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“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Adilyn frets.
“I gotta talk to my godfather,” Sookie says. “I don’t see what harm it’d do to bring y’all along. You’re fairies more’n I am, you would’ve found the club eventually anyway.”
Charlaine frowns at herself in the mirror, swatting at Braelyn’s hand when she gets the curling iron too close to her skin. “Our mom’s gonna be there,” she points out. “She didn’t want us. It’s gonna be awkward.”
“You don’t know that,” Sookie insists. “I don’t know how all this works, really, but I’m betting it’ll be okay. Like I keep sayin’, fairies don’t really think about family the same way people do, I don’t think.”
So the girls finish dressing – just naturally, they gravitate toward the sort of colorful, just-shy-of-ridiculous sorts of things the other fairies are fond of, Sookie notices, though they don’t take it quite as far – and Sookie drives them out to the field. All four of them spend the ride begging her to teach them to drive and Adilyn, in the passenger seat, very logically adds that maybe they could wait until the apocalypse is stopped to learn.
“This is it?” Braelyn asks once they’re parked.
Sookie turns her head, flashing a smile. “Trust me,” she chirps. “Once we’re out, you’ll know.”
They pile out of the car, and the Bellefleur girls immediately begin nodding as they follow Sookie.
“Look okay?” Charlaine whispers, tugging at her dress.
“Yeah,” Danika agrees, fussing with her sister’s hair and setting off a chain reaction of all of them fussing with each other’s everything.
“Y’all look cute,” Sookie assures. “It’s gonna be fine.”
And just like that, they’re inside the club.
“Whoa,” Danika breathes out.
The party’s in full swing tonight, drinks being passed around, two men and a woman twisting and twirling as they do aerial silks. There look to be a few of the easily-seduced businessmen scattered around, but the crowd is pretty heavily fae.
“Sookie,” Claude croons, hurrying over. “I didn’t know you were coming. Is everything all right?”
“Not exactly,” she says. “I had a couple things I wanted to ask you about, actually.”
“Oh,” Claude nods. “Of course. Who are your friends? They’re…”
“Half-fairy, yeah,” Charlaine interrupts, grinning brightly. “We are.”
Claude raises an eyebrow, straightening his necktie, but he’s still addressing Sookie. “Who do they belong to?” he asks.
“Our dad’s name is Andy,” Danika supplies. “Andy Bellefleur. And our mom…”
“Girls?”
As if on cue, Maurella suddenly appears over Sookie’s shoulder, all wide-eyed. She’s wearing sequined short-shorts and a tight bustier, apparently eager to show off how fast her body bounced back post-pregnancy (or maybe she’s just the next act, Sookie thinks, because her outfit kind of looks like it oughta belong to the tap dancer girl from Rocky Horror), and the girls note she’s surprised, but not bad surprised, which is comforting.
“Hey, Mom,” Adilyn and Braelyn chorus, sounding just the slightest bit sheepish.
“You’re all grown up,” Maurella exclaims. “Has it really been so long?”
“It hasn’t even been a week,” Braelyn points out, tugging at her sleeve, even though she knows that’s what “so long” is referring to.
“I hope it wasn’t weird of me to bring them with,” Sookie cuts in. “I just figured if I had to come anyway, it wouldn’t hurt them to get a little more in touch with their fairy kin.”
“It’s not weird,” Maurella says, shaking her head fondly. “They’ve a right to be here same as any of our kind.” Her normally-sunny expression fades into doubt for a moment. “Their father knows they’ve come?”
“Yeah,” Adilyn nods. “Daddy’s cool with it.”
“How is he?” Maurella asks, far too innocently for someone referring to the sort of-jilted father of their quadruplets.
“He’s still kinda pissed you showed up when he was havin’ his thing with Holly,” Charlaine shrugs. “But he’s takin’ good care of us. Or he’s doin’ the best he can considering he’s playin’ it by ear.”
“I think she understands, though,” Braelyn adds. “She still hangs out at the house all the time, and she still has a crush on him.”
“I have an idea,” Claude cuts in. “How about, you four go catch your mother up on – things – and Sookie and I have words about whatever she’s here to discuss, yes?” He’s Sookie’s fairy godfather by default, but he knows he’d be a pretty rotten father-father. He doesn’t know how to deal with this sort of situation. He hasn’t really needed to.
“Splendid,” Maurella beams, waving a hand to encourage her daughters to follow her into one of the back rooms, and for their parts, the girls are taking all this strangeness in stride.
Claude leads Sookie off the other direction, toward a quiet corner (or, well, there’s no such thing as true quiet here, but quieter) and at least a bit away from the crowd, frowning.
“Start at the beginning of what’s upsetting you,” he suggests once they’re seated.
It’s not that he doesn’t know what that is, but conversations don’t work if you just read each other’s minds the whole time.
Sookie frowns. “Well, I guess let’s start with my brother,” she says. “Whatever got him the other night, when Russell Edgington was here? What the hell was that?”
“I couldn’t be entirely sure,” Claude admits. “The Elder was capable of a great many magicks, many of which I’ve not yet learned or mastered, but it’s likely she had intended to send the vampire to a different dimension.”
“But it hit Jason instead,” Sookie prompts. “And he’s not in another dimension. He’s just actin’ strange.”
“Strange how?” Claude asks.
“Well, he’s hallucinating our dead parents,” Sookie begins, “and they keep tellin’ him all this stuff about how he’s gotta protect me and how he’s gotta kill vampires.”
“I admit the hallucinations are worrisome,” Claude shrugs. “But killing vampires is a matter of self-defense, given everything. Particularly for us.”
“Kill or be killed,” Claudette interjects, slinking over and pulling up a chair.
“It’s not like that entirely,” Sookie sighs. “I mean, yeah, there’s a whole – thing – out there right now, but I’ll get to that in a minute and not all vampires are bad. Jason and I’ve got friends who are vampires and suddenly he’s talkin’ like they’re no different from the maniacs on the streets. I mean, you saw it the other night, Russell could’ve killed us all if Eric hadn’t shown up to off him.”
“And then the other one nearly jumped you once she got a whiff of your smell,” Claudija points out, approaching the table as well. It just wouldn’t be a trip to the fairy club if Sookie didn’t get overwhelmed by Claude’s hipster-rave sisters.
“She didn’t, though,” Sookie counters. “And she knows not to in the future.”
“You trust her?” Claudette asks. “Really?”
“Not entirely,” Sookie says. “But I trust that Eric won’t let her, and I trust that she knows we’ve got other shit to worry about right now. All of us. Which brings me to another point: do y’all even know what’s goin’ on out there? I mean, really know?”
“The vampires have gone even madder than before,” Claudija shrugs.
“Some of them have,” Sookie clarifies. “Some of them don’t know what the hell is going on, I bet. And some of them – like my friends or whatever you wanna call ‘em – they wanna stop it as much as we would.”
“We don’t get involved in vampire business,” Claude says tersely.
“Believe me, I’d be perfectly happy never getting involved in vampire business ever again,” Sookie mutters. “But it’s not as clear-cut as all that. Just hear me out.”
The siblings all exchange glances, then Claude nods at Sookie. “Very well,” he says. “We’re listening.”