XIV.

[Your playlist selection for this passage is Smashing Pumpkin's The Beginning is the End is the Beginning]


In a clearing outside just outside of Hotshot I spoke quietly to Calvin. He had aged little in the past decade, but he looked gray and old as I spoke to him.

"The iron rods may not be enough?" he asked, incredulous, looking at the buckets of iron filings, from my own stock, which I had brought with me.

"The filings may be more effective. You can throw them in the eyes to slow them down then use the rods. But remember, iron works only if they're Fae. Not everything in this place is Fae. Just… be ready. You can try water, you can try the shotguns, religious symbols. They hate spoken Latin. Whatever comes out, if anything comes out, will be fast. And it will be hungry. If I do it right, there will be nothing that escapes. But even so, you may be left… apprehensive that the portal is so close to you. So keep this stuff on hand. It was only fair to tell you. You should be prepared. We will plan to come back by the same route. I'll make sure that it is very well sealed when we return."

He nodded slowly, meeting my eyes as if he didn't quite know what to think. I looked at his pack of panthers, less Jason, who he honored my wishes by not calling. Frankly, I really didn't know what to think either. I had never done this part of it before. It was all theory, not practice from my end for this venture.

I glanced over at Niall, who looked very apprehensive, and Eric, who stood silent and still, watching me, with his long sword strapped across his back. He had not even asked me what I was going to do. Which was good, because frankly, I didn't think we had any time for arguments about it. It was already hard enough just thinking about it and knowing I was going to do it. I nodded to Calvin and then popped. When I returned, moments later, I was drenched from head to toe from the water of the nearby pond. Eric looked puzzled but Niall began to look as if he had caught on to something. He stiffened and then started to speak to me, but I brushed him off with a wave of a very wet hand. I had been focusing on narrowing the bonds I had to Eric and to Pam, to the smallest possible threads. I walked away from them, farther into the clearing. Then I called Rico to me.

"Rico?" I said softly. 'I'm ready."

He appeared instantly, unglamoured, before me and knelt, bowing his head. Kneeling, he was still almost about as tall as I was. I tried to steel myself. I trusted him, I reminded myself.

"You are willing?" I spoke softly, in almost a whisper. I tried to hold myself steady.

"Yes," his voice rumbled. His eyes, glowing like flames, met mine.

No more time for fear, I said to myself, summoning every ounce of courage I possessed. He had kept us safe for years. I trusted him. And he trusted me.

I leaned forward and pushed aside his coal black hair and sank my fangs into his neck, while Niall restrained Eric, who tried to launch himself toward me growling,

"Sookie, No!" His eyes were full of fear.

Niall was able to restrain Eric firmly enough but they both looked at me as if totally appalled. I closed my eyes to focus on the task.

Rico's blood tasted of bitterness and ash, blackness and harsh soot. It was truly horrible. But I drank on and on, finally trembling and then paused, opening my eyes slowly as I felt the blackness and heat permeate me. Steam rose from my water-saturated clothes, and I gasped. I quickly tore at my wrist and pressed it to his lips. His eyes glowed brightly with the taste of my blood on his lips. He closed his lips over my wrist, almost engulfing it. After several seconds more he pushed my wrist away and rose, looming over me, beginning to luminesce like the red that showed through the darkness of a burning coal, with his teeth bared. He rocked his head back in a growl and then looked back down at me, eyes aflame. I met his eyes and held my ground. He resisted the urge to eat me, which was a very good sign. After a few moments more, he was calm enough to offer me his upturned hand, which I touched lightly, placing mine on his. A gesture of trust. Then he nodded to me and I withdrew my hand. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Eric was still struggling to pull away from Niall. I wished I could tell him in some fashion that it would be alright, but I really I didn't know how this was going to turn out. Because this wasn't even the hard part yet.

I turned to face the clearing between the two ancient oaks. I emptied and then refocused my mind with the increased power of Rico's blood. We had done this before, but with a different intent and without his blood. Just controlling the portal with my thoughts. Opening it, closing it. To a place of light, envisioning the Sidhe. Not entering. This would be harder. This time I was going inside, and to a very different place. To a dark place, in order to recruit troops. Closing my eyes I tried to focus every ounce of energy on a center point in the clearing. Intent, I told myself. I had to focus on my intent. I opened my eyes again and gradually the air seemed to condense into what appeared to be like a glass wall, almost like a window. I approached the crystalline field and placed my hand against it, while behind me I heard the nervous murmurings of the werepanthers and Niall murmur something in an astonished voice to Eric.

With a glance back at Rico, who stood in the path between the others and portal. He nodded to me, I said in a clear voice,

"In nomen lucis, patefacio hic porta," ('In the name of the light, I open this gate') in Latin, the language of the Christian church. The Church that had spelled the weakening of the Fae, and of the entire pagan world. The language of the church feared by demons and Fae alike. I was opening the gate, and driving back the inhabitants.

I focused on my path. The crystalline field began to illuminate and then hundreds and thousands of cracks began to appear and the image beyond grew dark and misty. Light began to emit from the cracks and the air around all of us went cold. I removed my hand and the entire field collapsed and a black mist began to billow out, spreading the smell of sulfur.

"Holy Mother of God…" I heard Calvin murmur.

But nothing emerged, other than the black, sulfurous mist of the Fae and demon Underworld, which spilled out across the ground and welled up around my legs and Rico's, slowly wending it's way toward the others.

I stepped inside the opening and immediately, I glowed bright white. I turned back and looked up at Rico nodding, then I looked back at Niall and Eric and said simply,

"I'm going to get some help, and then I'm going to get Hunter back. You can stay or come. The choice is yours. But I am going. Rico will go with me and help keep me safe."

They all, including Calvin and all his panthers, looked at me wide-eyed and open-mouthed. I knew my eyes were no longer blue, no longer probably even very vampire or human-like both because of the way they looked at me, and the way I saw the world through my own eyes, which was altered, as if everything was filtered with red. Rico, who had followed after me, rested his large hand on my shoulder. He was glowing red like hot coals after passing the portal.

Eric stood looking at me intently for a moment and then briskly moved forward, passing the through the portal with an audible shiver. The iron in his sword seemed to hum as he crossed the portal. He stood at my side and glanced down at me. Then he picked up my hand. He too glowed an unearthly white but not as brightly as I did. It was the fae blood, some of mine, some of Rico's that made me so light I thought to myself. I looked back at Niall. I knew he would not follow us into this place. Not a place for fairies at all. The dead perhaps, demons, the dark Fae, but not a fairy prince…

"I cannot follow you there. I cannot," said Niall, shaking his head. He looked at me as if he had never really seen me before. Perhaps, really, I thought to myself, he hadn't. He had no real measure for my mettle before.

I nodded and smiled. "Well, I'll see you on the other side, then." With that, I bowed my head and said focusing,

"Saepio hic iter…" ('I close this road') I said, waving my hand over the portal entry.

The portal began to draw inward and seal. I hoped it would hold. I had only read and heard theory and even Rico, it seemed, had little empirical evidence for what we were doing. We were travelling my way, not his, walking the Crossroads into the Underworld and planning to walk out into the Black Forest in Germany still well before dawn. You could call it a seismic leap of faith. I had bound a half-Fae demon and he had liked me enough, and had enough self-control, to avoid consuming me as a result of having tasted my blood. This was old magic. In exchange, I had absorbed, at least for a time, an enormous amount of magical power that permitted access even to places that few would ever wish to visit. In Rico's specific case the power was largely the dark magic of his demon blood. One would need to be very careful not to follow the dark and violent influence of such magic. But there were distinct advantages to using Rico's blood…

Demons were immune to almost everything.

I turned and walked into the Underworld, to muster demons who would fight with us. With Rico, who was born there, and with Eric, a man who would, evidently, even walk through hell or as close as we could get to it, with me. I thought of Hunter, but Eric at my side gave me courage. I focused on his hand in mine, the simplest of connections. He gave me strength.

My plan was a simple one, really. The Raedself and her minions lived in the Black Forest in Southern Germany. They were woodland elves and their spirits were intertwined with the fir and spruce trees. While Dieter, who had been something of a lesser prince among the German Fae, had lived in a castle in southern Germany, the Raedself and her kind lived within the forest. They had achieved a kind of spiritual union with their forest surroundings. To damage their trees was to damage their fundamental source of power. Elves and fairies lived in a sort of tenuous balance. Some elves had quite vengeful and violent relations with the fairies and other Fae. These were not wise, beautiful and benevolent elves like those of Tolkien. Some were wise and some truly evil. The Raedself represented a kind of liaison and healer among the Fae. She was, according to their way, peaceful. Except for condoning kidnapping, murder and enslavement, of course. She was much older than Niall. She was ancient, as old as the oldest trees, perhaps several thousands of years old. Her mindset was, as Niall had pointed out, archaic, feudalistic. She needed to modernize as far as I was concerned. Expeditiously. And I was quite prepared to help her.

Since to harm her trees was to harm her, if I showed up with some of Rico's tree eating and burning relations, I was fairly sure that she and I could have a very straightforward conversation about why Hunter was going home with me. My discussion about Claudine was apt to be more difficult. I guessed Hunter would know who had killed Claudine. But I didn't know if he would be in any shape at all to let me see who it was. Other than rescuing Hunter I was pretty sure of one thing. When I found whoever had killed Claudine, I'd put an end to him. What kind of evil could kill such a light being, I thought to myself? Well, I could think of one. I hadn't thought of him in quite some time. I would not be surprised in the least if my gut suspicions were borne out. I wasn't in favor of retribution against anyone harming me. But Claudine? There was only one way of dealing with someone who could harm someone so fundamentally good.


We emerged from the crossroads between two ancient spruce trees. I told Rico I thought these two should probably be left untouched. They were probably guardians of the portal like the giant oaks at the Hotshot portal and if destroyed, it could wreak real havoc. I still held Eric's hand tightly as we both turned and listened to Rico speaking in some indefinable tongue to the fifteen demons who accompanied us. Some were part Fae but others… who knew… They couldn't glamour their appearance at all and were quite frightening, truth be told. I guess the only thing giving away how I really felt was how tightly I gripped Eric's hand. Because I had pulled back so much of our connection, I couldn't gain any strength or comfort from him other than by that simple contact. I was so afraid that whatever the demon blood wrought in me, that it could go horribly wrong and I didn't want Eric getting affected by it. Demons were a fearsome race and could be quite primitive in their urges. I was gambling on the same ability that had allowed me to shut down all those vampiric urges. As Rico said, I was all about control. I glanced up briefly at Eric and saw that he was positively ashen. I had more than a vague idea that he was very shaken by the idea of what I'd done. I flashed briefly into his mind and saw that he was replaying something Stan had told him months ago, when he had come to see us after I was turned and Eric was concerned that I wasn't feeding. Eric thought I wasn't strong, was too vulnerable and the Tulsa thing had him so upset. But Stan had evidently told Eric not to worry about me, that I really was going to be fine. Now Eric was thinking that, really, my jumping in front of bullets hadn't been all that bad. Still grasping at humor, my Viking. Meanwhile, I was still second guessing myself letting Eric come along but Rico had sworn to me long ago that he would always, always protect Eric. In a choice between protecting me and protecting Eric, there was always his oath of fealty to rely on. He was half Fae and had given his word to protect Eric. This was all the comfort I had at present.

We moved out into the grove of spruce and I tried to mentally scan the area. Then I decided that it didn't really matter. We could start here or anywhere. She'd show up. I nodded to Rico and he walked over and placed his hand against the trunk of a tall spruce pine. The entire tree withered with his touch. It was like kindling in no time.

Suddenly Niall appeared, eyes wide as he looked from me, to Rico and his friends and family. The Sidhe generally feared demons. And Niall was certainly looking rather alarmed.

"You wouldn't," Niall said looking back at me. "You wouldn't."

I looked at him intently and raised an eyebrow. Like hell I wouldn't.

"We can go one at a time until she gives me Hunter. Unless they get bored doing it so slowly or we run out of darkness. And I'm new to this, so really I don't know if they'll get a little impatient and hungry. Frankly, although Rico can talk to them, if they get a bit too worked up, I really don't think any of us could do much to stop them. So I don't think she should take all that long showing up."

"Sookie, this is not a game. This forest is ancient, it is filled with life. You simply…"

"Grandfather, when I give my word I, too, mean it," I said cutting him off. "And I don't play games. I will do exactly what it takes to get what I want. She can turn over Hunter and save her precious trees, which I'm sure all of us, except for some of the guys back there who are looking a little hungry, would prefer. Or not. In which case there's going to be a very dead forest when I'm through here. I think the humans will get rather upset, too, don't you? The area's a tourist attraction, isn't it? And with open portals, who knows what will emerge?" I swept my hand back to the one I'd left wide open. The only thing holding it was a request in Latin to let none pass, which would probably feel like a slap on the wrist to your average demon.

To punctuate my intentions Rico moved onto the next tree while two demons fell upon the withered one he left and began to consume it, filling the air with smoke. The others hovered about hungrily. Spruce was reportedly quite delectable according to Rico. Three trees later Niall was still looking agitated, still regarding me with utter amazement. As the sixth tree withered and burned, the Raedself appeared, eyes wild with anger. Other elves seemed to unveil themselves among the trees much farther away from us, watching our group apprehensively.

"How dare you…" But then she pulled up short when she saw all the demons among our company.

"Nice of you to join us Elsbette (pronounced Elz-betta)," I said, calling the Raedself by what I had read was her given name. I crossed my arms across my chest.

She looked down at me, with her sparkling teeth showing in something that really didn't like a smile. I'd really have to call it a snarl, but without the sound effects. She was, just as I remembered, Rico's height, but lithe and brown.

"Do not call me that. I am the Raedself."

"I thought that was a title of honor. Surely not conferred on a kidnapper of children and a murderer. How disappointing, if so. Of course, sometimes people of any race just go bad…"

She seemed to grow in ferocity, her teeth further bared as she loomed above me but then Rico touched a seventh tree and motioned to several of his brethren to take up a position near some of the other trees as well. The mossy-scented magic surrounding her, rolling off of her, was so powerful. I tried to envision it just passing around me and away. She looked at me angrily, but also with puzzlement. If she thought she was going to intimidate me with mere presence she was wrong. She stood surveying our group carefully. Fifteen fire demons of various persuasions could certainly wreak a lot of havoc and the portal was open so even if she took care of them, there might be reinforcements. And every tree that perished would weaken her, and anyone serving her. If more demons arrived, they could potentially destroy everything in their path. Checkmate, really. Whether she was ready to call it or not.

"You may have the child. He is of little use to me. You, on the other hand, are…" she said. But I cut her off.

"Unavailable. Where is Hunter?"

She did not answer and Rico withered an eighth tree, signaling to the others who in turn took out a ninth, tenth and eleventh. A quarter of this one grove was now looking withered and was being blackened and eaten by demons consuming the withered trees with their fiery mouths. Rico pulled up a sapling and ate it, staring at her coldly, waiting.

Suddenly Hunter appeared, looking disoriented. She pushed him, though not roughly, forward and he walked tentatively toward me.

"Aunt Sookie?" he said, looking at me apprehensively. His face was pale and there was a bruise on his cheek. He looked disoriented.

"It's fine Hunter, don't worry." I walked forward to meet him and flashed into his head to reassure him it really was me and that my eyes were just like this because I was upset, which was certainly the truth. I turned with him toward Niall. My locket began to pulse and glow softly under my shirt, a warning. I saw in Hunter's mind that I needed to… but I was not fast enough. Even Eric was fast enough as he drew his sword. I just managed to push Hunter away from me, toward Niall and Eric.

While my back was turned slightly to the Raedself, out of nowhere Dermot Brigant had appeared. I registered the alarm on Eric, Niall and Rico's face as I felt the dagger plunge into my upper back. I spun around with great force, causing him to lose his grip on it. I grabbed Dermot's forearm, breaking it, before he could try to reach for the the dagger and stab me again. I pulled it out with my other hand, wincing and smiled, looking up at Dermot, who was so much bigger than I was. I was not cowed. He was stunned. The dagger was silver… and I wasn't cringing in pain? The dagger was pointed at both ends and wrapped with leather around a wooden handle in the middle. One end was cold iron and the other was silver. He glanced around taking in the demons, his father, Eric and then looked back at me. I was not hobbled by a deep wound from silver? Then he really looked at my eyes and visibly blanched. He was totally lost. The Raedself let out a growl as she regarded him.

"Interesting fact about demons, Uncle Dermot. They're immune to both silver and iron. A useful bit of old world magic, that blood magic." I threw the double blade away from us and hit him as hard as I could in the shoulder on the side of his broken arm. He cried out in surprise and lost his balance as he swung at me with his good arm but I was far to fast for him. He was half human and I was really a vampire, after all, packing that extra punch of half-demon blood. He tried to lob some magic at me but missed. I knocked him to his knees and grabbed him by the throat.

"Tell me what you did to Claudine? Tell me, Dermot Brigant. Tell me you killed your own niece," I said, standing over him.

He cradled his broken arm with his other hand and looked up at me, his green eyes filled with pure hatred. He spat in my face. His father despised him, had loved Claudine and even me, more than him. He wasn't in the least sorry for what he had done to Claudine. He hated her because she had been loved. He might have brought Hunter for the Raedself but he planned to take advantage of my coming to rescue Hunter to see if he could get revenge for the years he'd spent locked up by his father for the Dieter business. He'd finally been let out because I had been turned and could better defend myself. So much for his supposed loyalty to the German Fae, I thought. He'd ally himself to whomever was convenient for him to get what he wanted, which time and again was revenge. And I was just vampire trash in his eyes. Why should they even care if he killed me? Such loathing of his own family… In my eyes, there was only one thing to do. Sure he had stabbed me, intended to kill me. But he had killed Claudine. And there could be no forgiveness in my heart for that. In an instant, I pulled from my pocket the long thin steel cord and had it wrapped around his neck several times then released my grip on his throat as I caught up the other end of the cord and drew it tight. As he choked with the discomfort of the cold iron directly on his half-fairy flesh, I said,

"You would have done better with a stake. But not by much on this night. This is for Claudine." I garotted him. With the cutting force of the wire, my strength and the effect of the iron on his half-fairy flesh, he was quickly decapitated. I snapped his cervical spine and tossed his head at the Raedself feet. The scent of his blood was overwhelming. But I wouldn't give into it. I pushed his body toward her feet and regarded her calmly. I could see that she was very taken aback by a vampire who could resist fairy blood and who didn't even kill like a vampire. I swung my iron cord around menacingly.

"You should think twice about who you employ and how they blacken your name, Raedself. You should think about how many of your people you want to have meet a fate just as swift as his. You will leave me, and leave my entire family, out of your schemes. Or I will burn you to your knees, open the portals all over your forests and have you and your kind blamed for the havoc that whatever comes out to play wreaks. You will be overrun by angry humans and their fearful religious zealots who will destroy you. Consider it a promise of your personal Armageddon."

The Raedself looked at me in silence. The elves in the background seemed to draw back into their trees. The thought of more demons, more trees burned… But then, slowly, a bemused look began to form on the Raedself face.

"Such a fierce creature you always were. In such a demure guise. And now you are made even fiercer. You have done in minutes what Niall Brigant could not bring himself to do in the past six hundred years time. It is true then, what the child says? He killed his own and your kin?"

I looked up at her and said simply, "I'm sure you remember Claudine? She brought you to me. He used you. It was an opportunity for him to get back at me and at his father. And you didn't even see it, which frankly amazes me. We had history, Dermot and I. He's the one who gave me to Dieter. Did he offer to help you get me here? Isn't it rather sloppy of you that you didn't trouble yourself to foresee any of this? Claudine's blood is on your hands. And it stains your feudalistic honor."

The Raedself regarded me coolly. Finally she looked me in the eyes and said,

"The terms of Niall's repayment must stand in some form. It is our way. But I find you are indeed, as he suggested, not what I had anticipated. If I may call on you to assist in circumstances of need, I will consider the debt of Niall Brigant repaid. You have had your retribution for your cousin's death, and for the theft of the child. If you agree, we are at peace, you and I."

With these words she extended her hand to me. I regarded her cautiously and steeled myself. Vampires didn't shake hands and I, in particular, really didn't like being touched. Nonetheless, I took her hand and felt rocked by her ancient magical force. I visualized reflecting it back to her and she rapidly pulled away from me, wide-eyed. She was far more afraid of me than she wished to admit. She was worried that I could see and feel it. She was taken aback by my active resistance to her magic, which was now much stronger than when she had met me years before. She was keenly aware of the iron cord hanging from my left hand, the demon-like glow in my eyes. She suspected I could read her thoughts. She examined me as if to gauge how long I could keep the show of power up, but had concluded it was too long to be safe for her. There were already too many demons here ready to damage her, her people. Niall, who would likely move against her. The nasty tall vampire with his sword. And there was me. So little and… scary, with what I knew.

"Remember this, Raedself, if you wish to speak to me, speak directly to me or to my Grandfather. If you go after anyone in my family again, I will come back and it will not be to chat. I give you my word on this."

She nodded to me and then yanked some magic from Hunter, which seemed to leave him again disoriented. But it seemed that he had been released from something. Then she simply disappeared, as did all the elves who had been visible in the grove.

I returned to Hunter's side and hugged him to me. He looked around my shoulder toward where Dermot's corpse lay.

"He killed her. Claudine… he stabbed her, again and again, even when she was on top of me. He threw some liquid on her to make her weak. And then he started stabbing her. She said you would find me, Sookie. She said you would always find me." And then he burst into tears, just a child, a child who had seen truly horrible things. I rocked him in my arms and rested my cool cheek against his warm one. We stood there for a long time, and I felt everything dark fade from my thoughts. My vision began to return to something more normal as my thoughts shifted. I pulled back and held his face in my hands, touching his bruised cheek tenderly.

"I will always find you, Hunter. I'm so sorry this happened to you. You need to go home, to rest, to let your parents see that you're okay."

Niall stood next to us and said,

"I will take him back. You…" he said gesturing to the demons. "You and Frederico must return them." He looked at me with gentle eyes. It was odd to me, considering that I had just killed his son, my own great uncle.

I glanced back at Dermot. It was a just and fair death since he'd killed Claudine and attacked me, but still… he was his son. I started to speak, but he cut me off.

"We will speak of it another time. If we do at all. It was… his reckoning. You have liberated me, Sookie. From the greatest sorrow of my existence. She is right. You have done what I could not do." He glanced back at Dermot, his seven hundred year old half-fairy son and closed his eyes. Then he looked at me and said, "Séamus will be endlessly impressed."

He took up Hunter's hand and nodded to Eric. While regarding me with a look that I could only characterize as unreadable, he and Hunter softly faded.

Eric stood next to me and softly touched my cheek. I looked up at him. Could he feel it, I wondered. How fragile I now felt? I looked over at Rico and he nodded to me. Rico knew, he could feel it. I was running on vapors. I went over and retrieved Dermot's dagger. I'd save and give it to Hunter when he was ready. It was useful to have a weapon against both vampires and the Fae. I looked at it and shivered, thinking of my beautiful cousin who had fallen to it. I looked back again at Dermot. Maybe sometimes retribution was just and right in the supernatural world. Maybe it was the only way to assure that real evil didn't overcome what precious good there was in the world.

Together we all walked back to the open portal and retraced our steps.