III.
I felt as if I was surfacing from being trapped underwater. I couldn't breathe exactly, but I gasped as if I wanted to do so. I opened my eyes and gasped again as I took in the familiar room in which I had spent more than eight years of my recent life. It looked so different through my new eyes. It was kind of like an infrared photography exhibit that I had seen in a French Quarter gallery a month before. Things that were normally light were so intense, things that were dark were visible clearly and things that were sort of alive, like the flowers on the nightstand, were almost glowing with an aura of life. And the colors… they were all so intense and saturated, even in the darkened room. I was acutely aware of the scents around me. It was all so strong it was as if I had never smelled anything before in my entire life. I smelled what I knew to be Eric, even though he was not in the room, and a trace of something that I recognized as Pam, even though she had rarely ever been in this room. I smelled the flowers, which were overwhelmingly sweet, and the scent of their rotting stems in the water, which was acrid. I lay there in the bed and waited for the overwhelming hunger, that was supposed to consume a new vampire, with dread. And I felt… nothing.
I was different, for certain. All of my senses told me that. I ran my tongue my teeth and felt the sharp fangs dipping down slightly where my lateral incisors and canine teeth had been. I was a vampire. But I just didn't feel the rage of hunger that everyone had described to me. I waited, but after several minutes, I sat upright. Everything about me felt different. From my sense of balance, to my hearing, sense of smell and my eyesight. And the bond, my bond with Eric, felt different as well. It was, if even possible, somehow stronger. It was like a current of electricity flowed through it. I had to try to steady my mind to filter or mute it because it felt loud. It was as if I had to imagine one of those dimmer switches on a lamp that lets you make turn something down so it's not too bright. Because that bond felt like the biggest brightest thing in the room to me. I tried turning it down in my mind until it was more tolerable. Even so, it kind of made my head ache a bit. Once I'd grown slightly more accustomed to the sensations, over all of about fifteen minutes, I decided to get up.
I stood up and looked for my robe. Even the sensation of fabric felt different on my skin and I shivered as I slipped it on. Everything was so intense. After putting on my robe, I opened the secure door, and found Eric and Pam about to enter. They looked at me as if puzzled. Eric was holding an empty glass and a bag of blood with an American Red Cross label on it. They came inside and the door closed behind them.
I couldn't exactly find my voice, but almost as if over a loudspeaker, I heard their voices.
How can she be up a day early and so calm? So quiet, no thrashing… This is so odd… said Pam. She definitely needs the blood though, she's white as marble… She hardly even acts hungry. But she's so steady on her feet…
She's risen after less than seventy-two hours… that seems pretty early, said Eric. She looks… well... She looks…? She doesn't look as hungry as she should. This is odd. She is looking at the bag, but there's no strong drive toward it. Very odd. She has to smell it. She looks so controlled. She feels so odd through the bond… it's almost as if it's attenuated. Maybe she is just weak…? Could she shut it down herself, mentally? She looks so… controlled. Why isn't she acting hungry?
It was only after a few seconds that I realized that they weren't actually speaking at all. I was hearing their thoughts. As clearly as I'd hear any human's. As clearly as I heard my own thoughts. Eric pulled me firmly back to the bed. I gasped at his touch. His touch was electrifying. Even though it seemed as if he was just guiding me with his hand, his touch made me flinch. He didn't act as if he noticed anything out of the ordinary with that, so maybe it was completely normal? He scored open the bag with his thumb nail and then emptied the contents into the glass, which was very large.
"Drink, Sookie. Drink it all," he said softly. He pressed the glass into my hands.
His voice resonated oddly in my head. It was almost as if it was on the same wavelength as my thoughts and it made me feel slightly dizzy again. I shifted my mind away from his voice. I was agitated by the sensory overload. I put down the glass and started to stand up again. They both looked at me really oddly then. Finally, I realized that I probably really was hungry. I picked up the glass and drank. It was like ambrosia. It tasted that good. I drank the entire glass in one long steady drink and then put the glass down. I looked at them and again heard their thoughts but now that this was more like it, much better.
Finally, finding my voice, I said, "I want to get dressed. I want to come out."
Eric looked at me cautiously and said, "You should have more. At least five or six more. Do you want it here, or the kitchen? Dining room?"
I looked up at him and heard him wondering What is going on? She should be hungrier. She should be completely ravenous. She's totally calm. I should have felt her waking sooner. She's been up for a while obviously. I don't know why I didn't realize it right away. I only felt her stirring as if she hadn't changed at all? The bond is almost as it was before. This just doesn't make sense. Look at her- the drive to feed, that urge, it's like it just isn't there. What's wrong with her?
"I just want to go out of the room, to get dressed and come out. I'm fine. Really. I just need to move. I'll have it in the kitchen. I'm really fine, Eric."
He stiffened slightly, which now seemed like a huge movement to my hyperacute senses. Sookie?
I glanced up at him. "What?" I was almost annoyed. His internal voice was so loud.
So you can hear everything, yes?
I hestitated to reply. Pam was just taking in the silent dynamic back and forth. Their thoughts and their actual voices just made my head ache more. Only two voices but it was like cacophony in my head. I put my hand to my temple and rubbed. So loud... They're so loud, I thought to myself.
"Sookie, I'll help you get dressed," Pam said gently. She reached out to touch me but I winced before she even laid a hand on me.
"Not so fast… What do you really feel, Sookie?" said Eric cautiously.
"Everything. I feel almost as if I'm on overload with all my senses. It all hurts. I need to get it to tone down. And yes I hear you both. It's like you're using a bullhorn it's so loud."
"But the hunger? You should feel ravenous, Sookie," he said looking down at me with narrow eyes.
"I will drink more if you give me more. I felt hungry when I started to drink. Maybe… I'm too distracted with everything else. It's like everything is so different- my vision, hearing, sense of smell, I'm hypersensitive even to your touch. It's a lot to process. I just feel like I'm on overload. I want everything to just be toned down. I'm not really hungry but I'll drink it you want me to."
She'll drink it if I want her to? What the fuck? I need to call Stan. I need to talk to him to find out if something like this happened with him. Was he hungry I wonder? Why would being a telepath make you turn without appetite, though? It can't be that. And she hears us so she's not like Stan. No, if she has no strong urge to feed there's something very wrong. How could this happen? I never seen this before. How could this happen?
I put my both hands to my temples and pressed. My head was just ringing with the sound of his thoughts and it hurt behind my eyes. His internal voice was so loud and strong and the whole bond felt like this ache in my mind. It was like a physical thing, our bond, crowded into too small a space. I just needed more space and some quiet.
I looked up at him and said, "I'm not like you. I wasn't like you to begin with. I'll be fine. I'm just not… like you."
Eric and Pam looked at me wide-eyed. I walked past them and put my number into the keypad and let it scan my palm. I exited the secure room and went to dress. I could tell they were very puzzled and kind of worried. But I was too busy just trying to adapt to really pay much attention to them at that moment. I slipped off the robe and nightgown and put the nightgown in the dirty laundry basket and sighed. Naked felt so good. Nothing touching me. It was bliss. What a drag that it wasn't an option. I put panties on and immediately felt as if I was itchy in my own skin. As I tried to hook my bra, Pam, who had been standing watching me change, moved to me and helped. She stroked my back gently down to the small of my back and I felt the almost electric charge and turned on her with my eyes wide and felt my new fangs descend slightly. It was almost a sexual feeling I got from her. I pulled back. She was my friend, like a sister to me. What is this sexual thing from her, after all this time, I thought to myself? Maybe I was mistaken? Was it me? I couldn't even tell. I was totally confused. Maybe it was really me because she was looking more like she was concerned about me. Well then what is wrong with me, I asked myself?
Well she's acting normal in that sense, starting to snarl if she gets startled… Sookie, I didn't mean to startle you. Can you hear me in your mind?
She reached out to me. I pulled further back from her reach and looked at her. She wasn't as loud a thinker as Eric was, but still…
"Sookie, just relax, okay? Everything is fine. Just get dressed and we'll go to the kitchen and you can sit and have lots of delicious blood. We got you real blood from the Red Cross Blood Bank. Fresh. All different types. You don't even have to bite anyone. You're going to be so spoiled." She spoke quietly, almost in a whisper. I guess she got what I'd said about hypersensitivity.
I pulled on some soft black sweatpants, a black boatneck pima cotton t-shirt and my black slip-on Keds with the little bows. The clothes felt awful. My feet stung with the contact of the shoes. I gritted my teeth. I went into the bathroom and brushed my hair. Even brushing my hair stung as the brush contacted my scalp. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked very, very pale, and was even slightly ashen. I leaned forward to look at myself more closely. It was all so bizarre. The lights bothered my eyes. I reached over and turned them off but could still see myself clearly, pale and luminous, in the mirror.
"You'll look better as soon as you've had more to drink, okay? Let's go." Pam held out her hand to me. I stared at it and shook my head, moving past her.
"Where's Eric?" I asked cautiously. I couldn't smell him nearby anymore. He had left the room. His thought signature wasn't far away though… I felt him and could almost hear him in my head. He was talking, as if on the phone or something. Even that was dizzying. I was feeling a bit shaky on my feet.
"He went to make a call. Let's go to the kitchen, come on, Sookie." She firmly took my hand and I had to stop myself from hissing at her. I pulled my hand away and that was even more painful.
"He's calling Stan?" I asked. I swear I could almost hear him conversing.
She nodded.
"Pam, I'm not like Stan. I'm not like any of you, because I started out differently. You were all human. I wasn't totally human. Plus, I can still hear you. Clearly I turned out differently from Stan. Stan can't explain me."
I knew the fact that I hadn't been fully human was the reason I was acting differently from what they had expected but I couldn't say why. Vampire seemed to trump so many other things but I hadn't ever seen anyone who was Fae or part-Fae who was a vampire. Maybe there were problems when you turned someone with fae blood? But it was such a small amount, really. Only an eighth. Claudine, Claude and Niall knew what I was planning to do. And none of them had mentioned any potential for trouble. Maybe they didn't know of any part-Fae people who been turned?
Pam carefully led me down to the kitchen. She took out some bags of blood and heated one for 15 seconds in the microwave. She opened the bag and put it in a wine glass for me. I drank it down obediently. I felt Emily coming into the kitchen, recognized her scent, heard her thought signature approaching. I turned to the door. She looked surprised to see me.
Wow, she's out a whole night early. She looks good and she's not acting scary and wild or anything like that. She doesn't even smell very predatory… But she does smell like one of them. Slightly different from Eric and Pam, though. Her eyes look so odd... They don't have that glow that theirs do. They almost sparkle… They're so… odd… "Hi Sookie. I heard the microwave. How are you?"
Okay, I thought vaguely to myself, vampires and Weres. I can read vampires and Weres. Boy, is Emily loud, too. Ugh. So chipper.
"I'm fine Em. How about you? What's odd about my eyes? I don't get it? What's odd?"
She blanched. I shifted my gaze to meet hers and suddenly felt like I was tunneling into her mind. It was like a roller coaster ride, but so smooth and so fast. Images flew by me in my mind. Edwin, her parents, boyfriends, job, school, pets. It was dizzying. When I focused again, I found her staring at me, completely transfixed.
Pam touched my arm gently, making me jump, and chuckled, "Sookie, that's wondrous, but we won't be able to keep any staff if you start glamouring them like that. Let her go." She turned to me and shook my arm. "Sookie, release her."
This time, with the rougher touch, I couldn't help myself and I hissed at her and felt my fangs run down. I pulled my arm away from Pam and she chortled as if amused at seeing me so aggressive with her. My arm stung. I felt like I'd been stung by a jellyfish or something. I almost expected to look down and see marks where her fingers had touched me. But there was nothing.
I turned back to Emily, feeling puzzled by something I didn't even realize I was doing. I'd glamoured her? This upset me. It made me feel like I was out of control. So I pulled my mind way back from her, and stopped staring at her. I tried to actively think about releasing my mind from hers. I drew everything back into me, even though I felt shaky and overloaded.
"Emily? Emily Burke? What was odd about my eyes?" I asked without looking at her.
She snapped out of it and seemed as if she felt that something out of the ordinary had happened but she couldn't put her finger on it. She looked at me again and said,
"No, you look fine. Your eyes just sparkle, that's all. Like bright flecks of copper that weren't there before. Check it out in the mirror. You know, I'm going back to my room. I feel really tired all of the sudden."
"Thanks, Em. I'll see you… later." I wouldn't be seeing her in the morning again. Ever. It seemed odd to know that was definitely true.
Pam opened another bag and made me drink another glass while thinking that it was really great that I was so good at glamouring. Glamouring even a Were my first night awake. Evidently they were harder to glamour? Who knew? But I didn't think I'd consciously done anything, other than get sucked into reading her so easily. It was unsettling that I had let it get out of control. Poor Em, I thought to myself. Then, I thought about the fact that all the sounds in the kitchen could drive me nuts. All the electric equipment, the big dishwasher running… Well at least Pam's internal voice was less potent in my head than Eric's, which sounded rock band soundstage loud. She seemed to be making an effort to think and speak softly. She made me finish the third pint of blood. My head still ached. She wanted me to have more but I said I'd have more later.
I rose and rinsed out the glass in the sink, then washed it with a soapy sponge and rinsed it further, setting it in the drainer. Even the water felt weird on my skin. I had to say that so far, I wasn't liking this at all.
"Pam, I want to go to my office and check my email, okay?" I just wanted to do something quiet and away from any one else's thoughts for a bit.
I looked at the open door out onto the courtyard, while Pam was distracted for a moment on her PDA. My office… I just seemed to have crossed courtyard into the other side of the compound almost instantly. It was a bizarre sensation. There I was in my office. But the odd thing was, I didn't seem to remember how I got there. I mean, I'd looked across the courtyard to the business side of the compound but I didn't have any recollection of covering the distance. It was very disorienting. Furthermore, I could hear people talking out in the hall and I didn't really exactly remember passing them to open my door. I shook my head. Probably I was still just a few pints too short of what I needed and Eric and Pam were right. I'd check my email and then have more blood when I was done.
I waited for my computer to come out of sleep mode. All the high-pitched frequencies were a bit painful to my ears. But still, it was better than voices. I let the emails collect in my Inbox. It was kind of cool that I could sit there in the dark with only the illumination, which I had already dimmed to about 50% of what it had been, of my Mac and see perfectly well for typing or even reading some of the paperwork on my desk. Suddenly, while sitting there and reading a brief email from a Were in Oklahoma, I had the oddest sensation. It was like Eric was speaking, but in some weird slithery voice in my head. I almost thought he said my name. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. My attention was sort of split between the email however, and whatever the weirdness was. The email won. My mind actually felt much clearer, and more like myself, when reading through the email and planning my reply. No voices, no drinking while I was talked to and encouraged like some sick child. It was really simple and familiar, just reading. The Were was having problems with a business arrangement with a local Sheriff. The Sheriff was making the Were's life difficult by demanding the equivalent of protection money. The Were was writing from a commercial email address that looked like a car dealership. Well, asking for protecton money or services was extortion and it's illegal in the Alliance states both according to state laws and according to Alliance laws. I felt sharper just reading his letter and drawing conclusions. I felt more like 'me' and that made me comfortable. The problem was, I said to myself, it might be happening in the Sheriff's name and not with the Sheriff's knowledge. I knew all the Sheriffs in Oklahoma and it just didn't seem likely to me that a Sheriff who'd been in place since the inception of the Alliance would be so foolish and take such risks. The other problem was that the investigation needed to be handled deftly so the Were didn't end up getting killed to silence his complaints. I was going to have to notify Cameron, the King of Oklahoma that I was opening a formal investigation and needed official decrees of protection for the Were and his people while I investigated. I was just drafting the email when I heard someone approaching my office door and the sound of keys at the door. I sort of froze. Who was it? They weren't even knocking. Who else had a key to my office?
The office door whipped open and Eric filled the doorway. I could sense Pam behind him. His thoughts seemed frustrated and… angry. I couldn't quite get a fix on him. But yeah, he was angry.
"What are you doing?" Eric said, in a tone of voice that sounded like he was seriously not happy.
I looked up at him puzzled. "I'm checking my email."
"Sookie, I didn't even see you leave. I got worried," Pam said, pushing through the doorway. She looked completely baffled.
"But I told you I was going to my office to check my email, Pam. I told you in the kitchen, remember?"
She looked at me and nodded but looked troubled. "You told me but when I turned back you were gone."
"Well, I was gone because I went to check my email, silly." I made a face at her. My headache was back.
She looked very unconvinced. In the meantime, Eric stood there just looking at me.
"What?" I asked, him puzzled.
"The office was locked and you don't have your keys with you." Eric said suspiciously. He held up my keychain.
I kind of froze for a minute, looking off in space. I really didn't remember unlocking the door or even opening the door. Had the door been unlocked? Actually, I definitely didn't remember coming inside and locking the door behind me either. Frankly, I really didn't remember coming over here at all. I remembered just being there, in the kitchen doorway to the courtyard and then being here, at my desk. I was thoroughly confused.
"Well, I don't know… I wanted to check my email, and I got here and started doing just that."
"I called to you," Eric said, looking very serious. "I called to you and you did not respond."
I frowned, thinking for a moment. That was 'the call'? That sort of slithery voice, hair standing on end thing was 'the call'? I looked up at Eric and tipped my head at an angle, shaking it slightly.
"I felt… something, but I guess I didn't know what it was. I was in the middle of reading an email and just got distracted, I guess."
Pam looked at me wide-eyed and positively openmouthed.
Eric looked at me with eyes that glowed. "You got distracted? When I call to you, you are supposed to come to me. Immediately."
"Well, in future I'll make the effort, okay? Geez Louise, Eric, I'm like what, one day old? How was I even supposed to know what it felt like? And my head is just killing me from all the sound and light. I was trying to tune everything out. That's why I came over here. To just have some peace."
He loomed over me and pulled me up from the chair by my upper arm.
What is going on with her? How did she even get in here? She left feeding to do email? What the fuck is going on?
I groaned. His fangs were partially bared and his thoughts impacted my mind painfully. He was getting so angry. And his grip on my arm was so painful. It felt like he'd connected me to an electrical outlet or something. And his strong thoughts rang in my head painfully. It was all painful.
"You're hurting me. Let go. You're hurting me."
He didn't let go. Then suddenly I felt that slithery voice again in my head, much stronger. That hurt, too, but much more than his touch. I closed my eyes tightly. I gasped.
Look at me!
I opened my eyes and looked up at him.
You listen to me, right now. When I call, you come, do you understand? Do you? It's important. It isn't a game. How the hell did you get in here? Think. How?
I felt as if he was planting his thoughts in my head, searing them into me, and simultaneously trying to pull my thoughts out. As badly as his grip on my arm hurt, that voice in my head was a thousand times worse. My hand flew to my temple and I recoiled from him but his hold on my arm was too tight to pull away. The energy that carried his voice felt like it was saturated with venom, burning me. I could hardly catch my breath to say,
"Why are you doing this? Let go of me… You're hurting me… That voice." I twisted trying to get away from him.
Suddenly, Pam moved toward Eric with her eyes wide with alarm, and said "Eric, stop. Stop! You need to stop…" but he pushed her back into the wall and didn't let go of me.
He didn't stop. And suddenly it seemed as if the person who stared down at me in those seconds bore only a faint resemblance to the man I loved. I felt this admixture of anger and even hatred from him. The pain of his searing into my mind, and the feelings he engendered in doing so, reminded me of Dieter, all those years ago. Dieter, who wanted to control me, to break me. I felt a surge of absolutely uncontrollable panic. I had to get away. Suddenly, with all out fear welling in my heart about what I'd chosen to do, I wanted nothing more than to go home. I wanted to go back home, to feel safe. I wanted it more than anything.
And in an instant, I was gone.