Here we go :)
Disclaimer: I'm afraid to say it again, because you might find the fact I'm repeating it over and over suspicious
(Thankfully) betaed by Breathesgirl. You don't even know how lucky you are that she fixes my mistakes :)
Previously:
That night I was closing the bar with Sam. We were already outside and he was just locking the door when I thought with relief that I got through yet another day safely. I opened my mouth to say something and Sam turned his head to look at me.
I was looking him in the eye when the shot rang in the air.
I shut the car door behind me and took a deep breath. I stood in line to the entrance and dutifully waited for my turn. I admit that I was nervous as hell.
At the door I came face to face with Pam who visibly perked up when she saw me.
"Sookie!" she said in her usual bored tone. "I can't decide if it's very good or very bad that you're here, but either way, my night just became interesting."
"What do you mean?" I asked, taking out my wallet.
I'd never had to pay for entrance to Fangtasia before because I'd always visited while accompanied by a vampire but Pam waved off my attempt to pay.
"You're a guest. Eric's orders."
I didn't want to read too much into that but it sounded promising. At least it had to be a better sign than if he forbade his staff from letting me in, right?
"Eric knows that I'm here?" I asked, surprised.
"Considering that he can sense your presence, I'd say yes," oh, the joys of drinking vampire blood! "but that's not what I meant. He meant it in general."
Oh.
She shook her head in a way that told me, along with the tone she used (half-scolding, half-indulgent with a hint of amusement) that she didn't agree with Eric's business decision . And I was happy to see her. How pathetic of me.
"You look delicious," she complimented me off-handedly and her choice of words made me feel like a glass of fine wine.
Well, if you think about it…
"Thanks. You look great, as always."
I was telling the truth. Pam is gorgeous, and even if her work outfits were much more dramatic and very different from her preferred everyday clothes she still looked lovely.
Pam simply nodded, quite satisfied with herself. She had no intention of pretending to be modest.
"Try not to upset him," she called after me as I was passing her. "He's been completely insufferable lately… and I'm wearing my good shoes," she added enigmatically.
Fan-tas-tic. Exactly what I wanted to hear.
I preferred not to dwell on the question of why Eric's bad mood would make Pam worried about her shoes.
The line behind me was getting impatient so I moved on quickly without asking any more questions and waved at Pam before stepping inside the bar.
I scanned the room but I soon realised that Eric wasn't sitting on his throne or in his booth. I figured that he had to be somewhere in the back, most probably in his office. I didn't mean to interrupt whatever he was busy with – and I mean whatever it might be – so I walked to the bar thinking that it might be best if I bought a drink and waited for a while, hoping that he would show up soon. If my plan didn't work I would, of course, go to his office and knock, but at least this way there was a chance that I could avoid disrupting his plans and upsetting him any further…
Oh, who was I kidding. I just preferred talking to Eric in the open space of the bar over facing him alone in a closed room. It was only reasonable since I didn't know just how mad he still was at me. It had absolutely nothing to do with my dreams.
"May I have the honour of fixing you a drink and learning your name, miss?" asked the new bartender, pulling me out of thoughts.
I smiled at him. He was a vampire and he looked like a pirate. Seriously – he had a big nose, Spanish mustache, wavy long hair, silky purple shirt and even an eye-patch. The only thing missing to complete his image would be a parrot on his arm.
Eric and Pam always tried to hire someone eye-catching as a bartender to draw the tourists and this time they had certainly succeeded.
For some reason the position was rather unlucky, just like the one for the cook at Merlotte's. The rotation of people working on both posts was unnaturally quick. No one ever stayed long – they were either leaving, or ending up dead – or definitely dead, in some cases.
I thought distractedly about Sweetie Des Artes who was currently working as a cook at Merlotte's. She seemed to have potential – she was hard-working, wasn't getting into conflicts with co-workers, and she cooked quite well. I made a silent wish for both Sweetie and the new vampire bartender to have more luck than their predecessors.
"The name is Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse," I said, taking a stool at the bar. "I'll take a ginger ale, please."
I saw him raising his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise but I still needed to drive myself home afterwards so drinking alcohol wasn't a good idea.
"Charles Twining at your service, pretty lady," it was clear that he quite enjoyed showing off his acting skills. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
He presented me with a glass and a napkin and bowed with a flourish. I couldn't hold a grin. I had no doubts that he was an a-class rascal but at least he could be charming about it.
A woman sitting next to me gave me a gloomy look. She was wondering how I managed to draw the vampire's attention so easily since that was exactly what she'd been trying to do for the last half hour; she hoped that seeking the undead would help her to solve her financial problems. If she had asked me I would have told her how terrible of an idea it was but it wasn't my business so I kept my mouth shut.
I payed for my drink and left Charles a tip. I spent some time watching him work while waiting for Eric to surface and from what I could tell Charles was good at his job.
"Miss Stackhouse, if I may, you look fabulous tonight," he addressed me after a few minutes.
"Why, thank you, Mr. Twining," I said, smiling politely at him.
At least I was pretty. I knew that my physical type (blond, blue eyes, big rack) was quite popular. Vampires seemed to be additionally drawn to this tiny bit of otherness in me that only supes could detect.
The woman at the bar pouted and felt rebellious enough to say something unflattering about me but her voice got lost in her throat when another vampire approached the bar. I felt a hand clasping my upper arm.
"That will be all, Charles," said a cool, familiar voice from behind me.
I turned around and saw Eric. His eyes were fixed on Charles and there was something heavy in his stare. His face was completely locked up and not giving anything away. I wasn't sure if the coldness radiating from him was aimed at me or the bartender but it didn't look like a good start to our meeting.
"Sookie," he said, finally turning his attention to me.
He was talking to me. It was a start.
"Hi, Eric," I said, sounding much less confident than I intended.
"Am I correct in assuming that you want to talk to me?"
I nodded. He led me to a side booth, keeping a firm but not painful hold on my arm. It wasn't until we were already seated that I was hit by the impact of Fangtasia's customers' thoughts and I realised that Pam wasn't joking when she complained about Eric's mood.
I noticed, much to my surprise, that the admiration and lust that usually came from the fangbangers in waves whenever Eric walked into the room was masked by a healthy dose of caution that time.
The explanation for the phenomenon was quite simple – Eric saw no reason to hide his bad mood from anyone so he wasn't bothering to. I wasn't sure exactly what it was that he had done lately, but whatever it was, it had to have been quite a number if it resulted in everyone, even his devoted fans, preferring to keep a safe distance from him. Huh! Look how brave I was!
He scrutinised me closely but I couldn't read anything from his face.
"What can I do for you, my Sookie?"
I didn't correct him because it didn't seem to be the best moment to argue about pronouns. It could wait until I found out if he was still mad at me.
His hand slipped from my arm and moved lower until it rested lightly on the table next to my own hand - nearly touching but not quite. His gaze stopped on my red nails. I had put a cranberry polish on them, painting them to match my new coat and I realised that Eric would immediately know why I'd chosen that specific shade.
Dammit, I shouldn't have taken the coat with me – or maybe it was a good thing?… I was tired of guessing. I just wished I knew what was going on.
I wondered if Eric liked my nails and then scolded myself quickly for such a vain thought.
He brushed his thumb against the tops of my fingers. His hand was cool, but my skin warmed up where he touched it.
"I'm here on business," I said right away to keep things straight. "Sam would like to ask you for a favour."
Eric raised his eyebrow.
"He wants a favour from me and he sent you to me instead of coming to me himself? Is he so stupid or so clever?"
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.
"Neither. He's hurt."
The second brow joined the first on Eric's forehead.
"Literally," I clarified. "Last night someone shot him in the leg."
Eric's attention fixed on me so hard that I could feel it like a physical weight pressing on me.
"What happened?" he asked.
I described the circumstances that led to the incident for him.
"You were there when this happened," he said with a dark note in his voice. "How close did you stand?"
His face was unreadable, as if carved in stone. I couldn't decipher his look.
"Quite close," I admitted and shivered at the memory.
I'd been alone with Sam since Arlene and Sweetie had already gone home. Sam was closing and I stepped closer because I wanted to remind him that we were almost out of True Blood. Then I suddenly heard a gunshot and there was blood everywhere. Sam was lying on the ground curled up in pain and I didn't know what to do first: get him out of there, try to spot the shooter or call the ambulance. I did the first and the last; by then whoever shot Sam was already gone.
I stayed in the hospital until the wee hours to make sure that Sam was okay. I was exhausted and sleep deprived.
"Do they know who did it?" Eric's question shook me out of unpleasant memory.
"No – but this isn't the first time something like this has happened in the area."
Eric's hand closed on my fingers.
"How many?"
"Three."
"Is there a connection?'
"All victims were shifters or weres of some kind. Calvin Norris – you remember him – he's in the hospital. Heater Kinman, a young girl, is dead. She was a werefox. And Sam."
I had no idea why but Eric seemed rather pleased with that piece of information.
"Then you should be safe," he said and I caught on to his logic.
I furrowed my eyebrows and wanted to protest and say that it didn't mean everything was alright, but I stopped myself from commenting out loud. I had to remember who I was talking to. Eric didn't care for random weres.
"Yes. I hope so," I said instead, because I couldn't argue with him that knowing that it was different that time, that it wasn't me who was on the kill-list of the unknown serial killer was a good thing, even if it didn't solve the problem.
"Did your brother shift?" Eric asked unexpectedly.
"He did."
"He'll be the first suspect in Hotshot," he stated calmly.
An icy shudder ran down my spine.
"Jason's not that stupid," I said automatically, even though Eric didn't ask if Jason was involved or anything.
Eric shrugged.
"The pack is going to look for the guilty party. Someone who did it had to know about weres and how to recognise them. It means it wasn't a human. Newly turned bitten weres often hate what they've become."
I realised that Jason was the perfect scapegoat. I sincerely hoped that my brother had a good alibi. I made a mental note to warn him.
"What is it that Sam wants from me?" Eric asked and I finally remembered that I had gone there with a specific task to perform.
"His leg needs to heal so he's grounded for the time being. Considering how troublous things have been in the bar lately we're going to need help. Sam wanted to borrow one of your bartenders until he gets better."
Luckily the wound wasn't life threatening and Sam was in relatively good shape but for time being he could walk only with a crutch and he wouldn't be able to break up a fight or play bodyguard if there was any trouble from the mysterious shooter again.
Eric took his time pondering his options before answering. He looked at me the whole time he was thinking.
"It turns out that Sam did make a smart move by sending you to me, after all," he said at last. "All right, I'll send someone to you."
I looked down and felt relief flowing through me. When I looked up again I saw that Eric was scanning the room with his eyes, looking from one present vampire to another. Apparently he was thinking about which one of them he wanted to go with me.
"It would be good if it was someone with good self-control," I suggested gently.
His eyes lingered for a second on Charles but when Eric turned back to me it was a different name he said:
"Pam."
... and now you finally know why Pam is listed as a character in this story. I thought this is more personal to Eric than it was in the canon-verse, since he remembers everything, so it stands a reason that he would want to send someone he trusts - and we all know that's a short list of names.
Next time: someone finally snaps.