Dead in the Family

“Gran would say you’re not obliged to watch people kill each other, and you didn’t cause it, they did,” Jason said briskly. I could tell that my brother, though sympathetic, wasn’t thrilled about driving me all the way home with my stomach so jittery.

“Listen, can I just drop you by Eric’s?” he said. “I know he’s gotta have a bathroom or two, and that way my truck can stay clean.”

Under any other circumstances I would have refused, since Eric was in such a charged situation. But I felt shaky, and I was still seeing colors. I chewed two antacids from the glove compartment and rinsed my mouth out repeatedly with some Sprite Jason had in the truck. I had to agree that it would be better if I could spend the night in Shreveport.

“I can come back and get you in the morning,” Jason offered. “Or maybe his day guy can give you a ride to Bon Temps.”

Bobby Burnham would rather transport a flock of turkeys.

While I hesitated, I discovered that now that I wasn’t surrounded by Weres, I felt the misery rolling through the blood bond. It was the strongest, most active emotion I’d felt from Eric in days. The misery began to swell as unhappiness and physical pain overwhelmed him.

Jason opened his mouth to ask questions about what I’d taken before the pack meeting. “Get me to Eric’s,” I said. “Quick, Jason. Something’s wrong.”

“There, too?” he said plaintively, but we roared out of Alcide’s driveway.

I was practically shaking with anxiety when we stopped at the gate so Dan the security guard could give me a look. He hadn’t recognized Jason’s truck.

“I’m here to see Eric, and this is my brother,” I said, trying to act normal.

“Go on through,” Dan said, smiling. “It’s been a while.”

When we pulled into Eric’s driveway, I saw that his garage door was open, though the garage light was off. In fact, the house was in total darkness. Maybe everyone was over at Fangtasia. Nope. I knew Eric was there. I simply knew it.

“I don’t like this,” I said, and sat up a little straighter. I struggled against the effects of the drug. Though I was a little closer to normal since I’d been sick, I still felt as though I were experiencing the world through gauze.

“He don’t leave it open?” Jason peered out over his steering wheel.

“No, he never leaves it open. And look! The kitchen door is open, too.” I got out of the truck, and I heard Jason get out on his side. His truck lights stayed on automatically for a few seconds, so I got to the kitchen door easily enough. I always knocked at Eric’s door if he didn’t expect me, because I never knew who would be there or what they’d be talking about, but this time I simply pushed the door even wider. I could see a short distance into the kitchen because of the truck lights. The wrongness rolled out in a cloud, that feeling a mixture of the sense I’d been born with and the extra layer of senses the drug had imparted. I was glad Jason was right behind me. I could hear his breathing, way too fast and noisy.

“Eric,” I said, very quietly.

No one answered. There was no sound of any kind.

I stepped into the kitchen just as Jason’s truck lights went off. There were streetlights out on the street, and they supplied a dim glow. “Eric?” I called. “Where are you?” Tension made my voice crack. Something was awfully wrong.

“In here,” he said from farther in the house, and my heart clenched.

“Thank you, God,” I said, and my hand went out to the wall switch. I flicked it down, flooding the room with light. I looked around. The kitchen was pristine, as always.

So the awful things hadn’t happened here.

I crept from the kitchen into Eric’s big living room. I knew immediately that someone had died here. There were bloodstains everywhere. Some of them were still wet. Some of them dripped. I heard Jason’s breath catch in his throat.

Eric was sitting on the couch, his head in his hands. There was no one else alive in the room.

Though the smell of blood was almost choking me, I was by him in a second. “Honey?” I said. “Look at me.”

When he raised his head, I could see a terrible gash across his forehead. He’d bled copiously from the head wound. There was dried blood all over his face. When he straightened, I could see the blood on his white shirt. The head wound was healing, but the other one. “What’s under the shirt?” I said.

“My ribs are broken and they’ve come through,” he said. “They’ll heal, but it’ll take time. You’ll have to push them back into place.”

“Tell me what’s happened,” I said, trying very hard to sound calm. Of course, he knew I wasn’t.

“Dead guy over here,” Jason called. “Human.”

“Who is it, Eric?” I eased his bare feet up onto the sofa so he could lie down.

“It’s Bobby,” he said. “I tried to get him out of here in time, but he was so sure there was something he could do to help me.” Eric sounded incredibly tired.

“Who killed him?” I hadn’t even sca

“Alexei snapped,” Eric said. “Tonight he left his room when Ocella came in here to talk to me. I knew Bobby was still in the house, but I simply didn’t think about his being in danger. Felicia was here, too, and Pam.”

“Why was Felicia here?” I asked, because Eric didn’t ask his staff to his house, as a rule. Felicia, the Fangtasia bartender, had been lowest on the vampire totem pole.

“She was dating Bobby. He had some papers I needed to sign, and she’d just come over with him.”

“So Felicia.?”

“Part of a vampire left over here,” Jason called. “Looks like the rest has flaked away.”

“She’s gone to her final death,” Eric told me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I put my arms around him, and after a second, his shoulders relaxed. I had never seen Eric so defeated. Even the awful night we’d been surrounded by the vampires of Las Vegas and forced to surrender to Victor, the night he’d thought we might all die, he’d had that spark of determination and vigor. But at the moment he was literally overwhelmed with depression and anger and helplessness. Thanks to his damn maker, whose ego had required he bring back a traumatized boy from the dead.

“Where’s Alexei now?” I asked, making my voice as brisk as I could manage. “Where’s Appius? Is he still alive?” To hell with the two-name requirement. I thought it would be great if Alexei had been helpful enough to kill the old vampire, save me the trouble.

“I don’t know.” Eric sounded completely defeated.

“Why not?” I was genuinely shocked. “He’s your maker, buddy! You’d know if he died. If I’ve been feeling you three for a week, I know you’ve been feeling him even stronger.” Judith had said she’d felt a tug the day of Lorena’s death, though she hadn’t understood what it meant. Eric had been alive for so long, maybe it would actually cause him physical harm if Appius died. In a snap, I completely reversed my thinking. Appius should live until Eric recovered from his wounds. “You need to get out of here and go find him!”

“He asked me not to follow when he went after Alexei. He doesn’t want us all to die.”

“So you’re just going to sit home because he said so? When you don’t know where they are or what they’re doing, or who they’re doing it to?” I didn’t know what I wanted Eric to actually do. The drug was still coasting through my system, though it was slightly weaker—I was only seeing colors where they shouldn’t be every now and then. But I had very little control over my thoughts and my speech. I was simply trying to get Eric to act like Eric. And I wanted him to stop bleeding. And I wanted Jason to come push Eric’s bones back in because I could see them sticking out.

“Ocella asked this of me,” Eric said, and he glared at me.

“So, he asked? That doesn’t sound like a direct order to me. It sounds like a request. Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, as snarkily as I could.