Dead Heat
The King of Louisiana's request for the use of Sookie's gift should have been an evening's worth of work and a couple of hundred extra dollars in her bank account. Instead, a spell goes awry and yet again Sookie is left with an unwanted houseguest and unresolved feelings that she will have no choice but to confront.
Author's Note: Issues? Problems? Typos? Tell me, because I'll fix them. Praise, however, is also nice ^^ Don't expect updates any time soon, I haven't pre-written this all (although that had been my original plan). I just wanted to get this first chapter out there and see if it generated any interest.
Chapter One
"…and people all around the globe are shocked and amazed by the recent revelation that, alongside vampires, there is yet another brand of supernatural being walking alongside us in our day-to-day life. Lycanthropes, more commonly referred to as shifters or weres …"
I gave a throaty laugh as I took the turning out of Bon Temps towards Shreveport and Fangtasia, thinking about how many of Shreveport weres would react to that casual lumping-together of shifters and weres. Fiercely protective of the distinction between people who could turn into wolves and people who could turn into other animals, I highly doubted that Alcide and his pack would be pleased with the public's slight ignorance to the subtle nuances (a good calendar word from last Friday) of the 'lycanthrope community', as the more politically-correct reporters had been referring to it for the past three weeks.
"…Well the phone lines have been ringing off the hook all morning, so let's go to the lines and hear what you've got to say."
The laughter died on my lips as my ears tuned back into what the radio DJ was saying. Whilst the vampires' 'coming out' had somewhat paved the way for the shifters, allowing them to test the water and derive an idea of how people would react, the transition from being the stuff of folklore to a part of modern day society had not been a smooth one for the shifters. At least with vampires, people knew that they were only out at night, when all the good little boys and girls were tucked up tight in bed, and that the probability of becoming a vampire without consent was slim to none in most cases. However, most of the everyday folk around the country seemed to be under the impression – with gleeful egging-on from the Fellowship of the Sun, who were just plain euphoric at having another group to hate – that all it would take would be one swipe of a claw or talon and that was it: you were terminally furry and could kiss goodbye to a night on the town during the full moon.
"…Culled. There's no other answer to it. We should just round them all up and nip the problem in the bud. Why should we have to deal with this on top of everything else? First I had to worry about if my daughter's teacher was a terrorist, now I have to make sure she's not an animal, too?"
Members of the public knew that they could pretty much avoid vamps if they tried, allowing them to live their lives in a little bubble of denial, just by staying out of certain parts of town or only frequenting non-vampire-run establishments. Vampires and nightclubs were a natural venn diagram, like doctors and hospitals or teachers and schools. Shifters, however, didn't fit into any one particular category. Sure, werewolves were more inclined to steer themselves towards manual labour and more skills-based vocations, but it wasn't a requirement. A kindergarten teacher in Colorado had caused uproar in her local community by coming out as a were-fox and was mercilessly persecuted by anxious parents who didn't want their kids mauled by their teacher, conveniently forgetting the fact that lessons took place in the daytime, whilst the moon was on the other side of the planet.
"…Just plain suspicious, if you ask me. If they're gonna claim that they're all friendly and harmless and what-have-you, why didn't they just come out and tell us all about themselves years ago? They've obviously got something to hide. Nobody to blame but themselves for -"
I switched off the radio with disgust. Being thrown in at the deep end in regards to the supernatural community and having been saturated in vampire politics, were skirmishes, witch wars and shifter tribulations, I was taking the bloodthirsty reaction to the shifters as a personal insult. This should have aroused some feelings of worry that I was leaning more towards the side of the preternaturals than the ... well, naturals, but listening to well-mannered, middle-class mothers who probably baked cakes for their church bake sales and volunteered at Goodwill spew such xenophobic, undiluted hatred towards shifters made me reconsider who was the more civilized group under the circumstances.
But tonight wasn't a night for thinking about weres. The new king of Louisiana was waiting for me at Fangtasia, anxious to start utilising – read: taking advantage of – my abilities. Guess he thinks I should be earning my keep as one of his faithful minions. I wasn't sure he had a specific purpose or question he wanted resolving, but I wasn't really in a position to question him. Questioning his motives, however, did keep me from allowing my thoughts to meander towards a certain blonde-haired, Playgirl centrefold-esque vampire.
Oh, who was I kidding? My thoughts didn't want to meander casually towards him, they wanted to run full pelt at him like a track star and drape my body over his until we were practically as one. If I hadn't been driving I would've slapped myself. Hard. It seemed that absence did genuinely make the heart grow fonder, or at least cause the magical link between us turn from a pleasant, comforting hum into a slow ache before manifesting into a hot throbbing.
Whilst I was not going to actively seek out Eric and admit that he was in fact irresistible in the most literal of terms, I was thankful that my presence was required at a place where there was a high probability of close proximity. Hopefully keeping control of the link would be like stocking up with non-perishables at the store or something equally mundane; go in, stockpile like a crazy person, get out, don't return for another six months. Easy. So long as I compared Eric to washing powder or kitchen towels I was good to go. I was not anxious to see what the next stage up from the throbbing would be.