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18. Eric Gives in Again

She had just spoken of him in exactly the tone of voice the old Alexis would have used. The mild, soft voice speaking his name and his father's name had brought up powerful emotions in him.

But he also realized that there was something he hadn't known about her even when she was human. She danced around the room, humming to herself. It wasn't just any dance, either. Her body was lean and muscular because she was a ballet dancer.

He stopped her, and she reached for his lips again. Irritated, he held her hands away. "Why didn't you dance, Alexis?" he asked her.

"Dance, Alexis, dance. Mormor. Can't let Carlos see! Don't let them stare. Always with the staring. Dance, Alexis."

She moved away from him, humming softly and dancing to her own music.

She was a wild thing, lost in the blood lust. She was broken and could not be recovered, according to the common knowledge of vampires.

Yet there she was. Dancing. Dancing and caressing the glass over his father's chair as if it were precious and 'pretty'. She remembered, though not consciously. Could the memories be revived?

Strangely enough, it was the pragmatic Pam who seemed to be the only one who thought she could be salvaged.

Eric was afraid she could be. What would she think of him then? He had checked the mine shaft, but never thought to burrow for her. She had been so drunk with blood and flesh that he was surprised she had survived at all.

"Fire in the hole!" she yelled at him suddenly, then chortled and skipped away. In a singsong voice, she said, "Run, Alexis. Run, Alexis."

"Who told you to run, Alexis?" he had to know. He jammed his hands into his pants pockets and stared at her.

"The Voice. Eric. Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole." She said it with three different voices, and he realized she was mimicking the soldiers who had fired the 'cannons'.

She did remember. But did it matter? She couldn't be considered sane by any definition of it.

"Hungry," she said. "Alexis hungry. Want man-food."

"Shit," he swore. How was he going to procure food for her and keep her from draining them?

"Come with me," he told her.

They got in the car and she played with buttons again. Gasping as if it were the most magical thing in the world when the window went up and down. He sighed, but couldn't resist the grin that worked its way across his face. He had to admit that, as utterly nutty as it was, she was cute.

"Eric. Happy." She reached for his mouth.

"Stop that!"

At least she wasn't saying, "But I," all the time anymore. In fact, so far she had shown no sign of defiance beyond the original misguided attempt to protect Pam.

He had called Pam to the bar the instant he saw Alexis. He hadn't expected to be able to control her himself. A wild vampire was an unthinking, brutal, murderous animal.

And he had no doubt that she was such a creature. He had seen her devouring flesh, a practice that resulted in madness even for vampires if indulged in. He wondered how much she had eaten since then.

"Do you eat flesh?" he asked her.

"Just drink," she answered. "Voice says just drink. Tasty good meat, smells nice. Looks pretty. Just drink. The Voice said it."

"How long did you wait to eat again?" he asked her.

"Yesterday. Hungry now. Very hungry."

He tried again. "How long did you wait to eat after the fire in the hole?"

"Long. Nine dawns. Dying. Waiting for pink. Waiting for the Voice. Darkness. Worms. Nine dawns."

She sounded sad and confused. He couldn't believe it. She wasn't kidding when she said she was dying. For a newborn, nine days with nothing, even in the ground, should have been a death sentence.

"Funny man, funny man. Dance with the funny man." She was cheerful and chipper again.

He pulled up in front of Fangtasia. "Stay here, unless dawn comes," he told her. He was beginning to realize that she would take anything he said completely literally in her current state of mind. He didn't want something to happen and her to stay in the car and die.

He went inside and found a fangbanger. He took him into his office and went to bring Alexis inside. "Food!" she exclaimed upon seeing the young man sitting on the sofa.

"You must eat properly, Alexis. No killing."

She looked mutinous but said nothing. She rushed over to him, her fangs snapping out.

"Alexis!" he stopped her. "Glamour him first."

"Smells good," she said. "Fear."

"No, Alexis. You must learn to control it. Glamour him."

She turned and looked at the human.

"Tell him to relax."

He saw the instant her will locked over his.

"Relax, food-man," she said.

He almost slapped his hand over his face and walked out. In part because as serious as the situation was and as deadly as it was for this human, it was almost irresistibly amusing.

She snapped her fangs into his neck. Eric listened for the sound of his heartbeat to slow. When it came, he said, "Stop!"

She growled. "Stop!" he commanded again and she jerked away. "Lick them closed," he barked. She did.

Then he glamoured the human, "Go back into the bar and enjoy your evening. Do not allow another vampire to feed from you tonight."

The man got up and left.

Eric turned to look at Alexis. He expected her to be unhappy about the feeding situation, but found her looking at him with that same lost, confused look she'd had for just a few seconds earlier. She reached for his lips and he almost stopped her.

Her cool fingers touched him. She whispered, "No more kisses, Alexis. No more kisses." She jumped up and started humming again. He walked out into the bar and crooked a finger at Pam.

Inside the office, he said, "Watch her for a minute."

Pam gave him an irritated, skeptical look.

He sighed. "She's changed. Just watch her."

Pam said, "Not very much, really. She still only says about four words and has no mind." Pam had always felt that Alexis's obedience would extend beyond him and herself, making her easily manipulated by other vampires. Eric'd had his doubts, and still did.

He scowled at her and she shrugged, turning to watch Alexis.

"Is she doing ballet?"

"It's why she's so sleek, I think," Eric told her. "She said, 'don't let Carlos see' and 'always with the staring'. I think her social phobia kept her from doing it professionally. Or publicly at all."

"How sad. Really. What's your point?"

"She remembers. Her mormor kept telling her to give up her job and take up dance. She remembers that."

"Doesn't matter. She's still got more screws loose than an overturned toolbox, and Bill's going to make you put her down if you can't knock more of them than ballet back into place." She watched Alexis pirouette. "Makes you want to fuck her even more."

"She's loyal to you. She would probably do it," Eric said, brooding as he watched her.

Pam shrugged. "She's as interested in me as a lump of clay. I'd be good if she was petrified, or if she was into me. Not somewhere in between."

Eric looked at her. "Are you seriously telling me that knowing she's doing it just to please you doesn't appeal to you at all?"

"Not really. But you knock yourself out."

Eric felt a strange sensation run down his back. The vast majority of Makers spent hundreds of years in sexual congress with their Progeny. It was why they were chosen—compatibility on every level. Eventually, they bored of each other, and the Progeny would become a Maker.

Pam had not chosen on that basis. She liked her humans, he knew. Though she would happily indulge with anyone who struck her fancy and really had relatively few standards beyond the person being attractive and willing and not too stupid. Pam did not do attachments, except for him.

In her own way, like Alexis, she was loyal and unflinching in her devotion to him. It allowed him to be himself around her.

And suddenly, he didn't want to be around Alexis anymore. It unnerved him in much the same way that it had unnerved him to lose access to her emotional state. She was simple now. Her reactions to him lacking in any transparency or artifice. And she reacted to everyone around her the same way, including him.

If she remembered him, it was intermittent between the bouts of insanity and the strange sweetness she exhibited.

"Hey, can I borrow Jessica for a couple days?" he asked Bill when he picked up the phone.

At Bill's statement that he would have to take it up with Jessica, he called her and asked her to stay with Alexis. He was surprised to hear the eagerness in her voice. When he gave her instructions on how to get to Alexis's house, she sounded almost excited as she hung up the phone.

He shrugged and wrangled the excitable, curious Alexis into the car... wrangling her away from another vampire who kissed her because she tried to grab his face.

"Stop doing that! It's rude!" he told her.

"Kisses," she told him, an unusual, sly grin on her face. He grabbed her hand as she reached for him again and squeezed them, irritated with her unvarnished delight in the other man's attempt to kiss her.

"Ow!" she protested. He let go, stuffing his hands in his pockets. She reached for him again then cocked her head. "'Stop doing that!'," she said, in a surprisingly accurate mimicry of his voice. She sighed. "No more kisses for Alexis."

She went back to humming and skipped toward his car.

He watched her go, her hair swinging behind her in a cascading wave. If she only had a mind, he would fuck her senseless.

Getting in the car beside her, he drove her in silence to her house. When they pulled up into the drive, she looked at the ancient manor, leaning forward and craning her neck. "Pretty!" she said.

He got out and found Jessica waiting for him already. "Is that her? Is she really crazy?"

"She's not a freak show, Jessica."

"I know, I was just glad to get out of the house. Staying with Bill and Sookie is stifling."

"Hair. Pretty." Alexis grabbed Jessica's hair and sniffed it. "Smells nice. Jasmine." She let go and started toward the house.

Eric grabbed her arm. "Alexis, this is Jessica. She's going to be staying with you for a few nights."

"Jessica," Alexis said, reaching for her mouth.

He growled. "Stop doing it to other people, too!"

"Jeez, okay." She skipped off toward the house.

Jessica looked at him curiously. He shrugged. "She's a few slices shy of a loaf."

"I think she's just the empty bag with some crumbs," Jessica told him.

He sighed.

"But she's sweet." She grinned cheekily at him.

"Vampires are not supposed to be 'sweet', Jessica."

She shrugged. "Bill still hasn't given me the rulebook, so I like her."

He left, giving her Alexis's remote to the house alarm and admonishing her to leave it on at all times.

He called the next night. "How's it going?"

"Fine. Did you know she has a theatre in here and like a billion movies? She's got more movies than blockbuster-"

"Are you watching her? She has even less impulse control than you do."

"Yeah. She spends most of her time in the 'workout room' and the rest of her time going back and forth from there to the kitchen."

"The kitchen? What's she doing in the kitchen?"

"Making love to the refrigerator," she said with a laugh. "'Pretty... pretty... pretty...' she says all night long. It would be cute if it wasn't a refrigerator. That makes it kind of creepy, but in a cute way."

"I'm coming over tonight."

He didn't bother to drive, he just flitted up. When he got there, he heard the sound of breaking glass inside and felt something cold run up his spine. He went straight in, almost tripping over a human body in the way.

"What the fuck?" he demanded.

The sight that met his eyes was unbelievable. One man lay dead, clearly an intruder, as he still gripped the gun he'd obviously shot Alexis with. But Alexis had another man in her arms and was twirling around with him as he struggled.

"She's crazy," Jessica objected. "She won't let go of him."

The man squirmed away and Alexis let him get a few paces, ignoring the blood that ran down her own face from what had obviously been a gunshot to the head, and which was already almost entirely healed.

He got a few paces before she grabbed him by the hair and dragged him back to the open area of her dining room. Humming again, she twisted him easily back into a dancing position and starting around the room again, twirling and humming.

The scent of abject human terror filled the room. Alexis seemed oblivious to it.

"She likes to make him scream, too. I have no idea how I ever thought she was sweet," she told him.

"What's she saying?"

"'Where's the money, bitch?' over and over again and giggling every time. And sometimes 'pretty' like always."

Eric flitted across the room, "Stop, Alexis. Give him to me."

She sighed and let him go, giggling when Eric chased him down.

Gripping the man's head, he turned him towards him. Locking his will down with his own, Eric demanded, "Have you ever been in this house before?"

"Yes."

"Did you beat her the last time you were here?" he asked.

"Yes."

Furious, Eric ripped the man limb from limb, not bothering to kill him first.

He looked over to find Alexis with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. "You broke my pretty!"

Then she danced around the room, this time obviously pretending she had a partner. Into the kitchen she went, and his eyes met Jessica's. She looked stunned.

"He and his buddy over there beat her almost to death the last time they were here. They obviously came back to complete the job. We only barely managed to save her that time, they beat her so badly. Now you know why we eat them without remorse," he kicked the dead corpse at the doorway.

"I... I can't decide if I'm going to be sick or start dancing around like her," Jessica admitted. "She's so... savage."

"She's a wild vampire. It's easy to forget because she's so..."

"Sweet."

"Yes, I suppose."

He walked over to look into the kitchen. She was leaning on the refrigerator, patting it. "Pretty."

"See? Refrigerator fetish."

"I got her that refrigerator."

"Really? You should try jewelry," Jessica told him.

He scowled at her. "Go home, Jessica."

He would thank her later. Not with a refrigerator.

She left, stepping delicately over the body in the doorway.

"Alexis, come here," he said.

"Run Alexis, run," she singsonged as she walked up to him.

He watched her struggle with her desire to touch his lips for a few seconds before putting her hands behind her back. She looked up at him, her eyes large in her face, haloed by the hair around it.

"Those men attacked you," he told her.

"'Where's the money, bitch?'," she said. "No money at the house. No money at the house to encourage robbers. Money at the bank."

It was a perfect mimicry of her grandmother.

"Do you remember them being here?"

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November. On the fifth of November in sixteen-oh-five, Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament with several dozen barrels of gunpowder. Each year thereafter came a speech to remind the people that treason would never be forgotten. It has become-"

He laughed. It shouldn't have been funny, with her standing in her kitchen in sweat pants and the dining room and him covered in blood.

"Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot..." She danced across the kitchen toward the refrigerator.

"Try to focus," he told her. "The robbers, do you remember them being here before?"

"Yes. 'Where's the money, bitch?' 'Where are the jewels?'."

"Do you remember the refrigerator."

She smiled like the sun breaking through the clouds. "Refrigerator. Eric. Pretty." She reached for his mouth again, then stopped halfway.

He pulled her against him and covered her mouth with his. Her reaction was immediate and simple. She wrapped her arms around him and her body undulated against his. He ached with longing for her and could no longer resist it.

He groaned, needing to be with her. He ripped at her clothes, shredding them to get them off of her. She gave a long, low grumble that sounded almost like a purr and tried to climb up him. He grinned. Picking her up, he flitted up the stairs as she giggled.

He dropped her on the bed and pulled his own clothes off quickly. He slid onto the bed and she turned to him, a smile on her face. He buried his head in her neck. "I shouldn't be doing this."

"Hmm, kisses."

He nipped at her neck. "You don't know what you're talking about," he told her, but kissed her anyway.

"Then by all means, show me everything," she said in a mimicry of his voice. He drew back and lifted an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Show Eric the chair. Show me everything." She smiled with a look that lit up her face and made her eyes sparkle.

"Did I say that to you?" he asked, his heart stopping.

She mimicked him. "Then by all means, show me everything." She patted him on the chest. "Show Eric the chair. Father's chair. Father in the woods. Different father."

She grew immediately bored, though, and he couldn't get anything more out of her. After a couple of minutes, he didn't care, either. She was touching him with complete abandon, her hands seeking and searching and her mouth on parts of him that made him forget he'd almost gotten something worthwhile out of her fogged mind.