Chapter 7

XXXXXXX

"Wait!" Mina cried out.

Niamh froze, her arm in midair, holding a silver knife in her hand. She looked down at Lorcan, who was clearly more interested than annoyed.

Lorcan said nothing, but he help up a hand to Niamh. She lowered her arm and plopped back into her chair.

Mina fumbled with the latches on the chain curtain until she was able to undo them. She slipped through and rushed to Alexei's side. If she was to avoid being just another meal, she had to make him see her differently than he saw the other humans who were shoved into his cell.

"You're still very pale," she said to him as she exposed her wrist to his mouth. "You should feed more before whatever is coming next."

Alexei stared at her as if she might be a unicorn in disguise. He gently took her arm in his hands, one on either side of her wrist. He bared his fangs and leaned close enough for his lips to touch her skin before withdrawing. "Have they poisoned you?"

When he moved, one of the chains dangling from his arms, settled on her foot. Despite him bearing most of its weight, it was still uncomfortably heavy. She slid her foot out from under it, careful not to look like she was thinking about backing away. "Not that I know of," she answered.

Behind her, she heard Lorcan laugh and say to Niamh, "We should have thought of that."

The sting of his bite carried with it neither the impassioned thrill of Oliver's, nor the disinterested calm of Eric's. This exchange was an act of desperation, on both their parts; each hoping what they gave or received would keep them alive for another night.

"This is all very touching, I'm sure," Niamh groused, after only seconds, "but since I neglected to bring a camera to preserve the moment for posterity, I see no point in prolonging it."

Mina felt the delicate flesh of her wrist tear as Alexei's fangs ripped away and he loosed a terrible wail. Instinct caused her to grab her wrist with her other hand and crouch low to the ground.

The first knife had struck him in the shoulder. He was reaching for it when Mina looked up, just in time to see the second hit him in the middle of his stomach.

"Back!" he growled.

In her panic, she rolled forward onto her knees to crawl behind him and check his back when she felt the kick to her thigh. He kicked me? Then it registered. He didn't want her to look at his back. He was telling her to 'get back'. A blade grazed his forearm and clinked against the back wall before falling to the ground.

"Your aim seems to be getting worse as the nights pass, my dear," Lorcan chuckled.

Mina crab-walked backward until the taut chain curtain stopped her. From there, she watched in horror as Lorcan and Niamh played some bizarre carnival game, the gist of which seemed to be a competition to see who could cause Alexei to bleed the most. Lorcan was easily winning, despite Niamh's enthusiastic efforts to keep up.

Each new cut brought new shrieks of pain and anger. Alexei was deflecting a good number of the knives as he flailed about, his chains clanging against each other and the stone floor as he moved. His quick dodging movements slinging blood everywhere.

Something isn't right. It was an odd thought to have, considering the monumental wrong-ness of what was happening right before her eyes. Yet, she suddenly had the distinct feeling she was seeing something, but not noticing it.

Lorcan and Niamh were a league of wrong that was all their own; between his booming laughter as almost every one of his precision throws hit its target, and her wails of frustration and disappointment each time hers glanced off a chain, or failed to result in sufficient blood letting.

Those sounds clashing with Alexei's screams and curses, intermingled with the jangling and clanks of the chains keeping him shackled to the back wall, were such an assault on her hearing, her other senses were scrambling to keep up. She tried to tune out all the sound and concentrate on the visual.

On the surface, everything appeared to be correct, gruesome, yes, but everything she saw fit perfectly in a gruesome scene. Splattered blood was all over everything, so much blood. Saaset was at least partially right. They were draining him, but they weren't selling his blood.

He looked so young, little more than a child. Watching him fight so valiantly against his attackers was heartbreaking. Even for a vampire, it had to be exhausting to keep those heavy chains in near constant motion. He was fast, but Lorcan and Niamh were throwing their silver knives as fast as they could. When the wounds were shallow, Alexei was often able to shake them loose, but he had at least half a dozen blades deeply embedded in his flesh.

Mina couldn't hear the sizzle as the silver scorched him, but she knew it was there, beneath all the other sounds. She smelled the burning through the metallic odor of the blood.

The burning. That's it. Those chains were very heavy. She knew they were. Just having one sitting across her foot hurt, yet he was swinging them around like feather boas. There would be nothing unusual about that normally, but this wasn't a normal situation. Alexei was being attacked with silver. He had six, no, seven blades, buried to the hilt in various parts of his body.

She could smell the silver burning him. It should be draining his strength. He shouldn't be this strong, or this fast.

"I wanted the last one!"

"You didn't deserve it," Lorcan snapped. "You should practice on the off days. If you would take your time and improve your aim, the fun wouldn't be over so quickly."

The moment Mina heard the word 'over', she scrambled over to Alexei, but she hesitated when she saw the rage in his eyes. Alternating growls and groans, he sounded like exactly what he was, a wounded animal. He was struggling unsuccessfully to remove a knife lodged high on his side, nearly at his armpit.

"Shh, stop pulling like that," Mina side softly, placing one hand on his side and guiding his hand away with the other. "Let me try."

He glared at her, but he let his hand drop. The knife was stuck and Mina had to give it a slight twist before she could get it out. He raised his hand as if to strike her. Her only movement was to close her eyes.

"Perfect," Lorcan muttered. "She has a death wish. Bad enough Alroy brought the wrong woman. The one he did manage to bring is defective." He stomped off down the hall shouting, "I blame you for this, Niamh. You chose him for the job."

Niamh trailed after him, pleading her case for rectifying the situation. "We simply won't feed him anyone else until he drains the one he has. He won't hold out for long. He will have no choice. He has lost so much blood."

Alexei's eyes never left Mina. Her focus remained with his wounds despite the discussion of her imminent death going on behind her; at a volume even a human could easily hear. "You are a strange woman," he said as she continued applying pressure to the hole in his side. "Leave it. Take the last one from my leg."

"But it's still bleeding," she warned. "This should be almost closed by now. Why are you not healing?"

"The last vestige of my human self," he said with a sullen chuckle. "The one memento I most desire had been left in that hole in Yekaterinberg."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean," she said, casting a worried glance at the blood still oozing from his side. The blade in his leg slid out easily and did nod not bleed as profusely as his torso.

"You have the indubitable honor of attending Alexei Romanov, former Tsarevich of Russia, former beloved of his people, former coddled child of overprotective parents, former free-bleeding royal, former prisoner and victim of political assassination.

Over ninety years have passed since my transition and in a rather perverse sort of way, I find myself in similar circumstances at present, though perhaps not so coddled, and my would be assassins are taking a much more drawn out approach to my eventual death. Prior to my current imprisonment, I was subject to the authority of a dictator, albeit one whose actual influence is much more severely limited than he is willing to confess, even to himself.

And, as a hemophiliac vampire, I believe I am uniquely qualified to define irony. If nothing else, it makes me endlessly entertaining to sadistic faeries." He tried to laugh again, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

"I'm tired," he said, struggling to stand. "Help me get back to the wall. You don't need to lift anything. Just help drag it back with me. Be careful of the curtains. They are punishing me by not moving them back. Or maybe they only forgot. Who can say?"

It took a while, but they made it the few feet back to the wall. Alexei seemed exhausted by the time he was seated on the floor and leaning back against the cool stone.

"How long will they leave the body?" Mina asked. She wasn't really sure she wanted to know the answer, but the question needed to be asked just the same.

"Usually the same night. Sometimes they wait and someone takes them away during the day."

She stood and began gathering the silver knives she could reach. A few had bounced close to the side walls. She decided to leave them for now. She didn't want to appear to be hiding behind the silver curtains. "Them?"

"Two a night is the routine. After six, I'm almost back to full strength and able to withstand another onslaught." He reached around to his side and touched the wound. It was smaller, but there was still fresh blood. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

"I know you can count to two," he said after a moment. An apology was in his tone, if not his words.

"I'm the second. I know," she replied. "But I think you've usually already drained number two by now. If you were going to kill me tonight, you would have done it by now."

"Perhaps I'm only waiting until the bleeding stops."

"Maybe," she conceded, "but every minute you wait, is another minute I can wait."

"And what are you waiting for?" Alexei opened his eye to watch her answer.

"To get out of here, of course. Isn't that what you want? Surely you don't want to just wait for another three days to go by just so you can go through this all again?" She bent over and piled the knives on the outside of the bars.

"Very well, Scheherazade, we will wait together for now, but understand, in all likelihood we are only delaying the inevitable. If they bring me no one else, I will have no choice. No matter how kind or pretty you are, I may repay you by choosing you over another, but if the choice is between you and me, know I will choose myself."

"I know," she said, returning to his side and joining him on the floor. She looked down at his side. The bleeding was down to a trickle. "Why doesn't the silver weaken you? Is that because of the hemof– the hemo- because you're a bleeder?"

He scoffed and looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "I'm weaker than a newborn puppy. Any more and I'd be flat on the floor unable to speak."

"You're weak from the blood loss, because you're not healing, not from the silver. You must not have been exposed to much silver before you ended up here, or you would have made that connection."

"Silver burns me, the same as it does every other vampire," he said emphatically. He suddenly felt human again. She was going to say what everyone used to think about him, though no one dared say it aloud. If the word freak spilled from her lips he would shred her where she sat.

Mina saw the sudden flash of anger in his eyes. She spoke softly, but in a slightly higher pitch, giving her voice an almost childlike quality. "Yes, it burns, but it doesn't make you weak. The faeries have noticed it. What are your chains made of? They aren't silver. They would be if you were any other vampire."

Alexei looked down at his shackles as he considered her words. She was right about him never being around silver. Everything he knew about it came from Ocella's dire warnings and listening to others talk about their own unhappy experiences with silver. Prior to rising in this cell, he himself had been well protected from, and thus ill prepared for, any personal knowledge of the effects of silver on a vampire.

Ocella scrupulously avoided it and the punishment for violating his strict 'no silver' policy was severe. His Maker once called all their servants together to witness as he eviscerated one of them, for keeping a small silver locket in the waistband of her clothes. It was a gift from her mother and she'd died horribly for it.

He remembered his first night in this cell. Niamh hadn't been so smug then, as she is now. He wasn't in chains that night and he'd seen fear in her eyes as she watched him rage and test the boundaries of his captivity. Of course, he'd been repelled by the pain whenever he touched the bars or the curtains, but now that he though about it more carefully, at no point had he felt weakened.

He'd risen the following night, bound, as he was now. Was it possible, if he'd simply endured the pain, he could have broken himself free?

Still staring at his wrists, Alexei answered Mina's question. They said it was some kind of tungsten and titanium alloy, for maximum weight, and if our captors are to be believed, there is a spell cast on the metal to make it heavier still." He was surprised by her response. She smiled. So little about this woman who showed no fear of him made sense.

Mina's smile was a reaction to his use of one word in particular. He'd said 'our' rather than my captors. She breathed a sigh of relief; secure in the belief she would live through the night. "But you were lifting them and using them as weapons to whack the knives away, even though you looked like a silver pin cushion. That shouldn't be possible, but you did it. I saw you."

He smiled broadly at the praise of his tenacity and manhood, even if it was only coming from a human woman. She was the first pleasurable thing he'd encountered since his arrival here. "So, you're saying I'm some sort of super vampire?"

Mina's soft laugh made him smile. "I'm saying you're different, and different can be useful if you're trying to take people by surprise."

XXXXXXX

Sookie stood by as Eric gave Oliver last minute instructions. He was to guard her from inside the room, rather than his usual post outside their door. If Ocella decided to pay a visit, Oliver would be more help to her if he were at her side.

Unless they were forced out, in an effort to avoid Ocella, they were to remain in this room and wait for him to return from his meeting with Ermessen. He wanted an update on the status of the search for fae portals. The more he thought about it, the less confident he was they were searching in the right place. Something was off, as if he was trying to make one picture from the pieces of two different puzzles.

He'd also remembered something that could be useful in locating the hidden door in the sunroom, or it might be nothing at all. After the meeting he would have a better feel for things and they could decide their next move.

"If it is within my power, I will see Mina with you again." He kissed Sookie's cheek and offered her a reassuring smile.

Sookie's phone rang. She dug it out of the front pocket of her jeans. "It's Claude," she said and looked up at Eric.

"If he says anything we can use, come to Ermessen's office. Bring Oliver with you. Do not leave his side for any reason until I am with you again."

"I won't," she said, and slid the virtual lock to answer her phone. "Claude! I'm so glad to hear from you."

Eric left them and made his way to the Queen's office. He encountered no one but servants in the halls, which made him wonder how many vampires remained in the residence. When he arrived at his destination, he gave the door two solid raps in quick succession.

"Enter."

Eric swung the door open wide and stood, perfectly framed, in the doorway for half a beat before sauntering inside. "Good evening, Ermessen. You are lovely as ever," he said with a grin and a nod. They were alone. Good.

Ermessen looked up from the stack of papers in front of her. She already looked frazzled and the sun had set less than an hour before. "A bit early for theatrics, is it not?"

He gave her a hearty laugh and began a casual stroll around the room. "Those things within my power to govern, I endeavor to govern well. You never know how you will end up leaving a room, but entering-" he stopped and faced her, allowing his smile to have its full effect. "Well, entering a room is another matter entirely. One can always make an entrance. It sets the tone." He continued his slow walk, running a finger along the spines of a row of books.

"Yes, well I think we could all do with a little less tone around here." She leaned back in her chair and swept a rebellious lock of hair away from her face. "I've already listened to Appius rail for nearly twenty minutes, and I will not suffer through a repeat performance from you. If you think I invited you to stay here to provide you a place to work out your personal problems, you are both sorely mistaken."

Eric faced her again, all pretense and affectations falling away from his expression. "I would not have you encumbered with burdens not your own. I can only offer apologies on behalf of myself and my Maker." He paused for a brief moment of reflection before continuing. "Of course, I can also have my Queen removed back to Lleida until our circumstances have resolved themselves."

Ermessen's features softened as she smiled. She understood how difficult it was for him to offer to send Sookie away. "She is safer from him here, where your love protects her. With some luck, you may even be able to keep her alive.

You obviously did not come intending to discuss plans to relocate your wife. So, if we are not to have an affair, why are you here?"

Eric wondered how much of Ocella's twenty-minute tirade to Ermessen was dedicated to his desire for Sookie's death, but he could not be sidetracked. If his current course was successful, it was possible the missing vampires could be recovered. Ocella would then have no reason to stay. He could take his newest progeny and go back to Italy.

When he spoke, it was not a polite inquiry. It was a demand for information. "For news of the search for possible entry portals left by the fae. What area has been covered?"

In an instant, his entire demeanor had shifted from sincerely apologetic to situation commander, impatient to be apprised of current battle conditions. This was the complexity of The Norseman. So cold and calculating, so indifferent, yet simultaneously capable of glimmers of such depth of feeling and compassion, he was impossible for most to comprehend. Many had studied him. Few had passed the course.

"The most direct routes between here and Don Perdigo's grounds. If we continue to find nothing, the area will, of course, be expanded," she said.

He resumed his walking as he considered her report. He picked up a snow globe from a shelf. Inside the ball of glass a small boy was making snow angels, as a woman, presumably his mother, looked on from the front porch of a house. He upended the globe, then returned it to its place on the shelf and walked on. He didn't need to look back to know Ermessen's eyes did not follow him. They remained behind, watching snow fall on the boy and his mother.

He gave her time to be completely distracted before speaking again. "Call in the searchers. They are wasting their time. And more importantly, they are wasting mine. The portal will not be found near Don Perdigo."

"What? Oh, the searchers," she said, adjusting to the interruption of her train of thought. "Don Perdigo's Saaset was first taken. Is it not reasonable to assume they might have found out about her and her whereabouts by spying near her home?"

"Certainly," he answered. "And had Saaset alone been taken, I would be inclined to believe you were correct.

If I placed a spy in Don Perdigo's home a month ago, they could have learned Saaset's comings and goings. What would they have learned of Alexei?"

When Ermessen made no response, Eric continued. "An easier question. Saaset was abducted in Barcelona. What was she doing there?"

"A visit to her dressmaker. She was having a dress made for-"

"For the reception two nights ago?"

"Yes," Ermessen whispered. "Don Perdigo agreed to accompany her. He was to introduce her."

"And Alexei?"

"Ocella declined my invitation to the reception. Alexei was dispatched to stand in his stead, as a reminder you had been replaced in Ocella's affections. He was being shipped here from Naples. His travel coffin vanished from the GPS system mid afternoon, near the Balearic Islands."

"Mmm." Eric took down a large book titled 'UnCompendioIlustrado dePatosEuropeos'[An Illustrated Compendium of European Ducks]. "Call the searchers back. Have them narrow the search area, not widen it. No further than fifty meters from the villa."

"You believe it is so close?" Ermessen asked. Clearly she was not so sure.

"I'm certain of it. The information regarding where to find Saaset and Alexei came from your staff." He raised a hand to stop her protest before she had a chance to begin it. "Do not ruffle your feathers, Ermessen; I am merely making a simple observation based on my impressions of the evidence. I am not, nor will I make any accusations of guilt or complicity on your part." He continued flipping pages, pausing briefly to stare at each as if it held him spellbound.

"Additionally, which I believe I have said before, even distracted by faerie blood, their exit point had to be very close in order to get her far enough away Oliver was unable to track her. There must be under a three-minute window of time between when Oliver sat Mina in a chair and when he tried, but was unable to fix on her well enough to even get a general direction."

"Very well," Ermessen conceded. "If you think they are more likely to find the portal on my grounds, I will call them back."

"They won't find it," he stated.

"Then why am I calling them back?" she asked.

"They will be easier to watch, if they are close," he said, looking up from the book with an irritated expression fixed on his face. "Still an admirer of ducks, I see?"

Indeed, I have always had a fondness for ducks. Ever since I was very young, as you are well aware," she answered with a knowing smile.

He gazed directly into her soft brown eyes. Eyes that had known too much hurt, he thought, and he was about to hurt them further. "I recall a night in Venice, when you were very new and all the world was still a marvel. You were placed in my care while our Makers discussed the future of our kind."

"I recall Venice as well. It was a dark time for humans and for us." Her smile grew as she remembered. "You were annoyed on that night, as you are now. You felt cheated because you were not given charge of Perdigo's two beauties."

"An unforgivable error in judgment, from which I have long since recovered." Balancing the open book in one palm, he offered her an exaggerated bow and a killer smile.

"No doubt their demise, a few years later, aided your recovery tremendously," she countered playfully.

He laughed and said, "Some types of death have more permanent impact on relationships than others."

"Quite true," she agreed. She pointed at the book in his hand. "If you are looking for the ducks we saw that night, they are closer to the middle. They are called Mignon ducks." She watched as he found the proper page.

"What an excellent memory you have Ermessen. I could not recall the name. I remembered only they were white." He placed a finger on the page and scanned down the brief bits of information typed alongside the large photo.

"You asked if perhaps they could be swan chicks. I wondered if you were kidding or testing my knowledge. You said you preferred swans and I said it was because they reminded you of yourself; arrogant, pale and handsome, with a very long neck."

Ermessen laughed softly and he joined her. "Yes, you did say that. I remember. Though nothing written here is familiar. I recall only a lengthy and severe lesson regarding waterfowl."

"How gallant of your memory to fail you so completely when trying to recall information I invented in order to impress you with my brain, where my body had failed. Yet it serves you well enough to recall comments complimentary to you." She sat waiting for the next volley bygone reminiscing.

"I recall one thing you said about them. I can still hear the sincerity in your voice. I would be crushed to learn you had been able to fool me with such ease. You said you believed it cruel for people living in town, or peasants who had no natural body of water for them to swim, to keep ducks. Better they should be free or owned exclusively by lords, whose properties could accommodate them properly."

"That was not from a book, Eric. It was, and is, my belief."

"I am much relieved to hear it. I have always believed people remain fundamentally the same throughout their lives. I would not like to be proven wrong at this late date." He snapped the book shut and walked around to the front of Ermessen's desk and gestured to one of the two overstuffed chairs. "May I?"

"Of course," she answered, wondering about his sudden businesslike manner.

"My Sookie was part air faerie, like her great-grandfather. He is their leader and he creates their portals for travel between the dimensions." Eric leaned forward and crossed his arms on Ermessen's desk, all the while looking her straight in the eye.

"Saaset was abducted in Barcelona, by the sea. Alexei disappeared from a boat crossing the Mediterranean. All faeries are not air faeries, Ermessen. There are others. There are water faeries. They make their portals in natural water sources."

Ermessen's eyes were growing impossibly wide and he could see the alarm growing there as he fitted the puzzle together for her. He stood, placed his palms flat on the desk and leaned even closer to her. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper.

"Mina disappeared from inside this house."

She could no longer hold eye contact. Her pupils seemed to be looking around the room, but she wasn't seeing anything here. Her mind was desperately processing information and trying to arrive at a course of action that would not end in disaster.

Eric gave her fully half a minute before adding, "Sookie has seen the ducks, Ermessen."

Her eyes came back to him. She was terror-stricken. He had done this to her, intentionally, knowing with each step he took this was where it would end. He gathered his calm before speaking again. "We both know you are hiding something more than birds. I don't care what it is. I don't care who it is, but Ermessen, you must show me the water."

"I-I can't, Eric," she stammered. "I can't give him to you. I won't"

His right fist smashed through the top of her granite desktop. "You damned fool! I don't want your son!" He stopped took a short pause. "I don't care if you fill every hillside in Spain or all of Europe with your caged progeny," he continued in a more measured voice. "But make no mistake. Sookie loves Mina and she wants her back. I have given her my word I will do everything in my power to see her desire satisfied.

I am convinced the faeries are entering in the place your ducks swim. I will have that location. You will give it to me or this hill will not survive the night. I will raze it before dawn."

"Please, Eric. You can't."

He didn't have time for hours of pleading. "Do not underestimate my determination," he growled. "It has been the undoing of many."

A pained, squeaking sound escaped Ermessen's throat before she pushed past him and dashed out the door in a blur.

There was no need to follow at her heels. He knew where she was going. He walked calmly back to the bedroom where he'd left Sookie with Oliver. He went into the shower room and rinsed the remaining granite dust from his hand.

"What happened?" Sookie asked immediately upon his entry.

"Was Claude helpful?"

"He's going to contact Niall and ask him to call me. He gave me a list of things to bring him from Milan."

"I've changed my mind about going to Italy. Milan is no longer on our itinerary. Give the list to Genevieve and Heller. They can go." He grabbed a towel to dry his hands.

"What happened with Ermessen?" Sookie prodded. "Was she helpful?"

"I believe she was," he said as he started back out of the room. "Come, and we shall see." He motioned for Oliver to follow as well as he led them to the elevator.

"Where are we going?" Sookie asked anxiously.

"To visit the ducks," he answered as the elevator doors slid open.

XXXXXXX