Dead in the Family

Alexei’s psychotic break plus Claude’s fairy allure to vampires: This was a deadly combination. The night, apparently, was still not over. I wondered if it ever would be. For an awful moment, I looked into an endless nightmare of wandering from crisis to crisis, always one step behind.

“Give me your keys, Jason,” I said. “You’re in no shape to drive after your blood donation, and Eric’s still healing. I don’t want to drive his car.” My brother fished his keys from his pocket and tossed them to me, and I was grateful for someone who didn’t argue.

“I’m coming,” Eric said, and pushed to his feet once more. Pam had shut her eyes, but they flew open as she realized we were leaving.

“All right,” I said, since I would take any help I could get. Even a weak Eric was stronger than almost anything. I told Jason about the cleanup crew that was coming, and then we were out the door and into the truck with Pam still protesting that if we loaded her in she would heal along the way.

I drove, and I drove fast. There was no point in asking if Eric could fly so he could get there faster, because I knew he couldn’t. Eric and I didn’t talk along the way. We had either too much to say, or not enough. When we were about four minutes away from the house, Eric doubled over with pain. It wasn’t his. I got a backwash of it from him. Something big had happened. We were rocketing down the driveway to my house less than forty-five minutes after we’d left Shreveport, which was pretty damn good.

The security light in my front yard illuminated a strange scene. A pale-haired fairy I’d never seen before was standing back-to-back with Claude. The one I didn’t know had a long, thin sword. Claude had two of my longest kitchen knives, one in each hand. Alexei, who appeared to be unarmed, was circling them like a small white killing machine. He was naked and covered in splotches, which were all shades of red. Ocella was lying sprawled on the gravel. His head was covered in dark blood. That seemed to be the theme of the night.

We skidded to a stop and scrambled out of Jason’s truck. Alexei smiled, so he knew we were there, but he didn’t stop his circling. “You didn’t bring Jason,” he called. “I wanted to see him.”

“He had to give Pam a lot of blood to keep her from dying,” I said. “He was too weak.”

“He should have let her pass away,” Alexei called, and darted under the sword to give the unknown fairy a hard fist to the stomach. Though Alexei had a knife, he seemed to be feeling playful. The fairy swung the sword faster than I could follow with my eyes, and it nicked Alexei, adding another rivulet to the blood already coursing down his chest.

“Can you please stop?” I asked. I staggered, because I seemed to have run out of steam. Eric put his arm around me.

“No,” Alexei said in his high boy’s voice. “Eric’s love for you is pouring through our bond, Sookie, but I can’t stop. This is the best I’ve felt in decades.” He did feel wonderful; I could feel that coming through the bond. Though the drugs had temporarily deadened it, now I was feeling nuances, and there was such a contradictory bundle of them that it was like standing in a wind that kept changing directions.

Eric was trying to ease us over to where his maker lay. “Ocella,” he said, “do you live?”

Ocella opened one black eye behind a mask of blood. He said, “For the first time in centuries, I think I wish I didn’t.”

I think I wish you didn’t, too, I thought, and I felt him glance at me. “She’ll kill me with no compunction, that one,” the Roman said, almost sounding amused. In the same voice he said, “Alexei has severed my spinal column, and until it heals, I will not be able to move.”

“Alexei, please don’t kill the fairies,” I said. “That’s my cousin Claude, and I don’t have much family left.”

“Who’s the other one?” the boy asked, making an incredible leap to pull at Claude’s hair and vault the other fairy, whose sword was not quick enough this time.

“I have no idea,” I said. I started to add that he was no friend of mine and was probably an enemy, since I figured he was the one who’d been colluding with Basim, but I didn’t want to see anyone else die. except possibly Appius Livius.

“I am Colman,” the fairy bellowed. “I am of the sky fae, and my child is dead because of you, woman!”

Oh.

This was the father of Claudine’s baby.

When Eric’s arms left me, I had to struggle to stay on my feet. Alexei did one of his darting runs into the circle of blades, punching Colman’s leg so hard that the fairy almost went down. I wondered if Colman’s leg had broken. But while Alexei was close, Claude managed to stab backward and wound Alexei in the spot right below his shoulder. It would have killed the boy if he’d been human. As it was, Alexei nearly slipped on the gravel but managed to scrabble to his feet and keep on going. Vampire or not, the boy was tiring. I didn’t dare look away to see what Eric was doing, where he was.

I had an idea. Under its impetus, I ran into the house, though I couldn’t run in a straight line and I had to stop and breathe on my way up the porch steps.

In a drawer in my night table was the silver chain I’d gotten so long ago when the drainers had kidnapped Bill for his blood. I grabbed the chain, staggered back out of the house with it concealed in my hand behind my back, and edged near to the three combatants—but closest of all to the dancing, whirling Alexei. Even in that short time I’d been gone, he seemed to have gotten a little slower—but Colman was down on one knee.

I hated my plan, but this had to stop.

The next time the boy came by I was ready, with plenty of slack in the chain I was gripping with both hands. I swung my arms up, then down, the slack of the chain landing around Alexei’s neck. I crossed my hands and pulled. Then Alexei was on the ground and screaming, and a shaved moment after that, Eric was there with a tree branch he’d broken off. He raised both arms and brought them down. The second after that, Alexei, tsarevitch of Russia, had gone to his final death.

I panted, because I was too exhausted to cry, and I sank to the ground. The two fairies gradually dropped their battle stances. Claude helped Colman stand, and they put their hands on each others’ shoulders.

Eric stood between the fairies and me, keeping a watchful eye on them. Colman was my enemy, no doubt about that, and Eric was being cautious. I took advantage of the fact that he wasn’t looking at me to pull the stake from Alexei and crawl over to the helpless Appius. He watched me coming with a smile.

“I want to kill you right now,” I said, very quietly. “I want you dead so bad.”

“Since you’ve stopped to speak to me, I know you’re not going to do it.” He said that with the utmost confidence. “You won’t keep Eric, either.”

I wanted to prove him wrong on both counts. But there’d been so much death and blood already that night. I hesitated. Then I raised the broken bit of branch. For the first time, Appius looked a little worried—or maybe he was simply resigned.

“Don’t,” Eric said.

I might still have done it if there hadn’t been pleading in his voice.

“You know what you could do that would actually be some help, Appius Livius?” I said. There was a shout from Eric. Appius Livius’s eyes flickered past me, and I felt him tell me to move. I thrust myself off to the side with every ounce of strength left in my body. The sword intended for me went right into Appius Livius, and it was a fairy blade. The Roman went into convulsions instantly, as the area around the wound blackened with shocking rapidity. Colman, who had been looking down at his accidental murder victim with shocked eyes, stiffened, and his shoulders went back. He began to topple, and I saw that there was a dagger between them. Eric shoved the quivering Colman away.

“Ocella!” Eric screamed, terror in his voice. Suddenly, Appius Livius went still.