Author's Note : I'm thinking about continuing this story through the tribunal scene rather than going back and doing an alternate version for the books, but I'm still sifting the idea though my mind. This was an especially fun chapter to write, again from Eric's POV. I tried not to make him appear too cocky but hey, the guy is a chess master. He knows when he plays well.
Timeline : TB season 1, between episodes 7&8 and finishing in early episode 9. The first two sections of dialogue are all mine, but the final portion is directly quoted from the episodes.
Disclaimer : All credit goes to Charlaine Harris for creating these characters, and to Alan Ball, the HBO writers, and the actors themselves for bringing their portayls to the screen. Events have been interpretted for my own use but in no way am I intending to infringe on the rights of the true owners of this material.
As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy!
Fangtasia had just closed for the night and the only ones left were Pam, Long Shadow, and me. Long Shadow was busy locking up while Pam and I conferred in my office but I had made it clear that we expected our other partner to join us when he was finished. "The details are already taken care of," I said from where I sat on the edge of my desk, ankles crossed on the floor and arms folded. "We'll do this on Monday. The bar will be closed anyway and Bill was quite insistent that his human would not want to be out past 2am."
"How silly." Pam was often amused by the escapades of vampires dealing with humans and the Great Revelation had given her more chances for such entertainment than she effectively knew what to do with. She tilted her head to the side slightly and I detected a sudden but distinct shift in the focus of her snarky humor. Under most circumstances I appreciated her wit but this was not one of them. "I wonder what she will wear this time? That number with the flowers was positively mouth watering."
"Pam," my voice rose warningly. She grinned at me wickedly and I had to resist the urge to growl. It would only encourage her.
"Still, do you think this is wise?" I raised an eyebrow and she continued sweetly, "We don't know for certain what Bill will do. I'm surprised you're willing to risk it."
If I hadn't been concerned about collateral damage I might have thrown my desk at her. "Pam," I said patiently, trying to keep the strain of anger out of my voice, "As much as it touches me to know you are concerned about my interests, you really should shut the fuck up."
A practiced submissive expression settled onto her face. "Yes, Master." If I didn't know any better I would have said she almost looked appropriately chastened but her glinting eyes told me otherwise.
At that moment Long Shadow chose to grace us with his presence. I heard his booted footsteps approaching in the hallway even before he slammed open the door to my office and stalked inside, not bothering to close it behind him. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes," I said in a controlled tone, burying my annoyance at his blatant disrespect under the delicious knowledge that soon enough he would be a pile of ash one way or another. I'd planned this dialogue and knew exactly how I wanted to tell him about the discovery of the theft. "We seem to have a problem. One of Fangtasia's employees has been stealing from the club and it has gone relatively unnoticed for so long that the amount of the theft is quite significant."
Long Shadow's eyes darted between Pam and me as he weighed what we were telling him. His pride was the key factor in all this. If he believed that there was no possible means he could be caught he would stay and this would play out as I wanted. If he thought better of his capabilities in deception he would run at the first opportunity. Knowing him as I did I was only marginally concerned that he would run.
My only regret was that I would have enjoyed hunting him.
Still, I watched his reaction carefully through a feigned expression of indifference. It had to appear that I was concerned about the theft but not about its source since Long Shadow knew the logical assumption would place blame on a human. This is why he included the gift-shop as part of his target since it was only ever manned by a human cashier. It was a common enough trick to twist the facts enough for an investigation to become so focused on what the explanation couldn't be that any number of other facts pointing at a much more direct answer were all but ignored. A supposed counter to Ockham's Razor that worked on fools, logicians, and your run-of-the-mill vampire.
"I know nothing of this," he said finally, affecting an indignant tone. "Who has been telling you such lies?"
He was even more arrogant than I thought. "Bruce."
Long Shadow snorted. "You questioned him I assume?"
"Glamour only," I replied.
The Indian vampire's eyes narrowed. "Losing your touch?"
Pam stiffened visibly but I allowed myself a tight smile. "The rules have changed and I have a more unique solution to the problem."
"Oh really?" I heard the doubt behind his words and smelled a faint stench of fear wafting off of him that I was certain few others would have detected. My smile broadened.
"You recall the young woman Bill Compton brought to visit?"
Long Shadow nodded but he didn't relax. "Hard to forget that one." Pam snickered and I had to repress a sigh. My child was having far too much fun.
"Then I'm sure you also remember the unique circumstances of her departure," I said coolly, my smile disappearing. The blank look I got in return told me he hadn't bothered looking into just how Compton's feisty companion had known to warn us about the police raid. I had. "She's a telepath."
That got his attention. His expression ranged from desire, to hunger, and finally to confusion. "But she's his."
"Yes, and I have summoned her to help us with this little problem. Where we would have typically questioned and…aggressively inquired, she will read their minds and tell us what they are thinking."
"I'm sure our glamour does just as well," he said, irritated by the suggestion that a mere human would be superior to us in some way. "And I also assume that she can't read vampire minds or she'd be dead already." He said that last bit confidently and I silently begrudged him a small raise in my estimation of his intelligence that amounted to a speck of sand against the weight of an entire quarry. I'd brought him on board with Fangtasia for his appeal behind the bar after all, not for his shrewdness.
"In this case it does not," I said smoothly, coming to the end of my script. "Our glamour works on surface truths, as you well know. She can tell us the inner thoughts of our minions."
"And you will trust her to do this, take her word?" he said incredulously.
"Of course not," my tone was contemptuous at his suggestion that I would be foolish enough to blindly trust the word of a human. "We will all be present for the questioning. If we sense deception or come to no conclusion, we will resort to our more tried and tested methods of truth finding."
Long Shadow grinned, firmly believing he was in the clear. The three possibilities of Sookie Stackhouse's involvement were obvious. She would falsely find a guilty human either out of desperation or stupidity, she would put her own truthfulness in doubt in some way, or she would be completely truthful and not find any proof of a human's involvement which would lead to false confessions under torture for one or several of Fangtasia's staff members. Game. Set.
But while he was focused on attempting to maneuver my king into a corner, one of my pawns had snuck across the board to gain me a second queen ready and willing to cut a swath through his pieces and destroy him utterly. In my long life there were few feelings that could compare to the exuberance of knowing your victory was as decisive as it was crushing.
Match.
**
We left the bar separately but I flew to Pam's just before she would have to go to ground for the day. After a quick scan of the surrounding area I was certain that no other vampire would know I was here.
Her front door opened as I landed on the porch. I brushed past her without a word.
"She's here?" I asked a bit unnecessarily.
"Of course," came the amused reply. "She's in the dungeon."
I took stock of Pam's naked form as she closed the door and noticed despite the relative darkness that she looked much pinker than she had in my office. "Well at least we're getting some good use out of her."
Pam smiled, fangs extended, illustrating that I had misinterpreted the extent of their fun. Ginger was not her type. "You should have come earlier and joined in."
"Maybe next time."
**
The following Monday night Pam met our guests at the door, allowing me the freedom to join them in the club at my discretion. I considered Compton's companion attentively from across the room when I walked in from my office. Bill had settled her into a chair opposite of Bruce at one of the tables, as planned, but her projected confidence almost caught me off guard. There were fang marks clearly visible on her neck tonight, I noticed, and suddenly understood the source of her poise. She was also wearing a white dress that made a substantial portion of her bosom tantalizingly visible. I ignored all this for the time being but etched the memory into my mind, as though I might actually have been able to forget. My hands slipped into the pockets of my jeans as I strolled across the room, to Pam's amusement. But I noticed her eyes didn't leave the fellow blond.
Long Shadow was occupied with a lighter, flicking it open with a distinctive snick while I walked by and I noted that Bill was projecting his own form of confidence as he stared a hole into my chest. I began explaining the reason behind the formal visit. "Pam, Long Shadow and I are partners in this club. And we recently noticed that $60,000 has gone missing from our books." I'd reached the other side of the table where the two humans were sitting now, enjoying the movement of Sookie Stackhouse's hair when she swung her head around to keep her eyes on me. I stopped walking within touching distance. "And Bruce," my right hand raised from my pocket to drop solidly on his shoulder, "is our accountant. Perhaps you can start by listening to him."
"He's not saying anything," she said with a note of disdain
"Don't be coy," I stated quickly in a tone that clearly said I had no desire to play games with her. "It's humbling enough to turn to a human for assistance." Pam and Long Shadow stared disapprovingly at Bill for allowing his human to be so insolent. I returned my hand to my pocket and ignored all of them. "We know what you can do."
"And I know what you can do, too," she said as Bill shifted nervously. "Why don't you just glamour him?" Again with the fire in her voice. This could get annoying.
"Now don't you think we might have tried everything before summoning you." I fixed her with a resolute look and was pleased to see that she appeared to be reconsidering her tactics. My tone became marginally more pleasant. "So, it would be a great favor to me, and to Mr. Compton, if you help us."
She glanced back at Bill who remained silent. "If I find out who did it, then what?" The reason for her resistance became apparent.
Long Shadow decided to try his own tactic. "We'll turn that person over to the police and let the authorities handle it from there."
She was too smart to be fooled by such words, of course. "Hundreds of years old and you're still a terrible liar, come on," she said to him scornfully. The snick as his lighter opened again was his only response before she turned her head back around to face me. She met my eyes evenly and I found myself having to exert my iron self-control in order to keep my face completely devoid of expression. "I'll make you a deal." She hesitated just a moment before plunging on. "If you promise to hand over the person who did this to the police, I'll agree to help you anytime you want."
Fear flicker momentarily in her eyes, which was telling, but this would surely turn into an opportunity I could exploit later. "Alright," I said, allowing myself a tight smile, "Why not?" I broke our eye contact as I turned my gaze onto Bruce, indicating that it was time for her to make good on her offer.
She took his hand and he gasped as though he'd expected something horrible to happen at her touch. No one spoke while the accountant visibly chased himself back into whatever mental hell-hole he had recently been visiting. Bruce was not a stalwart type of man even on his best days.
I kept my gaze on their body language as she spoke suddenly, to him. "Bruce, it's okay, take a deep breath." There was a slight pause while she let him gather himself together before hitting him with the 'Big Question'. "Did you steal their money?"
Bruce's eyes went wild with terror. "No. No, no, you gotta believe me, I didn't do it, I swear to God – " He was looking around the room frantically as though hoping for a savior. His gaze returned to the woman in front of him when she hushed his rambling.
"Shhh. Do you know who did?"
"No," he said dejectedly, "No I wish."
She appeared to be considering something for another second but soon declared, "He's telling the truth." I raised my eyes from Bruce and her gaze fixed on mine again, wondering if I would believe her. In this case I knew with absolute certainty that she was not lying. There was also a ring of honesty to her voice and I would have wagered that she was telling the truth even without my prior knowledge.
"You trust the skinny human to clear the fat one?" Long Shadow reiterated the objection he'd raised the night I'd shared this plan with him. He was disappointed that Bruce hadn't been accused of the crime.
Bill and Pam looked at me intently as I feigned letting the thought of possible deception sift through my mind. After what I deemed a sufficient pause, I broke the tension. "Bring the next one in."
**
Pam griped Ginger by one of her bony arms and guided her over to the table. "This is the last of our humans," she said significantly.
By this point Ginger had gotten a good look at the only other human in the room. "Mmm, yummy." Pam pushed her a little more forcefully than necessary into the chair.
"Ginger," my voice raised warningly, as well as in anticipation, "This woman has some questions for you. Be a good girl and answer them will you."
She preened and I almost snorted in disgust. No wonder Pam hadn't fucked her despite the opportunity.
"Aye-aye, Master," she said dutifully. Sookie Stackhouse reached out to take her hand just as she had done with all the other employees but Ginger reacted with indignation. "Don't you touch me."
The look they exchanged was priceless. "Hold her still," I instructed Pam, amused by this development but wary of letting it get out of hand. Pam gripped Ginger's shoulders in her hands and forced her forward just enough so that her arms had nowhere to rest except on top of the table.
No protests were forthcoming about the physical contact this time around. "Ginger, someone's been stealing money from the bar."
"Really? Huh." The bony fangbanger visibly tensed while the silence dragged on.
"She didn't do it," came the declaration yet again but with something else behind the words this time around. Pam and I snapped our gazes to the telepath. If we breathed we would have been waiting with baited breath. "But she knows who did," was the helpful conclusion.
"What?" came Ginger's trembling reply. Pam released her grip and moved to one side. "Fuck you." Ginger spat venomously.
My anticipation mounted. The pieces were all in place.
"Who? Who's gonna kill you?" the angelic blond asked in alarm after moment. "Ginger, honey, what's his name!"
Silence. Soon Pam would – "It-it's blank, like her memory's been erased."
I shifted around to the opposite side of the table in order to stand next to Pam while I digested this unexpected development. Sookie Stackhouse could hear when a human had been glamoured. How interesting.
Ginger was in a state of confusion. I hadn't modified her memory to include this particular scenario simply because I hadn't anticipated it. Her eyes were pleading when she turned to us. "I don't know anything I swear."
"She's been glamoured," Pam said with certainty. I had to hide my amusement her ironic change in dialogue.
"It's a vampire," was stated in hushed realization, which was more than enough to spring the trap.
You see, I had known Ginger was the one helping Long Shadow. But each time she aided him it had been while she was under the influence of his glamour, meaning she had no real memories of any such activity and should not have had any breadcrumbs to follow or any fear of being killed. Long Shadow was confident of this, as well he should have been.
Which is why I had instructed Pam to take Ginger home one evening so I could modify her memory and fill in some of the gaps.
Long Shadow now knew that he had been out maneuvered. I had planned this encounter so that he would not only know that I had been aware of his betrayal, but that I had even set him up to take the fall despite all his precautions and thoughts of superiority. It didn't really matter that the southern belle had detected the memory modification because the only conclusion to draw from Ginger's sudden awareness, if you knew her to be completely unaware, was to assume another vampire had glamoured her and given her false memories. Not just any vampire could do this of course, even on a weak willed human like Ginger.
And Long Shadow also knew that even if he tried to denounce the accusation I now had reasonable justification in asking for a tribunal to …aggressively inquire him until the truth came out anyway. I could have done this in the first place but I preferred doing things my own way. Plus, there was one more important piece of information left to gather from this night's events.
If Long Shadow had taken some time to think about tonight's scipt, he might have wondered why I had allowed the ruse to play out over the course of the entire evening instead of just bringing Ginger in first.
But as expected, Long Shadow decided just to take his frustration out on one of the weaker beings in the room. Specifically the one who was at least partially responsible for his guilt being sealed before a relatively neutral vampire witnesses, in the form of Bill Compton. My known personal interest also helped cement the focus of his attack. It had been a calculated risk on my part that he would not kill her outright but I had deemed it necessary. His lunge over the bar was a touch dramatic but I watched his hands intently as he went for her neck, noting that his intentions appeared to only be set on strangling.
Again I waited, watching the scene unfold with an assumed lack of concern. If Compton was smart or my suspicions were completely off the mark she still might die. It would have been a shame to lose the opportunity to taste every inch of her, true, but I was more interested in knowing where my vassal's loyalties rested than a tryst with a particularly tasty blood-sack.
Time slows to a crawl as Long Shadow forces the girl back onto the table. Bill's fangs flash but it is not enough for me to be certain.
Ginger, meanwhile, begins screaming.
"Ginger, enough!" Pam snaps at the repulsive fangbanger.
"Thank you," I said considerately, my eyes not moving from the scene before me.
Long Shadow can't help himself at this point as his bloodlust swallows up any remainders of his judgment. He uses the hand not gripping her throat to force her head to one side and I watch as he arcs back in preparation of driving his fangs into Sookie Stackhouse's neck. If Long Shadow is permitted to feed on her I will have my answer.
But Bill allows himself to react more dramatically than a mere flash of fang in the face of the imminent feeding. He speeds over to the bar and snaps off a beer tap, which he plunges into Long Shadow's exposed back just before his fangs penetrate the telepath's flesh. My eyes flash triumphantly but that is all the reaction I allow myself.
Long Shadow's look of surprise is the last expression he ever makes.
Blood spurts from his open mouth, cascading over her prone form now laying on the table. Pam turns to regard me in silent acknowledgement and I return her knowing gaze dispassionately while Long Shadow crumbles where he stood. Bill's eyes suddenly dart over in trepidation to observe our reactions and I can't help but smirk. My child's eyes roll heavenward as I meet Bill's tense gaze.
Ginger suddenly throws up.
Pam represses her disgust but I can't help make a condescending remark as my exhilaration overcomes my need for prudence. This night could not have worked out any better. "Humans." Pam's attention shifts back to me, surprised. "Honestly Bill, I don't know what you see in them."
Thank you to everyone who has left or plans to leave a review. It always makes my day to know other people enjoy my stories. ^_^ Constructive criticism is also welcome!