First Blood Contest Entry by blueiris and Sapfirerose
(Second Place Winner: Judges Pick and Public Vote!)
Writer status: Serial
Beta: ScribeNinja
Summary: Eric Northman is vampire and he's good at it - until he crosses paths with an FBI agent who won't leave him alone. AU.
Characters: Eric, Sookie. Mentions of Pam and Appius
Disclaimer: Charlaine Harris owns SVM Eric and Sookie, we're just taking them out to play.
A/N:
Sapfirerose: This all started late one night when I tweeted that I had an idea for this contest but didn't think I could write it. And that's when blueiris came to the rescue, listened to the idea, and this ditty was born. I'm a bit of a dark Eric fan and this was her first go at making him such. *hugs* To blueiris for partnering with me on this. Dude ... you are so encouraging! Also, a big thanks to ScribeNinja for coming to the rescueing and beta'ing that night. You are a superhero! And finally, thanks for the reviews and the votes! I was just happy we entered, to win second place is just icing.
A/N2: blueiris: *hugs and brain licks* for Sapfirerose. She had a very specific vision for this fic and I'm so glad I was able to help her out with this. Thanks so much for taking a chance on me bb *hugs* and ScribeNinja! honey bear you are made of win, thanks so much for the emergency beta. Thank you to the First Blood Contest mods, voters and reviewers! I hope everyone likes what we end up with as we stretch this one out.. and now... on with the show!
Eric relished in the hot silkiness of the blood as it ran down his throat. Drinking from the source was an almost euphoric experience. The only way it could be better would be if he were coming inside her clenching walls. He groaned at the thought of being sheathed inside his prey while he drank, however there was no time. Besides the taste of her blood, this one was not his preferred type.
Eric used his fang to nick the tip of his finger, smearing the blood over the punctures in the neck of his prey before cleaning it off again with his tongue. The marks were gone already and the woman was out cold from lack of blood. With a quick flick, he snapped her neck to make sure she wouldn't be telling anyone about him.
Although it had been a long time since he had needed to do so, Eric stretched and delighted in the feeling of his muscles moving and pulling with new life. The influx of blood was rejuvenating his body, not so much making him stronger as it was making him more … alive. Being a vampire may be limiting in some ways, but it was surprising and freeing in others. The blood gave his skin a ruddy flush, making it easier to pass as one of the vermin.
Eric had been a vampire for a very long time. As he walked back to his car, his eyes darted from one blood bag to the next, wondering if they knew who or what walked among them. On the whole, humans were quite clueless really. They knew there was something not right about him, but they never bothered to investigate far enough to find out what it was … luckily for them.
The only one who had ever piqued his interest was his vampire progeny, Pam. He had found her in Victorian England. She was sarcastic, cunning, brilliant and interesting, completely unsuited for the simpering life of a woman of that era. He had turned her the night he met her and she had taken to her new life with vigour, to his great delight.
He remembered her first kill, a pox ridden prostitute in the back alleys of London. She had been magnificent in her restraint. With a laugh, he remembered his own first kill and the look of disgust on his makers face when he had finished. He had never forgotten his first blood as a vampire.
He had killed men during his life as a Viking warrior; he had protected the village, and been part of a raiding party more than once. One battle he had sustained a wound that he wouldn't recover from. His men helped him onto a pyre, and after offering him willow bark for his pain they stood a death watch and waited for the Valkyries to come and claim him.
His maker, Appius Livius Ocella, had turned him, buried him, and three days later Eric had risen as a vampire. He could suddenly see further, and even though it was night everything was brighter, more defined. He could hear the blood rushing under the human's skin, its heart pounding frantically. His body felt infinitely strong and as he scented the air, picking up the scent of his prey, and his fangs dropped for the first time.
His maker had told him why the human smelled the way it did. Apparently it had been scared, and with good reason, it was about to die after all. His maker had some kind of hold on him, he couldn't move toward the human until his maker allowed it, and he was impatient throughout the instruction.
Appius had shown him how to glamour his prey so they didn't fight him, or remember him. His maker had shown him how to scent a vein and place his fangs. Finally, Eric had been released from his makers hold, leaping onto the gormless human and sinking his itching fangs into the flesh. Spurts of hot blood rushed down his throat and he had lost himself to the sensation.
By the end of his feeding frenzy Eric had been covered in blood, almost head to toe. It wouldn't have mattered much, except that he was also still covered in dirt, so it mixed into a type of mud that had disgusted his maker severely. Eric remembered that night, not only as his first night as vampire and first feeding, but also the first way he had figured out to keep his maker away from him.
Appius had been a cruel maker, punishing and raping Eric often, until Eric had learned how to fend his maker off or make him angry enough to send him away for the night. He hadn't always been successful and the nights he had to stay with his maker were horrible, ending shortly before dawn when his maker would command him not to kill him and then fall into his daytime sleep.
On nights he was able to escape his maker's attentions, Eric would work on his secret project. He had scouted surrounding villages and taken small pieces of silver. It would burn his hands when he picked it up, but the pain was worth it. After a few weeks of work he had enough to melt it down into a single piece, which he then fashioned into his prized possession; a small dagger, long enough to reach the heart, but small enough to hide from his maker. Now he just had to bide his time.
Eric fondly remembered the night of his first kill of a vampire opponent. Eric was almost 150 years vampire by now, and Appius had grown complacent, apparently pleased with himself and his control over Eric. Eric plotted and planned for his eventual freedom, hiding away money and precious stones, stockpiling for the day he would be able to walk away from the monster who had controlled his life for so long.
The night Eric claimed his freedom, Appius had been completely engrossed in his meal, both fucking and feeding from it at the same time. Eric hovered slightly, a handy trick he had discovered after an unlucky fall from a cliff. Because he wasn't touching the ground his maker had been prevented from hearing his approach and just before the bastard reached completion Eric plunged the dagger directly into the asshole's heart, ending his undead life for good.
Eric grinned at the memory of his maker's death, the incomparable restoration of choice and sense of sovereignty that had washed over him with the shrivelling of his maker's body. Not only had he robbed Appius of his life, he'd also robbed him of his final orgasm. Eric took sick comfort in that fact, and celebrated it often.
He had been nothing like his maker when he turned Pam. After having known the boundless cruelty of another he had never wished it on anyone else. Even his food was glamoured into sleep before he struck and he only killed the ones that were going to die anyway, sickened men and women who more often than not were strung out on some drug or another and unlikely to live more than another week or two.
Yes. Life as a vampire was a little more complicated than it was convenient, but with a life that was practically eternal, something had to keep it entertaining.
v^v^v^v^v
Sookie Stackhouse groaned at the huge pile of folders on her desk. As a psychological profiler with the FBI, she spent her days and sometimes nights working out what went on in the minds of serial killers and rapists. She was good at her job, more so than others because she happened to have something they did not. Sookie Stackhouse was a telepath, and a powerful one at that. She was able to delve into the minds of those she interviewed and get more information than anyone else. It was not a low stress job, but she took comfort in the fact that she was helping to make a difference. More often than not, her input helped put a monster into jail … or the ground.
Sookie was working on a case that she'd been passionate about for a year. The victim trail with this particular unknown subject of investigation, or unsub, reminded her of her cousin. Hadley had been a prodigal child of sorts, experimenting with drugs and other things, and she had gone missing soon after Sookie had graduated from high school. Hadley's disappearance was always a sore spot in her family, and was one of the reasons Sookie ended up joining the FBI, eventually landing on the predator task force team.
The chief of the task force team, Andy Bellefleur, felt that Sookie had been spending too much time on this one unsub while they had other cases with more promising trails to attend to. However, he let her investigate in between cases as long as she kept him abreast on any sure developments.
Sookie had just helped solved the Maenad case and was finishing up her case documents when she received another autopsy report of interest from Mike Spencer, the chief mortician. The details in the report followed the familiar pattern, or profile, that Sookie was intimately familiar with.
Sookie twisted her pencil straight blonde hair into a bun and stabbed it with a pen to keep it in place. She loved having long hair, but the temptation to chew it while she was stewing over the unsubs she profiled was too great. She had a system and it worked for her, bun, pen, case files, coffee, light bulb moment, note taking, stalking, apprehending, interviewing, and eventual sentencing.
Folder after folder, autopsy report after report, all related the same thing; a serial killer who for some reason broke the necks on people who would have died from blood loss anyway. This pattern was definitely odd and had her more than a little stumped. They had no outward signs of being drained, yet the lack of blood in the body made it obvious they had been. If she didn't know better she would say they had been drained by a vampire, but they didn't exist so she was lost … for now.
Months passed, and the bodies kept stacking up. They all seemed to be the epitome of invisible to society; drug addicts, those who took risks in life that would surely have lead to death before they met the unsub. The lack of blood in the bodies marked them for her attention, or didn't mark them as the case may be. The distinct lack of hypostasis, or blood pooling, meant the killer had struck again, and the case file found its way to her desk shortly after the body was delivered to a morgue.
On the last five occurrences, Sookie visited the morgue to view the bodies for herself. On those visits, she noticed a scent that seemed to cling to them tickled at the back of her brain. It was like the earthy smell that rose after rain and it seemed to go undetected by Mike. So she paid attention to what her gut was telling her; this scent was connected to whoever was killing these people, find the scent and you'll find the murderer.
Sookie made a point to go back to the morgue after the autopsies had been completed just to check if the scent was still there. Her intuition had been proven right again. Now she only had to get her profile completed and start putting together a list of suspects. Given the area all the people died in, she decided to canvass the local businesses for security footage, see if she could catch the killer on tape with at least one of the victims. That way she would have more proof than a smell and her telepathy to rely on, and something solid she could include in the report to Chief Bellefleur about her findings.
v^v^v^v^v
Eric snapped the neck of yet another blood-bag, this one seemed to be an old woman, although it was hard to tell with the layers of clothing it wore. At least this one had washed recently; unlike the other one he had the misfortune of feeding on a couple of weeks back. He didn't kill every night of course, supporting a local medical centre came with its own perks; bagged blood had made his life, and the lives of others like him, a lot easier than it had been before. Although nothing compared to the taste of blood right from the source, he tried to restrain himself to once a month.
He considered himself a benevolent philanthropist really. He was ridding the city of those who seemed to be looking for death; prostitutes and junkies, those who seemed to be unhappy with their life and already on the road to ruin. Eric was just giving them what they sought.
Eric walked into his night club 20 minutes later, his commanding presence parting the crowd. He had ceased breathing at the door, the scent of desperation and sweat stuck at the back of his throat and made him want to be violently ill, although he had no gag reflex anymore. Funnily enough, the vermin he preyed on smelled better than this herd of unwashed pests. At least the ones he paid attention to were worth a good fuck now and again. They served a purpose, and so he allowed them to live.
The thumping music was drowned out by his office walls as he closed the door behind him, taking in a deep breath of fresh air that was somehow deliciously scented. Apparently while he was feeding, his first appointment for the night had shown up.
"Hello Mr Northman" the blonde woman stood, and held her hand out "I'm Sookie Stackhouse. I'm with the FBI. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."
"My pleasure Ms. Stackhouse" Eric smiled. The woman was well made, curves in the right places, blonde hair, big blue eyes, large breasts and most importantly a delectable smell that made his fangs itch. "How can I help you?"
"Well Mr Northman," she started.
"Eric. Please call me Eric," he interrupted. Although it wouldn't be the situation he desired, it would at least be his name passing her lips.
"Thank you," Sookie said with a blush. "As I was saying, Mr Northman," she continued, ignoring the invitation. She knew his kind; arrogant, narcissistic and elitist, therefore not her type. "I'm part of a task force that was put together to find a criminal who has been operating in your area."
"Yes, I've heard about that," Eric said, faking concern. "What can I do to help?"
"Well, we've been able to piece together that all the victims have been vagrants and troublemakers from this area," Sookie replied. "I was wondering if you had security footage we could view. We have been approaching all the local businesses to see if it might help give us a firmer grasp on our culprit. We're hoping someone's system might pick up how or where our predator and victims meet."
"I'd be only too happy to help, of course," Eric said, clicking on a few things on his computer. "I have it all routed into my computer so I can monitor from home. I'll just put the current footage onto a disk for you"
Sookie watched the man move around his office. There was a place for everything and everything in its place. If not for the disarray of his desk, she would have thought he had OCD. He was obviously superficial, he had the best of everything, he was glib and the concern he had faked earlier never reached his eyes. In short, Eric Northman was showing the classic signs of being a psychopath.
She knew as soon as she had walked into his office that she was on the right track, the scent only confirmed it. The earthy smell that rose after rainfall marked this man, as it had his victims. Sookie knew that they had all been in contact with him shortly before they died. She just didn't know how to prove it.
She knew they hadn't been touched sexually and there were no wounds on the body to explain the reason they were almost entirely drained of blood. There was only the faint scent of earth that somehow lingered, even after the body had been cleaned up and autopsied. And here was a living, breathing man who had the same scent clinging to him. He had to be involved somehow.
Sookie reached out with her mind and stifled a gasp. He was a complete blank. There was nothing from his mind at all, no colours, sound, or pictures. He was like a cool void in the halls of her mind. She knew she had lowered her shields properly because she could hear or sense patrons outside the office. Although, after a more detailed scan she picked up other voids in the crowd, just as cool and blank as the man in front of her. She slammed her shields back into place and rearranged her features as he turned back to her.
Eric considered the woman in front of him, she was certainly attractive, and her scent was beckoning to his inner beast. Although he had just fed, he was suddenly ravenous for the taste of this woman's blood. He wondered what she was; she was too delicious for shifter or Were, he knew all of his own kind in the area – so she wasn't vampire, daemons smelled more like brimstone than the vanilla bean and jasmine wafting from her and she was too short to be fae. However, part fae was a possibility … a definite possibility.
"So, Ms. Stackhouse," Eric purred, "are you from around here? I haven't seen you before."
"I work strange hours Mr. Northman," Sookie smiled tightly. "I don't have much time for … clubs"
Eric chuckled to himself, she was certainly interesting. She wasn't afraid of him, although he had sensed a slight tension while he was moving around. It seemed that she returned to her relaxed state soon afterward.
The recordable DVD popped out of the computer in front of him, signalling the footage requested had been copied successfully. Eric slid it, along with his business card, into a paper sleeve and handed it to Sookie with a predatory smile. He would have to do some investigating of his own, he decided, as she stood to leave.
"Thank you for your time, Mr. Northman" Sookie said, holding out her hand to shake his.
"You're most welcome, Ms. Stackhouse" Eric smiled, taking the hand offered "I hope we see each other again sometime. Under better circumstances, of course."
Eric leaned over the small hand in front of him and brushed his lips across it, breathing in her scent as he did so. He revelled in the sensation of her skin against his lips and the heat that rose from it. He smirked as he heard her suck in a quick breath, obviously surprised by his action, and her response to it. Her scent heightened as she blushed hotly, her cheeks filling with a gorgeous pink that made Eric want to lock her in his dungeon and keep her there for hours.
Sookie turned and left the room abruptly, her hand tingling where he had kissed it, and her face burning with embarrassment. Sookie felt that something was not right. There was something about him was not right. Why couldn't she sense any of his thoughts? Why had he seemed to breathe deeper as he kissed her hand? This man required more investigation.
Weeks later Sookie was no closer to finding information on the rash of killings. Another one had turned up the night she was at Northman's club. She knew he had something to do with it, but none of the footage that had been offered had turned anything up. She had been going mad trying to figure out why she couldn't pick anything up from his thoughts and resolved to go back to the club that night. She was going to get to the bottom of this if it killed her.
After an unsuccessful meeting with Chief Bellefleur, who got on Sookie's case for investigating the club owner on her own, Sookie decided to chance it one more time.
She pulled into the parking lot at Northman's club and scanned the crowd before getting out of the car. Some of the minds of people in the line at the door had little cold blank spots in their memories. There were fuzzy edges on the memories of what happens inside the club. Although this could be caused by too much alcohol, which could also muddle memories of what happened after they left for the night. They were obviously still alive, but Sookie couldn't help wondering if it had anything to do with the owner and his irregular mind.
As she got out of the car and headed toward the building, Sookie picked up a fuzzy kind of bliss coming from an alley at the back of the building. Checking to make sure her gun was handy, she grasped the cool metal, the weight reassuringly solid in her hand. Sookie took a deep breath and mentally kicked herself for not waiting and letting the Chief organize a partner to help with reconnaissance. She walked around the back of the building, and couldn't help the gasp that escaped her throat, attracting attention to herself at the worst possible time.
Eric Northman had been so distracted by the Stackhouse woman that he hadn't been able to stomach his normal feeding selection for the last few weeks. The memory of her scent taunted him when he tried to feed, only visualizing her silken skin surrendering beneath his fangs had made the other humans palatable, the bagged blood had done nothing for him at all other than slightly quench the ache in his throat.
He knew he had become somewhat sloppy over the last few days. He began taking his pets out to the alley for a quick feed, and if he had enough time, a fuck, before glamouring away the memory of the incident. He kicked himself for being so careless, but he couldn't resist. Once the memory of her scent was lodged in his brain, the only thing he could concentrate on with any kind of clarity was getting her soft curves beneath him and her intoxicating blood down his throat.
Eric had taken the same risk tonight, glamouring a regular patron, and leading her out into the alley as soon as the night was underway. Ms. Stackhouse wasn't the only one performing an investigation. During his careful probing, Eric learned a great deal about the agent, including how good she was and what information she was able to uncover on his feeds from this year. He was remiss if he didn't gather personal information, as well. It seemed that this angelic Sookie Stackhouse, vision of love and beauty, could not be underestimated.
Just this evening, he had woken with the scent of Sookie Stackhouse in his nose after having stolen some laundry from her washing line the night before and taking it to his chamber when the sun drove him to rest.
He had just started to feed when he heard someone come around the corner of the building. He pulled away from the neck of the blood-bag in front of him to growl at the intruder. His fangs were fully extended and blood coated his lips, it took him less than a second to realise that his attention had been taken from a sloppy stand in to the real deal. Sookie Stackhouse was frozen at the corner of the building, and staring at him.
In mere seconds, Eric healed the marks on the vermin in his arms and moved to clamp a hand over Sookie's mouth, pulling her against his body. He captured her eyes with his own and pressed at her mind with his influence. She would be his, Eric promised himself; he would take her from here right now and lock her in his 'playroom.' She would bend to his will and her memories would be wiped when he'd had his fill.
Sookie was stunned into immobility by the scene before her, not only was the man a killer, but a real vampire. Her mind was screaming at her to run away, but before she could get her legs to move she was pulled against his body. She tried to fight but his arm was a band of steel around her waist and his hand covered her mouth so that she couldn't scream either. Terror ran its icy fingers down her spine as she realised she might not be alive in a few more minutes.
Eric purred at the sensation of Sookie struggling against him, and started pressing at her brain with his will. His fangs started itching again at the thought of sinking them into her neck and he groaned with want as her scent washed over them both. As he lowered his mouth to her neck she started screaming against his hand. He pulled back to stare at her again wondering how had she resisted his influence.
"What are you?" Eric murmured before knocking her unconscious.
Realizing that this situation needed to be addressed in a more secluded and secure location, Eric picked Sookie up and placed her in his car. He slid into the driver's seat and called his bar manager, Long Shadow, to let him know that he was leaving for the evening.
Looking over at the agent sitting next to him, Eric knew he was in unchartered territory. As he began mulling over his next step, the most delicious aroma permeated his car interior. He looked over at Sookie and thought of how many years it had been since he had the opportunity to delight in the flavour of fae.
"Centuries." Eric said allowing his fangs to descend.
Eric noted a trace of blood collecting near her temple and without a second thought he extended his tongue and licked the wound clean. In that instance, he knew that if he ended her here he would also be ending his chances of finding someone else that tasted as divine as she did. Whatever his next step was, Eric realized that this unknown suspect had turned his life upside-down.
"Now this will be entertaining" Eric said to himself with a smirk.
He shifted the car into gear, and sped off into the night.