chapter four

Barry left Sookie a little after he texted Bill. As it was day time, and Sookie decided to sniff around in the house to see if she could find Eric. This was going to be harder than it looked because she didn’t know the lay out of the house and she didn’t have the bond anymore with Eric. This is one of the few times she could have used the bond. All she found in the rooms were the blank minds of vampires and the doors were locked.

Where would you hide a vampire in a house like this? She wondered about the basement. She snuck downstairs to the first floor and peered around the stairwell. She didn’t see anyone, so she moved quietly as she could to the dining room and followed it through to the kitchen. The buzzing thoughts of people, the house’s daytime staff alerted her to the presence of humans. She ducked into a little pantry and stood still and did not move. She opened her mind and tried to sort out the sounds of different voices. Suddenly she heard a distressed sound. She honed in on that. It was a woman and a man and the woman was obviously terrified. She was speaking something that sounded like Spanish. The male voice was too, but she thought she had heard the voice before. She listened closer.

Johan Glassport!!! What is he doing here? Is he working for Filipe DeCastro? She listened intently. The woman’s distress was now full blown hysterics. Sookie left her hiding place and using her telepathy like a GPS, she found the two of them in a little room off from the kitchen. She looked around and saw one of those butcher blocks with the knives in it and she grabbed the biggest one. Without hesitation, Sookie put the point of the knife into Glassport’s ribs. He stood still and the girl, a small, dark haired woman slid away from his grasp.

“Well, if it isn’t Sookie Stackhouse,” said Glassport.

“See you are still up to your old tricks,” she said. “Move, into the kitchen.” She poked him with the knife blade again and he moved. “Slowly.” She warned

He moved out of the tiny room to the kitchen. She poked him again, drawing a little blood and made him go and sit down at the breakfast table, one of those café style things. He sat down. “What brings you here?”

“I think you know,” she said.

“You are coming to the rescue of the irrepressible Mr. Northman,” he said. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Believe me, I am surprised myself,” she said.

“Now that you have me, what are you going to do with me?” he asked.

“I want to know where Eric is,” she said.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said. “He could be dead.” A thought occurred to Sookie.

“You helped DeCastro kill Sophie Anne,’ she said.

“I did,” he said. “Paid me a lot of money, too.”

“Obviously not enough, you look a little ragged,” she said. And he did. Glassport liked looking smooth and wealthy.

“No, money never lasts,” said Glassport.  “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go up and get a shower and change clothes. I have a meeting.”

“No you don’t, you aren’t going anywhere,” she said. The smug smile slid off Glassport’s face.

“You aren’t going to tell me, I am going to tell you, you little bitch, “ he stood up and slapped the knife out of her hand. Shepard of Judea, he was strong. He must have been using vampire blood. He had her in a choke hold before she knew it and she struggled against him. His mind told her he liked this, he liked for women to fight so he could beat them and do whatever he liked to them. His arms tighted around her and Sookie could hardly breathe and suddenly, he went limp and pulled her down on the ground with him. His eyes had that blank, dead look in them. Sookie looked up and saw the woman, the one she had saved just moments ago, standing there with the driping kitchen knife.

“You have to help me hide him,” Sookie said, hoping she would understand. “Do you understand?” The woman nodded and Sookie puffed out her breath in relief. She put the knife in the sink and they grabbed his legs. She looked at the woman and she motioned with a nod of her head and together they dragged Glassport towards a set of steel doors. The walk in freezer. This would be the last place a vampire would look, since they didn’t eat. The woman opened the doors and secured them and they dragged him in, leaving a trail of blood on the stone floors. They dropped his legs and came out of the freezer. The woman went to get a mop and bucket and filled the bucket in the utility sink and added some cleaning solution to the water. It was the homey smell of pine. She cleaned the floor with rags and then mopped the rest. All of this reminded Sookie of watching Gran’s friends clean the blood from her kitchen floor then cleaning the kitchen after she shot Debbie Pelt. She remembered how shocked and revulsed she was, but now she just didn’t care.

 Once that was done, the woman turned to her. She motioned for Sookie to follow her and she did, into what looked like a broom cupboard but was in fact the stair well to the basement. The woman flicked on a light and the carefully navigated the steep narrow steps til they were downstairs. The walls were plain concrete and the floors were too. The only difference in this basement and any other was the fact there were doors in the floors. She went to one of the doors and pointed to it. 

“I don’t understand,” said Sookie.

“Vampiro,” she said.

“Eric?” Sookie said. The woman made her hand go up to indicate a tall man, standing on her tip toes for a second. She held her hands apart, indicating broad shoulders, and then stroked her hair, which was long and then pinched some of Sookie’s blond hair gently.

“Vampiro,” she said. Sookie went to the door in the floor and squatted down and grabbed the door knob. It would not open. It was locked.

“Damn,” Sookie swore quietly. Suddenly there was a tapping on her shoulder and the woman showed her a key. Sookie grabbed it and placed it in the lock. She turned the key and opened the door. Inside was Eric, chained in thick silver chains. They were not touching his skin, but he didn’t at all look comfortable. She shook Eric to try to wake him. Finally after what seemed like a long time, Eric roused and looked at her, trying to understand she was there.

“I knew you would come,” he said.

“Yeah, don’t get too over joyed  Eric, I haven’t got you out yet,” she said. “What I really ought to do is stake you and get my ass out of here.”

“Deserve it,” he muttered sleepily and he was out. Sookie closed the door again and locked it. She handed the key back to the girl. She shook her head and made her keep it. She crammed it into her pocket and headed back upstairs. She had done all she could do until Bill and Pam could come with help.  She stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes and though at first she was sure she would not sleep, she did.

Sookie woke to the sound of someone far away calling her name. She opened her eyes and looked around. “Sookie?” It was Barry.

“Barry?” she said.

“Get up, get ready to go to dinner, the vampires are rising,” he said.

“Barry, I found Eric. When you get a chance, call Bill tell him I know where Eric is being kept,” she said.

“I will,” he said. “See you at supper.”

 Sookie got up and went to use the bathroom. Afterwards, she went to the closet and went through the clothes. They looked as though they would fit her. She picked out a pair of jeans and a blouse and went and grabbed underwear and a bra that might fit and headed back to the bathroom and ran a bath. She bathed quickly, not washing her hair which would take too long to dry. She dressed and put her tennis shoes back on and cooled her heels until someone came for her.

Sookie had to admit she was hungry. She was also really ready to have this over with.  Isabel came to her room to collect her. She gave Sookie a confident little nod and they walked out of her room and downstairs to the living room. Sookie looked around at the vampires assembled there. She did not know all of them. De Castro was speaking in rapid Spanish to one of them. He looked up when she entered the room and went back to his conversation. Barry made his appearance a little later and he went to stand by the king. He looked at Sookie but his brain was quiet.

A huge man came into the room and the first thing Sookie noticed was the signature of his brain. It was huge and growly and opaque. She knew this man was a shifter or a were but she had no idea what he was. The last time she felt a brain like this was Quinn, and he was a tiger. This was a lot bigger than Quinn. He went over and leaned close to the king’s ear and he smiled widely. “Thank you, Peter,” he said and sat back to look at Sookie. “This is curious Miss Stackhouse.”

“Oh?” she said.

“Your friends from Louisiana are on their way here,” he said.

“I can’t imagine why,” she said.

“Yes, apparently, they have been traveling since noon to be here,” he said.

“And this has to do with me how?” she asked.

“They have been brought here by a werewolf. Mustafa Khan, I believe,” he said.

“Well, I am glad to see Mustafa got another job after Eric left,” she said. “But I still don’t get how this is about me.”

“Allow me to explain,” said De Castro. “He has been traveling with Bill Compton and Pam Ravencroft since noon today. They in travel coffins of course.”

“I still don’t get what that has to do with me, I have not seen Bill and Pam since the wedding,” she said.

“That is not enitrely true, is it?” he said. Sookie said nothing. “Bring him up.” Two big vampires, identical twins stood up and left the room. Sookie looked at them. “Yes, they are beautiful. I acquired them when I acquired Oklahoma.  They were the children of Freyda.”

“I see,” said Sookie.

“Yes, they put themselves in my service, “ he said. “Of course you know about Freyda.”

                “Sorry, I don’t,” she said.

                “Freyda met the true death at the hands of her husband, your former vampire protector,” said De Castro.

                “Could you please just come to the point,” said Sookie.

                “Very well. Queen Sophie Ann was so pleased when Hadley told her about you. As you know, vampires value humans with special abilities. She sent your lover, Bill Compton, to acquire you and your talents. Then you became the companion to Eric Northman, quite a feather in his cap, if I do say so myself. I want to make you a proposition. Come work for me in Nevada. There is a project I need to get off the ground and I need a valuable asset like you,” he said.

                “Sorry, not interested,” she said.

                “Come now, you can’t tell me you don’t like the money. Barry here does, don’t you?” he asked.

                “It’s okay,” said Barry. “At least I can make this thing work for me.”

                “Pragmatic young man. You are pragmatic too,” DeCastro said, looking at Sookie.

                “Okay, maybe I am, what is the deal, what’s in it for me?” she said. The king’s eyes flickered as the beautiful twins brought Eric into the room.

                “Ah, Eric, so pleasant of you to join us. You of course know Miss Stackhouse,” he said. Eric barely looked at her. “Sookie and I are about to broker a deal for her to come work with me. What do you think of that?”

                “She is difficult to control, you may not like having her in your employ,” said Eric.

                “Oh, I think she will come to heel nicely. Miss Stackhouse,  come and work for me, you will live in Nevada, enjoy the ammenities, make a lot of money and you will live to see the next day. Refuse and I will kill you, simple as that.”

                “Not much of a trade off,” she said.

                “Let’s just say this will be better than working for the Bureau of Vampire and Supernatural Affairs, with Tom Latesta breathing down your neck, giving you the standard government pittance. And let’s just say it will be healthier for Eric and Bill and Pam,” said DeCastro. “Of course, you may not actually care very much for Eric, so he may as well have the true death, so he is off the table.”

                “Why haven’t you staked him by  now?” she asked.

                “I have plans for Eric. They won’t be pleasant at all. But in light of the attractive things you told that journalist you are not concerned with what happens to him, am I correct?”

                “Right as rain,” said Sookie. “You should probably reward him though, he got rid of Freyda for you, you have Oklahoma.”

                “That may be human logic, but it is not my logic,” said DeCastro. “Accept the deal Miss Stackhouse.”

               

                But before Sookie could speak, all hell broke loose.

                 The first impression Sookie had was of being dragged out of the ceiling which had fallen on her. She looked up at the person who was dragging her. It was a female vampire but not Isabel. She looked harder. “Bill said you were here,” she said, groggily.

                “Shut up,” she said. “It’s May Day Sookie, you need to pull it together, you have help yourself now.” The vampire walked away from her and headed for the king. He was unhurt and cursing in growling Spanish. The Twins were by his side. Eric was nowhere to be seen.

                “Get her, don’t let her get away,” commanded DeCastro.  The twins moved faster than Sookie could react and they had her. She didn’t bother with struggling, this would just get her hurt. The big guy with huge brain pattern reappeared and he said something to DeCastro and he nodded. “As always Miss Stackhouse, you are always just this close to disaster. Take her downstairs and secure her in the basement in a holding cell and then come back, we have to round up Eric and our visitors.”

                Bill and Pam were silent as they moved around the property. They knew there were weres on the grounds and from their intelligence, they knew they were particularly viscious. Gifts to the kng from Appius Livinus Ocella. They signaled to the big wolf to move to the front, taking point. Indira and Thalia were behind Bill and Pam and Maxwell Lee was coming up from behind.

                “Is Sookie alright?” asked Pam.

                “I can feel her, she seems okay,” said Bill. He had told Sookie he would always be able to feel her after he’d given her his blood. Even when she was blood bonded to Eric, he felt her if he reached out.   

                “This way,” said Pam. “It looks clear.”

                “I would not do that if I were you,” said a voice. They turned. It was Eric. His face was wet with blood.

                “Welcome back Eric,” said Bill. “Which way do you recommend?”

                “Straight forward, they are waiting for us, no reason to use stealth,” said Eric. They looked at each other and stood up an began to march their small army toward the house.

                Sookie lay in the darkness, the door only five or six inches from her face.  This was claustrophobic. She had not felt this confined since she was trapped in the trunk of a car with Bill in Mississippi. “Another fine mess you have gotten us into Sookie,” she said. She opened her head and called out for Barry.

                “Sookie?” he said.

                “You okay?” she asked.

                “Bruised up a little but okay,” he said. “Where are you?”

                “The basement. I have the key in my pocket but I can’t feel the lock anywhere,” she said.

                “Okay, stay put, you are actually safer for the time being. I will let Bill know where you are,” he said.

                “Where is DeCastro?” she asked.

                “He is leaving with the muscle twins,” said Barry. Sookie giggled a little at that. “You are the only one I know Sookie who can laugh at a time like this.”

                “Where is Eric?” she asked.

                “At large,” he said. “I texted Bill about where you are, he will get there as soon as he can,  just hold tight.

                Bill and Eric and Pam watched the sleek SUV drive away with the king inside. Eric moved to stop him and Bill stopped him. “Let him go, let’s get Sookie out and get back to Louisiana.” Eric nodded and they headed for the house.

Six vampires appeared in the now ruined main room. One was Isabel and the other was the spy Bill and Eric had planted in the house. When Bill and Eric and Pam and Indira and Thalia appeared, the DeCastro vampires crouched, fangs out, ready to go to war.

               

                Sookie could hear the commotion upstairs and she was scared. “Barry?”

                “I’m a little busy now Sookie,” he said to her.

                “What’s happening?” she said.

                “The shit is hitting the fan,” he said. And his shield went up and broke communications with her.

                Vampires were coming out of the woodwork. So were the king’s guards. Mustafa Khan was holding one off while Eric battled with another. Thalia took the head off an enemy vampire and joined Eric.

                “Hold it goddamn it,” he said through his fangs and he took a harder hold and broke it’s neck. One of the guards howled and came for Eric but Pam stopped it with a piece of decorative spindle of what had been a beautiful piece of furniture. The thing changed back into a human, the spindle was deeply imbedded in her back. Pam grabbed the spindle from her back and turned and staked a vampire as it came after her.

                Bill broke the back of a vampire over his knee like you would a piece of kindling and then reached into his chest and pulled out his heart. One of the guardians leapt up on him and knocked him down. Bill was on his back and felt the jaws of the beast clamp down on his shoulder and he roared. Suddenly, he felt lighter as Thalia lifted it off Bill and threw it across the room. It landed on a broken window frame and was impaled there and it changed into a big man.

                Pam and Mustafa Khan were advancing on a guardian. It was wounded, but trying to stand its ground. Pam leapt up and seemed suspended there, like in those Matrix movies, and then landed square on its massive back and there was loud sickening crack as its spine broke and the beast turned into a woman. Pam turned to survey the room. Two other vampires were still battling, though Eric had dislocated one vampire’s shoulder badly. Pam ran to the fighting vampire and twisted his head around and then lifted it from his shoulders. The last fighting vampire screamed and ran for Pam and Thalia staked him with the spindle Pam had used to killed the were and the vampire earlier.

                After the battle, the silence was deafening. They were exhuasted to the bone. Bill looked at Eric. “Sookie,” he said. Eric nodded and Bill walked by him and found the basement door and went down. “Sookie? Are you there?”

                “At last, get me out Bill,” she said.

                “The door knob is made of silver,” said Bill. “Let me get something to cover my hand.” He looked around and spotted a pair of rubber gloves like one would use to clean with and slid them on. He went back to the door and grabbed the silver knob and pulled the door off the hinges and tossed it like you would a piece of paper. Sookie looked up at him.

                “Thanks,” she said. “Is everything okay up there, it sounded like World War three.”

                “We aren’t out of the woods yet,” said Bill.  He stopped and listened. “Fuck..the BVA.”

                “Latesta,” she said immediately.  Bill turned to Sookie.

                “Stay here, Sookie, stay here til one of us come and get you,” he said. He dashed upstairs and closed the door behind him.

                There were humans with guns and riot gear and they had Eric and Pam backed up against the wall. An officer saw Bill and motioned with the gun for Bill to join the others. Several agents in black with the letters BVA in yellow were walking in, looking at the damage.  One of them stepped up to Eric.

                “What the fuck happened here, asshole,” said the agent.

                “Wild party,” he said, looking bored.

                “Smart ass,” he growled.  “What happened here? Where is Filipe DeCastro?”

                “He left before it got really good,” said Eric. He watched as Thalia and Indira moved like ghosts with Mustafa Khan, now human and naked with a machete in his hand. “The party is over.” Eric moved just as Mustafa swung his blade and decapitated two of the armored agents and Eric broke the neck of the agent who had been talking to him.  Bill grabbed one of the armored guards and felt the piercing heat of a silver slug tear into his thigh. He punched his fist through the man’s kevalar vest and pulled out his heart and at the same time he grabbed an agent who was standing behind the armed man and pulled him to him and bit down hard on his neck.

Eric grabbed one of the agents trying to back out of the room unnoticed. He grabbed him. “Where is Latesta?” growled Eric.

“He isn’t here,” he said, panicked. “Please I swear, you don’t have that much time,

reinforcements are on their way, they are going to level this place.”

                “Get Sookie, get her out of here,” said Eric. Bill went out of the room and back down to the basement. Sookie looked at him.

                “We don’t have time to talk, we have to get out.”

                Bill brought Sookie up and she immediately got in the head of the only human there. “Wait, he’s lying, this is it. The BVA didn’t even know about this attack,” she said immediately. Eric turned to the agent and he pulled him up kissing distance from him.

                “Tell me,” he growled.

                “Latesta is out, he has been fired. We were the last mission and we went on ahead and carried it out,” said the agent.

                “Tell him what else,” said Sookie. The man looked at Eric and the other vampires.

                “What the fuck is she?” he asked.

                “A better friend than we deserve, now tell,” said Eric.

                “Latesta was in with you people, that DeCastro. He wanted something you all had, some sort of weapon. It was going to be the biggest thing since the bomb.”

                “Hear that Sookie, you are the bomb?” said Pam cheerfully.

                “Yeah right,” she said. “So where is Latesta now?”

                “We don’t know, he is a broken arrow, he was fired and before the bureau could pick him up he disappeared,” he said.

                “Is he lying?” said Eric, looking up at Sookie.

                “No,” said Sookie. Eric let him go. The man closed his eyes for a moment and seemed relieved not to be so close to the vampire’s face. Eric moved away and walked toward Sookie.  “Stay right there Eric, I don’t want you to touch me, I don’t want you anywhere near me. I am done. I got you out and I am finished. I am tired of seeing dead people around me, I am tired of all this stuff, this vampire baggage you keep dumping on me. This is it, I don’t ever want to see any of you again. I don’t even want to know how you are, what you are doing, or whether you live or die. I am not your asset, I am not your friend. I don’t know you.” Sookie walked up to Bill and held out her hand.

                “Yes Sookie?” he asked.

                “Keys Bill, of whatever you came up here in,” she said. Bill put his hand in his pocket and gave her the keys of the SUV that transported them.

“It’s a black SUV with two coffins in the back.”  She left the ruins of the building and went to the SUV. She opened the back and reached in and grabbed the handle of one of the coffins and pulled it out hard. It landed on the grass. She grabbed the handle of the second coffin and pulled it out too. She opened the driver’s side door and climbed up into it and started the engine and drove away.

                It was two hundred miles before she began to cry.