Ch 24: Crossroads of Duplicity

Sookie I was numb, so numb. I couldn’t even string together two coherent thoughts on the way to Fangtasia. The only thing in my mind was emptiness. I was like a barren desert, sad, and desolate, the chilly wind blowing in my ears. The wind was relentless inside my mind and outside, beating against my body as Eric held me in his arms, flying us towards Fangtasia. I was still in denial. I knew when we got there Godric would be waiting for us. He would tell us it was some mistake and have a perfectly good explanation for why we could no longer feel his presence across the bond. He would fold his arms around me and hold me and tell me that it was all a big misunderstanding. He would kiss me and hug me. He would whisper to me that he would never go. He would tell me that he loved me while he squeezed me tightly against his chest. I would look in his eyes and see that glint of untamed passion that I loved so much about him, that wild and thrilling part of him that shimmered right below the surface. I would laugh and smile and squeal. I would wrap my arms around his neck and tell him he better not ever scare me like that again. I just knew it would all be okay. I knew it was a big fat mistake. I could feel Eric’s emotions across our bond. He was hopeful too, but at the same time he was incredibly angry, so much so that I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to think straight once we landed. I was afraid his blind rage would take over, and there was that little tiny part of me, the logical part, that was saying danger waited for us. When we landed Eric immediately crouched in front of me, growling with his fangs out. He reached his arm behind him towards me, wrapping it around my body and pressing me to his back. His growls were so feral and his face was so vicious. He was ready to kill and the vampire inside him had taken over. He turned his head from side to side quickly, looking around the perimeter of our surroundings. I was trembling against his back. I don’t think I had ever been so scared in my life. I remembered just how ruthless Russell Edgington could be. I remembered how he ripped a man’s spine out of his back before anyone could so much as blink. I was afraid that could be me, and it scared the ever living shit out of me. But something inside me took over; maybe it was my other half, the half I merged with from this world. I put my hand in the air, and I was ready to smite the shit out of anything that moved. Eric stopped growling and we listened in silence. I don’t know how he could hear anything over the beating wind. We were about a hundred yards away from the back door of Fangtasia, as it laid menacingly on the ground. We stood on the edge of the parking lot facing the dark entrance. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I peered at it. I hoped that nothing dangerous would come barreling out. “Only Pam is inside,” Eric hissed. “She is hurt.” He whirled me out from behind his back and into his arms bridal style so quickly my head spun in vertigo. Then he was rushing towards the door at full speed… A Tortured Soul I was confused. I was furious. I was like an angry spirit floating in the otherworld, only connected to the outside through sound. I could only hear. Everything was black and blank, and I could not make a noise, no matter how hard I tried to open my mouth and scream. My 2000 years of strength mattered not. My power was useless against the forces that bound me here. I deserved this! I deserved to be given everything only for it to be taken away! My wicked past had finally caught up with me, fate had passed her final judgment, and she had found me wanting. She had found me lacking. How cruel, yet befitting the scene had become as I stood at the dire crossroads of duplicity. I grasped for comfort in the darkness, any semblance of warmth and amenity to alleviate my bleak reality. My mind desperately clawed at the bond in search of Sookie and Eric, but all I found was emptiness ungraciously staring back at me with amusement carved across its unforgiving eyes. For the first time in a millennium I was completely alone… This terrible place where I was bound was physically agonizing. I vibrated in misery, and I frantically thrashed against the chains of death as they yanked and tore at me, like a thousand gnarled hands reaching up from the seas of the underworld, bitterly trying to pull me into their watery grave. They were the hands of the countless souls that I had delivered to that very place, faceless and nameless as they sought their bitter revenge, scratching, and grasping, and ripping at my flesh. Laughing and moaning their spooky wails of exultation when they sensed my debasement being exacted, imparting them with their long awaited justice. But I refused to let go of hope. I refused to give up. I am a 2000 year old vampire who has evolved into one of honor and dignity and integrity. I am the only one I have known to rise above the baser instincts of the nature prone to my kind. It is still there, my caged beast within, but I have grown and learned through many sad and deplorable errors. I have finally found the balance I had sought for so long. I have learned to accept that I am a vampire, accept it without shame, and even celebrate it at times, as I did when I bonded with my Sookie, when I made love to her. Oh Sookie, thinking of her saddened me beyond words. What will become of her now? What was she thinking? I know her heart shatters as Eric’s does, while I floated here in the black, bound by deathly shackles, cut off from them both, as I thrashed in bitter loneliness. As I wrestled with the ghosts of my past who haunt me as relentlessly as they did before I found my little one, found my Sookie, before she bravely came to my nest in Dallas, and demanded that I get off my ass and do something about it. I am known as death. I make demons and devils cower in my presence, and yet my little one saw through it all, she saw past my tortured soul and into my hungry heart. It seemed so long ago, so far away; regardless, thinking of my Sookie gave me faith. Knowing that she and Eric would take care of each other gave me comfort, soothed my haunted mind. I heard a noise… I strained to hear beyond the darkness, beyond the mocking tomb that served as the boundary between my world and the world that held everything I loved. The noise was like a faint whisper carried on a cheerless wind, but I strained to hear…. The noise grew ever closer, louder, clearer as I frantically tried to twist and wrench myself free of the tortured souls that clutched at me, their hands cold and metallic as they bit and stung me, like the cruel silver that blanketed my torn flesh. The heavy lid lifted and unnatural light poured into my tomb. I sighed in relief as the vengeful souls descended back to their unforgiving sea. I was alive… The thick silver plated coffin that they had confined me in scorched my skin so severely that I was lying in a pool of my own blood. The thick shackles around my wrists and ankles had seared me so deeply that they now scraped bone, and the silver-threaded duct tape wrapped around my head preventing my mouth from opening. It would have killed me if I were a human. I would not have been able to gasp for air. They had used an entire roll to wrap my head thoroughly, leaving only my eyes exposed. Edgington looked down at me. He had kept his word. He had allowed me to live, but for how long, I knew not. His plan was cunning and clever, signifying his ancient skill that had been honed for many millennia. He would not have survived as long as he had otherwise. But I too was equally intelligent; I knew what he had planned the moment he blindfolded Pam, having already suspected it when I saw the feral newborn and glamoured witch. The vile ancient faked my death, and masterfully too. In the basement of Fangtasia, once they had me bound in silver and thoroughly gagged, and once Pam was blindfolded, Edgington played out his dastardly spectacle while I stood immobile and incapable of warning her of the falsehood happening before my very eyes. Edgington’s performance was for her benefit, so she would confirm the grave news to Eric. They stripped me naked of my clothing and put them on the feral vampire. Then Edgington staked the poor bastard through the heart. Once upstairs, he ordered his Werewolves to lick the blood clean from the floor and rub themselves all over the room so Eric would not be able to smell the difference. They even retrieved my shredded clothes so Eric could not detect the strange blood on them. My clothes only laid in the pile of gore for Pam’s benefit. Then they planned to spill her blood and smear it around the room as an extra safe measure to further cover any indication I was not the one who met the true death. Yes, it was enough to fool my Viking child’s senses, extraordinary as they were, but it was more than enough. Once outside and in the parking lot, Edgington compelled his glamoured witch to perform an ancient spell that severed all my bonds. It was an old spell used in the witch wars when they battled vampires. It was a devastating magic that was extremely painful to repair and heal, and it was rare because it took a powerful witch to perform it. When the connections to Sookie and Eric were severed, I fell to the ground and shook violently, my hands bound behind my back and silver wrapped around my body. I was unable to utter a noise as I jerked painfully on the ground in my own despair and anguish. Edgington watched wordlessly. Even he felt some semblance of pity for me. Now, I was in Mississippi, as I found myself on the precipice of a horrifying new chapter in my life, soon to face the most impure demon of my past. He was the one who I betrayed. He was the one who I abandoned to the pits of oblivion for my own survival’s sake. He was my maker, and his name I have not spoken in 1900 years, since the night I beheaded him and sent him to his true death, fooled him as he laid under me in lewd pleasure. I took the opportunity of his fleeting euphoria and snuffed out his existence. Now I will have to face him again. His name is known only as “Angur,” and the modern word anger derives from his namesake. “I was always too fond of Talbot to use him as a host for the resurrection. He isn’t ruthless like Angur but he is loyal. Now that another blood sibling is available this is perfect timing to bring my plans to fruition. Nut is useless.” I wished Edgington would close his depraved mouth. I was well aware that the Sanguinista resurrection required a blood sibling as a host. I was a leader in the movement when Edgington was living at the edge of the world with his pack of Werewolves, robbing humans of goats and frivolous treasures. I had recently become privy to pieces of his past from watching the DVDs that my Sookie provided me with. “Nut will drink your blood which contains remnants of your maker’s blood, and then the witch will perform the ritual that will separate Angur’s blood from yours. When it is finished, all will be as it should and his consciousness will reside within the body of Alan Nut. I have kept my word Gaul and let you live. But it is time you answered for your crime. When your maker is resurrected I will allow him to decide your fate since it was he who you violated.” Again, I am quite aware how the arduous ritual of resurrecting through a child’s blood worked. I was beginning to get the impression that Edgington enjoyed hearing himself talk. I felt my inner beast stir within as I tried to quell my fury. I would love nothing more than to rip out Edgington’s tongue and shove it up his anal cavity where I was sure my makers tongue had been on many occasions along with his flaccid cock, which I would gladly rip off as well and slap him in the face with. I stared Edgington in the eyes incredulously, still unable to speak from the gags that bound my face. I was alive, and I had something to live for and that was more dangerous than all the power and strength in the world. I had Eric and Sookie and nothing would keep me from them. I may not be able to feel their connections at that moment, but I had been through many obstacles and hardships in my immortal unlife. I had overcome overwhelming odds on more than one occasion, and I was determined to survive this difficult hurdle. I was intent to embrace Eric again, to teach him all the things I had learned about life since last we lived together, to watch him continue to grow and evolve, and to proudly call him my child. I was determined to hold Sookie in my arms again, to taste her again, to make love to her again, and to complete the blood bond. I wanted to learn more about her, and reveal more of myself to her. I was driven, and I had a purpose. I would walk the Earth for eternity with the two I held sacred in my heart. No, I had not lost hope. I was dangerous and my beast had furiously awoken from a long slumber. He wildly paced within, stopping to sharpen his talons and stretch his viscous muscles. The monster caged inside would soon be unleashed and not even an army of demons could stop it then. Let me just take this minute to promote Whispers on the Wind. If you are not reading this story you are really missing out! The last chapter (ch 4) was so funny you will pee (not recommended for pregnant women – could induce early labor from laughter) and so sweet your heart will float in a cloud of cotton candy, and I guarantee a little healing of your battered and bruised hearts from Rabbit Hole while you deal with Godric and his crisis. But do not loose faith my fair fangirls, for hope is on the horizon and our trio will be stronger for it! PS: My hats off to cari1973, northmanherondale, ericluver, and mom2goalies for so cleverly picking up on all the little hints and shenanigans from last chapter. You saw beyond the deception and realized that there was more than meets the eye. Some of you were right on the money! *Gives you all a Godric shaped cookie*