The Bad In Each Other

Speak plain, he said

But didn’t see

He acted that way

And held me like a cup.

Fill me up then pour me out;

Therein lies the doubt.

We had the same feelings

At opposite times.

When a good man and a good woman

Can’t find the good in each other,

Then a good man and a good woman

Will bring out the worst in the other,

The bad in each other.

 

I’m awake.

It’s sometime in the mid-morning.

And I’m miraculously, unfathomably awake.

Awake and about to bleed from every fucking orifice.

I was vaguely aware of Sookie earlier but now I am…acutely aware of Sookie. Her hands are clawing at my chest, my throat. She’s trying to strangle me. I grab both of her wrists, stilling her. She pants, terrified, her hot breath fanning over my face. Through the slats in the floorboards, tiny rays of sun pass over, just above us, where the rug should have been for my protection. My death is inches away.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand between my gritted teeth.

“There’s someone here! Someone’s at the door!” she hisses.

“What?” I whisper.

“Somebody’s tryin’ to get in the-” My hand is over her loud mouth before she can finish the thought. Slowly, I bring a finger to my lips.

Shut… the fuck up.

She nods in understanding, her dark eyes enormous and glassy.

The both of us turn our heads to listen.

There are footsteps in the hallway, then in the parlor. The blush I so adored the night before has drained from Sookie’s face; she’s pale with fear and her poor heart pounds, almost drowning out all other noise. I’m not faring any better – my fangs are down and bared of their own accord, and every muscle in me is tense for the war I’m certain I’m about to get into.

The footfalls grow ever closer… closer… A limp. The assassin has a limp. I let go of Sookie’s mouth. She grasps at my arms, shaking her head furiously, her big eyes imploring me, begging me not to leave her.

I stop her trembling hands in my own, moving so slowly, trying to keep from making a sound as we struggle in the dry earth. We stare at each other; dust floats through the floorboards and glitters all around us as it catches the morning sun. I can feel the heat of the day… I can feel my skin begin to burn. My fingers hurt from clinging to her so desperately. Sookie holds her breath.

And time just… freezes.

I can’t see anything but her. I can’t feel anything but her. I can’t think of anything… but making love to her, that night when Bill released me.

The assassin is nearly on top of us now. And it’s day. And I’m weak.

I’m going to lose. I’m going to die fighting whoever he’s sent after us. I’m going to roast to death in my own kitchen.

But… I might be able to save her.

Please gods… spare her. Spare her.

“Prins?” Prince? A woman’s voice. An older woman. She hobbles around above us, the limp very pronounced. There’s a thud as she drops the antique rug over the trap door and then rolls it out into place. Sookie jumps and burrows further into me.

My body feels like gelatin. I sigh with relief. “Ja, Elsa. Var här.” Yes, Elsa. We’re here. I push Sookie away gently. She’s still trembling. “It’s fine… it’s my housekeeper.”

Sookie’s not convinced. She doesn’t move.

“Her name is Elsa. Speak slowly.” I look at her, waiting for a response. “Yes? Okay?” I nod my head, modeling an appropriate reaction for her.

“She’s only human?” Sookie whispers, as if the woman wasn’t standing right on top of us.

“Only human. One hundred percent. You have my word.”

She sighs.

“You have to be quick or I’ll burn.” I help her lift the trap door and she squeezes out into the daylight. I watch through the cracks in the floor boards as he gets to her feet and brushes off her thighs.

“Elsa… Sookie Stackhouse – min gäst.” My guest. I see Sookie cross her arms. The corners of her lips twitch into a half-smile for my governess, who must be standing someplace near. “Hon är… speciell för mig, ja? Låt inte henne ur sikte.”

She’s… special to me, yes? Don’t let her out of your sight.

I rise after seven that night… and I feel clear-headed for the first time in a week.

There are signs and sounds of life all around. A record plays – Elvis crooning It’s Now Or Never. I feel that the house is warmer now, and the scent of antiseptic cleaner perfumes the air. There’s something else too – a sort of nauseating smell of flesh having been burned earlier. It’s smoky and greasy.

Bacon, I think.

I stand and every bone in me seems to crack in protest. If I’m going to stay here much longer, I need to do something about the sleeping arrangements. I nudge the trap door shut with my foot, and then roll the rug out again.

A brush scrubs the floor in the bathroom, the bristles grating over grout and tile. Elsa must be working hard. I make a mental note to compensate her for staying so late with Sookie; I’d been concerned. I walk past the door, into the living room, where I see a fire has been lit in the old hearth.

Slippered feet are propped up on the old coffee table, swaying in time to Elvis’s voice.

“Sookie?”

The feet suddenly thrash, nearly overturning a cup of tea. The bone china rattles.

“Prins Eric,” Elsa says, clearing her throat. She stands quickly to face me. She must be in her sixties now – nearly all grey hair, pinned back in a messy little bun, her hands callused and gnarled from years of house work, her face lined from days spent in the Swedish sun and snow. She’s aged so much since I last saw her; she was a girl then, a new bride and a young mother. How strange a thing… to grow old. Looking at her this way, I wonder at the sensation, at the changes I might have gone through had I made it out of that long-forgotten battle alive.

“Sir?” she asks then, breaking up my thoughts.

I note, with a little dismay, that she’s… wearing one of my silk bath robes over her own clothes.

I blink. “Elsa…” I acknowledge her slowly. “Var är Sookie?” Where is Sookie?

The music is maddenly loud in the living room. She can’t hear me over it. She looks terrified. I walk to the record player and pull up the needle. Elvis is cut off in the middle of the “Kiss me, my darling” line.

“Hey! What happened to the music?” Sookie shouts from the bathroom.

I turn to Elsa, my eyebrows raised. “Sookie städar?”Sookie’s cleaning?

Elsa glances up at my face, guilty. “Hon insisterade, din nåd.” She insisted, your grace.

“Music?” Sookie calls out. She’s in the hall now. “Uh…musik?” she tries with her terrible version of a Swedish accent. Sing-song, like the Chef from the fucking Muppets. And then she’s in the doorway to the living room, a wet toilet brush in her kitchen-gloved hand.

“Oh. Eric.” Less than enthused.

I cast a frown at Elsa and then take Sookie by the arm around the corner.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She waves the toilet brush at me; I back away from her, disgusted. “What’s it look like?” She laughs, a little incredulous.

“I pay her for that. I pay her very well to clean,” I whisper, accusing. What good is a housekeeper if she leaves the work to the employer… and his guests?

“Shame on you, Eric Northman,” she growls in my face. “She’s a little old lady. Makin’ her get down on her poor hands and knees to scrub a hundred years of dirt from your vacation house.” The last bit, about it being a vacation house, she says with venom.

“Truly? Shame on me? For over-compensating her for decades of her life? Providing for her family?”

Sookie flinches at my defense. The toilet brush dangles from her hand almost comically.

“Are you suggesting I terminate her employment then? Pay you perhaps?”

“No. I’m sayin’ you should continue to pay her because it’s the right damn thing to do.”

“While you do all of the housework?”

“Eric,” she blurts out, frustrated. Her fingers ball up into fists. “Sometimes you don’t profit from doin’ the right thing… you just gotta do it anyways.”

She’s back in the bathroom, the door shut, before I can argue.

Not that I could argue when memory from nearly three hundred years ago takes me away.

_______

1771

Nora hiked up her skirts and petticoat, tip-toeing through the red puddles that were coagulating on the decks of the pirate ship. It was of no use though – the hem of her beautiful gown was already ruined, stained black with the death we’d caused. She giggled as the blood sloshed and splashed with the rise and fall of the ocean, and she tapped her way across the saturated wood.

“It was a decent fight,” Godric said, staring up at the clear night sky. The stars were in the millions this far from land, no other light to dim their shine.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Too decent.” My side, hacked open by one of the pirate’s swords, had barely stitched itself back together, even with all of the healing blood I’d gulped down. I winced, feeling it’s progress with my hand.

“I wonder… when they’ll realize that a boy, a girl, and a very comely brute are strange bed fellows for a ship like this…” Godric said dreamily.

He was referring, of course, to our killing spree. We’d been taken hostage on nine pirate crafts now, and we’d slaughtered every last soul. It was a simple if not accidental plot that had begun a month or so earlier: we had been stowed away on a ship to the New World, a ship which was attacked by pirates while we slept in our coffins under the decks. When we awoke, we reclaimed the ship, which some days later was intercepted by yet another gang of pirates, and so it went… Every few nights, a replenished pantry. It seemed almost too easy – humans though weren’t the exactly the wiliest game, particularly when greed blinded them.

I knew, in time, we’d become a sort of legend, the three of us – a Viking prince, a sickly pale beauty, and a sallow little boy, all festooned in blood-soaked garments. We would be something the seafaring folk would only dare whisper about.

“I’m so full I can barely move…” Nora laughed, her voice lazy with satiated lust.
Godric smiled at her, the smile of a father. Everything Nora did was magical. She was his childe, his darling little girl. He clapped for her as she danced a blood-drunk jig, his own foot keeping time from where he reclined.

I was his favorite though. And I would be until the day he met the True Death.

Turning from them, I picked up one of the dead man’s telescopes and extended it. I put my eye to the glass and peered through. A good distance away – how far exactly I couldn’t tell as I’d refused to get used to those new-fangled sailing devices – a ship was burning. Great plumes of fire shot up into the night sky… and a smaller boat – a dingy – was speeding away, cutting little white caps from the ocean in its wake.

“Interesting,” I said, mostly to myself.

“What? What’s interesting?” Nora piped up.

Godric pulled himself to sitting, wheezing as his distended stomach ached. “I should not have indulged so,” he groaned. “What is it, Eric?”

“I can’t be sure… but it looks like second course,” I smiled.

 

________

 

“Hurry! Faster!” Godric urged as we approached.

By the time I’d turned the damn ship starboard, it was nearing dawn. Nora complained nearly constantly of her cold, wet dress. I wanted to smack her. I alwayswanted to smack her, unless I was fucking her, in which case, I still wanted to smack her, only harder.
Parts of the abandoned ship were still glowing hot as we approached, but most of it was smoldering – the flames subdued by the sea water that sprayed in on the waves. I batted away the heavy smoke, clearing the air in front of my face.

“What sort of vessel is this?” Godric asked, his disembodied voice somewhere near, though I couldn’t see him.

“It’s not a pirate ship… it’s a cargo ship,” I said, and easily leapt the distance from our own craft to the charred deck. Godric and Nora were close behind – one landing beside me, the other in front.

“Who would burn their own goods in this way?” Nora asked, sauntering around the bow.

“People who saw us approaching… people who don’t like to share with pirates,” I replied, staring up at the half-burned flag on the mast. Fifteen stars against a navy blue. Fifteen red and white stripes. What was left of it snapped in the angry sea wind. American.

“Search the hull,” Godric called to us. “And be quick, children – the sun rises!”

 

________

 

I watch Sookie and Elsa embrace at the door as if they’ve known each other forever, as if they are family. I suppose that Sookie’s warmth has this affect on most people. It’s her own sort of glamour.

“I will see you tomorrow,” Elsa says, her English halting and slow.

“You sure you don’t want Eric to take you home? It’s so dark,” Sookie looks out into the relentless island night, concerned. I roll my eyes.

“I will be fine.” She reaches out and strokes Sookie’s cheek, like a mother would. “You take care of our Prince, yes?” She winks, conspiratorially.

Sookie laughs – nervous and dismissive. It bothers me even though I know it shouldn’t. “Good night, Elsa,” she says, and I’m thankful that she’s ended the conversation before she can volunteer me for any more acts of chivalry.

“Good night, Miss Stackhouse. Good night, Prince Eric.” Elsa nods at me, and wraps a worn shawl about her head. We watch as she hobbles down the front steps towards her little rusted Saab. I wave, Sookie waves… and then we stand side by side on the porch, our hands in our pockets, making sure our faithful, aging housekeeper gets into her car. It feels… surreally human.

“She reminds you of your grandmother,” I say as the car rattles down the winding road, the headlights flashing one last time, and then disappearing into the velvet night.

“She does, yeah.”

I think to say that I’m sorry for her loss. But it’s been years, and I am… not versed in expressions of sympathy.

“I like Sweden,” she says, saving the both of us the trouble.

Her confession takes me off guard; I frown. “Oh?”
“I can’t hear them… Well, I mean, I can hear them… but it’s in another language. No one thinks in English. It’s so… so…”

“Refreshing?” I finish the thought for her.

“Yeah.” She smiles. “I don’t have to work to keep them out. I just listened to her murmur… all day long. Couldn’t understand a word. Coulda been about me… coulda been about the weather.”

“Background noise.”

“Exactly.” She beams at me, her relief palpable.

I look away, avoiding her joy. It makes me vulnerable. “An old friend of mine is visiting tonight. I thought you should know.”

Sookie’s smile droops, but I can see she’s trying to look happy about it. “An old friend… like… a woman?”

I stare down at her, the corners of my mouth twitching. She’s jealous. It’s fantastic.

“You’ll see,” I say knowingly.

And I leave her on the porch, with the bitter taste of her own medicine.

 

_______

 

He arrives out of the darkness around nine like a ship on a distant shore. I feel his peace long before I see him walking up the path to the house.

Sookie watches me, her hands fiddling with themselves. She stands up from her seat at the kitchen table, trembling, looking frozen in time like a Hitchcock heroine – somehow bold and afraid.

His knock is soft on the wood of the screen door.

She gulps.

“Come in,” I call to him, folding the newspaper in front of me, and he does, his footfalls as gentle as he is, his hat in his hand.

There is a pregnant silence in the house, as the two of us regard each other, and Sookie regards us both. My eyes grow blurry with old blood tears, burning as I fight them back.

“Broer,” he says in Afrikaans, his voice as smooth and warm as it was the night he was turned. He touches his hand to his heart and his dark eyes meet mine.

“Bror,” I reply, and mirror him, my hand over my own heart. Brother. I stand, and find I’m still a foot taller than him.

We are cautious, crossing the distance between us slowly at first, and then tumbling into each other’s embrace. It has been decades, perhaps more, that I’ve let fill the gap between us. It has been too long, no matter how I calculate it. He holds me to him tightly.

“Dit het so lank…,” he says, his voice just a whisper. It has been so long…

“I know. Forgive me… forgive me.” We press our foreheads together, our hands on the back of each other’s necks. It is the most peaceful moment I have had in years.

When we finally break our embrace, I glance at Sookie. She’s still standing there stiffly next to the table, confused by my uncharacteristic warmth, I’m sure. I gesture to her. “Sookie Stackhouse.”

He turns to her, his smile like a thousand suns. He takes off his hat. “Miss Stackhouse. A pleasure.”

Nervously, she extends her hand, her face smeared with her best false grin to match his. “Pleasure’s all mine, Mister…” Her eyes dart to mine, waiting for a proper introduction.

“Jelani Kuvali. But please – just Jelani,” he says as he takes her hand. He clasps it between his own, feeling her strength, feeling her essence, as he always does, and he closes his eyes in contemplation. Sookie, volleying between trying not to be rude and trying to adhere to human social norms, stares at him. She swallows in the silence, blinking hard, the awkward smile still plastered on her lips.

Inside, I’m smirking. I do so love to watch her squirm.

Jelani opens his eyes, his expression reverent and excited, as if he’s had a revelation. He lets her go. “Ah. Fae. Weak at the moment, but fae through and through.”

Sookie’s charm drops. She looks at me, wide-eyed.

“Don’t be alarmed, Miss Stackhouse,” he assures her, his voice lilting with that same African accent I’d known centuries before. “I’m a doctor.”

________

“Open wide. Good.” The rubber glove snaps on his wrist. He brings the head light down to the middle of his forehead so that it shines directly into my gaping mouth. “Okay. Drop them.”

My fangs descend with a pop. Sookie is just within my peripheral vision, her legs pressed tightly together, her dainty feet crossed that the ankle, her hands folded in her lap like a true lady. She watches intently as Jelani investigates, sitting up a little taller every so often to get a better view.

He pinches one fang and then the other, wiggling. “Just checking to see if they are loose… Any discomfort? Any issues with penetration?”

I shake my head no, mouth still wide. I glance at Sookie. She nods, as if to reassure me.

“Lift it, like this-” He shows me what he means, then he reaches in and pulls my tongue to the right and the left. I wince at the feeling of someone manipulating my mouth in such a strange way. “Looking for any sores or discoloration,” he explains.

“I didn’t know vampires could get sores,” Sookie says.

“Oh yes, my dear. Vampires are susceptible to a whole range of maladies… Cancers, sexually transmitted diseases, autoimmune disorders…” He gestures for me to close my mouth. “You though, are in fine order, sir,” he smiles.

“Vampire cancer?” Sookie asks, still incredulous.

“Indeed.” Jelani pulls off the rubber gloves, discarding them on the table. “Never terminal, of course… but grossly disfiguring. It’s a well-guarded secret of vampire society.” He shakes his head. “We’re a prideful lot.”

“That’s insane,” she says, her eyebrows arched.

“You’d do well to keep that all to yourself,” I suggested.

“Oh, far be it from me to put my life in even moredanger.” She rolls her eyes at me.

“And you? How are you feeling, Ms. Stackhouse?” He leans closer to her, ignoring our banter, his expression one of sincere concern. I wonder if she has ever met a vampire so human. I know that in all of my centuries, I haven’t.

“I’m okay.” She clears her throat nervously. “I’m fine. I’m per-”

“She lost the light,” I correct her.

Sookie cuts a glare at me that would kill, if killing me was possible.

Jelani frowns. “You lost the ability to use your telekinetic light?”

Sookie sits back in her chair. “Tele…?”

“Telekinetic light. It’s a common power to all fae. How long ago did you lose it?”

Sookie grimaces, reaching back in her memory. “I dunno… a few months ago, it started getting spotty. Now I can’t conjure it up at all.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ve seen this before… no worries, no worries.” Jelani turns from her, digging around in his doctor’s bag. “I had the pleasure…” He pauses when he finds the instrument he was looking for. “Of living among some of the last fae on earth. Recently, in fact.”

I find myself annoyed that he’d never shared this information with me, but I grudgingly understand why.

“I… I thought they were all called back,” Sookie looks at me, confused. “To Fairyland… or whatever.”

“Not everyone obeyed Mab’s call. There’s a clan in Ireland, on Lundy Island. A very old fae family. Quite in-bred now, keeping the blood line as pure as they have.” He finally pulls what appears to be a… violet wand from the bag. I wince and think to ask, perhaps, what he plans to do with it. The notion of Sookie and sex toys is a pleasant one, in and of itself… however, it’s hardly the time.

“Arm out please, Miss Stackhouse,” he says, and continues nonchalantly. “They’ve inhabited Lundy Island since the beginning of recorded history. A fascinating people, they are.”

Sookie holds her arm out warily. “But you’re a vampire.”

“I am, I am. But I’m also something of an-” He twirls the air with the wand, searching for the right word. “Insatiable archeologist. I worked alongside them, I lived among them. I earned their trust.”

Sookie shrugs. It’s not the strangest thing either of us have heard in our time.

“The case there, on Lundy Island, was similar to yours. A sputtering, and then a complete loss of the light. But it’s hardly permanent.” He pats his upper thighs and scoots his chair closer to where Sookie sits. “Alright! This might feel strange, but it will not hurt, you have my word.” She glances at me with a help me, you bastard look.

“You might wish to shield your eyes, Eric,” he says.

I don’t though, and watch as he brings the wand to her arm… runs the tip all the way down to her hand. Jelani turns his head.

Sookie’s light explodes from her fingers then – the house blindingly bright with the burst of her power. The electricity pops and fizzes in response, the little light above the kitchen swaying and buzzing with charge. All of the clocks, the appliances, everything shuts down as if there’s been a short in the grid.

I blink away the spots and shadows that move across my vision.

Jelani smiles and laughs. “Yes! You see? It can be fixed!”

Sookie sits, stunned into a rare silence. The power slowly comes back to the house – a light here and there, the blinking timer on the stove, the temperature gauge on the far wall.

“I imagine that your… blockage is psychological. Some trauma, perhaps? An inciting incident which prevents you to fully engaging with your talents?” he asks.

Sookie doesn’t say a word. Her jaw clenches and she looks away.

“There was… a lot going on… when we left,” I tell him.

He looks Sookie over and nods.

 

_________

 

“Really?” She pulls the blanket up over her head like a hood.

Jelani smiles, his brilliant white teeth flashing in the light from the fire place. He tells her our story, animated and verbose. “Yes. He was. I’ll never forget seeing this -” He gestures at me, silly. “This big bastard.”

I smile too, rubbing my eyes.

Jelani is suddenly serious. His recollection turns dark. “So many died. So many.”

Sookie frowns.

“We were chained… all of us. Chained to the ship, chained to each other.” The flames throw dancing shadows on his face. He shakes his head, slowly. “They were all dead. I was mostly dead. The smoke and the starvation and the conditions… No living thing would have made it through that. We were treated… we were treated as if we weren’t alive at all.”

Sookie wraps the blanket more tightly around herself. Her eyes are glassy. “They burned the ship? With all of you in it?”

“Yes. If they were to be overtaken by pirates… better to destroy it all, I suppose?” He sighs, and it’s strange – to see a vampire sigh. “I’ll never understand it. The taking of life in such a… frivolous way.”

He looks at both of us; me, in the leather recliner, and Sookie, curled up on the loveseat across from the hearth. “But that night, I was chosen. I was reborn,” he says.

“Godric,” she replies, almost reverently.

Jelani smiles again. “Godric.”

“I’m sorry,” she adds. “I’m so sorry, Jelani. For what happened to you.”

He stares at her. I think, for a moment, that he might cry. He touches just above his long-quiet, and somehow tender, heart. Just as he did for me when we greeted each other.

“Thank you, Miss Stackhouse,” he whispers.

“I was there, when he passed on. Godric, I mean.”

“Were you?” He doesn’t seem surprised. “And was my father at peace with the True Death?”

“He was. He was beautiful,” she says, her voice cracking. A tear runs down her cheek then.

I have to look away.

But Jelani smiles, and reaches for Sookie’s hand.

 

_________

 

“Leave him,” Nora said. Her tone was flippant, as always. “He’s half-dead. He’ll taste terrible.”

But something held me to the spot. I stared down with her into the hull. The bodies, the stench, the death… it reminded me of my days in plague-ridden cities. That had been the only time I’d found it hard to be immortal, strangely enough; while I stood, strong and alive and guilty, amidst all the dying.

Godric came between us and looked. I felt his disappointment; it rolled off him in waves. I felt his sadness in my own blood. He was sorry… for the human race, for all of the needless pain and suffering they brought down on each other… perhaps even for what we, as vampires, had brought down on them.

The man Nora had told me to leave alone, moved. His was the only movement among the dead.

Godric looked up at the sky, squinting. “We have so little time. Help me, Eric.” He leapt down into the hull, among the bodies and the waste.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, following him.

“He needs to be turned before the sun rises,” Godric replied, as if it was the most logical route.

“Turn him? But… he is… he’s dying already.” Nora stammered, insulted by the idea.
Godric’s face seemed to glow in the darkness. He turned his steady gaze on her. “And you? Were you not dying? Did I not turn you?”

“I -”

“You imagine that your mortal life was more valuable? Because you were mistress to a king? Because you were not trapped, suffocating, in a burning ship? Have you lost so much of your humility, Nora?”

She shut her mouth and crossed her arms, turning away from the hull in a huff.

Godric’s attention was on the chains that held the dead together. He yanked, once, and then twice, breaking a heavy link. “The change is bad for some of us,” he said, so quietly I barely heard him over the waves that sloshed against the ship. “Nora has forgotten herself. She has forgotten what made her worthy of the gift. Do not forget, Eric. Not ever.”

I touched his arm, stopping his feverish work on the chains. “Why though? Why are you doing this?”

He looked at me, his wide blue eyes imploring me to understand, to feel. “Because, my son. There will come occasions, during your time, when you must do what is right… without any regard for yourself.”

 

___________

 

Sookie is asleep on the loveseat in the parlor. She breathes through her mouth, murmuring every so often. Her dreams must be pleasant; it’s the first time in days that I have seen her face relax. Jelani and I had ceased conversation some time ago.

He watches me now, watching her.

I avert my eyes. He already knows though. He knows without me having to say anything – he would be able, I’m sure, to read it in my body, in my mannerisms, in every micro-interaction that passes between me… and her.

I stand and nod towards the kitchen.

On our way out, I reach under the lamp shade on the side table and turn it off. The parlor walls flicker with shadows. We leave Sookie there to sleep in the firelight.

__________

Jelani empties a bag of donor blood into two tea cups. He’s careful to put more into mine than his own. This is who he is.

He props himself up on the countertop as he waits for the blood to heat up in the microwave (just to 100 degrees, and no more, or it will coagulate into a gelatin). He catches the machine before it beeps, and hands one of the hot cups to me.

I hold the porcelain, feel it’s weight. I think to myself that Elsa would be furious right now – heating up such priceless china in a damn microwave.

Jelani appraises me from the other side of the dark little kitchen. He drinks his own blood, thoughtful. I feel his eyes on me, I feel his unvoiced questions bearing down.

“Is it so obvious?” I finally ask.

“It is,” he replies.

I set the tea cup down. “You think I’m foolish.”

“I don’t. She’s set apart. It’s a shame there are not more like her. If there were… our world would have hope.” He takes another polite sip and then rests the cup on the matching saucer.

“Nora was a Sanguinista.”

Jelani is still for a moment and then he shakes his head. “I can’t say I’m surprised.” He finishes his blood and then dabs his lips with a paper towel. “She was always lacking something. How exhausting it must be to have no sense of self.”

He’s right about her, of course. Nora was lost from the moment she was turned. I feel compelled to defend her, somehow. Her nature is not necessarily evil, although she’s easily swayed to such acts. She’s just an eternal child who refuses to know her own strength, even now, centuries after her rebirth. She should never have been made a vampire.

My sister… our sister. Godric’s only mistake.

“Eric… brother… What weighs on you?” Jelani asks, his voice fearful.

And like a good Catholic in confession, I tell him about everything. The Authority, the Sanguinistas, Bill… Lillith’s blood. The frenzied massacre in the streets of New Orleans. I tell him that the Authority is dead, that they’d turned on each other like a den of snakes. I tell him that Bill Compton, an enemy and a friend, is now something unrecognizable… and that we had to run, Sookie and I. We had to run. We should have kept running. We could run forever and it would never be far enough.

“I think… I think it’s the end of times,” I say, trying hard not to sound dramatic. I fail.

His fingers tap the edge of the little kitchen table. He considers everything I’ve said quite seriously, though it must sound insane. “You say… this… Bill Compton destroyed the True Blood factories?”

I nod, closing my eyes and rubbing the bridge of my nose. This is the closest I’ve come to a headache in about ten centuries.

“And he’s now… possessed by?” He pauses strangely, disbelieving.

“Lillith. The spirit of Lillith.” I stare at him.

After a moment, Jelani pats his knees. “Well. This is certainly… a lot, to take in.” He rises, and I stand with him. We regard each other in the dim light. “Vampire possession… This is new for me.”

I look down. “I should have done more. To stop this. Stop him.”

Jelani shakes his head. “Vi kan inte kontrollera andra-”

“Bara våra reaktioner på dem,” I finish the sentence. We cannot control others – only our reactions to them. It was one of Godric’s favorite lines when I’d grow frustrated with Nora, The Authority, or any other sentient being that got in my way. “Are you staying?” I ask.

“In town,” he says. And it reassures me. “With your permission, I’d like to contact some of my colleagues… about this most unique case.”

“Of course.”

He shakes my hand, and pulls me down to meet his embrace once again. I hug him, reluctant to let go. He feels my fear and strokes the back of my head. “Do not worry, brother. You always find a way. Always.”

 

__________

 

I close the front door as quietly as I can after I see Jelani out. The deadbolt clicks into place. I felt Sookie and all of her anger behind me the second she stepped into the foyer. I don’t turn to face her, cannot force myself to face her. I’m exhausted. I touch my forehead to the door and wait.

“How many, Eric?” Her voice is more controlled than I imagined it would be.

She must be on fire.

“You were listening.”

“How many?” She demands again.

“I’m not sure. One hundred. Perhaps more.”

“How many did you kill?” There is so much venom in her.

I close my eyes. “Twenty-three,” I say quietly.

When she doesn’t respond, I turn to her, slowly.

We stare at each other. She stands defiantly in the dark hallway; barefoot, with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You’re disgusting,” she says.

And in that moment, nothing at all could have cut me deeper than her words.

Disgusting.

I know that Godric would agree with her.

 

 

But what and how

To find us now

When we’ve become two

Fluorescently blue

Down the neon river.

The sadness canoes,

Either without or with her.

When a good man and a good woman

Can’t find the good in each other,

Then a good man and a good woman

Will bring out the worst in the other,

The bad in each other.

 

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