Amanda didn't sleep anymore. She even didn't try. The voices had stopped whispering and started chanting. No clear words, just loops of breathless syllables, like prayers underwater. Some days she couldn't tell if she was hearing them or remembering them.
She stayed in her living room, lights on, back against the wall. Her phone was dead.
The power blinked out twice. The air in the house felt thick, like fog you couldn't see.
Lucan entered without knocking. He didn't speak. He didn't ask if she was okay. He just stepped inside, scanned the room, and stood by the window.
Amanda stared at him like she hadn't seen him in weeks, even though it had only been two days.
"You came back," she said.
Lucan didn't turn. "You're unraveling."
"Thanks."
"It's not an insult. It's a measurement."
She stood up unsteady.
"I can't block them out," she said. "It's not dreams anymore. It's everywhere. The dead, the dying, some of them don't even know they're gone."
Lucan nodded slightly. "It was always going to escalate."
Amanda's jaw tightened. "You said I was a tether. You didn't say I was a door."
He turned, meeting her eyes.
"Because you weren't. Until now."
Amanda stepped toward him. "What changed?"
Lucan's face didn't shift.
"You accepted it."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy. It was hollow. Like everything else had finally fallen out of the room.
She moved closer, voice low. "And now what? You keep watching? Waiting for me to break?"
Lucan's voice dropped, too calm and cold.
"No. I'm preparing."
"For what?"
Lucan looked past her, through the wall. Not at the town. At what wasn't visible yet.
"For the storm she thinks she controls."
-----
The bar was empty. Not closed, just… avoided.
Merlotte's had become one of the few buildings still standing without someone dancing naked on the roof or painting sigils in barbecue sauce on the walls.
Eric sat alone at a booth, arms stretched along the backrest, one leg crossed over the other. He looked like someone waiting for a meeting he'd already decided was going to piss him off.
Lucan didn't sit when he arrived. He just stood across the table, arms folded.
"You brought me to a bar," Lucan said flatly.
Eric gestured. "Figured if we were going to talk about burning down a town, we should do it somewhere civilized."
Lucan didn't smile.
Eric didn't expect him to.
"We need to move," Eric said. "Tonight. Whatever this thing is, this woman, it's gathering energy fast. The town's almost gone."
Lucan nodded. "Let it burn."
Eric's eyes narrowed. "That's your answer?"
Lucan stepped closer. "That's my leverage."
He looked around the bar, empty glassware, chairs stacked on tables, stillness in every corner.
"You want to kill her?" Lucan asked. "Then you don't strike now. You starve her. Cut the veins she's feeding from. Make her lash out."
"And risk lives," Eric said.
Lucan tilted his head. "There are no lives left. Just shadows."
Eric stood now. "This isn't strategy. This is detachment."
Lucan's voice stayed low. "You came to me. You knew what that meant."
Eric's jaw clenched. "Godric wouldn't have wanted this."
Lucan's stare turned sharp. "Godric's not here."
Silence. No one spoke for a long breath. Then Eric sat again. Less calm now, but controlled.
"What's the real plan?"
Lucan moved to the window, peering out at the street, deserted but watching.
"We pull her attention. We become the thing she can't ignore."
Eric frowned. "You're not talking about bait."
Lucan nodded. "No. I'm talking about dominion."
Eric leaned forward, voice quiet but steady. "What happens to Amanda?"
Lucan didn't answer right away.
Then.
"She survives. If she's useful."
-----
It started with a scream. Neither far nor loud. But Amanda felt it inside her, not through her ears.
A burst of panic that wasn't hers.
A man. Middle-aged. Dying too slow. Something wrapping around his throat, not with hands, but with want.
She stumbled out of bed, hit the floor hard, breath knocked out of her. The voice was in her head before she could get up. Not the man's.
Hers.
Maryann's soft and sweet voice.
"Come and see."
Amanda grabbed the wall, pulled herself up. The window in the living room shattered. Not from impact, but from pressure. She didn't see anything outside, just the wind and the trees swaying too much for the night to be still.
Then.
From the hallway mirror.
Her own face. Smiling.
But not her. Something behind the glass. Something waiting. Amanda backed away and the whispers started again. This time from inside the house. Then everything stopped.
The pressure vanished, the voices died and Amanda felt something bigger than the house press down on everything around her.
A presence that made her legs buckle. But it wasn't Maryann. It was colder. Older.
She looked toward the open doorway. And Lucan was standing there. His eyes were silver. Not glowing, just wrong. Like metal that had never cooled.
The air around him didn't move. It hung.
He stepped inside, slow and silent, like something not quite human. Amanda stared at him, trembling. Not in fear.
In recognition.
For the first time, she understood what he really was.
Not just ancient.
Not just powerful.
Lucan was absolute.
He turned to the broken mirror. Maryann's reflection was still there, smiling. Lucan didn't blink. He didn't speak.
He just reached out his hand and crushed the air.
The glass shattered again, this time inward.
Maryann's smile turned to a scream that only Amanda could hear.
And then the reflection was gone. Lucan stood there, arm lowered. No tension, no emotion.
Amanda could barely whisper.
"What… was that?"
Lucan looked at her.
"I warned her."
-----
Author here :)
I have one question for you all. When Lucan is talking to Eric in this case, would you like it if I wrote in Swedish or if I just indicate before the conversation that they are speaking another language?
I intend to have Lucan speaking another language when he doesn't want others to eavesdrop. In this case swedish with Eric (like in the first chapter). When it comes to another language that I don't know I will just write in english, but indicate that another language is being spoken.
Please leave your thoughts here :)