From the Waist Down

Chapter 9

The knife sank into his flesh, leaving a streak of watery blood in its wake. I cut just deep enough to make him writhe against the restraints of silver and steel. His mouth, stained red with the drying remains of his bloody scream, contorted in pain. Madden groaned pathetically when I raised the weapon to the thin skin stretched across his collarbone. Blood cells ripped open under my hand, spilling from an open wound.

His pain should have excited m, should have entertained me in some depraved but glorious way. Pain brought with it some sort of divine happiness, a happiness that is often denied the immortal. With all that I have seen, all that I have done, few things are a surprise. Few things are a joy to behold. But pain, pain is so superbly individualistic, so remarkable in its undertaking as to resist characteristics or obvious behaviors. Few situations yield such a variable result as torture. And yet, all I felt when confronted with Victor Madden's thrashing, whimpering agony was a renewed sense of hatred, anger, and helpless frustration. In place of the bloodlust so commonly felt by the vampire, there lay rage. The rage boiled my insides and set my soul on fire.

Gods, I wanted him to suffer. I had chosen to torture him, to watch him waste away, to see that he pay for all he had done. I'd chosen this pace specifically. I'd wanted to see the damage in his filthy brown eyes. Unfortunately, though, the longer I spent with Madden, the less inclined I was to continue. Each cut brought more pain to me, the executioner, than it could possibly have brought to the condemned. I lifted the knife again, only to find it heavier, colder.

She's stirring, Pam murmured into my thoughts, breaking me away from the task. I could feel her pushing on my brain, tugging me back to her bedside, pleading with me for help. There was a time when I would have cast her aside for more important duties, but now, she dragged me in. Her throaty whimpering tugged at my heart, and I yearned for her.

"You'll die," I grunted at Victor as I closed the knife and placed it in the pocket of my jeans. "No matter the method, you will die."

Bill Compton met me at the top of the stairs, his hands frozen around a steaming mug of hot black tea. His dark brown irises were lit with tears not shed, and his sallow skin seemed to glow white, as though there were lights shining from beneath it. For a moment, I studied the sad and determined face of Bill Compton. This man, on more than one occasion, had killed for Sookie Stackhouse. Whether or not he'd taken satisfaction from either event was beyond me, but Bill Compton had been perfectly capable of using his anger to enact revenge. Of course, Bill was still a young vampire, hardly schooled in the ways of immortality and certainly more capable of at least touching upon the emotions that made him human. If I were a different man, a humble man, I might ask him how satiated he felt after releasing his rage upon his victims. Now, I could only lose myself in thought.

"I need to see her." Bill said abruptly. It was true that Bill still loved Sookie, more deeply than he realized. Of course, it was also true that Bill had betrayed her, lied to her, and hurt her. She could barely look at him before I sensed the tender angst build up in her, ready to escape from every pore like steam in a pressure cooker. To have him see her now would only lead to further pain, and it already pained me to see her so broken.

"No." I spoke firmly.

"I will wait. I need to see her, to apologize. I couldn't get to her in time." Bill shivered.

"Go home, William."

"Eric…" Bill choked.

"Go." I grunted firmly, commanding him as his superior. No matter the strength of his resolve, Bill could not disregard an order. The hierarchy of the vampire world is ingrained within us. He turned, still holding the tea in his hands, and walked to the door. The night was still young, and Bill Compton faced a long walk back to Bon Temps.

***

I could hear her through the mattress, my snout lying still upon the sheets. It reminded me instantly of the scene in Jaws, when the shark is about to attack and the music begins pumping the viewer with adrenaline. Her heart thumped erratically in her chest, drumming my ears and cracking me over the skull. I sat up, flicking my eyes to Pam. Vampires seem oddly attuned to the beating of the heart, so she stared as well, her eyes shaded and watchful.

Sookie hadn't even woken. Whatever was going on inside her head made the beating louder, more ferocious. There was a strange stillness in the air, and the fur of the back of my neck rose up in peaks and spikes. Sweat beaded on her brow, along the soft blond hairline. It pooled from her open pores and drenched her pale skin.

She sat up so suddenly that I rolled backward, smacking my hip on the bedpost. Her screams filled the room like ghosts and shadows. I hid under my paws and tried to block out the inhuman sound of her. Beside us, the bedroom door flew open and Eric Northman tore into the room, a demon with fangs drawn.

***

His sudden entrance only served to increase the volume of her screaming. It would have been the perfect opportunity to make a joke, a crack about her lung capacity or the shape of her mouth. Instead, I stared with a pain in my heart that seemed as though it might burst from me in a very similar way. How long had it been since I had thought of Mister James Porter, the man who stole away my maidenhood? I'd seen to him, seen that he suffered as I had suffered. But now he was dead, long ago the victim of earthworms and cockroaches. Here I remained, still suffering, long after his suffering had come to a close.

***

"Sookie!" I growled, shaking her by the shoulders as if the action would rattle her demons away. No such luck. She could not even see me, comprehend me. Her eyes stared vacantly at me, veiled white like an old woman's cataracts. Her trembling hands shot up to claw at her throat, her flesh still marked with bruises. The screams of terror cut off to violent coughs, strangled noises that tore up her lungs.

Spittle splashed onto her lower lip, hacked up from deep within her. She tried screaming again, and I watched her struggle to breathe and cry. Instead, there came only the choked sounds of a breathless victim. I held her face, pushed away the strands of damp blond hair that fell around her eyes. Sweat poured from her, mixing with tears dribbling from her ghostly eyes.

"Sookie! Lover, look at me!" I yelled at her.

Her guts cramped and as soon as I had her turned, she vomited upon the floor. Green slime, water, and a few specks of blood burst from her lips and onto the hardwood planks beneath my bed. A second wave of gastric juices followed the first, splattering the wall with flecks of bile mixed in. Sookie heaved a third time, bringing up nothing. Her muscles flinched in spasm. She shuddered in my hands and finally lifted her head to engage me. Blood vessels had burst around her eyes from the force of her purge, and halos of bright red encircled her watery blue irises. She blinked slowly, unsteadily.

"Don't let me sleep again," she groaned hoarsely.

***

Three hours later, after Sookie had fallen asleep again in my arms, I walked silently back down to the basement. At Madden's feet, I dropped the pocket knife. It clattered to the floor, abandoned. Fuck the slow and painful shit. Madden didn't deserve suffering, not the way Sookie suffered, not the way she struggled to hang onto her sanity.

"You'll never suffer enough to repent," I scowled, maintaining a smooth coldness in my voice despite the inner desire to rage like a tornado and scream like a banshee. "It is better that we do this now."

I reached into him, stabbing his chest with outstretched fingers. Blood spat and splattered, painting my clothes, the walls, the floor. His scream might have curdled the blood of a human, but I let it wash over me like a swaddling cloth. His dead heart snapped free of empty veins and spilled into my hand. He squirmed and fought me, not near enough to death to be impeded by it. His insides already coating my arms up to the elbow, I wrung his neck with both hands, squeezing. After a minute of pressure, the head popped free of his throat. More blood. More sinew. More matter. His body shriveled, freed of the organ that kept it alive.

"I'll keep this for de Castro. Perhaps he can fashion it into a candy dish."