Welcome to my first (proper) multi-chapter fic. This one has been percolating for longer than I care to admit, but I've finally got it all outlined and a fair bit written. You may expect updates roughly once a week. In case you were dumped here direct from Twitter, the summary:
Since the Great Revelation, synthetic blood has presented a point of vulnerability to the vampire population; when its sanctity is threatened, northern Louisiana's resident telepath finds the plot goes markedly deeper than anticipated. Alternate history.
Thanks are due to PMR, who graciously accepted my offer request to pre-read.
It would be hard to say what I liked least about tonight's outfit. It could be the corset, which wasn't as bad as it could be, but was making it difficult to bend down to pull things out from under the bar. The skirt was another possibility, since it had this amazing ability to absorb booze and then let it evaporate just slowly enough that I was always smelling vodka. By the end of the night, though, the garter belt would probably be winning hands down; sure, it was the six-strap, super-supportive, takes-an-F3-tornado-to-move kind, but it pinched just often enough to keep me snarling. At least I didn't have to cake on the grease paint anymore - between it being winter and me keeping essentially vampire hours for the past three months, my tan was deader than my boss.
Not that I could really complain. Sure, the Lolita look was not the most conducive to being an effective bartender, but at least I wasn't dressed like a member of the Addams' extended family, and I had to admit the "innocent" thing Pam was supposedly playing on with this getup sure did get me better tips with the fanged crowd. Plus, it was kind of fun to look like a relic of Victorian England.
"What are you wearing?"
I looked down at myself, in case I'd somehow managed to put my underwear on over my pants or something. My tank top and jeans were in order, as I'd expected them to be. "Uh...work clothes?"
Pam looked at me like I was slow, which wasn't much different than usual, then gestured that I should follow her into the back. Her outfit was something to be reckoned with, and I suppose given her own transformation from twinsets-and-pearls suburbanite to dominatrix it wasn't surprising that I'd be expected to go with something a bit more extreme. At least I'd gotten the 'wear black' memo.
She led me into an office and told me to stand and wait. While she disappeared into a closet across the room, I took the chance to look around, both visually and less so. The waitresses were in the back room, and from what I could get from their fuzzed-out minds, they weren't discussing the current political situation in Myanmar. Not for the first time, I was grateful that I couldn't be glamoured. Pam emerged a moment later holding something on a hanger that was more hole than cloth.
"This will do for now. I will take you shopping tomorrow."
"Shopping for what?" I was pretty sure I knew the answer, even before the words left my mouth. Pam gave me that exasperated can-you-be-any-more-stupid look again and declined to answer. I sighed and wandered off to find somewhere to change.
What had looked terrible on the hanger wasn't actually so bad. Sure, if I wore it outside I'd be picked up for soliciting in a heartbeat, but at least the important bits were covered and the top was tight enough across the chest that I wouldn't fall out of it when I bent across the bar. Still, it was definitely something to get used to.
"Bloody Mary." I eyed the kid, leaning against the bar with his cash proffered, trying to play it cool. Poor thing didn't know how easy he made it for me.
"Nope. In fact, I'm going to have to ask you to give me your ID and leave."
He was trying so hard to look offended, rather than nervous. He was also failing miserably. "What?"
"Your ID? You know, that small piece of plastic, about this big," I gestured with my hands, "that you used to con your way in here? I'm going to need to take that from you, and then you are going to march right back out of here and go home." I stared at him, hard. Sometimes that was enough to convince them, if they thought I might be a vamp (I never impersonated one, because that would get me dead real fast, just dabbled in imitating their mannerisms), but most of the time I had to throw in a threat or two.
"Look, you can give it to me and walk out of here of your own volition, or you can have it taken from you and be carried out. If you get carried out, you're never getting back in, even when you are of age. Pam has a knack for faces." I sealed it with my 'crazy Sookie' smile while he fumbled with his wallet, then giggled to myself when he all but ran for the door.
"Why should I hire a weak little human like you? We've had a lot of success with vampire bartenders." The blonde conducting the interview - she hadn't bothered to introduce herself - was short but imposing, which I imagine made her a big hit with the fangbangers.
"Well, aside from the fact that I smell good - I saw your nostrils flare when I came in - I can guarantee I'm better at catching fake IDs than whoever works the door."
"I work the door."
"And I'm sure you're very effective, but can you distinguish between humans who are nervous about meeting vampires and humans who are nervous because they're underage?"
She smiled, and I caught a hint of fang. "No. I assume you can?"
"Easily."
"How?"
"Trade secret." I smirked to hide my uncertainty. This was a dangerous game to play, and I hoped I'd judged her right. It was always possible that I'd guessed wrong, and that the pink twinset she was wearing to conduct interviews for what amounted to a goth bar didn't mean she had a sense of humor. I really hoped she had a sense of humor.
After what seemed like far too long, she laughed. "You have attitude. I like that. What else have you got?"
After that one, there were a couple others. One was a repeat offender - a nineteen-year-old college student I'd let walk twice already. She tried to avoid me by stopping at Long Shadow's half, but I saw her and muttered under my breath, knowing he would hear and let me deal with her. Doing my best to be as sneaky as a vamp, I sidled up while she was distracted.
"Hey, sugar. Who are you pretending to be tonight?" I gave her my most saccharine grin and was pleased when she gave a start. Resignedly, she pulled her ID from a back pocket and dropped it on the bar, making to leave.
"Uh-uh. Three strikes, my dear." I gave a signal, and she found her way blocked by Chow. Without ceremony, the back-up bartender and (assumed) former Yakuza member picked her up by the arms and carried her out; from the way her thoughts went all fuzzy, he also glamoured her into not coming back until she was legally allowed once they reached the parking lot. I didn't exactly approve of that method of handling the problem, but since my only grounds were that it was illegal (if you got caught) and immoral (like vampires care), I didn't have much to stand on. Anyway, even I had to admit that while my threats of permanent expulsion were pretty effective at keeping most of the kids out, it was more profitable to handle it their way.
The ones with fakes always seemed to come in early, within the first couple hours after dark, and once they were cleared out I could start working the crowd. Most of the time I kept things pretty simple with shadow passes and some light juggling, but when they started to get bored, like tonight when the vamps were being a little tooaloof, I'd crank up the tricks and get a proper show going. Pam had been skeptical about the flair bartending, and that hadn't surprised me. After all, Fangtasia was in Shreveport, not Vegas, and the regular clientele was not likely to be impressed. It worked well for the tourists, though, and they were the ones who needed to be convinced to stick around.
The tourists, of course, were also the ones with the worst drink choice. Aside from the clothes, you could always tell by what they ordered. I had never served so many cocktails - not even when I worked on Bourbon Street - and they were always red. Bloody Marys, vodka cranberries, Cosmopolitans, and our house specialty: the Screwdriver to the Jugular. I'd introduced that one during my second week to cash in on the predilection for red, and it had quickly become a favorite.
"So, you are the new bartender." I looked up from the limes I was slicing, taking advantage of the just-after-dark lull. I missed having a barback.
"I am. And you're Eric." I'd heard a lot of fangbangers complaining when he hadn't been there Sunday night, but their thoughts hadn't completely prepared me for how gorgeous he was in person. The eyes alone, blue as the Gulf, could melt hearts, not to mention the silky blonde hair that brushed his broad, muscular shoulders. I schooled my features to neutral and asked, "What can I get you, Sheriff?"
He smirked, though at what I wasn't sure. "True Blood, O-negative, please."
"Sure thing." I pulled one out of the ice and popped the cap with my speed opener, letting it hover over my shoulder as I put the bottle in the microwave. I could feel him watching me, and when I put the bottle and napkin down in front of him, he had the most peculiar grin on.
"I did not advertise for a bartender. How did you know to come here?"
"One of the guys I worked with down in New Orleans, Charles Twining, knows Long Shadow, so when he found out I was coming back upstate he suggested I look into this place."
"And are you finding his advice well-founded?"
"So far so good." I went back to my limes for a minute while he sipped at his blood. When he didn't leave immediately, I looked up at him. "Ask you a question?"
"Another one?"
"Yes."
"You may."
"How open would you be to an experiment? Just a little one, mind."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I've noticed that the tourists are big on red drinks. What would you say to trying out a new one? Something unique to this club?"
I was just getting settled into a rhythm and noticing that I was drawing a crowd when I picked up a note of triumph from the undercover cop I'd been monitoring for the past hour. Cursing, because I knew he'd found one of our patrons being less than discreet in the bathroom and was gleefully radioing it in, I went hands-off with the routine (telekinesis had been my ace in the hole for the interview) and beckoned to bossman Eric in the only way I knew would make him annoyed enough to come in a hurry: the double-finger point.
He was next to me in a flash, growling his response, "What?"
"We're about to be raided. Luka's in the bathroom again, and this time a cop found him." Eric knew what I meant. Someone caught Luka every couple of weeks, since he has the impulse control of a three-year-old child, never mind that at somewhere upwards of thirty years undead he was hardly a newborn anymore. Eric was still trying to figure out what to do about him, since the offense isn't really great enough for an official punishment from the Sheriff and his maker had been killed by some Fellowship loonies.
"How long?"
"He called it in less than a minute ago, so I'd say three minutes, tops." He gave me a puzzled look, probably wondering how I could know that when I'd been very occupied behind the bar and the cop had no doubt still been in the bathroom. I gulped, since the whole point of letting them know about the telekinesis had been to keep them from guessing about the telepathy, and hoped that he would leave it be for now.
"Fine. Get yourself out of here, and make sure anyone you pass gets out, too." Unspoken but understood was that by 'anyone,' he meant any vamps, who were his primary concern (as Pam was fond of saying, 'vampires first'). I nodded sharply, but he was already gone.
I took less than a minute to clean up, doing simple things like shutting the ice chest and making sure the faucet was off, and then I was out the back door, pulling my keys out of the little clutch I stashed behind the bar while I worked and jumping into my car. As I floored it out of the lot, I noticed that Eric's Corvette and Pam's crossover were long gone. Fortunately, home was in the opposite direction from Fangtasia as the nearest Shreveport police station, so I was able to gun it most of the way back.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
The problem with my commute being so long is that it gives me a lot of time to think, and by the time I got to Bon Temps I was practically shaking. I couldn't see any way I'd be able to keep the telepathy secret anymore, at the least from Eric and probably from the whole of the Shreveport vampire community. I'd already had one set of vampires trying to take advantage down in New Orleans, and I really didn't care to repeat the experience. Anyway, since I was fairly certain Bill had been working for the Queen and I knew Eric did, this was more than likely going to put me right back in the same pretty pickle.
As I pulled around to the back of my house, driving slowly on the old gravel drive, I noticed a light was still on in the kitchen. I checked my dash clock; I was home earlier than usual, but it was still late. Gran knew better than to wait up for me, and this made me worried that something awful had happened that she didn't want to tell me over the phone. Frowning, I made my way into the house, locking everything up before turning to look at the kitchen table and the person sitting there. The person who was not my Gran.
"Sookie, my dear. I am sorry it has been so long."
"School is so hard! Why is everyone so noisy all the time? Why can't they be quiet like you, Grandpa Fintan?"
He smiled down at me, sulking on the porch steps, and sighed. "Well, Sookie, my dear, because they do not know how to be quiet. I can teach you how to not hear them, if you would like."
He sat down next to me, slowly and carefully, because he was so used to pretending to be an old man. When he thought he was alone, or just with Gran, all the slow jerkiness would disappear and his steps would become as smooth as a dancer's, and if the light was right I could see that the silver would go out of his hair and his face would be as smooth as my daddy's had been. Jason never saw, because he was too noisy and Grandpa Fintan always heard him stomping around. He wasn't around much because he was a salesman, but when he was it was like suddenly the world was full of magic.
I smiled back at him. It was impossible not to. "Yes, Grandpa Fintan, I would like that very much," I replied, mimicking his formal speech.
He chuckled, ruffling my hair around. "Then let us begin."
"And that's the meat of it. I didn't mean to give myself away, but I can't see how I can avoid telling him now." I'd joined Grandpa Fintan at the table after making myself a cup of tea, which I was now clutching like an anchor.
He nodded sagely, which was an odd motion for someone who looked barely older than me; he'd dropped the pretense of being an old man after he told me and Jason that he was the son of a fairy prince, right before he faked his own death. "You have created a bit of a problem, yes."
"But how do I fix it? I could lie, but he's pretty much a living lie detector, so that's liable to fail. I could run, but I don't really have the resources, plus I like it here. And I like my job."
"Then let me ask you this: if he was not subservient to the Queen, would you trust him to know?"
"I don't know. I mean, he treats me better than the other human employees, but that might just be because I make him extra money, not that he likes me."
Grandpa Fintan thought on that for several minutes, leaning forward once he'd come to a decision. "Sookie, I cannot say that I am pleased that you have decided to work for a vampire, nor that you are so involved with the supernatural community, even on the periphery. However, since you have done so, it is only fair to say that you have chosen the best option. Eric Northman has a reputation of being honorable and shrewd, as well as a great warrior. My father, your great-grandfather Niall, has had some limited dealings with him in the past for just this reason. As such, I would be incredibly surprised if he decided to hand you over to the Queen once he understand the breadth of your abilities. In simple terms, a happy telepath is a more cooperative telepath, and if he can keep you happier by keeping you in his Area, he probably will. Politically it would also be a wise move, so long as does not seek to keep your abilities from the Queen should she require them."
I frowned. "That assumes I'm willing to work for him as a telepath and not just a bartender."
"By your accounting, you have been working for him as both already, even if he has not known it." He shook his finger at me. "If you missed that, my dear, you are very tired indeed. Go to sleep. I will be by to check on you again soon." He stood, taking my mug with him to put in the sink, then unlocked the door and left, disappearing into the night.
Characters included in the above are the sole property of Ms. Charlaine Harris, long may she write (but not too long, lest her books become like Deuteronomy or Laurell K. Hamilton's work). This work of fiction was intended to amuse without providing monetary gain, and any lawyers who should come to read this are politely asked to keep that in mind.