Hello, thanks for all the encouragement.
Here is the next chapter.
Disclaimer: The True Blood Characters in this belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Please critique and review. I am here to learn :)
"STITCHED"
Chapter Six
Of the many phobias that Elliane suspected she suffered, Acrophobia was thankfully not one of them. In fact, the sensation of looking down upon the streets, the lights and the tiny cars was both exhilarating and relaxing. It was a bit cold up here but she ignored the affects. It seemed like she was drifting away from the city of Shreveport into the country-side, where the lights seemed to gradually disperse, and the trees fell in thickening clumps before she remembered that she was not alone. She was being carried. She also remembered something else.
Twisting her neck awkwardly to try and look up at Eric, she could see only the palest shimmer of flowing golden hair and the glow of pale blue eyes before she spoke.
"I need to fix something and I need to do it before we go much further."
"Where to then?" he responded after a moment.
"Uh-um, if we could get to a pharmacy or a department store…" she answered and would have continued to speak if he hadn't shifted her position suddenly. He turned her about so that her chest was pressed against his and started diving towards the ground. The sudden change in speed and movement caught at the breath. Elliane felt like she was slipping and she wrapped her arms about his neck, clinging on for dear life.
When Eric landed, Elliane slid down away from him and almost landed in a heap at his feet. On wobbly legs she stood and looked around to see they were across the road from an all-night drug-store. The streets were deserted and only a few parked cars embraced the lonely night.
"You have five minutes - then we have to go," stated Eric.
Elliane nodded and ran across the street pausing at the automatic glass doors; she caught sight of her reflection within them and reeled in shocked. Then she started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Eric asked as he suddenly appeared beside her.
"I had no idea I looked so awful," she answered. She was smiling at herself oddly. Her hair was a tangled matted mess and her mascara had smeared so that she had panda eyes. Hours earlier, her situation had seemed hopeless. But now the fight was back in her! She would survive this, she told herself. She would NOT give up and just let the system win. She would fight back! She would travel far away - maybe she would move to another country and start her life over again.
The all night shop assistant looked at them suspiciously through the glass doors and reluctantly pressed a button to allow the doors to open. Elliane sped through and Eric mused that he had rarely seen a human move so fast. Cautious, silent and graceful she flitted through the aisles, rapidly packing a bundle of goods in her arms before she came back to the counter.
"All this and some iodine please," she said to the male attendant, dumping the contents of her arms onto the counter. The geeky looking attendant, who according to his name tag was called 'Chris' and Eric both looked at her purchases. There were bandages mostly, along with cotton swabs, soaps, toothpaste, tweezers, various other toiletries and a pack of powdered energy drink (The type you mix up with water).
"How much longer?" she asked Eric.
"About three minutes," he replied, quizzically looking at the bandages. "What are you doing?"
The shop attendant started totalling the bill on the cash register and Eric noticed that she was fussing about with her corset and had removed from it a flat, medical-looking instrument from the seams of the corset boning.
"I have to remove a tracking device," she answered. The skin on her face paled after she said this and a faint sweat appeared on her brow.
"That is thirty-six dollars and ninety-five cents," said the attendant.
Elliane gave him a fifty dollar note and flicked a little switch on the medical looking device so that a small blade popped out of one end.
"Where is this tracking device?" Eric asked.
"In my arm," she replied and gestured with her right hand to her left bicep. "It's small, about the size of a grain of rice and was injected in between the layer of fat and muscle." She pushed her finger into the spot, and rubbed it over the area.
"It can be felt slightly through the skin," she continued. Her face took on a sickly look.
The drug-store attendant stared at them with wide eyes, nervously looking at the small scalpel device. Elliane turned to him.
"I would greatly appreciate your assistance," she said to him. The idea of cutting into flesh of any kind, let alone her own, was not a pleasant one. She forced herself to not think too much about the procedure. She was on a timer and needed to get this done quickly.
The attendant looked panicked and took a step back. "I'm not cutting you!" he said horrified.
"No, of course not," she answered. "But if you could hold my arm still, that would help," she looked to Eric now and spoke.
"Maybe you ought to wait outside… being that there will be blood and all." Elliane looked momentarily awkward, not knowing what to expect from the Vampire.
Eric just smirked. "I think I should stick around – you might need my help."
Elliane nodded and sighed; and her heart started to hammer in loud thuds. She placed her left hand against the store counter top and asked the attendant to hold it very still, while her right hand placed the scalpel against the skin at her bicep. The flustered attendant did as she asked but looked away. She pressed gently into the flesh and Eric saw her hand tremble as a pool of blood appeared beneath the blade. Her heart-rate suddenly slowed and he could see her eyes gloss over slightly. He quickly grabbed the wrist which held the blade.
"Let me do it," he said. "You are exhausted and not in the right frame of mind." His fangs had shot out, and although Elliane knew that this was a sign his rising bloodlust she nodded. She had to admit to herself that she was not capable of doing the job.
Quick as a flash, Eric had removed the scalpel from her hand and had pulled her arm from the grip of the attendant. He leaned over her arm, covering the small wound she had made with his mouth, and licked the area clean. As he did so, his eyes momentarily lost focus and he closed them with a soft moan. He quickly drew back
"It's sharp," she uttered as he placed the scalpel over the area again.
"Look away," he responded.
Eric quickly pushed the blade against her skin as she turned her head away. The blade was sharp enough, that she didn't feel it going in, but she was aware that it entered.
"The tracker device, it's coated in blue plastic," she said, her voice weak.
"I can see it." Eric grabbed the tweezers from the counter (which the attendant had obligingly opened from the packaging) and as he pulled the tiny tracking device from her arm, Elliane whimpered painfully, struggling instinctively. Eric placed the blue, rice-sized device, which had small pieces of flesh tissue still attached to it, onto the counter and Elliane clamp her free hand over the wound.
"Would you like me to heal it for you?" Eric asked her.
"Heal it?" Elliane queried.
"Yes, with my blood. It will seal over the wound."
"No thanks," she replied stiffening.
"You sure?" he raised a brow.
"Yes!" she hissed and backed away. Snatching one of the long rolled bandages off the counter, she placed one end in her mouth and started to bind up her injury. The blood immediately started to seep through. She grabbed some cotton swabs and packed them on top of the partially wrapped wound and kept wrapping. Eric watched her quietly, his eyes becoming a dark blue.
"I'm ready," she said. She had quickly finished the bandage and picked up the bag the attendant had packed with all the other items and looked to Eric.
"The wound should be stitched at least," he said. "It's too deep. It will take time to heal and will leave you with a scar."
Elliane shrugged. "It's been more than five minutes." She picked up the tiny tracking device and wrapped it into a cotton swab and started walking towards the door.
She left the store and waited for Eric across the road at the spot where he had set them down earlier. He appeared with in a moment or two later.
"I've glamoured the shop assistant," he said. "He won't remember our visit."
She nodded and gave a weak smile of thanks.
"Where have you put the tracking device?" he asked.
Elliane showed him the cotton swab. "Ideally, it should be posted overseas."
Eric grinned darkly. "Give it to me. I know just the person I can send it to"
She handed the tracker over to him and a feeling of great relief crossed her soul. Eric stepped closer. Wrapping an arm about her waist he pulled her once again to his side. His breath hissed at the scent of her - his fangs re-appearing. She stiffened in alarm.
"Your blood will be a disturbance to me," he stated simply before he raised them into the air.
And sure enough, Eric shifted her position a number of times in a restless attempt to avoid her scent. He flew higher into the sky. Elliane didn't regret the refusal of his blood. She knew that if it entered her bloodstream he would be able to sense her emotions and locate her. The last thing she wanted was vampire blood in her system.
As Eric soared even higher into the sky, Elliane became nervous as the lights below shrunk into tiny dots. It was freezing and this time she was well aware of the cold. She felt dozy as the oxygen in the air became thinner, but was too tired to say anything about it. Her mind drifted to blackness.
Elliane awoke some time later and her first thought was that she had forgotten to remove the aqua-tinted contact lenses. This was evidenced by her eyes - which felt sticky and dry. She noticed her surroundings and sat up in the high-set bed from where she had slept and looked around curiously. The room was large and quite bare with three doors that led into other areas. A sleek, yet plain marble fireplace was positioned against the wall closest to her. A dove-grey, upholstered armchair was placed nearby.
The floors and the bed were a deep polished wood and the walls were painted in crisp white. Three modern looking pieces of art dominated the walls. Each one made in a mix of frosted and clear glass that depicted scenes in nature. One was of the ocean, another of the forest and the last the rolling dunes of the desert. There were no windows in the room and no other furniture. No bedside table or rug, lamps, drawers or dresser. The room was otherwise completely bare.
She got out the bed, her feet touching the cool floor and she noticed that she was dressed in a white cotton nightgown. Quite dated in style, it had slim pleats around the yoke and tiny mother-of-pearl buttons up the front. A small ruffled hem reached the floor and the delicate ruffled collared tied with ribbons around the throat reminded her of a style from the renaissance. She went to the nearest door which was slightly ajar and peered inside to notice black floor tiles and white marble walls. It was a bathroom; with a large sunken spa bath positioned in the centre of the room. A marble bench occupied the length of one wall, which featured a decorative mirror. There was a vanity sink in the centre of the bench, with beautiful crystal taps.
Noticing her black leather pants and satin corset, neatly folded on the bench she walked over to them and saw that all the objects she had kept hidden in the corset, had been removed and placed neatly on the bench nearby. Her lock-pick was there, along with a fine multi-headed screwdriver, several pieces of wire, safety pins and her pen camera (which was also a torch). Her USB storage device was placed on top of her credit-card and the three-hundred and seventy dollars that she had carried on her in notes.
She turned on a tap and splashed her eyes with water. She was anxious to remove her contacts which she did immediately, blinking her now silvery-grey eyes with relief. She removed the white nightgown so that she could examine the wound on her arm. It had been re-bandaged; and after fussing with the difficult removal of the bandage, she found that the cut had now been carefully stitched. There was only a slight tenderness to the wound. She frowned. She quickly redressed in the nightgown, examined her things again and noticed something was missing. She lifted up her clothing on the bench and searched through them, and then went back to the bedroom and searched the bed. She sighed. She had lost her silver studded collar.
Frustrated she walked back into the bathroom and looked in the cupboards under the vanity. She found the bundle soaps and items that she had bought at the drug-store. She looked back in the mirror.
All the streaked makeup on her face had been carefully removed including the long false eyelashes she had worn. Her hair had also been washed. The black rinse colour she had put in a few days earlier was almost completely washed out. Some colour still clung to stubborn strands. Her hair was now a dark, brown colour – a few shades darker than its natural hue.
Now she was fairly sure that she hadn't washed her hair. The idea that someone else had, that she actually remained unconscious, while her arm was also stitched, deeply disturbed her. They had gone to considerable trouble in brushing out all the matted tangles, she noticed. She could run her fingers through her hair with ease.
She spun and exited the bathroom, through a side door that led to a toilet and back into the bedroom. She opened the bedroom door and entered onto a wide hall with stairs at one end. Elliane cautiously made her way down the stairs and entered the living areas of the home. She explored around quickly and found herself in the kitchen where there was a female person peering into the fridge with a frown.
The woman turned to her as she entered. "Hello." Closing the fridge, she walked towards Elliane. "You were not expected to awake until this afternoon." she continued. Her voice had a slightly Italian accent. "Come… come.. sit down." She gestured towards the table and chairs.
Elliane guessed the woman to be in her late twenties. She was attractive, with long dark hair that was pulled back into an elegant coif and she had dark eyes. She had an extremely curvaceous figure. Her skin was lightly tanned skin was wearing long, black pants with a green shirt.
"My name is Carlotta," the woman pulled out a chair for Elliane. "Can I get you some tea or coffee, or something to eat?"
"A cup of tea would be nice, thank you." Elliane gave her a cautious smile. Out of habit she had scanned the modern kitchen before she sat down. A small window above the sink was the only other exit.
Carlotta made a large pot of tea and brought it to the table on a tray, with milk and sugar and two teacups. She sat opposite Elliane, and stirred the teapot letting it sit for a moment to brew.
"Where is this place?" Elliane asked her.
"In Louisiana, you are closer to the border of Texas," she replied.
"Is this your home?"
"No, no," she smiled. "I work for Master Godric."
Elliane winced inwardly. She hated that term.. Master.
"So, Godric lives here?" she asked.
"No. This is a home of his childe, Master Eric. Godric sent me here so that you would have company when you awoke today."
"Oh.. Well, thank you." Elliane smile at Carlotta. "So, what time is it now?"
"It's just after noon. Dr. Ludwig had said that you would not wake until after four."
Dr. Ludwig? Elliane thought the name was familiar and she was pleased, none the less, that her arm had been seen to by a doctor.
"What injuries did I have when I arrived here?" she asked Carlotta.
"I wasn't here when you arrived. I was told by Dickson though, that your arm was injured."
"Dickson?"
"Yes, he works for Master Eric. He will be back soon. He has gone to collect your things from the apartment." Carlotta poured the tea.
Elliane frowned and accepted the teacup as Carlotta handed it to her. "Hmm.., that was probably not such a good idea."
Carlotta gave a shrug, an accentuated, Italian style shrug and stood, walking back to the fridge. Elliane was itching to look around and after a few sips of her tea she asked Carlotta if that would be acceptable.
"Sure," she answered. "Don't go downstairs though, that area is private and be aware that there are three guards on the grounds."
Elliane nodded. Wishing she had some sort of shoes for her feet she spent the next half hour exploring the place. The house was a large quality home and relatively new for an old Vampire she thought. Probably built in the 1950's, she guessed it had been renovated some time in the last three years. The main part of the building was completely encircled by an outer landing on both levels, which reminded Elliane of cloisters. This served a few good purposes from what she could see. The landings made excellent look-out areas, where you could see the grounds. Also, an important thing for a Vampire; the landings were wide enough, that the roof over them prevented the sun from ever directly entering the home.
The upstairs area consisted of a sitting room, a wide hall and three bedrooms, each with its own luxurious bathroom. Elliane noted that the other two bedrooms appeared similar to the one she occupied, bare and almost ascetic in décor, but of high quality furnishings.
The ground level consisted of a central entry hall that travelled the complete length of the house. All other rooms on that floor could be accessed from this hall. The dining room, kitchen and bathroom were on one side, while the other side had two guest bedrooms, a study and a lounge room. Stairs to both upper and lower levels were at the back of the entry hall.
When she entered this area again, Carlotta came out from the kitchen. "Your bags have arrived and are upstairs," she said. "You must be starved. I have made some fettuccini for you to eat."
The delicious aroma of food wafted from the kitchen and Elliane felt her stomach growl.
"Thank you," she smiled at Carlotta. "I'll get dressed and shall be down shortly."
