Sookie 09 Dead and Gone (8 page)

He had never sounded less like a modern man. “How old were you?”

He considered. “I was in my early twenties,” he said. “Perhaps twenty-three. Aude was older. She had been my elder brother’s wife, and when he was killed in battle, it fell to me to marry her so our families would still be bonded. But I’d always liked her, and she was willing. She wasn’t a silly girl; she’d lost two babies of my brother’s, and she was glad to have more that lived.”

“What happened to your children?”

“When I became a vampire?”

I nodded. “They can’t have been very old.”

“No, they were small. It happened not long after Aude’s death,” he said. “I missed her, you see, and I needed someone to raise the children. No such thing as a househusband then.” He laughed. “I had to go raiding. I had to be sure the slaves were doing what they ought in the fields. So I needed another wife. One night I went to visit the family of a young woman I hoped would marry me. She lived a mile or two away. I had some worldly goods, and my father was a chief, and I was thought a handsome man and was a noted fighter, so I was a good prospect. Her brothers and her father were glad to greet me, and she seemed . . . agreeable. I was trying to get to know her a bit. It was a good evening. I had high hopes. But I had a lot to drink there, and on my way home that night . . .” Eric paused, and I saw his chest move. In remembering his last moments as a human, he had actually taken a deep breath. “It was the full moon. I saw a man lying hurt by the side of the road. Ordinarily I would have looked around to find those who had attacked him, but I was drunk. I went over to help him; you can probably guess what happened after that.”

“He wasn’t really hurt.”

“No. But I was, soon after. He was very hungry. His name was Appius Livius Ocella.” Eric actually smiled, though without much humor. “He taught me many things, and the first was not to call him Appius. He said I didn’t know him well enough.”

“The second thing?”

“How to get to know him.”

“Oh.” I figured I understood what that meant.

Eric shrugged. “It was not so bad . . . once we left the area I knew. In time, I stopped pining after my children and my home. I had never been away from my people. My father and mother were still alive. I knew my brothers and my sisters would make sure the children were brought up to be as they ought, and I had left enough to keep them from being a burden. I worried, of course, but there was no helping it. I had to stay away. In those days, in small villages, any stranger was instantly noticed, and if I ventured anywhere close to where I’d lived, I’d be recognized and hunted. They would know what I was, or at least know I was . . . wrong.”

“Where did you and Appius go?”

“We went to the biggest cities we could find, which were few enough then. We traveled all the time, parallel to the roads so we could prey on travelers.”

I shuddered. It was painful to imagine Eric, so flamboyant and quick-witted, skulking through the woods in search of easy blood. It was awful to think of the unfortunates he’d ambushed.

“There were not so many people,” he said. “Villagers would miss their neighbors immediately. We had to keep moving. Young vampires are so hungry; at first, I killed even when I didn’t mean to.”

I took a deep breath. This was what vampires did; when they were young, they killed. There had been no substitute for fresh blood then. It was kill, or die. “Was he good to you? Appius Livius Ocella?” How much worse could you have it than to be the constant companion of the man who had murdered you?

“He taught me all he knew. He had been in the legions, and he was a fighter, as I was, so we had that in common. He liked men, of course, and that took some getting used to. I had never done that. But when you’re a new vampire, anything sexual seems exciting, so even that I enjoyed . . . eventually.”

“You had to comply,” I said.

“Oh, he was much stronger . . . though I was a bigger man than him—taller, longer arms. He had been vampire for so many centuries, he’d lost count. And of course, he was my sire. I had to obey.” Eric shrugged.

“Is that a mystical thing or a made-up rule?” I asked, curiosity finally getting the better of me.

“It’s both,” Eric said. “It’s a compulsion. It’s impossible to resist, even when you want to . . . even when you’re desperate to get away.” His white face was closed and brooding.

I couldn’t imagine Eric doing something he didn’t want to do, being in a subservient position. Of course, he had a boss now; he wasn’t autonomous. But he didn’t have to bow and scrape, and he made most of his own decisions.

“I can’t imagine it,” I said.

“I wouldn’t want you to.” His mouth pulled down at one corner, a wry expression. Just when I began to ponder the irony of that, since he’d perhaps married me vampire-style without asking me, Eric changed the subject, slamming shut the door on his past. “The world has changed a great deal since I was human. The past hundred years have been especially exciting. And now the Weres are out, and all the other two-natured. Who knows? Maybe the witches or the fae will step forward next.” He smiled at me, though it was a little stiff.

His idea gave me a happy fantasy of seeing my great-grandfather Niall every day. I’d only learned of his existence a few months before, and we hadn’t spent much time together, but learning I had a living ancestor had been very important to me. I had so few blood kin. “That would be wonderful,” I said wistfully.

“My lover, it will never happen,” Eric said. “The creatures that make up the fae are the most secret of all the supernatural beings. There are not many remaining in this country. In fact, there are not so many remaining in the world. The number of their females, and the fertility of those females, is dropping every year. Your great-grandfather is one of the few survivors with royal blood. He would never condescend to treat with humans.”

“He talks to me,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what “treat” meant.

“You share his blood.” Eric waved his free hand. “If you didn’t, you would never have seen him.”

Well, no, Niall wasn’t going to stop in at Merlotte’s for a brew and a chicken basket and shake hands all around. I looked at Eric unhappily. “I wish he’d help Jason out,” I said, “and I never thought I’d say that. Niall doesn’t seem to like Jason at all, but Jason’s going to be in a lot of trouble about Crystal’s death.”

“Sookie, if you’re asking for my thoughts, I have no idea why Crystal was killed.” And he really didn’t care much. At least with Eric, you could tell where you stood.

In the background the KDED DJ said, “Next, Thom Yorke’s ‘And It Rained All Night.’” While Eric and I had been having our one-on-one, the bar sounds had seemed muted, far-away. Now they came back with a rush.

“The police and the werepanthers, they’ll track whoever did it,” he said. “I’m more concerned about these FBI agents. What is their goal? Do they want to take you away? Can they do that in this country?”

“They wanted to identify Barry. Then they wanted to find out what Barry and I could do, and how we could do it. Maybe they were supposed to ask if we’d work for them, and Crystal’s death interrupted our conversation before they could say anything.”

“And you don’t want to work for them.” Eric’s bright blue eyes were intent on my face. “You don’t want to leave.”

I pulled my hand out from under his. I watched my hands clasp each other, twist. “I don’t want people to die because I wouldn’t help them,” I said. I felt my eyes brim with tears. “But I’m selfish enough that I don’t want to go wherever they send me, trying to find dying people. I couldn’t stand the wear and tear of seeing disaster every day. I don’t want to leave home. I’ve been trying to imagine what it would be like, what they might have me do. And it scares me to death.”

“You want to own your own life,” Eric said.

“As much as anyone can.”

“Just when I think you’re very simple, you say something complex,” Eric said.

“Are you complaining?” I tried to smile, failed.

“No.”

A heavy girl with a big jaw came up and thrust an autograph book in front of Eric. “Could you please sign this?” she said. Eric gave her a blinding smile and scribbled on the blank page. “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, and went back to her table. Her friends, all women just old enough to be in the bar, were exclaiming at her courage, and she leaned forward, telling them all about her encounter with the vampire. As she finished, one of the human waitresses drifted up to their table and took another order for drinks. The staff here was well-trained.

“What was she thinking?” Eric asked me.

“Oh, she was very nervous and she thought you were lovely, but . . .” I struggled to put it into words. “Not handsome in a way that was very real to her, because she would never think she would actually get to have you. She’s very . . . she doesn’t think much of herself.”

I had one of those flashes of fantasy.
Eric would walk over to her, bow to her, give her a reverent kiss on the cheek, ignore her prettier friends. This gesture would make every man in the bar wonder what the vampire saw in her that they couldn’t see. Suddenly the plain girl would be overwhelmed with attention from the men who’d witnessed the interchange. Her friends would give her respect because Eric had. Her life would change
.

But none of that happened, of course. Eric forgot about the girl as soon as I’d finished speaking. I didn’t think it would work out like my fantasy, even if he did approach her. I felt a flash of disappointment that fairy tales didn’t come true. I wondered if my fairy great-grandfather had ever heard one of what we thought of as a fairy tale. Did fairy parents tell fairy children human tales? I was willing to bet they didn’t.

I felt a moment of disconnect, as if I were standing back from my own life and viewing it from afar. The vampires owed me money and favors for my services to them. The Weres had declared me a friend of the pack for my help during the just-completed war. I was pledged to Eric, which seemed to mean I was engaged or even married. My brother was a werepanther. My great-grandfather was a fairy. It took me a moment to pull myself back into my own skin. My life was too weird. I had that out-of-control feeling again, as if I were spinning too fast to stop.

“Don’t talk to the FBI people alone,” Eric was saying. “Call me if it’s at night. Call Bobby Burnham if they come in the day.”

“But he hates me!” I said, dragged back into reality and thus not too cautious. “Why would I call him?”

“What?”

“Bobby hates me,” I said. “He’d love it if the feds carted me off to some underground bunker in Nevada for the rest of my life.”

Eric’s face looked frozen. “He said this?”

“He didn’t have to. I can tell when someone thinks I’m slime.”

“I’ll have a talk with Bobby.”

“Eric, it’s not against the law for someone to dislike me,” I said, remembering how dangerous it could be to complain to a vampire.

He laughed. “Maybe I’ll make it against the law,” he said teasingly, his accent more apparent than usual. “If you can’t reach Bobby—and I am absolutely sure he will help you—you should call Mr. Cataliades, though he’s down in New Orleans.”

“He’s doing well?” I hadn’t seen or heard from the half-demon lawyer since the collapse of the vampire hotel in Rhodes.

Eric nodded. “Never better. He is now representing Felipe de Castro’s interests in Louisiana. He would help if you asked him. He’s quite fond of you.”

I stored that piece of information away to ponder. “Did his niece survive?” I asked. “Diantha?”

“Yes,” Eric said. “She was buried for twelve hours, and the rescuers knew she was there. But there were beams wedged over the place where she was trapped, and it took time to remove them. They finally dug her out.”

I was glad to hear Diantha was alive. “And the lawyer, Johan Glassport?” I asked. “He had a few bruises, Mr. Cataliades said.”

“He recovered fully. He collected his fee and then he vanished into the depths of Mexico.”

“Mexico’s gain is Mexico’s loss,” I said. I shrugged. “I guess it takes a lawyer to get your money when the hirer is dead. I never got mine. Maybe Sophie-Anne thought Glassport did more for her, or he had the wits to ask even though she’d lost her legs.”

“I didn’t know you weren’t paid.” Eric looked displeased all over again. “I’ll talk to Victor. If Glassport collected for his services to Sophie, you certainly should. Sophie left a large estate, and no children. Victor’s king owes you a debt. He’ll listen.”

“That would be great,” I said. I may have sounded a little too relieved.

Eric eyed me sharply. “You know,” he said, “if you need money, you have only to ask. I will not have you going without anything you need, and I know you enough to be sure you wouldn’t ask for money for something frivolous.”

He almost didn’t sound like that was such an admirable attribute. “I appreciate the thought,” I said, and I could hear my voice get all stiff. “I just want what’s due me.”

There was a long silence between us, though the bar was at its usual noise level around Eric’s table.

“Tell me the truth,” Eric said. “Is it possible you came here simply to spend time with me? You haven’t yet told me how angry you are with me that I tricked you over the knife. Apparently you’re not going to, at least not tonight. I haven’t yet discussed with you all my memories of the time we spent together when you were hiding me at your house. Do you know why I ended up so close to your home, running down that road in the freezing cold?”

His question was so unexpected that I was struck silent. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. But finally I said, “No, I don’t.”

“The curse contained within the witch, the curse that activated when Clancy killed her . . . it was that I would be close to my heart’s desire without ever realizing it. A terrible curse and one that Hallow must have constructed with great subtlety. We found it dog-eared in her spell book.”

There was nothing for me to say. I’d think about that, though.

It was the first time I’d come to Fangtasia simply to talk, without having been called there for some vampire reason. Blood bond or something much more natural? “I think . . . I just wanted some company,” I said. “No soul-shaking revelations.”