Chapter 2 : The Black House

It had been three months since Sookie's disappearance and Eric tried just about everything to find her. He was still haunted by the fight they had the last time they spoke. He had broken her heart, even if it was with the truth. He did not feel her presence since that night. She had simply vanished. He had hired detectives, werewolves couldn't track her scent. He looked for her in three other states where she had distant relatives - relatives that didn't even know Sookie Stackhouse existed. Eric did not like not having the answers. One thousand years on this earth, and nothing had quite puzzled him like this. He knew she was still alive, he didn't know how he knew, but he knew. She had to be.

This deep rabbit hole he fell in looking for her had brought Eric to fucking-nowhere-ville Vermont. He flew over the woods, trying to find a "Black Victorian house by Shelton Lake" as per Doctor Ludwigs instructions. He had paid out of his ass for this information. Apparently this really old witch was the industry's best at tracking. She was literally his last hope.

He was almost getting tired from flying when something caught his eye: square lights coming from a shadow over a small clearing. That must be the house. As he landed in the woods, he decided to do a lap around the house to make sure there were no traps, and maybe to find out how many witches lived here. He didn't know much about witches, he had never met one. But he had heard plenty of stories that they were not to be trusted, and they didn't trust vampires either. The lights were on, and Amy Winehouse blared through the windows. Behind the house was the lake, and off to the side there was a small wooden chicken coop and the leftovers of a vegetable garden. There was one red mini cooper parked out front, and no other tire tracks. A meticulous garden was planted all around the house. The house looked a bit intimidating, being all black. Shingles, roof and windows and trimmings.

Eric grew nervous as he approached the black porch. Witches were dangerous creatures. No vampire was exactly sure of what they were capable of, all he knew is that real witches were rare these days. Some humans had a drop of magic in them, but that was about it. As the saying went, you could only trust a witch as far as you could throw her. He assumed it wouldn't be very far, he never tried. The somewhat sheer curtains were drawn in, so Eric couldn't make out much from the outside. Gentle wind chimes swayed on the porch spandrel. He looked for a bell, but there was none. Stiffening his back, he knocked. Amy Winehouse continued singing, but there was no movement. He knocked again. There's no way there is no one home. He walked around the porch, trying to peak. He doubled check the lack of bell. He knocked again, and after a second he heard floorboards creak inside. The sound of several deadbolts clicking and clacking echoed in the porch, and the door swung open.

A fair skinned woman opened the door. She wore only a black satin strappy dress that went past her knees and no shoes. She had smooth and long black hair, plump lips and big blue almond shaped eyes. She was absolutely stunning Eric thought.

"Are you a stripper?" She asked with a warm voice and a smile.

Eric blinked. He was a what?

"Uhm. No."

"Aw that's too bad." She giggled. There was something so seductive in her smile. It was carefree.

"I could be, if you invite me in." This is not where he saw the night going, but Eric could not resist the temptation. All it took for her to be naked right now was those two thin dress straps and this stupid door.

Slowly her smile faded and her gaze focused on the wind chimes. She stepped aside and fused in the piece of furniture beside the door, looking for something, rustling papers and oddities.

"Fuck where did I put the -" she muttered. Eric didn't quite know how to respond. "Ah!" She stood again in the door frame with a tiny key sized silver bell. She shook it gently.

Its high pitched ringing vibrated through every bone in Eric's body, and it was mildly painful. His fangs descended angrily. That must have been a magic bell, and Eric remember why he didn't trust witches.

The witch stiffened up and her smile was gone. Gently she put the bell back down on the table, and her other hand touched the door. Her eyes went dark, she was ready to slam the door shut.

"I would like to hire you for your services." He said quickly and the small witch froze still.

"What do you want." She grunted.

"I need you to track someone." He paused. "And I'm willing to pay good money for you to find her." Her brows raised. He continued "She disappeared two months ago, in Louisiana."

"Walk around back." she shut the door, and he could hear the floor creaking away. He did as instructed. He walked around the black house, passing the car and the vegetable garden, and walked on in the little deck off a sunroom. She appeared in the sunroom a second later, and opened a set of french doors. In the sunroom had a small sitting room surrounded by a jungle of plants, just off a kitchen. It looked really cozy in there. She pulled a wicker arm chair closer to the door frame.

"I would love to sit down, but you'll have to invite me in."

"Ha!" She let out a fake laugh. She sat down and motioned for him to sit on a wooden Adirondack chair out on the deck. "Over my dead body I invite a vampire in this house."

Eric's forearm rested on the doorway, and he looked down on the pretty witch sitting in front of him, feet tucked under herself. He could hear noises from the kitchen but saw nobody. His voice smoothed as he tried to draw her eyes in his. He would glamour his way in.

"You want to invite me in Raven Blackwood."

"Dude, sit the fuck down." she ordered curtly. Then, feeling rather annoyed, he complied. Glamouring did not work on witches - noted.

"So, tell me about who got away vampire."

"A friend."

"Go on."

A flying mug came slowly floating out of the kitchen, steam coming out of it. She gently caught its ear and nestled it in her lap.

"Sookie Stackhouse, from Bon Temps Louisiana. She is 26, waitress, about five foot five, blonde, brown eyes, a solid C cup-"

"Did you love her?" she interrupted.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he replied.

"Interesting," she took a sip of her tea. "did you, say, feed her your blood?" She asked curiously.

"Yes. And I had hers. But I can't feel her anymore." Her eyes landed on the floor, as she sipped more tea. "I know she's alive, I just.. Can't find her."

"Have you tried -"

"Private eyes, werewolves, enemies, relatives, yes." he interrupted.

"Okay." she raised her brows. "But I am very expensive."

"How about forty thousand dollars?" he asked. She hid behind her mug for a moment.

"People who can only give me money, are actually quite poor."

What? That didn't even make sense, Eric thought. Money powered everything, moved everything, fixed… almost everything.

"How about your fangs!" She smirked. Eric stood up at once. That wasn't funny even if it was a joke. "Come on! I'm two ingredients away from Witch Bingo! They grow back…"

"Fifty thousand dollars or I walk."

"Fine, fine, Jesus. Sit." She looked outside. A crescent moon was up in the skies, shining on the still lake water. The shore far away was sparsely dotted with houses. Eric could only make out the silhouette of the trees around her house. In the forest, pitch black. "I'll take your stupid money, but I will need something of her".

Eric opened his leather jacket zipper and pulled out a clear bag from the inside pocket. He threw it by her chair. Inside the bag was a photo of Sookie with her dumb brother from three Thanksgivings ago, and a used hair brush. Both items stolen by glamouring the same dumb brother.

"That will do." a little pink piglet came down running from the kitchen and sniffed around the bag.

"Is that how you track people? With a pig?" he asked curiously. Was he about to give a a walking sausage fifty thousand dollars to track Sookie Stackhouse?

"That pig is Lucifer." she stated, watching the pig runaway with the bag in its snout.

Eric wasn't sure if he should ask if the piglet is … the real Lucifer, or just named Lucifer. With Raven, he felt more out of place than a fish out of the water. She took another long sip of her tea.

"Come back tomorrow at sundown. I will have your answer by then."

Eric cocked an eyebrow. He's been almost three months at this, and this chick can do it in a day? She inspected inside her mug and twisted it around, looking focused at the bottom. She looked away, putting the mug back down in her lap, with a wrinkle between her brows.

"You okay?" Eric asked..

"It's going to rain tomorrow." She quickly showed him the bottom of the mug, covered in specs of tea leaves. He couldn't make out any shapes, but she quickly placed the mug on a side table.

"There is an app for that you know." he said and she gave a sad smile. Eric got up.

"What's your name?" she asked, also getting up.

"Eric Northman."

"Alright, Eric Northman." she grabbed the french doors, ready to close them. "You will have your answer by tomorrow."

"And you will have a very rich pig." He flew straight up, basking in the cold November moonlight.


Next morning Raven woke up earlier than usual. She tried to fall back asleep in her big bed, but no avail. Her mind was on the very very handsome vampire. He was much taller than her, with piercing blue eyes and short dirty blonde hair. He had wide shoulders but a slender build. And his voice, his voice could melt a siren. He looked like he walked straight out of a men's cologne commercial. He was pure sex, but in human form. Well, kinda. She remembered her drunk ass asking him if he was stripper and a wave of embarrassment drowned her. She sees one hot guy and that was the first thing she said.

"GOD I am so lame" she whined. In her defense, she thought Emilia sent him.

Little Lucifer twitched in his dreams, but he was still fast asleep at her feet. She was growing attached to the little ball of pink already. Elijah was definitely trying to soften her cold witch heart, and it was definitely working. She didn't know what was worse, her father getting into her head, or a vampire.

She went to the kitchen hoping for coffee, but all she encountered was her tea mug from last night, sitting on the island.

"I know!" she blared to the house. "The alligator on the tea leaves! You don't have to tell me twice!" She could feel the floor slightly tremble from the boiler downstairs and it echoed all the way to the upstairs. She washed the mug in the sink. "Can I get my coffee now?" she muttered.

To the house's credit, the alligator on your tea leaves is not a good omen. It means someone in your life is going to yield problems, and they are coming your way. Concealed enemies, traps and treachery are upon us, etc, etc. Although divination was always incredibly vague, and not really exact magic.

She left the kitchen and went into the study. This was her favourite room in the house, and it was also the biggest. It had fourteen foot tall ceilings, one wall fully covered in bookshelves, from the floor all the way up. There was a big oak dining table in the middle, with a lonely armchair tucked in. There was a large pentagram carved right in the center. On the other two walls, the shelves were covered in dusty jars, boxes and containers with the most varied potion ingredients. From crystals, rocks, and sand from remote areas of the world, leaves and roots of exotic plants, dried flowers and fruits that had long gone extinct, small bones and hairs of several magical creatures, it was too many to list. By the window was a cabinet topped by a stone counter, where her cauldron sat.

She walked to the cabinet and started pulling up maps. Tracking people wasn't that hard really, you just needed good maps to show where were. She unrolled her United States map onto the table, and grabbed four quartz crystals to hold down each curly corner down. She opened the clear bag Eric gave her and examined the photo. In it was a blonde tanned woman, with an easy laugh (although, a gap tooth) hugging a blond man, judging by the resemblance, her brother. Raven wandered what this woman meant for Eric. Probably a lot, considering how much he was willing to pay to find out.

But it wasn't the photo she needed. She grabbed the hair brush and with a pair of tweezers she pulled a single strand of blonde hair. Raven gently placed it in a black ceramic bowl. She walked over to her ingredient shelves and added a clear crystal and some myrrh to her bowl. She lit candles around map. First she needed to create a Sookie pawn. It was a magic magic that would represent her energy on this plane, and then the pawn would move onto her location on the map with the correct spell. Easy peasy.

She placed her bowl in the middle of the pentagram carved on the old oak, she said the spell.

"Spirity alligandi carnis lapidi"

There was a burst of flame from the bowl, much taller than usual and she stood back in reflex. Shit I'm out of practice she thought. The fire subsided and left in the bowl was a small golden opal cone and the ashes of myrrh. The crystal had successfully transformed. Her coffee came floating from the kitchen. She took a sip and sat it down on the table quickly before placing the pawn at the bottom of her map.

"Alright, let's see where you're hiding miss Stackhouse."

She spoke the second spell.

"Haec ipsa dea noctis quaerere, hoc corpore saxum, locum tuum revelare."

Nothing happened. The opal cone stood still at the edge of her table. Confused, she repeated the spell louder. Again, nothing happened.

"She must have left the country." She said surely as she went back to the cabinet to fetch her full world map. She set it on the table and adjusted her quartz weights on the corners. She repeated the location spell, and once again, nothing happened. She stood still for a second and pondered. Dead perhaps? She thought. Clients usually didn't want to pay when she told them who they were looking for had left the building. But then again, clients where usually unhappy with any answer she gave them, really. But she had to confirm. She went to the cabinet once more and grabbed a black map.

"Realm of the dead" she read. The map was medium sized, with gold leaf letters as a title and it had nothing else on it. The dead realm was uncharted, this was just a formality to check if someone was alive. She repeated the spell one more time but the pawn still wouldn't move.

Am I doing this wrong? Where the fuck has this woman gone? Never in her life she had to look any further. Raven gave Eric Northman some credibility. She was nowhere on earth, and not dead.

"She has to be somewhere!" She exclaimed. Raven paced past the kitchen and opened the door to the basement, and ran downstairs.

The basement was quite large, it had many rooms like a cold pantry, a room for gardening supplies, a cellar, a boiler room, the safe, guns and ammo (she lived in the modern days after all), and magic storage room, for all the stuff she couldn't fit in study. This room and some of the others had magic lock on it. She opened it with a quick spell and stumbled in the dark room trying to find the light switch. She only hit her shin bone twice before finding it. The room was dusty and very crowded.

"I need to make this room bigger" she thought out loud.

Space bending spells were complicated, but nothing she hadn't done before. This whole house was much much bigger on the inside that it actually was on the outside. Ruffling through boxes and old luggage bags filled with magical crap, it took her sometime until she found what she was looking for: the little blue velvet pouch that contained the nine realm stones. She had these stones to make portals, but in a bind this will have to do. She left the basement and ran back to her study. She rolled her maps to the side and set the gemstones in a circle, with Sookie's pawn in the middle. Each gemstone represented a realm: the Living realm, the Dead, No Place, Purgatory, Eden, Edom, Green Meadow, Eternal springs and the Enchanted Kingdom. The living realm was of course, this one. The Dead realm, or Shadow world, was where most spirits went to afterlife, No Place was where Gods or demiGods lived, purgatory is a dark never ending forest where monsters are banished to. Eden and Edom are in a way, heaven and hell, but only angel and demons lived in there. Green Meadow is the realm of elves and dwarves, Eternal Springs is the realm of nymphs, and the Enchanted Kingdom was the real of faeries.

"Let's see where is Sookie hiding." She had already looked in two of the nine realms, but the odds that she would be in any of the other seven were like 8 million to one. If her father were here he would have a laughing fit that she would even be looking for a human in these places but here she was. She took a deep breath and repeated the words.

"Haec ipsa dea noctis quaerere, hoc corpore saxum, locum tuum reve-"

The gold opal cone stuck to the purple amethyst before she even finished the spell.

Sookie Stackhouse was in the Enchanted Faerie Kingdom.


Eric landed on Raven Blackwood's back deck 13 minutes past sundown, eager to see what fifty thousand dollars in a duffel bag bought him. Her sunroom french doors were wide open and she stood by her kitchen island in a different black satin strappy dress and a knitted long cardigan. She had long, beautifully pale legs. She looked so peaceful eating dinner alone. Eric's mouth wanted her blood.

"Evening" he said.

She did a quick jolt, looking up at him. Eric secretly loved scaring humans. She then looked at a mysterious face.

"You left some key details out." she stated, not moving away from her plate.

She went straight to business, then so would he.

"Where is she Raven?"

She smiled and walked towards the door, but stayed just far enough he couldn't reach her. She just looked at him with her big blue eyes.

"Where is she?" he repeated. He felt a pit in his throat. He was so close.

"She is faerie Eric."

Eric guessed he should have seen this coming. Raven probably figured out from the hair he gave her. It was a calculated risk, having someone else know Sookie's secret. Bill was going to be so pissed.

"Raven where -"

"Money first." she demanded.

He threw a duffle bag at her feet. The zipper was open, so she could see all the Benjamins in there.

"Enchanted Faerie Kingdom." she reported unceremoniously.

"Where… Is that?"

"Faerie realm. It's another dimension."

He shook his head confused.

"How do you... How do I get there?" She blinked twice before answering.

"You can't. No one can, but faeries." she leaned against the open door. The moonlight shining right on her smooth perfect skin. "Specially a vampire. It's like fort knox there for your kind." Her answer did not satisfy him. It certainly didn't feel like a good use of fifty thousand dollars. "Does she love you?"

Why does she keep asking about love?

"No."

"Does she have loved ones?"

"Yes."

"Then she will come back Eric." she added softly.

"How do you know?" he walked towards the door as far as he could.

"Wouldn't you?"

He didn't know if he should answer. He would for Pam. He would for Godric. He guessed Sookie wouldn't leave Jason. God knows he's been at rock bottom, looking for her. He took a long disappointed sigh.

"She will back eventually. Time works differently there, it's much slower. If she's been gone two months, for her it's been like… five minutes." Eric didn't know what to do with this information. That means it could be centuries before she came back especially if she left because of what he told her about Bill."Lucky for you, you have all eternity."

"Lucky me." He couldn't hold back his lack of enthusiasm. He felt a rush of regret for doing that to Sookie. If what Raven told him was really true, by the time she came back, all her loved ones could be gone."Invite me in."

She took a step closer, and brought her scent with her. She smelled familiar, like snow in the forest, and icy salt water. Like home.

"Never." She said simply. She was right there, so close but he couldn't touch her. She had perfect collar bones. A neck perfect for biting. He felt guilty for doing what he did to Sookie, and he hated feeling human feelings. It was truly beneath him. He wanted to fuck Raven until the sun came up and forget ever asking where Sookie was. He wanted to forget Sookie completely. He wanted to touch her. He needed to, but he couldn't.

Not standing one more minute of this fucking torture, he flew away.


Authors notes:

Thank you to everyone who have read Chapter 1, and to everyone who followed/favourited u are the real MVPs. I'm so so grateful.

Most of story will be Raven's POV, but it will change once in a while to keep things interesting. I'm currently finishing Chapter 8, but have the rest of the story outlined. The probability of this story having more than "book" is high at this point. Although I'm a sucker for slow burn stories, Eric and Raven will get together in this book.

If you guys liked Eric in this chapter, oh boi there will plenty more of him in the next one ;)

Follow/Favourite and PLEASE REVIEW! Even if you don't like it, any feedback is good.

See u all next week

xoxo