Part I
“Explain.”
“W-well, sir, it’s just like I said. I f-found a –”
“Discrepancy. I heard that the first time. What I want to know,” I took a step closer to Bruce, “is how this happened.”
Tonight had been a good night, until this. Fangtasia had drawn a sizeable crowd for a weekday night and I was pleased with the bulk of our guests. No one had broken any of our rules on the premises and there were two lovely young female blood sacks that would be waiting for me when the club closed.
Finding out that our accountant had discovered sixty-thousand dollars missing from our accounts was severely dampening my mood.
Bruce swallowed hard. “I-I-I d-don’t…” His stuttering was really prolonging this. I sighed inwardly and worked on catching Bruce’s eyes with my own. His gaze kept darting around the room beyond me like he was looking for somewhere to run. Humans never ceased to amaze me with their idiocy.
Another step closer and Bruce had no where to look except at me as I filled his field of vision, but he refused to look up at my face. I narrowed my eyes. “Bruce!”
He was startled enough to jerk his head up and I had him. Humans were forever thinking of themselves the most superior creatures on the planet but the bulk of them were nothing more than sniveling cowards good for a feed and a fuck if they were lucky. The rest could ‘die in a fire’ as the new saying went.
“Now, Bruce,” I said gently as he gradually relaxed, “I want you to tell me what you’ve found about our accounts.”
“I ran the numbers at least five times and they don’t add up. There’s sixty-thousand dollars, give or take a few hundred, missing.”
“And when did you discover this?” If he had been keeping this to himself for any length of time Bruce was going to have to find a new profession. Probably one that didn’t involve the use of his hands.
“Three days ago.”
That seemed reasonable. “When did the money disappear?”
“Over the course of four to five weeks about a month ago. I was doing the quarterly tallies when I discovered it.”
“And what precisely was the nature of the theft?”
“Cash from the bar. I only noticed when I added up the reported take for a given night directly against the amount deposited. And then it took me some time to drill down which days were specifically being affected.”
Most humans seemed to prefer the plastic swipe cards for their transactions but those that were smart only brought cash with them to the bar. Glamour is a bit high-handed for petty thievery but it wasn’t uncommon for some of the younger vamps to use their abilities to scam a few hundred dollars from unsuspecting humans. The regulars had adapted. “Do you have a list of the dates?”
“Right here.” Bruce offered me the folder he’d walked in carrying and I was pleased that he’d spent his three days wisely. I took it from him and flipped the cover open, scanning down the dates rapidly.
“Have you told anyone else of this?” I asked as I looked for a pattern. Bruce didn’t know it but this was the most important question I had asked him all night. The music from the club and the closed door to my office would have obscured our conversation enough that not even a vampire could have overheard us, which was as I wanted.
“No, I only came to you.”
Bruce remained obediently silent as I calculated my next move. I considered that he might be the thief, or could be staging this entire scenario as a way of ingratiating himself to me, but that just didn’t mesh with what I knew of him. None of my employees, especially those that had any real amount of responsibility, came to be under my employment without thorough screenings and background research. Occasionally an unsavory character would slip through but I’ve yet to miss anyone intending me, my business, or my underlings true harm. This was a first at Fangtasia.
I released Bruce from my glamour and he immediately began trembling while a look of confusion settled on his features. Deciding he’d earned it, I threw him a bone. “You did well Bruce. Speak of this to no one else and I will discover for myself who has been stealing from us. Of course,” I added, just to keep him on his toes, “if I find out this is some poorly conceived attempt on your part to thieve from vampires I don’t think you’ll be getting your Christmas bonus this year.” My fangs popped forward intentionally as I smiled. “You may go.”
Bruce sobbed and ran from the room.
My child came in not long after, while I was rooting through our file cabinet looking for the records of our employees schedules. “It seems you have scared our accountant into quite a state again.”
I didn’t turn to look at her and continued my search. “Did he leave out the back or the front?”
“Back.” I could hear Pam’s frown before she even moved into my peripheral vision.
Good, I thought to myself. “You don’t need to be concerned,” I said to her, switching to my native tongue. “But we may need a new staff soon.”
“What have they done this time?” she asked in the same language as smoothly as if she’d been speaking it from birth. Technically she had.
“It seems that we are missing a significant amount of money from the past quarter.”
Pam’s face transformed into a gleeful expression. “Who do we question first?”
“I’m finding that out now.” I’d found the matching dates and took them over to my desk, laying them side by side with Bruce’s records.
“This was all taken in cash?” she asked once she discerned the information from Bruce’s spreadsheet. I was slightly amused that she chose a time like this to show-off that she could read upside down from the other side of my desk.
“So it would seem.”
“I’m curious why they wouldn’t just neglect to report the sales. Was it all from the bar?”
“No, it appears that the bar and the gift-shop were both shorted.”
“One of the humans then.”
I looked at her sharply. “Do you know something I don’t?” I asked her, my voice stern. It wouldn’t be the first time Pam kept information from me but it would be the only time that it have proven detrimental.
“No, my Master,” she said smoothly, inclining her head respectfully in acknowledgement of my tone. “But there have been rumors. The source was too contemptuous to warrant bringing it to your attention.”
“And now?” I watched her while she reevaluated.
Her eyes flicked back to mine when she finished. “Supposedly there is a new local fighting ring. I have not attempted to seek it out because I knew you would want nothing to do with it and if you did not know about it you would not be responsible for any foolishness resulting from it. It is run by shifters.”
Fighting rings meant gambling debts. “What vampires are supposed attendees?” I knew Pam would have covered her lack of discretion by obtaining as much relevant data as possible. Willful ignorance was not a trait that promoted longevity and it was a lesson I taught to her early.
“Taryn, Odessa, Long Shadow, Glen, Erin, Carmichael.” She rattled them off without even having to count on her fingers.
I frowned. Pam’s list included all the usual suspects for enjoyment of such activities but the obvious conclusion from it… “You will not keep information from me when it concerns a direct associate, is that clear?” My voice was just as sharp as I intended it to be.
“Yes, Master.” Her eyes burned and I knew she also understood what I was not saying aloud.
“Leave me.”
Pam vanished from my office as only a fellow vampire could.
I sat back in the chair behind my desk and propped my feet up on its surface. My arms crossed in front of me out of long habit and I retreated into myself as I sorted through tonight’s revelations.
A few minutes later I stood, returned the employee files to their proper place, stored Bruce’s folder in the safe that only I had access to (it had a sheet of silver pounded in between the layers of steel to prevent vampire tampering), and left my office. It was 1:30am and if my chosen companions hadn’t reconsidered the intelligence of their choice to spend an evening with a vampire they would be outside waiting.
Anyone watching would certainly not notice anything different in my nightly behavior. It was not the first time Bruce had run from Fangtasia barely in control of his bowels, or the only time that Pam and I had sequestered ourselves for a private conversation. No, to all outward appearances everything was normal.
Inside of course I was seething. I could think of more than a dozen plausible possibilities for the thief’s identity but my mind and gut kept coming back to only one feasible conclusion. There was a mortal expression for it and I had reflected on the irony many times over the years since it had come into existence. Occasionally, I did have to admit, despite the odds against them the idiocy of humanity would stumble upon an apparent universal truth.
As I bid farewell to Pam by way of a silent nod this ‘rule of thumb’ echoed ominously in my thoughts.
Ockham’s Razor: All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.
I met his eyes where he stood behind the bar just before I walked out the door into the moist Louisiana air. We exchanged a nod, not unlike any other night. Did I detect a flicker of contempt? Was that a smirk he had to struggle to keep off his face? Would our till be shorted again this evening because he had been here?
I couldn’t know for certain that Long Shadow was the guilty party, not without exposing the theft to public knowledge, and I could not tolerate such an appearance of foolishness. A delicious plan to discover the truth began forming in the recesses of my mind. Couldn’t a scene be set to provoke Long Shadow’s pride? I began mentally running through the possible outcomes of such a scenario while I scanned the parking lot.
The two women were there, waiting by my red corvette. One was actually daring to lean on it and I had to repress a boil of anger. That one would not have quite as pleasant an evening as I’d originally planned.
Neither would Long Shadow, once my arrangements were in place. I felt myself stir at the prospect of bloody vengeance and smiled at both the women. My fangs had partly run out and I could smell their fear, excitement, lust, and primal terror. Neither of them would remember what it felt like to be bitten of course but I would let them keep their memories of the other pleasures of my company. With a little luck these two would become new additions to the ranks of addicts that couldn’t help thronging to the bar in hopes of getting another taste of vampiric satisfaction.
Of course, they would never get it from me again. I did not do repeat performances. But let it never be said that Eric Northman failed to deliver.
***
It had been an entire week since Bruce had told me of the missing records. I was running out of time to come up with a plan for dealing with the situation before I lost my temper and was provoked into acting before it was prudent. I had found out, through careful interrogations of the human employees, that at least one of them was helping Long Shadow by taking money from the gift-shop when they were on duty there. Of course the word of a human against a vampire was useless to me when it came to our system of justice. Unfortunately his stupidity had only extended to stealing from me, not to involving credible witnesses.
I almost wished I had the time to find out why he had done it but knowing the reason would not have changed how I dealt with him. He would die for this betrayal, I just had to find a way to make the kill seem legitimate and damn the consequences. Everyone knows that I am more than fair to those who have sworn me fealty. If I were harsher people would fear me more, yes, but I dislike ruling by the sword as they used to say. People are far more useful when they are not preoccupied worrying that the slightest offense might get them in trouble. But it did mean I had to be a bit…extreme in dealing with transgressions against me especially in regard to those who held a higher than normal position of trust. It was necessary to reinforce the point that I only allowed my minions the comfort of relaxing around me, relatively, as long as they didn’t cross me. What was that human saying? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice… Well, that was why I made sure there never was a second time.
Tonight I sat in my normal spot, all but ignoring the crowd of tourists and fangbangers that swarmed around me. I had no need to feed tonight and none of the humans here seemed appealing anyway. Last week’s crowd had been much livelier.
To make sure the guests realized my indifference to them tonight, my attention was focused entirely on my cell-phone. I would never have purchased one with a keyboard if Pam hadn’t recommended it but apparently she had discovered the intrigue of text-messaging from one of her ever changing human companions. And although I would never tell her if she asked me, it was a very useful feature.
But apparently my façade was not fool-proof. Oh no. After all, nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool. “Excuse me,” said a particularly husky female voice from the edge of my raised platform. I raised my eyes as Long Shadow appeared at the girl’s elbow, ready to perform the honors of throwing this insolent blood-bag out of the club if that was my wish. His presence grated on me but I kept it from showing.
“May I take a picture of you?” the fool asked as I evaluated her coldly. She was blonde and slightly husky, wearing a dark t-shirt that seemed to be her only consideration for the fact that she had planned to come to vampire bar. Definitely a tourist. My thoughts flickered briefly to another blonde that I had recently become acquainted with, one who was much more fascinating than this creature could ever be. I dismissed the memory for the moment.
Why not? It was always fun tormenting the vermin. I set my phone down on the chair next to my 'throne' and then steepled my fingers, allowing my fangs to pop forward as I did so. “You may.”
No sooner had she clicked the button then Long Shadow was plucking the phone from her fragile fingers. He brought his fist down on it over top of a table. “No pictures.”
“He said I could take it,” she responded, a trickle of fear in her voice.
Reaching for my phone again I explained patiently, “I did not say you could keep it.”
The girl looked at me one more time and I smiled indulgently at her. As she walked away shaking Long Shadow had a good laugh over her humiliation. The entire incident had taken less than thirty seconds.
My brief thought of Sookie Stackhouse sparked the beginning ideas of a plan to deal with Long Shadow as well as an answer to a more personal issue. I wanted to see her again of course but Bill refused to bring her back to Fangtasia for any social reason. How he had found such a unique and singularly beautiful human woman was a mystery to me and one that I spent no small amount of free time pondering.
This really was too perfect to pass up. My very next text-message was to Bill, setting things in motion.
***
I didn’t bother opening my eyes as the bathroom door squeaked open and Bill entered the room. Even without seeing I could sense his exasperation at finding me soaking in his tub. It served him right. “I texted you three times. Why didn’t you reply?”
“I hate using the number keys to type.” Yep, definitely surly. “What are you listening to?” he asked in a tone that he no doubt hoped sounded more disgusted than curious.
“From my younger days. It’s really quite beautiful if you know old Swedenish.” I left a calculated pause between that answer and my next words. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“A favor or an order?”
Trust Bill to need to ask the obvious. I slid my eyes open to regard him with a small amount of contempt. “Depends on how you look at it.” He clenched his jaw and I decided to go with the least direct explanation, just to draw out the tension.
“Honestly,” I had to fight the urge to smile, “did you think you could keep her to yourself?”
Part II
Fangtasia had just closed for the night and the only ones left were Pam, Long Shadow, and me. Long Shadow was busy locking up while Pam and I conferred in my office but I had made it clear that we expected our other partner to join us when he was finished. “The details are already taken care of,” I said from where I sat on the edge of my desk, ankles crossed on the floor and arms folded. “We’ll do this on Monday. The bar will be closed anyway and Bill was quite insistent that his human would not want to be out past 2am.”
“How silly.” Pam was often amused by the escapades of vampires dealing with humans and the Great Revelation had given her more chances for such entertainment than she effectively knew what to do with. She tilted her head to the side slightly and I detected a sudden but distinct shift in the focus of her snarky humor. Under most circumstances I appreciated her wit but this was not one of them. “I wonder what she will wear this time? That number with the flowers was positively mouth watering.”
“Pam,” my voice rose warningly. She grinned at me wickedly and I had to resist the urge to growl. It would only encourage her.
“Still, do you think this is wise?” I raised an eyebrow and she continued sweetly, “We don’t know for certain what Bill will do. I’m surprised you’re willing to risk it.”
If I hadn’t been concerned about collateral damage I might have thrown my desk at her. “Pam,” I said patiently, trying to keep the strain of anger out of my voice, “As much as it touches me to know you are concerned about my interests, you really should shut the fuck up.”
A practiced submissive expression settled onto her face. “Yes, Master.” If I didn’t know any better I would have said she almost looked appropriately chastened but her glinting eyes told me otherwise.
At that moment Long Shadow chose to grace us with his presence. I heard his booted footsteps approaching in the hallway even before he slammed open the door to my office and stalked inside, not bothering to close it behind him. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes,” I said in a controlled tone, burying my annoyance at his blatant disrespect under the delicious knowledge that soon enough he would be a pile of ash one way or another. I’d planned this dialogue and knew exactly how I wanted to tell him about the discovery of the theft. “We seem to have a problem. One of Fangtasia’s employees has been stealing from the club and it has gone relatively unnoticed for so long that the amount of the theft is quite significant.”
Long Shadow’s eyes darted between Pam and me as he weighed what we were telling him. His pride was the key factor in all this. If he believed that there was no possible means he could be caught he would stay and this would play out as I wanted. If he thought better of his capabilities in deception he would run at the first opportunity. Knowing him as I did I was only marginally concerned that he would run.
My only regret was that I would have enjoyed hunting him.
Still, I watched his reaction carefully through a feigned expression of indifference. It had to appear that I was concerned about the theft but not about its source since Long Shadow knew the logical assumption would place blame on a human. This is why he included the gift-shop as part of his target since it was only ever manned by a human cashier. It was a common enough trick to twist the facts enough for an investigation to become so focused on what the explanation couldn’t be that any number of other facts pointing at a much more direct answer were all but ignored. A supposed counter to Ockham’s Razor that worked on fools, logicians, and your run-of-the-mill vampire.
“I know nothing of this,” he said finally, affecting an indignant tone. “Who has been telling you such lies?”
He was even more arrogant than I thought. “Bruce.”
Long Shadow snorted. “You questioned him I assume?”
“Glamour only,” I replied.
The Indian vampire’s eyes narrowed. “Losing your touch?”
Pam stiffened visibly but I allowed myself a tight smile. “The rules have changed and I have a more unique solution to the problem.”
“Oh really?” I heard the doubt behind his words and smelled a faint stench of fear wafting off of him that I was certain few others would have detected. My smile broadened.
“You recall the young woman Bill Compton brought to visit?”
Long Shadow nodded but he didn’t relax. “Hard to forget that one.” Pam snickered and I had to repress a sigh. My child was having far too much fun.
“Then I’m sure you also remember the unique circumstances of her departure,” I said coolly, my smile disappearing. The blank look I got in return told me he hadn’t bothered looking into just how Compton’s feisty companion had known to warn us about the police raid. I had. “She’s a telepath.”
That got his attention. His expression ranged from desire, to hunger, and finally to confusion. “But she’s his.”
“Yes, and I have summoned her to help us with this little problem. Where we would have typically questioned and…aggressively inquired, she will read their minds and tell us what they are thinking.”
“I’m sure our glamour does just as well,” he said, irritated by the suggestion that a mere human would be superior to us in some way. “And I also assume that she can’t read vampire minds or she’d be dead already.” He said that last bit confidently and I silently begrudged him a small raise in my estimation of his intelligence that amounted to a speck of sand against the weight of an entire quarry. I’d brought him on board with Fangtasia for his appeal behind the bar after all, not for his shrewdness.
“In this case it does not,” I said smoothly, coming to the end of my script. “Our glamour works on surface truths, as you well know. She can tell us the inner thoughts of our minions.”
“And you will trust her to do this, take her word?” he said incredulously.
“Of course not,” my tone was contemptuous at his suggestion that I would be foolish enough to blindly trust the word of a human. “We will all be present for the questioning. If we sense deception or come to no conclusion, we will resort to our more tried and tested methods of truth finding.”
Long Shadow grinned, firmly believing he was in the clear. The three possibilities of Sookie Stackhouse’s involvement were obvious. She would falsely find a guilty human either out of desperation or stupidity, she would put her own truthfulness in doubt in some way, or she would be completely truthful and not find any proof of a human’s involvement which would lead to false confessions under torture for one or several of Fangtasia’s staff members. Game. Set.
But while he was focused on attempting to maneuver my king into a corner, one of my pawns had snuck across the board to gain me a second queen ready and willing to cut a swath through his pieces and destroy him utterly. In my long life there were few feelings that could compare to the exuberance of knowing your victory was as decisive as it was crushing.
Match.
**
We left the bar separately but I flew to Pam’s just before she would have to go to ground for the day. After a quick scan of the surrounding area I was certain that no other vampire would know I was here.
Her front door opened as I landed on the porch. I brushed past her without a word.
“She’s here?” I asked a bit unnecessarily.
“Of course,” came the amused reply. “She’s in the dungeon.”
I took stock of Pam’s naked form as she closed the door and noticed despite the relative darkness that she looked much pinker than she had in my office. “Well at least we’re getting some good use out of her.”
Pam smiled, fangs extended, illustrating that I had misinterpreted the extent of their fun. Ginger was not her type. “You should have come earlier and joined in.”
“Maybe next time.”
**
The following Monday night Pam met our guests at the door, allowing me the freedom to join them in the club at my discretion. I considered Compton’s companion attentively from across the room when I walked in from my office. Bill had settled her into a chair opposite of Bruce at one of the tables, as planned, but her projected confidence almost caught me off guard. There were fang marks clearly visible on her neck tonight, I noticed, and suddenly understood the source of her poise. She was also wearing a white dress that made a substantial portion of her bosom tantalizingly visible. I ignored all this for the time being but etched the memory into my mind, as though I might actually have been able to forget. My hands slipped into the pockets of my jeans as I strolled across the room, to Pam’s amusement. But I noticed her eyes didn’t leave the fellow blond.
Long Shadow was occupied with a lighter, flicking it open with a distinctive snick while I walked by and I noted that Bill was projecting his own form of confidence as he stared a hole into my chest. I began explaining the reason behind the formal visit. “Pam, Long Shadow and I are partners in this club. And we recently noticed that $60,000 has gone missing from our books.” I’d reached the other side of the table where the two humans were sitting now, enjoying the movement of Sookie Stackhouse’s hair when she swung her head around to keep her eyes on me. I stopped walking within touching distance. “And Bruce,” my right hand raised from my pocket to drop solidly on his shoulder, “is our accountant. Perhaps you can start by listening to him.”
“He’s not saying anything,” she said with a note of disdain
“Don’t be coy,” I stated quickly in a tone that clearly said I had no desire to play games with her. “It’s humbling enough to turn to a human for assistance.” Pam and Long Shadow stared disapprovingly at Bill for allowing his human to be so insolent. I returned my hand to my pocket and ignored all of them. “We know what you can do.”
“And I know what you can do, too,” she said as Bill shifted nervously. “Why don’t you just glamour him?” Again with the fire in her voice. This could get annoying.
“Now don’t you think we might have tried everything before summoning you.” I fixed her with a resolute look and was pleased to see that she appeared to be reconsidering her tactics. My tone became marginally more pleasant. “So, it would be a great favor to me, and to Mr. Compton, if you help us.”
She glanced back at Bill who remained silent. “If I find out who did it, then what?” The reason for her resistance became apparent.
Long Shadow decided to try his own tactic. “We’ll turn that person over to the police and let the authorities handle it from there.”
She was too smart to be fooled by such words, of course. “Hundreds of years old and you’re still a terrible liar, come on,” she said to him scornfully. The snick as his lighter opened again was his only response before she turned her head back around to face me. She met my eyes evenly and I found myself having to exert my iron self-control in order to keep my face completely devoid of expression. “I’ll make you a deal.” She hesitated just a moment before plunging on. “If you promise to hand over the person who did this to the police, I’ll agree to help you anytime you want.”
Fear flicker momentarily in her eyes, which was telling, but this would surely turn into an opportunity I could exploit later. “Alright,” I said, allowing myself a tight smile, “Why not?” I broke our eye contact as I turned my gaze onto Bruce, indicating that it was time for her to make good on her offer.
She took his hand and he gasped as though he’d expected something horrible to happen at her touch. No one spoke while the accountant visibly chased himself back into whatever mental hell-hole he had recently been visiting. Bruce was not a stalwart type of man even on his best days.
I kept my gaze on their body language as she spoke suddenly, to him. “Bruce, it’s okay, take a deep breath.” There was a slight pause while she let him gather himself together before hitting him with the ‘Big Question’. “Did you steal their money?”
Bruce’s eyes went wild with terror. “No. No, no, you gotta believe me, I didn’t do it, I swear to God – ” He was looking around the room frantically as though hoping for a savior. His gaze returned to the woman in front of him when she hushed his rambling.
“Shhh. Do you know who did?”
“No,” he said dejectedly, “No I wish.”
She appeared to be considering something for another second but soon declared, “He’s telling the truth.” I raised my eyes from Bruce and her gaze fixed on mine again, wondering if I would believe her. In this case I knew with absolute certainty that she was not lying. There was also a ring of honesty to her voice and I would have wagered that she was telling the truth even without my prior knowledge.
“You trust the skinny human to clear the fat one?” Long Shadow reiterated the objection he’d raised the night I’d shared this plan with him. He was disappointed that Bruce hadn’t been accused of the crime.
Bill and Pam looked at me intently as I feigned letting the thought of possible deception sift through my mind. After what I deemed a sufficient pause, I broke the tension. “Bring the next one in.”
**
Pam griped Ginger by one of her bony arms and guided her over to the table. “This is the last of our humans,” she said significantly.
By this point Ginger had gotten a good look at the only other human in the room. “Mmm, yummy.” Pam pushed her a little more forcefully than necessary into the chair.
“Ginger,” my voice raised warningly, as well as in anticipation, “This woman has some questions for you. Be a good girl and answer them will you.”
She preened and I almost snorted in disgust. No wonder Pam hadn’t fucked her despite the opportunity.
“Aye-aye, Master,” she said dutifully. Sookie Stackhouse reached out to take her hand just as she had done with all the other employees but Ginger reacted with indignation. “Don’t you touch me.”
The look they exchanged was priceless. “Hold her still,” I instructed Pam, amused by this development but wary of letting it get out of hand. Pam gripped Ginger’s shoulders in her hands and forced her forward just enough so that her arms had nowhere to rest except on top of the table.
No protests were forthcoming about the physical contact this time around. “Ginger, someone’s been stealing money from the bar.”
“Really? Huh.” The bony fangbanger visibly tensed while the silence dragged on.
“She didn’t do it,” came the declaration yet again but with something else behind the words this time around. Pam and I snapped our gazes to the telepath. If we breathed we would have been waiting with baited breath. “But she knows who did,” was the helpful conclusion.
“What?” came Ginger’s trembling reply. Pam released her grip and moved to one side. “Fuck you.” Ginger spat venomously.
My anticipation mounted. The pieces were all in place.
“Who? Who’s gonna kill you?” the angelic blond asked in alarm after moment. “Ginger, honey, what’s his name!”
Silence. Soon Pam would – “It-it’s blank, like her memory’s been erased.”
I shifted around to the opposite side of the table in order to stand next to Pam while I digested this unexpected development. Sookie Stackhouse could hear when a human had been glamoured. How interesting.
Ginger was in a state of confusion. I hadn’t modified her memory to include this particular scenario simply because I hadn’t anticipated it. Her eyes were pleading when she turned to us. “I don’t know anything I swear.”
“She’s been glamoured,” Pam said with certainty. I had to hide my amusement her ironic change in dialogue.
“It’s a vampire,” was stated in hushed realization, which was more than enough to spring the trap.
You see, I had known Ginger was the one helping Long Shadow. But each time she aided him it had been while she was under the influence of his glamour, meaning she had no real memories of any such activity and should not have had any breadcrumbs to follow or any fear of being killed. Long Shadow was confident of this, as well he should have been.
Which is why I had instructed Pam to take Ginger home one evening so I could modify her memory and fill in some of the gaps.
Long Shadow now knew that he had been out maneuvered. I had planned this encounter so that he would not only know that I had been aware of his betrayal, but that I had even set him up to take the fall despite all his precautions and thoughts of superiority. It didn’t really matter that the southern belle had detected the memory modification because the only conclusion to draw from Ginger’s sudden awareness, if you knew her to be completely unaware, was to assume another vampire had glamoured her and given her false memories. Not just any vampire could do this of course, even on a weak willed human like Ginger.
And Long Shadow also knew that even if he tried to denounce the accusation I now had reasonable justification in asking for a tribunal to …aggressively inquire him until the truth came out anyway. I could have done this in the first place but I preferred doing things my own way. Plus, there was one more important piece of information left to gather from this night’s events.
If Long Shadow had taken some time to think about tonight’s scipt, he might have wondered why I had allowed the ruse to play out over the course of the entire evening instead of just bringing Ginger in first.
But as expected, Long Shadow decided just to take his frustration out on one of the weaker beings in the room. Specifically the one who was at least partially responsible for his guilt being sealed before a relatively neutral vampire witnesses, in the form of Bill Compton. My known personal interest also helped cement the focus of his attack. It had been a calculated risk on my part that he would not kill her outright but I had deemed it necessary. His lunge over the bar was a touch dramatic but I watched his hands intently as he went for her neck, noting that his intentions appeared to only be set on strangling.
Again I waited, watching the scene unfold with an assumed lack of concern. If Compton was smart or my suspicions were completely off the mark she still might die. It would have been a shame to lose the opportunity to taste every inch of her, true, but I was more interested in knowing where my vassal’s loyalties rested than a tryst with a particularly tasty blood-sack.
Time slows to a crawl as Long Shadow forces the girl back onto the table. Bill’s fangs flash but it is not enough for me to be certain.
Ginger, meanwhile, begins screaming.
“Ginger, enough!” Pam snaps at the repulsive fangbanger.
“Thank you,” I said considerately, my eyes not moving from the scene before me.
Long Shadow can’t help himself at this point as his bloodlust swallows up any remainders of his judgment. He uses the hand not gripping her throat to force her head to one side and I watch as he arcs back in preparation of driving his fangs into Sookie Stackhouse’s neck. If Long Shadow is permitted to feed on her I will have my answer.
But Bill allows himself to react more dramatically than a mere flash of fang in the face of the imminent feeding. He speeds over to the bar and snaps off a beer tap, which he plunges into Long Shadow’s exposed back just before his fangs penetrate the telepath’s flesh. My eyes flash triumphantly but that is all the reaction I allow myself.
Long Shadow’s look of surprise is the last expression he ever makes.
Blood spurts from his open mouth, cascading over her prone form now laying on the table. Pam turns to regard me in silent acknowledgement and I return her knowing gaze dispassionately while Long Shadow crumbles where he stood. Bill’s eyes suddenly dart over in trepidation to observe our reactions and I can’t help but smirk. My child’s eyes roll heavenward as I meet Bill’s tense gaze.
Ginger suddenly throws up.
Pam represses her disgust but I can’t help make a condescending remark as my exhilaration overcomes my need for prudence. This night could not have worked out any better. “Humans.” Pam’s attention shifts back to me, surprised. “Honestly Bill, I don’t know what you see in them.”
Part III
“How did I end up with you people? Jesus, Mother Mary in Heaven. I’m so sorry Mama. I’m so sorry.” If she hadn’t been cleaning up the remains of a vampire, Ginger probably would have been holding her knees and rocking back and forth attempting to will herself into numbness. Had I still possessed the human functions needed, I would have felt nauseous just looking at her.
“When Ginger is finished, glamour her for me,” I instructed my child. Erasing memories was considerably easier than planting false ones and I was confident she would do the job impeccably.
“Are you sure? She’s been glamoured one too many times already, who knows how much of her is left.” Pam was uncharacteristically concerned and I briefly wondered what had gotten into her.
“It’s either that or turn her.” I left out the option of killing the human since it didn’t do for our employees to go missing more often than they absolutely had to. And we already had one irrevocably in that category. “You want her?”
All vestiges of her concern disappeared at that suggestion. “Please. I’m not that desperate. Glamour it is.”
“Excellent,” I replied dryly. After sparing Pam a sidelong glance I turned to our surly companion and indicated he should follow me to my office. Bill had been doing his best to look unconcerned while we watched Ginger go about cleaning up Long Shadow’s remains but his tension level was practically making him hum.
“Come, I’ll buy you a Blood.”
**
The microwave dinged and I reached in to remove the bottle, not bothering to shake it to disperse the hotspots before offering it to Bill. “Thank you,” he said crisply, forcing himself out of his thoughts. It was always amusing when he stuck to his ‘Southern Gentleman’ persona and I decided to egg him on a bit.
“How do you stomach that stuff? Don’t you find it metallic and vile?”
“I don’t think about it, it’s sustenance that’s all,” he replied politely.
That was too rich, coming from the mouth of a vampire who had been feeding on one of the most unique humans I’d met in my long existence. My grin slid onto my face but I wasn’t so much amused as openly cynical.
Bill looked unhappy at being the butt end of a joke he hadn’t caught. “What?” he asked, as I walked around my desk to sit in the chair behind it.
I settled myself in while I answered. “If you’re their poster boy the mainstreaming movement is in very deep trouble. TruBlood, it keeps you alive but it will bore you to death.” My eyes met his evenly as I waited for his next move.
“Let’s cut to the chase shall we?” he said with more confidence than I would have given him credit for.
He moved to sit down in one of the chairs across from me which I chose not to make an issue of. Protocol was more annoying than useful most times anyway. I pushed such concerns to the side as I considered the younger immortal. “You killed a vampire, Bill. For a human. What are we going to do about this?”
He shifted uncomfortably and looked away. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll take the girl,” I began only to be interrupted as Bill couldn’t stop himself from responding.
“No!” His voice sounded more than a little desperate and I began to reconsider the particular reasons that motivated him to kill Long Shadow. I tilted my chin up in a silent challenge and Bill visibly forced himself to relax into a more casual posture and tone. “You can have anyone you want, why do you want her?” he asked, trying a different tact to refuse the offer.
“Why do you want her?” I countered, not distracted by the useless question. The fact was that she would be mine one way or another both because I wanted her and because it would draw out the piece of filth who thought he could usurp resources in my Area with impunity. I had little faith that Compton had discovered Sookie on his own luck, which meant he must be acting as someone's agent. Still, my years of experience were telling me that there was more to his outburst than concern about letting down whoever had sent him for the girl. “You’re not in love with her are you?” I asked, genuinely curious how he would answer.
Bill’s feathers immediately got ruffled. “Sookie must be protected,” he said, practically spitting out each word.
That answer was more along the lines of what I had been expecting. “Now that sounds like an edict but how could it be because I would know about that.” His silence provided a surprising lack of insight and I covered my uneasiness at by repeating the taunt, “Admit it. You love her.”
Bill affected a more reasonable tone but his next dodge was anything but. “If hadn’t done what I did, would you have let his disloyalty stand?”
Did he actually think he’d done me a favor? He’d been here as nothing more than a puppet and had played his part beautifully. But I’d never expected he actually cared about the girl. Emotions clouded reason and meant I couldn’t rely on logic being the prevailing source behind his action. This development was forcing me, to use a modern euphemism, to throw all my assumptions out the window. But Bill didn’t need to know that. “Whatever I would have done to Long Shadow I would not have done in front of witnesses. Especially not vampire witnesses.” I let that sink in for a minute and then added, a bit unnecessarily but I needed to make a point, “Not smart Bill. Not smart at all.”
The silence stretched between us. I considered the possibility that Bill was under vampire orders to protect Sookie but no matter how many angles I looked at it there was no clear answer why I would have been left out of the loop unless there was a great deal more going on here than I suspected. I also couldn’t dismiss the possibility that his feelings for Sookie could easily be the sole explanation for his extreme reaction to her being in danger. Still, he would not have involved himself with the girl without someone directing him to do so, that much I knew for certain. It would have to be someone who knew of Sookie’s talents although it was also possible, but much less likely, that someone wanted her for her beauty. But why have Bill Compton contact her first? Bill disliked prolonging his relationships with humans, a fact that he took little pains to hide.
If she had changed that about him in just a few short weeks… A cold feeling settled into my gut as I considered that particular feat.Cursing mentally, I berated myself for the shift in my train of thought but noted that I would have to proceed with an excess of caution. There was always the possibility that Bill was purposely hinting that he cared for her or that I was reading too much into his reactions, which would put me back at square one where I wanted to be. And nothing changed the fact that there was something more going on here than a simple case of a vampire taking a human lover.
I quickly assessed how best to draw out an answer to the dilemma. “If I assure you that I can protect her, will you turn her over to me?” I asked, deciding to call the lesser of Bill’s bluffs.
He immediately tensed and I could almost hear the gears of his mind trying to come up with an answer that he thought might satisfy me. If he had been instructed just to keep the girl safe until some undisclosed time he would have little to lose by letting me watch over her. But if he was actually jealous of my desire for Sookie or if he’d specifically been instructed to keep her with him then he would dodge again. “Surely your duties as Sheriff would be more important than having to worry about the safety of a mortal.”
With the game playing itself out in my mind, I tossed another variable onto the court. “I have minions for that sort of thing,” I countered calmly, knowing that Bill should recognize the veiled implication.
His reaction was emotional again. “You would entrust her care to others but claim her for your own?” he scoffed at me. I arched an eyebrow in response but chose not to travel down that avenue just yet.
“Are you questioning my ability to look after her, Compton? If I say she will be safe, she will be utterly and completely safe.”
“Sookie will not take kindly to being locked up and guarded like a priceless jewel,” he said confidently. “She needs to be allowed her freedom, or at least the illusion of freedom, if she is to remain cooperative.”
“Sounds to me like she needs to be broken,” I said, linking my hands behind my head as I regarded him through slitted eyes, my face betraying nothing of my thoughts.
Bill became openly furious at the suggestion. “She is not a recalcitrant horse!” He slammed his bottle of TruBlood onto my desk, causing papers and knick-knacks to jump into the air. “Sookie is a young woman who has known much suffering, and yet is whole, and strong, and overwhelmingly good.”
His emotional tirade almost caught me off guard. By the gods, he really does love her. Fuck. I conceded the point. “Very well, Bill, since you are so set on training her yourself I’ll let you have your chance.” He seethed at the implication that intended to ‘break’ her himself but I knew Bill Compton well enough to never let the thought seriously cross my mind. “But,” I continued smoothly, “Since you are so intent that she remains independent, she will be treated as such. If she chooses to break association with you your claim to her will end.”
His eyes narrowed. “She is mine until I choose to end our association.”
I brought my hands around from the back of my head to rest on the desk as I leaned forward towards him, suddenly within arm reach. He froze, fangs running out at the threat of my nearness and I let mine pop forward in response. “If she can’t be glamoured,” I knew she couldn’t from the night she’d first set foot in my club, “she is only with you of her own choosing. And if you insist on not binding her to your will one way or another she can always change her mind. When that happens, what will you do?" I arched an eyebrow to emphasize my final jab. "Lock her up like a jewel?”
His jaw clenched as he realized that he had stuck his own foot so deep in his own mouth that he should be tasting the cotton of his gentlemanly socks. “You needn’t concern yourself about that,” he said with no small amount of bravado once he relaxed enough to actually speak.
I grinned. “I’ll take that bet. Now,” I said, leaning back into my chair again and letting my fangs retract, enjoying the torment flashing across his face, “What are we going to do about Long Shadow?”
**
I rang the doorbell twice before clasping my hands behind my back, amused that Bill actually had the device working in such an old home. He really was going all out with this mainstreaming facade.
After a moment I saw his face in one of the glass panels alongside the door, which then opened. “Eric, Pam.” Bill silently nodded his head at our other companion since they had not yet been introduced.
That was easy to take care of. “Bill, Chow. Chow, Bill,” I said without inflection as I walked through the open doorway.
“Nice to meet you,” Chow greeted behind me. My eyes were taking in Compton’s home as I listened for any guests he might have had over but I heard nothing that indicated a human was in the house and had to repress a flicker of disappointment.
“Chow is Long Shadow’s replacement,” Pam explained smoothly to ease some of Bill’s obvious apprehension. I wondered if he would think it odd that we had found a new partner so soon but wasn’t really concerned even if he did. I’d been in contact with Chow once I discovered Long Shadow’s disloyalty and it hadn’t taken much incentive to get the Asian vampire to become our new bar tender at Fangtasia.
“Oh,” Bill said as he took this in. He chose to ignore any suspicions he might have had to say resignedly, “I take it by your being here there was no way around it then.”
My eyes swept over the staircase as I turned around slowly. “I can’t really say. Didn’t exactly look into it.” That wasn’t precisely true but I had no desire to make Bill think I had done him any favors. It hadn’t been for his sake that I’d looked for alternatives.
Pam chuckled falsely, illustrating her thoughts regarding Bill’s foolishness in hoping that I might have gone out of my way to save him from the punishment he was due. She believed the tribunal had been contacted merely to insure Bill shouldered all of the burden from killing Long Shadow because that had, in fact, been the original plan. I had reasoned that with Bill out of the way thanks to vampire justice I would have been free to claim Sookie and force Compton’s puppeteer out of hiding. I was confident that no vampire would ever have counciled another kill one of their own kind over a human, no matter what their potential value, and as such it should have been safe to assume that Bill's murderous actions were at the direction of someone other than a vampire.
But I’d apparently been relying on the wrong human expression in Occam’s Razor since it now seemed that Murphy’s Law was more appropriate for the situation. “Anything that can go wrong, will.” I followed my thoughts down the familiar path they had been tracking since Bill had left my office the other night though here was little to savor in the repetition.
Never in my long life had I cursed the foolishness of emotions than the moment I’d come to realize that Bill actually cared for the telepath. But by then the course had been plotted and the boats launched. All I could do now was pray that I hadn’t gotten myself caught in a silver net because I hadn’t bothered to look for an ambush under the calm surface of the water. If I didn't hand Bill over to the Magister there would always have been the perpetual risk that someone who could take advantage of such information would discover Long Shadow's murder since it had taken place right on the premises of my business. If Bill hadn't killed Long Shadow I would have had plenty of time to relocate the other vampire to a much more suitable site for his final death, one where I needn't have worried about alterting the Magister regarding his disappearance. Instead I was finding myself scrambling to recover from the over-success of my machinations.
If Pam knew the risk she might have staked Bill herself. But it wouldn’t do to cause my child excess worry. I wasn’t in my permanent grave yet and that meant, if there were vampire politics behind this, they had other plans for me.Somehow that thought was less than comforting.
Bill’s anxiety flared into disgust and anger at Pam’s goading. “Tell me,” he addressed my child, “Do you enjoy it living half-way up his backside the way you do?” He stood in front of me as he ended his outburst.
Pam smiled sweetly and her voice fairly dripped with pleasure as she replied, “Yes. It’s nice, you should try it.”
He ignored her to hold my gaze. “We’re gonna have to stop by the bar where Sookie works first.” Ah, so that’s where she was. I inclined my head and kept my face carefully blank which Bill interpreted as a refusal. “She needs to know that I’ll be gone,” he continued sourly. When I still didn’t speak his anger returned. “Don’t forget how this started. She came to Fangtasia to help you.” As if that was a threat, but I was tired of hearing his reasons and didn’t want to spend time arguing with him.
“Fine. Go to the bar,” I said with a forced casualness.
Pam practically leaped into the opening left by my tone. “Mightbe smart to check out the competition,” she teased, feigning interest in one of her boots as she spoke.
“Yes, indeed,” I agreed calmly, wondering if my child had a death wish. My interest in the telepath was still too new and unexplained to her that she couldn’t resist every opportunity to throw it in my face.
Chow stepped in and interrupted our exchange as though he hadn’t noticed it. For his sake I hoped his ignorance continued. “What’s your game?” he asked Bill.
Confused, Bill raised both eyebrows. “Excuse me?” He didn’t seem to know how to react to such a loaded question.
Unable to resist showing off, Chow clarified, “You were playing Wii. What’s your game?”
Bill blinked a few times and then shifted the remote in his hand. “Golf.”
“What’s your best score on Pebble Beach,” he prodded further.
There was the briefest of hesitations before Bill’s reply. “7 under,” he said proudly.
“Mine’s 11 under,” Chow boasted, sneering.
Bill turned back to me and deadpanned, “I liked Long Shadow better.”
I could say the same thing to him.
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