Sookie 10 Dead in the Family (16 page)

“I know people still starve in many parts of the world. But sooner or later, this prosperity will extend everywhere. It just got here first.”

I found his optimism amazing. “You really think so?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “Braid my hair for me, would you, Sookie?”

I got my hairbrush and an elastic band. Color me silly, but I really enjoyed doing this. Eric sat on the stool in front of my vanity table, and I threw on a robe he’d given me, a beautiful peach-and-white-silk one. I began brushing Eric’s long hair. After he said he didn’t mind, I got some hair gel and slicked the blond strands back so there wouldn’t be any loose hairs ruining the look. I took my time, making the neatest braid I could, and then I tied off the end. Without his hair floating around his face, Eric looked more severe, but just as handsome. I sighed.

“What is this sound coming from you?” he asked, turning from side to side to get several views of himself in the mirror. “Are you not happy with the result?”

“I think you look great,” I said. Only the fact that he might accuse me of false modesty kept me from saying, “So what on earth are you doing with me?”

“Now I’ll do your hair.”

Something in me flinched. The night I’d had sex for the very first time, Bill had brushed my hair until the sensuality of the movement had turned into a very different kind of sensuality. “No, thanks,” I said brightly.

I realized that I felt very odd, all of a sudden.

Eric swung around to look up at me. “What’s making you so jumpy, Sookie?”

“Hey, what happened to Alaska and Hawaii?” I asked at random. I still had the brush in my hand, and without meaning to, I dropped it. It clattered on the wooden floor.

“What?” Eric looked down at the brush, then up at my face, in some confusion.

“What section are they in? They both in Nakamura?”

“Narayana. No. Alaska is lumped in with the Canadians. They have their own system. Hawaii is autonomous.”

“That’s just not right.” I was genuinely indignant. Then I remembered there was something very important I had to tell Eric. “I guess Heidi reported back to you after she sniffed out my land? She told you about the body?” My hand jerked involuntarily.

Eric was watching my every move, his eyes narrowed. “We already talked about Debbie Pelt. If you really want me to, I’ll move her.”

I shivered all over. I wanted to tell him that the body was fresh. I’d started out to do that, but somehow I was having trouble formulating my sentence. I felt so peculiar. Eric cocked his head, his eyes locked on my face. “You’re behaving very strangely, Sookie.”

“Do you think Alcide could tell from the smell that the corpse was Debbie?” I asked. What was wrong with me?

“Not from the scent,” he said. “A body is a body. It doesn’t retain the distinctive scent that identified it as a particular person, especially after this long. Are you so worried about what Alcide thinks?”

“Not as much as I used to be,” I said, babbling on. “Hey, I heard on the radio today that one of the senators from Oklahoma came out as a Were. He said he’d register with some government bureau the day they pried his fangs from his cold, dead corpse.”

“I think the backlash from this will benefit vampires,” Eric said with some satisfaction. “Of course, we’d always realized the government would want to keep track of us somehow. Now it seems that if the Weres win their fight to be free of supervision, we may be able to do the same.”

“You better get dressed,” I said. Something bad was going to happen soon, and Eric needed clothes.

He turned and peered at himself in the mirror one last time. “All right,” he said, a little surprised. He was still nude and magnificent. But at the moment, I wasn’t feeling a bit lusty. I was feeling jangly, and nervous, and worried. I felt like spiders were crawling all over my skin. I didn’t know what could be happening to me. I tried to speak but found I couldn’t. I made my fingers move in a “hurry up” gesture.

Eric gave me a quick, worried glance and wordlessly began searching for his clothes. He found his pants, and he pulled them on.

I sank down to the floor, my hands on both sides of my head. I thought my skull might detach from my spine. I whimpered. Eric dropped his shirt.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, sinking down to the floor beside me.

“Someone’s coming,” I said. “I feel so
strange
. Someone’s coming. Almost here. Someone with your blood.” I realized I’d felt a faint, faint trace of this same oddness before, when I’d confronted Bill’s maker, Lorena. I hadn’t had a blood bond with Bill, or at least not one anything like as binding as the one I had with Eric.

Eric rose to his feet in less than the blink of an eye, and I heard him make a sound deep in his chest. His hands were in white fists. I was huddled against my bed, and he was between me and the open window. In the blink of an eye, I realized there was someone right outside.

“Appius Livius Ocella,” Eric said. “It’s been a hundred years.”

Geez Louise. Eric’s maker.

Between Eric’s legs I could see a man, very scarred and very muscular, with dark eyes and hair. I knew he was short because I could only see his head and shoulders. He was wearing jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt. I couldn’t help it. I giggled.

“Haven’t you missed me, Eric?” The Roman’s voice had an accent I really couldn’t have broken down, it had so many layers.

“Ocella, your presence is always an honor,” Eric said. I giggled harder. Eric was lying.

“What is wrong with my wife?” he asked.

“Her senses are confused,” the older vampire said. “You have my blood. She’s had your blood. And another child of mine is here. The bond between us all is scrambling her thoughts and feelings.”

No shit.

“This is my new son, Alexei,” Appius Livius Ocella told Eric.

I peered past Eric’s legs. The new “son” was a boy of no more than thirteen or fourteen. In fact, I could hardly see his face. I froze, trying not to react.

“Brother,” said Eric by way of greeting his new sibling. The words came out level and cold.

I was going to stand up now. I was not going to crouch here any longer. Eric had crowded me into a very small space between the bed and the nightstand, with the bathroom door to my right. He hadn’t shifted from his defensive posture.

“Excuse me,” I said, with a great effort, and Eric took a step forward to give me room, keeping himself between me and his maker and the boy. I rose to my feet, pushing on the bed to get upright. I still felt fried. I looked Eric’s sire right in his dark and liquid eyes. For a fraction of a second, he looked surprised.

“Eric, you need to go to the front door and let them in,” I said. “I’ll bet they don’t really need an invitation.”

“Eric, she’s rare,” said Ocella in his oddly accented English. “Where did you find her?”

“I’m asking you in out of courtesy, because you’re Eric’s dad,” I said. “I could just leave you outside.” If I didn’t sound as strong as I wanted, at least I didn’t sound frightened.

“But my child is in this house, and if he is welcome, so am I. Am I not?” Ocella’s thick black brows rose. His nose. Well, you could tell why they coined the term “Roman nose.” “I waited to come in out of courtesy. We could have appeared in your bedroom.”

And the next moment they were inside.

I didn’t dignify that with an answer. I spared a glance for the boy, whose face was absolutely blank. He was no ancient Roman. He hadn’t been a vampire a full century, I estimated, and he seemed to come from Germanic stock. His hair was light and short and cut evenly, his eyes were blue, and when he met my own, he inclined his head.

“Your name is Alexei?” I asked.

“Yes,” said his maker, while the boy stood mute. “This is Alexei Romanov.”

Though the boy didn’t react, and neither did Eric, I had a moment of sheer horror. “You
didn’t
,” I said to Eric’s maker, who was about my height. “You
didn’t
.”

“I tried to save one of his sisters, too, but she was beyond my recall,” Ocella said bleakly. His teeth were white and even, though he was missing the one next to his left canine. If you had lost teeth before you became a vampire, they didn’t regenerate.

“Sookie, what is it?” Eric was not following, for once.

“The Romanovs,” I said, trying to keep my voice hushed as though the boy couldn’t hear me from twenty yards away. “The last Russian royal family.”

To Eric, the executions of the Romanovs must seem like yesterday, and perhaps not very important in the tapestry of deaths he’d experienced in his thousand years. But he understood that his maker had done something extraordinary. I looked at Ocella without anger, without fear, for just a few seconds, and I saw a man who, finding himself an outcast and lonely, looked for the most outstanding “children” he could find.

“Was Eric the first vampire you made?” I asked Ocella.

He was bemused by what he saw as my brazen attitude. Eric had a stronger reaction. As I felt his fear roll through me, I understood that Eric had to physically perform whatever Ocella ordered him to do. Before, that had been an abstract concept. Now I realized that if Ocella ordered Eric to kill me, Eric would be compelled to do it.

The Roman decided to answer me. “Yes, he was the first one I brought over successfully. The others I tried to bring over—they died.”

“Could we please leave my bedroom and go into the living room?” I said. “This is not the right place to receive visitors.” See? I was trying to be polite.

“Yes, I suppose,” said the older vampire. “Alexei? Where do you suppose the living room is?”

Alexei half turned and pointed in the right direction.

“Then that’s where we’ll go, dearest,” Ocella said, and Alexei led the way.

I had a moment to look up at Eric, and I knew my face was asking,
“What the hell is going on here?”
But he looked stunned, and helpless. Eric. Helpless. My head was whirling.

When I had a second to think about it, I was pretty nauseated, because Alexei was a child and I was fairly sure that Ocella had a sexual relationship with the boy, as he’d had with Eric. But I wasn’t foolish enough to think that I could stop it, or that any protest I made would make the slightest difference. In fact, I was far from sure Alexei himself would thank me for intervening, when I remembered Eric telling me about his desperate attachment to his maker during the first years of his new life as a vampire.

Alexei had been with Ocella for a long time now, at least in human terms. I couldn’t remember exactly when the Romanov family had been executed, but I thought it was sometime around 1918, and apparently it had been Ocella who’d saved the boy from final death. So whatever constituted their relationship, it had been ongoing for more than eighty years.

All these thoughts flickered through my head, one after another, as we followed the two visitors. Ocella had said he could have entered without warning. It would have been nice if Eric had told me about that. I could see how he might have hoped that Ocella would never visit, so I was willing to give Eric a pass. but I couldn’t help thinking that instead of his lecture on the ways vampires had sliced up my country according to their own convenience, it would have been more practical to let me know his maker could appear
in my bedroom
.

“Please, have a seat,” I said, after Ocella and Alexei had settled on the couch.

“So much sarcasm,” said Ocella. “Will you not offer us hospitality?” His gaze ran up and down me, and though the color of his eyes was rich and brown, they were utterly cold.

I had a second to realize how glad I was that I’d put a robe on. I would have rather eaten Alpo than been naked in front of these two. “I’m not happy with your popping up outside my bedroom window,” I said. “You could have come to the door and knocked, like people with good manners do.” I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know; vampires are good at reading people, and the oldest vampires are usually better than humans at telling what humans are feeling.

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t have seen such a charming sight.” Ocella let his gaze brush Eric’s shirtless body almost tangibly. Alexei, for the first time, showed an emotion. He looked scared. Was he afraid Ocella would reject him, throw him out onto the mercy of the world? Or was he afraid that Ocella would keep him?

I pitied Alexei from the bottom of my heart, and I feared him just as much.

He was as helpless as Eric.

Ocella had been looking at Alexei with an attention that was almost frightening. “He’s already much better,” Ocella murmured. “Eric, your presence is doing him so much good.”

I’d kind of figured things couldn’t get more awkward, but a peremptory knock at the back door followed by a “Sookie, you here?” told me that actually the night could get worse.

My brother, Jason, came in without waiting for me to answer. “Sookie, I saw your light on when I pulled up, so I figured you were awake,” he said, and then he stopped abruptly when he realized how much company I had. And what they were.

“Sorry to interrupt, Sook,” he said slowly. “Eric, how you doing?”

Eric said, “Jason, this is my. This is Appius Livius Ocella, my maker, and his other son Alexei.” Eric said it properly, “AP-pi-us Li-WEE-us Oh-KEL-ah.”

Jason nodded at both of the newcomers, but he avoided looking directly at the older vampire. Good instinct. “Good evening, O’Kelly. Hey, Alexei. So you’re Eric’s little brother, huh? Are you a Viking like Eric?”

“No,” said the boy faintly. “I am Russian.” Alexei’s accent was much lighter than the Roman’s. He looked at Jason with interest. I hoped he wasn’t thinking about biting my brother. The thing about Jason, and what made him so attractive to people (particularly women), was that he practically radiated life. He just seemed to have an extra helping of vigor and vitality, and it was returning with a boom now that the misery of his wife’s death was fading. This was his manifestation of the fairy blood in his veins.

“Well, good to meet you-all,” Jason said. Then he quit paying attention to the visitors. “Sookie, I came to get that little side table from up in the attic. I came by here once before to pick it up, but you were gone and I didn’t have my key with me.” Jason kept a key to my house for emergencies, just as I kept a key to his.

I’d forgotten his asking me for the table when we’d had dinner together. At this point, he could have asked me for my bedroom set, and I would have agreed just to get him out of danger. I said, “Sure, I don’t need it. Go on up. I don’t think it’s very far inside the door.”

Jason excused himself, and everyone’s eyes followed him as he bounded up the stairs. Eric was probably just trying to keep his eyes busy while he thought, but Ocella watched my brother with frank appraisal, and Alexei with a kind of yearning.

“Would you like some TrueBlood?” I asked the vampires, through clenched teeth.

“I suppose, if you won’t offer yourself or your brother,” the ancient Roman said.

“I won’t.”

I turned to go to the kitchen.

“I feel your anger,” Ocella said.

“I don’t care,” I said, without turning to face him. I heard Jason coming downstairs, a little more slowly now that he was carrying the table. “Jason, you want to come with me?” I said over my shoulder.

He was more than glad to leave the room. Though he was civil to Eric because he knew I loved him, Jason was not happy in the company of vamps. He put the table down in a corner of the kitchen.

“Sook, what’s going on here?”

“Come into my room for a second,” I said after I’d gotten the bottles out of my refrigerator. I’d feel a lot better if I had more clothes on. Jason trailed after me. I shut the door once we were inside my bedroom.

“Watch the door. I don’t trust that old one,” I said, and Jason obligingly turned his back and watched the door while I pulled off the robe, getting into my clothes as fast as I’ve ever dressed in my life.

“Whoa,” Jason said, and I jumped. I turned to see that Alexei had opened the door and would have entered if Jason hadn’t been holding it.

“I’m sorry,” Alexei said. His voice was a ghost of a voice, a voice that once had been. “I apologize to you, Sookie, and you, Jason.”

“Jason, you can let him in. What are you sorry for, Alexei?” I asked. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen and I’ll warm up the TrueBlood.” We trailed into the kitchen. We were a little farther from the living room, and there was a chance Eric and Ocella wouldn’t hear us.

“My master is not always like this. His age, it turns him.”

“Turns him into what? A total jerk? A sadist? A child molester?”

A faint smile crossed the boy’s face. “At times, all of those,” he said succinctly. “But truthfully, I haven’t been well myself. That’s why we’re here.”

Jason began to look angry. He likes kids, always has. Even though Alexei could have killed Jason in a second, Jason thought of Alexei as a child. My brother was building up a big mad, actually thinking of charging into the living room to confront Appius Livius Ocella.

“Listen, Alexei, you don’t have to stay with that dude if you don’t want to,” Jason said. “You can stay with me or Sookie, if Eric won’t put you up. Nobody’s gonna make you stay with someone you don’t want to be with.” Bless Jason’s heart, he sure didn’t know what he was talking about.

Alexei smiled, a faint smile that was simply heart-piercing. “Really, he is not so bad. He is a good man, I believe, but from a time you can’t imagine. I think you are used to knowing vampires who are trying to. mainstream. Master, he is not trying to do this. He is much happier in the shadows. And I must stay with him. Please don’t trouble yourselves, but I thank you for your concern. I’m feeling better already now that I’m with my brother. I don’t feel as if I’ll suddenly do something. regrettable.”

Jason and I looked at each other. That was enough to make us both worried.

Alexei was looking around the kitchen as if he seldom saw one. I figured that was probably true.

I took the warm bottles out of the microwave and shook them. I put some napkins on the tray with the bottles. Jason got himself a Coke from the refrigerator.

I didn’t know what to think about Alexei. He apologized for Ocella like the Roman was his grumpy grandpa, but it was apparent that he was in Ocella’s sway. Of course he was; he was Ocella’s child in a very real sense.

It was an awfully strange situation, having a figure out of history sitting in your living room. I thought of the horrors he’d experienced, both before and after his death. I thought of his childhood as the tsarevitch, and I knew that despite his hemophilia, that childhood must have contained some glorious moments. I didn’t know whether the boy often longed for the love, devotion, and luxury that had surrounded him from birth until the rebellion, or (considering he’d been executed along with his whole immediate family) whether it was possible he saw being a vampire as an improvement over being buried in a pit in the woods in Russia.

Though with the hemophilia, his life expectancy in those days would have been pretty damn short anyway.

Jason added ice to his glass and looked in the cookie jar. I didn’t keep cookies anymore, because if I did, I’d eat ’em. He closed the jar sadly. Alexei was watching everything Jason did as if he were observing an animal he’d never seen before.