Eric's Demons
Chapter Fifteen
"How long have we got?" Eric asked Sookie.
"Satarel expected his brothers to start arriving here tonight," she shuddered, "he had hoped to have mine and Nula's deaths as a surprise for them. They're coming to kill me, Eric."
"Too soon, they give us so little time. There are too few of us," Eric shook his head sadly.
"Don't you dare give up on me mister viking bloody hero," Sookie admonished him. "Everyone's counting on you."
"I'll never give up. We'll take the field against them, somewhere well away from here, but we are only thirteen, they are two hundred. Best we can hope for is to buy time for the Magister to organize the others. Perhaps they can resist, or flee to organize."
"We are bloody fourteen, unless you've forgotten me already. I am prepared to die for you and your kind, because I know it must be done. Besides it's me they're coming for, not you," Sookie embraced him again wanting to draw strength from him.
"But you know how bad those odds are Sookie?"
"I do," she said, "but I'll gamble on us."
Twenty minutes later Pam was rushing from the club, clutching a hand-written letter from Eric to the Magister. Eric regretted not having time to take the message himself, but the enemy were coming, and he must meet them at a place of his choosing. If they reached the town he and his men would be forced to face their human friends and neighbors as the Nephilim took new hosts.
And Sookie, poor Sookie, what had he brought her in to. Eric would likely have her death on his conscience tonight too. Better that he die with her than have to live without her.
There was a knock at the door, Ulrich pushed his head around.
"We're ready. Conal says he found just the place to face them," he said.
Sookie saw the look of grim determination on his scarred face. She wished she could read his mind as she could the others. By his look though it was obvious he too expected to die tonight.
"Why are you both behaving like we've lost already?" she demanded to know.
"They are many, we are few, you are untested. When we faced the hoard near Rome Nula had been fighting with us more than a year, we knew her strengths and her limitations, and she knew ours. With the greatest of respect to you, you are untried, we don't know what you'll do when the hoard are on us. In the thick of battle when vampires are dying will your nerve be as strong as it is now?" He looked her in the eye.
"It better be."
Sookie held his gaze, "I'm ready."
Out in the club the warriors were ready. Without thought for subtlety every one of them wore armor and weapons that had probably been around since the battle near Rome. They were a grim looking bunch of hardened killers, smelling of oiled armor and leather. As one man they came rigidly to attention when Eric joined them.
Sookie followed him, marveling at how splendid these fighters looked. How fearsome it must have been when there were hundreds of them charging into battle. What enemy could stand before so magnificent a war band as this?
Of course she knew the answer, she could feel them coming ever closer now as they raced headlong to find her. Sookie hoped she wouldn't let Eric down for all their sakes.
The warm night seemed peaceful. Outside the club it would be possible to forget about Nephilim, about vampires even. With the moon high in the sky this seemed more like a night for lovers, for trysts in tall grass and naked moonlight swims. Sookie wondered would she see another night, would she ever again feel Eric's magnificent torso against her breasts, feel his urgency against her thigh. By the time this night was over there would be much blood on all of their hands, and some or all of them would be dead.
She felt no fear, though, just a sadness that her love making with Eric Northman tonight might be their last. Sookie felt an inner calm she had never experienced before, and a love for Eric that she would once have found ridiculous.
Wrapping his strong arm around her waist Eric lifted her into the air. She felt safe with him as he pulled her closer than was strictly necessary. There were no surface thoughts in her lover's mind, but she could feel his love for her.
Their flight took less than an hour. The soldier she knew as Conal led them to the ground at the side of an abandoned steel mill. Fourteen sets of feet touched down in the dust beside a long disused reservoir. Sookie looked out over the mirror still water, the moonlight reflected off the surface. What a beautiful place he's chosen, she thought as she took in the scene.
The main building was falling down, there were holes in the roof where the elements had battered through and part of one wall had collapsed. In the dirt near the front door an old pick-up truck was rotting, forgotten or abandoned when the workers had left this place. Even with the moonlight she could see nothing in the darkness beyond the door.
Business like Ulrich and Eric paced the open ground around their landing point. Two veteran soldiers they discussed every approach, every chance of cover for an attacking force. They went through every aspect they could envisage of the battle to come. All except one, they never mentioned retreat. In this place they would fight and die, or they would win. There would be no retreat.
"Eric, they're coming!" Sookie told them.
"Which direction?" he asked.
"Everywhere, they're going to try to rush us," she said.
Touching the pommel of his terrible blade to his forehead he saluted the other warriors before they formed a tight circle, just enough room to use their blades, around Sookie. Ulrich stood in the middle with her, leaning on his sword as the point gouged into the dry earth at his feet.
"I need no special treatment," Sookie told him.
He grinned at her.
"Last man standing, Sookie. Eric couldn't do it but I can," he told her.
"Why? What is last man standing?" she asked.
"I they all fall," he indicated the ring of warriors around them, "then I'll make sure you get a good death. You don't want these bastards to take you alive!"
Out in the darkness beyond the ring of warriors, Sookie could feel them coming. Almost two hundred men charged across the rough open ground towards them, all coming for the witch who had killed two of their kind. She was a threat to them, enough to keep them working together. They knew she and her vampire masters would hunt them down one at a time if they did not kill her tonight.
Many of them would die tonight too, they knew that. In the Valley Satarel and Turel would have company when this fight was over. But this way some of them would survive. The witch was too powerful to be left alive, at all costs she must die tonight.
It was Eric who first saw movement several hundred yards out. Someone had dropped into a fold in the dusty ground, taking cover. He scanned the land all about them at the same distance out, was rewarded with an occasional glimpse of movement. All around them the Watchers were preparing themselves to attack.
Sookie had been right, they would try to rush him and his men all at once and from all sides. He risked a glance back at the beautiful little telepath who had become so much more. Eric hoped she would survive tonight, even if he did not.
With a roar and a cry they came. As one man they left the cover all around the circle of warriors and charged across the rough open ground, their multitude of feet like thunder on the loose dry earth. In moments they had crossed the intervening space, momentum carrying them headlong into the wall of determined vampires who stood between them and Sookie.
Taking one last sideways look at Ulrich, Sookie closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate. Then she started to open doors.