Chapter 12 – A Kind Soul

 

 

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“The fae are eternal beings, as long as they carry the spark. If Sookie chooses it, she can outlive you all.”

 

“Eternal as in immortal?” he asked with hope in his eyes.

 

“No eternal as in eternal. Her spark is congruent to the balance of magic on this plane.”

 

“Did you carry a spark?” Eric asked as he took in the new information. “That is why you are stuck?”

 

“No,” she said with a bit of disappointment. “I was like Jason. The fae in me keeps me corporal on this plane. The human in me is long gone.”

 

“I could turn Jason and stake him for you,” Eric offered with a malevolent grin. “You would not walk alone anymore.”

 

Cecily giggled with delight, “I don’t think Sookie will let you live for that. Besides I don’t think it necessary. Their blood it is special. Pure.”

 

“His blood is sustaining life in you,” he said recalling the witch’s observation earlier that night.

 

“Yes,” she smiled. “My light, it seems to be returning.”

 

“You will look over them during the day?” Eric asked as the sun started to pull on his conscious state.

 

“Not necessary,” she said kindly. “But you honour me with your request dear brother. They will be safe.”

 

---

 

“What has you so happy?” Sookie asked as she felt Eric’s consciousness buzz to life with a burst of joy through their fledgling bond. They hadn’t found any time after the forging of it to speak much of their newly formed connection as sleep had quickly taken Sookie’s shocked form after the sudden assault of the weather. Eric had noted it was an unusual shaping of their life giving essences but he had assumed the unknown component was due to his own inexperience with it. He had simply woken up vampire attached to Godric. With Pam it had been similar, after the obligatory three nights in the ground their bond was just there.

 

With Sookie he had stood witness at the birth of it. He had conceded she was indeed right. It was unfair that she only got to experience anything of it until the bond was permanently formed. Eric found, in hindsight, that he wanted to have been able to share that experience with her. He pondered that it was perhaps not so different from the human condition of conceiving a child. While two were necessary for the mating only one would deliver it as the other stood merely witness to the labour. If at all.

 

“You,” he smiled in answer to her questioning of his uplifted mood. The overcast of the storm was interfering with his day rest again allowing them this private time during the day. Without the aid of Sookie’s blood he would be decidedly weakened by being this alert. While human blood could sustain a lot he wondered how much the fairy essence inside her boosted his strength during these daylight hours, he had never felt so energetic before.

 

“What makes you so happy about me?” she probed snuggling closer into his embrace.

 

“You’re not going anywhere,” he simply replied with the contentment of knowing she would be with him for as long as they both weathered the storms that the ages threw at them.

 

“Well this hurricane is not allowing for much movement, no,” Sookie teased as she squirmed in the tighter hold around her waist. “I’ll be bolting out of your evil grasp as soon as it’s gone.”

 

“Do you enjoy riling up vampires,” Eric smirked before catching her lips with his so she couldn’t contest otherwise. “You have quite the talent for it.”

 

“I can feel you,” she said smiling up at him when an inhalation of oxygen finally allowed her brain to produce cohesive sentences again. “I don’t know if it’s the same as for you. I see your happiness but I feel it with more intensity.”

 

“You have access to the bond?” he questioned with a mixture of confusion and delight.

 

“I think so,” she said probing it and watched him shudder in ecstasy with the feather light caresses of her touch that only invigorated his stance that she was an unsurpassed expert in vampire riling. “I felt it growing from inside me meeting you. When it collided the roof was torn off.”

 

“Yes,” he agreed as his eyes filled with wonder as he caressed the soft cheeks that sat below her equally sparkling eyes. “I desperately wanted you to feel it come to life, to share that with you.”

 

“I guess my fairyness changes the mechanics of it,” Sookie said thoughtfully. “I’ll ask Cecily when she appears again.”

 

“I can ask her as well,” Eric voiced smugly. “I can see her now.”

 

“Since when?” Sookie asked suspiciously before the taunting of her voice continued with slid eyelids. “You’re not feeding your blood to all the girls round here, are ya?”

 

He chuckled softly at her jealousy that was poorly veiled in her teasing tone. “Only you, my love,” Eric expressed with a tender whisper. It puzzled him slightly that her spirits plummeted with that sentence in rapid speed as a sombre mood replaced the levity that was present before in the bond. “You do not believe me?”

 

“No, it’s not that,” she said dismissively and their bond revealed she was being truthful with her statement yet her mood remained stuck in the negative periphery. “It’s nothing.”

 

“Tell me,” he demanded, only with his thousand year old control did he contain the growl that was desperate to be let out alongside it. “I can feel it is not nothing.”

 

“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” she declared with anger coursing through her face, refusing him any further access she turned her head away from him. With his preternatural speed Eric simply moved himself quicker than the motion of her neck to rest beside her on the other side. Startled that her private moment was stolen in his presence a hot tear of frustration fell from her eyes.

 

“Please, tell me,” he requested in a softer tenor as he wiped away the offending tear.

 

“You said you wouldn’t use knowing my emotions against me,” she replied equally soft, the annoyance and accusation were, however, not absent from her tone.

 

“I think we will both need time to adjust to this bond between us,” he sighed while fingering the ends of her hair. “My only experience with it has been as a maker or as a child. Not on equal footing like this.”

 

“Okay,” she whispered out.

 

“Bound or not. I can see the pain on your face as clearly as I feel it in the bond,” Eric said as he traced the minute worry line on her forehead. “What did I say to upset you so?”

 

“I told you it’s nothing,” she started but the feel of his dejection prompted her to tell him the truth. She let out a small breath, “It’s just a word. Love. Bill was quick to use that word and so was I.”

 

“You believe me untruthful of the affection? Incapable even?” Eric questioned. Granted he was a complete novice in the area but he never examined the possibility it wasn’t possible. Whatever existed between him and Sookie had seemed unfathomable before but as soon as her presence had come into his existence all preconceived notions seemed open to scrutiny. “Or is it the fact we are both vampires?”

 

“No,” she voiced apologetically. Nowhere in her mind did the two equate simply on their altered nocturnal state. It was what they had evoked in her emotional quarry. “I don’t know if I understand the truth of it anymore. I thought love was what was growing between Bill and I. It was all lies.”

 

“Just because he manipulated you, it doesn’t negate what you felt,” Eric offered thoughtfully though he hated to admit the truth of his own words. However, there was no sense in denying it, he could feel all of her and it accurately revealed the feelings she carried for the Civil War veteran. The only solace he found is that what she held for him was stronger, more powerful and unburdened by the undesirable spectrum of emotions. Unwilling to allow the pain to remain on her face his fingers tenderly smoothed the frown in her brow.

 

“You think I was really in love with him?”

 

“I think you were well on your way to loving a concocted version of him,” Eric observed. “You wouldn’t be the first woman in the history of man to experience that. His betrayal wouldn’t hurt you so much if it wasn’t the case.”

 

“Then why was I so eager to give it up?” Sookie sighed, the stifling feel of guilt that belonged to her actions of adultery still lingered around the emotional Gordian knot that was connected to the memory of Bill. “It doesn’t make sense.”

 

“Well I am irresistible,” he smirked with dramatic arrogance, which earned him a playful slap to the shoulder and a small giggle that enforced the feel of her brightening mood. “Perhaps you knew instinctively that somehow he couldn’t be trusted.”

 

“Maybe,” Sookie conceded to a truth she was perhaps not fully willing to admit to yet. “You think Bill really believed he was in love with me then?”

 

“No,” Eric spoke decidedly. “He seeks redemption and thinks you will offer it to him. His actions don’t speak of affection but of desperation. He wanted to control the image of you as his own. I gave Godric my loyalty unquestioningly for over a thousand years. The moment he demanded it from me he lost it.”

 

“I wanted to believe what he offered me,” she admitted feeling the sharp wound coiling in her again but instead of feeling pain the warmth of their bond soothed it away. Sookie couldn’t help but smile up at him with the comfort offered. “I’m glad for this bond. I never realised the blessing for not hearing another’s thoughts would come at the cost of my scrutiny. Without the use of my telepathy I guess I’m just a little handicapped in the realm of vampires.”

 

“Maybe I should have opened with that,” he grinned.

 

“The loss of Bill’s blood will remain the unique selling point of your pitch,” she beamed back at him. “But that’s a close second.”

 

“How about my superior love making skills?”

 

“I don’t need a bond for that,” Sookie returned as she tauntingly curved her finger in flection beckoning him to her. “I think my eyes will suffice for that.”

 

Eric growled a little at her invitation. “Even if I were blind I’d be drawn to you,” he confessed before kissing the lids of her eyes one by one.

 

“Is that all I am to you?” she teased with a small pout. “A lovely scent. A tasty snack?”

 

“I admit you smell better than anything I scented on this earth,” he replied as he nudged her nose in an Eskimo’s caress. His finger trailed down the throbbing artery of her neck humming along to her murmurs. “Your blood is the most delectable thing that has ever touched my palette. Your body drives me mad with lust.” He set to support that claim by grinding his growing erection into her. A small gasp escaped her as she glowed a little brightly at the feel of it as it simultaneously taunted her internally through the bond.

 

“Even without all that,” he expressed ceremoniously. “I’d still dedicate my time in pursuit of you. For this perceptive mind beyond your years. Honed by the ever fleeting thoughts of others and still you are so indiscriminate with your heart and affection.” Eric proceeded to kiss the skin over her heart softly as it replied with thunderous beats that were deafening to his heightened senses. No musical composition created by man could rival the lyrical quality he found there.

 

“That is still not why,” he continues as his gaze locked onto hers again, the intensity of it near frightening with the gravity of his words.

 

“Why then?” she asked barely containing the stammer of her breath as her eyes sat wide with curiosity.

 

“I see you,” he said, the intensity of his stare nearly paralysing her with the statement. “As you see me.”

 

The bond between them ignited with sparks of lust and affection overtaking them both. Drawing their bodies together without being able to recognise where one started and the end of the other resided.

 

“You’d be a gazillionaire if you wrote those words down,” she sighed in contentment as his fingers started to gently caress through her folds.

 

“I’d be one without them too,” he grinned, resurfacing his carefree and playful side as the severity of his words had eliminated the downtrodden mood at the simple mention of the word ‘love’ had unearthed between them.

 

“Cause you have me?” she requested as he released her lips from his again while his urgent kisses travelled south.

 

“No,” he said with an arrogant smirk. “I’m filthy rich.”

 

She tittered with equal admonishing and delight as she continued to straddle his body and sank herself down on the erection that was weeping out for her attention. “There you are,” she said lingering her eyes on his mischievous ones as her fingers traced the extremities of his face. They both remained unmoving as they allowed this interlude for their bodies to greet each other again in such close confines. “I all but worried I’d exchanged you for a romantic model.”

 

“Never,” he gritted out as he thrust into her. His encompassing hands guiding them both in a sweet rhythm. She moaned in delights as she contorted her back into a graceful arch, tight as a bow while resting her hands upon his chest pulling him in deeper with the suction of her internal muscles. They both groaned at the feel as he sank into her at what seemed an impossible depth. Her breasts jutted out between her arms bouncing with each forceful thrust he send through small form, he smiled like a small child as his thrusts rippled through her body jostling her breasts to his face. Eric decided these were truly breasts the rest of the world had tits as far as he was now concerned because these beckoned him like no other, the pert nipples begging for his touch.

 

“You’re unapologetically yourself,” she said as she ground herself down on him circling her hips over his thumping cock. He swatted her behind softly in approval of her words and movements before continuing to knead the soft flesh that aided her ride of him.

 

“You care for others at the cost of your own,” Sookie panted out as the endorphins flooded her body momentarily. “Even though you’ll never admit it out loud.” He laughed with the accuracy of her words as her internal muscles fluttered around the impressive plunges of his cock. Her depleting energies soon found her resting on her back again as he lazily thrust into her slowly working her up again as he purposefully held back to hear the words of praise she held for him.

 

“You hear me as I speak,” she whimpered out as the excitement grew exponentially between them again as the pace of his pounding increased while his tongue laved at the breasts he had claimed as his own. “Even when I mumble nonsensically.” Her hands flew through his hair as her legs encircled his waist driving him into previously unfound depths. “You don’t treat me as a child despite your age.”

 

“You allowed me to come to you,” she cried out as he dragged his tongue over her sensitised nipples. Her hands moved frantically over his gloriously naked form trying in desperation to encompass every piece of him as promise of another impending release was making her forget exactly what she was trying to say. His hand moved atop her clit rubbing at it senselessly when he felt her tightening around his cock the movement stalled and his demanding gaze awaited the words that were delayed on her tongue. “You thought me special at first sight,” she panted out swallowing another cry as his lips moved over hers. “Held me up when I could no longer find the strength.”

 

Soon she became incapable of forming the words she wanted to speak to him as their combined lust took over. Eric had heard enough for now and more importantly had felt it all alongside the deliciously tight heat of her that surrounded him. They were oscillating between the spurting out in ecstasy and never wanting it to end, intensifying their hunger to unchartered heights. His thrusts were becoming uncoordinated driven by the incessant need for their joint release that the bond dictated above all others.

 

The slight fluttering of her internal walls was the ignition of their collective fusillade. She cried out in frenzy as he unleashed a string of ill connected curse words from his native tongue.

 

“Is that why you care for me so?” he asked after her spoken words as they lay in a tangled mess.

 

“No,” she laughed with a dopey smile. “It’s the fact you’re hung like a horse and you still fit.”

 

---

 

 

“Good of you to join us,” Cecily drawled out at the sight of the dishevelled lovers.

 

“Lord above,” Sookie screamed out as she scrambled to cover their naked forms with the surrounding sheets.

 

“Below is more like it,” Cecily cackled gesturing at her body resting upon Eric’s who much to Sookie’s annoyance seemed completely unperturbed by the nudity on display.

 

“Make sure Pam never gets to meet her,” Eric noted seriously. “I don’t think we’ll survive their joint scrutiny.” Sookie nodded, understanding fully well what the combined impact of those two women would cause on their sanity.

 

“What can we do for you Cecily?” Sookie questioned with a hint of irritation now modestly covered by a white sheet and sitting up with Eric by the headboard.

 

“The maenad is approaching,” she informed them both. “I have spoken to Godric. You need to speak to the shifter.”

 

“Sam,” Sookie corrected with a small frown. “I’ll find him as soon as the storm lays down.”

 

“You were right,” Cecily replied. “The witch has confirmed that this storm reeks of ancient magic. The maenad will arrive in the eye.”

 

“I will take her to the shifter at full dark,” Eric said knowing it was no far off at which Sookie nodded in compliance.

 

“Why are you helping Godric with this?” Sookie inquired. “From what I observed you seem to waylay him constantly.”

 

“Why are you?” she huffed back.

 

“Sookie thinks she can reach him,” Eric explained sceptically. The situation with his maker was still a difficult one for him to grasp, his need to seek safety from the possible fallout was being overridden by Sookie’s insistence to save Godric from himself. Eric could, however, not see many opportunities to enforce this change, all that he had done to convince his maker otherwise only seemed to make Godric stauncher in his views.

 

“Then we are here for the same.”

 

“Does he really hear things?” Sookie queried wondering how much insight Cecily truly had into Godric’s inner mind.

 

“I am not a part of him anymore.” She gave a tiny shrug as she sat down cross legged on the end of the oversized bed. “He is at war with himself.”

 

“The Fellowship fuelled the flames,” Sookie noted well aware of the religious grasp on Godric’s mind. She had seen it take hold in humans often enough and it was no different when it happened to a vampire. Unlike Eric she had also seen it dissipate or transform into a different kind of faith. That is where she drew her optimism from but at the same time she understood Godric perhaps better than his two children that sat with her on the bed. He was an outsider and it was a position she knew from birth and it took a fraudulent relationship to bring her to someone that saw her for what she was and it was far more than she had thought possible. If Godric could only experience a sliver of that, Sookie was convinced he would find a path of sane thought again.

 

“He doesn’t understand the world around him anymore,” Eric supplied remembering the change in their former bond. “Shortly after the great reveal he became lost.”

 

“Yes,” Cecily hissed. “He forgets what he is and then…” She paused momentarily. “Then he remembers exactly what he is.”

 

“You try to remind him what he is,” Sookie said considerately of Cecily’s actions. “The good in him.”

 

“It’s all I know him as,” she said with a hint of melancholy that Sookie felt coming from Eric at the same time through their shared connection. “This is not him.”

 

“He seems such a kind soul,” Sookie said with confusion as she found Eric’s fingers to interlace with her own, squeezing gently to distract the sadness that threatened to erupt. “But then I see the mindless drones that follow his words of self-hatred and it doesn’t add up anymore.”

 

“The Fellowship gave him the tools,” Cecily remarked. “The words are his own, as he understands them. Not as they are. The maenad and he are not so different.”

 

“She worships a god that never comes,” Sookie repeated the words Cecily has spoken the evening prior. It reminded her of the other manipulators that had come into play. “Steve and Sarah Newlin poisoned the minds of the children of Bon Temps that were in their care.”

 

“I never bought their co-existence spiel,” Eric grumbled at the blatant indoctrination. “Such hatred that stems from ideology does not simply disintegrate in a truce. Not even with a maker like mine.”

 

“We have seen the choreography of this dance many times over, brother,” Cecily stated wisely. “Man does not always observe their past mistakes.”

 

“What burdens his conscious so heavily?” Sookie asked.

 

“There is much darkness in him,” Eric said in memory of a sensation he had not felt from his maker in centuries. “He did not reveal it to me until I was over a century old. Only when I witnessed it all did he allow me to be on my own.”

 

“He exerts great control,” Cecily added. “That is his true gift.”

 

“Or his curse,” Sookie replied knowing the value of her own. “Has he been like this before?”

 

“He did not take my death well,” Cecily supplied.

 

“Which one?” Eric questioned.

 

“Both,” she answered. “The source was the same.”

 

“His maker killed you as vampire?” Eric asked surprised by the revelation.

 

“In a sense,” Cecily remarked touching at the point of impact to the left of her sternum. “It was by his command.” The delicate fingers of her hand travelled at the exposed skin as she remembered the stake that ended her life and birthed her into an unknown existence that was her constitution now.

 

“As was your turning,” Sookie alleged. “You were a lesson.”

 

“Correct,” Cecily said. “A vampire at that age should not have been able to turn a part fae. I continued to exist because of his great restraint.”

 

“How long were you vampire?”

 

“A few decades,” she replied. “He couldn’t turn a full fairy.”

 

“You were the price for that,” Eric stated rather than asked knowing full well how harsh the punishments were that Godric’s maker dished out. She gave a minute nod as she trailed her fingers through the ends of her hair.

 

“Is his maker still alive?”

 

“No,” Cecily responded to Sookie’s question. “He died the same night as I.”

 

“You killed him?” Eric asked impressed, knowing Godric’s maker to be of an incredibly strong line but knew intrinsically that he would have done the same if he were put in her position.

 

“No. I cannot kill or birth anything in this form,” she sighed indicating she had tried unsuccessfully. “The Roman selected the wrong fairy to experiment with. His family came knocking on our doors in an instant.”

 

“He lost his maker and child in one night,” Eric said knowing the emptiness of that far too well. It was only his newfound bond with Sookie that salved the wounds of his severed ones. The memory of one haunting him for the ages explained the compounding guilt his maker carried for so long.

 

“Yes. The darkness ran rampant after that,” Cecily acknowledged with a pout.

 

“What does that mean?” Sookie queried even though she was slightly afraid to hear the answer.

 

“The Roman Empire soon was no more.”

 

“Godric was responsible for the demise of the Roman Empire?” Sookie questioned disbelievingly.

 

“No,” Cecily smiled. “They did that quite adequately themselves. Pansies. He merely speeded it up by taking down contingents of them on the battle field.”

 

“That really doesn’t sound that damning,” Sookie said unimpressed. “I bet Eric was just as active as a human.”

 

“True,” the Viking in him smirked unapologetically. The day that was supposed as their last in Fangtasia had left little room for conversation but when it had Sookie had wanted to know of his human days. Without censor he had held her captivated with tales of his human days. “I think the darkness pertains more to the bloodlust that followed. At that point there is no discrimination between innocent and damned. I never partook in that as human or vampire.”

 

“Indeed brother,” Cecily smiled. “You remember your lessons well. It has always been our fader’s greatest point of pride in you.”

 

“Death always belongs to the deserving,” Eric recited the words Godric had instilled in him from the moment he was reborn.

 

“They were my first words as vampire,” Cecily informed as she tossed her hair behind her in a dramatic sweep. “I was no innocent as a human.” She smiled with a hint of malice at Sookie’s confused expression.

 

“Fairies are known meddlers,” Eric supplied to ease Sookie’s continued worried glance. “Sound familiar?”

 

She emitted a small harrumph lacking the evidence to back up her denial of her own meddling ways. Had Cecily not been present she wouldn’t consider it poor form to remind him that her meddling ways had saved his lily white ass.

 

“The fire fae ran rampant in me for long it’s how my maker and I could understand each other. We have tempered in our old age. Never aggravate a fire Fae,” Cecily offered in explanation. “The element of Sky is Zen-like in comparison.”

 

“When did Godric move out of the darkness?” Sookie asked.

 

“When he stopped thinking my presence was a sign of his insanity.” Cecily played her fingers along each other fidgeting at the memories. “I had to beckon him away from the sun several times.”

 

Eric hissed with the revelation of his maker’s attempts at suicide, for some reason that caused him to feel more pain and regret than the thought of his imminent demise not so long ago.

 

“When he turned you my dear brother his focus returned,” Cecily offered him in sympathy. “Now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. He thinks he found light in the darkness. I fear it is the other way round, it is an illusion he continues to believe.”

 

“Is that why you revealed yourself as more than an apparition?” Eric tested.

 

“Clever my little brother,” she said nodding. “Yes, I refused to be considered as fantastical as the voices that tell him the right thing to do is the wrong thing. Of all the things imaginary I am the one that is real.”

 

“The sun has set,” Eric said suddenly alert.

 

“The eye of the storm is approaching we must move quickly,” Cecily responded with equal awareness.

 

The couple quickly changed into their still slightly damp clothes as Cecily disappeared to find Godric. Eric shielded Sookie as best he could as he flew her to the stables that housed the two natured during the storm. Eric had to bear his fangs repeatedly with accompanying warning sounds at the riled up weres in the stable till they found Sam as Dean the dog in a lonely corner.

 

Sookie quickly averted her eyes as soon as Sam shifted back into his human form. He instantly agreed to the plan provided he had an image of a bull to imprint on.  Eric’s smartphone conjured up the appropriate image as Cecily and Godric joined them. Cecily sat astride on Sam in his ancient bull form as Godric led them out of the stable. The winds had eased down as the eye of the storm had started to inch out over the city settling its approach. The pleats of Cecily’s lithe white Grecian goddess dress bellowed out behind her despite the absolute absence of the winds. The ethereal being seemed to carry those on her own.

 

“She’s at the gate,” Sookie announced sensing the unusual brain signature of Maryann who she now understood to be the maenad. She also recognised some of the residents of Bon Temps in her envoy which had her expressing her worry for them. Sookie focused on Tara knowing her mind intricately well and she shuddered at the feel of the maenad’s hold on her friend. “Her control of the mind,” Sookie explained with a tear escaping her eye as Eric asked what was wrong. “It’s intricate and all-encompassing not like glamour at all. It’s like she’s not even there anymore.”

 

“Yes,” Godric acknowledged. “That is how I experienced it too. It was disorienting.”

 

“This thwarts our plan,” Eric growled out in exasperation of his maker’s continued faith in an unproven being as protection. The thousand year old vampire only ever dealt with fact that is what had kept him alive for so long. “You did not tell me this Godric. If she takes control of your mind again the outcome is too uncertain.”

 

“This is God’s plan for me my Son,” Godric spoke calmly. “We will succeed.”

 

His two children and the telepath looked at him warily and unbelieving of his continued blind faith. Godric had faced her once and come back defeated. His hubris was completely perplexing to the ones who stood to aid him in the plan to end this seemingly undefeatable mythical being.

 

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up,”[1] Godric spoke devoutly.

 

“My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations,”[2]Sookie returned to which Godric’s eyes lighted up appreciatively. Her religious upbringing had been one of extreme tolerance and loose interpretations of scripture but it did not mean that Sookie remained unknown of the studies that defined her Christian faith. She recognised the words of the book of Hosea which described the worship of a false idol that brought nothing but emptiness. Sookie simply wondered if Godric took the time to appreciate the lessons of that book to his own. Now was, however, not the time to question him on that.

 

“You understand little light,” he said proudly.

 

“Yes,” Sookie lied, she understood exactly what that book was teaching and it had nothing to do with blind faith as Godric interpreted it, but it inspired her to appeal to his. “I am here by God’s hand. Allow me to shield your mind as I do mine. The maenad could only brush up against them when I met her as Maryann.”

 

“You are indeed a gift of God,” Godric said reverently as he kneeled in front of her. “This will prove to my children that what I speak is truth.”

 

Sookie rested her hands on top of Godric’s head and attempted to construct the same shields of her own mind around his. Cecily spoke to her for the first time telepathically to just think of warmth as she activated her light. She did so after recovering from the small and sudden invasion of her mind and Godric was bathed in a warm and bright light.

 

“In this I see God,” Godric said with wonder as he watched the glow disperse into his skin. “Thank you my light.”

 

She simply nodded in acceptance as Godric took off towards the front gates with his bull and child to meet the maenad once again. Eric flew Sookie to the roofline where they entered the former queen’s safe room. Lafayette sat waiting for them with Tallulah who was teaching him the spells and incantations that would further aid their deception of the maenad. They all settled themselves amongst the remains of the rafters of the roofline with a clear line of view to the elongated drive where the maenad stood waiting with her entourage.

 

“You deceived him,” Eric spoke lowly, assured that his maker would not hear him. “Why?”

 

“Cecily was right,” Sookie whispered back. “The maenad and he are not so different. They believe what they want to believe. He manipulates the words as he reads them to his own wishes.”

 

“Did you really shield his mind? You felt unsure, fraudulent.”

 

“No,” she returned. “I figured if her power is based on perception, defences should work equally well on the same premise. Placebo effect.”

 

“The light?” Eric asked as he flooded the bond with his pride for her quick thinking.

 

“Cecily told me telepathically,” she said smiling at his affection. “For all I know I gave him a fairy sponge bath.”

 

He couldn’t help his amusing smirk despite the severity of the situation. “You’ll have to give me one of those some time,” he leered.

 

“I’ll get back to you on that as soon as my wings come in,” she quipped with mirth.

 

“I can’t wait,” he said before kissing her softly. They were lost in each other momentarily before they were interrupted by Lafayette’s unsubtle cough indicating the Godric’s arrival at the gate.

 

The maenad and her following stood waiting at the gilded gate as Godric’s bare feet moved down the steps and over the square stepping stones set in the shallow water. His followers, the Red Weepers, lay prostrate in devotion lining down either side of the drive in their blinding white garbs.

 

“Ms Forrester,” Godric greeted as the gates opened to either side of him. “We meet again.”

 

“Yes,” she replied with a self-satisfied grin. “You ran away with your tail between your legs at my last party. We thought we lost you.”

 

“I am sorry to have missed out on all the excitement,” he responded politely. “I take it the blood you offered your Dionysus did not suffice.”

 

“I knew you would understand,” the maenad smiled. “You are special.”

 

“Perhaps the magic of the two natured’s blood is not strong enough to reach your God,” Godric spoke as he placed a dagger in her hands in offering.

 

“Your heart it does not bleed,” Maryann said with scrutiny.

 

“If you prick us do we not bleed?”[3]Godric recited Shakespeare’s infamous line as he bared his pale chest. “My blood has carried the magic for over 2000 years. The source of it from the beginning of times. I assure you my heart bleeds. It bleeds in pain every day of this dark existence.”

 

“You will not die,” she replied in confusion.

 

“It is not my death your Liege seeks. Is it not?” Godric said gesturing at her wedding attire. “He seeks your submission, not mine. I am merely the vessel that brings him here.”

 

“Of course in death we seek new life,” she spoke reverently with an understanding where her previous sacrifices had gone wrong. “I accept your offering young one.”

 

Godric fell to his knees in front of her. The crunching gravel underneath him appearing to be the only sound within the ring of towering thunderstorms that lined the eyewall of the storm.

 

Maryann plunged the knife into his heart as the crowds behind her screamed in delight in a cacophony of haunting sounds. The weepers wailed in agonised cries beyond him as the thick and ancient blood trickled out under the knife’s edge the maenad’s body shook as she felt the ancient power emanating from it.

 

“Yes,” she cried in orgasmic delight as she swallowed a drop of his blood. She continued to lapse at the blood on the dagger striking her own tongue that bled black before the two powerful essences intermingled and travelled from chin to chest staining the white satin impossibly dark. The maenad chanted in her ancient Greek tongue summoning the God who never came. The surrounding thunderstorms drew in closer around them closing in the eye of the hurricane and illuminating the sky with striking bolts of lightning as the air cackled with the friction of electricity.

 

Down the lined path with weepers the white horned bovine emerged from the darkness beyond.

 

“My husband,” Maryann cried as she ran towards the large animal leaving a bleeding Godric behind.

 

“I believe he is mine,” Cecily said in ancient Greek tongue as she materialised through Sookie’s projection aided by Lafayette’s proxy as medium and the witch’s magic. “At least for a moment in time he was.”

 

“Who are you?” the maenad demanded incensed at the other bride sitting atop her intended.

 

“I was there when you were born now I will be here when you die.”

 

“Nyx,” Maryann said in reverence of the supposed ancient Greek deity. “Goddess of night and death, you honour me with your presence.”

 

“You have spilled the blood of the night,” Cecily declared while boring her eyes into that of the maenad as she clicked down her fangs. “Now yours shall flow as my husband takes another wife. I have come to give my blessing to this union, for that you shall offer your immortality in tribute to me.”

 

“I have waited so long,” the maenad whimpered out as black tears travelled down her cheeks staining the virginal white satin of her dress further. “I knew he would come for me. Take what belongs to you.” She spread her arms wide in offering her eyes turning to the night sky above.

 

“My children join me,” she said beckoning Tara and Eggs who positioned themselves on either side kneeling down with their glazed over dark orbs. She handed the dagger stained with Godric’s blood to Eggs who didn’t hesitate to plunge it in his own heart immediately. The sinister delight of Tara’s laughter as she pulled the knife from his flesh reverberated and sent shivers down Sookie and Lafayette’s spines. Fear paralysed them both and Eric gave a questioning look to Tallulah who shook her head to his unspoken question of whether he could take Sookie and Lafayette from the enchanted circle they resided in. Instead he stilled their fleeting forms.

 

“Her only chance is if you stay here,” Eric offered to Tara’s two closest confidents whose emotional state was disturbing the projection of ‘Nyx’. An annoyed glance by Cecily was directed their way and this caused Sookie and Lafayette to focus on the task at hand once more.

 

Fearing Tara to be the next victim with the sudden turn of events Sam chose that moment to impale the maenad with his horn. Sookie screamed the name of her friend as she felt the pain of the self-inflicted wound surging through Tara’s mind who chose that moment to plunge the knife inside herself.

 

Sam shifted midway holding the dark stained heart of the diminishing form of the maenad rushing to Tara’s side who was profusely bleeding out of her stomach. The encroaching sphere of storms surrounding them dissolved into the darkened sky with the deterioration of the maenad who surrendered her immortality before she could register the illusion that had betrayed her. Only the waning moon provided illumination in the obscurity of night that was previously lit up by lightning bolts.

 

“Tara, please dear God no,” Sam pleaded tears staining his eyes as Eric rushed down a distraught Sookie and Lafayette. Before they were at her side Godric had already positioned himself with Tara’s head in his lap and a bleeding wrist down her throat.

 

Tara looked up in agonized fear as the black cloud lifted from her eyes and desperately tried to fight the forced liquid coming down her throat.

 

“Shhh, little one,” Godric cooed as he carefully removed the dagger from the taut flesh of her abdomen. The pain was unbearable but nothing on Tara’s impenetrable façade would display as much. “The Lord is on our side.”

 

Tara could only look wide-eyed at the man who barely looked old enough to drink, preaching the familiar lines of her detested mother that had her despising everyone of equal unfounded devotion. She continued to splutter against his wrist until he let up in fear of chocking her. He bent down to lick at the bleeding wound to seal it shut with his healing saliva unable to avoid the blood that flowed freely forcing him to swallow it down. Godric was, however, convinced that the Lord he spoke of would understand in this instance.

 

“What the fuck,” Tara screamed at the feel of the wet lick across her exposed flesh. Her friends and cousin sighed in relief recognising the opinionated woman in her true form. She looked out disoriented as Sookie and Lafayette tried to soothe her and explain where she was.

 

“Where’s Eggs?” she asked with fear in her eyes. “Is he hurt?”

 

“I’m sorry Tara honey,” Sookie offered sympathetically. “He’s… he’s gone.”

 

“No, no, no, no,” Tara cried repeatedly as she saw the corpse that had been shielded by the mass of bodies that stood over her in concern. She scrambled over on all fours shoving aside the forms of her loved ones with a strength she wasn’t aware she possessed.

 

“Fix him!” she screamed at the ancient vampire who just healed her as she rocked her lover’s lifeless corpse in her arms. Godric was bowled over by the anger and grief coursing through Tara’s body and filtering into his by the weak tie of their newly formed bond.

 

“I cannot,” he said softly with apologetic eyes.

 

“Turn him,” she pleaded with agonised cries. “Please.”

 

“He was gone instantly,” Godric informed with all the compassion he could spare while running his fingers through the small braids of her hair. “He is with God now.”

 

“No,” Tara whimpered in the cool arms of the vampire king.

 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,”[4] Godric recited in condolence alluding that Eggs’ was lucky enough to continue on into heaven.

 

“Fuck you John!” Tara fumed pulling away from his grasp. To hold the man she loved in her arms. “And fuck your God! Get the fuck away from me. All of you.”

 

“Tara,” Sookie tried.

 

“I mean it,” she growled. “Let us be.”

 

“Give her time,” Lafayette said sagely with his hand on Sookie’s shoulder beckoning her to distance. Godric ordered the weepers to return to their quarters who bowed in unison at the lost life and departed.

 

Those still standing retreated into the shadows leaving Tara and Eggs on the dew-covered grass as real human tears stained the grounds. They observed from a distance only retreating further when the darkened sky released tears of its own. Tara welcomed them alongside her own as the dark crimson that stained them washed away. Sadness beseeched those that had thought this would be their moment of triumph in deluding the impossible to defeat. No words were spoken as they looked upon the fatality of their gains, mere sighs and a few tears were shed. When Sookie started shivering again from both the pain of her friend’s sorrow and the cool air on her damp body Eric didn’t hesitate to locate a warm blanket to drape around her and held her tightly in his grasp.

 

“I have never felt such pain,” Godric said in his native tongue as he felt Tara’s grief and heartache encompass her.

 

“I told you it’s involuntary,” Cecily reminded her maker.

 

“Love,” he acknowledged with great sadness. “It should not feel like this.”

 

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[1] Hosea 8:7

[2] Hosea 9:17

[3] William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

[4] John 3:16

 

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A/N: Full disclosure I’ve only ever studied the old and new testament in an art historical context so I know there’s more to the scripture mentioned here but I guess I’m not unlike Godric and simply utilise what works for me. My holiday period is coming to an end so I’ll be back to regular weekly updates from next week onwards although I am scrutinising the assigned days, there might be a shuffle but I haven’t decided yet. 

 

Since a couple of reviewers commented how much they liked Tallulah I drew her up a banner although she only enters the story here or there but I think it’s always nice to have a visual for the OC’s saves me from having to describe their appearance at length. Find it here.

 

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