Dead and Gone Page 0,27

Eric waited for me to sit down at his table. "Hello, Sookie," he said. "Are you here to tell me how angry you are at me about our pledging? Or are you ready to have that long talk we must have sooner or later?"

"No," I said. We sat for a while in silence. I felt exhausted but oddly peaceful. I should be giving Eric hell about his high-handed handling of Quinn's request and the knife presentation. I should be asking him all kinds of questions ... but I couldn't summon up the necessary fire.

I just wanted to sit beside him.

There was music playing; someone had turned on the all-vampire radio station, KDED. The Animals were singing "The Night." After he finished his drink and there was only a red residue staining the sides of the bottle, Eric lay his cold white hand on top of mine. "What happened today?" he asked, his voice calm.

I began to tell him, starting with the FBI visit. He didn't interrupt to exclaim or to ask questions. Even when I ended my tale with the removal of Crystal's body, he didn't speak for a while. "Even for you, that's a busy day, Sookie," he said finally. "As for Crystal, I don't think I ever met her, but she sounds worthless."

Eric never waffled around to be polite. Though I actually enjoyed that, I was also glad it wasn't a widely held trait. "I don't know that anyone is worthless," I said. "Though I have to admit, if I had to pick one person to get in a lifeboat with me, she wouldn't have made even my long list."

Eric's mouth quirked up in a smile.

"But," I added, "she was pregnant, that's the thing, and the baby was my brother's."

"Pregnant women were worth twice as much if they were killed in my time," Eric said.

He'd never volunteered much information about his life before he'd been turned. "What do you mean, worth?" I asked.

"In war, or with foreigners, we could kill whom we pleased," he said. "But in disputes between our own people, we had to pay silver when we killed one of our own." He looked like he was dredging up the memory with an effort. "If the person killed was a woman with child, the price was double."

"How old were you when you got married? Did you have children?" I knew Eric had been married, but I didn't know anything else about his life.

"I was counted a man at twelve," he said. "I married at sixteen. My wife's name was Aude. Aude had ... we had ... six children."

I held my breath. I could tell he was looking down the immense swell of time that had passed between his present - a bar in Shreveport, Louisiana - and his past - a woman dead for a thousand years.

"Did they live?" I asked very quietly.

"Three lived," he said, and he smiled. "Two boys and a girl. Two died at birth. And with the sixth child, Aude died, too."

"Of what?"

He shrugged. "She and the baby caught a fever. I suppose it was from some sort of an infection. Then, if people got sick, they mostly died. Aude and the baby perished within hours of each other. I buried them in a beautiful tomb," he said proudly. "My wife had her best brooch on her dress, and I laid the baby on her breast."

He had never sounded less like a modern man. "How old were you?"

He considered. "I was in my early twenties," he said. "Perhaps twenty-three. Aude was older. She had been my elder brother's wife, and when he was killed in battle, it fell to me to marry her so our families would still be bonded. But I'd always liked her, and she was willing. She wasn't a silly girl; she'd lost two babies of my brother's, and she was glad to have more that lived."

"What happened to your children?"

"When I became a vampire?"

I nodded. "They can't have been very old."

"No, they were small. It happened not long after Aude's death," he said. "I missed her, you see, and I needed someone to raise the children. No such thing as a househusband then." He laughed. "I had to go raiding. I had to be sure the slaves were doing what they ought in the fields. So I needed another wife. One night I went to visit the family of a young woman I hoped would marry me. She lived a mile or two away. I had some worldly