Hello again! Thank you for the lovely reviews - it's crazy, I didn't think I would receive any! I would like to thank each of you that took the time to give it a try, and thank you to the mystery guests that left their thoughts.

Here is chapter two. I hope you enjoy!

Also, I don't own any True blood characters but the ones from my imagination.

She tasted of disease. Sickness, contamination, fever. As the human girl stopped struggling beneath Eric's fingertips, he realized just how distasteful she really was. Even her smell was much less than inviting. Sighing, he disconnected from her neck, gasping for an unneeded breath as her ill blood stained his chin and coated his teeth. Unfortunately, the woman just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time of the evening.

Chimes sang in the distance, eerily reprimanding the chilled air as Eric gripped the pencil neck of the small woman, lowering his head for another taste of her blood. No, it wasn't good, but it would sustain him, at least for the time being. So often in these parts, the only options were stony, rigor harpies strolling the streets begging for money he knew they would only spend on more of the very useless poison that made their blood toxic. It sickened him, mostly - made him feel depraved and starved, no matter how much he drank. When he was with Godric, they made due with tougher times together - but there was no together, not now.

"Please," begged the woman in her croupy catscratch of a voice, clinging to his forearm as she swayed, tattered rags brushing the cobbled, damp street. "Take me. Take my blood."

The vampire sighed. They always felt the same about his intoxicating nip, the way humans gave him sustenance. It was almost orgasmic for them, he thought, to flow into him so willingly, like their bodies were built for this very task, tastefully crafted to give life to death itself. He leaned his head back and licked his lips, returning for more of the fowl blood. It was only a few hours before he needed to go to ground and this was most likely the best meal he could hope to find without wandering hungrily across the shadows of late San Francisco.

He had watched her. The woman in the red. She had emerged from the brothel after the telltale signs of the evening had quieted into the still night and all day walkers had retired, and Eric watched her from the shadows as she blended to the shadows she seemed entitled to, proceeding from the shadows and disappearing back into them each time the street lamp light fanned out no more to accentuate her otherworldly features.

Of course, it was easy for him to maneuver the shadows with only the swish here and there of a predator's lengthy tail, a whoosh of wind every now and then. She never could have seen him, even if she had been looking - and in the shadows Eric stayed, watching her from afar. At first, he thought she might make a nice meal. Surprisingly clean for this deserted hour of the night, dressed in high class attire with glossy hair that shone against the street lights.

And he was challenged. By a fucking human man, of all people.

Yes, perhaps he would have laid his hands on her. Fucked her senseless if she would allow it, but a human man questioning her invisible morals spiraled his compass and he killed him in front of her. Somehow, she was not afraid. In fact, she seemed more interested in the blood splattered on her gown.

She had a mischievous look about her, everything from the way her amethyst foam eyes twinkled in the dark like they were meant to illuminate it to her seemingly obvious indifference to death.

Reality grounded him as the poison woman flinched away from him, choking slightly until he let up on her neck with his careful fingertips, doing just as he was taught expertly to do. Taking her to the brink of death and holding her, suspending her there until whatever qualified as angels sang and her papery eyelids began to flutter involuntarily. Eric unlatched, letting his cobra-esque fangs drip the bloody remnants to his coated tongue, cradling the stranger's neck against his careful palm.

"More, more." She begged, and Eric guided her face to his, reaching to reposition the top had that had gone askew while he drank her.

"There will be no more."

"Alright." Her eyes glazed and she nodded, mesmerized under his influence.

"You will stop poisoning yourself with the cheap drugs you're buying off the street." He commanded, nodding and raising his flaxen eyebrows. She nodded fluidly, her earrings swinging from her soiled earlobes. "And when I am gone, you will forget me and cover your wound until it is healed. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Excellent. You have a nice evening." He tipped his hat and disappeared into the night, moving up and down the streets against the heathering gray of the shadows. Feeling full but not truly satisfied, returned to the small house he'd been staying in - a shitty tenant house that had been full of boarders whom he'd glamored out easily with little coaxing. They left at dawn and returned at nightfall to rest, and he never went noticed. There was a small, light tight crawl space, nothing cozy, but it worked for the time being.

In fact, Eric didn't know why he stayed here. Yes, he'd found a suitable place to rest and could easily find a meal if he desired. But there was no hunt, no excitement that he used to know with Godric. He found his maker very selfish at times, making him go to the darkest catacombs of the earth, searching for his own sense of belonging. He scoffed. A purpose - for a vampire? A vampire such as himself who lolly-gagged around the streets of San Francisco like a common criminal. No, this was no purpose.

Eric resented Godric in many ways - never for making him what he was, but for treating him like he understood nothing, like he wasn't trustworthy. And like he wouldn't be lonely. Nearly a thousand years beside his maker and only emptiness to show for it. So often he denied the crater eating through him as he wandered through the world without his companion. Of course, he had been released by Godric nearly a hundred years ago - had it already been a hundred? It seemed only yesterday that their bond vibrated ever so strongly, a light in eternal darkness, and when it was severed - well,Eric hadn't talked to another vampire for at least a year now, and hell, when was the last time he'd spoken to a human?

Licking his lips, Eric could still taste the remnants of the sullied harpy's blood - the poison that now coursed through his veins, a toxic substance that should never coincide with his own blood, Godric's blood, no matter how much he had come to resent him now. Remnants of the street man's blood still coated the edge of his lip, too minute a taste to be visible to the weak human eye, but he removed it with his tongue just the same.

His taste was sickly, like a human may recall weak tea. Watered down, if he should think so. The bastard. True, he could tell that the woman in the red dress was not just an average street hopkin. He'd watched her weave the streets like she owned the damn city, and deny the man who followed her the very sustenance he thought he deserved.

Certainly, she was intriguing. A human had never piqued his interest in this way. She hasn't cowered, or scurried away when he'd revealed what he was. If anything, she seemed interested, not frightened. He didn't glamor away the information, either - she made him feel... Queasy.

Silently, after crossing his arms over his chest, Eric closed his eyes. His body felt the sunrise coming, the undeniable pull to the earth that he felt every time the sun emerged from the very ground in which he slept. His rest was never fitful - by all means, a vampire was dead when he slept, but for the first time in quite some time - years, even - his mind was fitful.

He would find her again. He wanted to, he had to.

XXX

The outside of the brothel was quite deceiving, because the interior was - otherworldly. Everything gilded in bronze and airbrushed Persian architecture, an intention in the woman's place of business that was like a warm, wet hug. Standing in the doorway with his hat underneath one arm, he inhaled the scent of sex. Heavy, heated, almost metallic.

He waited for her to find him, watching the other women at their work. It was still rather early in the evening, but business seemed to be picking up momentum as the street lamps went on one by one.

"Good evening." He raised one flaxen eyebrow as the woman came to face him. She held herself so much more pridefully than the other girls - her girls. This was her own establishment, her profession.

The woman smiled, a pinched crooked smile. "Mr..."

"Mr. Northman. Pleasure. I would tip my hat, but it would be rude to wear it in a lady's establishment. Especially one so - crass."

Her lips pulled tighter, still that painted kabuki maroon color. It suited her, just as the way the deep purple she was clothed in suited her. Eric's eyes wandered from her to the other working girls, noticing that she knew just how to dress to drive a man crazy. Hmm, it was what a woman didn't show that drove a man insane.

"We have something to satisfy even the most exotic fancies." Stated the house Madame proudly, almost matter-of-factly as Eric scanned the women a little less than politely. Yes, some were quite pretty, some heavier, some looking starving. The woman had quite the collection of tramps.

"The chink, we call her Rubber Ruby. Show the gentleman why, would you darling?"

Yes, Rubber Ruby was quite attractive. She was flexible, the way she brought her leg behind her body, a glass ballerina in a simple music box. Eric chuckled. "Hmm. Delightful."

The madame smiled.

"Mmhm." Eric showed his approval once more as she turned to face him, smiling proudly. "But it is you I came to see."

The smile wore from her features in the way water weathered wood into a smooth, glassy surface. The mummery went on behind her as the girls mumbled amongst each other, some giggling, although the mistress kept herself together.

"A good merchant doesn't compete with her merchandise. Sir." She added tightly, lips forming into a pissy scowl.

Eric parted his lips just slightly, leaning in closer to her. She smelled of perfume, of sex, and of pleasure. Yes, Eric would take her. But in the way a good man takes a woman, no matter how wildly. "And a good customer knows everything has its price."

He felt her eyes on him for a moment as he strode off to peruse her shelves, knowing full well that she was aware of what he was. And still she acted if as he were no stronger than her, as if she were the gods who put him here in the first place, if the Norse still cared for a monster at all.

"I can make you feel good, mister." A plump girl dressed in a tight corset shoving her round breasts half out of the top stopped him by dragging her long, manicured nails against the inside of his thigh, teasing him in her very forward way. "I can make you remember my name."

"Oh? And what is your name, miss?" He stopped to admire the curl to her chestnut hair, the perfect ringlets that were too short for her round face.

"I can take you to number five and tell you." She winked, tracing closer to the apex of his thighs. He caught her hand and very carefully placed it back in her lap, winking at her as he continued to stroll through the merchant's merchandise. Many very pretty, painted ladies with unique attributes, but he didn't want any of them. He was a predator, but this was an entirely different type of hunt. A hunt where the hunter needed the hunted's approval, her agreement.

Humans had always seemed disposable to him. When he was first made, he might have thought otherwise, but Godric had taught him that the way the vampire survived, the way he hunted and received was nothing more than nature. Vampires were transient, merely passing through to wreak their silent havoc in the gray. Eric never wanted humans the way he wanted his maker, the way he needed to be comforted and reassured, beaten into vampire-hood by a little boy he so admired.

But this woman, the lady he'd saved in the streets. Her refusal to compete with the other girls was insanity, for she hadn't any real competition. Not one compared to her beauty, to her fearlessness. He could easily smell the illness and disgust on the other girls' skin, unappetizing, uninviting to a proper gentleman, even if he were human.

He could give her gold coins, jewelry, fabric, mansions. Whatever she desired, but she was much smarter than other girls. Snarkier, perhaps, but she knew something inhuman was killing her girls. And she also knew how to cover it up. But his kind was killing her employees, her merchandise, and her price was not monetary. She didn't need to speak out loud for him to know she wanted their heads impaled on pitch forks.

And if the lady desired, she received.

Well? What do you think? Tell me what you think so I can continue writing!

Also, I thought it might be nice to tell you that each chapter is named after a song, specifically song lyrics. Kind of like the song titles in the show. So, the last chapter, I Was Following, is from the song lyric "I was following the pack of swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied round their throats," from White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes. I thought it was fitting ;)

This chapter, But I've Been Feeling Sleepy-Eyed is from the song Joanna by Deaf Joe, and the lyric is "I've been feeling sleepy-eyed and with an ever growing smile."

Thanks and please let me know what you think!