Disclaimer – I do not own the characters in this story. They are the property of Charlaine Harris. I'm just playing with them.
It was another warm, steamy night in New Orleans, like most nights in the summer. If I were still human, the heat would bother me, but as a vampire I'd become fond of the warmth. I wove my way through the palace complex to my queen's residence to find out what kind of job she had for me this time. I was hoping for a quick grab-and-go type mission where I could just cleanly abduct the required specimen instead of engaging in the months of subterfuge required for the more complicated jobs. Some days I wondered if the perks of my job were worth the hassle. As the queen's Chief Procurer, I was away from my luxurious accommodations in the city far more often than I would like, but that came with the territory.
My job involved a lot of travel to remote areas in the state, usually to find humans with unusual blood types to satisfy Sophie-Anne's fickle tastes. Once in a while, I captured and brought in drainers or supes who were causing problems for the state's vampire population. My most recent "mission" had been to Baton Rouge to pick up some antique furniture that struck the Queen's fancy. I really didn't get much respect around here; that job was plain insulting for a vampire of my talents. She could have sent one of those lunkheads, Sigebert and Wybert, to do that. I had complained, but Sophie Anne told me that procuring furniture for the palace was within my job description. Sometimes I felt like she was messing with me to entertain her favorite pet, Hadley, who constantly irritated me at court. The fact that Sophie Anne allowed a human, even a favored pet, to show such disregard for another vampire at court made me question how she ran her monarchy sometimes.
I approached the entrance to the main part of the palace. Rasul nodded to me. "I assume you know where you're going, Compton?" He said. I nodded back to him and continued on. I liked Rasul better than most of the guards. He didn't insist following me through the palace like a hound when Sophie Anne summoned me. The memo that Andre sent him ahead of time was enough to satisfy him. And besides, it wasn't like I was strong enough to harm Sophie Anne on my own. Between her and her formidable children, I'd be a fool to start any trouble.
I made my way to the atrium outside of Sophie-Anne's throne room. Sigebert and Wybert stood guard outside as always. They were probably the dumbest vampires I had ever met, but they provided enough brawn to make up for their lack of brains. They nodded to me and opened the double doors to usher me into Sophie-Anne's presence.
The Queen wasn't alone, much to my consternation. Andre and Hadley were sitting close to her. Andre I could deal with, Hadley not so much. She was decked out in typical fangbanger attire, and had rimmed her eyes with excessive amounts of black kohl, which I didn't find attractive at all.
"Ah, Bill." Sophie-Anne began, nodding to me. The other two mirrored her gesture, but didn't speak.
"My Queen, you have a job for me?" I began, bowing deeply. I preferred to get straight to business instead of exchanging idle small talk. The sooner I got my assignment, the sooner I could be done with it.
"I do, but can't we chat a bit first?" She replied. "You're always in such a hurry." She shook her head. "Young vamps these days." I internally bristled at that. I may be young compared to Sophie-Anne and Andre, but I was hardly fresh-turned.
"As your majesty wishes." I answered, knowing better than to give voice to my thoughts. Sophie Anne and Andre were sharing a bottle of Royalty Blended and offered me a glass, which I gladly accepted. It was better than the synthetic blood on the market, because it contained real blood, but it was not as good as the fresh stuff. Hadley was sipping a soda. Sophie-Anne claimed that Hadley's blood was sweeter after she consumed one of the bubbly drinks, so she drank a lot of them.
"What's the news from Baton Rouge?" The Queen asked.
"Not much of importance, just a couple of draining incidents, which I'm sure the good sheriff has already reported to you." I always made it a point to find out the latest gossip in the areas I visited so that I'd have something to tell the Queen in these little chats she insisted on having.
"This uptick in draining is starting to disturb me. Do I really have so many fools living in my state? No vampire worth her salt would get captured by drainers. Perhaps the humans are getting craftier?" Sophie-Anne had never been known for compassion and scorned those who fell victim to drainers. After all, vampires are supposed to be the predators and humans the prey.
"Or the vampires are getting stupider." Hadley piped up. I couldn't fathom why the Queen put up with her impertinence.
Andre leveled a glare at Hadley. "The caliber of individual that out brethren choose to turn has gone downhill in recent decades." He glanced at me significantly, as though to suggest that I was one of the aforementioned inferior vampires. I was well over a hundred years old, but the older vampires like Andre still treated me like I was a baby vampire sometimes.
"It is a shame." Sophie-Anne continued. "Perhaps we should have the sheriffs to start some kind of drainer awareness program for younger vampires. Or we should look into how the drainers catch so many vampires." I was a little surprised that she was this concerned. Her usual attitude toward draining was that any vampire stupid enough to get caught probably deserved what they got.
"Silver nets and chains are easier to acquire now than they were a couple years ago." I replied. When there is a demand, someone is always willing to supply the goods, even if they will be used for immoral purposes." It was basic economics, and with the price of V going ever higher, it wasn't surprising that draining was such a thing lately. Of course, many humans didn't see vampire draining as immoral, which didn't help matters.
"That explains some of it." Sophie-Anne admitted. "But it doesn't explain why so many of our kind are falling victim to the ploys of the human drainers. I would guess that they're usually lured with a promise of a feed and then trapped with silver." Silver exposure was especially devastating for young vampires, who were weaker to begin with.
"I'm sure you're right, your majesty." I agreed. Though the artificial blood was enough to sustain us, the opportunity for the real thing was too hard for many of my kind to resist, especially those who hadn't partaken of the real thing for a while.
"Let's give Bill his mission so that we can get on to tonight's entertainment." Andre said with a smirk that told me that said entertainment likely involved multiple blood donors and possibly an orgy. Obviously the idle chitchat that Sophie-Anne so enjoyed did not hold much appeal for her eldest child. Hadley was looking bored too, as she generally did when I was around.
"If you insist." Sophie-Anne stated with a pout. She did love to gossip and didn't like it when cut short by business. "Your assignment this time will be something of a homecoming for you, Bill."
"Bon Temps?" I queried, my interest piqued. I hadn't been back to my human hometown in decades. I had heard that my old home was in disrepair. But what in the world could Sophie-Anne possibly want from a little backwater town like that. I really hoped it wasn't more furniture.
"Indeed." She continued. "Hadley can tell you more about the person we need you to acquire. After all, she is the target's cousin."
"Hadley's cousin?" I clarified. Oh dear, this could be terrible, especially if the cousin was anything like Hadley.
"Her name is Sookie Stackhouse." Hadley began, producing an old photo from her purse and passing it to me. Two blond girls smiled up at me from the picture. One was obviously a younger Hadley, and the other must be my target. "She's my cousin on my mother's side, and she's always been rather odd." She looked vaguely like Hadley, with blond hair and blue eyes. However, her figure was much more voluptuous than scrawny Hadley. She looked like my kind of woman.
I wasn't sure what Hadley's idea of odd was, but it didn't sound like she was terribly fond of Sookie, which was probably a good sign for me. "How is she odd?" I asked.
"She can hear what people are thinking." Hadley explained. "It's creepy, and I could never get away with anything when she was around growing up." She said with a shudder. Now things were making sense. A telepath would be a very valuable asset for Sophie-Anne. I had never heard of such a gift outside of demons. And a human telepath would be much easier to control than a demon.
"I'm sure you can understand why I'm interested in this human, Bill." Sophie-Anne remarked. "She could be a great source of revenue, especially if we hire her out to other states, as well as a boon to our security at the palace."
It made sense, but I figured I'd need more information about the girl. "Is it only humans she can read?" I asked. My job would be considerably harder if she could read my mind and find out what I was up to.
"No idea." Hadley said dismissively. "I doubt she's ever met a vampire, living in Bon Temps. Last I heard she was working in a bar owned by a shifter. Dunno whether she can read him, but if she is still there, I'd guess not. I know she's quit several jobs before because she got upset when she heard what her boss was thinking about her."
"We recently discovered that your final living descendant in Bon Temps has finally passed away." Andre cut in. "You should be able to reclaim the property if that vampire rights bill passes the legislature this session. That would be most convenient, as Miss Stackhouse lives just across the old cemetery from there."
"So I go back to Bon Temps, claim to be mainstreaming, and collect our little telepath." I could see where this was going. I wouldn't mind doing some work on the old house. It was a nice property at one time, but the most recent photograph I'd seen suggested that it was very run down now.
"Precisely." Sophie-Anne said. "I'd prefer that she come willingly instead of suddenly disappearing and causing complications with the human authorities."
"That should be easy enough to accomplish with glamor." Andre added.
I had been hoping for a quick snatch-and-go mission so that I wouldn't have to be away from my computer project for long, but this was looking like it might take weeks or even months.
"You'll have to deal with Gran too." Hadley added. "I'm pretty sure Sookie still lives with her. Jason, Sookie's brother, shouldn't be hard to deal with. He's not the brightest, but Gran isn't stupid. She always seems to know when someone is up to something."
"How do you suggest I approach Sookie?" I asked Hadley. I hated asking that brat for help, but she was my best source of information in this case.
"Seduce her." Sophie-Anne suggested.
"Make her fall in love with you." Hadley said curtly. "God knows she never dates, and she's already 25, so she's probably lonely. I know Gran worries that she'll never find anyone. It shouldn't be hard to get her to fall for you, even without glamor. The guys in town mostly avoid her because they think she's crazy. Gran will probably love you if you treat Sookie decently. And she'll probably be thrilled that you're a Civil War veteran"
So, I was off to Bon Temps to seduce Hadley's "crazy" telepathic cousin without upsetting her grandmother, shifter boss, or stupid brother. I was to accomplish this without generating a missing person case. I had had worse assignments. At least I didn't have to seduce a man again, as Sophie-Anne had made me do once before. And the girl wasn't ugly. I might even enjoy this mission to an extent. Sometimes I suspected Andre came up with my more bizarre and embarrassing missions for his personal entertainment, like the aforementioned seduction of a male target. The Queen would let him do it and laugh at my discomfort. This didn't look like one of those missions.
"Be wary of Sookie's shifter boss, Sam Merlotte. He's apparently very protective of her." Sophie Anne cautioned.
"It sounds like he's in love with her to me." Andre added. "He's just a shifter, and not affiliated with a pack, so you should be able to deal with him."
"Don't let Sheriff Northman find out about this assignment." The Queen continued.
Ah, Eric Northman, the sheriff of Area 5, where Bon Temps was located. I had never enjoyed dealing with him, and I was sure he'd love his very own telepath. It would be trouble if he found out about her before I could get her safely to New Orleans. "Should I not check in with him?" I asked. Northman was strict about Area protocol, from what I'd heard. He wanted his tithes and more vampires to work in that accursed tourist trap bar of his. I'd prefer to avoid that place. I hated being gawked at by blood bags.
"Don't worry about reporting to Eric. If he finds out you're in the area and gets upset, just tell him to call me." The Queen purred. "He's a good Sheriff, but a bit full of himself at times." That was quite an understatement. Not having to deal with Eric sweetened the deal for me. Maybe this mission wouldn't be so bad. If Sookie was a tolerable human, I might even want to stay on as her handler once she was in the Queen's retinue. Handling a valuable resource like a telepath for a vampire monarch could be a very profitable job. I might even resign my post as Chief Procurer if things went well.
"If that's everything, your highness, I will go and get ready to leave. Thank you for entrusting me with such a valuable assignment." A little extra sucking up never hurt with Sophie-Anne.
"Even you shouldn't be able to screw this up, Compton." Andre snarked. "Your little Southern gentleman routine should come in handy. From what Hadley's told us, her cousin is an old-fashioned Southern gal."
I didn't dignify Andre with a response. "Your Majesty." I said with a farewell bow to the Queen, hoping she'd dismiss me and not make me partake in whatever entertainment she had planned for the remainder of the night.
"You're dismissed, Bill. The sooner you get to Bon Temps, the sooner I get my telepath." I left the throne room without further ado. Sigebert and Wybert ignored me as I left. I preferred it that way. I ran back to my quarters at vampire speed, not wanting to waste time. I had a feeling that this mission would be a turning point in my undead life. There was something about that girl in the picture. Sookie. She definitely had an unusual name to go with her unusual talent. I would find out what she was like soon enough.
So, what did you think? This is the first story I've posted on here, so please review!