Title:A Vampire Carol

Summary:Sookie gets a visit from three spirits who take her on a journey to change the future.

Vampire bites don't have to be painful. Usually they aren't. A vampire, almost any vampire who isn't fresh out of the coffin knows how to make it pleasurable for the human being bitten. Russell Edgington made no attempt to make his bite gentle or painless. The pain as he ripped into my wrist shot up my arm as he drank.

I barely felt it when Eric brought his hand up to smooth back my hair after he bit. He wasn't much gentler. Vaguely, I heard Bill yell something, and then there was nothing.

I was still in Fangtasia when I woke up but the bar was empty. Eerie. My fingers went automatically to the bites at my wrist and neck, expecting to find ragged skin and blood. They were gone and my skin looked like I'd never been bitten. Someone must have given me their blood.

"Hello?" Only a few lights were on but it was enough to see around the large bar space. I yelled into the empty space, "Eric? Bill?" Nothing. "Pam?"

"They're not here."

The voice came from behind me and I spun around to greet the familiar sound. In the corner booth was a face I never thought I'd see again. "Dawn?"

"In the flesh," she said, then looked down. "Sort of."

Dawn was wearing the last thing I saw her in; the clothes she died in. The pink tank top and sleep shorts didn't leave much to the imagination. The bruises on her neck were prominent and her long brown hair, which she had normally kept styled beautifully, was messy and tangled.

"H-How are you here? Am I dreaming?"

"I'm not here to answer questions. I'm here only to tell you what's to come."

"Which is what?" I asked hesitantly, as I took the seat across from her.

"You and me, Sook, we're not so different, are we?"

As I looked closely at her, Dawn's skin was pale, so pale she was almost translucent. As pale as any vampire and just as dead. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were unseeing and cloudy with death.

"No, I don't think we're different," I said.

Dawn smiled and it scared me. "We both came from families that didn't add up to much, didn't we? At least you got your grandmother's house when she died."

I didn't have anything to say to that. The only thing that had kept me and Jason from living in tiny rented apartments like Dawn was the fact that our parents had left us a little money when they died. Gran had kept their house and I had inherited Gran's when she passed on. Though I can't say I've been handling the upkeep well. I'm gone a week and a maenad moves in.

"Waitresses for Sam and an affinity for vampires."

"Hey now!" I said. "I don't have 'an affinity for vampires.' There's only one vampire I care about and that's Bill. Maybe you slept with any vampire that'd have you but not me!"

The smile Dawn held morphed into an ugly sneer. She grabbed my hand and pulled me over the table. I screamed.

Ghosts shouldn't be able to touch you. What the hell was going on here?

"How many vampires I had sex with doesn't matter. It was a human that killed me," she said with menace before releasing her grip on me.

I scrambled back. "I know. Rene tried to kill me too."

"Vampires bring their own set of problems. Getting involved with them is trouble."

"Is that what you're here to tell me? Stay away from vampires?"

"No," she said and laughed. "It's not like you got a whole lotta choice anyway on account of your…special needs."

"That's not fair."

"You're not exactly one to talk about fair considering I'm the one that's dead."

She had me there.

"Listen to me Sookie, because I don't have a lot of time left. I made my choices. A lot of yours got shoved on you." Dawn stepped out of the booth then. "Still, you have more choices to make. Maybe, if you can make the right ones a few things may change for the better."

"What choices?"

"You'll find out soon enough. Tonight, you'll see and decide."

And just like that, Dawn was gone. I was alone again in the bar.

Everything was silent as I walked past the bar and the stage, down the hall toward Eric's office. I don't know what I expected to find. Nothing was what I found because the office was empty. If this was a dream, shouldn't things be fuzzy? Unclear? I've never been able to read in a dream before but I could see and read the papers on Eric's desk, clear as day. On the way back to the main bar I passed the entrance to the basement. Eric had chained me up there to be a gift for Edgington because my blood was some kind of mystical sunscreen. Nothing could make me go back down there. Eric could go to hell for all I cared.

When I passed through the door to the main bar, the light that struck me was blinding. I'd gotten used to the dim lighting. A shape came forward through the light.

"Who are you?" I asked. It was a person, I was sure, but a man or a woman I couldn't tell.

"I am here to show you how you came to be," said the person. The voice of the spirit was as ethereal as its form, light and high like bells.

"Is this a joke? You're kidding right? Dawn and now…whatever you are. The Ghost of Christmas Past? I don't believe it."

"You will," the spirit warned as it reached for me.

Suddenly we were wrenched through the air and the night sky, only it wasn't night anymore. The sky was as bright as any spring day could be. Flowers still bloomed on the trees. We moved so fast I could barely make sense of it. Then before I knew it, we were on the ground.

I know where we are. "The office at the elementary school? Why are we here?"

"Who is that?" That spirit asked me.

I looked in the direction the spirit was pointing. "That's…me." I was sitting, or really my six-year-old self was sitting in a large chair with my parents on either side of me. They couldn't see us. "I'd forgotten this."

"You have a cut on your arm."

The memory of that day slowly swam to the surface. "A boy…I remember he pushed me. He called me a freak when I said something. I don't remember…his parents, I think his parents were getting divorced and I said something even though he'd never said it out loud."

My parents were talking to the principle now about what happened. They asked me something about what happened but I had been too distracted by what the principle was thinking. "The principle liked my dad." We watched, waiting for what I knew was inevitable. "I didn't understand her thoughts. I thought she wanted to replace my mom." I told her she couldn't have my dad and I didn't want her to be my new mom. "Needless to say I freaked them all out."

"What happened then?"

"When we got home, Dad gave me a lecture about not listening to what people were thinking and not answering anybody's thoughts."

"I guess that never really sunk in, did it?"

"Excuse me?"

"You still answer everybody's thoughts."

"I do not!"

The spirit said nothing and events before us melded into something else. This time it was high school and the same thing happened.

"Still think you don't?"

I sighed. "It's not easy, you know. Figuring out what someone's thinking versus what they're saying while trying to have a conversation at the same time – you try it."

The spirit laughed. "I'd rather not."

"I wish I didn't have to either."

"It must have been difficult being around people."

"Always. Sometimes people are so loud I can't think for myself. And dating? Forget it."

"That's what drew you to the vampires; their minds are quiet."

I smiled then, thinking of the night I met Bill. "The first night I met a vampire - that was the night when I felt for the first time I could relax my mind around someone."

The events around us shifted again and we were outside Merlotte's. We watched silently as Bill left the bar with the Rattrays while the me that was working was out of sight.

I moved closer. I was always curious to know what the Rattrays had said to get Bill to leave and I was glad right now they couldn't see me. As I got closer and followed them to the woods I saw money exchange hands. Bill lay down on the ground and the Rattrays placed small silver chains across his neck and wrists. He hissed as the silver touched his skin.

"What the fuck?" I was completely dumbstruck and turned to the spirit. "It was a farce?"

The spirit nodded. "A very clever one."

"I don't understand." We watched working me come out and save Bill, who really didn't need saving at all.

"What happened the next night?"

"The Rattrays attacked me. They tried to kill me."

The events around us shifted again and we watched, this time from the woods as the Ratts jumped me in the parking lot. I let out a shriek when I saw Bill, watching it all from the woods a few yards away.

"He…" I couldn't even get the words out when a lump in my throat formed. "He let them…" I didn't bother holding back the tears that came from such a betrayal. "I don't want to see any more."

"You need to watch."

Bill walked with me unconscious in his arms into the woods. "The blood," I said, almost choking on the words while I watched him give me his blood to heal.

"The blood," the spirit confirmed.

"He just wanted his blood in me this whole time. And I thought it was Eric I had to be afraid of."

"How soon after Bill saved you did you start having feelings for him?"

I stiffened. "Not long. But I still don't understand why. How did he know about me?" Then it struck me and I slapped my forehead. "Hadley!"

The spirit only watched with apparent fascination at the conversation the old me and Bill were having.

"Hadley said it was her fault the vampires knew about me."

"It's true. Bill's queen sent him to see if what she said was true."

"Did Eric know about this?"

"No. He learned about it from your furry friend over there."

My head snapped over to the collie at the edge of the woods. "Sam." I don't remember Sam being here when it happened.

The events began to slowly shift again and the spirit took my hand. "I wonder what would have happened if I'd just let the Ratts drain Bill."

"We cannot change the past. What is done is done and all you have seen are specters."

I looked down, depressed by the new information I'd learned only to find myself back at Fangtasia and alone.

I turned around. "Spirit?" The room was as dark as it had been again. "Great. Just great."

I walked to the door, determined to get in my car and drive home. It wouldn't open. No matter how hard I pulled, the door didn't budge. That was when I heard someone laughing at me.

"You won't be getting out that way."

I whirled around to see who was speaking. It was a woman this time, dressed sharply for an evening out with rosy cheeks and long, elaborately styled, golden brown curls.

"Are you supposed to be the Ghost of Christmas Present or something?"

"Or something," she said and walked up to me.

"Why are you here?"

"You are asking the wrong questions." She touched my hand and grabbed the door I'd been tugging at for the last ten minutes. "Let's take a look outside."

"But it's -" She yanked the door open, filling the entryway with bright sunlight. "Never mind."

"Well! This is exciting!"

Once my eyes adjusted to the bright light I could see what she was staring at. I screamed.

"Good lord, do you always do that?"

I glared at the woman. "What the hell happened?"

Eric was laying on the concrete parking lot, handcuffed to Russell Edington and they were both burning in the sunlight.

"Isn't it obvious? Russell was played for a fool!"

"But Eric's burning too!"

The spirit sighed. "I know. He didn't seem to care about that. But you'll be safe now. Well, more or less."

"I can't believe this is the same Eric I know. The same Eric who tricked me into drinking his blood, lied to me and chained my up in his basement."

"Believe it," she said, look at the two burning vampires. "He's helped you too, hasn't he?"

I thought for a moment as his actions in Dallas and at my house flitted through my memory. "Yes."

"So, not a complete bastard then." Everything she said sounded jovial and bright. "Oh look! This is my favorite part! He thinks he's talking to his maker."

"What?"

"I know, right? He's having a hallucination. I think you humans call it sun stroke."

"Eric has sun stroke? Are you sure I'm not the one hallucinating?"

"The hallucination is telling Eric not to kill Russell. Seems a bit daft, really."

"Maybe he really is hallucinating if he doesn't want to kill Russell. The vampire's loonier than Toon Town."

The spirit laughed. "Come along, let's see some of your friends."

The next think I knew we were standing in Lafayette's living room.

"Oh, God, is something going to happen to him?"

"Of course! This is Tr – Lafayette we are talking about. Just look at him now."

"Is he on V? " I asked. "And who is that?"

"Yes to the first question. That is his new boyfriend, Jesus, someone who is going to get him into a lot of trouble in the not so distant future."

"What do you mean?"

"Watch."

We stood and watched as the pair came down from their V high and talked about Jesus' grandfather in Mexico. Then I screamed when I saw Jesus' face turn into some kind of ghastly monster.

"You really need to tone the screaming down."

"What was that?"

"The source of Jesus' magic. It's very strong and very old. You'll see what it does soon enough."

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"Magic isn't inherently bad, it just is. It is the people who use it that determine what direction it goes in."

"But something bad is going to happen to them, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately. Jesus likes magic; he's going to get more and more involved with it, and he's going to drag Lafayette along for the ride."

Well, that was just great. I don't know what it had to do with me and I sure didn't believe Lafayette would appreciate me butting into his private life. "Don't you have anything good to show me?"

The spirit smiled conspiratorially at me and took my hand. The next thing we saw was Tara and Sam. They were having a very good time. "I didn't mean like that."

"Maybe you should have been more specific."

I huffed. "Well, at least they're okay."

"Tara's going to leave soon. Too many bad things, poor girl."

"Leave? Leave Bon Temps?"

"That's right. It seems to be the right decision for her."

"Why?"

"You'll find out. Come along."

Everything shifted and it was night again. We were at a construction site and Eric and Bill were standing over and open area of ground.

"How is this happening, we just saw Eric."

"I'm fast forwarding just a tad. It's supposed to happen tonight, but I still count it as the present."

"They didn't kill Russell?" I yelled.

"No, apparently Phantom Godric won out."

"You're kidding."

"See for yourself," she said.

I watched Eric and Bill pour the cement on to Russell as he launched curses at them in other languages vowing their deaths. I couldn't help the sudden bile that rose up at the sight of Bill. If I could, right now, I'd stake him. It didn't help matters when he suddenly pulled out the rug from Eric and tried to bury him in concrete too.

"Is he really doing that?"

"Nothing I've shown you is a lie. Look there," she said pointing to the distant field.

"What is that?"

"'Who,' is the more appropriate term. And 'who' is Salome, a vampire working with the AVL."

"She's going to report what they're doing to the AVL?"

"Actually, she's going to free Russell. She's a traitor." I couldn't help glancing at Bill then. "Not yet though. It will be in about a year or so. That's when the crazy really starts."

"But I can stop it? That's what this is really all about."

She clapped me on the back. "Now we're getting somewhere."

We waited and watched until Bill had sent out a hitman for Pam. I could stop this. Together, the spirit and I followed Bill as he came to my door to explain everything.

"Is he really going to kill the queen?"

"He will, but it might be better if he doesn't."

I watched quietly when Eric showed up to tell me what I now already knew about Bill.

"Loyalty doesn't mean anything to Bill, not really."

"Bill is only loyal to himself."

"How could I have missed such a big thing?"

"The blood."

"What's happening now?"

"Ah, yes. This. Your fairy godmother Claudine is offering you the chance to get away from all of this. You take her up on the offer. What she doesn't tell you is that those fairies won't want you to leave once you join them. She also doesn't tell you that time passes differently there. You're going to lose a year of time but it's only going to feel like ten minutes."

"WHAT?"

"You'll see. Come along."

Once more I found myself in Fangtasia, alone again and more depressed than ever. I figured I knew what was coming and sat down on a bar stool for what I reasoned to be my fall time version of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Worried, I imagined a hooded figure with scythe preparing to take me to my gravesite if I didn't mend my ways.

The figure, when it showed, was silent as the grave and covered in blood. I'm sure it was male but it had a darkness surrounding it, unlike the other two who were bright and ethereal.

"I don't know if I want to see what you have to show me."

The figure extended his hand and reluctantly, I took it. I couldn't contain my horror as I watched, first the death of Sophie Anne, then my brother tied up raped by werepathers. Taken and held by the woman he loved. Eric buying my house in the vain attempt to include me in the purchase. It was galling and ridiculously stupid. I think he just wanted the challenge. I watched Jesus bring Lafayette to a witches meeting and then everything went to hell in a hand basket. Eric's memory was gone, vampires under necromancy control, the AVL, Tara shot by Debbie and turned into a vampire, Bill and Eric being tortured, Russell being released…the final icing on the cake was what Bill had turned into, whatever that was.

"I understand now, Spirit. I know what I have to do."

I knew what was coming and what I could do to stop it. At least most of it. I flirted for a moment with the idea of letting Eric lose his memory.

Well, we'll see what happens.

That was when I was struck by the spirit. "Hey!"

"Sookie?"

"What was that for?"

"Sookie? Come on."

My eyes opened slowly. I thought they'd already been open but I guess not. Bill was standing over me with a perplexed expression on his face. I was back in Fangtasia, still on the table where Eric and Russell had drunk from me.

I jumped back and vaulted myself as far away from Bill as I could. That's when I tasted it on my lips. Blood. Bill's blood. I touched my fingers to my lips.

"Did you give me your blood?"

"I had to, you were dying!"

I slapped him. "I was fine!"

"Really, because being unconscious is hardly the epitome of 'fine'!"

"Just stay away from me, Bill!" I yelled, looking around the room. Pam was there again, her eyes glued to the camera monitors. Right, Eric and Russell.

"Sookie, you don't honestly believe I meant you harm, do you? It was part of Eric's plan to trick Russell. We couldn't tell you."

I wasn't listening. Instead I dashed to the door only to be blocked by Bill. "Get out of my way."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not going to let Eric burn up!" I shoved him out of the way.

"Just let him go, Sookie, that's what he wants anyway."

I ran out the door and into the empty parking lot. Racing around to the back, I spotted what I needed and split the wood from the crate with my foot.

"Miss Stackhouse, don't even think about coming near me with that thing."

"Or you'll what?" I mocked. Before he could reply, I shoved the wide piece of broken wood down into his chest.

Eric's low plead of "no," went unanswered as Russell exploded. I guess he did have a hallucination of Godric after all. Discarding the wood and with very bloody hands and knees, I dragged Eric inside and out of the sun. At least he was fully clothed. The worst burns were to his face and hands.

Pam tended to him. "He needs blood," she said, looking at me.

"Don't look at me; he already took my blood ten minutes ago."

"You see any other humans around?"

I cursed and sat down while Bill watched silently. Eric's wounds began to heal as he drank. By the time he was done I was a little woozy.

"You killed him," Eric said very quietly.

"I did." I felt a little shaky as I stood up and abruptly plopped back down.

Eric sat up to look at me. "Why did you do it?"

"You and I have a lot to talk about. I wasn't about to let you die."

"I didn't realize you were so fond of me."

"It must be that charming personality." I pressed my lips to his forehead and stood up. Eric was visibly stunned by the gesture. "Like I said, we have a lot to discuss." I glanced at Bill before turning back to Eric. "But not here. Tonight?"

Eric nodded. "Tonight."

I turned toward the exit.

"Sookie?" Bill questioned.

I knew I had to deal with him soon, but it wasn't going to be tonight. I planned to tell Eric what I'd seen, what I knew about Bill and the AVL but it could wait until tonight. First though, I was getting into my little yellow car, driving home and sleeping for the next several hours. I certainly wasn't jumping through any fairy portals.