A/N: Okay, alright I'm scolding myself. I will send myself to my room immediately as penance for not keeping the time table. (Hangs head in shame...gives puppy dog eyes)

This chapter packs a lot of information and it might help clear up confusion from past chapters.

Chapter 12

It Just Keeps Getting Better

Neither Sookie nor I knew what that meant. Seeing there was no place for this conversation to go but down, I began with getting the worst news out in the open. "We are mated."

I hadn't expected her to know what that meant, but if the horrified expression on her face was any indication, she knew, which surprised me.

"No…that is…no," she whispered. Then slowly, cautiously, she walked over to me. Her frail fingers traced the mark through my shirt.

"Oh shit!" she hissed. If the situation weren't so fucked up, I would laugh at her use of profanity because it was an absolute first but I knew anything that could reduce her to this spelled a pain in the ass for me.

"And more Sin Eaters are after her," I added.

"Oh shit!" she repeated. At this point, she was shaking her head as if it would break the illusion. Well, she could join the club of, 'Impossible'. I was in line to be President.

"For more good news, she's pregnant." It was assumed so I didn't need to specify that it wasn't my child.

It was at that point that the Old Bat crumpled to the floor. Sookie reached for her, but I waved her off. In her state I didn't know she would react to someone unfamiliar touching her. I carried her and sat her on the bed. Clearly, she was choosing now to have her mid-millennium crisis.

She just kept hissing, "Shit, shit, shit…" she went on and on like that for a while.

"What's a God Killer?" Sookie whispered, looking at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Why are you whispering?"

She gave the Pythoness a pointed look. "I don't want to freak her out."

"It seems a little late for that," was my sarcastic retort.

"I would most certainly say so," The Pythoness replied. "Allow me to explain the gravity of the situation."

She sat straighter with the same regal, elegant veneer that painted everything she did. Then she began one incredibly long and sordid tale.

"Once the Fae walked this world in abundance and their species thrived both here and in their home world. Deforestation, industrialization and natural toxins of this world, " she waved her hand. "Take your pick; their numbers declined. Then they fought a war against our kind eons ago and became nearly extinct."

That last bit of information was something with which I was actually familiar. It was more like an old tale vampires passed around for fun. It might have been incredibly petty, but I liked that for once I knew something Sookie did not. Since she came back, I'd always been a step behind. Yes, it was petty, but comforting all the same.

"The War of the Night?" I asked. The name was cheesy, but no one consulted me as they were picking it out.

The Pythoness shook her head. "It was written in our history as such, but the true name is 'The War for the Worlds."

I supposed she could call it what she wanted. It didn't change the fact that Fae were owned. I didn't know how it had begun, no one really did. All I knew was that a large group of vampires opened a heavy can of whoop ass on some Fae. Be they of the Water or the Sky, I did not know.

"The disadvantage of the Fair Ones is obvious. It takes three days to raise a full-grown vampire, and almost fifty years to rear a Fae child to adulthood. That fight cost them dearly so they admitted the battle was lost, but not the war. Ever since, both the Princes of the Sky and Water collaborated, and devised a plan to help them win."

"That makes no sense," Sookie said, shaking her head. "The Sky isn't at war with anyone but the water and the people that help them hurt half breeds."

Even with all her outward signs of refusal, I felt her doubt. Her doubt might not have run deep, but it was there and now she was being forced to face it. If she had truly believed, she would have never run.

"You're wrong. Fishes don't fly and birds don't swim. The Princes of the Sky and the Water can't work together."

"You are a faery who is mated to a vampire; that alone proves that there are exceptions to every rule." The Ancient One said dismissively.

Sookie opened her mouth to issue a rebuttal, but she had nothing. The fact that we were bound together was plain crazy. While she could deny everything she heard, she couldn't reject the tattoo on her shoulder or mine.

"What exactly are they trying to win?" I asked. "What have they to gain?"

"The moon and the sun," she said.

"Are you being literal or figurative?"

"Very literal," she said, with a grim nod.

Okay. "How exactly do they plan of doing that?" I asked. "What has the power to grasp the moon, never mind the sun, which a ginormous ball of fire?"

She shook her head. "This, I do not know," she murmured rubbing her temples. I couldn't tell if she was trying to calm herself, look into the future or if she was still freaking out. Either way, I didn't ask.

"Get me parchment and a quill." She ordered.

Reflexively my mouth opened to give her a smart-ass response but it was just too easy. "I have motel stationary and a stubby number two pencil." I handed her the items. "Make do."

Blind as she claimed to be, The Pythoness began sketching a photographic portrait. The diagram she was drawing was something similar to the diagram of the earth's solar system, except they formed a circle and had series of ethereal looking threads that connected them. Above that were the clouds of heaven and below were the flames of hell.

"This is the universe," she said, holding the picture out to us. "The law that binds it is known as The Origin. The Origin is absolute. No power in any and all the worlds will ever overshadow its law, and it is upon that law that all worlds are created. There are seven worlds that run parallel to our own," she pointed to the very top of the page where white clouds floated above and a fiery abyss raged below. "There are many names for heaven and hell, but the souls of all species shared the final resting place." I'd only heard a fraction of this tale. Already I knew it was well beyond my pay grade.

"All the laws of all the worlds connect," The Old Bat said, pulling me from my ruminations. "The link isn't always reciprocal, but it does exist so long as it does not violate the law of Origin. That is why sprites of Eindelle can travel into this world but giants and dragons of Underhill cannot." she tapped at the small darkly shaded sphere on the left.

That sounded like a raw deal. "So almost every other creature in the universe can dock here and raise all kinds of hell, but we cannot visit theirs."

She nodded then drew two straight lines that began from the center of each world. One ascended toward heaven and the other descended toward hell, and they formed a dagger's tip. While all the others faded along the way, the lines that originated from earth reached both surfaces. Yes, definitely above my pay grade. I ran a hand through my hair. I had no idea what a headache felt like but if it were possible, I would have one.

"Our Law of Origin is the strictest because it binds all the others."

"Is it me, or does this sound strangely apocalyptic?" I wondered.

The expression on her face was grim. "It sounds like an apocalypse because it very well could be."

One more thing to add to my list, though I suppose I should bump this up a few notches.

"They need to literally take hold of the earth's moon and sun. Once they have them, they can dictate the laws of this world and it will allow them to control all others. They can make the ocean the sky, regrow forestlands, purity the oceans, take away gravity and oxygen, or keep the sun up nonstop. Nevertheless, I think the goal is to make all the worlds like they once were; make it like their home so their population once again can flourish. Those who cannot survive the change will perish."

"That's not true," Sookie murmured.

It was as if she was speaking to herself. Her face was empty, her tone was desperate. She wanted us to tell her she was hallucinating or that she was crazy. That didn't happen and so I felt her anger rising. I pulled her against me. It wasn't to comfort her; it was to restrain her. The other vampire in the room was ripping apart all that made her who she was. Being as stubborn as she was, she would have a need to defend it. She regained control and put the width of the room between herself and the Pythoness.

"Niall wouldn't ever do that. He isn't a purist. He doesn't care about power, just protecting those in danger from Breandan." She nodded as if that would convince her and us. "That is the only reason we fight." she looked up at us and our silent, stony expressions were all she saw. "It is…right? Right?"

"Lover," I said, going over to her.

She flinched. I couldn't tell you why. But the sickly, prickling feeling washing over me was telling me she needed something. I had no idea what would do if not my touch. That was often enough.

"It is," she insisted, nodding but she was trembling all over.

The Pythoness waved an errant hand. "What they told you, and what I have just said are not contradictory." She explained coolly.

I was starting to get the feeling she didn't very much care for my mate. While I understood it, it was making my aggression flare. She had recently been talking about diversifying to help other species in the not to too distant past.

"Have you ever faced a full blooded Water fairy?" she asked Sookie. "Have you ever fought an enemy that wasn't human, undead, daemon or one of your own?"

Sookie looked at me and she was begging me for help. I had no idea of what to do. Several emotions ran across her face, a twisted mixture of, guilt, shame, pain, anger, and in a cocktail of other sickening emotions that I couldn't even identify. I held my hand out but she refused to come to me. She was taking shaky steps backward as if to distance herself from the what she had heard.

"You know I speak the truth. In your heart, you feel it. It is why you show compassion to your targets. It is why you have always questioned authority. It is why you ran. They did not train you to fight fairies of the Water. You are to defend them from the night children because it was us that stopped them from destroying our food sources so long ago. They did not lie; they cannot. They deceived, two very different concepts"

"No," she said.

"Sin Eaters are the Fae equivalent of vampires. You were not born, you were created. So were your parents and their parents before them." she continued. "You are the result of countless centuries of selective breeding,"

"Shut up," Sookie said in that icy tone. "Shut. Up!"

"That would not change what or who you are," the Old Bat said. "By your power level, your lineage is old, which is surprising. You often die young."

"Niall is my great grandfather…he…he wouldn't," Sookie mumbled.

From the sound of her voice, that one thing might have given her pride, but now it made bile rise. I knew that was her last shred of defense against her world caving in about her. Her mouth opened and closed as if she wanted to speak, but afraid she would vomit.

"If that were true, he would have strangled you with your birth cord before you drew your first breath. The blood of the Sky Prince is not in you. Niall would never. To create a Sin Eater, they steadily feed a human woman fruits from the eternal tree of Faeria all throughout her pregnancy. The child would be more than human, but not really Fae. It would be powerful, useful, but most of all it would be expendable. When they usurp one unborn child, they breed them with others like them to avoid drawing attention to the process. Over several generations, the offspring get stronger."

I looked at Sookie. Her eyes were tear-filled. She seemed to be in a place where nothing and no one could reach. She was literally falling apart. The damage was so bad that not even the mating mark knew how to guide me. It told me she needed me, but it held no indication as to what I should do. It was like facing a mental fork in the road. It was the same one that told me what her favorite color was, except this time, there was no nudge one way or another. I was as lost as she was.

"Are the marks cursed?" I asked the AP. Aside from it being unwanted, it didn't feel wrong on me. I had asked Sookie, and she had said no. Now I wanted to double check, because there was much she didn't know.

The Old Bat shook her head. "The marks are for population control. They appear when a Sin Eater's power reaches a certain level, not a certain age. This way only their strongest can breed amongst each other. The weak ones that do not die in combat never mate and no one thinks anything of it."

Sookie made a noise that was between a gag and a cry. It felt as she was being ripped apart. There was nothing I could do, and not having information we needed wouldn't help her.

"That you two have mated is…" words failed her. She ran her hand over her face as if she was tired though it wasn't even nine in the evening. "You were made to kill each other off. Eric, you are the top Enforcer for the Ancient Pythoness and Vampire Law. She is a God Killer. Once you fought on opposing sides of a war that decided the fate of this world. Now, I fear you will be forced to do so again."

"If you knew all this," I asked. "Why haven't you done anything about it?"

She opened both her palms out to me in a gesture of capitulation. "It is a limitation of my ability. I cannot see my future and as I am part of this world. I cannot see it's fate. Even if I could, how do you suppose I get into Feary to thwart their plans? The pure breeds do not come to this world. They send the Sin Eaters to do their bidding."

I sighed. This just kept getting better and better. I had unwilling and unknowingly mated with a faery, and now said faery was claiming to be pregnant with my child. If that wasn't enough, she wasn't just a Sin Eater, but a God Killer. We were on the run. She was all but dead weight as I tried to get her to safety. Our haven was still several thousand miles away. My mate also just had her entire identity ripped to shreds. I supposed adding Armageddon to that list was fitting.

I felt it as all of this registered with Sookie. I saw as she accepted it, and I knew she couldn't handle anymore. I let her go and she ran to the bathroom. She heaved and was violently sick. Her turmoil clearly wasn't physical, it was emotional. They had used her throughout her whole life. They had made her sacrifice everything for their cause, a cause that would have ultimately taken her life.

"You must make a choice, Eric." The Pythoness said, rising to her feet. "If you do not return with me, I must put out a warrant with your name upon it."

I sighed. It really just kept getting better and better.