Chapter 14
Many thanks to the ever patient Northman Maille
for her invaluable beta services.
XXXXXXX
Sookie entered the grotto with Oliver in tow.
"Good evening, cousin. I thought you would bring your husband along for our little adventure," Gawain said as she approached. He didn't want to say he found Eric less frightening than Oliver. Though he knew Eric was the more dangerous; Oliver was the one who had issued more threats in his direction.
"I intended to," she answered. "But Ocella insisted on another meeting with Ermessen and he wanted Eric with him. It's just as well. I thought about it and got scared. I couldn't help wondering what would happen if we went through and Ocella decided to summon him for something. How would he get back?"
"I should imagine he would fly," Gawain replied blandly.
Well, that was irritating. She expected a little more support for her reasoning. "Yes, but how long would it take? We don't know how far away we're going."
"If that's the logic you are going with, I won't argue, but I would not expect him to be satisfied with it, if I were you." Gawain unfolded the bag and shook it out.
"On this point, Mistress, I must agree with the faerie." Oliver glared at Gawain as a warning to refrain from making any snide comments.
The message was received loud and clear.
"Are these red marks the portals?" Sookie asked, ignoring the testosterone competition and looking down at the map on the table.
"The ones we have located so far," Gawain said, draping the silver bag over his right arm, so it was between him and Oliver. "We have already established the portal here in the grotto leads to a spot outside the town of Olot, which is not too far from the French border.
We believe Aednat is likely in Marseille." He touched Marseille on the map and ran his finger around the circle of red dots surrounding the city. "There are probably others within the city its self. They will be more difficult to locate. She would want a direct path to everything she is directing, so one of the Marseille portals should lead to the prisoners."
Sookie noticed Oliver's eyes close and his stomach muscles tighten briefly at the mention of the prisoners. For him, this was a mission to recover a body.
"Let's get this show on the road," Sookie said. "We're already getting a late start. I don't want to waste any more time. We go and if we find anything, Gawain will come back and bring Eric."
"And we will wait for him," Oliver added. "Even on your orders, Mistress, I cannot allow you to engage with anyone until the Master is present."
Sookie shot him an annoyed glance. "Let's see if we can actually find anything before we start discussing what you can or can't allow me to do, shall we?"
Gawain couldn't help but giggle; drawing angry looks from both vampires. "That is her Brigant blood talking. None of us make particularly good subordinates."
"How do we get him into the bag?" Sookie asked, deciding to shelve her irritation for the moment.
"I think the easiest way, is for him to step into it." Gawain put the bag on the ground and opened it as wide as possible. "Stand in the center."
Oliver stood in the middle of the bag and Gawain pulled up the front. With the exception of his head, Oliver was perfectly still as he continually looked to each side to make sure the outside of the bag was not in danger of touching his skin.
"Here, you hold the front now," Gawain folded a front edge of the bag, silver side in, and handed the velvet side of the fold to Oliver. "I'll get the back over your head."
Once the bag was up and over Oliver's head, Gawain pulled the drawstring and instructed Oliver to hold the closure tight from the inside. He would have to hop to the pool and be dragged through the portal. Once they got to Olot, they would stand him upright in the river and help him out of the bag.
Phase one went well, better than expected actually. No problem going through. They got Oliver out of the bag without him being burnt. And then he saw the van. It was about twenty yards upstream, tilted over on its side. The back was open and something was hanging out.
"Mina?" he said to no one, before beginning to fight against the current as if he were a salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
"Who's out there?" came a male voice from the house near the bank. A male faerie appeared in the doorway. "Alroy, is that you?"
"It is I," Gawain called, lunging forward as Sookie slipped back. "I bring a message from Aednat."
"At this time of night?" the faerie asked. His suspicion was clear in his tone and his posture as he stepped onto the small porch. "What's your name? Who is that with you? Get out of the water."
Gawain made a production of struggling more than was necessary, hoping Oliver would turn from whatever was distracting him and come to their aid. "My name is Kearney," he said, splashing noisily. That is my brother Tierney. We are cousins to Daire, husband to Aednat."
"Bullshit." The faerie took a cell phone from his pocket.
"I'll have that," Sookie hissed through her bared fangs, grabbing the phone with one hand and his wrist with the other.
"What the," he started as he struggled to pull away from her.
"Ah, ah," she whispered. "Careful, or I'll have the hand too."
Oliver had almost reached the van when hearing Sookie's voice got his attention. He leapt to the bank and was on the porch in an instant.
"Find out if he knows where they are," Sookie told Oliver, as she handed the faerie over to him. "I don't care what you have to do to him."
Oliver grinned and took the faerie's hand in a tight grip.
Sookie stepped off the porch and asked Gawain if he needed any help getting out of the water, He declined. Oliver was halfway through his first question when he suddenly broke off. "So sweet," he said dreamily. There was a muffled scream and the very briefest of scuffing sounds.
"Oliver, no!" Sookie screamed, but it was too late. She ran to the porch and grabbed his arm, but she might as well have tried to pluck a redwood from the ground.
"He stopped masking his scent!" she complained wildly to Gawain, as he stepped from the river and gave himself a shake. "Why would he do that?"
"Death by draining is known to be quick and relatively pain free. On the other hand, I have it on good authority torture is an excruciating and gruesome business. He simply chose one over the other." Gawain droned his answer as he fussed with his wet clothes.
"You're awfully calm about his suicide," she snapped.
"No more than you, when you threatened to rip off his hand."
"Well, maybe, but I, um," she paused, flustered by her inability to come up with an ending to her sentence.
"Didn't mean it?" Gawain offered. "Does it matter?" He nodded toward the corpse as Oliver let it drop to the ground beside the porch steps. "Apparently he believed you."
Oliver came down the steps and knelt in front of Sookie. "I am sorry, Mistress. I lost control."
"Don't you dare apologize for something that's my fault!" She shoved his shoulder back. "Get up!"
Oliver stood and took a step back.
"I'm the one who should apologize," she said to him. "I should have taken him in the house and questioned him myself. I didn't want to do my own dirty work. I'm sorry Oliver. I hope you can forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive, Mistress. It is my honor to do anything for you. I regret my failure."
"Let's not worry about it now." She looked at the cell phone still in her hand and tucked it into her hip pocket. "What were you headed for in the river?"
"The van over there. I caught Mina's scent. It's very faint, but it's there."
"There is a portal there near the van. Perhaps they used it for transporting prisoners?" Gawain said, as they all went to the van.
Oliver got back in the water and went to the open door. "Damn!" he yelped, yanking his hand back as soon as he touched the inside of the rear door. "The inside is silver lined. It was definitely used as transport for vampires, Mina too, but not lately. Probably when she was first taken."
Oliver shimmied back into the bag and they went through the portal on the ramp. Then they repeated the process again in the Marseille parking garage. Sookie checked the GPS on both her cell phone and the one she took from the faerie to double check their location before going through the next portal.
"This is it," Oliver said after walking only a few steps up the road. "And someone else who has a very similar scent."
"Maybe someone who came in contact with her?" Sookie suggested.
"Possibly."
"I have been here before," Gawain told them. "There is a house less than a half mile up this road. There appeared to be no one home when I was here."
"This is probably the place," Sookie said.
Upon giving her word that she and Oliver would make no attempt to engage whoever was in the house until Eric arrived, Gawain left for the villa so he could bring Eric back here. Here, was near someplace called Cahors, France, according to her GPS.
After Gawain was gone, Sookie trailed after Oliver as he methodically followed Mina's faded scent up the road until they were near the house. They'd agreed not to enter, so instead they made a wide circle through an adjoining field, where much to their surprise, Oliver caught her scent again, stronger this time.
XXXXXXX
Eric stood behind the chair Ocella would be occupying, were he not pacing. No one else would likely notice, but knowing Ocella as he did, it was clear to him. His Maker was distracted by something.
After delivering a relatively coherent tirade on why he needed the number of men under his command at least tripled, the discourse had devolved into an argument over the merits of centering the search efforts on searching near Italian Maple trees or Prickly Junipers. Ocella was of the opinion the fae were particularly fond of being near Italian Maples.
Sookie was up to something as well. She suddenly felt very far away. He could well imagine what that meant and thinking about it did nothing to improve his mood. He could only hop she'd figured out how to take Oliver with her.
Ocella was in the midst of detailing an encounter he once had with three fae who all disappeared into the trunk of a large maple, when his cell phone let out a single heraldic blare.
Very subtle, Eric thought.
Ocella was receiving a text. Without missing a syllable of his far-fetched tale, he took the phone from his front pocket and glanced down. The register of surprise was a mere flash, but it was there … if you knew what to look for.
Whatever the message was, it merited being looked at right away, but he didn't stop blathering nonsense about faeries and maple trees. Something important, but he doesn't want to share it or he would stop speaking and make a show of reading the message before relaying it to everyone else in the room.
Ocella tucked the phone back into his pocket. "It is possible I may soon have good news to share," he announced with a broad smile.
Too broad for a simple announcement of progress. He was hiding it well, but Eric could feel he was very excited about something.
"One of my search teams has found something they need help identifying. They have requested my assistance as soon as possible."
"You must go at once, Appius," Ermessen was quick to suggest. "If indeed they have found the portal, decisions will need to be made regarding how to best respond."
"They probably found nothing more momentous than a large spider web," Don Rafael said disdainfully. He cast his gaze at Ocella and added, "Regardless of what variety of trees are nearby."
"Your open contempt does not negate the validity of my point, Don Rafael. It only serves to make your presence here more precarious. It is an unusually brave man who invites the enmity of both me and my progeny."
"I've heard enough," Ermessen stated. "Thank you for your opinion, Don Rafael. Let us not delay Appius from his task any further." She smiled and nodded at Ocella.
He returned her nod, gave Don Rafael a scowl and turned to Eric. "Stay in my stead. You can relay the remainder of the meeting to me later in the evening."
"Of course, Appius," Eric said with a nod, forgoing the more casual Ocella, in favor of his formal moniker.
The meeting, which had only served to waste time thus far, now devolved into Don Rafael complaining on behalf of himself, and Don Perdigo, about the lack of progress in the search. Eric ignored Rafael and concentrated on Ocella. He was definitely pumped up about something and he was moving away quickly. Wherever he was going, Eric was certain it was not to check on anything found in the search. Ocella was going too far for that.
When Ermessen felt she'd listened to a sufficient amount of whining, she abruptly ended the meeting and ordered both Rafael and Eric from her office. Don Rafael left to make his report to Don Perdigo, and Eric made for the grotto.
The scent hit him the moment the sunroom door slid open. Someone new was down there, not human, fae. Eric was standing in the grotto entrance an instant later. A dripping fae male stood gaping back at him as if he were the very face of death.
"The, the, the, um," the faerie stuttered.
"Breathe, Oran," Eric replied with an amused grin. "You are Oran, are you not?"
Oran took a deep breath, then another and nodded. "You're the, the Norseman. How is it you know my name?" He asked more because he was grasping for something to say, than because he really wanted or expected an answer.
"So I am," Eric said with a chuckle. "There are times when a reputation can be most inconvenient. On occasions such as this, I would enjoy introducing myself."
He walked to within arm's length of Oran. "Do you object to my knowing your name? Would you have withheld it until I tortured you for it, had I not already known it?" He cocked his head to the side and gave Oran a quizzical look, as if trying to determine exactly what he was.
When several seconds passed and Oran remained silent, Eric continued. "As for exactly how I know it, I can tell you, I know a great many things. If I had to keep an accounting of how I know each of them, I fear my head might explode from the burden.
As it happens, discovering you here is a most opportune occurrence. Please, sit." His grin broadened as he extended his hand and made an elegant gesture toward the table and chairs.
Oran sat. Eric did not; he stood, looming over Oran as he spoke in a clear, calm voice. "I understand we have a mutual acquaintance. Tell me, Oran, how is Aednat? I hear she is in the process of increasing the fae population."
Though the fear never left his eyes, Oran gathered the courage to straighten his spine.
"Yes," Eric cooed, in a voice so velvety soft he might have been speaking to an infant. "The instinct to protect those we love is strong, even among the fae."
Oran's eyes narrowed at the insult to his kind.
Eric chuckled from behind his smile. "I have offended you. Under different circumstances, I might consider an apology. As it is however, we must first discuss the matter of my Queen's pet. I find pets tiresome, personally, but my wife is fond of them; the girl you took in particular. Her disappearance has created a most unpleasant disturbance of the peace in my household."
Eric stood behind Oran and placed a hand on his shoulder, causing the faerie to shudder. "As a married man yourself, I feel certain you can understand my desire to restore order at home?"
Oran didn't answer, but Eric could feel him trembling and his heart sounded as if it were trying to escape his chest and run away on its own.
You can help me reestablish the peace, Oran. Tell me where you took the girl and how you got her through the portal. In exchange for your assistance, I shall resist the urge to rip you to shreds where you sit.
The violence of Oran's trembling increased at least three fold. He was trying to say something, but by the time the sound left his lips it was reduced to incoherent babbling.
"You want to help," Eric said in a soothing tone, patting Oran's shoulder reassuringly. "I am more pleased than I can tell you. Now, stop trying to speak and take several breaths, letting each one out slowly."
Oran sucked in a huge swallow of air and immediately began to choke. Eric slapped his back and nearly knocked him out of his chair. After a full minute of choking and breathing, Oran finally managed to say, "What girl?"
"You know," Eric said in a tone suggesting he might be a professor about to begin an often-recited lecture, "Whenever I begin an interview such as this one, and I have conducted many, I always wonder, will this be the one? Will this be the man who recognizes the wisdom of simply answering the questions honestly?
When I entered this room, you recognized me. I assumed the recognition was based on you having heard of my reputation for sometimes being less than civil, and not merely that I was blond and tall."
Eric quickly closed the hand on Oran's shoulder until there was a crunching crack and Oran let loose with a howling scream.
As Oran clutched at his shoulder with his opposite hand, Eric continued his lecture. "That was your acromion. I believe it was a fairly clean break, though I would recommend a visit with the fae equivalent of a surgeon, or witch, or whatever you use for your medical needs."
Eric grabbed a chair from the side of the table and flipped it around, so the back was to Oran. He straddled the chair and sat, folding his arms across the back and resting his chin upon them. The odd angle made him have to look up, in order to look Oran in the eye. This caused his eyes to appear to be opened unnaturally wide. Coupled with his grin, his countenance took on a slightly crazed appearance.
"Assuming you survive the interview, of course. If you continue to lie to me, your condition will likely be beyond the skills of physicians.
Let's try again, shall we? You took a human girl with dark hair, heavy eye make-up, and a pretty green dress from a chair at the foot of the ballroom staircase. Do not insult my intelligence again with denials. It makes me want to break things and since you are within reach, well, you've seen how that works its self out. Where did you take her?"
"The French border," Oran whimpered as he squeezed his eyes shut tight and braced for whatever was coming.
"I believe you," Eric replied. "Alas, the border is almost four hundred mountainous miles. I will have to feed before undertaking such a search."
Eric's strike was intentionally clumsy. He took several shallow bites of Oran's neck, on the same side as the broken shoulder. Oran's hysterics and Eric's light hold caused his fangs to slice and dig rather than neatly pierce. The result was a good deal of pain for Oran and the appearance of a blood bath, when in fact very little actual damage was done.
"Olat! Outside the town of Olat! Near the river!"
Eric released him with a shove. "I may start feeding exclusively from faeries," he said, licking his lips with loud, sloppy smacks.
Less than 2 minutes later Eric knew Mina had been handed over to a faerie named Alroy at a house outside Olat. She'd been taken inside a velvet lined silver bag of Oran's own design, which was made for the specific purpose of transporting vampires through portals. Though Mina was not a vampire, she was also not fae, so she too needed to be shielded in order to pass through without being damaged.
Unfortunately, Oran did not know where she was taken from there, and he was not carrying one of these silver bags with him now. Eric was about to move on to questions regarding Aednat and her intentions when Gawain made his appearance in the pool. In his hand, he carried what looked like a big wad of black fabric.
"Gawain, go back!" Oran screamed.
"Be silent," Eric snapped, as he swatted Oran to the ground with the back of his hand and looked toward the pond to see Gawain sloshing his way out.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Ermessen's voice preceded her into the grotto. When she caught up with the sound, she did not look any more pleased than she sounded. "Don Rafael had not yet removed himself from my office when I received a distress call reporting screams coming from the grotto. Ramon's companions are not accustomed to disruptions of their schedule. Their minds are fragile and there has been far too much commotion down here lately. It must stop."
She paused when she noticed Oran in the floor. She addressed Eric. "What exactly is it about you that causes people to lose their ability to maintain an upright position? Who is that?" She tossed a glance at Oran.
"Oran, the spy," Eric answered as he walked to the edge of the pond to meet Gawain. "He has told me what little he knows of Mina's whereabouts. We were about to discuss Aednat when Gawain arrived to take me to the safe place he left Sookie."
"Just so," Gawain said with a smile. "I left her only moments ago and only after securing her word to remain secreted until I returned in your company."
Eric continued speaking to Ermessen. "His shoulder is broken, but he is anxious to finish sharing his knowledge before seeking a healer."
"A broken shoulder, you say? Another common occurrence when you're around." She turned to Oran and offered him a hand. "You will find chatting with me to be much more pleasant, I'm sure," she said sweetly. "If indeed my friend is correct about your desire to share information."
Eric and Gawain were gone through the portal within seconds.
XXXXXXX
Oliver and Sookie were squatted on either side of a shallow hole. "Are you sure?" Sookie asked, staring down into what looked to her to be nothing more than a big scrape in the ground, surrounded by bits of loose dirt. "It doesn't seem deep enough to me."
"Deep enough for what?" was his glum reply. "A kidnapper with a dead hostage isn't interested in providing a respectful burial. He is merely getting rid of something no longer of value to him."
Oliver reached down and pressed his fingers into the soil, shaking his hand as he did, so the dirt shifted and he could work his hand lower. A few seconds later he lifted his fist; as he slowly opened his hand, flecks of earth mixed with tiny chips of sticks, plants and pebbles filtered through his fingers.
"I'm guessing whoever put her here wasn't expecting her to come back." He ran a finger across several narrow, parallel furrows at the edge of the hole. "She rose alone. She had to dig herself out. It's hard to say how deep she was buried. The dirt would have filled in beneath her as she clawed her way up."
Oliver's tone was still even and melancholy, but the expression on his face had shifted to something much more fierce.
"She must have been terrified," Sookie whispered.
"Possibly," Oliver said, his voice flat and completely devoid of emotion. "There doesn't seem to be any evidence of panic. She was on all fours here for a while." He pointed to two small sets of depressions in the dirt. "Then she headed for the stream, probably to rinse off."
Sookie's smile lit up her face. "Oliver, this is great news! We thought she was dead and gone. Now we know she's out there somewhere and we just have to find her."
"To what purpose, Mistress?" Oliver asked, his eyes fixed on the dirt in his hand. "She is no longer ours to rescue or take home. None of us can make any claim for her that will outweigh the rights of her Maker."
"But she's ours!" Sookie insisted, springing to her feet and preparing to launch into a speech about what was right and honest and what they wanted; what she expected. Once she was standing, the words wouldn't come.
Every time she opened her mouth to speak, the image Ocella, propped on pillows in the middle of her bed, stopped her words. The triumphant gleam in his eyes as he ordered her and Eric to strip, and the pleading in Eric's face as he instructed her to look at him, but see the boy.
This hadn't occurred to her before. When Eric mentioned the possibility that Mina might have been turned, she'd been so grateful and excited. She'd latched onto the possibility as if it was an answer to her prayers.
Eric hadn't warned her about this part of it. He was offering me a glimmer of hope to hold on to, she thought. But he hadn't really believed it was a likely option. Telling me the downside would have taken away the hope and defeated the purpose of telling me anything at all.
"Where do you think she went?" Sookie asked, as Oliver rose to his feet and wiped his hands on his jeans.
"Back to the house." Oliver nodded toward the house. "To release her Maker. That has to be why she was turned. For some reason the faeries were feeding humans to the vampire hostages, rather than True Blood. Mina was given to them and stupidly left with them long enough to drain and feed her."
"That makes no sense," Sookie countered. "Why would they do that? Faeries know how vampires are made. If they left a human alone with them, they wouldn't have just taken her out and buried her, so she could come back for them. They would have burned her body, or at least staked her before burying her."
"Who are we staking, my love?" Eric's voice was as clear and cocky as ever.
Sookie had been so focused on her thoughts of Mina, she hadn't even noticed the teasing tickle in the pit of her stomach that always accompanied Eric's presence now. "Eric!" she cried, turning and running into his welcoming arms. "Eric, Mina is a vampire. What are we going to do?"
Eric held her tight as she clung to him in her despair. He looked to Oliver and asked, "Can you tell which one is her Maker?"
"No, Majesty. Though we have not yet been inside the house."
"Where is Gawain?" Sookie asked, lifting her blood streaked face from Eric's chest.
Eric leaned down and kissed Sookie's cheek, while simultaneously cinching his hold on her a little tighter. "He is inside." Sookie pushed against him in protest, but it was a wasted effort. He had no intention of releasing her.
"There are no vampires inside, but there are a number of silver lined holding cells on the lower level. There are no living faeries."
"They got away," Sookie said, looking over her shoulder at Oliver.
"Dearest," Eric said. "A free vampire, even one who was newly made, could easily overtake four faeries, especially if they were caught unaware."
"She killed four?" Sookie asked in a much lower and softer tone tinged with fear.
"Someone did. I thought Oliver might have a look and give his opinion. I asked Gawain not to move anything until after Oliver has a chance to see it. There are three in the house, and judging from the smell, at least one in the garage."
Sookie's expression was a jumble of hurt, confusion and anger. "I want to see too," she complained as Oliver took off toward the house. I'm not a child. What are you hiding from me?"
"You are my beloved," Eric responded, not loosening his hold. "A human you loved had been made vampire and until we know if the kills in that house are hers, I will not allow you to enter there."
"Eric," she whispered, alarm growing on her face. "What did she do in there?"
"We do not know it was her, Dearest, but two of the faeries were killed by a creature gone completely mad."
"Tell me," she said, sitting down in the grass and tugging at his hands to get him to follow. "I promise, I won't try to go inside. Tell me what you saw."
"There is one dead in the kitchen, a male. Gawain said his name was Ryan and he was a servant to Lorcan and Niamh. Those two are likely the male and female dead in the bedroom."
"And?" she encouraged when he fell silent.
"The female had been with child, though not very far along. Both the male and female were opened and emptied, then hung from a beam in the ceiling."
Sookie processed the information quietly, and after a minute, she said, "There's no telling what the faeries did to her before they gave her to the vampires. And there's no telling what the vampires did to her before they drained her. Maybe the faeries deserved what they got.
You said the female wasn't very far along. How do you know for certain she was pregnant at all? If they were disemboweled, there has to be a horrible mess in there. A baby wouldn't stand out in all that unless it was several months along."
"I confess, I did not see the infant," he answered. "The two were hanging from lengths of their own entrails."
Sookie actually gasped, taking in a big gulp of air as she recoiled in horror.
"The female's open womb was left dangling between them."
She choked as she expelled the air in her lungs. "Mina wouldn't, she could never do something like that."
"Never is rarely an appropriate word, my love. The longer you exist, you will find few occasions when actually applies."
"You won't make me believe it was Mina."
"I have no reason to try. I merely made you aware of a fact. I cannot say who brought the fact into being."
XXXXXXX
"What is this place?" Mina asked, looking around at the emptiness of the large hidden room.
"A vault Ocella has no use for any more," Alexei answered, taking a cell phone from his pocket. "Sit down. You can ask questions in a minute."
"If you use that thing, they'll be able to trace it to here and then abandoning the car and making us run the last twenty miles will have been for nothing."
"No one will trace the call unless someone reports it stolen. They won't. We stole nothing. They gave us the car and the phone." Alexei spoke with such confidence, for just a moment he reminded her of Eric. "But just in case, I'll throw it away when we go out to feed."
Mina watched as he sent a text. He tossed the phone on the stone table and began pacing around the room.
"You'll love Italy. It is very beautiful. I especially like the mountains in the north. You can wander through them for years and never see the same place twice.
We have several houses. My favorite is in Venice. The man who taught me Italian lives near by. We will engage him to teach you too."
He stopped pacing and stood in front of her, taking her hands in his. "You will never be a servant again, nor a pet. You will be my angel, with servants of your own to wait upon your every need."
"That all sounds wonderful, Alexei, really, but please, I just want to go home, where I belong." Her eyes were wide and pleading, with liquid pools of pink in the corners slowly deepening into red.
He dropped her hands on the table and resumed his pacing. "You will be going home soon enough. You belong with me now and your home is in Venice."