She stepped out from between two trees like she'd always been there. No sound. No warning. Just presence.
The air shifted, and Lucan turned slowly, every movement calculated.
The woman in front of him didn't flinch. Bare feet sunk slightly into the damp soil. Her dress looked like it had been soaked and dried a dozen times, and her arms were streaked with something brown, mud, or dried blood. Maybe both.
But her eyes?
They were wrong. Not glowing. Not monstrous. Just too bright and too sure.
Lucan said nothing at first. He just studied her.
She smiled. Wide and slow. The kind that didn't reach the eyes.
"You're not from here," she said softly, tilting her head like a curious child.
Lucan didn't move. "Neither are you."
She laughed at that, genuine, like it was the funniest thing she'd heard in years.
"No. I suppose I'm not."
He watched her hands. She wasn't tense. Wasn't preparing for a fight, but her energy was invasive like a bad smell you couldn't scrub out of the air.
"You're not human," he said.
She spread her arms like she was welcoming applause. "Neither are you."
"You've taken this town."
"I've freed it," she said. "They were chained. Numb. Buried under routines and little lies. I gave them permission to feel again."
Lucan's voice stayed flat. "You broke them."
She stepped closer, slowly. "You say that like you think they were whole to begin with."
Lucan could feel the pull now. Not magic, not compulsion, just... rhythm.
Like the earth around her pulsed with her heartbeat. It was seductive, but not in the way of vampires. It was messy. Animal. Loud.
She didn't want to rule. She wanted to dissolve everything.
"You don't belong in my forest," she said, softer now. "But I think I like you here."
Lucan didn't blink.
'She's not testing me. She's circling me.'
'Like a wolf circles something it doesn't understand. Not sure if it's prey.'
"You're not afraid," she said, almost admiring it.
Lucan stepped forward, eyes locked on hers. "I've lived longer than fear."
She laughed again, but this time it was smaller. Tighter.
"I want to know what you are," she said, finally.
Lucan's answer was immediate.
"No."
That stopped her. Just for a second. She tilted her head the other way.
"You'll tell me eventually."
Lucan's tone dropped. Icy and ancient.
"You'll die before I ever tell you anything you want."
They stood there, still as stone, the forest holding its breath around them.
Then, slowly, she smiled again.
Not angry. Just simply amused.
She stepped back into the trees without another word and vanished.
Lucan now stood alone. Not shaken, but calculating.
'She doesn't want to conquer. She wants to erase.'
'And the town is letting her.'
Lucan moved through the trees like he was part of them.
The woman, that thing had retreated without another word, but her presence clung to the air like humidity.
She hadn't been bluffing. She truly didn't fear him and that alone made her dangerous. Not because of arrogance. Because of certainty.
He emerged near the southern edge of town, close to an old maintenance shed behind a church. No lights. No footsteps. Just the sound of cicadas buzzing like a dying powerline.
He stood there for a while, watching Bon Temps breathe. People still walked the streets. Drove cars. Played music. But it all felt rehearsed.
Too calm.
Like a dream you don't realize is a nightmare until it's too late to wake up.
Lucan moved through the shadows, observing.
Outside Merlotte's, a man stood in the gravel, pants half-unbuttoned, humming to himself and giggling. His eyes were unfocused. Black-rimmed. Three blocks down, a woman stood on her porch holding a raw steak and whispering to it.
Lucan kept moving.
'They're gone already.'
'Their minds cracked, and no one noticed.'
'Or no one wanted to.'
Back in the woods, he could still feel the echo of Maryann's rhythm, pulsing through the ground like a drumbeat no one was dancing to yet.
But they would be. And soon.
He'd seen it before. Once, in a village in Gaul. Worshippers of something primal, older than gods, tearing each other apart with joy on their faces.
He'd walked away then. Because back then, it hadn't mattered.
Now?
He wasn't sure. The thought that made him pause wasn't about the town.
It was about Amanda.
'She's not part of this.'
'But she's near it. And that's enough.'
'If she's the gate I think she is, this madness will reach through her like an open window.'
He leaned against the brick wall of an empty shop, watching the moon reflect in the shattered windshield of a pickup truck.
Then he whispered to no one:
"I should have stayed buried."
But he knew he wouldn't leave.
Not yet. There was something about this place that was pulling him in and not just the rot.
There was something buried in the wreckage worth finding. And maybe, just maybe, something worth keeping.
After a few days, the sky was turning gray at the edges when Lucan returned to the clearing.
The forest was quiet. Not peaceful, just watching.
Birds stayed away. Insects stayed silent. Something had moved through here and Lucan could feel it still lingering in the soil like oil.
The stone table was not empty this time. A body lay stretched across it. Naked. Limbs splayed awkwardly. Chest opened like a book.
The heart was missing. So were the eyes, but the rest had been arranged carefully, almost artfully. The kind of display that wasn't meant to shock.
It was meant to impress.
Lucan didn't move closer. Not right away.
He didn't need to. He could already smell the blood too fresh to be from the night before. No decomposition yet. This had been recent. Very recent.
'Not random. Not a kill.'
'A stage.'
He circled the edge of the clearing, scanning for tracks. There were footprints. Bare. Two sets—one small, one larger, male. The male's ended at the table.
The other set led away. Deep impressions, dancing again. Maryann hadn't just taken this man.
She'd used him. Broken his mind, bent his body, and turned him into a message.
Not a threat, a question.
Will you join the feast?
Lucan stepped forward, eyes on the body. He wasn't squeamish. You didn't survive the things he had and walk away with illusions. But something about this felt intentional like she was trying to see what would break him. Or stir him. Or maybe wake something buried too deep for most to notice.
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small, thin blade, old and half-rusted.
He held it in the air for a moment. Then drove it into the corpse's chest.
No ceremony. Just finality.
The body tensed slightly, even in death. Lucan leaned in close and whispered something low, in a language no human spoke anymore.
Then pulled the blade free and turned away.
'I see you, creature.'
'But I'm not yours.'
As he stepped back into the woods, something behind him shifted.
There was no sound or movement, just awareness. She knew he'd seen it.
And now, she was watching.
Even closer.
Even hungrier.