Eric Northman. He was… imposing, even more so now that we were all inside his office. The bar itself was rather tacky but somehow I could tell he was the real thing. There was something about him that seemed powerful and old. His assistant, Pam, notably less so, but she was still clearly not human. I could tell she wasn't breathing in that too-tight corset of hers, and she didn't seem bothered by that fact. When she did breathe though, in order to speak, her already raised breasts rose even higher in a distracting fashion. The unnaturalness of her corseted body made it difficult to look away. I was amazed she could walk around freely like that, though given what I'd briefly seen in the bar it might actually count as a conservative outfit. I'd never seen anything like it in the Republic.

"Angela." Eric's voice was deep and instantly pulled my gaze his way. I tried to look like I'd been paying attention to what he and Sookie had been discussing but I had a feeling he saw through my act. "Who is your sire?"

"Sire? What's a sire?"

"Your maker, the one who turned you."

Oh right. I vaguely remembered the term from when I briefly researched vampire myths. "Umm, I'm not really sure?" I wasn't even sure when I became something other than human or if it had something to do with zombies. There was still so much about my past that I didn't know, and getting tossed in a different world meant finding answers might be impossible.

"Your eyes are… quite something."

"Yeah," said Sookie. "Have you ever seen anything like them?"

"Mutations are not unheard of… but something like this is highly unusual. In the old days she would have been killed to preserve secrecy, but now that we're living in public that's not an issue anymore." Killed. Ouch. Eric saying that with such a straight face made it all the scarier. "But her eyes may be why she was abandoned."

For such a handsome man he had an awfully scary aura. And awfully wrong. My glowing purple eyes were very pretty in a demony sort of way, there was no way my imaginary sire would have left me because of them. I was glad he hadn't noticed my claws though, I was more self-conscious about them and preferred not to hear what he thought about them.

'Oh wow, my heart isn't beating. That can't be healthy.' Either Eric was scaring me even more than I thought or Sookie blood had pushed my vampire side out further than ever. I'd stopped breathing before for a time but I'd never felt my heart stop. I was tempted to do whatever I could to immediately restart it but that didn't seem like a great thing to do in front of Eric. If they were like me they could hear heartbeats when they put their mind to it, and that would give me away as being even stranger than they thought. Odd as it seemed, my best bet was to put myself forth as a normal vampire and hide my human side. Such a backwards world this was.

"She'll need someone to take care of her. Pam?"

"Don't look at me. She's not my type at all. I prefer women with nice, big -"

"Pam!" interjected Eric. "Not in front of the kid."

"I'm nineteen." Technically mid-twenties, but no one would believe that. Nineteen was at least within the realm of possibility.

"Really?"

Did they have to look so surprised? It would help if I wasn't so short. Going barefoot wasn't helping in that respect.

"I can take care of her," said Sookie. I smiled up at her, surprised once again at her generosity. Then I frowned. It was weird that I was so willing to go home with her and have her 'take care of me' like I was a kid. I was an independent adult with vampire superpowers, I didn't need someone to look after me. Was it her blood that made me so willing to stay by her side? I didn't think I was that dependent on it after just one taste but she was extremely tasty.

"That's a bad idea," said Eric. "Newborn vampires are… unpredictable. They have little impulse control and are always hungry. You could get hurt."

"I'm not that bad." Pam especially seemed skeptical. Perhaps she had a point considering I did bite Sookie on the ride up. I was getting better though!

Eric chuckled. "Then again, this could be interesting. A human raising a vampire. A brave new world." Pam opened her mouth to argue with him but he silenced her without a word. "She will need to be instructed in vampire law and history. Both of you must come back to Fangtasia regularly."

Sookie pouted slightly but said, "Fine, I guess we can do that." She was rewarded for her obedience with a thousand dollar stack of hundreds. "What's this for? I can't accept this."

"It's for your new fledgeling. They can be expensive and I don't want to see any vampire in my territory suffer. I'd suggest buying her shoes, to start."

I looked down. Shoes would be nice. I was pretty hardy in vamp state but during the day I'd be far more fragile. Covering up my little black toe-claws would be good as well.

Reluctantly Sookie took the money, though Eric wasn't quite done with her. "One more thing. Make sure she's fed frequently. It will make her less likely to get carried away. You can grab a few cases of True Blood from the bar but she'll need donor blood from the hospital regularly too. Well, unless you can find something fresher for her." He smirked then and I had to wonder if he knew what we'd done in the car. Hopefully it wasn't that obvious.