A/N: Thanks for the wait, guys. It's been over two weeks, soooo sorry. I had a ton of camp stuff to do, plus my husband happens to share a birthday with the good ol' US of A. Did I mention that his family is from South America and he's an only child? Ah, let the festivities begin. Yes, he's 38, and yes, there was a piñata involved. I also took him to Mohegan Sun for a Keith Urban concert. (Walking sex appeal in tight Levi's, btw.)

Anyhoo, when we last left off... Sookie was on the verge of making some bad decisions and some vampires are gonna have to save her ass. Now that we're all caught up...haha, but really, that's pretty accurate.

If I haven't said so already, please excuse my Swedish if the grammar is off. I'm relying on a computer generated translator. I haven't included any translations, and so far no one has complained, but let me know if you have any questions. Min trogna avläsare. Haha, I just figured out how to do those little dot thingies!

As always, props to Ms. Harris.

Chapter Eight

I woke up the next morning, refreshed and determined. There was even a little pep in my step again. For the first time in days, I was feeling something other than misery. Dare I say hope? Well, at least I felt like we had a purpose, a real plan. Even if I had to wait for my UV-challenged friends to wake up, I knew that we were one step closer to finding Eric.

I took my time in the shower. The bathroom was over the top and I couldn't help myself. Italian marble everywhere, a shower big enough to wash my car in, and get this - a remote controlled fireplace. I could see right through to the other side, where I discovered a powder room I'd missed on my tour the night before. There was a another flat screen in there, one of those old fashioned chaise lounges, and a vanity table with all of my favorite perfumes and toiletries. Again, the perks of being Mrs. Eric Northman.

As I dried my hair, I stared longingly at the luxurious tub. It was more like a swimming pool with jacuzzi jets, surrounded by candles and various bottle of soaps and oils. Either Eric really liked his baths, or he had big plans for my first visit. I pictured us laying in there, our arms and legs all twisted together and slick. Me sitting on top of him, grabbing his long hair... I sighed, and gave my head a quick shake. It will be there when he gets back, I thought to myself.

I ordered some breakfast, and was surprised to see a copy of the Shreveport Times on the tray when it arrived. It was a few days behind, but still, a nice bonus neatly folded next to my eggs. I wondered how much it must cost to have a daily newspaper delivered to another continent. Eric was probably the only person outside of Shreveport that cared about what was actually happening in Shreveport. I sat at the enormous dining table with my feet up on a chair, drank some amazing coffee, and read about what was going on five thousand miles away. thanks

Around noon, I decided to make my way outside. True, I had been warned by all three vamps not to leave the suite, let alone the hotel. And true, I spoke exactly two words of Swedish - ja and tack. That's yes and thanks, manners are manners after all. However, I found a stash of money in one of the drawers of the vanity, so I could only assume it was meant for me. Right? And I really did need a better pair of shoes if we were going to be trekking into unknown wilderness. So, what a vampire doesn't know while he or she is sleeping won't hurt them. (That knowledge did have the potential to hurt me once said vampires were awake, but I was willing to take the chance in exchange for a little retail therapy and sightseeing.)

When I got down to the lobby, I saw Greger behind the desk. Boy, this poor guy never seemed to get a break. I wondered if he had a family waiting around for him while he was waiting around for Eric. Maybe I'd ask him about it the time we were alone.

"Good day, Mrs. Northman," he said with a slight bow. "Did you find everything well last night?"

"Yes, thank you so much, Greger," I said with a warm smile. "This place is just so lovely. Have you been here since last night?"

"No ma'am. I - attended to a few things after I left you, then I headed home."

"Hmmm," I nodded. "See anything interesting along the way?"

Disappointment spread over his features. "No, Mrs. Northman. I apologize."

"Oh, no, that's alright," I said, giving his shoulder an encouraging little squeeze. "We're all goin' out tonight, so maybe something will happen then."

I could see him subtly looking all around us, yet he was careful not to change his posture or look out of place. "Would it be possible for me to come along?"

"Well," I shrugged, "I'm not exactly in charge of making all the decisions, but I'll ask them what they think. I'm sure it'll be fine."

He smiled briefly and tugged at his lapels. "Very well, ma'am."

"Great," I said brightly. "Well, I'm heading out to explore a little. I'll see you later."

I was about to go on my merry ol' way, when Greger quickly stepped out from behind the desk in front of me. "Of course, Mrs. Northman. If you don't mind, Greta will be accompanying you." He pointed to a tall and slender woman, leaning on wall next to the entry way to the pub with a board look on her face.

I could tell the second I looked at her that she was two-natured. "Greta?" My eyebrows shot up.

He looked at me, almost shamefully, and I knew it wasn't his idea. "Again, my apologies."

A lazy smile oozed onto her face as she heaved herself off the wall and walked toward us. She was definitely tall, but now I could see the muscle definition in her neck and on her arms. She was scrappy, that was for sure. She looked like Joan Jett - black dyed hair and biker boots. It was a terrible thing to think so quickly, but I didn't like her already.

"Oh, I'm sure I'll do fine on my own," I said, trying to pull off casual.

"You didn't actually think they were gonna let you out by yourself, did you?" she asked. Another smile, and a chuckle.

Yup, I officially didn't like her.

"Who's paying you?" I asked suspiciously.

"Need to know basis, Mrs. Northman. "

I narrowed my eyes and turned back to Greger. He looked like he wanted to shrink down under the desk and hide. Greta was sliding a black leather jacket over her shoulders, looking ready for anything I could possibly dish out to her.

"Fine," I said, plastering on a big, fake smile. "That's great, you can go shoe shopping with me."

The other woman rolled her eyes, and that pleased me enormously. I was going to spend every single krona in my pocket and then let her carry the heavy bags.

"We'll be back soon," I said to Greger, and gave him a we will talk later glare.

He nodded grimly, blinking behind his glasses. "Ladies."

Greta smirked and saluted a farewell. "Greger."

We were then out on the street and I tried to walk ahead of her, but Greta matched me stride for stride. Her legs were longer than mine and she was having no trouble keeping up with my power walking. After a block or so, I gave up and slowed down.

"Alright, " I sighed, "What are you?"

She looked at me like I'd just cursed her out. "What are you?"

I stopped, hand on my hip. "Annoyed."

"Aww, am I annoying you?" she asked, putting on a pair of sunglasses and popping a piece of gum on her mouth, which she didn't offer to me. "I can do this all day."

I stared at her, my feet planted to the side walk. I wasn't going another foot away from the only people I knew in the entire country until I knew what her story was. "So can I."

She shrugged and started walking again. "My father is enforcer for the svart tand pack," she called out, assuming that I would just follow her. Which I did.

Pack enforcer, that meant werewolves. I should've guessed it just by looking at her. She had that tough ego thing going on, something that I'd only ever seen in wolves.

"Why are you working for vamps?" I asked, hurrying to stay next to her.

"Who says I am?"

"Well," I said, hefting my purse onto my shoulder and jogging along, "Considering that I'm here with three vampires, looking for another one, I'd say that's a pretty safe assumption."

She ignored me, lighting a cigarette without losing a step. "God, Sorren was right," she mumbled, holding the cig between her lips. "You don't shut up."

I gave her back a sour look as she turned a corner onto another street. I was certain that Sorren wouldn't use those exact words. She was just trying to bait me, but I wasn't biting. I couldn't just blurt out words like vampire or werewolf, but I shuffled along behind her and kept throwing out questions.

"So Sorren hired you?"

"What's the difference?"

"Because I don't like being told what to do by people I barely know," I replied.

"Even if they're doing it to keep your ass alive?"

"That's not really the point," I huffed, feeling like I'd just run a mile. Either my purse was way too heavy or she was purposely trying to wear me out. "Listen, can you slow down for a second? I feel like I'm gonna pass out."

She turned around with a smug smile and took a deep drag of her cigarette. I knew she was a wolf on the inside, but she looked more like the Cheshire cat at that moment. Almond shaped caramel eyes, a tiny nose, and a head full of spiky hair. She actually reminded me a little of Sam's girlfriend, Jannalynne.

Maybe that's why I had felt an instant dislike for this woman I didn't even know. There was certainly no love lost between Jannalynne and I, and I honestly felt that Sam could do way better. No matter how I felt about her though, part of me respected the way she handled herself in the pack. She lived in a male-dominated group where most of the women were expected to just make dinner and bend over when instructed. Jannalynne wasn't like that, I was beginning to get the feeling that Greta wasn't either.

"Where are we going in such a hurry anyway?" I asked between short breaths.

"Shopping," she said simply, gesturing behind her. A block of boutiques and street vendors stretched out ahead of us. "The stores close at one for lunch on Sundays."

I glanced over her shoulder and sort of felt like a jerk. "Oh."

Greta took another long drag and then tossed the cigarette onto the side walk, squishing it under her boot. "Look," she sighed, apparently deciding to level with me. "All I know is that Sorren showed up at my house last night and asked my father to keep an eye on you."

"Does your father work for Sorren?" I asked, confused. Weres and vamps were known for notoriously disliking each other.

"They go back a long time. Sorren is different from other vamps, in case you hadn't caught that yet."

I shrugged. Maybe it was because of the no maker thing? Maybe it made him a more open-minded supernatural being. He certainly was unlike any other vamp I'd met before, and I had become an unfortunate expert on the subject of the undead.

"Yeah, well, Sorren gave my father a big wad of cash, and I'm getting about an eighth of it, for all of the bother this is. So please excuse me if I'm a little pissed that I'm getting paid the allowance of a twelve year-old to babysit you."

"Well, this isn't ideal for me either, in case you hadn't caught that yet."

We stood there, staring at each other in the middle of the busy sidewalk, both of us unwilling to concede. We might have stood there all afternoon, if it had not been for the sudden feeling of something soft and fuzzy rubbing against my leg. I looked down and saw a large cat staring up at me with intelligent green eyes. It looked just like Elsa, only it was bigger and it's fur was fuller. It looked like a miniature gray and white lion.

I was about to reach out to give it a little pet, when Greta rushed toward me and grabbed me by the wrist. "Don't touch it!" she exclaimed.

"Why not?" I cried, more shocked by her reaction than her sudden touch. Then the cat hissed at her and flattened its ears back, and I suddenly remembered how Alcide had freaked out when Elsa got too close to him.

"I don't know, it's not right," she sputtered, and I swear there was fear in her eyes.

"It's just a cat," I said, though I obviously suspected it wasn't that simple.

"No it's not."

"Aren't cats supposed to be afraid of dogs?" I asked with a wicked little grin. Gran would've smacked me with a wooden spoon.

She blinked, then quickly recovered herself. She let go of my arm and took a step back. "That thing is not normal."

"Neither are you," I pointed out.

When she should have taken insult, she just shook her head. "It's not like me. It smells like you."

Just like Elsa.

I looked back down and saw that it was still staring at me. I locked eyes with it and knew it was a she. She was relaxed now, ignoring Greta, maybe because she didn't feel like Greta was a real threat. She started to rub her head on my calf, marking me as her own. This didn't strike me as abnormal, although I could see from the look on Greta's face that she was someplace between horrified and bewildered.

"Where did it come from?" she asked.

"It's a girl," I mumbled, then added, "And that's exactly what I was wondering."

I looked all around us, scanning in every direction. I turned toward a square with a bubbling fountain at our left and saw four more cats, all with the same markings and color. They were trailing behind an old man, following him like puppies. He was scruffy looking - not homeless or anything, just unshaven and rumpled. We both watched as he ambled around, throwing scraps or treats of some kind at his feet to keep the little critters with him. He turned around after a minute, then looked up with a sharp scowl. Someone was missing.

He instantly set eyes upon us and I felt my heart skip a beat. He glared hard at me for a good thirty seconds, which is a really long time to be stared at by some creepy old guy.

"He's not right either," Greta whispered.

I shook my head, completely agreeing with her this time. "Uhnt-uh."

The man let out a loud whistle and yelled, "Kommet!" The cat scurried away in an instant, bounding across the open square and getting back in formation with the others. He glowered at us again, then kept on walking with his little friends trailing behind him.

We observed the man until he was out of sight, then I looked to Greta. She was quiet for a moment, and I was comfortable with the assumption that she wasn't taken quiet very often. She lit another cigarette, and with far away eyes, offered me a piece of that gum she had. I took it without a word and began chewing it as I watched her try to figure out what she'd just witnessed.

"You're not all together normal either, are you?" she finally asked.

"Nope."

"Why did the cat smell like you?"

I smiled and let out a little sigh. "Greta, I could answer that, if you really want to know. But before you ask the next question, do yourself a favor and don't. It'll make your life a heck of a lot easier."

She considered it for a moment, then she smartly nodded. "Fine with me."

From there, we went shopping after all, and Greta and I got along better. I knew we were never going to be buddies, but we managed. We went from bickering to just not saying much. She helped me look for a decent pair of shoes, and I stayed out of her brain. I was sure we were both thinking about the man and his cats, but for completely different reasons. Neither one of us brought it up though, and we just kept walking. After a few stops, we found a store with a good selection of outdoor supplies. I was happy with the shoes I picked out, though I suspected I paid way too much for them.

By that time, the shops were all closing for lunch like Greta said they would. A dozen or so food carts had set up in the square and people were gathering around them. The smells of sizzling meat and warm bread filled my nose and it reminded me of the fair Bon Tempes had every spring in the town center. I supposed that some things were the same, no matter where you went in the world.

"You want some coffee?" Greta asked, fishing in her pockets for money.

"Sure. Here," I said, handing her a bill. Her eyes arched when she saw the amount, and I shrugged. "I used to babysit too."

She smiled, and it was the first genuine smile I'd seen on her strangely pretty face. "Don't move, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'll be right back, don't move."

I held my hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay."

She hoped over to a little coffee wagon got on line behind a few other people. Coffee would be good, I thought to myself, wishing I had wore a thicker shirt under my cable knit sweater. I wasn't used to being so close to the water. Eric had told me more than once, that no matter where you went in Sweden, the sea always had a way of making itself known.

The breeze caught my hair and I turned away from it to keep my hair from my eyes. That's when I saw that the old man was standing directly behind me. It startled me, obviously, and I gasped. He was close to me and I could see that he was indeed very old. The skin around his eyes and mouth was craggy like a glacier, and his dull gray hair was wiry under a worn knit cap. His clothes sagged off his body, like he'd been wearing them for several days.

He leaned closer to me and sniffed me. This was something I was used to, hanging around supes as much as I did, so maybe I didn't freak out like I should have. Fae blood was like catnip to most of them. I simply stood there and waited for his reation.

"You have blood of the north man in you," he said.

Okay, I wasn't expecting that.

I took a cautious step away from him. "How do you know that?"

"The smell, it stays on you." His voice was thick with the accent I'd become so used to already. I could tell his English was limited, but there were a thousand questions I suddenly needed to ask.

The cats crowded around my feet all at once, and I had five sets of inquizative green eyes looking up at me. "Are they all...for the north man?"

"Ja. He takes one, leaves the others for next time."

"Next time?"

"He says next time."

"Have you seen him?" I asked. "The north man, Eric Northman?"

"Not for many weeks," he replied. He cast a glance down at the cats, who were all rubbing my shoes and curling their tails around my legs, and said, "They know you."

"They're special," I hedged.

"Ja."

"Why are they special?"

He smiled, and I was surprised to see a mouthful of lovely white teeth. "Someday, they fly." Then he laughed like he'd made a joke, and a few of the cats mewed in unison. "Someday, maybe you fly too."

He started laughing again, and for a second I wondered if all of his spark plugs were twisted in right. But I would've been lying to myself if I said I didn't know what he meant. They'd fly, like me. Like Tinker Bell, is more like it.

"What did Eric tell you about me?" I asked, my voice heavy with suspicion.

"He do not tell me. Cats tell me."

"The cats?"

He smiled. "Ja."

"What the fuck!" My head snapped over I and saw Greta standing just in front of the coffee stand, two cups held in her hands and disbelief stamped all over her face. In an instant she dropped the cups and was standing between me and the old man.

"Fa ta dig, pucko!" she spat at him, pulling me away and back toward the direction we'd come from.

"Greta!" I exclaimed when I saw the hatred pulled over her face. I had no idea what she said, but I could take a real good guess. "We were just talking."

"Of flying," he added.

"Stäng sig upp," she seethed. "Dra åt helvete!"

He smiled at her, tossing a few nibblets at her feet. "Stort uttrycker, valpen," he said, his voice almost crooning the words. The cats crawled around her and she scurried back, yanking me with her. Her eyes were wide with fright.

"Galen gamal man!" she screamed over her shoulder. She hauled me onto the side walk and I could hear him laughing behind us.

Once we were a good distance away and had turned the corner back toward the hotel, I tried to twist my way out of her grip. Finally, I took a swing at her with my shopping bag and it knocked her off me. "What did you say to him?" I yelled.

She ignored my question, pulling a her hair like she was going crazy. "I wasn't even gone for three minutes!" she cried. "You couldn't stay out of trouble?"

"I was just talking to him," I insisted. "Those cats -"

"Fuck the cats. You explain it to Sorren when he wakes up, we're going back to the Vitdraken."

She tired grabbing me again but I quickly dodged her. "You lay one more finger on me and I swear I'll scream werewolf!" I snapped.

She spun around and stared at me with desperate eyes. "He knows what I am!" she cried, her earlier subtly gone out the window.

"Okay..."

"Okay nothing. He's human."

"I'm human."

She scoffed . "Oh, like hell you are. This is just great. My father is going to love this."

She was actually panicking in the middle of the street. I got a little closer to her and lowered my voice. "It's all right. We'll figure it out, but you need to shut up right now."

"Thanks for the advice," she sneered, turning away and stomping down the sidewalk.

"Listen," I called after her, "I can handle going back to the hotel just fine on my own."

"Oh, sure, until you see a butterfly across the street and get hit by a bus," she growled. "You're going back to Greger and I'm getting the hell out of here. I am not getting paid enough for this shit."

And again I found myself following behind her. I could've kept arguing, there was plenty I wanted to say to her at that moment. But really, what was the point? I didn't realize until that moment how young she really was. Nineteen, maybe twenty. She would've just kept yelling back at me, finding more colorful and descriptive forms of insults to throw my way. Besides, I had other things to think about as we walked in silence. I couldn't think of a single reason why Eric would tell that creepy little guy about me and my Tinker Bell tendencies. And why did all of those cats know who I was? Did they all know my blood, just like Elsa? If all of those cats sense my thoughts , why would Eric just leave them with some random person? And most curious of all, why was Greta so freaked out by them? I was going back with more questions than I left with. All of this before lunchtime.

At least I found my boots.