True blood – Ghost in the Machine
It seemed the opposite of what she'd want, but when Christy heard Voice tell her what to say she just gripped her beer bottle a little tighter and gave Erik as genuine of a smile as she could. "Actually, why don't you sit down here?" She took a sip as if that was a common question. "I'm observing the bar, so I kind of need to be out here, but maybe you can explain what I've been seeing?"
An amused expression crossed Erik's face, before he slowly moved to sit down. He tilted his head slightly as if tilting his hat to Christine. Christine nodded back as if she understood, because she was told to and glanced around the room again in search of a question, any question. She had to find a reason for them staying out here. "The humans," Christine spoke quietly, just immediately after Voice suggested the words, but not wanting any humans to hear this, "did they flock here immediately after you all came out?"
"We were very busy the third night we were opened, but the first two were rather quiet." Erik offered. "I knew it would change and it did."
"Some of them look like they're animals hunting their own prey, don't you think? I mean look how that girl is watching your bartender." Christine nodded towards the woman in question, who was staring intently at the bartender while he waited on someone else. The bartender in question looked up at them and smirked at Christine, proving that vampire hearing had an incredible range.
"Somehow I don't think our bartender is upset with being stalked." Erik sat back, his arms moving out to rest on either side of him along the top of the booth. Christy was glad she was across the table from him at that moment. "We all find the humans selecting their 'prey' amusing. Pam gets a bit of a following herself around here."
"Of course." Christine muttered without Voice's urging. "They'd have to be blind and deaf to not find her attractive." Christine had already thought about it and blood wasn't sex, she'd have to accept that if she wanted to date a vampire, because no one human could keep a vampire fed if she got possessive of that aspect of it all. It wasn't fair to expect Pam to stick to bottled when it was clear that wasn't as good and people at her work would throw themselves at Pam for the chance to say a vampire bit them.
Erik chuckled and then stared into her eyes. "You find me attractive." His voice was slightly deeper, his words slower and Christine felt Voice seem to perk up inside her with a resigned instruction.
"For a man, but I don't swing that way. Never have." Christine offered a small smile, trying to turn the conversation without insulting him, but noticed how his eyes seemed to widen just a fraction and his laid back pose changed to leaning toward her.
His playful expression was missing and he stared into her eyes. Voice didn't sound too happy when she told her to just hold the vampires gaze, that there was nothing they could do about it but deal with it now. Christine wasn't sure what they were dealing with, but she could tell it was important.
"Take off your shirt." He commanding in that strange tone, staring into her eyes in a somewhat creepy way. He wasn't smiling, he looked tense.
Voice spoke up. "You don't feel any urge to do what he says and he suspects that. All humans can be glamoured, everyone that is fully human, but we can't be." Christine frowned at the word glamour and was starting to suspect what that might be. "Don't blush, don't think about it, start to unbutton your shirt. I doubt Pam will let you finish, she likely is paying attention to you since you sat so close to the door. Trust that and just start to unbutton."
It felt so wrong and Christine just stared forward and listened to Voice distract her as she reached up and unbuttoned slowly, as if hypnotized. Christine had a million questions about why she was doing this, but she couldn't ask any of them now. Erik slowly started to relax as it got to three buttons, and Christine had no idea how her heart wasn't pounding or how she wasn't blushing, but as she reached for the forth button a feminine hand came into view and covered her own. "Erik, do not do this to her. She is mine."
"I was just testing her. I thought we might have another Sookie on our hands." Erik looked away and Pam's fingers moved quickly to cover Christine back up. Christy looked up at the blonde vampire standing over her and blinked, before she let the smile cross her face. Voice was telling her to act like nothing happened.
"Hey, is it your break time?" Christine asked, feeling a wave of relief come over her that Pam had stopped her from having to finish that. Voice was going to have to explain this whole scene after they were alone.
"It will be." Pam gave Erik a cold stare. "We'll take the office." Christine was gently pulled to her feet as Pam escorted her out of the bar and down the hall to the office. Something inside her body changed and her skin felt warm as her heart started to be faster, as if suddenly released in a race. Pam gave her a concerned look and Christine only gave her a shy smile, wondering at her own bodies actions. That fast heartbeat should have been there when Erik was making her start to undress.
"I held it back, but let go of control too fast, I'm sorry." Voice muttered as Christine followed Pam into the office. That brought up even more questions, and Christine wished she had time now to start jotting them down, but Voice reminded her to focus on the book for now, the book and Pam.
….
Christine was taking notes as quickly as she could, while they went over the first third of the book for things that needed more realism, but so far there weren't any requests to leave something out. Pam was being all business, sitting in the chair going over the chapters, while letting Christine sit on the couch. It seemed, to Christine, that Pam was irritated and it was most likely with Erik and what happened, but since Voice told her Pam would assume Christine didn't remember that, Pam pretended it was with the 'idiots at the door'.
Christine debated with herself, and just herself, as Voice was not weighing in an opinion. Finally, after Pam had finished with the latest chapter she asked a question that had to do with her book, but was also something to do with the night. "I should try and increase the tension here, but I don't want to ruin the flow of the whole story."
Pam's eyebrow rose a bit as she clearly waited for more and Christine felt a bit nervous. Voice spoke softly in her mind, "Go ahead, bring it up. She might suspect something, but don't admit anything yet. Just keep it vague and don't admit to anything. It's just about the book at this point."
Christine sat a little straighter, "I heard that vampires can erase memories, and if that's true I could use that here and use the tension of discovery that has no long term effects on the story."
Pam's eyes widened as she stared at Christine. After a moment, the blonde tilted her head and stared even harder. "It's called glamouring, where we can make humans do what we want. Back when we kept ourselves a secret it was how we could get blood and not get caught." Pam answered, but her words were slower and she was staring at Christine a little apprehensively. "It may be known we have that power, but it isn't a good idea to include it. It could start off another anti-vampire wave and accusations."
Christine held Pam's gaze and spoke just as slowly. "I guess you're right, it wouldn't be a good idea to talk about it."
Pam gave her some measuring looks, but the subject was dropped as Erik knocked and seemed to open the door in the same motion. "I hope you two are done." He made a show of sniffing the air and giving Pam an odd look. "Just work I see, what a waste of my well equipped office."
Voice had to convince Christine to speak, and she couldn't stop blushing as she grinned. "Well at least your office is well equipped." She smirked at the large blonde male vampire who just tilted his head, as if acknowledging the dig. She wasn't sure what Voice was after, perhaps trying to make friends, but this didn't seem like a good way to do it.
"I can show you it isn't just my office." He reached for his pants and Pam shook her head.
"He is well endowed, but I think we'll spare you having to see that." Pam stood up and reached a hand out to help Christine up.
"Would he really show me?" Christine asked, feeling a bit shocked, as Pam closed the door behind them.
"Oh yes, Erik loves to show off." Pam muttered and smirked. "Did you really want to see, we could go back."
"No, that's okay." Christine spoke quickly, but part of her wondered if Pam would have turned around. That was definitely different.
"Good, I still plan to be your first vampire, and Erik is starting to look like he plans to be competition." Pam took Christine's elbow and started to steer her toward the club.
"Like I told him earlier, he's good looking for a man, but I don't swing that way." Christine gave Pam a flirtatious smile, but Pam's eyes widening confused her.
Voice muttered, sounding a bit unhappy, "You said that when you were supposed to be glamoured, you shouldn't remember saying it. Time to call it a night, and get out of here."
"So Wednesday?" Christine spoke quickly, glancing at the door and hoping Erik stayed in his office.
"Yes, I'll pick you up at your place." Pam spoke just a bit slower. The vampire frowned for just a moment, before pulling Christine to a stop in front of her and staring into her eyes. Pam just shook her head and stared for a moment, clearly debating about it and Christine knew, just knew, what Pam was considering trying, but the blonde vampire let her leave without checking to see if she could be glamoured.
…
Christine sat on the porch in the rocking chair and sipped at her lemonade as she stared out at the road. There were neighbors and a few cars went by once in a while, but no one paid any attention to her. She spoke softly to the Voice in her head, trying to get some answers. "You became a spy, like 007 spy?" The story Voice was telling her was more fantastical than anything Christine had ever written. She could tell Voice felt some pain when she spoke about her first world, and she admitted to things that made it clear why Voice knew some of the things she'd told Christine about for her books. It was horrible and Voice only barely touched on her own story. It felt like a brief synopsis and even as brief as it was, this was a long story.
"Not really James Bond like, I impersonated people, but I did run around getting shot at as well." There was a hint of amusement in Voice's tone.
"Are you sure I'm not just insane?" Christine asked, feeling shocked that someone like Voice existed and that Voice would be in her head of all people.
"You're not. I could prove it too." Voice spoke firmly. "I know things about this world you don't. I've already proved that with the Fangtasia thing, but if we talked with Sookie I could really show you."
"Right, because you read a book about her." Christine muttered, still stunned. Sookie was the center of the story that Voice had read, and Pam was only a minor character. She couldn't even imagine Pam being a minor character, if she wrote that book Pam would have been much more in it. Christine frowned as she started to look at real life like it was a story she could write. Maybe she wasn't crazy yet, but this story Voice was telling was making her crazy.
Christine sat in silence, letting the story sink in. She had no idea how long she sat there, but the neighbor across the street coming out of the house and driving off brought her back into motion. Christine took a sip of lukewarm lemonade and sighed. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
Voice's tone was soft, almost gentle. "You already thought I might be a sign of mental illness on your part. I thought I should wait until I was somewhere I could prove what I was saying. If you really need proof, we just need to talk to Sookie and she can confirm I know too much about her life and you've never met her before now. I can prove that much. My past, I can't prove much of that, but I can prove that I know more than you do about some things."
Christine stared out toward the mailbox, and nothing was in focus as she did that. Proof, proof she hadn't gone insane in some way. Proof that her 'creative mind' hadn't gone that last little bit and created an 'imaginary friend'. She'd kept it a secret from everyone, and slowly she'd started to believe, but not fully. The idea that it could be proved was amazing and she was tempted to ask for that proof immediately, but she'd need to find this Sookie first.
"So you're just stuck inside me now, you were a real person and you're just stuck inside me?" It sounded like a nightmare to her, and Christine had no idea how Voice, or Christy, that was weird as well, dealt with that.
"You can think of me as Demise, that was my codename." Voice told her. "My type of spy wasn't called by a number." Christine could almost hear the sigh. "I don't think of this as a nightmare Christine. I've enjoyed being in here. I wasn't sure at the beginning, but you were a writer, you made your living doing it. I used to, before my world fell apart, want that life. Your life. At first I was sitting and waiting to see what I'd fallen into, what world this was, but I started to like you and really liked seeing the world with innocent eyes again. You stopped my nightmares, and your dreams were addicting. It made being in here easier to take." Voice spoke a bit more hesitantly, "But I'm not trapped in here."
"What do you mean?" Christine could easily tell Voice was reluctant again, just like she'd been reluctant to start this entire conversation at all. The access to this 'proof' may be helped, but the fact that they were going to have to tell Pam about Voice made it impossible to wait any longer. Tomorrow night Christine needed to be able to explain this, which was why she was finally asking questions she'd been afraid of asking before.
"You eat more fruits and vegetables, but that isn't enough change for you to get more toned muscles." Voice spoke slowly. "You don't need ten hours of sleep a night, and honestly you aren't getting it." Christine started to frown as she felt confused. "I can take over at times, but I don't do that to you when you are awake. I didn't want to scare you by having you start missing time. I was sure that you'd check yourself into a mental hospital if you started having black outs."
"What?" Christine's heart started to pound and her voice hit a new high.
"I take over and get us a bit of exercise in the middle of the night, that way you were getting stronger and I was making sure not to get out of practice. I am a fighter now, and I want to be able to defend 'us' if need be. I have been practicing so I could figure out what 'we' are capable of. Still, I don't want to take over completely, this is your life and I won't steal it."
Christine could actually feel the blood leave her face and her vision got spotty. Voice was saying something about breathing, but Christine didn't pay it much attention. She was too busy trying not to faint and she never faints. "Oh my god." She whispered once she started to feel a little better.
…..