"I would have stopped him," said a new voice, and Jason stepped out of the woods. No, it was Dermot.
"Okay, you threw the knife," I said. "Thanks, Dermot. Are you okay?"
"I hope... ." Dermot looked at us pleadingly.
"Colman had a spell on him," Claude observed. "At least, I think so."
"He said you didn't have a lot of magic," I said to Claude. "He told me about the spell, as close as he could say it. I thought it must be the other fairy, Colman, who put it on him. But since Colman is dead, I would have thought that would break the spell."
Claude frowned. "Dermot, so it wasn't Colman who laid the spell?"
Dermot sank to the ground in front of us. "So much longer," he said elliptically. I puzzled over that for a moment.
"He was spelled much longer ago," I said, finally feeling a little throb of excitement. "Are you saying that you were spelled months ago?"
Dermot seized my hand in his left and took Claude's hand in his right.
Claude said, "I think he means that he's been spelled for much longer. For years." Tears rolled down Dermot's cheeks.
"I bet you money that Niall did it," I said. "He probably had it all worked out in his head. Dermot deserved it for, I don't know, having qualms about his fairy legacy or something."
"My grandfather is very loving but not very ... tolerant," Claude said.
"You know how they undo spells in fairy tales?" I said.
"Yes, I have heard that humans tell fairy tales," Claude said. "So, tell me how they say to break spells."
"In the fairy tales, a kiss does it."
"Easily done," Claude said, and as if we had practiced synchronized kissing, we leaned forward and kissed Dermot.
And it worked. He shuddered all over, then looked at us both, intelligence flooding his eyes. He began to weep in earnest, and after a moment Claude got to his knees and helped Dermot up. "I'll see you in a while," he said. Then he guided Dermot into the house.
Eric and I were alone. Eric had sunk onto his haunches a little distance from the three bodies in my front yard.
"This is positively Shakespearean," I said, looking around at the remains and the blood soaking into the ground. Alexei's corpse was already flaking away, but much more slowly than that of his ancient maker. Now that Alexei had met his final death, the pathetic bones in his grave in Russia would vanish, too. Eric had cast the body of the fairy onto the gravel, where it began to turn to dust, in the way fairies did. It was quite different from vampire disintegration, but just as handy. I realized I wouldn't have three corpses to hide. I was so tired from the sum total of a truly horrific day that I found it the happy moment of the past few hours. Eric looked and smelled like something out of a horror movie. Our eyes met. He looked away first.
"Ocella taught me everything about being a vampire," Eric said very quietly. "He taught me how to feed, how to hide, when it was safe to mingle with humans. He taught me how to make love with men, and later he freed me to make love with women. He protected me and loved me. He caused me pain for decades. He gave me life. My maker is dead." He spoke as if he could scarcely believe it, didn't know how to feel. His eyes lingered on the crumbling mass of flakes that had been Appius Livius Ocella.
"Yes," I said, trying not to sound happy. "He is. And I didn't do it."
"But you would have," Eric said.
"I was thinking about it," I said. There was no point in denying it.
"What were you going to ask him?"
"Before Colman stabbed him?" Though "stabbed" was hardly the right word. "Transfi xed" was more accurate. Yes, "transfixed." My brain was moving like a turtle.
"Well," I said. "I was going to tell him I'd be glad to let him live if he'd kill Victor Madden for you."
I'd startled Eric, as much as anyone as wiped out as he was could be startled. "That would have been good," he said slowly. "That was a good idea, Sookie."
"Yeah, well. Not gonna happen."
"You were right," Eric said, still in that very slow voice. "This is just like the end of one of Shakespeare's plays."
"We're the people left standing. Yay for us."
"I'm free," Eric said. He closed his eyes. Thanks to the last traces of the drug, I could practically watch the fairy blood zinging through his system. I could see his energy level picking up. Everything physically wrong with him had healed, and now with the rush of Colman's blood he was forgetting his grief for his maker and his brother, and feeling only the relief of being free of them. "I feel so good." He actually drew a breath of the night air, still tainted with the odors of blood and death. He seemed to savor the smell. "You are my dearest," he said, his eyes manic blue.
"I'm glad to hear that," I said, utterly unable to smile.
"I have to return to Shreveport to see about Pam, to arrange for the things I must do now that Ocella is dead," Eric said. "But as soon as I can, we'll be together again, and we'll make up for our lost time."
"Sounds good to me," I said. We were alone in our bond once more, though it wasn't as strong as it had been because we hadn't renewed it. But I wasn't about to suggest that to Eric, not tonight. He looked up, inhaled again, and launched himself into the night sky.
When all the bodies had completely disintegrated, I got to my feet and went into the house, the very flesh on my bones feeling as if it could fall off from weariness. I told myself that I should feel a certain measure of triumph. I wasn't dead; my enemies were. But in the void left by the drug, I felt only a certain grim satisfaction. I could hear my great-uncle and my cousin talking in the hall bathroom, and the water running, before I shut my own bathroom door. After I'd showered and was ready for bed, I opened the door to my room to find them waiting for me.
"We want to climb in with you," Dermot said. "We'll all sleep better."
That seemed incredibly weird and creepy to me - or maybe I only thought it should have. I was simply too tired to argue. I climbed in the bed. Claude got in on one side of me, Dermot on the other. Just when I was thinking I would never be able to sleep, that this situation was too odd and too wrong, I felt a kind of blissful relaxation roll through my body, a kind of unfamiliar comfort. I was with family. I was with blood.
And I slept.