Eric looked as if he were going to explode. “Tonight,” he said, and one word spoke volumes. “With much regret, Ocella, I must ask you and Alexei to go back to my office.”
Appius Livius got up without asking for further explanation, and Alexei, to my surprise, followed him without any questions. If Eric had been in the habit of breathing, I would say that he exhaled with relief when his visitors had left his sight. He said a few things in an ancient tongue, but I didn’t know which one.
Then a stout, attractive blonde in her forties was standing by the table, another woman right behind her.
“You must be Katherine Boudreaux,” I said pleasantly. “I’m Sookie Stackhouse; I’m Eric’s girlfriend.”
“Hi, honey. I’m Katherine,” she said. “This is my partner, Sallie. We’re here with some friends who were curious about my job. I try to visit all the vampire workplaces during the year, and we hadn’t been to Fangtasia in months. Since I’m based right here in Shreveport, I ought to make it in more often.”
“We’re so glad you’re here,” Eric said smoothly. He sounded like his normal self. “Sallie, always good to see you. How’s the tax business?”
Sallie, a slim brunette whose hair was just beginning to gray, laughed. “Taxes are booming, as always,” she said. “You ought to know, Eric, you pay enough of them.”
“It’s good to see our vampire citizens getting along with our human citizens,” Katherine said heartily, looking around the bar, which was so thinly populated it almost wasn’t open. Her blond eyebrows contracted slightly for a moment, but that was the only sign Ms. Boudreaux gave that she noticed Eric’s business was down.
Pam said, “Your table is ready!” She swept her hand toward two tables that had been put together for the party, and the state BVA agent said, “Excuse me, Eric. I’ve gotta go pay attention to my company.”
After a shower of pleasantries and pleased-to-meet-yous, we were finally by ourselves, if sitting in a booth in the middle of a bar can be counted as being by ourselves. Pam started over, but Eric checked her with a raised finger. He took my hand with one of his and rested his forehead on his other hand.
“Can you tell me what’s up with you?” I said bluntly. “This is awful. It’s very hard to have faith in us when I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Ocella has had some business to discuss with me,” Eric said. “Some unwelcome business. And as you saw, my half brother is ailing.”
“Yes, he shared that with me,” I said. It was still hard to believe what I’d seen and suffered with the child, through his memory of the deaths of everyone he’d loved. The tsarevitch of Russia, sole survivor of a mass murder, could use some counseling. Maybe he and Dermot could be in the same therapy group. “You don’t go through something like that and come out Mr. Mental Health, but I’ve never experienced anything like that. I know it must have been hell for him, but I’ve got to say. ”
“You don’t want to go through it, too,” Eric said. “You’re not alone in that. It’s clearest for us: Ocella, me, you. But he can share that with other people, too. It’s not as detailed for them, they tell me. No one wants that memory. We all carry plenty of our own bad memories. I’m afraid that he may not be able to survive as a vampire.” He paused, turning the bottle of TrueBlood around and around on the table. “Apparently, it’s a nightly grind to get Alexei to do the simplest things. And not to do others. You heard his remark about the teenager. I don’t want to go into the details. However. have you read the papers lately, the Shreveport papers?”
“You mean Alexei might be responsible for those two murders?” I could only sit there staring at Eric. “The stab wounds, the throats? But he’s so small and young.”
“He’s insane,” Eric said. “Ocella finally told me that Alexei had had episodes like this before—not as severe. It has led him to consider, very reluctantly, giving Alexei the final death.”
“You mean putting him to sleep?” I said, not sure I’d heard him right. “Like a dog?”
Eric looked me straight in the eyes. “Ocella loves the boy, but he cannot be allowed to kill people or other vampires when these fits take him. Such incidents will get into the paper. What if he were caught? What if some Russian recognized him as a result of the notoriety? What would that do to our relationship with the Russian vampires? Most important, Ocella cannot keep track of him every moment. Two times, the boy has gotten out on his own. And two deaths resulted. In my area! He’ll subvert all we’re trying to do here in the United States. Not that my maker cares about my position in this country,” Eric added, a little bitterly.
I gave Eric a sort of heavy pat on the cheek. Not a slap. A heavy pat. “Yeah, let’s not forget the two dead men,” I said. “That Alexei murdered, in a painful and horrible way. I mean, I realize that this is all about him and your maker and your personal cred, but let’s spare a tip of the hat to those guys he killed.”
Eric shrugged. He was worried and he was at his wit’s end, and he didn’t care at all about the deaths of two humans. He was probably thankful that Alexei had picked victims who wouldn’t attract much sympathy and whose deaths were easily explained. Gang members killed one another all the time, after all. I gave up on making my point. At least partly because I’d had a thought—if Alexei was capable of turning against his own kind, maybe we could steer him onto Victor?
I shuddered. I was creeping myself out. “So your maker brought Alexei to you hoping that you’d have some bright ideas about keeping your half brother alive, teaching him some self-control?”
“Yes. That’s one of the reasons he’s here.”
“Appius Livius having sex with the kid can’t be helping Alexei’s mental health,” I said, since I simply couldn’t not say it.
“Please understand. In Ocella’s time, that was not a consideration,” Eric said. “Alexei would be old enough, in those times. And men of a certain station were free to indulge themselves with very little guilt or question. Ocella doesn’t think in the modern way about such things. As it happens, Alexei has become so. Well, they are not having sex now. Ocella is an honorable man.” Eric sounded very intent, very serious, as if he had to persuade me of his maker’s integrity. And all this concern was about the man who’d murdered him. But if Eric admired Ocella, respected him, didn’t I have to do the same?
And—it popped into my head that Eric wasn’t doing anything for his brother that I wouldn’t do for mine.
Then I had another unwelcome thought, and my mouth went dry. “If Appius Livius isn’t having sex with Alexei, who is he having sex with?” I asked in a small voice.
“I know this is your business, since we’re married—something I’ve insisted on and you’ve belittled,” Eric said, and the bitterness was back in his voice. “I can only tell you that I’m not having sex with my maker. But I would if he told me that was what he wanted. I would have no choice.”
I tried to think of a way to round this conversation off, escape with some dignity. “Eric, you’re busy with your visitors.” Busy in a way I’d never imagined. “I’m going to that meeting at Alcide’s Monday night. I’ll tell you what happens, when and if you call me. There are a couple of things I need to bring you up to speed on, if you ever have a chance to come to my place to talk.” Like Dermot appearing on my doorstep. That was a story Eric would be interested to hear, and God knows I wanted to tell him about it. But now was not the right time.
“If they stay until Tuesday, I’m going to see you no matter what they’re doing,” Eric told me. He sounded a little more like himself. “We’ll make love. I feel like buying you a present.”
“That sounds like a great night to me,” I said, feeling a surge of hope. “I don’t need a present, just you. So I’ll see you Tuesday, no matter what. That’s what you said, right?”