A/N: Well, hi! I felt really bad about the last cliffhanger. Sorry about that. I should probably stop with those things. I don't know if this will get updated again this week, because I just finished this one three or four hours ago (thanks, ilovemysteries!), but I do have another YnB outtake that's almost done. I needed to lose myself in my other favourite ship while I was working on this. A palate-cleanser, if you will. I heart the Pookie friendship forever.

Chapter 18

They had discovered nothing at Fantasia. The area vampires who had been able to come on such short notice had been upset to hear about Felicia, but they hadn't known anything about who her killer might be. They also hadn't been able to answer Eric's vague questions about a vampire with a female maker who might have been hanging around in Bon Temps off and on for a decade and a half or so.

When Eric rose the next night, all of his restraint and rationality were gone. He was anxious to get on the move as soon as the sun set. Unfortunately, he had no idea which way to go. He needed to find her, but he had no more idea of where to look than he had the night before.

Pam had spent the day with him, and he spent the time waiting for her to rise trying to remember anything that Sookie had said or did or implied that might lead them to who her maker might be, at least. It would be a start. He came up with nothing. Of course, Pam had spent much more time with Sookie than he had. He knew that she'd already been racking her brain as well, but he would ask her to again, anyway.

When Pam rose, Eric was back to pacing and muttering and running his fingers through his hair in frustration. She knew that she wouldn't be able to talk him down again, but maybe it was for the best. Sometimes, some of his more… creative ideas happened when he was like this. Although she didn't think she'd ever really seen him quite like this before.

As soon as he noticed that she was alive for the night, he turned to her and narrowed his eyes. "She didn't say anything that could lead us to her maker?"

"No, Eric. I have gone over everything she said, again and again. There is nothing besides what we've already discussed."

He started to pace again. He was making her dizzy. "Eric…"

He cut her off. "Make a list of every male vampire in Louisiana with a female or unknown maker and contact them. If you don't find anything, do the same for Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas."

She was going to be tied to a telephone for a week. A month. And it was completely pointless; it wasn't like anyone was going to just admit it. But, unfortunately, she didn't have any better ideas. "What are you going to do?"

He stopped pacing and glared at her. And then he exploded. "I don't know! I don't have any fucking idea what to do!" She was out there somewhere. And he was sure that her maker was doing terrible things to her. He hated feeling useless. He hated not knowing what move to make next. And he hated how out of his mind he was about this. About her.

Pam was extremely worried as well. Far more than she ever would have thought that she would be. She was trying very hard not to fall into the same frame of mind as her maker. One of them needed to keep a cool head, at least. And, yet, she found herself irritated at Eric for not having been even more devious. And also irritated at herself for feeling that way. But, dammit, it would have made everything so much easier. "Frankly, I'm surprised that you hadn't found a way to drink any of her blood."

Eric clenched his teeth and almost snarled at her. "Don't remind me."

If his fang had broken the skin when Sookie had run her tongue over it — if they had exchanged blood instead of her just drinking his — he would be able to track her. But, of course, it hadn't. And he couldn't. He'd certainly never had any problems getting it up, but he sure as hell felt impotent right then.

Thousands upon thousands of humans had had her blood. She made more of it faster than one hundred vampires could. She had been in his home for weeks. He had plied her with so much of his. He had come so close, but he hadn't gotten the chance to drink.

He froze for a moment. "Pam. Get started on your phone calls." He practically flew out the door. When he got outside, he actually did fly towards Fangtasia. Pam sat down and picked up the telephone for a moment, but there was no way that he was going to do this without her. On her way out the door, she ran back inside to grab one more thing. She got into the Corvette and followed behind him.

…

Fangtasia was long since closed, and the nightclub was all in darkness. Eric wrestled with the key to the employee entrance, but couldn't make the fucking thing turn. He made himself calm down a little and try again, and he made it in easily. He went straight to the storeroom and unlocked the padlock on one of the two refrigerators inside. It was filled with racks and racks of vials of vampire blood, each one carefully labeled with the date it was taken. Sookie's blood.

Logically, he knew that this wouldn't work. It couldn't. After being removed from the body, vampire blood loses its connection to its owner after a very short time. It just can't create a full blood tie past a day or two. If that. The newest batch was more than six weeks old. Past its expiration date, let alone the window for connection. Probably unstable. Likely a human would get high as a kite if they drank it. He wondered if the effects on a human would differ from other vampire blood when it was fresh and in its true form. But the thought of her giving her blood to a human made him extremely uncomfortable. He would unpack that later.

Everything inside was all out of order, and he had to open the other refrigerator to find the two most recent racks. He grabbed two vials, popped the tops off of each with his thumbs and poured them both into his mouth. He was reaching for two more vials, when he stopped and closed his eyes.

It was perfect, even cold. Fresh and sweet and bright and the most delicious thing that he had ever tasted — almost human, but so much better. He moaned and grabbed two more vials. He tried to ignore how hard he was.

He kept going until he'd finished both racks. He was sure that he could have stopped much earlier, but he hadn't wanted to. Because he wanted to be sure that it was enough, but also because it tasted so fucking good. He was tempted to get some more, just in case, but he'd had a good bit more than a litre and a half already. If that didn't work, nothing would. He set the two empty vials in his hands down and closed his eyes.

Ties and bonds were either there or they weren't, and he felt nothing. He was extremely disappointed, but not surprised. He relocked the fridges, went into his office, and sat down behind his desk. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. He was completely out of ideas. He hadn't kept her safe, like he'd promised that he would, and he was quickly losing hope that he would ever see her again. And if he didn't rescue her, nobody would.

After a minute or two, he realized that he felt… something… in his chest. It seemed to have crept up on him, like the volume on a radio being turned up very slowly. He closed his eyes again and waited.…

Pam had hit every fucking red light she'd passed, and the traffic was just bad enough that she couldn't have run more than one or two. But she felt that Eric was still there. She swung into the strip mall parking lot just as he was about to take off. She blared her horn at him. He looked determined, and she hoped like hell that whatever he'd done had given him something to go on. He stopped, and she pulled up next to him.

"Where are you going?"

"I told you to make some calls."

"Eric. Please. I love her, too."

He frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. He opened his mouth to argue, but he had no time. "I drank her blood from the storeroom. I feel her. I can find her. I must go."

He bent his knees, about to take off again.

"Wait!"

She got out of the car and got his sword from the back seat. She lay it across her palms and turned around. She gave him a deep nod. "Master."

He smiled at her and stroked her hair, and then took the sword. He shot into the sky.

Pam got back into the Corvette and drove like hell.

...

Eric stood in the doorway of the cabin. Sookie was naked, hanging by her hands from a silver chain sunk into the ceiling in the middle of the room. Her head was slumped forward with her chin resting on her chest. Her hair, soaked with blood, hung down, obscuring her face. He dropped his sword and ran to her. The hilt clattered on the floor.

She had been drained again. He was lucky that he'd been able to find her, considering. It was very good that he'd given her so much. She wasn't able to heal herself because of the blood loss and silver, and she was covered in bruises and bites and burns. And blood. So much blood. The manacles on her wrists were self-tightening, and had burned their way through her skin right to the bone. There were burns on her face and breasts and thighs. Burns between her legs. When he lifted her a little to take the pressure off of her wrists, he felt the tackiness of the blood and the lines and grooves covering her back. He turned her slightly and saw that she'd been flayed with something that had silver tips. Her back was a roadmap of whip marks and burns, and he could see bone showing through in places. When he got his hands on her maker, Eric would make him pay for every single mark on her body.

He managed to take off his shirt without letting her go, and he wrapped it around his hand. He hoped that the silver wouldn't weaken him too much to break the chain. He thought that his rage might help, at least. Unfortunately, she would have to live with the silver cuffs, at least for a little while.

Before he grabbed hold of the links, Sookie lifted her head up just a little. She was barely able to open her eyes. Her voice was a raspy whisper. "Are you real?"

Somehow, he managed to smile. "Yes. I am. I will get you down and then I will find and end your maker."

She shook her head a little, but then her head drooped forward, and she drifted away from him again.

He grasped the chain and yanked, all in one motion. He felt himself weaken immediately, but he could tell that he had managed to stretch out some of the links. He took a few seconds, and then pulled again. On the fourth try, a link gave way, and he pulled Sookie out of the way of the falling chain. They were going to be dragging a good bit of it behind them, but there was little to be done for it, at least until her maker was finally dead. He rearranged her, holding her bridal style with his t-shirt protecting her from the silver as much as he could manage.

"Eric!"

He spun around and Pam was in the doorway. Salome's child was standing between them, just a few feet in front of him. He was holding Eric's sword two-handed, cocked over his shoulder like a baseball bat. Mickey quickly corrected his aim and swung for Eric's neck.