Disclaimer: I own Gemma Leland and part of the plot line associated with her. The rest of the characters and plot belong to Alan Ball, creator of the HBO series True Blood, and Charlaine Harris, the author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels.
Chapter 6
When we stepped into the restroom, Pam walked straight up to the sink. She opened up her purse and pulled out a stick of lip liner. Jessica put her hands on the other sink, watching Pam intently. She seemed eager to say something, but was finding it hard to put into words. As I walked past her, she looked at me suspiciously, seemingly sizing me up. I gave her a look that said, "Quit staring at me, bitch," and walked to the other side of the room, leaning up against one of the cubicles.
"So, Pam," Jessica began, nervously casting her gaze toward me. Her eyes lingered on me for another second before looking back at Pam, seemingly satisfied that I could listen to this conversation. "When you're feeding on someone, how do you not kill 'em?"
My ears perked up. So Jessica was a new vampire like me? It made me feel a little less alone and out of place. Maybe Jessica would be a good ally, considering she was the only vampire I had met who seemed relatively approachable.
"Bill didn't teach you that?" Pam asked, genuinely surprised. I looked to the floor. So this Bill who had been kidnapped seemed to be Jessica's maker and someone close to the blonde woman. I felt like I was a crime-solver in a murder mystery. It was kind of exciting.
"Bill doesn't want me to feed on people. And now he's gone and…"
Pam sighed as she returned to applying her lip liner. "It's in the heartbeat, you feel it in the blood."
I started listening even more intently. Earlier, when I fed on that human Skylar, I did remember hearing a heartbeat in my head. As it slowed, she became weaker and eventually went limp. If Eric hadn't pulled me off of her, she would have died. This was a lesson I needed to hear.
"Yeah?" Jessica asked, just as interested as I was.
"And when it slows, you stop."
Jessica stood up straight, pacing across the floor until she came to a strange-looking bench. Plopping down on it, she looked small, portraying physically the way I felt: small, alone, confused.
"Yeah, but how do you stop?"
Pam turned to face her, leaning up against the sink. "I think of crying children with soggy diapers. Also maggots."
"Well, let's say you did kill somebody," Jessica said sheepishly. "By accident," she quickly added.
Pam chuckled, shaking her head. I watched her in disgust. Jessica was talking about accidentally killing somebody and Pam was acting like she was talking about accidentally stepping on a bug. I may have been a vampire like them, but something about Pam rubbed me the wrong way. It was probably her condescending disregard for anyone, including humans. It disgusted me.
But then again, I thought, I do feed from them, just like any other vampire. Am I really any better than her?
"What would you do with the body?"
Unable to handle the conversation any longer, I stormed past both women, throwing open the door and walking out into the hall.
I paced back and forth in the darkened hallway, thoughts buzzing in my head like a hive full of bees. The nonchalant way the female vampires were talking about human death bothered me, but not as much as it probably should have.
I had not thought much about the werewolves since my first arrival at Fangtasia. My mind had been trying to wrap around the fact that I was now a vampire and I could not remember how it happened. This blonde woman and the vampire Jessica, though, had just found the body of a werewolf and believed that he had been involved in this Bill's disappearance. But why? I couldn't help but think. My mind kept returning to the same question. Why would werewolves have so much interest in vampires?
The sound of the bathroom door opening pulled me from my thoughts. From behind me, I heard a set of tentative footsteps approach me. When I turned around, Jessica was looking at me nervously, her left hand grasping her right forearm. She was very pretty with long red hair and gorgeous blue eyes. Her skin was flawless, making me jealous. I had always been cursed with freckles, one of the curses of being a fair redhead.
"You're not going to tell anybody what I said, will you?" she asked anxiously, looking up at me through her eyelashes. She looked so vulnerable, it was hard to believe that just minutes ago she had been asking how to hide a dead body.
"Look, Jessica," I started, not sure what to say, "I…"
"What's your name?" Jessica interrupted.
"Gemma."
"Gemma, you have to know what boat I'm in. You're a new vampire too, right?"
"Yeah, I actually just awoke tonight," I admitted, nervously scratching my scalp.
"Really?" she asked, surprised. "Well, then you really know what's going on. The hunger, it's nearly uncontrollable, you know that. I made a mistake that I really regret; I just broke up with my boyfriend and I needed a little danger, so I fed on someone. But my maker believes in mainstreaming. He only drinks Tru Blood, so he didn't tell me how to feed on a human without killing them. You have to understand, I wasn't out there looking for somebody to kill. My nature, our nature, took over and I just…lost control."
The things she said touched me. I knew I shouldn't take murder lightly. Just because it was an accident didn't make it alright. This was a human being we were talking about, not a rabbit that ran out in front of her car. At the same time, though, I knew where she was coming from. I had that same problem just earlier. I would never have known when to stop if someone else had not stopped me. I couldn't be a hypocrite and say she deserved to be punished when I could easily have been in the same position. It was troubling, and I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing, but I had to be empathetic.
"I understand, Jessica," I sighed, leaning up against the wall. "I haven't even been a vampire 24 hours and I already know how hard it can be to control the urges. A big part of me sees all of this from a human's point of view still, that murder is bad all the time and whatnot, but I'm not a human anymore. Maybe I need to change the way I look at things."
I could tell Jessica knew I didn't completely agree with what I was saying, but she still gave me a big smile and threw her arms around me.
"Thanks, Gemma. We're the only vampires around here that are less than a couple centuries old. We need to stick together," she said brightly, looking me in the eye. "And if you ever need help, don't hesitate to ask me. I'll help you hide a body; hell, I'll help you hide ten bodies if you need me to." She smiled shyly, adding, "I'm just so happy to know somebody who knows what I'm going through."
"I know how you feel," I said with a weak smile. "I've been stuck with Eric for most of the night and I have to tell you, he makes me feel like the biggest burden."
"Eric Northman's not all that easy to get along with," Jessica said with a shrug. "Did you know he's over a thousand years old?"
I gawked at her. "A thousand? No way."
"Yeah. He used to be a Viking. I figure that's why he's such a dick sometimes. It must be hard being that fucking old."
"Wow, well that definitely changes things a bit," I whispered, still getting over the shock. Eric was a one thousand-year-old vampire stuck with a 21-year-old. Okay, so maybe I should cut him some slack. If I were that old, I probably wouldn't want to deal with me either.
At that moment, Pam walked out of the restroom, her makeup perfectly done, accentuating the haughty look in her eyes.
"You girls done gossiping?" Pam asked sarcastically.
"Yeah, I need to get Sookie to take me home. The sun is going to be coming up before long," Jessica answered, turning and walking toward the club area. As we neared, I could still hear Eric and the blonde woman, who I assumed was Sookie, still talking about something. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I wasn't really trying. It felt rude to eavesdrop.
"Sookie, you gotta get me home before dawn," Jessica said as we entered the room. Sookie turned her head away, but I could tell she was wiping tears from her face. Without a word to Eric, she grabbed her purse, stood up, and walked toward us. Together, Sookie, Jessica, Pam, and I all walked out, leaving Eric to himself. Before I passed through the door, I looked back at him. He looked blank, as if he wasn't really in his head anymore. Sighing, I turned and left, giving him some time to himself.
As we walked out into the night, Sookie turned and looked at me, her eyes still rimmed with red from crying, but her sadness seemed to be replaced with curiosity.
"Eric said you are a baby vampire," Sookie stated, her eyes studying my face. I nodded. "What is your name?"
"I'm Gemma Leland," I answered, forcing a small smile. This close to Sookie, I became painfully aware that she was human. I could hear the blood pumping through her and she smelled delicious, even better than the human I drank from earlier. Mentally, I shook myself, took a moment to remind myself that I'm not just a mindless beast. Thankfully, Sookie didn't seem to notice. Instead, she gave me a pitying smile.
"How did you get stuck with Eric of all the vampires? Don't you have a maker?"
"Well, yeah, I have a maker, I guess. He or she is gone, though. Eric thinks they are dead."
"Wow," she breathed. "That's terrible. Well, we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Sookie Stackhouse."
Sweetly, Sookie held out her hand to me. I took it, shaking her hand politely. It surprised me a little that she was so at-ease with vampires. When I was human, I had always learned to be scared to death of vampires, like they were ticking time bombs about to explode at any second.
"Nice to meet you, Sookie."
"Look, Gemma, things are a little out-of-control right now, but I want to be able to help you if I can. Eric can be awful and I don't think you deserve that."
I smiled, touched by her offer. "Thanks. And I want to help you, too. I don't know who Bill is or if there is any way I can help, but I can tell he means a lot to you and I'll do anything I can."
Sookie's eyes began to fill with tears, her mouth spreading into a big smile. "You have no idea how much I appreciate that. Well, the sun is going to be rising soon and I need to get Jessica home. Don't be a stranger, okay?"
"Okay," I answered, waving to her as she walked toward a little beat-up yellow car. As she and Jessica opened their doors, I turned and walked back into Fangtasia.
Inside, Eric and Pam were speaking in another language, the conversation obviously unpleasant and most likely about me. As I entered, both pairs of eyes turned and looked at me.
"What did I do this time?" I asked nervously, taking slow steps toward them.
"We don't have time to see the Queen tonight before the sun rises," Eric growled, pissed off by this problem. "We will have to sleep, and then go to her tomorrow night. I have a special sleeping spot I will allow you to use tonight."
Exchanging a few more words in their secret language, Swedish if what Jessica told me was true, Pam and Eric turned and led me outside. Pam got into the Corvette and drove away, leaving Eric and I standing in the empty parking lot. I turned and looked at him.
"So where is this 'special sleeping spot' you want me to stay at? Don't you have a house or something?" I asked, suddenly feeling very tired. Something inside me told me that there was less than an hour until the sun began to rise.
"Yes, I have a home, but a vampire's resting place is the most vital secret he keeps," he answered seriously. "Only people I trust know where it is, which at this time includes only myself and Pam."
Too tired to argue, I just shrugged. Satisfied that I wasn't going to fight him, Eric gestured for me to follow. Suddenly, Eric took off like a lightning bolt into the woods with me following close behind.
Despite my super speed, it was still incredibly difficult to keep up with Eric. I had heard that as vampires got older, their powers grew stronger. It could have been this or the simple fact that his stride was much longer than mine. Either way, I had to really push myself to keep him in my sight.
Eventually, we reached the edge of the woods. We were running through a graveyard, filled with headstones and flowers left by loved ones. Eric came to a halt in front of a mausoleum, stopping so abruptly that I nearly crashed into him.
"This is the special sleeping place?" I asked, looking at the mausoleum with disgust.
"Do not fret, Miss Leland, it's unoccupied," Eric said with a smirk. I turned and glared at him.
"It has a name on it. Did you really steal a dead guy's final resting place?"
Eric chuckled. "I had this specially made for me and I put a fake name on it to avoid suspicion. Trust me, it will be much more comfortable than most other places. And drainers are less likely to suspect a vampire is sleeping in a supposedly occupied grave."
"Drainers?"
"Humans that drain vampire blood to sell," he explained, looking at me very soberly. "You must always watch out for them and never let anyone know where you are sleeping, even another vampire. That is the only time you are truly vulnerable."
I looked up at the sky. In the east, the sky was beginning to pale slightly. Giving him one last look of loathing, I opened the door to the mausoleum, stepped inside, and slammed the door behind me.