Chapter 28

We finished the work we needed to do and Eric's idea of a small bonus turned out to be $500 for everyone. I knew what that would mean to the humans, and many of the vamps that worked at the bar needed the money too, most were young and hadn't been able to mass independent wealth yet. No one bothered us but we both knew that there were still a few vampires in the bar when we were ready to leave at 3 a.m. Eric said he would run them out, and that's what he did, he walked out into the bar commanded "OUT" in a deep voice. He followed the few vamps left to the front door and locked up.

As he walked back across Fangtasia I could feel his heart heavy with worry for Pam. I walked out into the bar and he was standing in the middle of the bar with a single red tear streaming down his face. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around his waist and his arms found their way around me and he rested his chin on my head with a heavy sigh. For Eric this was very human emotion, I wondered if he had felt this way over the demise of the other children he made, not that this was Pam's demise, but he had lost children in the past. We stood there for a minute then I felt the weight of Sonny leaning against our legs and a soft whimper. He didn't understand why we were sad, but he was already such a part of Eric and me that he felt our emotions. Just then I realized that Sonny was a part of me, when Eric fed him his blood that he had enough of my blood to make impossible changes to himself, that Sonny too had my blood. "Sonny is made up of our blood, our blood saved him, he is our child," I blurted out.

Eric pulled away just enough to look down into my eyes and give me a little smile, "Yes he is, all be it a very hairy child and he looks like you've been messing around with the werewolf mail man, but yes, according to your thought process, he is our child."

"You were standing there listening to me? We've got to work on your control." I gave him a small smile.

"No to answer your other question, I felt loss with my other children but never sadness or the deep ache I am feeling for Pam. I have to believe that we will find her and we will be able to save her, I… I… humph."

"You love her, just as she loves you. You released her long ago, you being her sire is not what keeps her bound to you and loyal to you, you two love each other as father and daughter, she is your child and you two have been through a lot together. And yes, we will find her. And she will be fine." We were far enough apart that Sonny had stepped in between us, but I still pulled myself back into Eric's embrace with Sonny sandwiched between us. After a couple of more minutes Eric went to the restroom and cleaned the blood from his face and we were ready to go home. He and Sonny climbed into the SUV and I took the car and we traveled the near empty streets much faster than we should have.

At home Eric went back to the map while I took the time to show Sonny around the house including the day chamber. I wondered for a moment if we would stay down there now that he could be in the sun. Did vampires actually NEED sleep? I knew that I was still human enough to need sleep and I could feel the need coming on now, it had been a long flight and a long night. Eric was tired too; I could see it in his face and eyes when he looked up at me. That coupled with the sadness actually made him look older, obviously not a thousand years old, but older than the eternal 33 years old he is. "Let's go to bed." I said as I took his hand. We went upstairs and out of habit back down again into the day chamber. I told Sonny if he needed to go out before we woke up not to disturb his Daddy that he needed to let me know and I'd let him out to tend to his business. I put an extra fluffy comforter on the floor for Sonny to lie on and slipped into one of Eric's t-shirts while he stripped to his boxers and we were all fast asleep. Just before drifting off I remembered to set my alarm, five hours of sleep would be better than none.

I don't know how long I had been asleep when the voices became so vivid in my head. A child's voice, a girl, only not. Chanting in a language I couldn't understand, I felt warmth of a fire, I felt distressed and the chanting got stronger and angrier. I tried to focus in on the person I couldn't see, I could only hear her. It startled me when she threw something into the fire and a big puff of red smoke exploded from the fire. I jumped, she got quiet. She turned to look in my direction, I still couldn't see her face she had it shrouded with heavy black lace that wrapped around her head, and I could barely make out the fire glinting off of her eyes. I stopped breathing, I then realized I was in a thicket of trees, I was hiding behind a huge oak tree. After a moment she began chanting again, rocking and swaying with her words, each time she threw something into the fire a different colored cloud would immerge. After what seemed like hours of watching this mysterious person chant and explode the fire with a rainbow of colors I could feel myself back in my bed but I felt like I was being watched. I opened my eyes to see both Eric and Sonny sitting on the other side of the bed staring at me with a dim light coming from the bathroom.

"What are y'all doing?" I asked feeling a little self conscious.

"Are you OK?" Eric asked and shook my head. "You were chanting and moving around, almost as if you were dancing. You've been at it for at least an hour." I told Eric (and Sonny) about my dream. I asked if he knew what I was saying as I chanted. He didn't. He said that out of all the languages he knew he was unfamiliar with it. Then he asked a prolific question, "Could this be the same woman you heard talking to the unknown vampire?"

"I don't know," I didn't know what else to say. Since I couldn't see either one of them and I couldn't describe the voice I had heard earlier there was no way for me to know for sure. I looked at the clock and felt that much more exhausted, it was already 6 a.m. I felt more tired now than when I went to bed. I felt the urge to take care of my human necessities and so I crawled out of bed to do that figuring I might as well stay up. I told Eric to try and get some rest I was going to go upstairs and shower and get ready for Trey to pick me up and go to Bon Temp.