"As the human world waits with bated breath the makers of Tru Blood promise to rebuild all five of their destroyed plants." "But concerns remain that it may not come soon enough." "Across America, police are reporting a 50-percent spike in vampire attacks." "A number sure to increase as reserves of Tru Blood continue to dwindle." "Meanwhile, earlier today, AVL spokesperson Reverend Steve Newlin had this to say." "We at the AVL are working closely with our friends at Homeland Security to find the terrorists who cut off our food supply." "But people should not have any fear of leaving their house at night." "Please go about your business." " The vampires are just as committed" " Oh, shut up." "Mike?" "What are you doing outside?" "Come in." "You know it ain't safe." "What's going on?" "I'm here about the body." "What body?" "Yours." "Ha-ha." "You're gonna have to do better than that." "I always liked you, Sookie, but I had no idea." "Fuck." "Finally." "We get to have a little fun around here." "Molly, we give you this last chance to accept the word of Lilith." "Even if I did, you'd kill me anyway." "Unfortunately, we must." "You compromised our security." "The chancellors have agreed on the true death for you." "In that case, allow me to say fuck all of you." "You are destroying the world based on a book that is thousands of years old." "You call that evolved?" "That's the opposite of evolved." "Oh, put the poor girl out of her misery." "She was a good employee." " She developed the perfect staking device." " Almost." "It chafes your nipples." "We can convert you." "It's just that none of us think you're worth the trouble." "May Lilith bless you." "Yes!" "Yes!" "Oh, my fucking God!" "I've never actually seen a vampire get staked before." "That was awesome." "Reverend Newlin." "Please." "Let us bless the blood." "Okay, all this talk of killing has made me positively ravenous." "Who wants to go out and eat?" " Steve?" " Hmm." "I could eat." "Reverend Newlin has an important TV appearance tomorrow." " He needs to prepare." " I thought the book of fucking Lilith wanted us to go out and hunt." "Or is there some chapter where we're supposed to be sitting around memorizing index cards?" "Let him have some fun." "Everyone's become such a sourpuss lately." "Excellent." "Come on." "Don't worry about her." "We'll bring her back a doggie bag." " What are you in the mood for?" " I was thinking Greek." "Good luck with Northman." "Mama went and sold half her doll collection to clear some space for your room." "Bought you a new mattress too." "California king." "I don't approve of the state, but it's good for a boy your size." "I don't want my old room back." "There is no way I'm gonna let you move back into that house." "Not with them vampires on the loose." "Especially you-know-who." "She ain't coming after me." "Had to practically stand over your hospital bed to keep that Cheeto-headed tramp from giving you her blood." "Thanks for that." "It's all over now." "God's given me a second chance in life, and I ain't gonna waste it." "What you got in mind?" "A couple of guys from Parish services took a job on a drilling crew." "And they asked me to come along." "Where is this job?" "Alaska." " Oil drilling?" " Better than anything I could get here." "Near to 30 years in this town, and what do I got to show for it?" "Well, Hoyt, you're still recovering." "Oh, Mama, what do you want?" "An invalid or a son who made something of himself?" "That's what I thought." "You can return the fucking mattress." "One hundred, two, three, four, five, six." "Well, fuck me, he can count past five." "Where's the rest?" "There's nothing legal left for vampires." "And humans aren't exactly flocking these days." "Six hundred bucks in a night?" "How are you paying your employees?" " She not." " Look." "The Shield and Stake in Natchitoches has these little repurposed two-way peep show booths." "You put in a 20, and a little door opens up and the human sticks in his wrist or leg or whatever appendage and his vampire friend has 30 seconds to suck." "It earns over two grand an hour." "Thanks for the suggestion, but we prefer to do things the old-fashioned way." "Yeah." "You and Blockbuster video." "You know, protection from your sheriff doesn't come free." "And given the current climate, prices might be going up." "Here's your cut." "Oh, I do have one directive from on high." "We have a procreation mandate to bump up the population by the end of the year." "Thirty new baby vamps in Area 5." "And if we don't?" "Then in the name of the Authority, I take possession of your assets." "Including your progeny." "Well, that's a stroke of luck." "Good thing you didn't order pizza." "You're not gonna eat that?" "I kind of lost my appetite." "Isn't that evidence or something?" "I hate to say it, but these days, one less vampire ain't gonna cause much of a fuss." "Maybe we saved ourselves a couple of human lives." "I wonder who turned him." "He couldn't have been a vampire for more than a day or two." "Hell if I know." "Funny thing is this is the exact kind of crime scene Mike would've loved." "I know." "Our town needed a guy like him." "Man loved his job." "He wanted to suck on my toes." "He kept autopsy photos on his computer same place he kept his porn." " Oh, no." " Yeah." "Suddenly, I don't feel so bad." "Your sister and I can only keep you alive for so long." "Others wanted you executed already." "The true death will come very soon if you do not accept Lilith." "As it will for all non-believers." "So let it come." "What does it matter to you?" "You saved my life." "And in return, we will save your soul." "No." " I refuse." " Shh." " I'll do it with you." " No." " Yes." " Aah!" "We'll meet her together." "Take it in." "She is in you." "She's here." "Give yourself to her." "Godric." " No." " I tried." "I tried to save her." " My children." " Father." " How have you come?" " My blood is in you." " I'm with you always." " No." "You left me centuries ago." "The blood of Lilith is within me now." "Lilith is a godless god." "She will lead you and all around you to destruction." "How can you say that?" "After all the years that you and I and Eric hunted and killed together." "How can you tell me it's wrong?" "Because I have done what you failed to do." "I've evolved." "Please save her, father." " She's lost." " No." "No." "I am sworn to Lilith." "Please." "Please spare him, Lilith." "Fight her!" "You must fight her!" "It is not I who must fight her." "Praise Lilith." "Imagine a time when we will own not only the night but the day as well." "How can we do that?" "We can walk in the sun." "There is a way." "And it is tantalizingly close to us." "Please take me with you." " Huh?" " I thought you'd never ask." "Oh, Russell..." "Goddamn it." "Vampers." " Come on, let's get the hell out of here." " Just leave it." "All right." "I wouldn't do that if I were you." "You'd take a vampire over your own kind?" " You ain't my kind." " Heh." "Whatever, dude." "Stop me, there'll be another guy to take that fanger down." "No, there won't." "On the floor." "Not you, the gun, dumb fuck." "You too." "You hungry, Jess?" "You have no idea." "Well, I'm all out of Tru Blood." "But I got two new specials on the menu." "What the fuck, man, we weren't gonna shoot her." "Six wooden bullets say you were." "You know what?" "I'll pass." "Looking kind of stringy." " I'm here to see someone, anyhow." " You take any table you like." "Okay?" "So we can go here, right?" "Get the fuck out." "Take your fries to go." "What was that about?" "Just keeping the peace under my roof, Jason." "Is there a vampire in here?" "Hey." " What are you doing here without your guards?" " What guards?" "Bill stopped paying them, so they split." "Oh." " Well, that sucks." " Not really for them." "They were starting to look kind of tasty." "What are you doing here?" "Um..." "Just meeting someone." "Yeah, me too." "Look at all this raw." "Like I'd ever turn any of them." "Fine, then." "I'll make two." "I always wanted kids." " But we have to." " No." "We procreate because we want to." "Not because some dickhead dipped in afterbirth told us to." "So, what then, you let Elijah take everything from you?" "The money, the bar?" "Me?" "He can have the fucking bar." "What's it worth at this point'?" "You and me." "We live in the wind." "Just like I did with Eric." "We don't need this place." "It's four walls and plaster." "That's all." "Alaska?" "What the hell, Bubba?" "It's only 4000 miles away." "I'll be there next week." "You give me one good reason why I shouldn't go." "This is your home." "My home is where my mama smothers me and my girl left me for my best friend and a bunch of Barack Obamas nearly got me killed." "But other than that..." "Yeah." "Well, who's to say Alaska's gonna be any better?" "That's an awfully long way, man." "My God, you know, I want this." "It's done." "I'm leaving tomorrow." "And y'all can't even be happy for me." "I'm sorry, man." "I can't be happy to see you go." "Well, to hell with it then." "I'll tell you what I need from you." "For my going-away present." "I want you to glamour me." "Make me forget about you." " Hoyt." " I want you gone." "Out of my head." "I wanna lay down, go to sleep, close my eyes and not dream about you ever again." "Hoyt just take a deep breath and really consider for a sec what you're asking." "Is this really what you want?" "I want him gone too." "Jeez, come on now." "It's the last thing I'll ever ask of you." "Please take this hurt away from me so that I can go on having my life." "Please." "Please." "Look at me." "Goddamn it, Jessica, I'm not messing around!" "Now look at me." "Make this go away." "Hoyt Fortenberry." "You are a good, good man with the biggest heart I've ever known." "You were my first love." "I'll never forget you." "You were Jason's best friend, and he won't forget you either." "We're gonna miss you so, so much." "But you are not going to miss us." "You are gonna go to Alaska." "And you're gonna start a brand-new life." "You're gonna make a whole lot of new friends." "You'll forget about Jason." "Forget he ever existed." "Do you understand?" "Yeah." "And you're gonna make some girl the luckiest, happiest girl in the world." "And she..." "She's going to be your first love." "Not me." "I am fading away." "I'm going." "Going till I vanish from your mind." "And when I tell you, I want you to close your eyes and count to 10." "And when you open them we'll be gone." "And then you're going to have yourself a burger and a beer and not a care in the world." "Okay?" "Okay." "All right, go ahead." "One." "Two." "Three." " Four." " I love you, Bubba." "Five." "Six." "Seven." "Goodbye, Hoyt." "Eight." "Nine." "Can I get a waitress?" "Mind if I bring the blow-up bed?" "Your couch is kind of its own life form." "My castle is your castle." "You know, in a funny way, it's like Hoyt's forgiven you." "He wanted to let it go, he just couldn't do it himself." "Somehow I don't feel too forgiven." "I was hoping in the hospital maybe he'd have a change of heart." "You know, we'd catch the Dragon, me and Hoyt are good again." "And somewhere in Bud Dearborne's old files, we'd find out who killed Mom and Daddy." "Is that all you got from his house?" "Well, it was the only box marked "Vampire attacks question mark."" " If Bud was on to something, it'd be in there." " We can go through it again at your place." "No, just admit it, Sook." "There ain't nothing in there." "The universe don't work that easy." "God don't just throw Bud's files in your lap and say, "Here it is."" "But Gran told me, "Look under the bed."" "Well, was there anything else under the bed?" "Photos, report cards, you know, a bunch of other crap." "A bunch of other...?" "Ha-ha." "Jeez, you'd make one hell of a cop." "Knock yourself out." "I've already been through it a hundred times." "Okay." "She said, look in the box under the bed." "That's exactly what she said, right?" "In the box." "Actually, she didn't say anything about a box." "Just under the bed." "Ah." "Who's the smart one now?" "Oh." "Whoa." "What the--?" "What magazine did you say you were from?" "Dog Monthly." "We're hoping to get the Reverend Steve Newlin on the cover with this new puppy we've heard he's got." "We could even send a photographer there wherever he is." "The Reverend is very busy." "We can't accommodate everyone." "Well, could you at least confirm he's got a dog?" "Thank you for calling AVL." " I fucking hate humans." " What happened?" "No local TV will do a story on Emma." "And Caddo Parish's sheriff fucking banned me from their office." " Why would he do that?" " Because I'm the crazy bitch saying that Steve Newlin kidnapped my daughter." "And everybody wants credible evidence." "I am going to tell them everything." " Werewolves, shifters" " That might get you locked up." "The Shreveport pack has closed ranks." "And your vampire friends, they are no help." "So, what the fuck else can we do?" "Shh, shh, shh." "Hey." "I want to show you something." "But you gotta control yourself." "Promise?" "Tonight, a TBBN Vampire Crisis Exclusive." "Live from New Orleans, Louisiana, a summit featuring both sides of the debate." "Mortal rights advocate, Congressman David Finch squares off against American Vampire League spokesman, Reverend Steve Newlin." "Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, only on TBBN." "Oh, fuck." "He's in the state." "We have to go." "We" "Eight o'clock, 7 Central." "New Orleans is five hours away." "We will never make it." "Unless I got credit card miles." "Hey, imagine if someone could read all these." "He wrote a bunch of them too." "Well, I ran it by the entire department." "And everyone agrees." "Either you two are a couple of jokesters sent by Louisiana Tech" "Don't laugh, it's happened." "Or you're the victims of a not-particularly-sophisticated hoax." "Hoax?" "Why would anyone plant a hoax under my gran's bed?" "I can't speak to that, but whoever it is, is long dead because this vellum is at least 200 years old." "Maybe more." "Well, what does it say?" "I don't think it says anything." "You got glyphs on a page arranged in groups of four or five so at first glance, it looks like words." "But here's the problem." "None of these characters repeat." "Every alphabet known to man has a defined set of characters not 300 different ones." "This is just a set of hundreds of unique squiggles." "If it doesn't mean anything, why would anyone bother writing it down?" "Why does my ex-wife name her toes?" "Maybe it's a joke." "Maybe because she's nuts." "I don't get into the why of it." "All I can tell you is this is not in any language." "At least not in any human one." " Hey, handsome." " Hey there." " Ready to split?" " Actually, no." "I got a little thank you for you." "For taking me home these last three nights in a row." " Whoa." " Heh-heh-heh." "Oh, a bitch can burn if she ain't slinging for 200 rednecks every night." " Mm." " I don't say this to many men..." "...but I love you." " Oh." "But, baby, don't get used to it because once this vampire situation is over folk going be back." "Or we going be dead." "One or the other." "Either way, you gets no more of this." " We will savor every bite." " Save room for dessert." "I ain't going tell y'all what it is but best believe it's gonna be flaming." "Listen here." "You can live large when you got the town to yourself at night." "Also I got the sheriff with me in case anyone wants to cause any trouble." "Thought you had the sheriff with you because you took a shine to him." "Maybe." "Mm." "Miss Hamby, your maker sent for you." "Please come with us." "Bullshit." "Get the hell out of my house." "Bill?" "What's going on?" "Are you in some kind of trouble?" "No." "You will be if you don't do as I say." "As your maker, I command you to go along with my security team." "Wait, could you at least--?" "Crap." "Don't touch me." "The truth, Former Reverend Newlin is that you don't know who bombed those Tru Blood factories." "It's presumptuous to say that it was a terrorist attack brought on by humans." "Suzanne, I sense a conspiracy theory coming on in three, two" "I believe that there is a faction of the vampire population that wishes to do away with the pretense and go back to the days of murder and bloodshed." "Next you'll be saying that we have a shadow government..." "...in an underground complex somewhere." " You might." "We do not." "And the numbers back me up." "Humans do far more killing than vampires do." "Not for long." "With no Tru Blood, you must be starving, Reverend." "Well, we've all had to make sacrifices." "Yet you are positively glowing." "When's the last time you ate?" "Actually, I do keep a reserve of Tru Blood for emergencies, as do most vampires." "We're rationing, but we make do." "And frankly, I'm deeply offended by these sort of insinuations..." "...from someone I once considered a friend." " Look." "That's your daddy on TV." "Spent long hours together just man to man and I bet you, if you probed hard enough you're gonna find out we're on the same team..." "...on a lot of these issues." " Isn't he handsome?" "What is your response to that?" "Are you on the same team?" "I think he's dashing." " How's he doing?" " Splendid." "Finch is coming off nuttier than a fruitcake." "And what about our prisoner?" "He's our prisoner no longer." "I'm pleased to report that our efforts with Mr. Northman have finally borne fruit." "Eric?" "I humbly beg your forgiveness." "I refused to recognize what was clear." "To all of us." "Lilith came to me." "And she destroyed my maker." "Whom I was worshipping as a false god." "We are the children of Lilith." "And it is her who we must obey." "And to you I give thanks for your mercy." "And I forgive you for your sins against my family." "We are made again." "We are brothers now in the eyes of Lilith." "And as we are one in her blood we must lay down our swords against one another." "If Lilith Wills it, SO be it." "Even though you're getting the better end of the deal." "Thank you for coming." "It was nice to meet you." "Thank you so much, Suzanne." "I've been a big fan of your show for a long time." " Is she here?" " No, I don't see her." "I don't smell her." "Shit." "He didn't even bring her." "He probably left her somewhere." "What are you doing?" "Well, if he's like most of us, his phone's full of pictures of his dog." "Did you see the look on his face?" "I don't know where you and Russell went to eat last night but next time you have got to take me." "I think we pretty much shut that place down." "Ha-ha-ha." "You rascal." " You want me to wait outside?" " No." "Just need my bag." "We'll take comments on the debate after our break right here on TBBN." "Holy smokes." "What are you doing?" "It's Hoyt." "I gotta talk to him." " Jason, you gotta let him go." " Sit tight." "I won't be but a minute." "License and registration." "Stackhouse." "Hmm." "Any relation to Sookie?" "Yeah." "Yeah, there's a couple of us." " You going somewhere?" " Yeah, moving." "I got a job in Alaska." "The last frontier." ""The last frontier."" "You remember when we--?" "When we were kids." "They used to pretend to go up in space." "Start their own planets and shit." "You used to do that too?" "Listen, don't go, Bubba." "I'm begging you." "This is your home, man." " And people love you here." " Phew." "Oh." "Heh." "Did my mama put you up to this?" "You tell her she has e-mail, cell phone, everything she needs." "She's gonna be okay." "Is there anything else?" "You drive safe." "Thank you, officer." "Okay, somebody better start talking, or I am going to go ape-shit." "You are safe, and that's all that matters." "I tried to keep you out of it, but it's just too dangerous in Bon Temps." "And here, you'll have your own quarters." "Have full protection during the day and all your needs attended to at night." "Is this because of the Tru Blood bombings?" "Are we at the AVL?" "And finally, this is the sanctum of the Vampire Authority." "This chamber dates back to Byzantium and as our seat of powers moved over the centuries so too has each brick or each column." "Two thousand years of our history, right here within these four walls." " Staggering to consider, don't you think?" " Yeah." " So how did you get put in charge?" " Well, it's not only me." "But it is I and several others whom you might say were chosen." "What, you mean like by God?" "Suppose we were?" "Nine million species on this earth, we're at the pinnacle of the food chain." "Were we not chosen by nature or fate or by some great deity?" "We have one of these at our home." "It sits unused on the shelf because I thought I knew better." "But I read it again with an open mind." "And my world is full of wonder and mystery again." "That's feeling a lot like the bible study my parents made me do." "Well, it's not that different." "They just had the wrong book." "I know it's going to take time." "It's a lot to process all at once." "But soon you'll see that you and I and even Eric were meant to lead our kind into the coming age." "Wait, what--?" "What coming age?" "I'm getting ahead of myself." "Just consider the words on their own without prejudice." "You might be surprised." "Enough book talk." "You want to see your room?" "Sure." "Lead the way." "Oh, my God." "Thank you." "Thank you for coming." " I didn't know who else to call." " You've got two minutes." "It's Ginger." "I think I killed her." " Christ, didn't your maker teach you?" " She doesn't know." "She says she wasn't making anyone and neither could I. You gotta help." "I don't know nothing about birthing baby vampires." "Ice your clam." "Let me take a look." " She's got a pulse." " She breathing?" "She's holding her breath" " You have got to be kidding me." " We're not running." "No one fucks with us in our house." " Hey, hey, Chels, how'd I do tonight?" " We were all very impressed." " Whew." "Live to fight another day." " Here's your mail, Reverend." "And about your pet, she's" " Oh, no, is she all right?" " She's fine, she just" "Let me go get her." "I put her in one of your shirts." "I hope that's okay." "Emma." "You know that Daddy doesn't like it when you're human." "Do you want Nigel to eat you?" "Do you?" " I want my mommy." " Your mommy doesn't want you, punk." "Emma, get back here." "Emma." "You bad puppy" "I've ordered translations of the book of Lilith in 70 languages." "Every new vampire should be required to learn it." "The old vampires should as well." "We want everyone to accept Lilith, don't we?" "Are we seriously sitting here discussing education reform?" " Are we vampires or school marms?" " Her word is sacred." "How do you propose we seize our "rightful" place in the hierarchy of beings when we're helpless as hamsters for 12 hours out of the day?" " That is the way we were created." " But it's not how we have to remain." "The legends are true." "The blood of the fae allows us to day walk." "Compton, Northman, you've both drunk from the same fairy I have." "And you know it lasts a few minutes at most before you fry." "The Wright Brothers first flight lasted 12 seconds." "Did they turn to each other and say, "12 seconds is pretty good." "Let's give up and try something else"?" "We harness the blood." "We study it." "We capture another fairy even and breed them." "If the Japanese can synthesize human blood why can't we do the same thing with fairy blood?" "Because we are of the night." "The sun is forbidden to us." "Fairies are an abomination." "Their blood is like sucking on heaven." "You know what I wish?" "I wish that I had just one drop of fairy blood to stuff in your pie hole." "I saved you, Russell." "I can put you back in the ground." "Oh, please." "Give me an excuse to kill the both of you." "Or hell, why not all of you?" "I am 3000 years old." "I am stronger than all of you combined." "How long did you think I would be your lap dog?" "I offered you the opportunity to share in the greatest advancement in the history of our race and the small-mindedness of your religion has literally kept you in the dark." "You can have your Lilith." "I will not be constrained by your god or anyone else's." "I will have the sun." "The characters are from our language, but these aren't words." "They're just fragments." "Oh, aha" " None of these are words on their own." " It's like reading alphabet soup." "Maybe it's a code." "Do fairies write in code?" " Could be in the old language." " Yeah, it could." "This is probably older than we are." "We're only 130." "Perhaps we should ask someone less young than us." "You mean there are fairies here who are older than 130?" "God, yes." "I mean, how do you think we got so good at dancing?" "That's all we do now that we're locked down at night." "She's 500 but she only admits to being 3-." "Like you couldn't tell she's halfway to being an elder." "Sookie, Jason, this is Maurella." "Mm." "Yes, I've heard of you." " Hi." " Hi." "This is the document." "We thought you might know more." "Oh, my." "Where did you get this?" "Underneath the floorboards at my gran's house." " Do you know what it is?" " It's a contract." " Blood on vellum." " Like human blood?" "No, fairy." "The blood of the signee was used as ink on the most sacred pacts." " Can you read it?" " Not yet." "Our ancestors were even more secretive than we are today." "However..." "Hmm." "It's a lost art." "Fifth of August, 1702." "I, John William Stackhouse in reference to our binding agreement on this said date do grant Mr. M. Warlow my first fae-bearing female heir." "Warlow?" "He's the one who..." "Claude?" "Who was the first female fairy in our family after 1702?" "Actually there haven't been any." "Until Sookie."