Chapter Seven:

Tainted Blood


Eric Northman's P.O.V

Eric found Harriet the next evening sitting on the porch roof just as the sun was setting and the Vampires back in Godric's nest were rising, swinging her bare mud-streaked feet over the downspouts, Godric's prized Parisian pottery stacked up next to her in a dented cardboard box she had likely scavenged from the attic, large, and very old, wine jar sitting innocuously in her lap.

It was a long, downward fall for such a fragile urn.

Eric stepped out into the settling night, fresh from his own rising and shower, cocking a pale brow up to a grinning Harriet who, of course, already had eyes on him.

This close to night, her green gaze shimmered yellow in the low light of the coming stars, like a leopard in a dense jungle, just a flash of a warning that something in the shadows was watching.

Eric had not noticed that before, just how predatory those eyes were.

"Do I want to know what you are planning to do with all that?"

Her feet swung faster, joyful little kicks, excited, and Harriet, as she naturally did, dodged his question all together.

"Do you want to help me with it?"

Eric scoffed and moved onto the lawn to get a good look at the impish Dhampir without having to crane his neck so far back… And to get out from underneath in case she had the sudden notion to jump down and dine.

"I am convinced, from the short time I have known you, every five-foot inch of you is trouble, and no doubt whatever this is, is trouble too."

Her smile spun to something keen like jagged sea-glass whetted on a ragged shore. A smile made sharper by the storms it had weathered.

"We're going to piss off Godric."

Eric ignored her use of we, as she had ignored his first question, frowning as he crossed his arms over his chest, leather jacket pulling tight across his back.

"Not a particularly nice way of saying thank you to the Vampire who's helping you get out from under Compton's thumb, now, is it?"

Harriet-

Well, she rolled her eyes at him, none to impressed with his judgment.

"Of course it is."

Sighing, she placed the old wine jar from Paris back onto the pile at her side before she leant forward, bracing elbows on knees and chin on fists, peering bottomlessly downwards at him with those iridescent yellow flickered eyes.

The same clever eyes that had somehow, someway, scouted out Godric's very expensive collection of ceramics before dawn and the Vampire's rising.

"What do you think the most dangerous emotion is, Eric?"

Now it was Eric's turn to roll his eyes.

"Anger does tend to make a man violent, and if you're planning to do what I think you are, smashing Godric's earthenware that he has spent centuries collecting, you will see just how dangerous-"

"Wrong."

Harriet pulled back, shaking her head loosely, the black curls of her crown bouncing.

"It's not anger. Anger has uses. Anger is natural. Do you know what isn't natural? Even for Vampires? Apathy."

Anew, she took the wine jar onto her lap, fingers tap, tap, taping against the hollow shell as if it were her own personal war drum.

"How long has Godric been isolating himself?"

Eric did not answer, he did not move, he simply stared dead ahead. It was answer enough for the Dhampir.

"That's what I thought. The unanswered calls in your phone log when I looked… The little tussle I had with him when I got here… I'm guessing he's been drawing himself away for a while now."

Eric scowled darkly.

"He didn't seem too drawn away last night when he was laughing at your antics."

There's a note of something bitter in his voice, a sour tone Eric typically wouldn't let through no matter how acidic he was feeling, but he couldn't help it this time. Godric had been laughing last night as they stumbled about the place, trying to find all the little traps Harriet had stashed and placed around the nest, and Godric had grinned, and chuckled and-

Much more so than he had in a century, even when Eric had been around. And that's a hard pill to swallow. To see someone do something so effortlessly that you had tried so, so hard to do for so, so long.

Unfortunately, Harriet, the observant little murder gremlin she was, sniffed out his resentment, and-

Her face became something as soft as a feather caught in the summer breeze.

"I'm just a novelty."

There was no anger in her voice, nothing stung by her self-aimed insult, just fact.

"I'm something brand new Godric has never seen before, or has only caught a side-eyed glimpse at. You live as long as him, that grabs your attention for a little while. A little while. Novelty, however, has a habit of wearing off. You want to know why apathy is so dangerous, Eric?"

A shuffle of feet, a kick, kick, kick.

"Because it stops you living in the now. Everything becomes… Existential. What's the point of my existence? What is the meaning of everything and anything? Nothing ever changes and it just goes on, and on, and on, and day by day, you become smaller, lesser, distant. Apathy takes away everything else, takes it and consumes it. If anything, anything at all, in this whole fuckin' universe is truly, truly Vampiric, it is apathy."

Another head shake, another bounce, one last yellow shimmer.

"Love, hatred, joy, anger, apathy will destroy it all in the end. It's a black hole that pulls you in. It makes you lose-… Not lose… Forget. It makes you forget how exciting emotions can be. Even the bad ones like anger. As a Dhampir who primarily runs on instinct driven by emotions, and a girl who had been raised to die at a certain time in a war I didn't create, I can tell you it is particularly fun to feel without restraint after being apathetic to my own existence for such a long time."

Horcrux.

Godric had told him about the little he had figured out, the little Harriet had said herself, after Harriet had passed out last night in the rafters of the attic, clearly the highest place she could find in the Nest. There's a… Uncanny similarity between the two, Eric thought.

He could understand Godric offering his hand out to help. Eric would have too if the imp had bothered to try and talk-

And that wasn't fair, was it?

Eric's shoulders relaxed. Harriet was not the enemy here. There was no battle to be had. No invisible game of tic-tac-toe she was playing. Not between them, at the very least. Maybe with the rest of the world, but not with him, not here, and not right now.

"Hence your little pottery throw down?"

The smile came back almost blinding.

"Hence the pottery. Godric isn't too far gone. He didn't just let me waltz in her and kidnap him. He has some fight left, which is a good sign. He just needs to be reminded how exhilarating living can really be. The good, and the bad, and the ugly, and everything else between. Nothing is going to change if everyone around here continues tip-toeing and pussy-footing around him. So yes, Eric. This is my thank you. Bit by bit, I'm going to remind him why living in the day has its own rewards. First lesson is anger. Now, either get up here and help me piss off this two-millennia old vamp, or fuck off and get out the way."

Eric smirked, all teeth and all bite.

"And how could I refuse such an elegantly presented offer?"

By the time Eric had zoomed up to the porch roof, jumping the balustrades, and settled in on the downspouts beside the tiny Dhampir, Harriet was already handing him an old Grecian plate depicting Hercules.

She scowled and used it to poke at his thigh.

"Move your lanky legs! He'll spot your mammoth feet long before coming through the door. Don't give the game away too soon."

Eric snatched the plate and huffed, but, in the end, folded his 'lanky legs' underneath himself.

"Not all of us can be the size of a mayfly, and Godric is still in his room-"

Harriet's head cocked to the side, ear facing second story window just as the night breeze blew.

"Nope. He's in the… Kitchen."

The Dallas nest was a large, sprawling compound. Intricate as it was extensive, with expansive rooms and narrow, winding passage ways built to confuse those not used to circumnavigating them. Eric himself had trouble hearing anything beyond the living room, even with his own Vampiric senses.

"You can hear him?"

Harriet's nose twitched.

"Hear and smell and… Well, this weird sense that I can only describe as vibrating. He's… Dawdling."

Her grin grew.

"He's looking for us, but pretending he's not. Get ready, he's just come into the hallway and should be out here soon."

Harriet herself skirted closer to the edge of the roof, pot now in hands, lifted out and over the drop ending in concrete slabs.

Eric had only one last question. Just one.

"Why?"

Harriet glanced his way from the corner of her eye, and held it there, understanding Eric's question without much more prompt.

Why are you doing this for Godric?

Harriet shrugged.

"He saw me."

Her gaze drifted up, into the dark sky over the overcast night.

"Not a pitiful orphan to lock in an understairs cupboard. Not the Saviour of the Wizarding world. Not a Horcrux or problem to be solved. Not even as Undesirable Number One or Girl-who-lived or Dhampir, Godric saw… Me. Harriet. I can't remember the last time someone did that. I-… I think I like that."

The grin, anew, came back, just as dangerous, just as deadly, just as-

Just as Harriet.

"Plus I really, really enjoy pissing people off. Now be quiet. He's right around the bend and I want to get my shot just right."

She was right, of came stalking out the house just a moment later, gaze snapping up, met with the loud, raucous sound of a priceless wine jaw shattering down below.

"Whoopsie. My fingers slipped."

A thunderous growl blistered through the breeze.

"Your fingers did not slip if the pot was launched twenty feet across the patio, Harriet! What are you doing with those? Put them down-"

Crash.

Silence.

A blank stare.

A warning.

"Eric."

Eric Northmen smirked.

"Whoopsie."


Eric Northman P.O.V

"You're not still annoyed about the pottery, are you?"

In a chesterfield chair in the corner of a study beset by bookcases, Godric peeked over the rim of his hardcover and glowered at Eric leaning against the doorframe by his shoulder.

But then the scowl melted to a half-formed smile.

"I don't quite remember the last time I felt annoyed or angry. Not before today. It feels… Good. I suppose I have you to thank for that."

Eric kicked off from the doorframe, edging into the low-lit room, idly thumbing over the titles of the myriad of books lining the walls.

"It was Harriet's idea, actually. She has her moments… Seemingly between the ones hellbent on causing as much anarchy as vampirically possible."

Eric pulled a tome free from its little boxed home between two epics, idly scanning the contents as Godric flipped over his own page.

"She's a fledgling. She's merely testing boundaries, seeing how far she can push and where exactly on the totem she fits. You did the same at her age."

Eric scoffed and slapped the book in his hand shut, roughly shoving it back into the bookcase.

"Funnily enough, I do not recall ever running cross-country to kidnap someone nearly twenty-odd-times my own age and experience. Harriet is… Volatile and unpredictable. There is no fore planning when it comes to her. There's no predicting what her next move will be. I have a feeling you either learn to buckle up and go with it, or get lost in the wayside by being blown through."

It was not said derisively, not even cruelly, but Eric did say it.

Someone needed to.

Harriet was-

Harriet, and if Godric was going to get involved in this… Mess, he would need to know exactly what he was wading into. Which, when it came to the Dhampir who seemingly took a left when you expected a right, was something impossible to know.

A contradiction with a set of fangs.

Once more, Godric glanced his way over his book, this time marked with an almost taciturn, wistful soft smile.

"As I was at her age."

Eric flicked his tongue over his blunt teeth.

"It's not going to be easy; you know? There's only one way I know of that could get her out of Compton's Sire line, and thus his control, and… She's not going to go for it. She'll see it as swapping one boss for another."

Godric slowly closed his book, settling the hardback on his lap, undivided attention now squarely on Eric.

"We'll find another way."

Eric shook his head.

"And we already know there isn't going to be one to find. You said it yourself, to me, all those years ago. The blood is sacred. It's what binds us together-… It's what can bind us together, and undo bonds already created."

He kicked away from the bookcase carelessly, prowling the periphery of the room.

"She's after control, Godric. Control of herself, control of her own life, control over-… Over it all. I doubt she's going to settle for anything less. Her being here, this day, having done what she's done… It says enough."

Godric sighed deeply.

"It says she's desperate."

Eric chuckled, the foggy veil between him and his Maker finally lifting just enough for Eric to get a peek of what whirling, miasmal plans were forming in that mind of Godric's.

"I see."

A glare, and it only made Eric chuckled harder.

"Have we spent so much time a part that you have forgotten that I know you too?"

A tick of a clock somewhere deep in the nest.

"You're possessive, and worse, decisive, Godric. You see something you want, and you take it. You taught me that. So that's it then? The Dhampir's caught your eye, and she's just desperate enough not to see you come skulking in behind with a rucksack to throw over her. I have to wonder who really tried to do the kidnapping yesterday?"

No one else, Eric thought, could get away with speaking to Godric as he did. But that was what their bond was. An ebb and flow, a deep seeing-

An honesty neither Vampire could afford with anyone else.

Eric knew Godric-

And, unfortunately for the taller Vampire, Godric knew Eric.

"Don't be so obtuse, Eric. Is there an… Interest, shall we say?"

Godric plucked up the closed book and placed it on the corner table by his side.

"Yes. Clearly. One you evidently share seen as I have never told you how exactly to circumvent a Sire-line. Tell me, did you look that up before or after Harriet ran from Louisiana?"

Another tick.

A tock.

The blond Vampire grinned.

"A few hours after she had me in a headlock, actually."

Godric rolled his eyes, but the lurking laugh on his lips twitched.

"So we are on the same page. I do not see this as a negative."

Eric shook his head.

"A page Harriet will not find… palatable, and it seems you cannot find a smart quip for that, either."

Godric waved a flippant hand.

"She will only find it distasteful because she has yet to realize or see Vampire bonds as more than chains to be shirked. That can be changed."

Eric shook his head, locks of hair falling into his pale eyes.

"And you're going to show her the opposite before Compton finally catches up? Bill might not be the sharpest fang in the mouth, but he is competent. He'll figure out she is here before long, perhaps a week more before he comes knocking at your door. Can you have Harriet convinced by then? If Bill Compton arrives here before the Bond is fully formed, we'll have no choice but to hand her over to her Sire. No regency would back us if this escalates."

Godric smiled, keen and sharp, up at Eric.

"And has it been so long that you have forgotten how… Compelling I can be when I want to be?"

Eric scoffed.

This was why Godric needed him in this matter.

This right here.

"Of course not, but you seemed to have overlooked just how… Contrarian Harriet can be. In every single situation I have seen her in thus far, her reaction is always something I have not even considered. She does not do what one expects. Even for you, Godric."

Godric stood from his chair, hands delving deep into the pockets of his dark dove grey slacks as he made his way to the sole window of the room, to gander out at the speckle of stars above.

"I have never recoiled from a challenge before. I do not see why I should start now, particularly when the reward is so… Fascinating."

Eric dragged himself away from the bookcase lined walls, coming close to the window, balancing by his shoulder on the glass.

"Harriet, I dare say, isn't like any challenge either of us have seen before."

Godric cocked his head, gaze still lingering high into the night, around the shrouded slither of a moon.

"I did not think you would be intimidated by a challenge so easily, Eric."

Eric scoffed.

"I did not say I wasn't up to it. I wouldn't have researched the methods myself if not… But I do intend to succeed, and to do that one must first consider the fact that Harriet is fucking chaotic. We throw these cards into the air, she's going to turn them into a tornado."

Godric hummed long and low.

"Perhaps, or perhaps she will do what neither of us suspect. That is half the fun."

Eric turned away from the window completely, back to the starlight, face to his Maker.

"I still don't think she's going to go for it."

Godric glanced his way.

"Then what do you propose? We leave her with her Maker? This Bill Compton?"

A growl rumbled in the swell of Eric's chest, and the sound only made Godric smile wider into the night.

"I thought not. We will have one chance to convince Harriet of this. Just one. Conceivably working together might… tip the scales in our favour, yes? So what do you say? Are you in?"

Silence lingered before a snort shattered it to pieces.

"Of course I'm in. I already have my own blood bagged."

Godric swivelled from the window.

"Good. Now come, we have much to discuss."

Eric followed Godric out the room-

And neither saw the shadow of a Dhampir rise from outside the window, where it had been crouched in the shrubbery below, head cocked before it flashed out of sight.


Isabel Beaumont's P.O.V

Isabel Beaumont stooped in the mud and dirt, down in a hastily dug pit, tearing at the sticks of chiselled stakes pressed deeper yet into the earth.

"Hello."

Isabel did what she had not done in centuries at the sound of a voice behind her.

She Jumped.

Spinning around, stake still in hand, it took her a moment too long, even for her Vampire senses, to make form out of the shadow sitting at the edge of the pit, pale legs dangling, bare feet kicking, a white toothed grin shining in the night.

The Dhampir.

"Have you come to help clean up this mess?"

They had found this second spike pit just an hour ago, when Stan, anew, had nearly met the True Death if Isabel had not pulled him out the way at the last possible second.

The Dhampir shook her curly head, nearly as dark as the night sky crowned above it.

"I've come to ask some questions."

Isabel, despite the warning siren in the back of her mind telling her not to, turned back to the work at hand, the Dhampir behind, unseen now, as she went about her task.

"Perhaps you should go and speak to Godric. I am sure he will be happy to answer any-"

A sigh, soft and tender.

"Godric's with Eric, and you know what they're like together… Don't you?"

Isabel does know.

Intimately.

Almost bitterly too.

She and her own Maker had never had a close bond, Andre had abandoned her the moment she had risen, left her to fend for herself, and when Eric had started visiting the Dallas Nest less and less, she had thought her and Godric had grown-

Well, Eric was back now.

And so was this Dhampir.

Bitter, yes. Isabel was a little bitter, but, she thought, she had a right to be.

Still, she would not take it out on anyone else but herself, herself and her fanciful dreams, and instead, abandoned the stake in her hand, rose, and dusted her hands off as best as she could on the thighs of her jeans.

"What help do you need?"

The Dhampir's feet fell still, and the hairs on the back of Isabel's neck rose on end, another sensation she had thought so long dead, here again, alive-

She shook her head to gather her thoughts-

To stop herself from running.

The Dhampir only needed help… Then why did it feel like Isabel had just walked straight on ahead into a trap?

"Godric said something to me earlier, and I didn't want to bring it up because… Well, he said it like I was already supposed to know. As if all Vampires knew, and I didn't want to seem stupid."

Isabel, too, knows how that feels, and she wondered if the Dhampir could see right through her, knew exactly her own scars and open wounds, knew what to button to press to get what she wanted-

Of course not.

She was a Dhampir, not a mind reader.

Isabel smiled.

"Well, I will not think you stupid. What did he say that has troubled you?"

The Dhampir hesitated but only for a moment.

"He said the blood is sacred. He said it can form and unform Bonds… What blood is he on about?"

Isabel made her way to the edge of the pit, grasped the topsoil of grass root above, and heaved herself out, coming to a sit beside the Dhampir in the moonlight.

"Our blood. Vampire blood."

The Dhampir turned to face her, green eyes almost impossibly bright, almost-

Almost hypnotic, really.

Isabel found herself speaking without truly meaning to.

"Vampire blood is potent. Powerful. It is what gives us undead life, and it is what turns us from Mortals into something more. It is that passing of blood from Sire to Childe that creates an almost unbreakable bond."

The Dhampir nodded curiously.

"Almost, you say? What could break it then?"

Again, terribly, Isabel found herself responding.

"Only a few things. Intolerable abuse. The severing of the Bond from the Sire's side and…"

"And?"

The Dhampir edged, smile blossoming on her face, soft and tender and trustworthy.

Tell me.

"If another Blood Bond was stronger. If the new giver of blood has a greater will than the last. It is a hard thing to do, impossible some say, but… There have been supposed cases."

The Dhampir turned away from her, and still, Isabel couldn't actually move, couldn't truly speak, couldn't really think, as if a green fog had descended upon her, wrapped her up and swayed her gently into a sort of semi-sleep.

"So if a Vampire was to give, say, a Dhampir their blood… What would it do?"

"If the Dhampir had a Sire, and the Vampire's will was stronger… They would supersede that Sire's place."

The Dhampir hummed, and it sounded like a lullaby-

Just like the lullaby Isabel's human mother used to sing so long ago-

She had nearly forgotten that tune. How could she have forgotten-

"And if a Dhampir, instead, were to give their blood to the Vampire, what then?"

"No such thing has ever happened before. No one has ever-"

Tell me.

Yes… Tell. Tell and sleep, sleep and tell-

"I suppose, if the Vampire had no Sire, or the Dhampir's will was stronger, the Dhampir might supersede that empty place."

The Dhampir's grin grew crisp and clever.

"And tell me, sweet Isabel, if these Vampires in question… If one was already a Sire but had no Sire, and the other a Childe, what about then? What would happen to the Dhampir's biological Sire? Would he still have a… Pull?"

That's it. Nearly there. Just keep talking.

"Then, I think, the Dhampir would supplant the Nest-… Become head of the Line. Both Sire and Childe, and any other Childer created in that line, would fall under the Bond, and the Dhampir's previous Sire… There would be no link left for him. There never is when a Dhampir manages to form their own Nest."

A little pink tongue peaked out from between the pearly teeth.

"Fantastic. Thank you, Isabel. You've been wonderful help."

The Dhampir stood up from the damp earth, turning back to the house, made it four steps away before she glanced back.

"Oh, and you'll forget this conversation as soon as I'm out of sight… And get in soon. The dawns coming."

With a wink and a flash, the Dhampir was gone-

Isabel blinked back, frowning as she sat by the pit-

What had-

She huffed, shaking her head.

There was no time to rest when she still had a pit to fill-

Dawn is coming. I should get inside.


Harriet Potter's P.O.V

Harriet Potter stood in front of the fridge in the basement, fluorescent light harsh upon her face, dawn breaking just outside these walls.

She reached in and pulled out one glass bottle of many.

One glass bottle of many filled with blood.

It had taken her a while to sniff out their human blood stash, but, then again, none of the slumbering Vampire's dotted around her had obviously thought to hide it very well.

They likely hadn't seen a need to.

Silly buggers.

It had taken her even longer to figure out that the AB- were Godric's, and the AB+ were Eric's, by the smell still lingering on the B- and the O+, they were Stan's and Isabel's favourites.

Harriet had no use for those ones.

She unscrewed the cap, kept the tab nice and fresh and undented, and lifted her own wrist, fangs tearing into the tender flesh. She held the weeping wound over the rim of the bottle, her blood a startling black in the bright light, watched her own blood spike the human blood, black swirling into the burgundy, and when enough had been poured inside, she pulled her wrist away and licked off the trail of her own blood left on the rim.

The cap was swiftly screwed back on, the seal fixed by a tiny weave of magic, the bottle shook, and would you look at that…

Nothing amiss.

The bottle journeyed back to its brethren on the top shelf.

All nice and tainted bottles.

By the time she reached for the next, her wrist wound was already closed again, and by the time she was done, the fridge appeared as it always did.

Spotlessly clean.

Did Harriet feel bad about what she had just done? A little-

That was a lie.

No, she didn't. She didn't feel bad at all. Not a tiny bit. She felt-

Excited.

Energized.

Fuckin' keyed up.

She liked Godric, she liked Eric-

Better than Compton, anyway. And if this was the way out of a Sire Bond, if what Isabel had said was true, if Godric and Eric were willing enough to give her their blood like what that conversation she had eavesdropped on suggested, well…

Well.

Better this time she be the one on top, the one making the Horcruxes and not the Horcrux, the one with the chain in hand and not the leash around their neck, the-

The Sire… She liked the sound of that. Harriet liked the sound of that very much.

She had, after all, promised Eric she was going to anger Godric, hadn't she?

She grinned at the open fridge.

"Oh, they're going to be so pissed when they find out. It's going to be hilarious."

What was a little hostile takeover, anyway? Corporations did them all the time, and nothing bad ever came from those, did it?

Harriet closed the door, blinked into darkness, and made her way out the basement, whistling low as she went.

This was going to be amusing.


Next Chapter Preview:

The bottle of blood tinkled as it was pushed closer to Eric by a pale finger across the marble countertop of the kitchen island.

Harriet sat on the opposite side, elbow propped on countertop and chin resting on her remaining clenched fist, smiling from ear to ear, a keen glint in her green eye.

"Why don't you have a little drink? You're looking a bit peaky there."

In response, Eric pushed over the tumbler of inconspicuous Vampire blood in Harriet's direction.

"Why don't you have a little drink. You haven't fed in a while. I'm guessing you're thirsty by now."


A.N: I know it's been a long, long while since the last update, but I am just now getting over some real nasty writers-block, some not so good real life hijinks, and starting my Masters degree. So I haven't been able to write pretty much anything for a little while, and It's been dreadful. I am hoping this makes up for even half the horrible wait I put you guys through, and I am hoping some of you have stuck around and will continue to do so despite my terrible updating lol.

THANK YOU ALL for all your patience. You've all been so wonderfully kind and understanding, and I really do come back and re-read all your reviews an embarrassing amount of times lol. I do hope you guys liked this, and hopefully, there will be another update soon. If you have a spare moment, please don't forget to drop a few words over in that box over there, and have a lovely week!