A/N: Hey everyone! Here's another update. This is the first Interlude. There will 4 or 5 altogether, I think, and they will all be from Eric's POV. :D

Chapter 8

Interlude #1

I had been aware of the telepath from the beginning. As a matter of fact, I was still the Sheriff of Area Five at the time she was procured. I had actually been called in to alert the family that she and her parents had been killed, due to the proximity of Bon Temps to Shreveport, as a favour to Isabel Beaumont. Sometimes, in situations such as those, glamouring becomes necessary to smooth over any problems.

The top levels of the US government have been aware of the existence of vampires since before there was one, during the American Revolution. A reciprocal relationship between the human and vampire governments has proved hugely mutually beneficial. As Sheriff, I had often cooperated with local law enforcement, and it had segued into a career at the NSA, which protected vampire interests and security as well as humans'.

I had followed the gossip and rumours around the program, both about how amazingly gifted she was, and how extraordinarily difficult. There were some in the agency who honestly thought that she was a harbinger of death and destruction after she killed her trainer. It was superstitious nonsense.

As the girl's eighteenth birthday approached, I was invited to help deploy the asset. Dr Beaumont would continue to oversee day to day operations, but I was to become Project Leader. My previous assignment went all to hell in the last week, and I was delayed in making the move to Maryland and my new mission.

Well, I had thought my last assignment had gone to hell. The clusterfuck we were now in surpassed it by orders of magnitude. There was a dead 250 pound weretiger with a knife sticking out of his eye on the seventeenth floor of a packed hotel in the heart of DC. He had been stabbed by a lethal and potentially insane trained killer, seemingly with super powers, who looked like the girl next door. And now I had to go in and clean it up.

I had read part of the Project Sartori file on the plane, but still had some catching up to do. It would have to wait. I called the meeting for right after my arrival, and in a location outside the NSA complex to keep prying telepaths out.

From all accounts, the asset was incredible. She had scored 147 on the WISC-V Isabel had administered the night her parents brought her to us. At 15, her score was 195. It shouldn't be possible, but there it was. She seemed to keep expanding not only her abilities, but her potential. She soaked up information like a sponge. Nobody was really sure what she couldn't do; she seemed to eventually accomplish everything she set out to. She was also a physical powerhouse - incredibly strong, fast, and tough.

She was also notoriously difficult. It wasn't that she refused to work; she was incredibly driven. But she was also impulsive, impetuous, angry, sarcastic, mouthy, and prone to violent outbursts. She had injured many and killed one of her trainers when she was just twelve. And not accidentally. She refused to accept any mistakes in herself or anyone else, and she was very quick to punish any of her instructors who failed to live up to her very high expectations.

I settled into the chair in the conference room and read some more of the file while I waited for my new team to arrive.

Soon enough, they were all filing in. Isabel closed the door and we got started. She filled me in on the circumstances of the past few days. The rollout was more disastrous than we could have predicted. Covering up the fiasco in the restaurant, and having to find a new handler on short notice were bad enough. But killing Quinn? My gods. I heard that others on the team had problems with her as well. It was possible that we would eventually have to put her down, but hopefully we would be able to get some use out of her first.

But then one of her trainers, a Were, stood and pointed out that Isabel had set the asset up for failure, on multiple fronts. She was not properly educated or socialized, and she was not provided with trustworthy handlers or instructors. Isabel was ready to give up at the first sign of trouble. In fact, she seemed adamant that we should rid ourselves of the problem sooner than later. It seemed a strange pivot for her; she had always been the project's biggest cheerleader. The telepath was far too valuable to give up that easily.

I released everyone from the meeting but Isabel. "This is on you. Every single bit of it. She was not properly prepared."

"Bullshit. She is impossible. She is colder than you are, and is nothing but anger and insolence."

"I am not throwing away ten years of work on a job you half assed. I will complete her training myself."

Isabel threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, Eric! I can't wait to see this. You are going to have a full audience every single day. There will be wagers on how long until one of you kills the other. The unstoppable force and the immovable object, right here in the flesh!"

"No. We won't have an audience, because we won't be there. Keeping her locked up is part of the problem. She needs to learn how to behave like a human."

"And you, the vampire who hasn't been human for a thousand years, are going to be the one to teach her how?"

"While she is completing her training, she will continue to accept missions with me as her handler. As she cannot read my mind, touch should not be an issue. This should eliminate one of her triggers. I will also be able to overpower her, if necessary. We will only be able to work after dark, but I'm sure we can work around our limitations.

And she does not need me to teach her how to be a human, but she does need to learn to live among society and experience things outside of the NSA facility."

Isabel was treating this like a friendly conversation between peers. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Isabel, you fucked this whole thing up. You did. You had better thank whatever gods you believe in for the bureaucracy of the US Government, because if this were purely vampire business, you would be chained in silver right now, at minimum."

"Eric, I…"

"Shut up and get out of here. Deal with your mess at the hotel. Glamour who you need to, wipe off any prints, delete any records of their stay, their attendance at the convention, and any security footage, and dispose of the body. You will be written up." Somehow, a written warning is not much of a deterrent for vampires.

Isabel left and I drove my NSA-issued sedan back to the complex and found Building H. I went to meet the asset for the first time.

When I opened her door, the sweet smell enveloped me. I wasn't hit like a ton of bricks, I was caressed. Under the sweetness, I smelled tears. It was a surprise; legend had it that she never ever cried, not even after withstanding hours of torture.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. She seemed so small. She had been sitting on the side of her bed waiting for me when I had walked in, but she also looked surprised to see me. She held a throwing knife as if she was prepared to use it if necessary. Despite that, she looked more like a child than a woman sitting there. I said, "My name is Eric Northman. I am your new handler. Come with me."

Instead of complying, she relaxed and asked where we were going.

"Be quiet and do what you're told."

She still didn't listen. Her eyes suddenly twinkled with good humour. She let me know that, despite making all of the attendees follow a car to an undisclosed location well outside of her known range, she had still somehow heard the meeting. She surprised a laugh out of me.

And then she nearly made me laugh again when she made a joke about me eating her. Apparently, she was well aware of what I was, despite the fact that Isabel had been very careful to shield the knowledge of vampires from her. All of the people in the complex who knew of the existence of vampires were supposed to have been glamoured not to reveal that information, even from their thoughts.

Becoming her handler had been a spur of the moment decision, but following my instincts had kept me alive for over 1000 years. They were also telling me to remove her from the facility immediately. Something about Isabel's adamance had triggered a vague feeling of unease about her reliability and trustworthiness. They were also telling me to tread carefully.

"Pack up your things. We must go.".

She shrugged. "I still have the bag from the hotel with my clothes in it. Nobody has taken it away yet. I don't have anything else."

"Very well. We will stop for some human items on the way to my safe house."

I scanned my badge on the sensor at the door, and thought about what the Were had said. The asset needed to be able to integrate into society to be used to her full potential. Her seclusion during her training had been necessary, but the time had come to finish her education and shape her into the perfect spy.