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The room was small with no windows and there was a bookshelf and filing cabinets and a sword hanging on the wall. Eric was sitting behind a big wooden desk. There was a computer on the desk, a stack of papers and for some inexplicable reason, a bottle of hot sauce. What in the world did a vampire need hot sauce for? Maybe this wasn't a good time to let my mind wander, I thought, and focused back on Eric. He was as beautiful and as intimidating as I remembered him. He nodded towards a chair in front of me and I sat down.
"So, this is the telepath?" he said to Godric, who had stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "I wonder if she tastes as delicious as she smells." He looked at me like he was ready to devour me. His fangs were out too, and that sure contributed to making the whole devouring thing very much a possibility. I was in a small closed room at the back of noisy bar with two vampires who seemed to be convinced that I was some kind of delicacy. How easy would it be for them to jump me and drain me dry? My heart started racing and it felt like it was going to jump out of my chest.
"Eric, behave. You are frightening our guest." Godric said and Eric's fangs disappeared. His smile was so much nicer without the fangs.
"I apologize, Miss Stackhouse. It's been a long time since I've been around your kind. I get a little excited." Oh ok, I really didn't need to know that, whatever it meant. "Don't you know what you are, Miss Stackhouse?" Eric asked and looked at me like he was expecting an answer.
"Well, I'm a waitress," I told him. Eric and Godric both smiled.
"Yes, but what else are you, Sookie?" Godric asked. They already knew so no need to beat around the bush.
"I'm a telepathic waitress, I guess." Suddenly I felt the same strange sensation as I had felt last night, except much stronger. I was really losing my patience with these two.
"Could you please stop that," I blurted out. Both vampires just stared at me.
"What would you like us to stop doing, Sookie," Godric asked me.
"Whatever it is you're doing that's making my forehead itch."
"You can feel that?" Eric asked.
"Yes, I can feel it and it's annoying so knock it off."
"She really doesn't know" I heard Godric say to Eric. Know what?
"Sookie, apart from your telepathy, do you have any other gifts?" Godric asked. Any other gifts? What was he talking about? "Can you do anything else that is not normal for humans?"
"No, I can't," I said impatiently. I was getting annoyed with all these questions they were asking me, when I had come here to ask my questions of Eric. "Apart from my telepathy, I'm real normal. But that's not what I came to talk about. I wanted to ask you about Dawn."
"Yes, so Godric said. You want to know if I have your friend chained up in my basement." The big smirk on Eric's face really made me want to kick him somewhere he would remember. "I did in fact, but I can assure you she quite enjoyed it."
"What does that even mean?" I was really getting exasperated now, another good word of the day. "Does that mean you fed on her? That you had sex with her? What did you do to her?"
I was really on a roll here. "Did you kill her?" The last question just fell out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Oh yes, definitely on a roll here. Now would probably be a real good time to stop.
In an instant Eric was around the desk, towering over me like a raging giant. I realized I had never actually seen him standing up before and he was even taller than I expected. He was at least 6'4 or 6'5 and every inch of him was currently tense and ready to attack me. Great. Much help I was going to be to Dawn or Jason if I was ripped apart by an angry vampire. I closed my eyes and started praying. This was how I was going to die.
"Eric, stop." I heard Godric say and thought to myself, how sweet of him to try to help me. Godric was only a bit taller than me, maybe 5'5 or 5'6 and he wasn't exactly built like Eric. He was slight and almost fragile-looking and he wouldn't stand a chance against Eric in a fight. I just hoped Eric wouldn't attack him once he was done with me. This whole mess was my fault after all and had nothing to do with Godric.
I opened my eyes and saw that Eric had taken a step back. He was still staring angrily down at me, but his body seemed more relaxed, like it was no longer poised to rip my throat out. As far as developments went, this was a really good one. Then he started to speak.
"To answer your questions; yes, I have tasted her. I also fucked her. I did not however, as you so helpfully implied, kill her. Hiding a body is far too much trouble these days and besides, she was enjoyable. I wouldn't have minded having her back for more." Oh, ok then. Good to know.
"I can assure you that when she left here at dawn, she was perfectly fine. Maybe a little worse for wear," there was that annoying smirk again "but very satisfied." Ok, so never mind that Dawn was missing and presumed dead, the important thing here was that the sexual prowess of this annoying, self-centered mass of dead flesh was not to be doubted. I didn't actually say this out loud though. If the past couple of minutes had taught me anything, it was that letting my mouth run away with me in front of this vampire was not conducive to my survival.
"God, that man is so full of himself!" I fumed. For the second time this week, I was sitting in Godric's car while he drove me home. "How can you stand to be around him? Why are you friends with him? I really appreciate you standing up to him for me like you did, though you probably shouldn't have. He could have hurt you too."
"Don't worry, Sookie, Eric wouldn't hurt me. And I would never let him hurt you."
"That's real sweet Godric, but I seriously doubt anyone could stop Eric if he wanted to hurt me. Or you, for that matter."
Godric chuckled to himself. "Sookie, what do you know about vampires? About how we come into existence?" I had seen a documentary about this on TV, so I knew exactly how it was done.
"Well, a vampire has to drain a human and replace his blood with his own. Then he buries him and after three days the human wakes up as a vampire."
"That's right," Godric said. "And the vampire who makes the other is his maker. In our culture, there are very few things stronger than the bond between a maker and his child. When your maker commands you to do something, you have to do it. It's a compulsion. The power a maker has over his child is something you can't even begin to imagine, Sookie."
I was starting to understand what Godric was trying to tell me. "Oh my god, Eric is your maker? You have to do exactly what he says? I'm so sorry!" For the second time tonight, Godric burst out laughing at something I had said.
When he was done amusing himself at my expense, he took his eyes off the road and turned to me. "Eric is not my maker, Sookie. I am his."
Wow, I really hadn't expected that. "Really? But how is that even possible? He is so much bigger than you are!" Godric chuckled. I noted to myself that he did that a lot and that I liked it. It was kind of sweet and it made me smile. And even I had to admit that what I'd said made no sense. It's not as if Godric had given birth to him or anything. But it's just seemed so crazy that this sweet, gentle boy had created that big scary vampire.
"You made Eric a vampire? When? Why?" Maybe I was pushing it with my questions; it wasn't any of my business after all. I was just going to apologize for being nosy when Godric answered me.
"I was as old as Eric is now when I made him."
"Really? How old is Eric?" I interrupted. I expected him to say 50, maybe 100 years old. I had heard that vampires could be even older than that, but I could imagine that those vampires would be so old and tired that they wouldn't really come out into the world much.
"Eric is about 1000 years old, give or take a few decades." Oh wow. Not exactly what I expected to hear.
"So Eric is your son?" I asked. I really couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Godric was 2000 years old and the father of that big brute of a vampire.
"In a manner of speaking, yes. In other ways, very much not," Godric answered.
"What does that mean?" I had so many questions; I might as well start there.
"Sookie, I made Eric. I taught him how to be a vampire. But he was very much an adult when I turned him."
"I made Eric because I was lonely," he continued. "For a thousand years I never turned anyone. Becoming a maker is a big step in a vampire's existence. Many never make that commitment. Attaching another being to ourselves for eternity is not a decision most of us take lightly. I had been looking for a child for several decades when I found Eric. I followed him for months before I decided that he was the one. And when I finally made the decision, he was almost taken away from me before he was even mine."
Godric told me how Eric had been wounded in a battle and he had turned him while he was dying. He told me how they had spent centuries together before Eric decided to strike out on his own. He told me that in his 2000 years on earth he had never loved anyone as much as he loved Eric. It was touching to hear Godric talk about his love for Eric, but it was also a little strange. From what I'd heard vampires were secretive creatures and they weren't exactly prone to pouring their hearts out to humans, especially a human they'd only known for a couple of days. But here Godric was, doing exactly that.
Almost as if he knew what I was thinking he said, "Sookie, the reason I'm telling you this is that I want you to know that even though Eric might seem imposing, he is good at heart. He is fiercely loyal to those he cares for. He can be kind and protective and loving. "Loving? That big brute?
"Please keep that in mind. If you need something and you cannot find me, you must go to Eric. He will provide you with anything you need."
That was quite an interesting offer, but why would I need anything from Eric? Or Godric for that matter? I tried to express this to Godric as diplomatically as I could, telling him that as much as I appreciated his kindness I was fine on my own and didn't need help from anyone. We had been parked in front of my house for several minutes now and I opened the car door to get out.
Godric walked me to the door and as I was about to open it he grabbed my hand and whispered, "Something is wrong, Sookie. Invite me in."