They all listened as Jason spoke to the person on the other end of the line – a girlfriend, from the sound of it. Eric couldn't tell if he was pale because of what she was saying or from his sizable blood donation to Pam. He told her to stay inside and lock the doors until she heard from him, and he put away his phone.
"That was Michele," he told them, and Sookie nodded. He raked a darkly tanned hand through his hair. "Alexei was just at my house, looking for me. She went to the door, but when she saw he was a deader" – Eric smirked at the term – "she didn't ask him in. He told her he wants to… warm himself in my life. Whatever that means. He'd tracked me there from your house by my smell."
"Did the older one come after him?" Sookie asked.
"Yeah, within a minute," Jason replied.
"What did Michele tell them?"
Jason looked a little sheepish. "She told them to go back to your house. She figured if they were vamps, they were some problem of yours."
Sookie and Eric exchanged a worried look. Jason's house was safe, but Appius and Alexei could simply walk into Sookie's house. Without another word, Sookie ran outside.
"Her phone's out there," Jason explained, answering the questioning looks from Eric and Pam.
Sookie's voice grew louder as she returned to them from outside. "Get in your car and get out," she was saying urgently by the time she reached them. Eric assumed she was warning her fairy cousin. She held her hand out to her brother. "Give me your keys, Jason. You're in no shape to drive after your blood donation, and Eric's still healing. I don't want to drive his car."
Jason obediently tossed the keys into his sister's waiting hand. When he didn't move to follow her, Eric realized that Sookie had every intention of going alone.
Pam appeared to be recovering still, and Eric didn't feel entirely well, but there wasn't a chance in hell that he would let Sookie go to face Appius and Alexei without help. He stood and refrained from wincing at the pain.
"I'm coming," he said.
He couldn't tell if her expression was one of resignation or relief. Their bond felt blurred and distended and useless, for which Eric blamed both the Were drugs and Alexei's madness.
She nodded. "All right."
"I'm coming, too," said Pam. She made an effort to sit up, but it failed miserably. She growled.
"I need you to stay here," Eric told her. He knew she would protest unless he saved her pride. "If they return, I want someone here. Is that understood?"
Pam made a face, but she didn't argue. Sookie, meanwhile, was explaining to her brother about the clean-up crew.
"Just stay out of their way. They know what to do," she finished. She looked at Eric. "Ready?"
"Let's go," he said.
"I could heal along the way!" Pam called after them.
They ignored her.
Jason's truck smelled of Southern man: deer, fish, bait, chewing tobacco, beer, sweat. Eric decided that he should simply be grateful for the absence of "truck nuts" hanging from the back bumper. Sookie backed out of the drive, and the tires squealed as she shifted gears and floored the accelerator.
They spent the next three-quarters of an hour in absolute silence. Eric's mind was far too occupied to speak, and he imagined that Sookie felt the same. When he glanced at her occasionally, he found her expression the same each time: stony and determined. Her hands never moved from their 2:00 and 10:00 grips on the steering wheel, and her knuckles were white. With Appius and Alexei on the loose, he didn't risk breaking the careful seal he had been maintaining on their bond. Her feelings would have to remain a mystery for now.
As they neared the narrow drive that led to her house, a stab of brutal pain hit his head and neck, and he rocked forward in the seat, clutching the nape of his neck with his hands. He ground his teeth to keep from crying out. Just as suddenly as the pain had struck, it was replaced by numbness. Either Appius or Alexei had been severely injured; he could only pray that it was the latter.
He sat up to find that Sookie's yard was in view. Her fairy cousin wielded a knife in each hand, and another fairy stood at his back, this one with a sword. Appius lay on the ground, unmoving. And to cap off the grim tableau, a naked and bloody Alexei walked slowly around the fairies like a cobra ready to strike.
Sookie, who had been speeding down her drive, slammed on the brakes and threw the gear shift into park. They both leaped out and headed cautiously towards Alexei. As they neared him, Eric felt waves of strength and joy. From Appius he felt absolutely nothing.
The boy kept his attention on the fairies, but he smiled as Sookie and Eric approached. "You didn't bring Jason. I wanted to see him."
"He had to give Pam a lot of blood to keep her from dying. He was too weak," Sookie said. She had clutched Eric's arm with her hands, and she had placed herself slightly behind him. One of her rare concessions to self-preservation.
"He should have let her pass away," Alexei replied.
Eric's blood boiled.
Alexei ducked under the second fairy's sword to punch him, and the enraged fairy slashed at Alexei with almost vampiric speed, leaving a trail of blood on the small boy's shoulder.
Sookie, who had released Eric's arm and taken a step forward, raised both hands palm forward. "Can you please stop?" she said. She swayed, and Eric quickly put an arm around her to support her. Her hands fell limp at her sides as she leaned against him. He could not give her strength through the bond; it was all he could do to brace them both against Alexei's manic mood.
"No!" Alexei said. He sounded happier than Eric had ever heard him. "Eric's love for you is pouring through our bond, Sookie, but I can't stop." He shot them a brief, almost beatific smile and focused again on the fairies. "This is the best I've felt in decades!"
Eric thought he saw Ocella move, and he guided Sookie in that direction. "Ocella, do you live?" he asked quietly.
To his relief, the Roman opened one eye. "For the first time in centuries…" he said hoarsely, wincing, "I think I wish I didn't." He noticed Sookie and observed, "She'll kill me with no compunction, that one." Eric extended a hand to help him up, but Appius did not take it. "Alexei has severed my spinal column, and until it heals, I will not be able to move."
"Alexei, please don't kill the fairies," Sookie begged, drawing Eric's attention away from Appius. "That's my cousin Claude, and I don't have much family left."
"Who's the other one?" Alexei asked. He obviously had no intention of heeding Sookie's request.
"I have no idea."
The second fairy raised a fist at Sookie and shook it. "I am Colman! I am of the sky fae, and my child is dead because of you, woman."
Sookie shrugged off Eric's arm and stepped forward. Eric couldn't imagine what she intended to do, but he had a very good idea of what he would do. A low-branched tree stood only feet away, offering an endless supply of stakes.
Before he could snatch one, Sookie surprised him by running towards the house. Alexei, too enraptured by the fairies, ignored her. For once in her reckless life, Sookie was protecting herself. Good.
His satisfaction was short-lived. Sookie emerged only a minute later, and she held one arm behind her back. From his angle, Eric could see that it was a silver chain. With every step she took towards Alexei, Eric took one of his own from the other side. Between himself, Sookie, and the fairies, they could surely take Alexei down. He passed by the tree and snapped off a branch.
As Alexei moved close to Sookie, she flung out the silver chain, caught him, and pulled until he was on the ground, writhing and screaming. Eric didn't waste a second. Baring his fangs, he plunged the stake into Alexei's chest. Young and small as Alexei was, it was over quickly.
With Alexei dead, it was as if someone had drawn poison out of Eric's blood. Sookie knelt beside the body. If she felt any remorse over what they had done, Eric didn't feel it.
The fairies seemed focused only on each other, but Eric had not forgotten Colman's rage at Sookie. He watched the fairy's every movement. Then he heard Sookie's voice behind him, whispering.
"I want to kill you right now. I want you dead so bad."
He spun around to see her poised over Appius, the bloody tree branch in her hand. She wouldn't do it. He knew she wouldn't do it.
Appius actually smiled. "Since you've stopped to speak to me, I know you're not going to do it." The Roman's eyes glittered, and his upper lip curled. "You won't keep Eric, either."
Eric watched the anger darken her face as she raised the makeshift stake. He held out one hand. "Don't…"
Sookie looked up at him, and then she looked back at Appius. "You know what you could do that would actually be some help, Appius Livius?" she asked.
There was only one thing he could think of that Sookie would ask: for Appius to dissolve the blood bond. And that was something Appius would gladly do.
But Sookie's request went unasked. Before Eric could blink, Colman shoved him aside and stalked towards Appius and Sookie. Eric shouted as the fairy raised the blade, but it was too late. Time seemed to slow then. Appius looked up, and Eric saw him take in Colman before flicking his gaze over to Eric. He heard Move! in his head, and it wasn't himself or Sookie who had thought it. It was Appius telling Sookie to move, and she obeyed him, flinging her body out of the way just in time for Colman's sword to impale Appius instead.
A split-second later, a dagger flew out of nowhere and landed in Colman's back, setting the fairy off balance. Eric ran forward and pushed Colman out of the way. He had never felt death until this moment, not even Alexei's. But now he felt Colman's sword in every cell in his body, as if he himself had been stabbed.
"Ocella!" he cried out. There was nothing. Only a hole in his being where Ocella had been.
Enraged and finally overcome by the smell of blood and fairies, Eric spun around, grabbed Colman, and sank his fangs into the fairy's neck. It was sublime, this blood. How long had it been since he'd had pure fairy blood, straight from the source? He felt it shooting through his veins, replacing all the blood he'd lost earlier, mending his ribs completely, invigorating him. When he had drained the fairy dry, he tossed the body aside and crouched down. His body and mind were full, and his heart was heavy.
Sookie and her cousin were sitting some distance away, conversing with a third fairy. They each leaned forward to kiss the new arrival, at which scene Eric raised a curious and somewhat amused eyebrow. Whatever they were doing, it had caused the new fairy to weep. Eric watched as Claude left with the crying fairy.
He and Sookie both stood, and she walked over to join him. "This is positively Shakespearean," she said.
They each took in the bloody scene around them, and then they looked at each other. For the first time in many days, he felt nothing but himself and her. It was pure bliss. Eric turned his gaze to the rapidly disintegrating body of his maker.
"Ocella taught me everything about being a vampire," he mused aloud. "He taught me how to feed… how to hide… when it was safe to mingle with humans. He taught me how to make love with men, and later he freed me to make love with women. He protected me and loved me. He caused me pain for decades. He gave me life." His eyes found Sookie's again. As I long to give you life, my dear one. "My maker is dead."
Sookie was happy and relieved, but she was keeping the first emotion in check for his sake, and he loved her for it. "Yes, he is. And I didn't do it."
He studied her. "But you would have."
"I was thinking about it," she admitted.
"What were you going to ask him?" If she hated their blood bond so much that she would allow Appius to live just so he could destroy it, then it was something they would have to undo. He could not live with something that made her so unhappy, however much protection it provided her.
"Before Colman stabbed him?" she asked, and he nodded. Was she stalling? "Well… I was going to tell him I'd be glad to let him live if he'd kill Victor Madden for you."
His adoration for her crashed over him in an unexpected wave, and he took a moment to absorb it. He knew he had to say something. "That would have been good… That was a good idea, Sookie."
She shrugged. "Yeah, well. Not gonna happen."
No, Appius could not kill Victor for them. Nor could Appius now free Eric from the marriage to Oklahoma. But on this night, infused with fairy blood, free of Appius' control and Alexei's madness, alone with Sookie in her yard and in their bond, he felt sure that he could find a way to overcome those obstacles. He could forget Victor and Oklahoma. He felt invincible.
"You were right," he said absently. "This is just like the end of one of Shakespeare's plays."
She nodded and said, just as absently, "We're the people left standing. Yay for us."
"I'm free," he said aloud, and the sound of it was like music. "I feel so good." He took in the scents of darkness and fairy blood and Sookie. He looked at her and told himself that Oklahoma could never, never take him away from her. With Appius gone, that unresolved contract must now be moot anyway. "You are my dearest," he said with feeling.
Sookie's expression was blank. "I'm glad to hear that."
He stepped closer to her and cupped her cheek in his palm. "I have to return to Shreveport to see about Pam… to arrange for the things I must do now that Ocella is dead. But as soon as I can, we'll be together again, and we'll make up for our lost time." He smiled with the first unadulterated happiness he had felt in some time.
"Sounds good to me," she said.
She smiled at him, but there was no joy in her eyes. He understood that she was weary and dazed from the night's events. He would soon make her forget all of that.
He flew straight up into the air and smiled at the vast, open horizon.