A/N: That awkward moment when you know you messed up but have no real excuse...

Chapter 24

Promotion, My Cold Dead Ass

I rose at first dark knowing I needed to talk to Sookie. My wife was seated at the kitchen table with a bottle of blood waiting for me. By the look on her face, I knew I shouldn't have let reason give way to passion last night. I should have told her of my bargain with the Pythoness because she had the wax sealed parchment holding the new terms of my service agreement.

Deciding it would be safest for me; I lifted Kai from his highchair and sat him on my lap. Since I had a warm blood in hand, he came eagerly. Was it cowardly of me to hide behind my infant son? Absolutely. Nevertheless, seeing his mother was a God Killer, I didn't feel spineless, just cautious. I couldn't read the expression on her face. All I knew was she had to speak first.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the world won't end, not while we're here, and not while Kai is in it," she began.

Her voice was soft, but she wasn't looking at me. It told me she was hurt, not angry.

"I bought this house because I knew we would come back. I've even discovered there are schools for supernatural children."

Tears escaped her eyes but there was a sad kind of smile on her face. Somehow, that combination was much more painful for me to bear than anything else was.

"Don't cry lover, please. I—"

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "I don't want you to feel bad, baby. I know why you did it. I can't explain how good it feels to know you cared about me and Kai so much, even then."

I nodded. "So why the waterworks? You know you're ugly when you cry."

"Some contractors were coming to install an outdoor playground and a tree house next week," she said with a chuckle. "I guess I wanted all the things I never knew I could have,car payments, a permanent address; I wanted a normal life."

Had she been anyone else I would have told her a beautiful lie to spare her an ugly truth.

"I say this as your mate, your husband, and the man who loves you more than life itself," I said, looking deeply into her eyes. "You're crazy."

She burst out laughing. "See what I mean?" Of course it only made her laugh harder.

"You are not all there and me I don't know how not to be a degenerate asshole of epic proportions. Individually we might be able to pass for normal on our best day but together..." Words failed me all I could do was shake my head sadly.

She was wiping tears from her face and trying to suppress her laughter. "Nuh-uh!" she protested. "We're not that bad!"

I arched a brow so dubiously that it came dangerously close to meeting my hairline. "Yes. Yes, we are. You're a God Killer. I'm an S7 Vampire Enforcer." She finally stopped laughing and admitted the truth with a smile on her face.

"Yeah, okay, that's pretty messed up."

"We can have all that though: the house, the car, your toe socks in the winter, and you can take a job at the carnival when it comes to town. We'll have a house full of children who'll go to this supernatural school. I hope they'll learn to be refined, unlike us, but even if they're as uncivilized as we are, it won't matter. We'd love them anyway. We'd be a band of perfectly matched misfits. Our life would be peaceful, and happy but Sookie, nothing we do could never pass for normal, nothing."

As if to prove my point, in came a large wolf. When I say it was large, I meant humongous. On all fours, it stood a full head over the kitchen counter. It dwarfed the largest werewolf I'd ever seen, though it was the least hairy. Its thin coat was an even gleaming gunmetal grey. Its eyes were bright green. Even given its size, it managed to move in complete silence. Its scent was almost nonexistent. Right before my eyes, it morphed into some kind of ape that was a fraction of the wolf's size. My son was already smiling and reaching his arms out. The former wolf-now-ape stood on two legs. It held Kai in one hand, stole my blood with the other, and then carried Kai off to the living room.

I looked up at my wife. "The fact that I'm not shocked by that says it all."

"Definitely," she sighed, as she came to wrap her arms around me.

I held her close and brushed my lips against hers. "Seriously though, what the fuck was that?"

It turns out the massive shifting creature was named, "Titan." He had been the one to deliver the letter to the house. There was another word that explained what he was. He was a "Walker." It was from them that weres and shape shifters descended. While those species were domesticated and grew human forms over time, walkers preferred their animal form all the time. It made them more powerful. When they wanted a human form, they chose one and they remained with them for life. Apparently, the Pythoness had found one who chose Kai. She promised one to all my children as a gift henceforth. I'm not sure why, but that felt like my comeuppance for centuries of disrespect.

The next night I found myself back in Minnesota. It was where we would stay. This time Kai came with Sookie and me. We hadn't yet found a permanent residence in the state but I was Captain of the Enforcers. I could live on site if I desired. For now that was what we did since it was convenient and safest. If any of the vampires thought it was odd I showed up to our base with a child on my hip, they were smart enough to not show it. I needed to get my case log and I had to figure out to whom I had to hand it. I was busy with that small matter of saving the world.

I walked into the Old Bat's study without knocking. Normally I at least announced myself but because of the hefty fine and incarceration she hit me with, I was going to terrorize her until the end of time, regardless of how soon that might be.

"Eric," she said, without looking up. "How I have missed your brutish and insolent behavior."

"I thought you would," I said, slouching in a chair. "What ideas do you have on preventing Armageddon?"

"None," she said, finally raising her head.

Sookie and I looked at each other, then at her.

"None, as in nothing solid, or none, as in nothing?" I asked. I could assume, but for all our sakes, I really preferred otherwise. It might allow me to be wrong and that's what I really wanted.

"The definition of none has not changed since I have been around."

Her scribe pulled out her chair and she rose nimbly to her feet. She made her way over to us, took Kai from me, and walked out of the room with him on her hip. We followed without needing to be told. Apparently, she was going through a mysterious phase after her mid-millennium crisis not too long ago. Halfway towards her library she set Kai down.

Sookie started to go to him but the Pythoness waved her hand in an elegant flourish. "Katairu," she continued, looking down at him.

When my son heard his name, he looked up. This was his first time meeting her and you would think he had seen her face everyday since he was born. That was one more thing to add to the list of questions I wanted to ask the Old Bat.

"Titan will find Amina for you if you need anything."

All my wife and I could manage was a stunned look at our son as he smiled and crawled away to explore the courthouse. It was nothing short of amazing. Kai showed an advanced understanding of things, but good luck getting him to act like it. Telling him, "No!" garnered nothing but a deceptively innocent and confused look.

"As I was saying," The Pythoness said, "I have nothing though I know of someone who does."

The guards opened the doors and we entered. The last face I expected to see was the one who sat at the table. It was Agent Latestta. This was going to get very interesting very quickly. When he saw Sookie, his heart rate spiked and his nostrils flared. When The Pythoness sat, we followed wordlessly. All the while, the human official stared. About ten seconds later, my irritation flared to aggression.

"I'm going to say this once," I said in a deceptively cordial tone. "Keep staring at my wife, and I'm going to snap you in half right before I shove your head up your ass."

"Since you already threatened to feed me my beating heart, that doesn't sound as unpleasant," he replied.

Under the table, Sookie stomped on my foot. "He's joking," she said. "Mostly." That last portion was under her breath.

"Why do you care? You're a cold blooded killer same as him."

Silence as profound as the grave hung in the air. Normally I would have said something in my wife's defense. In this instance I didn't because I wanted to kill him, slowly if possible. The more he mouthed off at the hand that was trying to save the better my odds.

"So what's your body count or have you lost track?"The agent continued.

Well, no one could say he hadn't been warned. Before his last syllable faded in the air, I was beside him. My hand was outstretched and the only person who could stop me did.

"No," my wife said, pushing against my chest. She wasn't trying to make it an order, she was begging. "Don't baby. It's okay."

I snarled at Latestta, but I let Sookie push me back.

"If we're all finished exchanging pleasantries," The Pythoness interjected "He has some information pertinent to the matter at hand."

Great; maybe Sookie would let me kill him after.

"Six months ago I was contacted by someone who had a shitload of information on "The Outfit". They had names, dates, events, safe houses, aliases, you name it." he began. "It all pointed to one person and even gave us a recent sighting."

"Me," Sookie murmured.

"Yup," he said.

"It was everything I'd been chasing my whole career. It was so perfect I knew it had to be wrong. You were never sloppy. It stood to reason that you were being set up by something worse."

"He came to me because it was I who took the initial contract," The Pythoness continued. "He trusted me. To insure his trust does not prove to be misplaced and to reciprocate, I told him the truth." I had a feeling as to what she meant but I was holding some hope. "What truth?" I asked.

"The whole truth," was her reply.

This was a "What The Fuck Moment?" Before I left, I knew The Old Bat wanted to extend a helping hand to different species, humans included, but to out a species was not something that even she wasn't allowed to do. That left the hidden aspects of the vampire's fair game for exposure, like all the hostile takeovers and the manner in which we viewed humans. The fact that we had an acceptable quota for human casualties would most likely be the first thing that was exposed. It was how the Salem Witch trial began.

"My duty is to uphold vampire law first and foremost. I have violated the sanctity of that role. I have no choice but to step down."

"Fuck me," Sookie and I both whispered under our breath.

Our show of utter shock was ignored by the Pythoness. Agent Latestta had no idea of the gravity of events that were unfolding before him. The oaf was watching Vampire history being made and all he did was look around confused.

"I, Domina Aureliana Maximus, of the House Quintilianus, being of sound mind and body, issue my final Executive Act as the Law of Vampire —"

"That's not funny Old Lady!" I warned. "Don't you fucking dare do what I think you're about to!"

She ignored me "I here by forfeit my role as the Law of the Undead. I name Ainerick, of Jylland, progeny of Galen, The Visigoth, as my Successor."

Apparently, The Old Bat had lost her mind since I'd been gone. While Sookie came to me, I laughed because this had to be some kind of bad joke.

"You're joking," I said when no one else found humor in this. "You have to be."

The silence continued and all eyes were on then, it looked like they were all screwed. What happened to this world would no longer be of any consequences to me and mine. When Kai asked, Sookie and I could say we tried. I rose to my feet and pulled my stunned wife with me. We were heading for the door. I was thinking of the fastest back to Americ.

If ever I got high enough to take on such a role, it wouldn't be now. I was ready to fight, but not rule an entire race of self-serving creatures during a dire crisis that made vampires so much more volatile. A golden-winged bear blocked the door. The pose wasn't threatening. Looking at it, I could tell it somehow wanted me to slow down and reconsider.

That was shocking as hell but what was even more so was the fact it smelled like The Pythoness. This beast mirrored her. It was majestic, powerful, but elegant. The Old Bat had a walker. That was how she knew where to find Kai such a rare thing. She really was blind, yet this was how she managed to track me with impeccable accuracy.

Again, I had to laugh. I mean, what else could you do when faced with overwhelming odds? This new bit of information wasn't so bad. It answered a question that had been nagging at me for the past two hundred-odd years. If she heard me, she didn't show it. She didn't confirm or deny anything, but she didn't have to.

"Niall sees what is to come same as I. Were he alone, I could contend with him but with Breandan, their collaborative sight is keener. From where I sit, I cannot see," she said. "I need to manipulate the holes in my limitations and that includes a drastic change, a look from the outside in."

"I'm going to be farther on the outside and I'll be turning a blind eye, no pun intended," I quipped. "So like I said, you're fucked'"

"Katairu will die," she said blandly. "Your maker, your sister, and your wife, they as well as countless others will not survive if Niall wins."

I stilled. I expected fury but there was so much fear bouncing between my wife and I that anger had no room to grow.

"You're lying," Sookie said. "We'll survive this. We will."

She shook her head, sadly. "No. I saw his fate while he was in your womb. As things stood then he didn't live out his first year. Just now, I looked and I saw nothing to the contrary."

Tears escaped my wife's eyes. She was doing her best to keep her pain contained but it was useless. We were both suffering from the same crippling fear. I pulled her to me but I had no words of comfort to offer her.

"The nether will rise and the heavens will fall," she repeated. "The darkness will come and it will devour us all, all of us, if Niall wins there will be no place that will go untouched, nothing will be left. There is no way you can forsake this world and save your son."

"What do I do?" I asked.

"While you have not declared war, it is upon you and you must fight as if your enemy is at your door. We must go on the offensive because we have no defense as of yet. Hit them fast and hit them hard. Agent, Latestta knows where to begin targeting."

"How far does your reach go?" I asked the human.

"Usually very far but the fact that I am the only one who knows the truth complicates things. I'll need man power and supplies I can't justify on the books."

"But you can do it?" Sookie asked. "Tell them it's "The Outfit," tell them you're close and their getting more and more dangerous."

"Unless you blow up a landmark and kill a lot of civilians, I can't make anyone care anymore."

I was sure he was being sarcastic but the contemplative look on my face told him I was already considering it.

"If that was a factor the Prince accounted for then he miscalculated. Either way it is a mistake. Keeping him guessing is the best option. That one thing will render a fortuneteller useless. We cannot see a course until it has been decided."

The Old Bat waved her hand and one of her scribes pushed a laptop in front of me. It was the program that held a record of every vampire in the New World. This was a page of the Royals. It had everything; their ages, countries of origin, and their power rankings.

"Abolish emanative powers and institute Martial Law. Call upon every King and Queen in every Territory. Declare open war on the Fae, and assemble your troops."

I gave her a look that called her all the names I wanted to call her but didn't have the time. There was nothing vampires loved more than power. What she was suggesting took Royals and made them generals, needless to say there was going to be quite a bit of resistance.

"How am I supposed to do all that? How do I go from the Law to Emperor? The transition, if it's successful, won't be smooth and I don't have time to tame a civil uprising."

Sookie wrapped her arms around my waist. "If it's Kai or them, I choose Kai. They can get down, or lay I'll lay them the fuck down."

"I suggest we employ guerrilla tactics, strike, and retreat," Latestta added.

Sin Eaters and the Fae were a well-orchestrated coalition. If there was no pattern to follow, they wouldn't know where to start. It gave us an advantage, not a great one, but an edge all the same. When you were going into a fight with one hand tied behind your back, you appreciated anything you could get.