Annika Northman: Part Two

Chapter 20: The V-Feds

"We need sanctuary," Eric says.

The jacket slips from Pam's arms. "Oh my god, what have you done?" She sounds more bewildered than frightened, which should comfort me, maybe, but it's too late – Fear has already found my heart and coiled around it, squeezing, squeezing, like a snake with prey.

And Eric, Eric paces. With fervor. He wants to do too much, move too much – he feels too much to be in a room this small, it can't quite contain him, and his energy is making me vibrate – making me tremble. "I staked a vampire. The lover of Russell Edgington." With his next step, the crown happens to catch the light of the overhead fluorescents and glint some of it my way, almost like a wink. Remember me, Annika? We're old friends, aren't we?

The lover of . . .

"Talbot?" I accidentally mumble.

Pam drowns me out, anyway. "Are you insane –"

"WHERE can we GO?!"

Bellowing, Eric is bellowing, the air shakes, and I pull my legs into me like I'm trying to fit somewhere small. From my dry mouth comes the word, "Eric," and that's it, and it's weak and little, and I don't know why I say it or what I want, I don't, but it gets my guardian to turn my way and snap, "You are fine!" before swallowing and repeating, far more calmly, "You are fine."

But my heart says something different. My heart says, Something bad is going to happen, because I don't think it heard Eric, I think it's too occupied by being strangled. I lay my hand on my chest, then dig my fingernails into my skin. Something bad is already happening.

"A human home would be safest!" Pam stutters, which is oh so strange, because Pam doesn't stutter. "We've both been invited into Sookie's – "

"No!" Eric says before the name has finished leaving Pam's mouth. "That's out of the question – Annika." He stops at the end of the desk and points at something over my head. He speaks, but . . . I miss it. I hear his voice, I see his lips move, but the words somehow don't make it to the part of my brain that handles those sorts of things, probably because my brain, my brain is quite crowded at the moment, quite crowded and hectic, and clogged with fog, too, freezing thick fog that's floated up from my chest and all the feelings there – the fear –

I squeeze my eyes shut. We need sanctuary – I killed the lover of Russell Edgington – Russell Edgington, the King, who glows with power, who killed the magister, who has said or will say 'We-will-eat-you-after-we-eat-your-children' – We need sanctuary – sanctuary –

"Sanctuary?" I breathe. There is no sanctuary from someone like that. There is. No. Sanctuary.

"You never panic," I hear Pam say. To Eric. Strong Eric. "Should I be panicking?"

My chair moves on its own, and I gasp and open my eyes to see that Eric has gotten closer, much closer, he stretches over me and pulls back with a roll of paper towels. He tears one off and uses it to dab blood from his face. Is Pam right? Is he panicking? He's contained. But he's vibrating. And he bellowed. And . . . Panic. That word is like a ticking clock, isn't it? Pan-ic, pan-ic, pan-ic.

Something bad is happening.

And you thought the worst might over. Stupid little girl. Little fool.

Pan-ic, pan-ic, pan-ic.

Far away, maybe from outside the room, something clatters against the cement floor. Eric looks to the door. I don't, I keep looking at him. His lifts his chin and speaks smoothly, steadily, deceptively –