Having arrived at Fangtasia for the first of, I'm sure, many miserable evenings, I sat down front and center at the bar. I ordered my True Blood from the human bartender and briefly wondered at his choice of attire. "Property of the Viking" seemed a little over the top even in Eric's bar, but who was I kidding. Everything in here was overstated.
I saw Pamela lounging indulgently on Eric's throne. Clearly the Viking was not in this evening. Princess Pam would preside over the adoring masses in his stead. She played at being bored with it all, but I knew the truth of it. She was proud. Beneath her sarcastic tone and eye rolling, she preened. I did not like her, not at all, but I did envy her. She held great pride in being her maker's child. She took her position as her Sheriff's lieutenant with deathly seriousness. She was still relatively young, but was no less deadly for it. Properly trained, that one was. She had a Viking warrior for a maker. What did I get? A crazy bitch!
Feeling sorry for myself was a past time I knew I indulged in too much but today I felt I was due. I decided to count my miseries.
Bane number one. I had to come to this piece of shit, Dracula-wanna-be, human-meat-market of a bar and play nice with the tourists. This was a popular assignment demanded by the Sheriff of Area 5. It kept you under Eric's eye and provided real life vampire attractions and eye-candy for Eric's customers. It was brilliant actually. He always has been quite the businessman. I probably wouldn't mind coming here for a bite under other circumstances. But right now it was torture because...
Bane number two, I had no fangs. And Eric had forbidden me to feed from a human until they regrew. It would probably be many weeks before they regrew even with a healthy diet of human blood. But on my current diet of True Blood, as demanded by my punishment, it would surely be much longer. I'd never lost my fangs before so it might take months for all I knew.
Which led me to bane number three...
True Blood was shit. Eric liked to pretend that I enjoyed being the mainstreaming poster child and all it entailed. I admit that I don't want to kill anymore. But when I do, the bloodlust is such that I can't help but enjoy it. It's my nature and though I hate it, I can't change it. The guilt comes after. The loathing stays forever. When drinking from a human, the blood is filled with their life. Good life or bad, the blood tastes of their vitality, their human essence. Synthetic blood will never have that. The magic is, quite literally, not there. I will bow to my Queen, and my Sheriff and to the AVL and to public opinion. I will drink to the mainstreaming lie and do it with humility. But I will never like the stuff.
Bane number four was my fucking Queen and her fucking mission to have me procure a fucking telepathic bloodbag.
Who the fuck cares! Okay, so she smells amazing, and I'm sure she tastes like rainbows and sunshine and faerie dust, but really! It wasn't worth my fangs. And frankly, I'm glad I didn't drink from her. Sophie Anne barely let her little pet Hadley leave her side and Northman already appeared addicted to the cousin. Who needed that? I had enough complications in my life without irrational attachment to my food. Which leads me to...
Bane number five being my oath to Nan Flannigan, ball buster extraordinaire, and the Authority.
My only excuse is that it was the 80s and it somehow seemed like a good idea at the time. I was already mainstreaming before it was even a movement. I was sick of killing and even after fifty years away from Lorena, I considered it my penance to catch and release. As a result I discovered I had a true gift with luring humans in as well as glamouring them effortlessly and with precision. This was noticed by the blossoming Vampire Authority who were already hard at work developing synthetic blood. They asked me to step into place with an uncooperative monarch and be ready to eliminate them when the time came. My reward was to be my own Kingdom. This Kingdom as a matter of fact. Louisiana was to be mine someday very soon. All these years of waiting, biding my time and bowing to Sophie Anne were supposed to pay off with power of my own. And yet, how was I supposed to rule a Kingdom which already had the likes of Eric Northman as one of its leaders. Who would follow me? The Authority liked to believe that stating "Do as you are told" is good enough to make vampires compliant. I had my doubts.
Where was I? Oh Yes. Bane number... Wait. I spied a tasty little red-headed treat giving me a shy smile and moving down the bar toward me. I smiled back, lips closed of course, to hide my missing teeth. When she was only 2 stools away, a spike and leather studded vamp moved up behind her and spoke in her ear. I cursed my enhanced hearing because I heard every word he said.
"You don't want that one. He pissed Eric off and got his fangs cut out. He might as well he dick-less, too." He laughed and sniffed her hair. "Can I buy you a drink? I definitely have my dick. Feel free to check."
The girl's face showed her revulsion which morphed into a snicker as she heard about my punishment. She turned to smile at the punk vampire and I knew I was forgotten by the next second.
Fuck this bullshit. To hell with Pam, Eric, Sophie Anne and the Authority. I needed a real drink. I needed my fangs and I needed a better life than this. I left my half drunk bottle of fake blood and shot out the door.
When my rage hit the fresh air outside, it cooled considerably. Not due to the weather, of course. I'm sure the humans were still sweating in this summer heat, even though it was less than an hour from midnight. But away from the mass of writhing bodies and the scent of lust and fresh blood, I began to think rationally again. Leaving had been foolish. Pam was sure to report my disobedience. I was to spend two nights a week here and I hadn't even made it an hour on my first visit.
I sighed at my stupidity and considered going back in. I had just resolved to try again tomorrow when I spotted a pretty little brunette smiling at me in the parking lot. After my embarrassment in the bar, I surreptitiously glanced around me to be sure it was me that held her attention and not someone else. Blessedly, I was the only one around and her smile grew wider when I looked back at her. My ego wasn't ready for another blow and I was very hungry. Fangs or not, I was determined to feed from this girl, even if I had to slash her throat to do it. She glanced behind her to an alleyway across from the Fangtasia parking lot. She looked back at me, inclined her head toward the alley, then started walking that way. Since I was not supposed to be feeding and anyone could be watching, especially here, I carefully looked around again before I followed her to the alley. She had disappeared from my sight by the time I arrived but I could still smell her. She wasn't far ahead of me.
That was my last thought before a heavy silver net dropped over me, sending me crashing to the gravel in pain. Before I could even scream, I heard the hissing sound of an aerosol spray. My face burned with more silver and then I passed out.
"... you picked a good one, Ams. He's got no fangs. Pathetic fucker. You coulda led him by the nose even without silverin' him, I bet. Ha! Come willin' to his own drainin'!"
As I came back to consciousness, I realized I was unable to see. I felt fabric covering my eyes and most of my upper face and burning silver around my wrists. My arms were laid out over my head and I could feel a cold floor under my left side. The voice I'd heard, a young male, was still laughing but a chastising, yet appealing female voice interrupted his mirth.
"Don't be mean. We talked about this. It's just a thing, I know, but so are the trees that give us oxygen and the rain that quenches our thirst. The vampire gives us ecstasy by it's blood. You are only hurting yourself by being negative."
"Yeah, I know you're right. You're always right. It's just... It's funny is all. Why you think he don't got fangs no more?"
"I think he was bad and someone ripped them out to punish him. But now his punishment will serve a greater purpose. He will atone for his wrong doings by serving us."
Oh God, kill me now. A righteous V addict? Could you be more hypocritical? And if anyone is being led by the nose, it's her whipped boyfriend. He was the pathetic one!
Unfortunately, mentally belittling my captors was doing nothing to free me from them. Feeling superior wouldn't get me out of these silver restraints and whatever else lay between me and freedom. I tried to wiggle my fingers to explore my surroundings. They moved just fine but caught the attention of the human male within seconds.
"Hey! He's comin' around again. Where's the stuff?" I heard shuffling as unknown objects were moved around and then steps coming closer.
"Hey mister vampire man, I've got somethin' for you." The man chuckled as he shoved something between my closed lips. My lips would normally have remained clenched tight but the tube he placed against them was coated in silver. I wasn't expecting it and responded instinctively with a gasp of pain. A liquid fire poured into my mouth once my teeth parted and I screamed as the liquid coated my tongue and sent a few drops down my throat. There wasn't very much of it, but it was enough.
The burn only lasted seconds before a strange sensation took its place. There was blood in the fluid the man fed me and only a small amount of liquid silver despite the pain, and something else... The Blood was delicious! It immediately healed some of the silver burn but it was too good. Like the way Sookie smelled times a thousand.
I started to giggle. Why was I laughing? I smelled the old Compton house. Is that where I was? No. It couldn't be. I smelled home the way it was when I was a boy. Shrimp and grits. Fresh bread. The combined scent of animal feces and good planting dirt from the fields.
Laughter. It was Caroline's laughter. My wife! How could it be? She was dead! Long dead just like the home I grew up in. The darkness began to lighten and I blinked as though waking from a dream. There was my beautiful Caroline smiling at me from her favorite rocking chair while Thomas suckled happily at her breast. I heard more laughter coming from behind me. "Daddy!" I turned and caught my little Sarah as she rushed into my arms. I crushed her to me. It felt like ages since I had held her though I knew it could only have been hours at most. "I'm home, my girl. I love you so."
As I squeezed her tighter in my arms, I felt her go rigid. Warm, sticky wetness gushed between my fingers and I let go in terror. Instead of little Sarah, I held Queen Sophie Anne in my arms. I watched her fall slowly away from me, as if time had slowed just to make me suffer. When she finally hit the ground, her body exploded into blood and the sticky gore which is all that remains of a staked vampire. Had I done this? Did I kill my queen?
Something slammed into me from behind and I was flipped as I fell into the muck. My back squished into a soft mattress but it was foul with blood and gore. The rank smell of blood seeping into a goose down mattress filled my nose. The scent burned just as it had every night of my life as a newly turned vampire. And just as in those days, my maker, Lorena sat astride me, blood pouring from the corners of her mouth as she laughed. "Yes, my love! Fuck me! Kill for me!" Her laughter pierced my soul as her body impaled itself on mine. Lorena laughed and laughed.
And I screamed inside my nightmare.