Thank you again to those who reviewed! Again, sorry for the inconsistent chapter lengths... we ran into some remodeling snags today, lol.

Chapter 10 is a bit short, but it's action-packed...

10. Dear Daddy

He was in Nombre de Dios, Durango, Mexico; not far from Cuidad Victoria. For a place called "Name of God," it was surprisingly uninspiring. But the municipal seat was there, and that was what Eric had come for. He approached them as a rich young American vampire, searching for land to purchase in the area.

He made no pretenses as far as wealth went. He spread it generously and he bribed copiously. It was in this area that the kidnapped girls were ending up. He had begun to suspect that rather than the vampires being behind it, instead the vampires were being used by humans for human purposes.

It really mattered little. Whomever was using his bar was going to regret it.

So he played the game, whoring and sucking and bribing around the town. There was no way he was going to keep a low profile as a six foot four inch [1.82 m] tall man with blond hair and green eyes. Especially not as a vampire.

It was easier to just be himself and use the system to get himself into the system. The problem was that, as an American vampire, he would have had no reason to be asking for American prostitutes. So he had come under one of his many aliases. He was Enrique del Norte from Spain.

He fucked his way through multiple prostitutes before he finally had dropped enough cash and done enough illegal activity and bribing to be offered an American prostitute. It was clear to him immediately as she was brought into the small, albeit clean room that she was heavily drugged. It would make her difficult to glamour, and he suspected it was intentional. Not to mention making her easier to control.

He made the evening pleasurable for her. If he had done nothing, she would have been punished. When he kicked her out and went to ground, he was frustrated. It was taking too long. He had been there for nearly eight weeks.

Two days later, he was invited to an exclusive party outside of town. The mansion was brimming with American prostitutes, but he saw nothing of Haley. That, however, didn't mean he didn't see familiar faces.

He didn't ask whose mansion it was, as that would have been an extreme indication that he was not what he appeared. Instead, he fucked his way through five prostitutes and watched two more with each other.

When the night was through and he went to ground, he didn't go far. He would rise the next night and search the place. He knew some of those girls, and knew as well that time had just become short. If any of them had said anything, he would be known to everyone before he even rose from the ground. He could only hope that they were frightened enough or smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

Furthermore, he had left Alexis in Pam's care. Her nightly bouts of terror were growing more difficult to deal with. It would be a relief to go home and reassure himself. Pam had explicit instructions to get her a wardrobe that showed off her body but didn't compromise her rather conservative style.

He felt like it had been forever since he had seen her, and the intensity of her emotions seemed to be growing. He scowled and sank into the ground. If he found out that she had disobeyed Pam again... he didn't even want to think about it.

That day, like the one before, he felt Alexis's continued emotional turmoil. It rose instead of falling, and by the time he climbed from the ground, he was convinced that something had gone wrong beyond Pam's continual presence in her life. It was frustratingly impossible to tell since every vampire near her wrought havoc on her.

"Well, well. What have we here. If it isn't Sheriff Northman. I never imagined it would be quite so easy to capture you."

Eric was enveloped in a silver net and a silver chain snapped around his neck as he climbed out of the earth.

"You went to ground in my very own back yard," the wiry, hard man continued.

Eric was dragged the rest of the way out of the ground by his neck, his hands and legs grasped by multiple men and chained with Silver before he could stop them as the net tightened around him. His fangs snapped out and he fought, but it did him no good. They had captured him before he had even risen.

In fact, he realized that they had been digging to try to get to him.

"It was my hope that the sun would take care of you," he was told in the man's heavy Spanish accent. "But I could not find your hole soon enough, nor did these lazy bastards dig fast enough. It is an unhappy world when you must put up with such incompetence."

He flicked his hand and turned away. Eric found himself dragged behind an ATV as the group returned to the house. He was dragged bodily up some stairs. But when they tried to drag him into the house, they stalled. Huffing and puffing, they pulled and twisted and couldn't get him inside.

Even with his face mangled by the ride there, his flesh torn and bleeding, Eric forced himself to laugh.

"Ah yes. Por favor entren," the leader said. Although the invitation to come in was in Spanish, it worked its magic and Eric was dragged inside.

He blinked dirt out of his eyes and looked around. To his horror and dismay, he looked into familiar brown eyes. They were bloodshot and her fear was palpable. It rose several levels as she saw him.

"Ah yes. You've met my daughter. Well, one of them."

He ignored Eric then, asking the men holding her arms, in Spanish, "Why is she injured? You were to bring her to me without harm."

Also in Spanish, one of the men replied, "She tried to run away four times. She bit me." He produced his hand in proof, and Eric saw that she hadn't just bitten him, but had bitten him so badly that his hand was torn open.

"How am I going to present her to Carlos in this condition?" Alphonsio asked the other man.

Before the other man could even react to run away, Alphonsio pulled the gun from his hip and shot both him and the other man holding Alexis's arms.

Eric was proud of her as she bolted immediately for the back door. But it was, of course, no use. She got further than he would have given her credit for, though. He felt her pain as she was grabbed by another of Alphonsio's men.

Alphonsio walked up to her and gripped her chin so hard even her bruises turned white.

"You will marry Carlos, and you will give him a boy. Your sister has failed and produced only females for him. If you also fail, both of you will die. I have wanted this union between our families all of my life."

He turned then to Eric and said, "I have to thank you, vampire. Carlos wanted nothing to do with her until you fixed her. Now he has agreed to marry her if she gives him a boy. If she gives him two boys, the second boy is mine. I will have an heir with the de Santos family and my family's name will not die out."

He lifted Eric's head. "I took Haley from your bar. You didn't even notice. So I took a couple more. You still didn't notice. Now I take what I want, when I want to. You have made me even wealthier," he smiled, a cheeky but cold smile.

Another man entered the room. He was, if it were possible, even more cold and hard than Alphonsio. He ignored Eric entirely.

"She's blemished," he said, looking at Alexis with the air of a man inspecting a horse. He reached out to open her blouse, and she batted his hands away.

He slapped her across the face so hard he knocked her down. A kick to her butt cheek and a command to get up made her glare at him with open loathing. He jerked her up and yanked her shirt off to the sound of tearing cloth and Eric raged, fighting the silver helplessly as the smell of his own burning flesh rose to his nostrils.

"Acceptable," the man that Eric knew had to be Carlos grunted, now in Spanish.

"What's that?" one of the men asked in Spanish.

Eric realized it wasn't just the scent of his own flesh that smelled of smoke. The house was on fire.

OoOoOoO

Alexis had hoped to simply use the fire to escape. She had never dreamed she would find Eric there. She'd had a lot of discussions with Sookie. She now knew that vampires would be flung from the house if you rescinded their invitation. But it had to be your house.

And as it happened, the house they were in wasn't Alphonsio's house at all. It was his residence, but he didn't own it. It had been her mother's bribe to Alphonsio to drop his suit for custody of them, but it had been put in Alexis's name when her mother died.

When Carlos turned away, she dodged around him and grabbed a chair. She jumped on Eric and wrapped herself around him, holding onto him and the chair with all of her strength. "I rescind your invitation to my house," she cried.

The jerk as he was flung out the door nearly took her head off. She ran for the house and slammed the door, shoving the chair under it. It wouldn't last long, but she hoped to get him free of the chains by the time they broke out. She scrambled to get the one off of his neck, and soon had his hands free. He gripped the chains on his feet himself and ripped them off, his flesh hissing.

The chair splintered. One more chain fell, and he grabbed her. The sound of gunfire blazed around them, and she felt a bullet burn a path through her stomach. Eric grasped her and leaped up into the air.