A/N: A little bit of fun between Thalia and Pam. It jumps around in time so I added subtitles to make that clear.
This is set shortly after Turbulence. So a quick recap: Freyda is toast, Eric is back and free. Sookie is gone, fixing the fairy magic that messed everything up with Sam. So let's see what mischief Pam and Thalia are creating in Shreveport.
Fashion Crimes and Punishments
Present day, Fangtasia:
As Pam parked behind Fangtasia, she spared a brief thought for her distant maker.
He was probably in Indiana or New York. Calling in favours she hoped, if he had finally decided to take the throne that he, in her eyes, so richly deserved.
About bloody time, too. She smirked, imagining how bloody a time it would be, but the smirk faded when she remembered how doubtful he was about the whole thing.
Prudence and patience were virtues for the undead, it was true, and she supposed his caution was only natural after that clusterfuck in Oklahoma, but she loathed it. She wanted to wring his neck every time he pointed out a pitfall. She hated this exploring all the damn angles, the doubts. She longed for the old cocky self-assured Eric, the one who took outrageous risks, broke all the rules and always, always, came out on top.
Until recently.
In Pam's not so humble opinion, kicking de Castro's ass out of Louisiana was just what Eric needed to get over his funk after being forcibly married to that idiotic bitch Freyda. Felipe had it coming too. He was the one that sold Eric down that particular river, after all. Pam's lip curled at the thought of the caped vampire. No self-respecting king used a marriage contract to get rid of a sheriff. It was cowardly.
As for the power-hungry Queen of Alabama, so what if Nadia had almost made Eric her pawn in an intricate chess play for four states? Ultimately she had failed and the consequences had been poetic; she'd met the wrong end of a stake at Eric's hands. Pam admitted privately that Nadia had been a brilliant strategist, but it wasn't Eric's fault that she'd been able to jerk him around like a puppet on strings. The blame for that lay squarely at her grand-sire's feet. If Ocella hadn't been such a prideful, egotistical, easily manipulated prick...
Some relatives hung around long after their time to finally die had passed.
Now that the bastard was dust on the wind, Eric could fulfil his potential and become the brilliant and respected king Pam knew he would be. If he managed to pull his head out of his ass long enough to see he belonged on a throne.
Pam wasn't being totally altruistic in that. Her life would be a lot less complicated if she didn't owe fealty to de Castro. Not that she disliked being sheriff. Oh no, she very much loved the fuck out of being in charge, even if she had developed a healthy appreciation for Eric's loathing of the less fulfilling parts of the job. Forms in triplicate and minions of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, for instance.
There were definite perks to the position, though.
Like her plans for a certain unruly underling tonight. She checked her lipstick in the car mirror, flashing a feral, toothy grin at herself. There was a price for disrespecting a sheriff, especially when that sheriff was Pam. She was going to enjoy this. Thalia very much wasn't.
It was a delicate business punishing a vampire so much older than herself. It had been a fairly minor infraction this time, questioning the way Pam spoke to her maker. Not enough to warrant official disciplining, but insulting to both her and Eric all the same. Eric, not being one to undermine his child, had made it clear that Pam, as sheriff, had dibs on Thalia's ass for it.
Pam had learnt how to discipline from Eric, who was creative when it came to such matters. The punishment she'd come up with was perfect, just the right blend of public humiliation, tailored to piss Thalia off, but not enough to push her over the edge. Eric might need Thalia's sword shortly, so it wouldn't do to have her storm out of Area 5 in a fit of temper.
Not that Pam would miss her at all. The two strong-willed vampires butted heads frequently. Having Thalia in charge of Sookie's security for the last couple of years had been ideal; it kept her out of Pam's hair. Now that Thalia was back in circulation, Pam was forced to deal with the intractable Greek twice a week at the club, which was twice a week too often.
There was only room for one bitch queen in Area 5. As far as Pam was concerned, that was her.
…
Pam waltzed into the club like she owned it, which she did. Indira was waiting, ready to show her the preparations. Pam checked everything over with a steely glare.
The dance floor had been transformed into an elegant dining area. Six tables, each seating eight, were draped with pristine white linens and laid with gleaming steel cutlery and expensive china. The speciality caterers had set up in the staff lounge, and whatever they were cooking up for the breathers smelt pleasantly fragrant. Soft lighting and low-volume classical music leant the place a refined ambience, and the wait staff, dressed in black, moved quietly and discreetly about their business, blending into the background.
No-one would recognise the club as the flesh market it used to be. Or perhaps that should be blood market, Pam mused to herself.
When Pam finally allowed her a small nod of approval, Indira relaxed and smiled, as well she should. 'Dinner with A Vampire' was a charity event Indira had come up with as a way to generate positive publicity. Really, it was brilliant.
Billed as an evening of cultured conversation with vampires from different ages, it would raise money for three causes: injured veterans, always popular with patriotic Americans; a charity that gave out college scholarships to local kids, thus winning them local support; and, lastly, a clinic that treated draining victims.
It had been a toss-up between that last one and a children's charity. Indira reckoned they could get away with the vampire one. There were enough draining videos circulating online, generating plenty of sympathy for the pitifully weakened victims. Pitifully stupid victims, in Pam's opinion.
Pam preferred that some of the money went to their own kind. It wouldn't do for a vampire event to portray them as soft-hearted push-overs, even at this time of year. Touchy-feely vampires were not. The holiday season had the humans displaying enough mawkish sentimentality as it was. Maybe the rugrats could get a slice of the pie next year.
It was a big fat pie too. Maxwell's idea to auction the tickets had been inspired. Pam had been rather astonished, pleasantly so, at the prices breathers were willing to pay for a seat at their favourite vampire's table, but she should have expected it. Fangtasia might attract mostly up-and-coming humans in their thirties these nights, but at heart they were still as much devotees of the cult of the fanged as the fangbangers had been, albeit much classier ones.
Actual fangbangers were a rarity at the club now, priced out by the membership charges. They wouldn't have stood a chance in the fierce online bidding war for the tickets.
Not unless they had a generous sponsor.
Pam suppressed an evil chuckle. Thalia was going to regret pissing her off big time.
…
A week earlier, at a vampire-owned boutique in Shreveport:
...
"Nearly done, just 'old still a mite longer," Lucy Beachings mumbled around a mouthful of pins. The owner of the store had dropped back into her own rough London accent the second the last breather had left the shop. Pam preferred it to the pretentious French one she faked for her punters.
Thalia glowered at down at Lucy and hissed.
"Now, now, old girl. Hain't no need for that. Not like I'm using silver pins, is it?" Lucy shifted further around the hem she was pinning and winked at Pam.
The skinny, undernourished dressmaker had been turned in the roaring twenties by a vampire who admired her way with fabric. As a creature of the night, Lucy retained her passion for fashion. In fact, she didn't seem to care for anything else. Not even blood or a good fight. Pam found that decidedly odd, but each to their own. The young vampire seemed happy enough and her skills were useful.
Lucy sat back on her heels and surveyed her work. "Move yer arms a bit, check the tightness."
Thalia obliged, brow still puckered in disgust. The dress was soft and flowing, with layers ranging from hot fuchsia to baby pink. Pam had deliberately chosen it to irritate her.
"I reckon that'll do yer."
"You've out done yourself Lucy. Pretty in pink, indeed," Pam purred. Pam's grin widened in direct proportion to the depth of Thalia's scowl. "It's your colour, Thalia. Brings out your eyes. Very feminine."
Thalia's jaw tightened, but she didn't respond. Not directly. She focused her ire on the unfortunate Lucy, snarling, "Get me out of this. Now."
Lucy fussed at the back of the dress until it came loose. It had barely wafted to the floor when Thalia blurred out of sight into one of the changing rooms, before Pam could make any admiring remarks about her underwear – a set Pam had taken great pleasure in picking out when Lucy had insisted Thalia needed the proper foundation garments to do the dressmaker's creation justice.
Two scraps of pale pink fabric were thrown haphazardly over the top of the changing room door almost as soon as it closed after the surly vampire. Pam smirked for Lucy's benefit, but her smile fell when the dressmaker turned away to hang up the dress. Pam stared at the underwear hanging limply over the door and sighed silently in the way of the undead.
Sookie would have loved that underwear. And the dress
Pam hadn't had many opportunities to visit boutiques with her favourite breather, which was a bloody shame. Some quality girl time wouldn't have gone amiss. Without her maker. Without any plots or bombs or battles to the death.
Killing Bruno and his chum had been one of the most exhilarating nights she'd spent with Sookie, but Pam was aware that sort of thing wasn't really her friend's cup of tea. Retail therapy on the other hand... If only Sookie hadn't been so stubborn, they could have been enjoying that together for the last three years.
But damn it all to hell in a coffin, she wouldn't have Sookie any other way.
Pam just fucking knew things would go sour between them when Eric left, but that hadn't made Sookie's absence any less painful. She'd missed her, her quick wit and her bravery. Even the way she pig-headedly stuck to her own version of the truth.
Like the way Sookie dismissed the pledging as if it was a meaningless gesture on Eric's part, as if it wasn't as real as her marriage to the shifter. Pam had bitten her tongue hard about that. Sookie had judged it according to her narrow experience of marriage – and Pam had to admit, in those terms the pledging had sucked balls – but it had real significance. With it Eric had put his neck on the proverbial executioner's block, all so Sookie could keep her freedom. It pissed Pam off that the woman couldn't see that and didn't appreciate it.
Pam hadn't challenged Sookie on that when she was on the verge of re-establishing their friendship. No, she wasn't stupid enough to juggle with live hand grenades. She'd had quite enough of being torn and crushed between the two of them. Her maker and her friend.
Neither of them had realised what a shitty deal it was being piggy in the middle
When Sookie finally got back in touch with Pam – and wouldn't you know it, Eric was back too; their timing stunk worse than wet dog, it really did – Pam had been determined to show Sookie she wasn't on Eric's side. Not always. Sure, he was her maker, but Sookie was also dear to her.
Pam tried to be what Sookie needed, listening to her heartaches and doling out sound, impartial advice.
Except she had tried to repair Sookie's trust in Eric. Subtly. But that wasn't for her maker's benefit. No, Pam had done that for Sookie herself. Sookie could find a serial killer at a church picnic and Pam wanted her to live. For that reason, only that reason, Pam had risked being seen as... what was it Sookie had called her? Oh yes, Eric's flunky.
Sookie would need Eric's protection if he was king of Louisiana when she returned from fairy-central. Knowing her as well as she did, Pam knew Sookie would fight that every step of the way unless she regained some trust in him. To that end, Pam had smoothed things as best she could.
Right now the only human dear to her – she pushed away memories of Miriam, even as she corrected herself –the only surviving human dear to her was on the other side of the planet. Or she'd already been spirited away into some weird-ass pocket universe, thanks to her fairy grandfather.
Sookie had just better come back in one piece, Pam thought darkly, or she might be drinking a fine old vintage from the Brigant vineyard. Well, probably not, but a vampire could hope. She'd have to be incredibly lucky to get her fangs into the arrogant fairy's neck.
Niall was a wily old goat if Eric was to be believed.
She sighed again, silent as the grave. Wasn't it just the way? Thoughts of Sookie always twisted back to her maker. And there was a dilemma and a half. Eric.
Oklahoma had rattled Pam. She'd almost lost him. His recklessness over Sookie – God knows she'd gotten accustomed to that while they were together – was even more unsettling after his far too close brush with final death. A takeover was dangerous enough, if he couldn't keep a clear head…
Thank fuck she was out of sight, out of mind for six months.
At first, Eric's infatuation with the tasty telepath had been a source of amusement to Pam. Then it had puzzled her, until she came up with a theory for her maker's continued obsession. Living in the open, Eric had a chance to be himself for the first time with Sookie, something Pam herself relished once she found Miriam. She concluded that the excitement, the novelty of that was driving his obsession with her friend.
She had known her maker a long time. She'd seen him go from one woman to another with varying degrees of affection, but it never lasted. Never. It was impossible for human women, with their short mayfly lives, to keep his attention. The only exceptions, the only ones he kept close beyond a few years, were her and Karin, but they were his children, his blood.
Even with the feisty telepath, a diamond shining amongst the dull rocks of human mediocrity, Pam had expected no different. Eric would tire of her. She suspected that was part of the reason he'd settled Sookie on the shifter. He knew, deep down, it would end in a few short years.
In fact, if Freyda hadn't intervened Eric would have tired of Sookie by now. Pam felt that to be the truth in her bones.
But he hadn't.
Eric was as infatuated with Sookie as ever when he came back from Oklahoma, judging by the fucking careless way he risked his own neck the second she was in trouble. He certainly believed himself still in love. Pam hadn't expected his feelings for Sookie to survive three years apart, let alone at the same intensity. She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't felt it in her blood.
Maybe he was still mixed up over Sookie because of the time apart. He was a stubborn shit at the best of times, and never worse than when his desires were thwarted. He'd probably fixated on Sookie the whole time in Oklahoma. God knows he'd have needed something to get him through fucking Freyda. Pam shuddered at the thought.
That whole mess had interrupted her maker's relationship with Sookie before it could run its course, leaving Eric frozen in the moment, still loving a woman who'd moved on already. Eric seemed set on moving on too, thank fuck. Pam was certain the obsession would fade now Eric had his freedom.
Besides, if he took the throne he'd be too fucking busy to dwell on Sookie. She knew him, he took his responsibilities seriously and he'd sink his fangs into the state like a pit-bull and shake it until everything was running exactly how he wanted it. He'd have no time for regrets.
That would be for the best.
For Sookie too. She deserved... Not exactly better than Eric – a few years with Eric was heavenly, Pam could attest to that and she was far too loyal to say he was bad for Sookie, per se – but Sookie deserved to be happy. She had her heart set on that dream, the one so many women had, the one that would suffocate Pam. Marriage, a family, children.
But if that's what Sookie wanted, that's what she should bloody well get. Her life was short enough.
And that, unfortunately, was not something Eric was equipped to give her, mentally or physically. They wouldn't last. Not while she still breathed, and there was no other option for them. Pam had known that the second Sookie insisted that her own turning was cold-blooded murder. She would never accept becoming one of them. If Eric turned her friend, Pam was certain it would end in ash and bloody tears.
So it was fucking lucky Eric would be over Sookie by the time she came back from wherever the fairy had taken her.
Sookie would come back without that fucked-up fairy bond. She'd make it up with shifter, if that's what she wanted. Pam would threaten to break his neck if he ever laid a paw on her in anger, give him some puppy-training Pam-style on how not to be such a possessive, controlling dick. Sookie could settle back into her quiet life, safe and happy. Have a few rugrats.
Spend a few hours catching up with Pam once a week, shopping for beautiful clothes together perhaps. Pam would have her favourite breather back. All would be well.
The sound of the changing room lock sliding open interrupted her pleasant reverie. Pam smirked internally and pulled out her phone, adopting a bored expression. Thalia came out of the cubicle glowering, as expected.
Lucy muttered, "That... outfit is a crime. A crime against fashion. Those jeans don't even fit."
"Do I look like I care?" Thalia snarled at her. Lucy cowered as she'd learnt to do as human child to avoid her father's blows, and then cheekily stuck her tongue out when Thalia turned her back.
Pam looked up from her phone and stared pointedly at the top of Thalia's head.
"We'll have to do something with your hair," Pam drawled, waving at the dark nest of untidy curls. "Something more coiffured. You do hair, don't you Lucy?"
Lucy squinted at Thalia's unruly mop and said cheerfully, "I dunno I can do much. Tain't very long. But I'll do me best, Sheriff."
"Good. Just go easy with the hair-dryer. Her hair doesn't react well to them."
Pam grinned maliciously at Thalia, whose eyes blazed in return. They were both recalling an unfortunate night two years earlier, one with amusement and the other with fierce irritation bordering on embarrassment.
…
The Infamous Hair-dryer Incident: The one Pam related to Eric the first chance she got to speak to him, just to hear him laugh.
Fangtasia, a year after Eric married Freyda:
…
Squealing tires tore at the warm July air as a black Audi4 pulled into the parking lot behind Fangtasia. With another squeal, Pam executed a handbrake turn that sent the car neatly into her parking space. The one with a large, slightly luminous white star painted on the asphalt.
Pam was in a foul mood. None of her underlings had better get on her tits tonight or they'd be deader than they already were. She slammed the car door shut and glared malevolently at the back of the bar. The bins were overflowing again and the stench of stale Trublood and alley cat's piss did nothing for her temper.
She was beginning to loathe the dump.
She couldn't wait for the refurbishment to start. Any night now, whenever the lawyers pulled their thumbs out of their asses and got the contracts finished. Then the contractors could start tearing down the old and putting up the new. Just like they'd always planned.
Eric had only expected the initial concept to last a few years. He'd even warned her not to get attached to the place, in case the Revelation went sour on them. The plan was they'd ride their initial popularity, milking the tourists and the fangbangers dry of money and blood until the fickle humans moved on to the next hot trend. Then they'd reinvent the bar, go upmarket and chase the money.
It was a little sooner than Eric had forecast when he left, but Pam had had enough black leather and latex to last a life time. A human one, anyway. Fuck a zombie, she liked to play with bondage gear now and again as much as the next vampire, but enough was enough.
She'd put off the changes as long as she could, hoping for a miracle, hoping Eric would be here to see them, but she'd had to face his continued absence. It was time to save her own sanity; this place had to change or she would torch it.
The bar was just another dive bar now, blood and meat for the taking. There was no fun in it. Not without Eric.
She kicked at the garbage spill on the way past and an empty bottle rolled away from her. It was a whole fucking year since she'd spoken to her maker. She missed him. Karen had just left Area 5. Sookie... Pam stabbed at the keypad by the back door angrily. She hadn't heard from Sookie for over eight months.
Karin had guarded her from the woods, keeping her distance. Something Karin was good at. Distance. She could list who was sniffing around Sookie, evaluate potential threats, keep her charge alive, but Karin couldn't tell Pam what she wanted to know. How Sookie was. If she was still angry with Eric, still angry with her. When her friend would forgive her.
Or who she was marrying.
Three months ago it was Bill, a smug gleam in his eye, who'd told her Sookie was wearing the shifter's engagement ring. Had been since New Year apparently, not that Karin or Pam had known that.
Bill went on to inform her that Sookie had turned her back on vampires for good and lucky for him that smugness had disappeared and he managed to look mournful, or Pam might have done something regrettable to de Castro's money spinner. Of course, Bill had added, a little too enthusiastically, he'd be only too happy to take over watching over Sookie from afar – well, from his place across the cemetery – once Karin had left.
Fortunately, Pam had other plans to keep her friend safe, ones that didn't include Bill. Which was a good job; he'd been called to Vegas a few too many times for her liking in the year since Eric had been gone.
Twice, in other words.
Twice was too often. Especially when Bubba told her 'Mister Bill' and 'Mister Felipe' were great buddies, got on like a house on fire.
Arse licker. That fucking database made him untouchable, even to her, his sheriff. He'd also ingratiated himself to the new regent, Victor's replacement Teresa. Pity, Pam rather liked the sultry Italian until she realised her taste in vampires was so poor.
Pam pushed open the back door, dawdling in the corridor to delay the inevitable shitty start to her night. There would be some stupid problem with the staff or the stock or her underlings waiting for her.
They must be tying the knot any day now. Sookie and the shifter, that is. Pam had given up waiting for an invitation to the shower. Or was that something to do with babies? She supposed she could glamour one of the waitresses into explaining those quaint human customs, but she didn't have the heart for it.
No point. It wasn't like she was going to get close to any more humans. They let you down.
She winced, thinking of Miriam. She hadn't left her willing, poor love, but Pam had been left regardless. Fuck a zombie. She really needed something to cheer her up.
She forced herself to stride nonchalantly down the corridor as if she hadn't a care in the world. Hand on the doorknob of the office she still thought of as Eric's, the office that still smelt of him faintly, she heard something.
A yell. From her old office – a poky room barely bigger than a broom closet.
She shook her head. It was always the quiet ones, wasn't it? She'd caught Maxwell getting his freak on with one of the waitresses last week, dribbling hot-sauce, of all things, down the pasty girl's cleavage. She'd asked drily if he was paying for the stock he was using to spice up his sex life. If he could have blushed he would have as he sheepishly stuttered some nonsense about nerve endings and pain responses sweetening the blood.
Fool. That's what fangs were for.
Another yell dragged her back into the present, wiping the smile of her face.
More like a yowl, actually. Was Maxwell strangling a cat in there? Bubba perverted tastes were bad enough. Jesus, she couldn't have a second addicted to alley cats. She'd be a laughing stock. She stomped angrily down the corridor, her heels making enough sound on the carpet to warn him she was coming. She really didn't want to see him in flagrante delicto again. Once was enough. She threw his door open.
"Maxwell, what the hell is...?" was all she got out. She blinked in shock at the scene before her.
The stench of burning hair and melted plastic filled the room. Thalia was standing on a chair, bent over at the waist, hair hanging down and was that a power cord dangling from her head too? Maxwell was kneeling on the floor in front of her, hands still tangled in Thalia's hair, reaching around something black and plastic... Pam tilted her head. It was a hair-dryer, its casing warped and bubbled, stuck fast in the dark mess of curls.
Thalia shot upright, the appliance bouncing comically behind her head. She hissed at Pam, fangs down, and then kicked Maxwell in the chest sending him sprawling backwards into the filing cabinet.
"Idiot! Why didn't you lock the door?"
He held his hands up in surrender. "You told me to be quick."
Pam folded her arms and leant nonchalantly in the doorway. "Well, I must say Maxwell, you've surprised me. You must have hidden depths to attract a vampire of Thalia's refined tastes. And using a hair-dryer as a sex toy, that's a new one on me."
Thalia growled ferociously, but the effect was somewhat diminished by the pained face she made when the dryer tugged at her hair. Sullenly she said, "I wouldn't fuck him if he bled fairy. He was supposed to get this fucking thing out of my hair. Incompetent moron!"
Maxwell, who was getting to his feet cautiously, took offence. He hissed, "I told you, I do computers and accounting. I'm not a fucking hairdresser."
"It's electronic. That's your area," she hissed back.
"How sweet. Arguing like a married couple already," Pam drawled, her night suddenly looking brighter.
She got two poisonous glares in reply, so she knew she'd hit her mark. This was going to be fun. It wasn't often she got this quality of material on the surly Greek or the po-faced and rather serious Maxwell. She smirked and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her firmly. "I think I might have a smidgen more expertise in the area of failed beauty treatments than Maxwell does. I'd be happy to help. If you want."
Thalia glowered. "Beauty treatments? Pah! I got wet. In the rain."
Ah, yes. It had been raining cats and dogs when Pam rose for the night. Thalia didn't have a car, didn't like them. Too confining, she said, pointless when you could run almost as fast as one.
"And?" Pam prompted. She was eager to get as much material out of this as possible for the boring months ahead while the club was being rebuilt.
"One of the waitresses leant me this." Thalia gestured angrily at the unfortunate appliance. Pam wondered why she hadn't just destroyed it.
"You haven't used one before?" Pam asked, still smirking.
Thalia sneered. "No. Water doesn't hurt me. I dripped. On the dance floor. A waitress fell."
"Helena. Twisted her ankle, had to take the night off," Maxwell put in, eyes down.
"Fucking wonderful. It's Saturday." Pam grimaced.
"I know, I know," Maxwell said hurriedly. Being trapped between two angry females was making him distinctly uncomfortable. "Brandy is on her way, but she had to get a sitter and–"
"Haven't I told you I don't need to hear the details of their pathetic lives?"
"Sorry, Sheriff."
"Yes, yes. Get out there and hold the fort down. I'll deal with this. That is, if Thalia wants my help."
Thalia looked like she smelt shit, a whopping great steaming pile of it. She ground out, "Yes, I want your help."
"Please, Sheriff," Pam murmured as Maxwell left.
Thalia ground her teeth audibly and snapped out, "Please, Sheriff."
"Of course," Pam said, grinning. "Turn around."
Pam stepped closer and wrinkled her nose at the smell. Sulphur and brimstone! That would take a week to get out. There was a large blackened crack down one side of the hairdryer. Pam spent two minutes twisting and tugging at the device and Thalia's hair, not at all gently.
"Thalia, it is well and truly struck. Your hair seems to have melted into it. How the fuck did you manage that?"
Thalia said stiffly, "It sparked."
"Sparked? It shocked you?"
"Yes," Thalia snapped.
Pam chuckled quietly. Oh, that was priceless. The shock would've knocked the Greek on her ass at the very least. Pam made a note to review the security video and check whether the insufferable vampire had been knocked out as well. The things that happened when older vampires thought they didn't have to obey Maxwell's laws. James Clark Maxwell, the Scottish physicist, that was.
Thalia, tired of Pam's amusement, said stiffly, "My hair was soaking wet. Electricity and water don't mix. Stupid device. What is the point if it doesn't work on wet hair?"
Pam rolled her eyes behind Thalia's back and tugged at the dryer. Hard. "You're supposed to towel your hair first."
Thalia grumbled, "I can do that in seconds. The waitress said this would be better."
"It is. If you know how to use it, you can style your hair with the blast of air. You must have held it too close to your head."
"Oh." Thalia's shoulders slumped. "You can't remove it?"
Pam kept the smirk out of her voice. "No. I could crush it, but you'd be picking the pieces out for hours. And your hair is melted anyway. It will be easier to cut it out."
It was bound so close to her scalp, she'd have a bald patch for the night. A fact Thalia had already worked out for herself.
She pulled away from Pam. "No."
"Don't be stupid. It'll grow back when you rise tomorrow."
Thalia shifted uncomfortably and muttered angrily, "I have to work the floor. Tonight."
For a second, Pam thought about letting her go home. But that would set a precedent and she didn't want anyone thinking they could just blow off a shift. "I'll find a hat for you to wear."
There was one in lost property. She's confiscated it on the door one night, told the idiot redneck owner no-one was wearing that monstrosity in her bar and he could reclaim it when he left. He hadn't braved her displeasure to retrieve it.
"Wait here. I have scissors in Er- in my office."
Sympathy flashed in Thalia's eyes at her slip, but Pam glared at her. She couldn't stand to be pitied. She worried for her maker when she was alone, not in public.
Unfortunately for Thalia, sympathy just made Pam more determined to find that hat. A man's hat. Woolly, dirty, greasy. Perhaps even a little smelly. Not at all attractive.
Pam wouldn't be caught dead in it. Thalia wasn't so lucky that night.
…
A week before Dinner with a Vampire, as Pam waited outside changing room in Lucy's boutique:
…
Thalia tugged off the restrictive underwear and threw it contemptuously over the cubicle door. She snarled quietly for the audience outside the changing room, and then began riffling through the messy pile of her own clothes, grunting occasionally and muttering under her breath until she found her dagger and strapped it to her calf.
Let Pam think she was pissed; it would stop the annoying bitch coming up with worse indignities than pink dresses and makeovers.
Oh, Thalia knew full well Pam was punishing her, and the reason: she dared to question how Pam spoke to her maker. Thalia detested Pam's disrespectful tone, her constant teasing of him, even though it did no real harm. She would never have tolerated it in Eric's shoes. It irritated her that they had such an easy relationship. It was an unpleasant reminder of her own failings.
She only called Pam on it once. After the worthless shifter attacked his wife, the telepath.
Thalia had witness the incident. She loathed men who abused women. Merlotte was possessive, violent, and Thalia didn't give two shits whether it was his fault or some fairy spell. She might – might, but would never admit it out loud – have seen something admirable in the telepath, on the rare occasions when the blood bag stood up to her husband. A certain fire in her eyes. But the woman was too forgiving of the shifter's faults and that had not endeared her to Thalia.
Thalia reported the attack to Eric, of course. Pam had sharply told her maker he couldn't intervene between the telepath and the shifter. That was the supe rule: no-one interfered between a supe and their human spouse.
As if either Pam or Eric had ever played by the rules.
Pam's words had surprised Thalia more than her insolent tone. Supposedly the telepath had wormed her way into Pam's cold heart and Pam counted her as a friend – as if, Thalia scoffed, their kind made friends of humans as often as the leaves turned from green to gold – so why was Pam telling her maker not to protect the breather?
In a flash Thalia had understood. Pam was intent on discouraging her maker's involvement with the human, by any means.
What motivated Pam didn't matter. Jealously of the breather's effect on Eric, fears that she threatened his existence, even protectiveness of her friend, either way Thalia saw a child interfering in things beyond her ken. Pam did not understand Sookie's power over her maker.
Did not see that Eric was protecting himself by protecting the telepath.
Thalia being Thalia did not hold her tongue. Tact had never been her strength. She chided Pam harshly.
Pam and Eric, being who they were, closed ranks, hearing only criticism of the way Eric had taught his child. In a way it had been. It was time Eric stopped indulging his favourite child and told her to butt out of his personal life, or it would end badly.
To indulge a child hobbled it. It was unhealthy. Thalia knew from bitter experience that the longer a child stayed, the closer they became bound to their maker. Prepared to sacrifice everything for them instead of saving their own skin. Painful memories of her own child, long gone, swallowed her for a moment until she shook them angrily away.
Loyalty and devotion was a danger of the maker bond. And by the gods, Eric the North Man inspired loyalty easily enough in vampires outside his blood line. Pam was loyal to her maker, but not blindly so. No, the danger Thalia saw for Pam was of a different kind to the danger that took her own child all those centuries ago. Pam was meddling in her maker's life as if they were equals. And worse, Pam assumed she knew what was best for him, when it was clear to Thalia she did not know Eric nearly well enough to make that call.
How did Pam not see it?
A patch of icy road, a blown tire, a drunk driver could snuff out the telepath at any time. Yet Eric had bargained two centuries – two, not the customary one – of contact with his children to protect her fragile existence.
If Pam was really the cold-hearted pragmatic bitch she pretended to be, she'd have been insulted. She'd have ditched Area 5, headed somewhere to build her own life out from her maker's shadow. But Pam stayed. For what? To festering under de Castro's thumb, a lever to be used against Eric whenever de Castro needed one?
No, Pam stayed to protect the telepath she thought of as a friend. Because her beloved maker Eric asked it of her.
Thalia did not approve of Eric's trade. She didn't think any blood bag worth a vampire child. But she knew what it signified: Eric would never give the woman up. She'd tested him on that when he came back from Oklahoma, and found it held true. It was not a choice for him.
Pam did not see what was in front of her fangs: she was too late to protect Eric, or her breather friend. If she persisted in coming between her maker and the telepath, she would poison the closeness she and her maker shared with a river of resentment.
Thalia knew that would hurt Eric, a vampire she respected deeply. Not because he allowed her to stay in Area 5. Because he survived, strong in mind and spirit. He did not abuse his underlings as he had been abused. He repaid loyalty in kind. He had honour.
Thalia scowled. She doubted he telepath was at all worthy of him. The woman had little honour, but then honour was a foreign concept to modern humans as far as Thalia could see. The telepath had backbone, but loyalty? She had betrayed Eric publicly, dishonouring their pledging when she used the most precious gift of the fae on the shifter.
Oh yes, Thalia recognised the object for what it was from the gossip flying about Shreveport's non-human citizens. She'd had enough dealings with the fae and their tricks to recognise a Cluviel Dor.
A powerful wish used to restore a single life. Thalia shook her head. What a waste. No-one could accuse the telepath of wisdom beyond her years that night.
She tugged on her ill-fitting jeans and the dark sweater she came in, stamping her feet into her boots to make Pam think she was fuming, before stooping to tie them. Then she leant back against the door, staring at the full length mirror opposite her, eyes unfocused.
At her age she barely registered her own reflection. It never changed.
She was staring into the past. To her first meeting with the Northman. The one she remembered, but he did not. Her mouth twisted bitterly. A blessing from the gods that he didn't.
Thalia was older than the North Man. Eric was but a few years turned the time she first laid eyes on him. A desperate, filthy mess at his maker's side, bound in silver, enduring one of Ocella's bad moods. Out in the middle of nowhere, on a cold, wet night.
Then, and every time she recalled their fateful meeting since, it was his eyes drew her attention.
Haunted. Desperate. Broken.
Lonely. So lonely.
Thalia would never speak of that first meeting. Not to Eric. Certainly not to his spoilt brat of a child. Pam would see it as an insult, not a kindness, to see the truth of her maker through Thalia's ancient eyes.
He'd hidden that pain well, completely in fact, when next they met. So well Thalia had to look, and smell, twice to be sure it was the same vampire. He was already carrying himself with the beginnings of the arrogance that had hardened over the centuries until he was the perfect picture of ruthlessness. Cold, heartless, a predator. Vampire to the core.
Almost to the core. A kernel of the man he'd been had endured, as it did with all vampires, however ancient. Buried by the armour of centuries, armour hardened and concreted to a thick shell. In Eric's case arrogance and pride, in Thalia's surliness and ill-temper.
Uncovering that kernel of their old selves sometimes shattered the whole vampire.
That's why the woman, the telepath, was such a threat to Eric, to all of the vampires he protected, as soon as she walked into Fangtasia. She was a threat dead or alive now: her death would affect Eric as deeply as her life.
That was why Thalia had kept watch over her, and would keep watching over her as long as it suited her or until the Northman himself asked her to stop.
Thalia had a lot of anger for her current sheriff, for most of the world to tell the truth, but she pitied Pam for a moment. Vampires, once they got past the first century, got cocky. Thought they'd seen everything, knew everything. Pam thought she knew her maker.
It was going to be a terrible shock when she found out she did not.
Thalia smiled to herself, her pity fleeting. Serve the bitch right. She'd had too easy a ride with Eric as a maker.
The child had little inkling that Eric was more than she knew of him, much more. He'd survived centuries without Pam and they were the hard centuries, the ones that had forged him into who he was now. How could Pam know all of him? Thalia scoffed at her arrogant presumption. It irritated her more than anything else Pam had done. She itched to give Pam a lesson in humility that would be gentle compared to the ones Ocella had handed out to Eric.
Or her own fucking maker had dished out to her. Curse his ashes to the end of time.
…
The present. Fangtasia, Dinner with a Vampire...
…
Thalia's glance fell on the steel fork to her right, and she fleetingly imagined stabbing herself in the eye with it. It was that, or slit her throat with the knife to her left.
Either would improve her night immeasurably.
She hated these pitiful blood bags, worshippers of the mighty dollar, with their cell phones and expensive watches, Chanel purses and Armani suits. Bloated leeches of the modern world, soft and flabby, never tested by famine or hardship.
They sickened her. The whole evening was pitiful. 'Dinner with a Vampire' should mean her fangs sunk into one of these pathetic mortals as she drank her fill. Not polite dinner conversation with the banal, insipid idiots.
Her eyes scanned the table, starting with the over-perfumed middle-aged woman on her left. A bored and boring housewife, whose rich husband funded her ticket and whose single holiday in the Aegean apparently made her an expert on Greek architecture. Not that Thalia was an expert herself, but she hadn't spent her portion of the conversation, small as it was, chattering about the beauty of the Parthenon as if she was personally responsible for building it.
Next to her sat the rich husband. He was in real estate. He'd come not to talk to a vampire from Ancient Greece, but to do business. He'd name-dropped several vampire clients, all youngsters, who had clearly lost whatever wisdom they were turned with and failed to glamour him to forget them. Thalia smiled, sphinx-like, when he asked her to point any vampires in need of real estate his way. He took the smile as an agreement.
Thalia was imagining ripping his tongue out.
Next to him, another middle-age man, with wobbling jowls and sweat beading on his brow. A banker of some sort. Money lender. Greedy. Thalia recognised the type. He was here, with the brunette trophy wife on his right, in a desperate attempt to find some common ground with an estranged son. He'd puffed his chest and boasted about his Michael every other sentence, proud and bewildered in equal measure. After the divorce, Michael's mother had encouraged him to follow his heart and study what he loved. Michael was studying Classics at Harvard.
Michael's father didn't care for the idea of following hearts. Michael's father cared only for money, and hoped his money could buy him a tame vampire to win his back son's respect. He'd pressed his business card into Thalia's hand and offered to be her patron, hinting at the money she could make if she agreed to meet his son and talk about her past.
Thalia had already lost his card.
On her right was the only human she hadn't wanted to drain dry. Yet.
Quiet, polite, elderly. Respectful. A Math professor, but Ancient Greece was his passion. When the bored housewife had rambled on about Athens being the cradle of democracy, he'd quietly cleared his throat and pointed out she wouldn't have been able to partake in it, being a woman. He'd gone on to explain that, while Athens had been, for a brief wink of history, a democracy, it had also been the worst city-state for women and the one that had the most slaves.
He turned to Thalia and asked about her human life. Respectfully and in general terms. What did she eat? Wear? Were people healthy? Different from today? He smiled ruefully when she answered no to that, remarking that she must be sick of humanity by now. Thalia had grunted into her blood, biting back sarcasm with genuine restraint for once, not just because Pam had ordered her to play nice.
Next to the gentle professor was a woman in her thirties, dark hair and eyes. Loud and brash, she was Greek herself. Trying to get closer to her dead father. How a vampire born many generations before him was going to do that, Thalia didn't know. She was wary of the woman. Greece today was not Greece of her time. There was a reason Thalia hadn't stayed.
Next to her was a man, beautiful, enamoured of Ancient Greece for its tolerance of homosexuality, a lover of men himself. Although the other humans laughed at his quick tongue and witticisms, Thalia did not. He was less amusing than he thought.
And then there was one.
The eighth person at the table. Sitting almost opposite Thalia, his eyes fixed on her all evening with an eerie intensity.
She hadn't recognised him at first because he was wearing a suit. A cheap suit and cheaper cologne. Not the worn black leather trousers, mesh shirt and studded dog collar that would have triggered her memory. He was still as pale and sweaty as he'd been as a fangbanger, though.
President of her fan club. Jake...something. Thalia didn't bother to remember their names.
He was a car salesman, a used car salesman, in real life. When Fangtasia was another sort of bar, he'd lived to feel the sting of her contemptuous tongue and the kick of her heel. He hadn't seen her in years, not since the refurbishment and Thalia's sojourn in Bon Temps. Whenever there was a lull in conversation, he peppered her with thinly veiled questions about how she was, if she was seeing anyone, what she would like do to humans who dared annoy her.
He was practically drooling onto his plate.
She hadn't missed him.
He was out of place, with his cheap suit and his tasteless questions. He'd never have afforded the ticket alone. Thalia assumed her fucking fan club had clubbed together and bought his seat, happy to get close to her vicariously through him.
Until he began to complement her appearance: Pink was so becoming, so feminine... The string of pearls was a nice touch; some-one had good taste... That shade of blush was perfect, had she ever considered modelling... Her hair was lovely, had she blow dried it especially for him?
Pam.
She'd paid his ticket in. Probably glamoured the questions into him too.
That bitch would regret this.
Pam's laughter floated over from the next table and Thalia had an urge to snatch up the housewife's knife and carve her sheriff a new smile. Paint her immaculate cream suit bloody red. Serve her right for wearing vintage Chanel.
Thalia grinned in Pam's direction and her sheriff raised her glass of blood and smiled back with cold eyes.
The lady-who-lunched on Thalia's left shivered, caught in the glare of Thalia's bloody-thirsty smile. She giggled nervously and rubbed her arms, which had prickled with gooseflesh. "I think someone just walked over my grave."
Thalia took a sip of her own blood rather than reply to the inane cliché by asking where the grave was so she could be sure to put her body in the right one. She wished for the hundredth time that she was in Bon Temps, in the woods. Yes, even guarding the telepath was better than this torture.
Thalia had enjoyed the peace of the woods. And the opportunity for a good fight when the occasion demanded it.
Her fangs slid down as she remembered the fairies who'd come for revenge on the Stackhouse girl. It had been worth handing them over to Cataliades alive. Two pints each was a fair price to pay for their lives. Young, stupid fairies. Delicious fairies.
The woman beside her began to babble nervously again.
Thalia's patience was wearing thin. She had done many things to survive, both as a human and vampire. Things that hurt her, things that hurt others.
But this, this offended her. Everyone at this table wanted a piece of her, one way or another. The jowly man who wanted to use her history to impress his son, the woman looking for her ancestors, even the quiet professor. She didn't care how much money they'd spent. How good the PR was.
Nobody bought a piece of her soul for coin.
Thalia gritted her teeth. She let the humans carry the conversation, giving as little of herself away as possible. Only the professor noticed, frowning in mild disappointment, wondering what they'd done to offend her.
Just when Thalia was patting herself on the back for not giving Pam the satisfaction of losing her temper and ripping someone's head off, just when she thought the evening was over, a photographer arrived.
Pam announced the total they'd raised, to a round of restrained applause and explained that, as a treat for their generous guests, she had arranged the photographer so they could all have a memento of the evening. Thalia, with the patience that had carried her through two millennia, kept her loathing hidden while the photographer fussed and positioned and repositioned. She had her photo taken six times.
Thank the gods the two married couples at her table only wanted one photo each.
It was during the last photo – the one with her sweaty fan, shaking with excitement as he put his arm around her and stinking of unwashed sweat – it was then that the perfect revenge for Pam came to her.
…
Epilogue: A week after the Dinner...
…
Pam was in a good mood. She had high hopes for this year, just begun. True, she hadn't heard from Eric yet, but she hadn't given up on him. He was still distant. Busy, she hoped, moving pieces into place.
She'd been in a ridiculously good mood for the whole holiday period. Ever since the charity night and the glowing write-up in the Shreveport Times by the journalist who'd bought a ticket for Pam's table. Pam hadn't even had to glamour the woman: she was a massive Jane Austen fan. Pam had been happy to wax lyrical on the harshness of a woman's lot in the Regency period and the dangers of whale bone corsets, all the while taking peeks at Thalia's sour face.
Revenge was, indeed, a dish best served cold. Pam cackled quietly to herself.
Even being called to Alexandria tomorrow night to see TRex didn't dampen her mood. TRex was Pam's semi-affectionate nickname for Teresa, combining her initial and the Latin for king as she was de Castro's proxy. At least, that was the cover story if she was ever overheard using it.
Pam had seen Jurassic Park at a movie theatre, back before the Revelation. Teresa had an unfortunate tendency to growl deeply when someone was late, deeply enough to set nearby cups of blood vibrating. The image of Teresa with weedy shrunken arms and a long tail had stuck.
Pam chuckled at that as she locked the back entrance of Fangtasia. She glanced over her shoulder. The lot was deserted, her car the only one left.
She scanned the area before she pressed her key fob, oranges lights winking briefly as the car unlocked. There was nothing moving, nothing to hear but the night. Pam blurred to the vehicle and looked it over. The wards hadn't gone off, the wet yellowed leaf she'd left plastered over the crack of the driver's door was still in place, a simple back-up in case someone tampered with the spell.
She didn't check the car for unwelcome passengers before she opened the door and slid inside. Why would she? The front windows weren't tinted and with her eyesight she could see there was nobody inside.
Nobody human-sized.
Slipping her keys into the ignition, she heard a noise from the back seat, a hiss. She turned, instantly alert and hissing too. It took a microsecond to work out what she was looking at because the animal was upside down, business end pointing at right at her. A microsecond that wasn't quite long enough to take evasive action, even for a vampire. Even worse, it was long enough to gasp.
The warm stream of liquid hit her unerringly in the face and flooded her open mouth, splattering in her eyes, over her clothes and the car's interior.
Gagging and choking, eyes stinging so much she was fucking crying bloody tears, Pam shot out of the car with barely enough presence of mind to slam the door and trap her attacker.
She wretched as she doubled over, spitting and spitting bloody saliva to clear the foul taste from her mouth. Eyes and nose streaming blood, gurgling gasps punctuated her curses.
"Fuck... a zombie... bloody bitch... fucking hurts...demon bollocks... I will stake her..."
She knew, just knew this was Thalia.
Payback for the dress, and the hair, and the smiling-at-humans-all-night. After the burning died down and Pam had exhausted three different languages worth of curses, she wiped her nose and cheeks inelegantly on her sleeve.
"Snot, fucking snot!" she moaned, glaring at the slimy bloody mess on her favourite suit. She didn't even know vampires could make snot.
She cleared her throat with a gravelly cough and spat again. Jesus, the smell! She'd have to burn this suit. It was in her hair, how the fuck did she get it out of her hair? She'd smell of it for weeks.
Oh fuck.
Her car. Her baby, her Audi.
She flung open the door and reached in to grab the skunk snuffling happily at the carpet in the foot well. She got a good hold on the scruff of its neck and hauled it out of the car. She marched across the lot, holding it at arm's length as it yelped and wriggled, business end pointed carefully away from her. Bolting the stable door after the horse had stampeded, or in this case the skunk had sprayed, but she had no wish to go through that twice. She threw the creature into a back alley and it hissed at her once before it ambled away.
She frowned after it. How had that bitch got the blasted animal into her car? She hadn't smelt Thalia's scent. That would have made her wary. She must have disabled the wards somehow too. She must have had help. A witch?
It struck her as odd that the skunk had attack straight away. They only sprayed if they were threatened and she hadn't...
She groaned. The beeping and flashing when she unlocked the car. Either that agitated the damn animal, or it had been trained, possibly compelled by a spell to spray the first person it saw.
Fucking Thalia, she thought as she went back to the car. Not that she had proof it was her, proof she could use to punish her. Shit, she'd rather this never got out. The bitch had probably relied on that.
She took a cautious sniff of the car, not that she could smell much over herself at the moment. God, she needed a shower. She was going to have to drive home with the windows open, get the car deep cleaned, possibly reupholstered.
Fuck! She was supposed to leave for Alexandria at sunset tomorrow. There was no way she had time to remove the stench by then and no way to delay the meeting.
Oh, she was going to make Thalia wish she'd never been turned.
A slow smile spread across Pam's face. She knew just how she was going to do it.
Thalia was not a fan of modern comforts like the internal combustion engine, electricity and anything that ran on it. She didn't realise that, two years ago, when she'd tangled with that particularly dangerous and aggressive hairdryer, there were cameras in Maxwell's office.
Maxwell's office and the staff break-room, where the plucky hairdryer had actually knocked Thalia out momentarily, smoking and slightly singed, jerky comically on the floor. She was lucky not to have burnt to a crisp.
She was going to wish she had.
The cameras caught the whole thing, video and audio. Guess who had the only copy, saved for when Thalia really pissed her off?
The same person who had the contractors find said cameras during the refurbishment and then acted shocked and outraged, questioned her underlings about who put them there, some of them quite forcefully.
The cameras were blamed on de Castro or Teresa or Texas, as Pam had let it be known that Stan Davis had been sniffing around. It was Maxwell who suggested they could even be left over from Victor. Who knew where the cameras were sending the footage if Victor had set them up, Maxwell had said without any prompting from Pam.
Probably to some lackey only too willing to use the cameras for revenge on Thalia, who had, after all, been present when Victor was ended.
Pam slid into the car, opening all the windows. She tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. Yes, she'd set up a dead-end anonymous email account to use, so Thalia would never be able to prove Pam had had anything to do with it. And she knew exactly where she was going to send the oh-so-embarrassing footage of Thalia.
To Thalia's fan website, the one that drooling masochist ran, the one Indira and some of the waitresses checked regularly.
So every vampire in Area 5 would find out about it. They'd be gossiping for months. Thalia would be the butt of so many jokes about hairdryer, and split ends, and electrocution…
Pam cackled, shifting into gear and pulling out of the lot. She put her foot down and roared towards home.
There was only one bitch queen in Area 5.
...
A/N: So how did I do at comedy? Did y'all laugh out loud?
Hope so. Keep your eyes peeled for Crash and Burn, coming soon. Going to try something different (and riskier!) and post a chapter a week for a while because I don't want to keep you waiting forever. It's not like we've got that long - unless some of you are vampires and keep it quiet ;-)
Thanks for reading, see y'all soon.