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.