Sundown you better take care

Sundown, you better take care

Len added a small piece of wood to the fire pit outside of the House. Shreveport nights were not quiet like the nights in Bon Temps. I missed sitting out in the back of Bill’s house our feet in the warm sand around the huge fire pit Bill had installed for us. I wanted more than anything to go to the power place there at the end of the jungle like path of Bill’s property and call the corners and raise energy, but we knew we would not be welcome because Bill was different. I didn’t know what it was about, and I was eager to find out. I wanted Bill back in our lives.

Jessica was not here. She had texted us and told us she could not leave Bill. I was broken hearted by what I had seen with her, praying for/to Bill and her friends. So now, we were waiting for Eric and Pam and Tara to come over. We had some Tru:Blood for them, but I knew that they were also carefully hunting. I worried about them too.

“So, what do your people tell you about these new weapons?” asked Barrister.

“I am not sure. They have never been this closed mouthed before. Apparently, these weapons just work on their weaknesses and counteract their talents,” said Len. “A friend of mine is supposed to get back to me.”

“Is there anything we witches can do for them?” asked Renee.

“I don’t know,” said Aolani. “We can do some things, but you know the rules about this world, we can’t really do anything to help them.”

“So these camps…these murders Bill sees happening…Is there some way we can tell his fortune?” asked Len.

“We can throw cards for specific Vampires, but we can’t throw cards for an entire community,” said Aolani. “I mean…I guess we could do something like that but the information may be too general to be of any help.”

“Yeah, what good would it do to know there was trouble coming in general, if we already know trouble is coming in general,” I said. “But we could tell Pam and Eric’s and Tara’s fortunes and maybe get some insight.”

“That might work if the Vampires in question will cooperate,” said Renee.

“So what do we know?” asked Barrister.

“This we know, the government has developed defenses against glamour, and they have bullets with UV in them that bakes a Vampire from the inside out,” said Len.

“And then there is this thing with camps,” I said, shivering. Barrister cuddled me close. I had a hate and fear of Nazis and everything they represent, and the thought history was repeating itself. It made my blood run colder than Eric’s. Minnie looked into the fire.

“I am worried about Eric too,” she said.

“Don’t worry about me Lover, I am very hard to kill,” said a voice in the darkness. Out of the shadows came Eric, all 6’4” of Viking beauty stalking out of the dark. Pam was beside him and beside her was her child, Tara. “Good evening.”

“Hey there fearless leader,” said Len. “Can I get you all some blood.”

“We had take out,” said Pam, sitting down by Len.

“Tara?” asked Renee.

“No, I’m good,” she said. I patted the chair by me and she came and sat down. Eric settled contentedly between his wives.

“So how are all my warm blooded friends and lovers?” asked Eric.

“Liked that stupid human trick you did though it nearly got you landed in a concentration camp,” I said.

“Why do you think they would be putting Vampires in a concentration camp?” asked the Viking.

“For a smart guy, your bulb is on dim sometimes,” said Renee. “You think they developed those weapons without test animals?”

“I see,” he said.

“Yeah, but you know what, I think there are Vampires who are helping, at least they were helping in the beginning,” I said.

“Why would you say that?” asked Eric.

“I think that because they developed those contact lenses or whatever that kept them from being glamoured by Vampires. I think a helpful Vampire might have been involved in some of the development of this stuff,” I said. “So we need to know if the Authority was involved in this, maybe thinking there would be a time when the Authority would have to help the humans with I don’t know, backward thinking Vampires.”

Eric did not look like a happy Vampire. In fact, I think he was a little mad I would suggest a Vampire would do such a thing. I waited patiently. “You could ask Nora,” I said.  Eric growled at me. I don’t think he had ever growled at me before and I flinched.

“Nora would have told me,” he said.

“Are you sure Eric?” asked Pam. Pam was not crazy about Nora and Nora was not crazy about Pam. She felt superior to Pam because Pam was once a prostitute and had forced Eric’s hand to make him turn her.

“Pamela,” he said. Pam fell silent.

“You have to admit though, even if Nora doesn’t know anything, it makes sense a Vampire might have been involved,” said Tara. “It would not hurt to ask Nora.” Eric flashed a look at her. Tara was not as easy to silence.  “I am not saying she was involved, I am saying she might know something about it.” Eric relaxed.

“You are right,” said Eric. “Nora needs to come here and use your resources.”

“Nora is more than welcome,” said Aolani.

“What do you know about Bill?” asked Eric.

“We know he sees the future. We don’t know how far or how accurate he is, but we know he does see the future. He is telekinetic, he drained a blood whore in a real interesting way,” said Minnie.

“How did he do that?” asked Eric.

“He sort of manipulated her body, contorted it so she could not escape then he siphoned the blood out through her mouth telekinetically,” said Minnie. “It was like he was squeezing her from the inside and her blood came out and it floated into his mouth. He didn’t have to use his fangs.”

“That is interesting,” said Eric. “Anything else?”

“Not that we can see,” said Minnie.

“Eric, we want to do something, we don’t know how helpful it would be, but we want to tell your fortunes, you Vampires,” I said.

“How would that help?” asked Eric.

“We don’t know, we don’t know that it would help at all, but we want to give it a shot,” I said. Aolani and Renee nodded in agreement.

“What do we have to do?” asked Tara.

“Nothing harmful, just sit with one of us and we will read your cards,” I said. “Or whatever other means we have at our disposal.”

Eric looked thoughtful but guarded. “You may read Pam and Tara’s fortune, but not mine,” he said.

“Why not yours?” asked Renee.

“Because I don’t want to know what the future holds,” he said.

“We can do it in a way with you that you can just sit down and pick the cards and then walk away,” said Aolani. Eric sat there for a moment.

“Eric, we won’t see anything real specific, we will just see things about the future. Besides, you know that whatever the cards reveal to us, it isn’t carved in marble and you can change the stars. It is like, being forewarned,” said Renee. “That is why there is no reason to be afraid of the things the cards might tell us.”

“Fine, I will do this to a point and then walk away,” said Eric.

“You don’t want to know what might happen? What the cards say?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Okay, let’s do this then,” I said.

We witches were on one side of the table and the Vampires were on the other and we had our decks out. I shuffled my deck a few times and spread them out with a practiced hand in front of Pam. “Pick ten cards Pam, any ten that seem to speak to you,” I said. It was a practiced phrase I always used with people to set them at ease and help them get into the spirit of the reading so their energies were opened up to me. Some patrons were fast and random, some counted a specific number of cards and took a card until they had their ten. Some studied the backs of the cards and languished over the process. Some just drew the first ten or the middle ten or the last ten cards in the spread. Pam took her time, putting her finger on one card then moving it to another card that seemed to speak to her. I was patient and quiet and still, letting her take her time. Finally she had the ten and I gathered up the extraneous cards and began to throw them in the lay of the Celtic cross. I picked up my notebook that I kept with my cards and pen and wrote out the lay for further study and began to study what was before me, making some notes on the cards and what they seemed to say to me. 

“What does that card mean?” she asked, putting a manicured nail on it.

“I am not sure what it might mean to you,” I said. “Death cards are usually not about death, like true death, but the death of some sort of time, like the end of something and the beginning of something else. But…It is in the personification position, so the death card, coupled with the hanging man, may be just recognizing the fact you are Vampire.” I looked on either side of me. Renee and Aolani worked with cards that were a little different from the Rider/Waite deck I favoured, purist that I was. They had similar cards in the center of their lays. “Eric and Tara have the same things in the center of their lays.”

“Well, I am glad the cards confirm that we are Vampires,” said Tara, rolling her eyes at Aolani.

“Quiet,” said Eric. He had not moved away from Renee’s lay.

“You can go if you want,” said Renee. “This will take me a while.”

“I will sit for a while,” he said.

I wrote down my first impressions of the lay and then got up and grabbed several tarot card oracles and placed them between the three of us so we could refer to them if we needed to.

“You don’t know all the meanings of the cards?” asked Pam a bit incredulously.

“That is enough Pam,” said Eric. “Leave her be, she is just being as accurate as possible.”

We went through the readings carefully them we played musical chairs and we studied one another’s lays and marked anything we saw in the reading that might have been over looked. Finally we were finished.

“Okay, so this is what we see….” I began.

Who are you? Cuz I really want to know

I drove by the Compton place on my way to see Sookie. I could see Bill's face looking outside at the hot day and it was weird...like it was 13 o'clock and all was not well. He looked at my car and then turned his attention elsewhere. I wondered, with his Vampire eyes, if the world looked differently to him with the light of day and what did he see the rest of us didn't. I shook my head and drove on.

"Did he see us?" asked Renee.
"I don't know," I said. "If he did, he gave no hint at it."

Sookie had called us to come see her and I was more than a little reticent. I was not interested in helping Sookie per se, but I was interested in knowing what she thought about Bill and Jessica. I knew Jessica would come out on Bill's side. I knew she loved Bill and she looked to him for so much. She used to hate Bill, but as they walked their walk together, she realized how much she loved him and I guess she also appreciated what he had done for her, making her Vampire and getting her away from her abusive father and complacent mother. I worried for the little Vampire. Bill was very influential in her life.

We had seen a lot of things, but we had no idea what it meant. I hoped maybe Sookie had some impressions. We pulled up in front of her neat little Currier and Ives house and got out. Renee and I looked around. We didn't want to see Bill, not as he was, I don't care how reasonable he seemed. I was confused. If he was Lillith (I refused to refer to him as Billith) then who were the three women who sped into his body. It was like she was Maiden, Mother and Crone, or the three fates. The presence of three beings was just too specific. Maybe....People's minds were always putting together patterns and perhaps it meant nothing. But thus far, we knew Bill could perform acts of telekinesis, and he could survive being staked and he could day walk. Were these just physical manifestations of the powers we knew he had inherited?

We walked up on the porch and Sookie opened her door. She looked at us and opened it wider to admit us. We went into the house. "I made coffee if you want some," she said.
"Sounds good," I said. We went into her kitchen and she got 3 mugs and poured us all coffee and indicated the sugar and creamer for us. We sat down at the homey kitchen table and began to doctor our coffee. Sookie kept looking at us.
"How are you guys doing it?" she asked. "Blocking me?"
"We are wearing a talisman," I said. "So what can we do for you Sookie?"
"I want you to cast around my house," she said. "To protect me, like Marnie did with the Moon Goddess."
"We don't know if that will work for Bill," I said. "You rescinded the invitation for the best way to protect you." She puffed out her cheeks in frustration.
"I just want my life back," she said.
"I get that, but there is no way to make the past go away and pretend you are not involved," I said.
"Okay, do you know anything about this Warlow?" she asked.

Apparently Warlow was the Vampire child of Lillith and he had some claim on Sookie that still remained to be seen.

"You have to get someone to read you the contract again. I don't think that is all there is to it," I said.
"Why would my ancestor make such a deal with Warlow?" asked Sookie.
"Why does anyone make a deal? He did something for your ancestor and now you are the thing that makes the contract fulfilled," I said. Sookie gripped her coffee mug tightly in her fist.
"And what do we do about Bill?"
"I don't know, but staking him sure the hell didn't fix it," said Renee.
"I know, but that was all I could think of," she said. "That's not Bill you know."
"We don't know that," said Renee. "All we know is there some part of Bill in there. You just have to reach that part of him. Besides, if he is some part of Lillith, perhaps he can do something about Warlow."

I was not sure that Bill was too interested in Warlow or his designs on Sookie.

"Sookie, you know, as Eric and the rest of them know, we can't really interfere with what happens to you," I said carefully. "But I think the answers you need you can get from Nora. But you have to be careful with her. And you have to talk to Eric. I know you don't want anything to do with him, but you have to talk to him. He wants to help you."
"I would just give anything to have my life back," she said.
"Sookie, your life changed the moment you went after the Rattrays to save Bill. You involved yourself in the life of Vampires," I said. "You can't just call that back." My phone rang. I pulled it out and flipped it out. I listened and snapped it shut. "We have to go."
"But you have to help me!" she said.
"Look, talk to Nora and Eric and find out what she knows about Warlow and then, you have to talk to Bill, ask him what he can do to help you," I said. I looked at Renee. "We have to go."

Renee and I stood up and Sookie followed us out of her house. "Can I stop by your place and talk to you guys?"
"Call us before you come," I said.
"I will," she said.
"Good luck Sookie," said Renee.
"You are going to need it. And be careful in the woods," I said. She looked at me.
"Okay," she said.

I took a page out of the Aolani School of Driving Like Your Broom is on Fire book and put my foot on the gas and sped off back to Shreveport. Aolani had called us back to the House for some reason she could not get into on the phone. We pulled in at record time and went into the House and it was blessedly cool but it was like an ant hill that had been disturbed.

"Hey, what's up?" asked Renee.
"What did you find out from Sookie?" she asked.
"She wanted us to spell her house to keep Bill out," I said.
"We saw Bill, looking outside," said Renee.
"He didn't come out?" asked Aolani.
"No," said Renee.
"That is likely something he doesn't want too many humans to know about," said Aolani. "If Vampires can walk in the day, that will cause the governor to really go after them."
"Any word about that?" I asked.
"Nah, he has just been doing the whole Vampires are dangerous thing. I am still worried about his involvement with that bottling facility," she said.
"Hey, why don't we go and drive by there?" suggested Minnie.
"We could, but chances are, if something is about to happen there, we won't see it," I said. "Anyone hear from Eric or Pam?"
"No," said Minnie. "And I am worried about them."

Diantha suddenly popped in. It was a little unnerving when she did that, and no matter how many times we told her not to, she still did it. "The bottling plant is full of humans right now, retooling it for the Tru:Blood. They have their brewing tanks though and they are already mixing the formulas for it in the big tanks."
"Are there guards?" I asked.
"Yeah, but I was invisible," said Diantha.
"Hey, maybe we can dim ourselves and go and have a peek." said Minnie.
"Maybe," I said. "We will keep that in reserve." Dimming was the closest thing humans could do being invisible. It made us...ignorable. There was no such thing as invisibility for humans. "We should take Eric with us, if we go."
"Did Sookie say she would give Eric back his invitation?" asked Barrister.
"No, she wants her life back," I said. "We did tell her that Nora could probably help her with Warlow, but I made it clear to have Eric with her when  and if she talked to her."
"Do you know where Pam and Tara are?" asked Len.
"Presumably they are at Fangtasia," I said. Tara had been hit with some sort of weapon we had never seen. We had not yet figured out what the military had done to make new Vampire weapons, but we were sure we would find out. Len had his werewolf connections sniffing around. As far we knew, we had the latest and greatest in anti-Vampire weapons.
"And Jessica, has anyone talked to her?" asked Barrister.
"No," said Aolani. "We have not talked to any of the Vampires."
"How about Alcide?" asked Len.
"No, he isn't answering his phone," I said.
"We may not be able to depend on Alcide for much support," said Minnie.
"Yeah, and he may be a little busy with his new pack and all," said Renee. She shrugged her shoulders. She was not very interested in the Pack Master of Shreveport.
"Sam, anyone call him?" I asked.
"I called Merlotte's and got Lafayette," said Aolani. "He is not saying much, he is just saying Sam is tied up."
"I think he should give Emma over to her grandmother," said Renee. Aolani agreed. I would have protested if the pack master was JB, but with Alcide, I knew nothing would happen to her.
"Yeah," I said. "I hope they don't hurt Sam to get to her."
"So, what do we do now?" asked Diantha.
"Nothing we can do but wait to see what we shall see," I said.

Die Todten Reiten Schnell

Die Todten reiten schnell

  Aslinn Dhan Today at 15:20

For the Dead Travel Fast- Dracula

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, like my husband's eyes are the green of the fields of Ireland his ancestors came from that there would be a day Bill would be gone. I just didn't know he would be gone so soon. I woke feeling a little uneasy and I could not put my finger on it. We had been home a week and we had managed to get our laundry done and we were settling in for the summer's adventures and though I was happy to be back in Louisiana and I felt pretty good about what we had done during the winter and I was relieved that Jessica was in trouble for learning magik, I felt in my heart there would be day when I would feel it break a little, that our southern gentleman would revert back to that alien blood soaked monster Eric had carried into the House to us nine months ago.

As I said, I woke feeling odd, like if I turned around something would be crouched in a corner and ready to pounce after having watched me sleep peacefully. I turned all around and looked and I was there, alone with Barrister in our bed in the House. I knew Eric and Nora were at his house in Shreveport and I knew Pam and Tara were at her house and Jessica was downstairs in her light tight room, sleeping the sleep of the dead. Bill was asleep with Renee in his room.

I got up and went to the bathroom and came out and slipped quietly out of the room and down the hall and down the stairs and that is when I saw them, the bright red foot prints leading from the light tight rooms of the Vampire sleeping quarters. I went down and under the stair case and opened the steel door that led to the corridor of small but comfortable rooms. I went to Bill's door and opened it carefully and peeped in. I could see Renee's form under the blankets and I went to the side where Bill usually lay. It was covered in sticky red Vampire blood. I went back to Renee and shook her gently. "What?" she said sleepily, jerking herself awake.

"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" she asked.
"Bill is gone," I said. "Slide out of the bed and look." She slid sleepily out of bed, her long red hair in sleep tangles and she rubbed her eyes like a little girl. She reached over and turned on the bed side table lamp and her eyes widened.
"What is all of this?" she asked.
"He reverted back, he reverted back to that red demon thing he was before," I said sadly. Renee slumped on the edge of the bed and put her face in her hands.
"I thought for sure he would not go back to being that thing," she said.
"Come on, we better take these sheets off the bed and get them in the laundry. Check and see if Minnie's quilt got spotted or smeared." We carefully took the quilt off the bed and looked it over and saw it was fine. We then took the sheets and pillow cases off the bed, and threw Bill's pillow away, it was ruined, and I wadded them into a pillow case and carried them out to the hall. "Go make us some coffee, I'll get mop and mop up his footprints." Renee nodded and grabbed her robe and went out of the room.

Bill had changed last summer. He was something else with Bill trapped inside him. I knew that for the Gospel truth. I knew Bill was still there, we just had to look for him and bring him back. Well, not us, but the other woman in his life, Sookie Stackhouse.

I had personally abjured the Source from my life. She operated the first world and she had done a dishonest number on the characters and I was mortified. I had more hope for the Connection, the creators of the summer's adventures, and then we have the third world where all of us were involved in the lives of our supernatural world. There was nothing we could do with the Summer, and nothing we could do with the first world of the source, but the third world was ours to shape.

Then, I conjured up the most powerful magik in my arsenal and I created the fourth world where wrongs were set to right and love was found and made equal and there were still adventures to be had.

But this was beyond us and we had to let things we hated happen and see things that we could not prevent. And this was one of them. I feared for all our friends in the Kingdom of Louisiana...A strange deranged prophet was about to become the king, pope and high executioner in the world of Vampire and it looked like humans were gonna have to choose up a side and I wanted very much to see Bill saved and everyone safe and the story to go on just for a while longer.

I finished mopping and put the sheets in the wash: Laundry Hint: Wash clothing with blood in cold with a good biologically based wash powder, like hospitals use, and a cup of bleach. Use pretreatment on the stain and let it soak before you actually run it through a cycle. Rewash if necessary but before you dry. Otherwise you have bloody sheets just they smell good.

I went to the computer and checked the email. There were already clues that this Warlow is the eldest Vampire yet and he was hot for the flesh and blood of Sookie Stackhouse and there was further word that Sookie would fall into bed once again with another love interest...a faerie this time...and really that is who she needs to hook up and quit messing with Bill and Eric and Alcide.

Alcide was now the packmaster and he had his job cut out for him. There were also suggestions that Nora may not be all that trust worthy, but Eric was just as horny for family as Bill so, I suspect this will be a real heart breaker for him. And what was gonna happen to Luna and Emma? I just didn't know.

Most of all, what was going to happen to Bill?