'Sookie Stackhouse' written in bold, spiky script with what seemed to be actual ink. I tore through it with my manicure scissors and pulled out what seemed to be a very official and expensive looking card. It looked really old, even to my inexperienced eyes. It might even have been hundreds of years old. I ran a finger over the plain card. Not paper. Maybe it was parchment, but I could not tell for sure. I took a deep breath and opened it.
Inside was a portrait of a young girl and a lock of hair. The girl was a beautiful, blossoming teenager of maybe fourteen or fifteen. Of course, during the time she lived, she would be considered a grown woman ready to marry and have children. ItThe picture was probably drawn in coal pencil or whatever they used for black and white drawings back then. The girl was posing her head up and to the side, and I had a weird thought that the name Grace would suit her very well. Grace was everywhere about her –: in the slight turn of her neck and in the dreamy eyes and in elaborately arranged fingers, which touched her bare clavicle, cushioned by slight, elegant lace. The lines and the shading were so delicate, so exquisite I thought the artist must have taken great pains: he was either really well-paid or in love with his model.
The lock of hair was blond and curled bit, as if someone had been wrapping it around a finger often for a long time.
I wondered why someone would send me something like this. The 'Who?' question was even more intriguing. There was no inscription or dedication of any kind on the portrait, so the same question about the girl remained unanswered as well.
I gingerly put the card back into the envelope and stored it in a drawer. Perhaps Eric would smell it later and tell me if he could discern anything from the mix of scents it most probably bore by now.
The sun had already sunk below the woods line when I came back into the kitchen to see Claude rinsing his dishes. The chain mail just added to the absolute absurdity of the scene. I checked the silly laugh which was about to escape my mouth and grabbed a case of True Blood. Dermot gave me very clear directions to his grave, and there was no point dawdling any longer.
In grim silence, my silver-clad protector and I moved a little off the old cemetery and parallel to Bill's land, deeper into the forest. We walked about half a mile and were standing on the edge of a little gully that sloped gently down when I saw it. The patch of bare, freshly turned land under a large sycamore. It stood out from the rest of the area, which was covered with years' worth of dead foliage.
"This is about how far I can safely go with you, Sookie," Claude said, putting his hand on my shoulder and staring down at Dermot's grave.
"I understand." And I really did.
"This way is West from down there," he said pointing, "so you should always be able to see me standing here, even when it gets darker." He handed me my large flashlight and motioned for me to go forward.
I suddenly understood that amidst my hasty preparations I absolutely forgot to arm myself with at least a silver chain. I sighed. Even a thought of arming against Dermot was repulsive.
Claude seemed to have a glimpse inside my mind for an instance, because he procured a thin silver weapon, which was either a large dagger or a small sword. He half-drew it out of its sheath to show me.
"If something happens…" He seemed to have a problem finishing that particular thought, but i didn't need actual words to understand what he meant. He was ready to kill Dermot for me.
I gave Claude a quick impulsive hug and a peck on the cheek, grabbed the blood and strolled down. The sun had set.
Putting the case of blood next to the grave, I took one bottle in my hands, trying to warm it up. I knew it was most probably useless, but it gave my hands something to occupy themselves with to keep from thumb-twiddling.
A weak tingle in the bond roused me from my musings. Eric was awake. It felt much vaguer now than it used to be. Perhaps, because of the giant painful hole Alexei and Appius left, or perhaps because we haven't taken each other's blood for a long time. It had been so long since Eric hadn't fed from me for that I didn't have a single bite mark left on my body. They all had since long healed.
Had someone asked me a couple of years ago whether I'd get upset over not having a vamp brand anywhere on my body, I'd laugh at their face. Or kick them in the shins.
~oOo~
Almost an hour later or so my anxiety gave way to a different type of frustration. Claude and I played the City Game for a while, though it proved to be challenge to yell city names to each other over the rustling of leaves and chirruping of small birds and crickets. Then he related the latest goings-on in his club. And then I started to get antsy. I had this weird, itchy feeling of being on the verge or something. I stood up and paced, the bottle of blood forgotten.
A quick glance over at Claude told me that he was standing unusually still, and I thought that his hand was resting on something that was probably the hilt of his small blade.
But then a sudden wave of calmness washed over me, and three seconds later Eric walked out of the woods from the lee side.
I gave a small yelp of surprise, and in the next moment I was nosing his chest. Our difficulties be damned. For one blissful moment, before all the things between us started to seep in, I wanted to relish in the joy, comfort and contentment that being next to Eric had always given me. And for one moment, which was all too short, I did exactly that.
Eric gently pried my hands away from his strong, lean body and lifted my face up to look me in the eyes.
"All I ever have to do to find you, Sookie, is to follow a fairy scent," his face and tone betrayed no emotion, but at this proximity the bond lightly pulsed with worry and puzzlement and something else, something I didn't like. The only thing I could compare it to would be what I had always felt when Jason pulled something stupid for the millionth time after swearing it off on a stack of Bibles as tall as myself.
I pushed the uncomfortable feeling aside, dizzy with relief. He came, he came, he came, my brain happily chanted, refusing to let any other thoughts take over for a few blessed seconds.
"Eric, you've come," I whispered to him, and I sounded miserable even to myself.
"Of course I did, dear one," he said, patting my hair soothingly. I felt his worry and bemusement through the bond.
"What is going on here, Sookie? You're keeping vigil at what looks to be a fresh grave and your—is that fae army silver on him?—your cousin is manning the approach march like a Legolas wannabe?" there was a hint of humor in his voice, but worry easily prevailed. At other times, I'd have taken a minute to be amused by this ancient vampire's sudden albeit scrappy knowledge of pop culture, but not today.
"Oh Eric." I felt my face crumple helplessly. "Someone killed Dermot and made him a vampire. He came to me and asked me to get him because his maker apparently abandoned him. I was trying to tell you yesterday, but—" Then I remembered that I was actually upset with him, "what was it that you couldn't even spare me a minute anyway?"
I watched two perfect dark blond eyebrows knit together in a frown.
"Someone killed your uncle on your land? Someone actually managed to turn a half-fairy, is that what you're telling me?" He sounded too doubtful for my taste.
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you," I snipped, exasperated. "And what's up with turning half-fairies? It's not like it's all that hard to stick your bleeding wrist to a mouth of a dying person."
"Dying, Sookie, is the key word here. Dermot had so much fairy blood in him that no vampire I know of would be able to keep him dying long enough to turn him. Not a single vampire would be able to stop at the right time. This is just beyond suspicious. Whoever did this it is very, very dangerous." Eric looked truly disturbed.
"Yeah, then it takes the whole mess to a new level," I mumbled to no one in particular and looked at Eric expectantly.
"Sookie, this was most foolish of you to come out here alone," he scolded, and I did not like the sound of it one bit. His voice took a reproachful tone and a cold cadence he seldom used with me. "And you should have told me yesterday. This is a serious offense, and it was committed on the territory where I'm sheriff.
Okay, this just got to me. I felt white-hot fury rise in me like lava to the top of a volcano, ready to explode. Sheriff, my perky round ass.
"Oh, so it's not that I lost someone I love, or that he was made vampire against his will, or that his maker abandoned him to cope as well as he can, that is important to you. But that it happened on your damn turf, Sheriff?" I gritted through clenched teeth.
I felt a tiny sliver of cutting sadness rush through the bond and disappear as suddenly as if it were squelched deliberately.
On the outside Eric did not seem to extend any patience for me.
"I don't react well to my actions questioned that way" he said with the iciness that a glacier would envy. "I do worry about you, but it does not mean I don't care about what is going on around my turf."
I was immediately taken aback. Maybe it was uncalled for. I was too riled up to nitpick that now.
"What kept you so busy last night?" I said in a somewhat whiny voice, trying to redirect the storm.
Eric was immediately back to his composed, businesslike self. The 'for everyone' self.
"We had a… situation." He answered evasively.
Uh-oh. Knowing Eric, something dead -serious was going on.
"What kind of situation?" I asked hesitantly, and he looked at me as if he were actually considering whether it was worth the trouble to let me know.
When I was almost too hurt by his coldness to look away, needing a second to scramble my usual fake bright smile, he said, "Pam got in trouble."
"Is she ok?" I practically leapt with worry. Pam was the closest I had to a friend in the vampire world, and certain things have happened that brought us even closer. I mean, apparently, nothing is better for bonding than killing a couple of vampire thugs and covering the whole mess up together.
"She'll cope. But she gave me quite a headache yesterday." As if she could. Eric sounded like he was seriously displeased with his child. I wondered if she was being punished at this very moment.
"What happened?" I probed further.
"She fed on a couple of college kids who got doped on the wrong kind of meth. You wouldn't believe the things they mix into drugs these days. Sugar powder, detergent and niter being the most innocuous ones."
"Oh, god. How bad is it?" I cringed inwardly. Not that I knew what effects drinking blood with that kind of combo in it would have on a vampire, but judging by Eric's voice, Pam was in bad shape.
"Pretty bad," he said, resigned. "She needed a few clear blood donors to be able to function and she might need to sleep it off for a couple of nights. She has also lost a couple of hours in total oblivion before Indira found her and her unfortunate dinner passed out behind Fangtasia."
It sounded so un-Pam-like I would find it funny, if not for Eric's deadpan severe tone. Pam, the definition of sophisticated and collected, passed out in a ditch behind a bar. What is this world coming to?
"Are you going to punish her?" I asked, and again, a flicker of worry and sorrow fluttered through the bond, so fleeting I wouldn't have noticed it if the bond was not so empty of… of all the things it had always been full of before.
"I don't know," Eric answered honestly and suddenly looked at me for the longest moment.
I bore his scrutiny with what I thought was dignified openness, even though after a minute of facing his piercing look, all I wanted was to turn away, go pick up the blood bottle and try to rewarm it with my hands, send an okay sign to Claude—anything—to seem preoccupied and unperturbed.
Eric closed the distance between us slowly and took my face in his hands. His hold was lax and almost detached.
"I am sorry about your uncle Dermot, dear one." The pads of his thumbs brushed my cheekbones as he kept searching for something in my face. "I'll help you handle it, and everything will be fine."
"Is this the part where you tell me not to worry my pretty little head?" I murmured, mollified a little.
"No, this is the part where I state the fact that I'm not letting you fix this mess all by yourself." He chuckled. "And maybe later we will talk, you and I."
He sounded sincere and gentle, but something about the way he simply was today screamed 'off' to me. Well, maybe it wasn't only today, but for a few weeks already. But yeah, we would talk. I decidedly omitted the maybe part. I had enough of maybes with Bill and knew exactly where this road led. That innocent little maybe coming from Eric filled me with dread.
I remained silent, unable to find a reply less lame than 'um, yeah sure' and more appropriate for the here and now than 'why the hell are you being a goddamn vampire icicle, Eric Northman?' Eric took this opportunity to wrap his arms around me. I closed my eyes and let myself draw what peace and comfort his embrace had to offer.
He kissed me lightly on the forehead and then on each of my cheeks and dropped a barely-there peck on my lips. His touches smacked of something like guilt. I felt like curling into a ball and crying.
Feeling desperate, I felt for the bond and pushed as much love through it, as I could. Some hurt and confusion and pain may have gotten through on the tail end as well. He definitely felt it because he closed his eyes, and for a momentflicker of a second, I saw such pain etched into the dear, flawless features of his beautiful face, that I barely held a gasp and lowered my eyes till they safely stared at his chest. The bond felt hollow, but I had a distinct impression that something tumultuous was bubbling beneath a barely suppressed lid. Eric was definitely closing his end off.
Two long fingers tilted my chin up, a tender but insistent pressure.
"I know, my… Sookie," he said almost urgently, and I chose to believe he was answering to my half-assed attempt at an untimely love confession.
I blinked back a few tears, stepped aside and put a smile on.
When I was as collected as I could be under the circumstances, I waved to Claude, who swung his sword demonstratively back, and turned to Eric.
"So, what do newborn vamps—"
I was suddenly being pushed behind a the broad, solid back of my Viking. "Hush, Sookie," he said hoarsely.
Peeking out from behind Eric at what he apparently deemed was a safe distance from the grave, I saw fresh earth moving like in those fast-forwarded little movies on Discovery where they show the way plants grow.
A white, finely structured hand appeared, clenching and unclenching, grabbing fistfuls of earth. A few seconds later, Dermot emerged, his clothes ragged and stained in old crusted blood, his fine blond waves messy and dirty, with a few random sycamore leaves in them. But otherwise he was miraculously transformed. The change was so subtle and yet so evident and startling that I couldn't help but wish fiercely that I could have seen what Eric looked like when he was human.
Dermot's skin had an exquisite pallor to it and seemed translucent and utterly beautiful. His steely gray eyes stood out on his face. There was an inexplicable lissomness about him and a sharpness that I hadn't noticed in my uncle when while he was still alive. If I was to choose one word to describe the biggest overall change, I'd say there now was stillness in the way he looked. Like someone took a rare, fine photograph of him, and somehow it came alive and substituted the real Dermot.
For a moment, he stood there and stared at his hands, fingers outstretched and turning over, than gazed upwards to the sky in complete fascination and finally, Eric and I drew his gaze.
"Sookie," His voice was melodious, filling two simple syllables of my name with a fountain of acoustic sensations. It was mesmerizing to observe such a change, and I felt tears spring to my eyes. This time they were tears of wonder.
Eric seemed just as taken with the scene.
"Witnessing the birth of a vampire, watching the newborn take his first step is a miracle, a beautiful, breath-taking scene and a rare honor" he breathed out barely above whisper.
"Hello, Dermot, and, um, welcome. There's blood to your right." I said in a shaky voice.
"Thank you. I'm hungry," he answered in his familiar sweet and honest manner and uncapped a True Blood.
Eric still held me firmly behind him as we watched Dermot drink two True Bloods straight in a row.
"I smell Claude," he said, and both Eric and I tensed. My vampire uncle, however, was unfazed. "Sookie, why is he crying over there at the top of the hill?" he asked, worried.
"Dermot," Eric's voice was tentative and calming, as if he was speaking to a skittish animal. "Claude sure smells like finest blood mixed with a thousand orgasms and euphoria, but you have to control yourself. Drink more blood if it is necessary. You'll regret feeding on him if you give in."
"Feeding on him?" Dermot looked offended. "But I don't want to feed on him. I want to go to him and tell him I'm fine and to sooth him. I've missed him and Sookie."
To say I was amazed would be saying nothing at all.
"Wait a minute here, you don't want to drain his bones? His smell does not turn you into a pool of mindless, dangerous, fangy Jell-O?" I asked.
Eric gave me a look, but turned back to my uncle.
"No", came an absolutely open, frank answer. "Should it?"
Well, that was a first.