V.

Banff, Alberta… The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel was really beautiful. It was as pretty as a picture. Specifically, the picture in the poster on Hunter's wall. But there was no way I could stay there. Hotels were definitely out. My newfound resistance to the cold was helpful on this chilly autumn night in the Canadian Rockies. I was far north, where there would be more darkness in the autumn. If I needed to take time to sort out what I wanted to do, Banff appeared to be a fortuitous option. I was outside of the US network of vampires where I was well-known and highly recognizable. Canada had liberal laws for vampires. I was in a tourist town where I could work if I needed to do so. I could just get a job waiting tables. I certainly had a ton of experience. I could make discreet inquiries about the local Sheriff, to check in. Perhaps I could even use an assumed name. I thought about using Hadley's name because Bill had never really made an entry on Hadley in the database because she'd been so short-lived. There were still a few vampires in the US who were not in the database. Even though I was totally new, and two nights old, I knew so much about the vampires and the vampire world, I could probably pass for being much older. I had absorbed so much information from Eric, Thalia, Pam and so many others. I knew what to say, what to do and how to act. Plus not being a ravenous new vampire was helpful in playing the role of an older vamp.

It took Niall the better part of two days to find me. He finally went back to Hunter's room and saw the poster and figured it out. In the meantime, I'd popped back home to retrieve my wallet and to get some clothes. I needed at least a jacket so that I wouldn't stand out so much, and more appropriate clothes than I'd worn the night I'd left. I took a large handbag so that I could take my hairbrush, a bit of makeup and an additional change of clothes. I thought about taking a quick shower but I couldn't see risking that Eric could come back into the room or that someone would hear the water running and alert him. I left all my jewelry, even the locket, because I knew that Niall could find me quickly if I wore it. I didn't take my cell phone because it had a GPS chip. I withdrew cash from my personal account at an ATM in New Orleans and then went back to Banff and exchanged some of it for Canadian dollars. I needed money for blood. The teleporting was, in the end, the great motivator. If I did enough of it, it left me totally ravenous. I remembered Claudine commenting that popping was energy intensive. She wasn't kidding. But if you were well fed, it seemed easy. As long as you knew where you were going, or had an image of it, you could get to anywhere it seemed.

I was spending the daytime in an aboveground stone coffin in the local graveyard. It was disgusting, but I told myself that if Pam had done it, I could do it. The second night in Banff I checked my email from an internet café while drinking several bottles of True Blood. I had been thinking about that Oklahoma Were. I forwarded the email to Liesel, asking her to handle it, along with suggestions. She wrote back almost immediately asking where I was. It made me think that Eric had called her. I replied that I was in one of the outer rings of the Inferno, working my way inward, steadily. She liked Dante. Within about two minutes I got an email from Roberto asking me to please call them. I told them both by email that I couldn't call right now. Then he wrote back and asked me if I was would be able to resume work earlier than planned in October, since I was already out and about. He probably was trying to discern whether I was still able to read people. I told him I was definitely still able to work but that I wasn't sure about my dates. I still had a yearly contract with him for working in the casino as a telepath. Given the way things had been going, I had to be realistic that while he had been my friend, I was now in every way his inferior, especially since Roberto was a powerful figure, effectively the architect of the Alliance. Our contract for my services was binding in the vampire and the human world and in case I decided to stick it out, I couldn't really chance getting on Roberto's wrong side. I would have to think about what I could do with my contract obligations. I was supposed to give him at least a month's notice if I decided to opt out. But I knew I could work. I could read humans, Weres, vampires and even a fairy prince.

I was desperate for a shower but didn't want to chance going to a hotel. I washed up in the bathroom in the internet café. I'd bought a few new clothing items, since my clothes would get dirty in the graveyard. I kept it simple by just dressing in black. I'd found by chance that I was really able to disguise myself in shadows. In fact, I could fade even in moderately lit areas. It was like the kind of veiling that my Great-Uncle Dermot was able to do. I was guessing that was some kind of magic just like the teleporting, but it cost me very little energy to accomplish it in comparison. I had seen only three vampires up close so far while in Banff and two of them did not even see me because I'd kept myself veiled. The third seemed to notice me, but only when I'd zoomed into his head a bit while I was veiled. He was sharper and he detected it. He sniffed the air, trying to figure out where I was, since I was hard to see and I finally thought he had perceived me in the shadows. I popped away from him, back to the graveyard. The fact that the other two had not even noticed me made me wonder if I didn't even smell like a regular vampire. Maybe they just weren't as sharp. Maybe they were very young.

Niall found me on the third night. I was annoyed because it meant I'd have to move and I'd just been scoping out a restaurant that needed a waitress at night. It was September 30. After talking with him briefly and expressing my sincere regrets over what a frustrating relation I had proven to be, I popped to the Aztec Nights casino. I wanted to get away before he did that net thing again. That had really stung like the dickens when I'd escaped him at Hunter's house.

I'd decided that since midnight marked the 1st of October, I could start my six nights for the month of October at midnight and start to fulfil the terms of my contract. I just wouldn't make a big announcement of my presence. But if Roberto's staff saw me over the course of the night, it would suffice to meet the terms of my four hours. He' probably take my word for it that I had worked anyway. My turning was going to have broad impacts on the casino work shifts in the short term. Roberto was requiring that everyone work at least one overnight shift while I was in town, and I was working extra days this month to make sure I got to see all employees. Roberto's biggest concern over the years were his employees. Most of the illegal activity at that hotel and casino had actually come from them.

Using my visual recollection of the casino, I'd popped onto a ledge of the west wall of the casino. It was about a meter wide and about nine meters above the floor. There were huge decorative sculptures in the center of the ledges on the west and east walls of the casino. But the ends near the north and south walls provided plenty of space where I could sit and survey the casino floor from above. The corners were more shadowed and I could discreetly sit in the shadows, or even veil myself if necessary.

The casino was deafening. It took even more getting used to than it had when I first worked there as a human. So far, I had to say I was hating being a vampire. It was inordinately painful. Even after ten minutes my head was still throbbing from the sensory overload. Thankfully, the night was pretty uneventful until around 3 am when I saw someone pickpocketing the gambling tourists in the slots area. He was very stealthy, and a human. It seemed that he had carefully tried to pick areas with less security camera coverage. Clever. I popped down to go after him and found people drew back as I popped into the crowd. I'd become aware of the fact that when I moved to land on exact locations that I would slow down and it seemed as if I left some sort of almost fluid dark cloud streaming behind me as I slowed into place. It tended to frighten people. I had to work on that if I was going to keep going, I realized. Because it made it very obvious that I was not human, which might sometimes be a disadvantage. I firmly grabbed the pickpocket and pulled his arm out from the inside breast pocket of his jacket, with the red ladies wallet still in his hand. He looked at me with terror in his eyes. Although my strength was enjoyable, the idea that I was inspiring fear was not making me happy, even in this situation. Undaunted, I marched him right back over to the retirement-age lady whose purse he'd rifled in passing and extended his arm and hand still holding the wallet toward her, saying,

"He says you dropped this. You should really keep your purse zipped closed out here on the floor, ma'am." I nodded to her and then pulled the man, who started to whimper after looking at me again, off toward the security guard at the south door. Benjie, a guard whom I'd known for the past three years, looked at me wide-eyed. He seemed nervous while looking at me and I realized my fangs were run down. I tried to set him more at ease by being friendly just as before.

"Benjie, you guys should check this one out. He's pickpocketing. I gave back the one he just got, but I'm sure he's got more in his jacket and pockets. I think they must have some of it on the security footage, from where I caught him. But he's working that area near the slots where the view is obstructed by the column." I pointed in the general direction he'd been thieving.

Benjie still looked at me a bit apprehensively and nodded. "Sure thing… Sookie," he said, as if trying out the first name to see if that was still okay with me. A lot of vampires really try to be distant and intimidating. I wasn't planning to be one of them. He knew what I was and that was all the caution he needed. I didn't want to add to his fear.

"I'm gonna keep prowling. Hey, is Joey off tonight?"

Benjie nodded, still wide-eyed while grasping the pickpocket by the arm. Joey and Benjie usually worked together but I guess the new schedules that started on the 1st had split their work days. I adored Joey, who had a great sense of humor and was a general favorite among the security crew and hotel staff.

"Well, maybe I'll see him tomorrow." I smiled and nodded goodbye and strode off toward the north side of the hall. It made me feel bad that Benjie acted afraid of me.

I stopped briefly at the blackjack tables and said hello to Henry Lin, who'd been working in the Aztec Nights for more than eight years. Henry, who was my same height, looked over at me briefly and then glanced back again at me sharply, as if concerned. While his bettors placed their bets he nodded to me and said,

"Sookie, are you okay?" he looked me up and down again as if something was wrong.

"Henry, I'm a vampire now, remember? You don't get much variation in state of being." I'd actually told some people in the casino that I was going to change because I figured it would make the adjustment smoother for everyone. Henry was one of them. Henry had become a friend, and I'd even met his parents, wife and five children. I had been a guest in their home several times.

"I can see that," he said quietly while dealing. "But are you okay? You seem not yourself. It's not your usual energy."

"Well, I guess that's because I'm dead, Henry," I said with a frown. Henry was an empath, though not a telepath.

"It doesn't make a difference to me if you're dead. Your energy is yours, it's unique. You are very unhappy. What happened to you, if you don't mind my asking? I thought you were happy to be making the change?" he said very quietly while managing his bettors. I read his thoughts. He didn't care if I was a vampire or a human. I was his friend and he was worried about me, about what he felt, what he saw.

"I'm fine." I didn't want to be abrupt, but I said simply, "We both need to keep working. Have a good night. Maybe I'll see you later." And with that, I faded discreetly and then popped onto a ledge on the east wall, to continue watching.

Henry saw too much, I thought to myself. He could really capture your emotional state so quickly.

The east end of the casino was a bit quieter. It was farther from the slot machines, which were really loud. My painfully sharp senses were finally beginning to be a bit more manageable. The first few nights as a vampire had been sheer hell. I'd spent so much time on sensory overload and yet the first few nights awake I'd also been sort of mentally dazed, and not really putting things together very clearly. It was like I got stuck on minor details, in my own thoughts. It was very annoying. But now I was settling down more and I was better able to filter and process, to think more clearly. I had to say that, even though I wasn't liking being a vampire, it really improved my ability to be sharp out on the casino floor. I could stay farther away and take in more of what was going on. It was still deafening, though. Especially with my hearing as acute as it was. I sat on the ledge, leaning against the northeast corner and surveyed things, trying to learn to focus on voices, not on the noise of all the machinery. It was a real challenge.

About half an hour after I'd talked to Henry, I saw Roberto come into the casino below me with two bodyguards. He crossed over to the south side to talk to Benjie, who was back on the floor, and then he strode over to talk to Henry. Clearly someone had told him I was in the Casino. I faded as much as I could into the corner on the ledge. But the wall was light colored, the hall was well lit and I was all in black. I tried to will myself into total shadow because really I just didn't want to talk. And I had no idea if he would know that Eric was looking for me, but I suspected based on Liesel's asking where I was, that he did. And he'd wanted me to call them. I watched Roberto sniffing the air discreetly, and I could tell he knew I was still here. He was trying to track me. I tried to stay far away from his mind. I was sure he'd be one of those sharp enough to know I was reading him even if it was from far away. He started walking toward the east wall, Shit, I said to myself, and popped over to the opposite wall's ledge, where I had started my night. Again, I tried to fade as much as possible. I just wanted to finish my work for the night and then leave quietly. Roberto kept moving east but then suddenly stopped and stood stock-still. Suddenly he wheeled around and looked directly at me across on the west wall ledge. At first I wasn't sure if he even really saw me in the shadows in the corner, but then, as he started walking toward the west wall and his gaze remained fixed on me, I knew he did. It was like he could see through whatever veiling or glamour I was using. But Roberto was very sharp, just the way Stan and Eric were.

He finally stood below the west wall ledge with his two men, looking up at me bemusedly, with his arms behind his back. He was wearing an ivory linen suit with a sky blue shirt, but no tie. I was in dust-covered black, thanks to sitting on the ledges. I unveiled myself and popped down to stand in front of him. He seemed slightly caught off guard but said nothing. I bowed my head low as I stood before him, hoping that that was sufficient. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. I gritted my teeth. His touch sizzled with electricity. I was beginning to wonder if this was part of why vampires do not shake hands with each other or even touch anyone that they don't feel comfortable with. Was this hypersensitivity going to continue this way permanently? It was simply awful.

"Congrats on the Bar exam, Sookie. It was a terrific score. I'm happy for you."

"Thank you," I said quietly, still looking down. It seemed a lifetime ago. Well, actually, I thought ironically, it was a lifetime ago.

"Let's go someplace where we can talk. Let's head upstairs. How long have you been here?"

I kept my head down, and said, "Since midnight."

He looked at his watch and noted it was almost 4 am.

"You're pretty much done for the night, then. Come on up to my office with me so we can chat."

I glanced up at him. It was said with a smile but it was pretty much an order from what I could see. We left the casino by the east door through which he had entered and walked toward the elevators and waited briefly. We entered the elevator and he motioned to the guards to remain so that we would be alone. The doors closed he turned to me. I continued to keep my eyes on the floor.

"Sookie, you can drop it already. Relax," he said in a quiet tone of voice.

I raised my eyes slightly but kept them focused on the elevator doors.

"Does Eric know you're here? When we spoke to him yesterday he sounded upset and worried… Liesel said he sounded as if you just took off? He didn't want to tell us anything else, just that he wanted you to call him if we saw you."

"Really? Okay." I tried to stay focused on business. I paused long enough to seem as if I was making a note of it and then said, "It was a pretty quiet night tonight. I caught a pickpocket. It's much easier to see them from up on the wall. He was working sort of a narrow blind zone for the cameras. Pretty slick. And you know, I think that new guy at the roulette tables bears watching. He's way too interested in the bank. He was really thinking about the security set up, too. Maybe he was just bored and has seen too many Ocean's movies, or maybe he's up to something. Perhaps Tony should pull his background check again just to be sure there's nothing fabricated. Or maybe ask Henry spend time around him. Henry's so shrewd, he'll catch him if he's up to something."

As I stood there in the elevator speaking I became aware of Roberto's eyes scanning over me, and then I caught his thoughts… I was beautiful and quite intriguing and he was sorry he never had the chance to have sex with me before I was turned, though he'd still be interested now? And he was thinking about just that. Sex. With me. What!? I was just shocked. Vampire telepathy just sucked, I thought to myself. It had removed that last shroud of silence from my world and I was hearing all kinds of stuff I really didn't want to hear. My voice quavered as I asked about Liesel.

"She's fine, she'll be back tomorrow. She's in LA tonight with family," he said, not changing his thoughts away from me in the least. His thoughts weren't sleazy, though. They were not even objectifying. I frankly would have been able to deal with it better if they had been. I could have been more dismissive of them.

He reached over and stroked my cheek and said, "You really seem kind of down, Sookie. Are you okay?"

This time I flinched at his touch. In that moment however, I was shocked to realize that the attraction was, and had always been, mutual. I liked him touching me. And his wife was my good friend and they really loved each other. This is very messed up, I thought to myself. Even worse than that first night with Pam. Because I realized that it wasn't even necessarily all his fault. Some of this was me. I was drawing out these sexual feelings from people. Well, the whole vampire sexuality thing was something that I was just not ready to deal with at present. I needed it to go away. Immediately. I could barely even cope with everything else that was going on in my head.

"Roberto, you need to stop," I said quietly. "Change the subject mentally. Change it or really, I'm going to leave."

He looked at me furtively. "You heard my thoughts?" he said in a low voice. "I… didn't realize. I'm sorry if I upset you. I thought it would just be like before. I… I'll try to be more… considerate, in future." He looked away. "Look, I know your affections lie elsewhere. Really mine do, too. Don't worry about it, okay?" He paused and then said again, "I'm really sorry."

I'd made him feel bad, embarrassed. Actually I felt bad, too. It was the kind of stuff you heard all the time in human minds and most of the time it was just meaningless fantasy that people never act on. I felt clumsy and uncomfortable.

The elevator doors opened and he exited, holding the elevator door open and waiting for me to exit. He led me toward his offices. As we entered he stopped at his assistant Julian's desk to query my accommodations. Julian greeted me with a smile and a nod. He looked at me a bit curiously, since he knew I'd been turned just a short time before.

"I'm staying elsewhere, Roberto. Thank you," I said.

"What do you mean you're staying elsewhere? Where elsewhere?" He seemed very caught off-guard. I had always stayed in the hotel. For the past eight years. I could see he wanted to make sure that he hadn't scared me out of his hotel because of his little fantasy episode in the elevator. He was now thoroughly embarrassed.

"I'm actually staying out of state," I said simply. "But thanks for the concern about my arrangements."

He looked at me with puzzlement, and his eyes narrowed. Even Julian looked up at me, quite puzzled.

"What do you mean out of state?" asked Roberto.

"I'm just staying elsewhere, " I said softly, still looking down.

"California?" he asked, still perplexed.

"I'm not even staying in the US, actually," I said quietly.

He jerked his head back as if he had received a jolt and then pulled me by my hand, which gave me a genuine jolt, into his office and closed the door. Thankfully, he let go of my hand right away.

"What is going on with you? What do you mean, Sookie? Not in the US? What can you possibly mean? How is that possible?"

"Just as I said. I can't explain right now. But I'm fine, thank..." I looked down again, so that he wouldn't think I was trying to be insolent.

He cut me off before I could finish, "Sookie, would you please drop the deferential bullshit and look me in the eyes? What is with you? We are friends, are we not?"

I looked him in the eyes and said, "We were friends. I'm assuming nothing about anything right now."

He stared at me in amazement and then slowly turning his head slightly to the side said, "Look, I'm really sorry about the thing in the elevator. But…" he paused and looked at me intently. "It's not even that, is it? What is going on with you? Why are you acting this way? Did something happen with Eric? What happened to you to make you act this way? What's going on?"

"I need to think about finishing my evening, Roberto. I need to be careful with time. I'm not much used to it yet. I think I need to leave soon, if I'm getting back to the place I'm staying with time to spare."

Roberto stared at me, seemingly at a loss as to how to proceed.

"I think you should stay here, Sookie. I'm sure we can give you your usual suite or something equivalent. Why are you even staying elsewhere if you're working? You've always stayed here. Why not now? Are your accommodations where you're staying even suitable?"

I looked at him with a wry smile and said, "Let's just say I've gone native. I'm sorry to have missed Liesel. Tell her I'm sorry I didn't email her back. I'm not sure I will come again tomorrow night. Perhaps this coming week. I checked the schedule in the employee lounge to make sure of the new shifts. Do you wish to be notified when I arrive? I can call Jules to let him know I am here if that's what you prefer." I did not want him having any advance notice of my plans. It wasn't a good idea because I was sure he'd just tell Eric.

He just stared at me, looking almost stunned. "Sookie, what I want is to know what has happened. I want to know where you're staying. And that you're safe… And not just me, Liesel would want to know. If something's wrong, you should stay with us. Really, if you were upset by what I was thinking before, I absolutely assure you…" He reached out offering me his hand upturned.

He felt genuinely bad. He was trying to be nice and I'd made him feel just terrible and I couldn't begin to explain why I wouldn't stay there. But I really had to get out of there. Now it was my turn to cut him off.

"With respect, I should depart. Thank you. Thank you for your kindness, Roberto. You really don't know how much it means to me. I'll fulfill the contract through the end of the month and then perhaps you can get Barry to fill in for a while? I'm sure Stan wouldn't mind and I need the break. Good night," I said bowing my head. I sincerely hoped that he didn't see the tear that coursed down my cheek as I popped away.