Chapter 20
I tipped the contents of my purse onto the car floor and scrabbled through them. "Where's my phone? It was in here before!"
"Did that thing take it?"
"Maybe! Quick, get yours. We need to call Pam or Eric and warn them."
"I don't have my cell," Thalia said.
"You're kidding me! Why the hell not?"
"It wouldn't stop ringing. I destroyed it."
"What do you mean you destroyed it?" I screeched.
"Rasul bothering me incessantly with kingdom business. Sick of hearing that gràson's voice." Her features darkened with anger.
"So you destroyed your phone? Being bothered by kingdom-related business is your job now!"
Thalia leveled her terrifying glare my way.
"Just hurry then, drive!" I said.
Thalia pulled into Fangtasia's parking lot in record time. She grabbed me by the waist and zipped me to the back door of the club. She kicked it in. We ran through to Pam's office, which sat empty. We moved out into the bar. The bar was packed—surprising given it was only a Tuesday night. From above the heads of patrons, I could see Pam sitting in her usual booth, which now was roped off from the others like a VIP section.
"I'll go to Pam," I said.
"I'll find Eric," Thalia.
We diverged, and I pushed my way through the crowd, squeezing behind the rope barrier at her booth.
"Where's Eric?" I said.
"Back again?" Pam asked coldly. "How is it you've changed your outfit into something less appropriate?"
"Pardon?" I looked down at myself. I was wearing a cotton blouse in lilac, tucked into a black work skirt. The clothing options I'd packed for myself were fairly limited given I'd expected to be working side-by-side with Mr. C, not attending a club. "Hang on, what do you mean 'again'?"
"What do you mean?"
"You saw me here earlier?" I asked weakly.
"Yes. You came here after we spoke on the phone, then you went to meet Thalia at her home. Now, I have no idea why you still insist on playing strange games with my maker after all these years, but—"
"Pam, that wasn't me. I was never here." I wasn't sure what exactly had happened when my doppelganger visited earlier but there was no time to find out. Pam caught on a second later and jumped to her feet.
"Where's Eric?" I asked.
"I don't know. He'd lost a bet against me, so he went to get dressed. He's meant to be sitting on the throne tonight. He's been some time, however."
I turned to scan the crowd. "Why is it so busy here tonight? It's a Tuesday."
"Ladies night. Half price drinks until midnight for women."
I saw Thalia on the other side of the dance floor. She'd been cornered by some of her old fan club and other humans who'd quickly alerted to the fact that the club was being graced by the presence of Louisiana's newest vampire Queen. Despite her efforts to shake them off, she was struggling to make it through the crowd.
"Wait here in case he comes back and try him on his cell," I told Pam. "I'll go search the back."
She called out after me, but I slipped into the bustling crowd with determination, keeping my eyes peeled and my senses tuned for the familiar blip of vampire minds. Where was he? Where was he?
"Have you seen Eric Northman?" I asked an unfamiliar waitress behind the bar.
"Who hasn't?" she replied, simultaneously wondering why anyone as snooty looking as me would think they had a chance.
"Have you looked at yourself lately?" I snapped at her. I pushed my way back into the crowd of women. People pushed up against me, their minds occupied with music, dancing, sex, alcohol.
The task of finding Eric was further hindered by the fact ladies night seemed to attract a multitude of tall women with long blonde hair. After a moment, I saw the back of his head moving away from me on the far side of the crowd. He slipped out into the foyer area. I pushed my way through and out to the throng of people milling around near the gift shop.
"Anyone seen a hunky, blond vampire, about yay tall?" I lifted my hand above my head. A young guy, with arms tattooed from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers nodded toward the back hallway. I ran through to Pam's office, which was still empty, but now I could hear something buzzing.
I turned slowly in place trying to identify the source and its location. It was Eric's phone, sitting inside the pocket of his leather jacket which was draped on the arm of the couch.
"Jesus, what is up with these vampires and their cell phones!" I muttered, throwing the cell phone down onto the couch cushions.
"You rang?" Eric stood in the doorway. He wore his old Fangtasia get-up: black tank and leather pants, his hair loose around his face.
"Is it really you?" I asked.
"Yes. Are you really you?"
"Prove it." I took a step back, my calves butting up against the edge of the couch.
"What's happened? You look scared."
"Tell me something to prove you're you."
I flicked my gaze side to side for anything that might be a suitable weapon. Nothing, darn it. The office had changed since Eric was Area Sheriff. It was tidy and redecorated with sadly nothing that could double as a stake.
"Sookie?"
"Tell me!" I said shrilly.
He paused for a fraction of a second to think. "In Oklahoma, you crushed your hand with a garden ornament."
I exhaled in relief.
"You really couldn't think of something nicer?" I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the office. "Now c'mon. That thing—that human shapeshifter is here."
In that peculiar manner than only vampires could affect, his entire form switched in an instant from equable to lethal. "How do you know?"
"It posed as you at Thalia's house! You were arguing with me and Thalia."
His fangs dropped as quick as lightning. "And you think it's here?"
"Pam said I was here earlier when I wasn't at all. It's clearly sniffing around us. I don't know what it's trying to do. Work out what we know?"
"Or set up another murder," he said grimly. "Either yours or mine."
"But why us?"
"Why do you think?" Eric tilted his chin down to fix his eyes securely on mine.
"We're not involved, we're not a couple," I said weakly.
"What does it matter if it's killing to create outrage about relationships across species? You were once mine. Consider the wider implications."
I imagined how it would play out. Human ex-wife murdered by Queen Thalia's enforcer, murdered in the middle of a night club for vampires and their fans, in a manner most grisly. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry as sandpaper.
"Right now it could be disguised as anyone," I said. "How are we going to find it?"
"I have an idea," he said. "Meet me by the stage."
"Wait! We should have a code word. So, we know it's really us."
"Like what?"
I wracked my brain for something simple yet distinctive. A particular memory of another hare-brained scheme we'd carried out together popped to mind. "How about pink lycra?"
"Pink lycra?" he said and shrugged blandly. "Fine." He zipped away.
I had no idea what Eric planned to do, but I had no doubt it would be bloody. I slipped back into Pam's office and rifled through the drawers of her desk. I felt incredibly guilty but figured Pam would forgive the transgression. I was not heading back out there unarmed. The best I could find was a bone-handled letter opener. I closed the office door behind me and ran down the corridor. A creak sounded from down the hall just as a void appeared on my mental radar somewhere behind me. I skidded to a halt.
I turned to see Eric emerge from the doorway leading up from Fangtasia's basement. Fluorescent light from the stairwell bathed him in a white glow.
But it couldn't possibly be Eric. I'd just spoken to Eric. I'd watched him disappear at vampire speed into the bar area.
"Back already?" He eyes looked me up and down. He was in the same outfit as I'd seen on the other Eric. And he wasn't happy. I fought my every instinct to turn and run.
"Yes," I said as neutrally as I could. "We're back."
Considering what we knew from the other deaths, this creature in vampire form would embody all the powers of a vampire too. That meant super speed. Biting teeth. The ability to drain, maim, and murder. And perhaps more than even that, given how strong it had been in witch form posing as Veronica Williams.
I took a slow step back toward the sounds and safety of the main club area.
"Thalia will be here in a second," I warned. That's right, buddy. My three-thousand-year-old vampire friend will be here at any moment. Don't make any dumb moves, psycho shapeshifter. I kept my features inconspicuous as I flooded my body with panic. Turn myself into enormous, terrified GPS signal that would ping Thalia in our temporary blood-bond.
"Is that all you have to say?" he said. He shut the door to the basement dungeon. The slam echoed through the hall. Oh yes, he was angry.
"Get away from me." I continued my slow backward march away from him.
"You can relax. I've no intention of getting anywhere near you."
"Then what do you want? I don't understand why you're doing this. Why?"
"Regretting your words already? It's too late for that."
"For you maybe," I countered. Another step. And then another.
"I am tired of this constant bitter back and forth, Sookie," he said, looking resigned more than anything.
"What?" I faltered.
"I told you already before. I'm done."
I looked behind my shoulder. Still no Thalia, but I was getting closer to the main foyer that led back to the club. When I looked back, he was right in front of me.
"Why are you so panicked?" His head canted to the side.
"Get away from me!" I jumped back and brandished the letter opener. The small group standing near the gift shop were now watching.
"Sookie, what are you doing?" Eric's eyes, blue and icy, narrowed.
"You're not fooling anyone. Not now, and not back at Thalia's."
His features became alien and impossible to read. "You saw me at Thalia's?" he said.
"And I know you're not Eric!"
"Sookie, I'm Eric." He reached over to take hold of my wrist, but I darted out of his reach.
"Don't touch me."
My hand shook, and in my mind, I imagined how this would look from the view of the security camera. How my murder would play out, grisly frame by grisly frame, just like Rosa Pieldeloba's in Dallas.
"It's me."
"If you're the real Eric, then tell me what I broke my hand with?"
"On the night of Freyda's birthday?"
My body flushed hot and cold. No, no, no. This was not possible.
"A concrete garden ornament. A cherub," he said.
"I don't believe you! You're not Eric!" This shapeshifter must have been eavesdropping on the office when I'd been in here with Eric before.
I turned and ran just as Thalia flew through into the corridor like an angry hurricane. "It's not Eric!" I screamed. Thalia leaped at him while I sprinted into the bar. I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see the two wrestling on the ground.
I slid the opener into the waistband of my skirt and pushed my way through the patrons of the club, ignoring their angry protests.
"He's out there fighting Thalia!" I said when I got to Pam and the real Eric. They were standing by the stage.
Pam lifted her hand and signaled toward the bar where I saw a familiar face—Indira—standing with a handful of other vampires, some I recognized, others I didn't. The crowd parted as she quickly exited into the foyer toward the trouble between Thalia and the creature.
"What are we going to do?" I asked. "Aren't you going to help?"
"Not while it appears as me," he said with a growl. I thought back to our conversation on the night of my birthday, where he'd joked about his uselessness as an enforcer for Thalia, the world's most frightening vampire. And perhaps the strongest.
"They will apprehend the creature," Pam added. "It's overpowered."
"Get up on the stage," Eric said to us. "Everyone can see us clearly there and won't mistake us if the changeling decides to take a different form."
"Hold it together," Pam told Eric tersely. "I can feel your anger. Thalia knows what she's doing."
Pam took the throne on stage, fangs down, her eyes trained on the doors with the shrewdness of a hawk's. I could feel the hurricane of vampire minds out in the entrance area, and the panicked thoughts of the nearby humans. The vampires were battling against the fake-Eric who was putting up a big fight. Fear fluttered through me. I took the letter opener from my waist, holding it close to my side.
"So, it wasn't you in that horrendous dress earlier?" Pam asked.
"I thought it looked nice," Eric said, coming to stand beside me.
"It was white and shimmery," Pam said pulling a face. "A hippy's nightmare."
"That sounds like the dress Veronica wore the night of the bonfire," I said to Eric.
"It was," Eric said with a smirk.
"Then how did you not realize?" I said.
Before he could respond, Thalia tumbled into the room, still locked in battle with fake-Eric. "Go apprehend him," Eric commanded Pam.
"Yes, master." She zipped from her throne across the room, patrons parting to make way for her, though it looked like Thalia was getting the upper hand.
The mood in the crowd had turned excited and hungry, enlivened by the show. A big part of the human allure for Fangtasia was the sense of danger. Though in truth, it was all fake—an impression cleverly cultivated over the years by Pam and Eric to bring people in. The bar, for the most part, was as safe as any other. Except for now, maybe.
"Should we call, Ryker?" I asked Eric. "Or question the shapeshifter first?" Who knew how it would look in its natural form? I thought of the way some of the creatures had been described on the pages of Thalia's witch book and fought off a shiver.
"You aren't curious about what the changeling told me when it appeared as you?"
"I'm more curious about why you didn't think it was strange I was wearing that dress."
"She told me," he continued, "that she could never love me fully because supernatural beings were unnatural, and species should never mix."
Despite the severity of the mood, I snorted.
"Well, there's its motive. I can't believe you actually thought that was me. And what hogwash—by those standards, I'm doomed to remain alone with my mixed-up ancestry."
The chances of finding another one-eighth fairy telepath were lower than zero.
"As I learned…" he said, tone strange. I dragged my eyes from the fight to look at Eric.
Oh, crap.
The Eric beside me held the gleaming short sword from Thalia's house. I had no idea where he pulled it from. A collective gasp ripped across across the dance floor.
My stomach dropped.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked me. He lifted the blade up, so it caught the red light shining onto the stage.
"Big and pointy?" I said, backing up a step.
"A xiphos. Favored by the Greeks. Though, this one I can tell is Spartan." It trailed a finger along the gleaming ridge that ran down the center of the blade. "Because it's so short."
"Designed for close quarters." I said hoarsely, echoing its earlier words.
Before I had a chance to think, a chance to react, a chance to scream, it plunged the blade into my stomach. The momentum threw me backward and with a final forceful forward thrust, I was impaled onto the stage.
Screams tore across Fangtasia, and the world seemed to swell then shrink with light and sound and pressure. Eric was in front of me, the fake-Eric not the real one, and he laughed and twisted the blade. Pain burst like an explosion. I screamed.
Stupid. So stupid. How could have thought this was Eric? My Eric? His eyes were so cold, so dead inside. I was flung into the ice-cold waters of this fake-Eric's thoughts. I felt its reptilian satisfaction, its corporeal sense of vindication. It's self-righteous delight.
I suddenly remembered the letter opener, small as it was, in the waist of my skirt. Blindly I pulled it out and stabbed it into its side.
"Tit for tat," I wanted to say, but my words were garbled, moan-like.
Its expression flickered. Flickered into the faces of a million people and then it was gone, vanishing into nothing before me. The letter opener clattered to the floor.
I gasped for breath. Time slowed into a singular infinitesimal point.
Pain roared like static in my ears, a supernova radiating from my abdomen. I thought stab wounds weren't meant to hurt? I stared up at the painted black ceiling, specks like white stars floating across my field of vision. Is this what dying felt like? It felt like I was falling head-first upward.
Multiple voices called my name. My ears felt as though they were wadded with thick cotton; everything sounded far away.
"Eric?" I tasted blood.
He appeared in front of me, his face bloodied and bruised and pale–paler still when he took my injury in. That bad, huh? I wanted to laugh.
"Sookie…" I felt his hands ghost across the point of the wound. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay."
"Call Ludwig!" I heard Pam cry.
"I can't take the sword out," he told me. "You'll bleed."
"It's okay," I managed to rasp. I licked my lips and found them moist with blood. I felt it everywhere. My mouth, my throat, seeping through my blouse, pooling inside me. It was funny how it always came back to blood. Funny strange, not ha ha.
I took a breath to steady myself, but I couldn't seem the manage the effort. Eric's fangs were extended. This would be difficult for him. Mass amounts of anyone's blood would unsteady any vampire. Let alone my part-fairy blood.
Thalia appeared over Eric's shoulder; her expression grave as she examined me. In the fleeting moment we held eye contact, I understood the gravity of the situation.
Be turned or die. I heard her voice clearly in my mind. How?
"Make them leave," I whispered to Eric.
He turned and roared like a wounded lion. In short order, the room was cleared of bodies entirely. I felt a few voids hovering near the edges by the main doors.
"What can I do?" he asked quietly. I reached up and touched his cheek with my palm. His fingers brushed against mine in return. His touch felt warm against my skin. That couldn't be good.
"Don't turn me," I managed to say. "Please don't turn me."
He stared at me for what felt like a lifetime but, in reality, was probably only the briefest of moments.
"If that is what you want, I will not."
"Promise," I croaked.
"I won't turn you."
Some odd knot of tension loosened in my heart, and I sighed. A long red tear made its way down his cheek and dropped onto me. My vision blurred.
"Sookie, I—"
"Stop," I said, cutting off what I suspected was some declaration of unrequited anguish or, worse, love. "I need you to listen."
"I need to tell you-" he continued, but I cut him off again.
"Listen!" I tried to hiss but the word turned into a raw, wet cough. He fell quiet, waiting. His broad hand stroked my hair in a familiar, tender way.
"Everything's I've done I—" he said.
"Eric!" I said with all my might, which wasn't much. "I need you to listen…"
He finally stilled. I urged him to bring his ear to my mouth, which he did.
"I don't know how this works," I said weakly into his ear. "I-I'm not sure what's going to happen. But you have to take me. Take me somewhere. No Ludwig. No doctor. Take me and wait."
"What?" He drew back a little, brows furrowing. My energy was rapidly slipping. The last of it was steadily marching toward something far in the distance. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to rest.
"Take me somewhere safe and wait. Please."
"Explain. Tell me what's happening."
I shook my head slightly. I couldn't be sure. I didn't want to jinx myself. All I had was intuition. A deep churning sense of intuition. And a deep cut on my knuckle that had healed of its own accord.
"Please," I said. "Take me away."
"I'll have to remove the sword. You'll bleed out before I get you anywhere."
I reached down to feel the blade in my stomach. Its handle felt warm now too. My fingertips glanced over the intricate pattern on the hilt, and I wrapped my hands as tightly as I could muster around it.
"Please…" I rasped.
"What are you doing?" Eric said, alarmed. His hands covered mine, holding them in place. "Sookie, you mustn't."
I wasn't sure. How could one ever be sure? This was the last way anyone would want to test this kind of theory. I thought of my finger. I'd got this far through life relying on my intuition. I had to believe it would take me back to home plate this one last time.
"I have to."
I didn't want to spend the next hour, suffering in pain, bleeding out on the floor of Fangtasia. I could feel the life draining from me. I couldn't bear it. Either way the outcome would be the same, the only difference was the speed with which I reached it.
"No…" His wide, stricken eyes broke me.
It'll be okay, I wanted to say, but it drew too much energy to speak.
"Please," he said brokenly. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at him.
"It hurts, Eric," I finally whimpered. I could taste the pain. It was infiltrating every part of me. "Please…"
Eric's hands slowly tightened around mine.
With the last of my energy, he helped me pull the sword out.