Not a cheerful chapter I'm afraid. Sookie's in sombre mood. Sorry, folks, that's just the way it turned out; sometimes this stuff acquires a life of its own. As usual, all reviews gratefully received.

Chapter 10

The alarm on my watch went off, and I turned over in bed and sighed and stretched before reaching for my robe. I sat up and looked at my picture window, where the sun was setting over Swedish pine-forests. Sadly, that's exactly what it was – a picture, projected onto the wall. There were no windows in my suite. It was a great honour and all, being housed in the state apartments, but it did mean I was pretty short of sunlight. My tan was fading. I could have sunbathed in the grounds, but it was a public building during the day and there was no privacy, so last week Felipe had bought me my own sun-bed; he was very generous, I couldn't deny that. Having ruthlessly acquired my services, he felt he could afford to humour me, and gave me pretty much everything I asked for. Except permission to leave, or to see my friends.

That was one of the hardest things I had to cope with. There was no-one here who I could talk with about Eric. I missed him every day and every night, with a pain that was hard to describe. People who've had limbs amputated say that the missing part still aches even though it's not there. That's how I felt.

I sat up against the pillows, in the beautiful peach and white silk bathrobe Eric had bought me. I looked at my watch again. Although it was set to Swedish time, I'd grown used to automatically subtracting nine hours for local time. Closing my eyes, I concentrated with all my strength on the bloodbond and started sending Eric love and reassurance and love and hope and love, as I did every single night at the time of his rising. I didn't know how much got through; after two months and who knew how many thousand miles of distance our bond had faded almost completely. I prayed that he heard me, but in my heart I doubted it. I kept the focus up for a quarter of an hour, pausing every few minutes to see if anything came back, but there was nothing. The only hope I had was that Pam had assured me I would know if he died, but that was all. It wasn't much of an encouragement, to be honest.

I debated going and getting some coffee, but in the end decided that a few more hours' sleep wouldn't hurt. Over the last two months I had become pretty nocturnal. Luckily, working the late shift at Merlotte's had accustomed me to weird hours and my body-clock seemed to cope ok. I set my bedside alarm for six o'clock local time, curled back up under the covers and drifted off, to be woken by the beep.

I showered and dressed and tried to decide whether to order breakfast or go up to ground level and get it myself. I tried to get up there at least once a day. I didn't do much usually; just sat there and watched the humans (weird, I now thought of them as humans, not as people. I was spending way too much time with the vamps), but if I stayed on the lower levels, the mental silence there became more and more attractive and I found I began to shrink from going back upstairs. When I did, it was always like being punched in the head as I had to re-adjust to all the voices in my mind, and the longer I left it between visits, the worse it was. I decided to phone for breakfast and then go call in at the mailroom to see if there was anything for me. I occasionally got letters and postcards from friends, but they were all read by the security staff; My email was monitored too.

I ordered shirred eggs and pancakes and OJ from the canteen, and it arrived in less than ten minutes. As the highest-ranking human in the place, my orders got priority treatment. I ate quickly and then set the tray outside my door to be taken away. It would be spotted by someone on the surveillance cameras and they'd alert Domestic Services. Sometimes it was like living in a luxury hotel. There were days when the bars on my cage were almost invisible.

I headed for the elevators. As I left my suite, I smiled and said hi to the Were guards stationed along the corridor; I knew all their names. They all smiled and said, "hey, Mrs Northman." No-one called me Sookie any more, but I didn't mind. Every time they used my surname it gave me a tiny thrill; It was a connection to Eric.

I wasn't accompanied by a "bodyguard" any more, now that I was on staff, but there were surveillance cameras everywhere. Level five was pretty empty during daylight hours anyway apart from security and the people from Domestic Services. I'd tried speaking to some of the maids and cleaners, but they were pretty much glamoured up. Yet another security precaution. This was my biggest problem. All the VIVs (very important vampires) had their own apartments down here, including Victor, but there was no point trying to get in; Believe me, I'd tried, but the security was mega. Were guards everywhere, plus all the doors were electronically coded. It was kind of discouraging. I passed the state apartments. They were really impressive. Sometimes when I was bored I wandered through the huge, echoing throne room and the reception areas, looking at the artwork and the rich furniture; as the king's telepath I had an Access All Areas pass and nobody tried to stop me. Outside Level Five there was nowhere I couldn't go, and only one place I wouldn't go. Level One. I shuddered at the recollection of that hideous day when I had found Eric in that chrome-lined hell-hole. Well, I had bought his freedom at the price of my own, but at least my prison was mink-lined.

The mailroom was on level two, and I went and checked my pigeonhole. There was a postcard from Tara who was on holiday in the Maldives and a letter from Mr Cataliades, detailing some of his recent activities on my behalf. I left all of my (Eric's) property in his hands, and he kept me very well informed. Naturally, I had already willed it all straight back to Eric, and I was keeping it completely intact ready for the day when he could come home. I had also arranged for almost the entire income from his business empire to be forwarded to him through a complex series of cover companies which Mr Cataliades and the Eric's accountant had set up for me. The bank accounts were in my name, but Mr C was a signatory on them as well, so he could funnel whatever funds he liked wherever he liked. I didn't ask. What I didn't know, I couldn't tell.

The lawyer's letter had been opened, but it was completely harmless; just stocks and shares and property deals. I wandered to the elevator, up two levels, and went out into the grounds, where I headed down to my favourite spot by the pool. It wasn't completely private; someone came along the path every two or three minutes, but at least I was in the sun.

I sat and relaxed, watching the occasional reddish gleam in the water as the ornamental fish rose and turned and sank back into the cool depths. I read Tara's postcard again, and then just sat, turning the lawyer's letter over and over and over in my hands. As usual, although the letter had been produced on a computer, the envelope had been addressed by hand. Mr Cataliades liked the personal touch. I smiled and looked at the strong, sloping handwriting. Sloping? That was weird; it was his hand-writing, but it was usually really upright. I looked more closely. All the upstrokes were slanting strangely, towards the top right-hand corner of the envelope, towards the stamp.

I thought for a few minutes and then got up and slowly, casually, headed for the canteen. I ordered coffee, black, and took it to an empty table where I put it right in front of me. It was extremely hot and I had to wait for it to cool down. Meanwhile I sat and re-read the letter, very slowly and thoroughly, my elbows propped on the table either side of the cup. I was holding the envelope against the back of the letter, and the steam from the coffee was curling up round the edges of the paper as I read. It was also scalding my hand, but I gritted my teeth and left it in position for as long as I could stand it. Eventually, the pain became too much to bear and I put the letter down and sipped the drink, now much cooler.

As I did so, gazing round me at the other diners at the nearby tables, my left hand rested on the envelope, which was now on top of the papers. My fingers played with it idly, my nail scratching very gently at the edge of the stamp while my face stayed carefully blank. Loosened by the steam the edge of the stamp came up a little, and then a little more. I peeled it back as far as I dared, but couldn't risk going further, I didn't know who was watching. I finished my drink, gathered my letters and headed back to the elevators. I picked one of the ones that went all the way down to Level Five, inserted my card in the slot in the wall, and the light came on. When the doors slid open, the Were guard inside was on the alert, gun at the ready. He relaxed when he saw who it was. "Hey, Banjo," I said. He was called that because he just loved bluegrass music.

He smiled and said, "Five, ma'am?"

"Yup."

We chatted pleasantly on the way down, about how he was finding his new duties; he'd only recently been rotated to Royal Security from In-House, and he was finding a lot of it dull; you didn't see nearly as many people and there was a hell of a lot of waiting around, but the pay was good. You got huge bonuses for the unsocial hours.

The elevator pinged softly and I stepped out and made my way to my own suite, which was almost next door to the king's. He liked to have me nearby, just in case. It was hard not to hurry, but I wouldn't let myself. The surveillance cameras picked up every movement in the corridors and I did not want to look suspicious.

I unlocked my door with the keycard (My suite was just as secure as the vamps'; I was the only person apart from the maids who had that code) and went into my elegant living-room, tossing the letters casually on the coffee-table as I went to the bedroom to hang up my jacket. Another minor fly in my ointment was I had to dress smart at all times when not in my room; no slobbing about in sweatpants and T-shirt; not for the king's immediate retinue.

I remembered how mad I had been when Eric had once declared me part of his retinue when he was negotiating with the late queen over who would have the use of my services at the summit in Rhodes. As I recall, I had said, "Up you and your retinue!" and I'd called him "buddy." He'd hated that. I smiled reminiscently, as I remembered the outraged expression on his face and my eyes threatened to well up for a moment, but I forced the tears back. I didn't cry these days. Well, not much.

I glanced at my watch. Time was getting on, and it would soon be sunset. I changed my clothes, did my hair and make-up, made sure my pager was switched on, gathered up my papers (not forgetting Mr Cataliades' letter) and headed out to the gardens. The sun was just setting, and I hurried down to the little pool, where I sat on a bench that faced roughly east and closed my eyes for a few minutes just like I'd done every evening that I could for the last two months. I thought of Eric, and prayed he was thinking of me as he had promised, and then I went back inside and headed to the king's reception rooms. Right now, my duties weren't exactly tough. I attended the king's early evening audience, when he heard petitions, resolved disputes and greeted honoured guests, and then my time was my own provided I kept my pager on in case of a royal summons.

It wasn't always this easy; If the king travelled I had to go with him, and then my role was much more high-profile; he liked to show me off to the other vampire rulers, knowing that they were as envious as hell of him. With vamps it's not about having good stuff; it's all about having better stuff than everybody else, and Felipe had huge kudos because of me. I was like the human equivalent of Victor's stupid pen; a status symbol. He also liked knowing that the other rulers would all try and tempt me away from him, but that I couldn't leave no matter what they offered. I felt like a performing monkey as Felipe had me demonstrate my talents on command, and I always heaved a sigh of relief when we got back to Vegas. I was amazed at how much travelling he actually did. It seemed that all the vampire kings spent at least half their time visiting other monarchs, networking, checking out the opposition. He'd even made me get my first ever passport in case he went overseas. I kind of hoped he would; it was only America Eric couldn't enter, and I might able to find a way to see him, even if I couldn't speak to him.

Tonight, the king's visitors and guests were all gathered in the Gauguin room; a big reception area decorated in tropical colours and hung with reproductions of that artist's work. At least, I assumed they were reproductions; who knows? Felipe was real wealthy and real old. He might have known Gauguin personally, for all I knew. The humans and vamps shared the same room, but they kind of separated out naturally, vamps with vamps, humans with humans, except for a very few humans who belonged to the visiting vampires. They tended to stay close to their "owners." Jeez, I hated that word. Eric had never formally declared me "his", but he had never needed to. We knew we belonged to each other.

I smiled and greeted the Were guard, and he handed me my clipboard, listing tonight's guests and their official reason for the visit. Felipe liked me to run my mind over them before they were admitted, so that I could pick up any potential problems in advance. I went and sat near the other humans, and studied the list. The humans gathered near the bar and the coffee machines and the vamps near the TrueBlood fountains. They looked really gross. Eric had told me that most vamps, if they had to drink TrueBlood, preferred it from a fountain to the bottled stuff because the splashing oxygenated it, making it more like the real thing.

The humans didn't know I worked for the king, and even if they had, they wouldn't have believed I was doing what I was doing. Weird, the vamps knew exactly who I was and what I could do, even though I couldn't do it to them; the humans hadn't a clue. I let my mind range, picking up the young guy in the next seat. He was nervous, but a quick check revealed it was only because he was planning on visiting a casino after his interview, and he was under-age. As long as it wasn't one of our casinos, owned by Felipe, I had no problem with that.

I checked the woman pouring herself an espresso. She was just tired – she had had a long drive to get here, but she had been summoned to see the king about the "tribute" he was taking from her business. Takings were down, and she had been threatened by two of Felipe's enforcers, who didn't believe her story; they thought she was keeping money back. Her mind revealed that she was telling the truth.

As I read each mind there, I pencilled quick notes by their names, and when I had finished I left again and went round to a different set of doors, leading directly into the king's ante-chamber, where he prepared before going to the throne room to give audience. I nodded at the two Weres on duty, but didn't show my pass; they knew me. I knocked and pushed open the heavy cream doors.

This room was all cool blue and ivory tones. It was one of my favourites. There was a small group of vampires standing round the king, who was the only one seated. He looked round as I entered, and I curtseyed. Pam had shown me how before I left Shreveport, and I had gotten real good at it in the last two months; protocol said that I had to curtsey and address him as "your majesty" the first time I saw him each night, but after that I could just call him "sir." The vamps had to do quite a lot of bowing and scraping, but they were his subjects, and I was an employee.

He beckoned and I moved confidently towards the group, registering thankfully that Victor was not present. It was not that I was scared of him; I just found him a distraction, as I was constantly looking round for something sharp and wooden. He wasn't at court much these days; As expected, he had given up his job as lieutenant for Louisiana, and was now sheriff of Area Five, but for some reason it wasn't nearly as enjoyable (or profitable) as he had hoped.

At our council of war at Fangtasia, Pam had explained to me that there are very strict rules governing the appointment of a new sheriff. It only tends to happen when the old sheriff of an area is promoted, or moves somewhere else or, occasionally, is killed. All vampires under oath to the old sheriff are allowed to relocate with him or her, or if they choose to stay put they are given a year to decide whether to offer fealty to the new guy. It makes sense really; you've no way of telling if you can trust someone with your oath of loyalty and obedience until you've got to know them. Because of Eric's stupid conviction for treason, all his followers were released from their oath automatically, but none had yet signed on with Victor. This meant he was left with almost no-one to work with. He had expected that a lot of his underlings would relocate with him to Shreveport, but from what I heard almost everyone had opted to stay in New Orleans. How embarrassing was that? ! I guessed he wouldn't be needing his acceptance speech for the "Most Popular Vamp of the Year" award yet awhile.

Then he found he had virtually no assets either. All the vamps who ran businesses in Area Five and who had paid tribute to Eric for his protection and support were now keeping their profits, thank you very much. No oath of fealty; no tribute. Of course, they all still owed fealty to the king and so paid tribute directly to him like they always did, so Felipe was perfectly happy, but Victor was seriously cash-starved – no more Mont blanc pens for him for a while, I guess.

He didn't even have a suitable headquarters; Eric had always used Fangtasia, and Pam's first act as the new sole manager had been to bar Victor and any of his cronies who did decide to follow him. She had also ensured that the same thing applied to all of Eric's establishments. I hadn't realised just how much of Shreveport my honey owned, but when we had met with his accountant and examined the documents from his safes, I had discovered that he had at least a majority share in pretty much every all-night business in the city and a fair few of the daylight ones; dry-cleaners, take-aways, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, strip-joints, liquor stores, cinemas, taxicab-companies, security firms, gas stations, convenience stores, you name it. Pam or Mr C had personally visited every single one of them and told them in no uncertain terms that if they served Victor or his minions, their rent would double overnight and that would be the least of their worries. With Pam on their case, they had all taken the hint, and it meant that Victor had to send out of town if he wanted so much as a packet of Kleenex. He couldn't even gas up his car locally.

He had tried to set up his own firms, but he hated having to spend his own money, and without a whole load of capital you couldn't even start a business and somehow, the local vamps and their associates didn't seem to want to give him their custom.

He found that he was spending less and less time at court and more and more time in Shreveport trying to shore up his power. A big part of his problem was that Eric had always paid huge amounts of tribute to the king, as he owned so much, but now it was all mine and had been removed from the tribute set-up. I hadn't taken an oath of fealty to anyone. Felipe was certainly not willing to take a cut in his revenues (in fact, I had heard that one of the reasons Victor had been granted Area Five was because he had convinced the king that he could run it more profitably than Eric) and Victor didn't dare admit the problems he was having. He was having to make up the massive shortfall from his own pocket, to try and hide his difficulties, but I knew, and I'm pretty damn sure that Felipe did as well.

I was going to bleed him dry, excuse the expression.

When he did turn up in Vegas, He avoided me as much as possible, but occasional meetings were inevitable, when he always tried to behave as though nothing had ever happened between us. He had tried to launch a charm offensive, but as far as I was concerned, there was precious little charm and a hell of a lot of offensive. It had taken a lot of effort on my part not to just stake him outright. But my years of learning to conceal my emotions had come in real handy and I found my most effective weapon, once again, was silence. He couldn't stand it. I just looked at him blankly whenever he spoke to me, and then deliberately looked over at the king and then back at Victor. I got quite a kick out of watching him squirm. The king and the other vampires seemed to find it funny, too. What can I say? They had a weird sense of humour, he was none too popular.

The group of courtiers moved aside as I approached, and the king smiled. No fangs, so he wasn't mad. A good start to the evening. "Ah, Mrs Northman. You are looking very lovely this evening."

I smiled back. "Thank you, your majesty." Actually, he looked pretty gorgeous himself tonight, in his usual black suit with a frilled white shirt and red cummerbund and a real honest-to-goodness cape.

"Anything of interest tonight?"

I handed the king my clipboard. "No sir, everyone looks to be above-board. There was just one name I couldn't identify in the reception room." I pointed it out on the list. "Adelaide Cummings. She wasn't there."

The king looked at his chamberlain, who consulted the vamp next to him briefly and then said, "she is a legal administrator on the fourth level, sire, who is suspected of embezzling a small sum of money – eighty-five thousand dollars. (What? Small sum? Try not to gape openly, Sookie, it doesn't look real elegant). It was felt it would be more politic for your majesty to see her privately, in order not to unsettle our other guests. We do not wish to wash our dirty linen in public. She is currently being held in the Custody Suite, and will be brought down if you wish to see her."

My legs nearly gave way, but fortunately there was a chair nearby so I slid into it and clasped my shaking hands in my lap, while looking down to hide my expression. I could imagine the poor woman's terror, being in that foul place; I had seen enough of it to last me a lifetime. Several lifetimes. If she was found guilty, I knew what awaited her. My contract with the king specified that no-one I identified for him would be killed or tortured, but even so…I hoped desperately that she was innocent.

Felipe considered for a moment, and then said, "Very well. We will deal with this first. Bring her in." He looked at me. "Mrs Northman, are you ready?"

I looked up, smiling brightly. "Of course, sir." I had a good grip on myself now. A messenger was despatched to fetch Adelaide, and I put down my paperwork and flicked through a magazine on the coffee-table by my chair while I waited. It was called After Dark, a popular vampire glossy full of articles with titles like, "To Glamour or Not to Glamour– the Debate Rages On", "What Is Your Human Really Thinking? – Take Our Fab Quiz!" and "Forty Different Flavours – Your Verdict on the New TrueBlood Range". Cosmo for the undead.

There was a knock on the door and one of the guards opened it. Adelaide was brought in, and she was a terrified mess. She was shaking, and the guard was practically having to hold her upright. Her brown hair was a snarly tangle, her suit was crumpled and her pantyhose had a run in them.

She showed no sign of physical brutality, but my initial glance into her mind showed her fear. She was brought to stand at some distance from, and directly in front of, the king and I came and stood by her. She glanced at me fearfully and I smiled reassuringly. She didn't realise it, but she was lucky I was there. Felipe had found it far simpler to use me when dealing with humans rather than having people glamoured. Glamouring had its disadvantages. Bill always said it was a bit like losing stuff from a computer hard-drive. You could never be a hundred per cent sure that you had restored everything, so you never really knew what you had lost. Sometimes it could be something quite vital, and if you had to do it too often you lost some of the victim's personality. While this didn't worry the vampires, it tended to worry their employees and consequently they found it hard to recruit quality human staff. I was a lot more accurate and a lot less invasive, and a lot quicker, usually.

I took her hand, which made her jump, and then looked at the king and nodded.

He leaned forward in his chair and focussed his gaze on her. She paled. This tended to happen, even when you hadn't been accused of embezzling. The king was pretty damn scary.

"Mrs Cummings, do you know why you are here?"

Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Yes."

"You have been accused of embezzling money from the accounts for which you are currently responsible. Have you done so?"

She swallowed, and looked around desperately.

"No."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes."

"Mrs Northman, if you please." The king sat back in his chair and gestured for me to begin.

I shut my eyes and began to wade through the fog of terror that threatened to swamp her mind.

OhshitohshitohshitI'mgoingtogotoprisonwhat'sshedoing?howdidIgetintothismess?Whydoesn'tGloriareturnmycalls?''minside?OGodshe'ssetmeupbutI'?…

Oh crap. This was not good. A quick sort through her memories revealed that she worked in Accounts and had discovered that a woman she had thought of as a friend had been cooking the books. Because her friend had begged for a second chance and she was a genuinely nice woman, she had agreed not to report it for three days in order to give her "friend" time to replace the money. Instead, it appeared that this Gloria had done a runner with the eighty-five thousand dollars, and left Adelaide to take the heat. Gloria's creative accounting made it almost impossible to prove that it was not Adelaide who had taken the money.

The poor soul was terrified that at the worst she would be killed and at the best she would be fired, handed over to the human authorities and sent to prison. Her little boy Josh and her husband Matthew wouldn't see her again for a very long time. That was the worst of it for her; being separated from her family.

All this had taken only two or three seconds, and then I pulled back and opened my eyes. I looked at her and all I could see in her frightened gaze was the pain of knowing she was about to lose the people she loved. I knew what that felt like. Boy, did I ever.

I went back into her mind and looked for any clues as to where Gloria might have gone. I found that she liked winter sports. I let go her hand and told the king everything I had seen. He considered his options, and conferred with his chamberlain before turning back to the confused, frightened woman in front of him..

"Very well, Mrs Cummings. We accept your story, and that you were tricked by a woman you thought was your friend. You will repay the money that your misplaced loyalty has cost us, by monthly deductions from your salary, and as a precaution you will be transferred to a different department with immediate effect. You may take the rest of the night off, and tomorrow you will report to Records. They are in need of additional staff. Sergei," this to the chamberlain "see to it."

Then he ordered an immediate description of Gloria from her personnel file to be sent to all vampire kingdoms containing ski resorts and similar places. She might think she'd gotten away with it, but I knew different. She just couldn't run far enough. You couldn't rip vampires off and get away with it. No way.

Adelaide was staring at me in shock. She had no idea what was going on. All she knew was that she wasn't drained or in custody. The guard took her arm again and she left the room in a daze, looking back over her shoulder at me as the door closed.

The king dismissed the matter from his mind. Then he checked his watch and said, "Ah well, duty calls," and stood up. Immediately the other vamps formed up behind him and I collected my paperwork and took my place behind them. Although I was high-ranked for a human, I was still bottom of the totem pole when it came to the complicated vampire hierarchy. The chamberlain nodded to the Were guards, who swung open the double doors into the throne room and the king entered and took his seat on his throne, the rest of his retinue spreading out to their places. The nearer you were to the king, the higher up the vamp ladder you were, so there was always a lot of in-fighting and discreet pushing and shoving.

As for me, I knew my place. I moved to a desk which was at the side of the room, but well within view of Felipe. I arranged my documents and sat down ready to play spot-the-liar. The system we had figured out was a real simple one, but it worked. While he was talking to other vampires, I could do what the hell I liked, but all the while he was interviewing humans, I sat real still. I pretended to be reading a document or some such, but it was all just camouflage. The people the king was speaking to had no idea that I was actually just doodling or doing Sudoku (the easy ones), all the while keeping an ear out for their mental broadcasts. I stayed still unless I detected a lie, when I simply did something with my papers. It could be anything; turning a page, picking up a new document, dropping a sheet of paper, shifting a document to a new pile. Any paper-related activity at all told the king that he'd just been lied to. The bigger the lie, the more marked my reaction. On one occasion I had dropped an entire ream of paper on the floor when I picked up that a vampire visitor was a spy from Mississippi, attempting to sniff out any weaknesses in the kingdom. His cover story was very plausible, but his human companion's mind leaked like a sieve.

The noise of the paper hitting the parquet floor had been so loud that I had apologised and left the room hurriedly, feeling every vampire in the room staring at me in outrage. Felipe, who, in spite of what Victor thought, was actually real intelligent, had sent a chamberlain after me, he said to see if I was alright, but really to find out what was going on. I had hurriedly told the chamberlain what I had heard, and he had called security and then told the king. Felipe had been real grateful and had shown it with a beautiful sapphire necklace and ear-rings and a plasma screen TV. I used the TV, but the sapphires went into my dressing-table drawer. The only items of jewellery I ever wore were my watch and my diamond bracelet. I never took them off.

Tonight's "paperwork" just happened to include the letter and envelope from my lawyer. The throne room was probably the only place inside the complex which I could be sure wasn't bugged or under covert surveillance of some sort, so I was going to have to check out my idea right under the vampires' noses. I had already decided that I wasn't going to do a thing until the end of the evening. Whether I was right or wrong, the less time vamps had to observe my reactions the better; they are scarily good at reading humans.

As the first guest was admitted, I was able to relax. It was a vampire, so I would be of no use; Felipe was on his own with this one. I made believe to study my fake paperwork, and possessed my soul in patience. Audience succeeded audience, with no major surprises and nothing but a little routine deception which I identified, but at last there were only two appointments left on the schedule. The first was another vampire case and so I knew all eyes would be elsewhere. I closed the cover of the magazine I was "reading" and the pale cream envelope was there on top. I appeared to be looking at the letter it had enclosed, but what I was really doing was gently tugging at the stamp on the envelope. I knew no-one in the room would be paying any attention to me; all their focus would be on one other. Most vamps didn't trust anyone. Even Eric only trusted two people; Pam, and me. Whoa there, girl. I tackled that thought before it crossed the line. I had got real good at that.

I continued to pick at the stamp and finally the sticky little square eased up and a quick glance showed that there were some very faint pencil marks underneath it. I let it fall back into place, resisting the temptation to snatch it up, but it was just as well I did, because the current audience was drawing to a close and the next petitioner was human, and so would require my attention. I hastily opened a file and focussed on my job. There were no problems; it was just a petition to be allowed to install a series of vending machines on-site. Popsicles and frozen yogurts and the like. The vamps didn't really care – it was all human stuff, but they figured it would be popular with their human staff, so the king gave permission for a trial period and the visitor was ushered out through the side doors. And that was that. Business over for the night, at least for me.

The vampires in the room had remained pretty much motionless and silent during the audiences – vampires are really good at that. They don't feel the need to fidget, scratch, look around or fiddle with the small change in their pockets, but now they began to break into small groups and converse quietly. I discreetly put all my paperwork in a neat pile, and took the opportunity to remove the stamp completely. The writing was still there. I held myself together and slipped out of the room, as I usually did. No-one objected; I think most of the vamps preferred my absence to my presence, although acknowledging my usefulness to their king.

I returned to my suite, and watched a film for a while; the paperwork was on the couch beside me, the envelope on top. I pretended to stretch, and pushed the papers to the floor. As I bent down to retrieve them, I got a real good look at the envelope. In tiny, tiny letters where the stamp had been were the words, E loves and misses you. He thinks of you nightly. C. I don't know how many agents or third parties those ten words had gone through to get here, but as I sat and stared at the TV screen it felt like my Eric was right next to me. Fortunately the film was an old black-and-white weepie (Random Harvest ) and so my tears would be seen as normal if there was anyone watching. I didn't know if my suite was bugged, but I had to assume it was. I didn't hear one single word more of what Ronald Colman and Greer Garson were saying onscreen. I just sat motionless, lost in my thoughts, not coming back to earth until the closing credits rolled.

Then I decided the safest thing was to hide this little gift in plain sight, so I put the letter back in its envelope and put them both away with my other correspondence. I didn't think anyone would check these again, as they'd already been opened and examined.

My picture window was now showing dawn rising over the same Swedish forests. It was a very clever piece of kit – it changed every few seconds, updating the image according to the time of day. This meant that whenever I looked at it, I knew whether it was morning or evening, noon or midnight where Eric was. Although the picture was just a generic one of Sweden, it made me feel closer to him somehow. I murmured, "goodnight, honey," just as I had done on the previous sixty or so nights without him.

The rest of the evening was completely uneventful, with no further calls from Felipe. I listened to my linguaphone tapes for a while (I was trying to learn Swedish just in case…) and then did some internet shopping. It was kind of fun, having an almost unlimited budget. I'd always been a Walmart kind of a girl, and now I could wear YSL and Gloria Vanderbilt and Prada shoes if I felt like it, and I must admit a lot of the time I did feel like it. Eric wouldn't have wanted me to just let myself go – he wouldn't want people looking at me and saying, "is that what the great Eric Northman chose to love?"

At last Vegas dawn rolled round and I went to bed. In some ways it had been similar to a lot of other evenings, but in one way it had been very special indeed. I murmured the words to myself as I fell asleep. "He loves you and misses you." Oh God, I missed him so much.