The characters of the Southern Vampire Mysteries belong to Miss Charlaine Harris. No infringement on my part is intended. The characters on True Blood belong to Mr. Alan Ball. No infringement on my part is intended.
I have no BETA, editor, or other such charming person. All mistakes are my own. This Story is rated M.
THE WERES’ CURSE, Curse the Moon — Part Deux: Chapter 3
Eric stuck his head into Samuel’s room. “Did I hear you talking to someone?” he asked.
“Mother stopped in,” he grinned at him.
“Everything all right?” his voice held concern as he came in.
“Yes, everything is just fine. She just confirmed what I thought I already knew.”
“What, that you are her baby boy?” Eric grinned at him.
“Yes,” he nodded looking very pleased. “And also that she is the one that turned me.”
“What?” Eric did a double take.
“I have heard the other child/maker stories. The boys in the band tell some of the best ones. And with you and Godric, it was a non-event for you as well.”
Eric nodded. “Pretty much. I woke up, we dug out and welcome to vampire.”
Samuel was looking thoughtful. “The odd thing was, I knew it was her. The sameness,” he paused. “It was odd. As that small child, I knew it was an angel that had carried us. An angel that was prepared for war. Her armor was…was…” Samuel reached out with his hands. “It flowed with her movement. It was not rigid and harsh as I clung to her. Its texture was like that of velvet. She was so strong…and righteous…you could feel that as it flowed out of her, and yet so gentle.”
Laughing, he wiped the tears from his eyes. “She carried us as if we were nothing. Her stride sure. Her eyes focused on me whenever I would ask her a question. I could hear her giving words of comfort to my mother and telling her not to worry. And she never looked back. It was if Pharaoh’s army was of no concern to her.” His laughter increased. “And…and…” he chuckled. “It really was of no concern to her.
I knew that no other man or woman was capable of that strength. The way she held me in her arms as we crossed across the sea bed. That was the exact same way she held me while she turned me.
And she smelled of…of…” Samuel grinned. “To this day, I have never encountered that smell, for all the places I have been.”
“Maybe she smelled like home,” Eric was thoughtful. “However the two of you define that.”
A softness embraced Samuel. His entire being glowed and peace radiated out form him.
“Yes,” he nodded, as he brushed away the tears. “Yes, home.
She was not there with me when I woke. But her presence was everywhere and I knew that I had been turned for a greater purpose. And that I was loved and cherished.
I would catch glimpses of her before I would go to my rest and even feel her presence before I would truly wake. But It did not make the following days, months, years, millennia any easier. I knew my purpose was to save my people. And if being held captive had taught me anything, even as a young child, it was whoever had the money had the power to make things happen or deny you and your loved ones, their life.
I sometimes wonder what I would be like if my father had lived. Would I have become that priest to my people?”
“Samuel,” Eric said gently, “but you have become a priest to your people. You may not be the kind that is found in a synagogue or available for counseling by phone. By your carry that goodness and rightness within you and you see to it that the tribe of Israel is well funded. That those that are in need are well funded.”
“Well, you can thank Ramses the Second for putting me on that track. He had been dead for fifty years and his tomb just completed and filled with the treasures of his kingdom when I went back to Egypt to do a little tomb-raiding and become the financier that I am, today.
That is also when I met O.I. sorting through the gold to add to his horde. And things became much clearer and yet more obscure.”
“Mo’ fo’n,” they both chuckled.
“And you had quite the evening, yourself,” Samuel grinned at him. “Miss Stackhouse: she is blonde, petite and telepath.”
“Mo’ fo’n,” Eric sighed. “That went much better than I thought it would because it could have most decidedly been much worse.”
“She is charming, Eric,” Samuel stepped in and hugged his brother. “And delightful.”
“She is so much more than I deserve,” Eric sighed and pulled Samuel in that much closer. “But I have to thank Clifford for getting that name thing out of the way.”
Samuel pulled back so he could see Eric’s face.
“Truly my brother, what was up with that? Vikings are fierce. Clan Chieftains even fiercer.”
Eric was shaking his head then ran his hands through his hair. Smiling at his brother, he said, “It does indeed take a certain kind of balls to do that. Because a clan chieftain really is all that. This tale begins with a chieftain; his wife gives birth to three boys. The two oldest were a couple of Were shit heads and the baby brother, whom we shall call Sugar Tit did not stand a chance. They would torment him….like unto death, or so the story goes. So the little guy gets hurt and goes crying to his mother who sits down and nurses him.
So the years roll by and the two older brothers continue to torment him, only now on a much grander scale. The lad is ten, on his way to being a man and his mother will still let him nurse when his brothers beat the hell out of him, literally.
Time passes. The war cry is sounded and off go the oldest brothers and they do not return, because on the battle field, there are bigger and meaner than them and if you call your enemy a sugar tit, you are guaranteed an ugly death. Eventually, the father dies and Sugar Tit is declared clan chieftain. By this time he has married and has children and he still likes to nurse. His wife was a Shield Maiden and would go to war with him, just so, you know, he could suckle at her breast before the battle.”
“Did he live to a ripe old age?” Samuel asked.
“So goes the story,” Eric replied.
“And do you know this for fact?” Samuel grinned at him.
“Sugar Tit was my father’s grandfather,” he replied with a grin.
“Daylight is getting ready to be a horizon event,” Samuel smiled. “Rest well this day, my brother.”
“And you as well,” Eric kissed him on the forehead and left.
At the Stackhouse farmhouse, it was mid-morning and still quiet. The humans were stirring a bit and the dragons were playing cards at the breakfast table and cooking. They had eaten all the pie in the early hours after the vamps had left and now they were contemplating their good and righteous futures.
And it looked mighty good and very righteous!
M.R. made another pot of coffee while S.I. pulled the cinnamon rolls out of the oven and was fussing about how there was no more pumpkin spice creamer for his coffee.
“Never in all my days,” M.R. placed his hand over his heart, “did I thinks our oldest brother would walk through the shadow of the valley of death…”
“And making a proud moment of it,” M.E rolled his eyes. “Brother dear even autographed that photo in the middle of that wall of shame and is wanting to sell copies so he has bragging rights about the most tips made in the bar. And lordy, he does look like a serial killer in that gear. That orange is so not his color.”
“Not for real sure how selling that photo can count as tip money,” S.I. replied as he eyed the oatmeal box, showed it to his brothers and they all nodded yes.
“Has a cookie recipe right on the box,” he wiggled his eyebrows. “Cookies are breakfast food, right?
“Best breakfast, ever,” M.R. nodded in agreement. “Any coconut and nuts and maybe some white chocolate to go in those cookies? I have had a Ranger Cookie. Made with oatmeal and all things good for you.”
The brothers nodded in agreement as they went back to eyeing the cookie recipe.
“That boy should never wear orange and O.I. always has a plan when it comes to laying it all down.” M.E. was looking delighted as he went through the cabinets and pulled out the ingredients for the cookies “Just look at how he took what would be an embarrassing negative for the rest of us and turned it into a positive. I mean, he is front and center there on the wall of shame at The Cog & Wheel…I mean, when you walk in, it is the first thing your eyes go to and his eyes in that photo just follow you around the whole time you are there. I sat myself around a wall in a back corner and I could still see his eyes peeking around the corner at me.”
“Powerful stuff is the legend of our oldest brother,” S.I. nodded.
“M-m-m h-m-m. The Overlord of the TrashTruck said his happy ass will be working there as waiter extraordinary, today, as well. Apparently, he bet her that he would be straight and stalwart the whole time he was on the job with her. Sometimes he does not think before he speaks because that was all Gabriel needed to own his ass.”
“You got the particulars on that?” S.I. asked. “I do not need to be making the same mistake. Especially if we are living here and can be baking some goodness every day.”
“You know I do,” he chuckled. “So, they goes driving through Washington D.C., and they are admiring the sights and commenting on this and that and watching Death as he was out cleaning the streets with one of those new-fangled drive’m around street cleaners.”
“Heard that. So it is not a rumor,” S.I. was giving that some serious thought. “Mo’ fo’n, he is so gorgeous, The Light had to step in and put him behind a windshield to keep the ladies from wanting to date him. Heard one or two threw their undies at him.”
“Truth, for sure,” the brothers all nodded.
“So,” M.E. continued on, “duo of the trashtruck’m wave and stop and chat with Death and talk a little biz and move on down the big road with the windows down and working for and crusading for righteousness, all buddy-buddy and high-fiving and brother dear is talkin’ trash. Mo’ fo’n this and hell bound, that…”
“I can see it,” M.R. snickered. “When he starts to high-fiving, he owns the world. He thinks he has got her and the Mistress of the Melodious Hell Bound Skanks knows she has got him.”
M.E. wiggled his eyebrows and continued on. “As they go past the Smithsonian they are admiring the fine architecture and then the Capitol is dead ahead. Miss Round’em Up and Drop Them Off said that there was not one politician abiding in the Capitol building that was going to Hell.”
“Mo’ fo’n,” M.R. giggled.
“Exactly,” M.E. wiggled his eyebrows and snorted so loudly he blew out flame.
“Brother dearest, he lost it…the giggles started in earnest, then him laughing and slapping his leg and blowing smoke and flames, fire so hot he busted out her windshield. Now his happy ass is working the bar.
Then Momma found out about his attempting to walk that mighty fine line of doing right and getting one past the Mistress of Mega TrashHauling. So Momma volunteered him for another day to the pleased and happy Collector of Wrongdoing, INC. And Momma says that the Lady of Bad Ass does not have to pay her oldest boy so he is riding with Gabriel after he finishes his shift at the bar.”
All the brothers high-fived and started on the cookies. Happy sounds coming from their mouths as they discussed what else needed to be fixed for breakfast.
“What about something chocolate?” M.R. asked.
“Oh yes,” the other two nodded. “Let’s do muffins and maybe one of those chocolate dump cakes. You know, the kind with the runny centers.”
“We need ice cream with that?” S.I. asked.
“Supposed to have milk with breakfast, so yes,” M.E. replied. “Milk builds strong bones in humans.”
“I’ll check the freezer,” S.I. opened the door and stuck his head in. “Oh good,” he said making his way to the back. “Gots vanilla frozenness and looks to be bacon.”
“Lordy,” all the brothers rolled their eyes. “Hit that with a small amount of flame to defrost and let’s get that in the pan.”
After breakfast, Sookie was sitting out on the porch swing drinking her coffee and enjoying the cookie hot from the oven.
During breakfast, she had been bedecked and bejeweled and the sunlight that was peeking through the clouds lit her up like a million diamonds reflecting off a crystal, clear stream.
Gran came out and sat down beside her.
“What cha’ thinking, granddaughter?” she asked softly.
There were tears in her eyes as she turned to face her. “I have been tryin’ to sort this out. Brother Samuel says we are rich. He will purchase the jewelry from us. Millions of dollars after the fact, we are even richer because he will invest our money.
We have dragons in the kitchen cookin’ and poppin’ out to here and there to get the ingredients they need to bake with, and Lafayette’s twin dragon brother is out ridin’ shotgun with the Archangel Gabriel and pickin’ up the hell bound trash of this world.
Actually saw Satan last night…and she,” Sookie stressed, “really is just as stupid and ignorant as they come. I mean…seriously…just stupid…” she said, her voice a bit mystified.
Taking another drink of coffee, she took Gran’s hand. “Then of course, there is Eric. Eric Northman, who is going to come callin’ on me, as in a gentleman caller; along with his brothers and I am going to be privileged to hear some of the most embarrassin’ moments of his life.
Did I just fall down a rabbit hole? And this cookie is one of the best things I have ever tasted!”
“No,” Gran smiled at her. “You did not.
And yes, those cookies, woof,” she rolled her eyes. “Best thing that has passed these lips I think, ever.
And just look at you. You are all sparkley and divine looking in your jewels,” Gran raised her hand and kissed it.
The tears began to roll down Sookie’s face. “What just happened Gran?” she managed to get out. “This cannot be real.”
“Sookie my darling,” Gran smiled at her, “everyone gets a turn. And yours is a doozy.”
Eric was drinking a bagged blood when Samuel came in, raised an eyebrow and chuckled, “it must be love.”
Eric said nothing as he opened another blood and downed that one as well.
“You are going to tell her about Doozy, correct?” The oldest living vampire grinned.
“Might as well just start with that,” Eric tossed the empty into the waste basket that was across the room.
Cedric stuck his head in, assessed the situation and grinned. “Must be love me boy’o is a feelin’. Mr. Clifford apprised me that you were not even requestion’ room temp. Just right out of the fridge.”
“And just where is British Isle?” Eric growled, making a scary vampire face.
“He is a havin’ his way with his meal. You have got me boy’o in a tail-spin….as in,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “a tail-spin. Our boy is adventurin’ out and past his regular way of pleasin’ the ladies and is goin’ with somethin’ he calls A Tail Spin.”
“I know when I am being mocked,” Eric growled.
“Good,” Cedric laughed out loud. “I want Miss Sookie to be hearin’ about you on the spinnin’ tail-spin of death at Doozy’s.”
“That,” Ian stuck his head in, “is what you get for having such a great ass, if I might quote the ladies. They all want to see it and maybe have their turn at sticking something in it.”
“Or,” Cedric was hooting, “watchin’ someone else stick somethin’ in it.”
“Gawd,” Eric drawled out, “I fucking hate Paris. Especially in the winter time.”
“Paris, December, 1637 it is then,” Samuel grinned. “Pierre Corneille’s play Le Cid, had just opened,” his voice took on that of a sports announcer.
” Crowds were aghast that a tragedy could have a happily ever after. And that low morals were to be shamed…unless you had enough money to pay off the clergy and judge. And just like now, it all revolved around the struggle concerning obligation and true love.”
“You guys suck,” Eric said, his eyes shooting sparks.
“Right,” Ian grinned, “like we have all not heard that before.”
“Let’s get there,” Samuel grinned. “I am most charmed by my future grandmother-in-law.”
A low, throaty growl escaped Eric’s throat.
“To our Miss Sookie,” Ian called out as they all cheered and clapped and vamp speed, they were away.
“Fuck,” Eric sighed. “The Emporium of Doozer’s Fine and Ancient Artifacts Circus is now open for business.”
“Master Eric?” Clifford asked grinning at him. “Do you require something more?”
“What the fuck!” he hissed looking around when reality hit that he was still standing here and not at Sookie’s. “No one is going to be running interference for me except me. What a bunch of posers I have for brothers! O-o-o-o, great,” he felt his heart beat. “Now I am quoting The Child! I am in way over my head on this one and I am quoting Pamela. How can this possibly end well? And I have to tell the mother of my children about Paris! And why am I still standing here?” he berated himself as a smirking Clifford held the door open and he was gone.
Sookie was sitting outside on the front steps. The other vamps had arrived and were inside entreating Gran and the dragons. “And the dragons…” she felt the hysterical laughter well up inside of her. It had been a night and a day… “should have stayed away from those cookies,” she brought herself back under control. “This is a sugar high and then some.”
Samuel had clasped her hands to his when he stopped before her and wished her welcome to the new dark. “It is a lot to take in,” he had told her. “What do you want to do?”
“Is he coming?” she had asked timidly.
“Yes,” he smiled at her. “He is,” he said raising her hands to his lips and placed a kiss there. He had told her Eric would be along shortly.
She had nodded and taken herself outside to wait for him. Grabbing the quilt off the back of the couch, she had pulled a blanket around herself and was trying not to get too lost or too scared in her own thoughts.
Looking over her shoulder she could see O.I. and Lafayette sitting on the porch swing smoking those nasty little cigarillos and doing tequila shots. Apparently Gabriel had put his royal bad ass through his paces because Momma dragon was still having words with her oldest…
There had been said more than once “…and my mo’ fo’n un-rightness ass belongs to the Collector of the Damned until Momma says otherwise, and rightfully so,” he had sniffled and wiped away the tears as Lafayette poured them both another shot and His La La Fineness could only say, “Mommas, if they ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy…just say’n…”
“This is a good time and place,” she kept repeating to herself. “The very best that the world has to offer me is right at this moment, because I am not promised the next second.”
Her brain would not settle as she kept hopping from one thought to another. Listening to the two on the swing, she wished they would just toss her the bottle so she could get drunk and call this fucker, done.
“I am not a coward,” she fussed at herself. “I am a survivor. Not some poor lost pity-me quitter who just gives up when the sky falls.”
The darkness was no longer that of blackness and darker and deeper shadows. Something so void you could get lost in it and not return. In the realm of the pit of darkness, there was a light. She could see him in the distance. She knew it was Eric. There was a glow that was the shape of a man coming towards her through the obscurity of the trees. The pace was steady and measured and with purpose. And as he approached, she could see him. The color of his hair, his clothes, the flowers he was carrying. Purple lilacs and tulips. The sweetness of the aroma made her lean out towards him in anticipation of she knew not what.
When he stood before her, she reached out a hand and touched where his heart used to beat. “You glow,” was all she had in a way of greeting.
“My grandmother said that I did,” he replied as he raised her hand for a kiss. “And that my wife and children would be able to see it as well. She told me that my family would always be able to recognize me. And that no matter what happened to me, in this life or the next, this glow would validate to them who I was. I cannot see it but I never doubted her words.
I know,” he began softly, “you have had a day and that I have not been available to sit with you and discuss any of this.”
The tears began streaming down her cheeks. “I…I…”
“You do not have to do or say anything,” he smiled at her as he sat down on the porch step and pulled her down next to him. “You have options, Sookie Stackhouse. And I do not have to be one of them. Momma M.R.S. has seen to this. You are independently wealthy and will be the rest of your days, that do not have to include me,” he stressed.
“Cookies that are made by dragons are the best thing I have ever tasted,” she managed to get out.
“A most excellent place to start,” he bent his face down to hers. “How was your day with the bad-boys of the flame throwers?”
“They are funny and kind and generous and they cheat at cards,” she wiped away the tears and smiled. “Sometimes, not very well. We also played Yahtzee. That game was new to them and it was funny to watch them…you could see them staring at the dice trying to glamour them. I don’t think they have found a way to cheat at Yahtzee yet, but they are working on that.
And….and I played dress-up with millions of dollar’s worth of jewelry. Things that date back to the First Age, whenever that was.”
“Antiquity so old that only Samuel’s God and O.I. remember,” he chuckled at her as he raised her hand to his lips for a kiss.
“How do you do this?” she asked him, her voice full of…well it was not fear he heard there, but deep concern.
“Miss Stackhouse,” he began, carefully. “I was and am a Viking. So I was a bit bigger than life when I started this journey. On my last battle field as human, I had a sucking chest wound but yet lived which surprised even me. My friends had stacked the wood that had been doused with oil in preparation of my passing and then I insisted they place me upon it. I lay on my own funeral pyre, still alive, chatting up my friends about sex and the afterlife, defying the gods as I was dying.”
“I should not be smiling about that,” she chuckled, “but larger than life, I can see that.”
With a smile, he nodded. “I have had over a thousand years of being vampire. Those first five hundred years, I pushed the limits. Fortunately, I had my brother Samuel, guarding my back. And O.I. would occasionally flutter through and on a dare and shot of The Death from Above, I was just one scary, tragic, accident waiting to happen. I still am,” he added with a smile, “I am just a bit smarter about it.
The most valuable lesson to take from this, as taught to me by my brother Samuel, and I speak from experience,” he stressed, “is do not flash your wealth. Continue to live your life. Purchase needful and nice things, but nothing that would cause the tax man, or your neighbors to go what the fuck and what am I missing?”
Nodding in agreement she blurted out, “Sam is dead,” she sobbed, the tears starting again. “He knowingly endangered my life and cheated me out of my tips…money that we needed to survive. We could not always afford Gran’s medicine so she went without. He knew that. Why would he do that?” she was crying, her heart breaking.
“Because he could,” Eric replied stoically. “Sookie, I have watched humans, supes, animals, dwelling places, even the forests and some places in the ocean and rivers. Sometimes the spirit that abides within,” he said with a shake of his head, “is just evil.
For humans and animals, circumstances influence things, of course. But I have seen lots of good folks abide horrific circumstances, survive, and continue on to do good.
If there are angels that walk among us, and perhaps whisper in your ear, do you not think that demons do as well?”
Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Looking up at him, she was thoughtful. “You give me things to think about that I had not considered, before. This world, right now, is strange and new to me.”
“Like waking up that first dark, vampire,” he replied. “Learn from my mistakes, Miss Stackhouse,” his voice was serious and very quiet. “I should have met the true death a thousand times over.” Taking her hand and placing it between both of his, he stared off into the dark. “With vampire, came money. At times, a lot of money for that given time and place. At this point in my life, it was not the glamour of the vampire that would get me into trouble, but the power of the money…not only the influence it has on you but on those people that surround you. Eventually, someone is going to feel that they are entitled to what you have. Let us call this person Wolfgang. And if Wolfgang promises enough wealth to his associates for doing a daring deed, there will be those who will be willing to back him in that endeavor. Even if that endeavor is going into a vampire’s lair during the last rays of the setting sun.”
O.I. kissed Lafayette on the nose and said, “I has to take this,” and came fluttering over and sat on Eric’s shoulder. Wrapping his tail around him, he pushed his head into Eric’s.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the dragon.
“From the Esplanade, that would be ground zero under the Eiffel Tower to the second floor, there are 674 steps,” he ran his hand across his face and kept staring into the dark. “It was built in 1887, started January of that year.
But let us step back in time. If I might quote my brother Samuel, here. Paris, December, 1637. Pierre Corneille’s play Le Cid, had just opened. Crowds were aghast that a tragedy could have a happily ever after. And that low morals were to be shamed…unless you had enough money to pay off the clergy and judge. And just like now, it all revolved around the struggle concerning obligation and true love.
We were in town for the opening of the play and to have a bit of fun and laughter. And besides, it is December and it is a Weres’ Curse kind of month. As much as we bitch about those months of the two full moons, we are enamored of them. And there is nothing like Paris when the Were’s get to howl twice a month in that city.
I have a home in the city. We all did at the time. But I also had a home outside the city. We all did at the time. And lots of hidey-holes and farms, graveyards and caves where you could just vamp out in general and not be found by any Supernatural.
Godric, that was my maker, had a farm about ten miles outside the city. He was coming into town the first of January and insisted that I stay at his home until he arrived. He gave me the codes, so to speak, how to navigate about his lair. I was to make myself at home but not to fuck around with his shit. Believe me, I would not have even if invited to do so.
I was honored to be invited to stay and frightened not to do so.”
“What does that mean?” Sookie asked.
“A vampire does not share his lair with another. You may offer a sleep chamber to a qualified known, but we do not rest in the same room.
There are of course, exceptions,” he smiled, as he stopped to listen to the stories being told inside the house, “but I would not have offered Godric the keys to my castle.”
“Really? Why not?” she asked.
“Because of the entourage he can send on ahead.”
“You mean like day walkers?”
“No, I mean like other vampires.”
Sookie’s eyes got round.
“Yes, you are very astute Miss Stackhouse,” he said raising an eyebrow and looking lost in the past. “So did I want to stay there, no. If I did not, would my maker take retribution on me? Perhaps,” he shrugged.
“O-o-o-o-o-oh,” she breathed out.
“Indeed,” he looked at her and nodded. “You saw the other night just how odd and strange things can become. Having this request from Godric was indeed even odder and stranger. So much so, that when I arrived, I sent out the call into the universe for the king of the dragons to bring himself on back around and a letter to Samuel.
When I arrived, O.I. was waiting for me there.”
“You called O.I. like you did the other night?” she chuckled.
“Something like that,” he grinned in return. “Because dragon speak is based on musical notes, O.I. can hum something that acts like ground penetrating radar and find hidden chambers, caves, tunnels, all manner of cavities that just might happen to be lurking beneath the friendly soil of planet Earth. Filled with who knows what…” he added with a shrug.
“He is a useful guy to know,” she nodded.
“Indeed, he is,” Eric agreed with her.
“And did he find something useful?” she asked.
“Indeed he did,” Eric nodded, his face set. “One chamber held armor and all manner of fighting paraphernalia. Anything you would need to start a war. Another held gold. Another was a sleep chamber for several hundred vampires. And another sleep chamber for several hundred vampires. And another…in fact, there were spaces for 674 vampires to find their rest during the day. And there was a chamber full of battle plans and maps of the city along with the sewer systems, which upset Samuel terribly because he paid to have them installed.”
“Six hundred and seventy-four,” Sookie repeated. “The exact same number of steps in the Eiffel Tower…” her voice trailed off. “That is not a coincidence, is it?”
“No,” he shook his head. “It is not. Paris was the largest city in the Old World. Perhaps about 600,000 humans at that time.”
“Could,” Sookie began slowly, “could that many vampires enslave or…or destroy that population in one night?” and in her voice there was a tremor.
“Yes, Miss Stackhouse, you are very astute,” he nodded and in his voice was steel. “Those they could not enslave, they were going to burn out,” his voice held a hardness and a coldness that made her shiver.
“Christopher, who was Godric’s oldest child, and his band of sixty arrived first. Now, I did not know I had an older brother but there was no mistaking Godric’s smell. So when he pushed past me and into the house, called for villagers for his friends and a blow job, to be performed by me, well, my grandmother’s magic and my berserker rage took exception to that. I killed them all and O.I. did a controlled burn and we both decided that was just way too easy and too much fun.
So, over the following darks, more siblings would appear with their fellow vampire warriors. They would make their demands and smirk, motioning for me to undo their pants, or motion for me to undo mine, then they would meet the true death.
It was a cold and snowy December. But busy, in a very good way. On the last night of the month, Godric appears. And it is the second full moon of the Weres’ Curse. He has humans with him. And I can tell by their smell before they even get out of the carriage door, they are wealthy humans. And that they do very bad things in regards to other humans. They are cannibals. And they like their meat fresh and young. Clearly they are warded with something, because the smell wafting from them is searching, penetrating, and vulgar. Like tentacles, snaking its way out and moving things aside as it tried to push its influence off onto you and into you. And interestingly enough, my maker is warded with the same something.
The day before, a courier arrives,” he chuckled. “Actually, it was Samuel and he has brought a chest of blessed salt which we have liberally scattered around the driveway and the front door.
It was the oddest thing. Godric is reviling in his role as the grand and all-embracing host. He is actually trying to impress these humans. No vampire tries to impress humans. As they unload from the carriage and once their feet step down onto the salt, it is like they are in stuck in quicksand. They are struggling and then they are not…” his voice hesitated. “Samuel knows about the bond between the maker and the child. Godric is now cursing has turned to speak to me and Samuel steps out and removes his head. Then O.I. comes screaming in and flames all of them.
That night, we go into the city, to Godric’s villa that overlooks the river. We dismiss his staff and those Weres who do not leave and wish a fight, we accommodate.
We take measurements and then we return to the farmhouse where Samuel’s people are waiting for us. He hands the measurements over and they depart.
The next night when we rise, we go back to Paris and listen to the Supernatural gossip at The Emporium of Doozer’s Fine and Ancient Artifacts Circus , also just know as Doozy’s Circus or Doozy’s.There is much speculation about how vampires have gone missing. And for the next month, upon rising, we return there and the stories and long, sideways looks take on a life of their own. Apparently, it is Godric’s children that have gone missing along with their friends and would you just look at that, there sits Godric’s youngest.
On 1 February, we walk up to the villa and you can see the stone masons’ work. They had laid 674 steps leading up from the river to the portico.
I move in and entertain quietly for the rest of the month as the tales get taller with the telling at Doozy’s and everyone notes how there are about 674 vampires missing and how I have added 674 steps to the front of Godric’s villa, which now appears to be my villa.
In every crowd there is a bully. And Wolfgang, a vampire out of what is now Austria, liked to think on himself as a bad ass. And apparently all the gossip in Paris said I was not only the newest bad ass, but also perhaps the richest bad ass. And because Wolfgang is so old and I am so young, I should still be sleeping on top of Godric’s wealth when he and his merry band of renegades come calling at dusk.”
“Of course you are not,” Sookie smiled. “And O.I., I am sure, is guarding you during the day.”
“You are not just a pretty face, Miss Stackhouse,” he grinned at her and brought her hand up to his lips for a kiss. “My Grandmother’s magic woke me and because Samuel is so old, he was up and about.
I was waiting for them with my sword sharpened. Of course, Samuel and O.I. was waiting for them as well and we had to do rock, paper, scissors, to see who got to deliver the first blow.
“The luck of The Viking,” O.I. chuckled. “Powerful stuff.”
“We made our way out of the sleep chamber and posted ourselves along the ceiling in the outside hall. What morons. You could hear them coming. I dropped from the ceiling and killed Wolfgang, Samuel took out the rear flank and O.I. flamed the rest. We toasted ourselves with The Death and I wore O.I. as a torque and we went to Doozy’s to celebrate our newest victory.”
“And to add to your bad ass reputation,” she smiled at him.
“Well, there was that,” he grinned. “There was all manner of respect and calculating looks when we came in and Wolfgang was never seen again.
So as a constant reminder to the vampire population at large, in Paris there is always something that has 674 steps built into it. Just keeps everyone honest and perhaps looking over their shoulder.”
“You saved Paris,” her voice was quiet as she watched his eyes as they changed color. He was lost somewhere in his memories and she could hear O.I. trilling a calming tune to him.
There was a long moment before he spoke. “But I have also burned down London,” he sighed. “And have destroyed a complete vampire dynasty. My maker’s dynasty,” she could barely hear him whisper, “my family’s dynasty.”
Her hand tightened on his.
Pushing his head into O.I.’s the dragon’s tail came around and stroked his face. For long moments, no one spoke. Sookie took the blanket from around her shoulders and wrapped it around Eric. “You do what has to be done,” she sighed. When she sat back down next to him, he looked over at her.
“My grandmother would tell me the same thing,” his eyes filled with tears as he brought her hand to his lips for another kiss.
“You do what needs to be done,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” he wiped his eyes and smiled at her. “Come Miss Stackhouse,” he said standing, “let us inside. I am not always so noble or valiant. My brothers-in-arms will be more than happy to tell you the most embarrassing moments of my life,” he said as he wrapped her back in the blanket and opened the door for her.
“Mo’ fo’n,” O.I. laughed as he fluttered over to Lafayette. “And they are some good ones.”