Chapter Twenty One:
Godric returned the next night, and despite Eric's persistency the night before, it was as if he had never left. The moment I had bounded into Fangtasia, Pam herding me into Eric's office, I threw myself at the oldest of the two vampires. Godric didn't seem to mind one bit as I held onto him tightly, refusing to let go until he finally had to pry my arms from around him. Eric, having returned to his arrogant self, had held out his arms and wiggled his eyebrows at me suggestively. I grabbed one of the large books stacked on Eric's desk and went to throw it at him out of annoyance, but then common sense bit me and I realized I could have the answer to all my questions in my hands. I had curled up immediately on the couch and started to read, digging through all the nonsense to search for anything that could pertain to what I was. Godric and Eric followed suit, and together, we leafed through nearly half of the books Godric had brought back from Dallas. Of course the vampires sped through the books faster than I ever thought possible while I was still stuck on my first book, but by their exasperated expressions, I could tell that they were finding out just about as much as I was. And that summed up to be about...oh right, nada.
"This is hopeless." I groaned, tossing the dusty volume to the other side of the couch and crossed my arms with a pout. "We're finding nothing."
"We've only just begun, Savannah." Godric offered a small smile. "We'll find something; you just have to give it time."
"I'm not a patient person, Godric." I grumbled. "I just want to know what I am already."
"And we'll find that out, I promise you. It might just take longer than we expected."
"I hate this." I glared darkly at the useless book that was just sitting there on the couch almost mockingly. "Why can't we just find something that remotely helps us? Is what I am so rare that no one knows what I am?"
"It's possible." Godric nodded.
"Well this is just great!" I threw my arms up into the air. "I know I like being number one, but that's usually about grades and less about being some rare creature no one has ever heard of!"
"We'll discover what you are, Savannah, we will." He tried to assure me, lifting another book off of the visibly smaller stack. "You just have to have faith."
"Can't we just Google this shit and get it over and done with?"
Eric snorted from behind his desk, waving a hand at his laptop and lifting his gaze from the book he was reading intently. "Be our guest."
I scoffed but climbed off the couch and stormed around the desk so I could use the laptop. The internet browser was already up and waiting for my search inquest as I leaned over and poised my fingers over the keyboard. A yelp escaped my lips however, as Eric pulled me down onto one of his knees, a smirk crawling across that smug face of his. I elbowed him in the chest but didn't even bother to move.
"Let's see..." I tapped my chin as Google loaded up. "Let's try 'hearing the dead'."
"Like that's going to help." Eric snickered as he flipped the page of his book.
I elbowed him again, silencing the vampire and causing Godric to smile into his own book. I ignored both of them as I cocked my head to the side and read through the search results. I frowned however, when I realized that maybe searching about hearing the dead wasn't such a good idea.
"Find anything?" Godric asked curiously, noticing the look on my face.
"Oh you know, just a few mental institutions that sound wonderful." I rolled my eyes. "Maybe that was the wrong thing to search."
"You think?" Eric made sure to comment.
"Oh shut up. You're not finding anything either." I pointed out, childishly sticking my tongue out at the vampire.
"Stick that tongue out at me again and I'll find another use for it." he smirked wickedly.
"Aren't you the epitome of maturity?" I shook my head and decided on another searching tactic. "What about 'raising the dead'"
"Oh this is just going to be great."
"If you don't shut up Eric, I'm going to go find some dead people to shut you up for me." I threatened.
"I'd like to see you try."
"Why don't we just continue searching?" Godric ended our squabble with a pointed look. "Any luck, Savannah?"
My cheeks reddened but I nodded and glanced back at the screen. I pouted as I read through the results, still not a single helpful entry popping up. "Apparently I'm a zombie riser. Or maybe even a zombie."
"Hm, possibly." Eric teased.
"Will you stop!" I squirmed off of his knee, only for the vampire to latch back onto me and pull me back down. "Eric..."
"Both of you." Godric sighed, setting his book down on the desk and rubbed his temples. "You're giving me a headache."
"You're a vampire; can you even have a headache?" I wondered.
"If it wasn't possible before, it certainly is now." Godric glanced between Eric and I. "Do I have to separate you two, or can you behave like the adults I know you are?"
"But he's..." I started to say, only for my mouth to clamp shut at the look Godric was sending me. "Oh fine, I'll stop if he stops."
"Eric?" Godric turned his glance on his progeny.
"What?" Eric faked a look of innocence that Godric and I saw right through.
"Eric." Godric's voice was stern.
"Whatever." Eric merely shrugged as he closed the book in his hand and tossed it onto the desk. "We're not finding anything useful."
"See, I told you." I scrolled down the search results page before coming across a halfway decent one. "Oh wait; I wonder what this says..."
"Don't bother, Savannah. The 21st century is filled with idiotic humans."
"And idiotic Vikings." I muttered under my breath.
"I heard that." his arm tightened around me.
"Good, you were meant to." I kicked him in the shin before leaning forward and placing my elbows on the desk. I clasped my hands together and rested my chin on top as I began to read through the page. There was even more nonsense than the useless book I had read through, but there were some interesting points. Before I could voice what I had found out loud however, the door to the office banged open and three figures stood in the door way ominously.
"My King." Eric's voice was thick with sarcasm as he nodded at the dark haired vampire that stepped forward into the room. "What do I owe for this pleasurable visit?"
"Eric." The vampire's deep southern accent wafted through the room as his gaze fell on me for only a moment before he turned his attention to the older vampire. "Godric, I wasn't aware you returned to the area."
"I have." Godric nodded. "I hope that's not a problem, Bill."
"Not at all." Bill bowed his head respectively. He was some sort of king, unless Eric had only been joking about that. But as I remembered back to when I had first met Eric, he had been called to a meeting in his office with a King Bill during the New Years Eve celebrations here at Fangtasia. I remember the same detest from Eric as well. Whoever this Bill was, Eric didn't like him one bit. And by the look on his face, and the way he held himself, I had a feeling I wasn't going to like Bill any more than Eric did. "We have some matters to discuss."
"Well then, discuss away." Eric motioned for him to continue.
Bill's gaze fell on me however, his expression hardening. "Alone, Eric; without one of your..."
He trailed off, not finishing his thought. But by the stare he was sending me with his judgy eyes, I knew he was about to call me one of Eric's whores. My lips pursed together as I opened my mouth to defend myself. Eric however, was the one to do so for me.
"She's mine." Eric growled possessively, his arm tightening even further around my waist.
I glanced over my shoulder at the blonde and I was surprised at the pure outrage that had crossed his once playful expression. I risked a glance back up at Bill, only to find a look of surprise plastered across his own face.
"Yours?" Bill questioned, as if not believing it was true."
"Mine." Eric's voice lowered, and I was sure that if I hadn't been sitting on his knee, and if a desk hadn't been in his way, he would have leapt at Bill, king or not.
"I see." Bill nodded, his gaze moving between Eric and I in interest, as if he was trying to understand our relationship. "I wasn't aware you had taken a human companion."
"I have." Eric's blue orbs narrowed. "She stays."
"Eric, these matters, these vampire matters, are important." Bill was still judging me with those cold eyes of his, like I was some squealing rat that would run off to the press. That almost made me laugh, but as I caught sight of Godric, I knew this was no laughing matter.
"She's my human, Bill. She stays." Eric was starting to cut off my breathing with how tightly he was holding me now. I didn't dare tell him to let me go however, knowing that the two were having some sort of pissing contest to see who was the bigger better vampire. I didn't like Bill, and while Eric annoyed me to death, I liked him a whole lot better. There was just something about Bill that I didn't trust. Maybe it was the fact that he judged me to be some common whore Eric had picked up on the street, or maybe it was just the way that he spoke to all of us as if we were some lowly subjects in his kingdom. I didn't know a thing about this vampire, but I could practically breathe in his power, and it was obvious that he wasn't nearly as old or powerful as Eric and Godric were. And I knew that in the vampire, and supernatural world in general, power and age usually meant superiority, even with vampire law and politics in effect.
"Of course." Bill finally surrendered with a nod. He waved at the two men standing in the doorways, surprisingly humans and not vampires, and they stepped into the room and closed the door behind them. I studied the two as Bill took the only other empty seat beside Godric. They held guns to their sides and I knew they were some sort of bodyguards. I didn't understand why a vampire king would have human bodyguards, but Bill seemed to. I found it odd, but then again, I wasn't a vampire, and I certainly wasn't any sort of royalty.
"What's this about, Bill?" Eric kept his arm tightly wrapped around me as he questioned the younger vampire. "We were in the middle of something."
"Yes, I see that." Bill glanced at the stack of books on the desk and then to the laptop I had been mindlessly searching on. I politely closed the top, though part of me didn't want him to even catch a glimpse of what I had been searching. I didn't trust him farther than I could throw him, and I certainly couldn't even pick him up. "Do you remember the vampire you sent Pam to oversee being turned?"
You cut have cut the tension in the air with a knife. I gulped as I glanced over my shoulder at Eric. Suddenly I didn't want to be here for this, but as I made the smallest move to get up, Eric only held on tighter. His expression was blank, like it always was when he was hiding something, and I knew this conversation wasn't going to go well. I shot Godric a look, but his attention was solely focused on Eric, almost as if he was silently communicating to the blonde not to say a damned word.
"I remember. Pam made sure to remind me I owe her a new pair of pumps for it." Eric nodded slowly. "What about it?"
"There's been an...incident." Bill glanced between Eric and Godric, not noticing anything odd about them, which I was thankful for.
"What sort of incident?" Godric was the one to ask, his voice completely level and calm. That was the thing about Godric, he could be calm in almost any situation. I admired that about him, because right about now, I was freaking out on the inside.
"The vampire was due to rise tonight." Bill hesitated with a pause before continuing. "But it wasn't entirely...whole."
"What do you mean?" Godric frowned, playing the part of a confused vampire very well.
"The ground was disturbed, but we assumed it was just the groundskeeper." Bill explained. "But when the vampire rose, the body, it wasn't entirely there."
"What do you mean, wasn't entirely there?" Eric questioned with a frown.
"A hand was missing. It was as if the skin had healed right over the wrist, like there had never been a hand to begin with." Bill stared at Eric intensely. "And he was...not right."
"Not right?" Godric cocked his head to the side.
"He had been...driven mad by the time he had met the surface." Bill sighed, shaking his head. "We had to execute him to the true death before he could become a danger."
"What a shame." Eric attempted his best regretful tone, which actually sounded pretty convincing to me. Meanwhile, I was still having a complete meltdown inside. I was surprised that I had been able to look completely calm and cool on the outside when I was having such a clusterfuck of emotions just beneath the surface. I caught Godric's eye, and I knew the small look meant more than it looked. He was silently praying for me to continue my facade, to not let one single emotion slip from my mask. He offered the tiniest smile before the frown returned to his lips once again.
"There's more." Bill leaned forward, his hands clasping in his lap. "I felt dark magic in the cemetery."
"Dark magic? Are you sure?" Godric asked.
"Positive." Bill nodded.
"Have you been around dark magic before, Bill?" Eric raised an eyebrow. "How can you be certain?"
"Because I am." Bill's expression hardened as his voice lowered an octave. "Are you questioning my claim, Eric?"
"Of course not, my liege." There was the smallest smirk playing on his lips before he hid it with ease. "I'm just wondering, that's all."
"I'm sure it was dark magic." Bill didn't believe him for one minute but let it go. "I'm worried that there could be something dark and ominous wandering around town that we're not aware of."
"I haven't felt anything. Have you, Godric?" Eric glanced at his maker.
"Not a thing." Godric shook his head. "Perhaps whatever was here is now gone."
"Perhaps." Bill looked between the two vampires. "But I've sent vampires out in search of the creator of this dark magic, just to be sure."
"Of course." Godric nodded. "Better to be safe than sorry."
My mouth felt dry as Bill stood, brushing imaginary dust from his dark suit pants.
"I don't need to instil in the two of you the importance of coming forward should you hear or see anything." Bill gave both a look that radiated forced superiority. He was trying to make himself out to be the big man on campus, but we all knew he was just a little fish in a big sea and nothing more.
"Of course not." Eric shook his head. "If a strange being is wandering about, it needs to be taken care of."
"Good." Bill looked almost relieved as he glanced at his bodyguards and sent them a nod. The door to the office open and the King began towards the exit.
We were almost home free and I just had to screw it all up.
"What would you do, if you found the person who did it?" I blurted out curiously without thinking. My cheeks reddened as all three vampires stilled, as if they had forgotten that I was even there in the first place. Bill turned slowly until his gaze fell on me once again. "If you don't mind me asking."
"They'll be taken care of." Bill answered simply before he and his guards disappeared from view.
The moment the door was closed behind them, I opened my mouth to speak, but Eric's hand slapped across my mouth, ceasing any sound to emit. Godric held up a finger to his lips before pointing to the door and then to his ear. I understood what he was saying and I grew still and silent on Eric's knee. After a few minutes, the tension left the air and Eric's hand slid from my mouth, only to fall onto my waist and began rubbing invisible circles in almost a soothing manner. Knowing that I was safe to freak out, my breathing grew heavy and my heart's pace became rapid.
"What the hell are we going to do? What the hell am I going to do?" My eyes grew as wide as saucers as I looked between the two.
"Savannah, everything is going to be alright." Godric assured me as he stood and moved around the desk until he was leaning against it before me. He leaned down and grasped my hands, unfolding them from the curled position they had been in in my lap. I hadn't eve realized I had been digging my nails into the palm of my hands until I spotted the half crescents filled with blood littering my palms. Godric nicked his thumb however, and began to heal the small wounds with his blood until my palms were once again flawless.
"But...But..." I couldn't even form a coherent thought as my mind swam. Bill had just walked in here, expressing his worry over dark magic he had felt at the same cemetery I had my little incident in. It wasn't just some coincidence though, because that was the vampire I had accidentally raised, the vampire whose hand Eric had ripped off to save me. But dark magic? I hadn't even known what I had done. Could it really have been dark magic though? Did that help narrow down the field, or was it just another added mystery?
Eric must have been able to tell the freak out that was raging inside of me as he raised both of his hands to my tense shoulders and began to massage them. It was a surprising, but welcomed act, and I slowly began to relax, allowing the vampire to ease the tension from my stiff muscles.
"Bill didn't suspect a thing, and he has no reason to." Eric assured me.
"But he's trying to track this thing down. And this thing just happens to be me!" I exclaimed.
"He won't realize it's you, Savannah. And even if he came to that conclusion, Eric and I would do everything in our power to keep you safe." Godric leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on my forehead. "Eric?"
"That's right." Eric squeezed my shoulders gently. "You're mine. Bill Compton isn't about to take another thing that's mine. Not if I can help it."
I didn't know what that meant exactly, but it did help calm me down, even just a little bit. I was still worried though, because Eric and Godric couldn't be around all the time. They couldn't protect me 24/7.
"Bucky." Bill turned to the larger of his two guards, a frown settled on his face.
"Sir." Bucky stepped forward, his gun strapped to his chest, and awaited further command.
Bill glanced back up at the lively building, his suspicion growing. He had known the moment he stepped into Fangtasia tonight that something was off. There had been an odd smell in the air, a smell he had never encountered before in his existence. The smell had only grown stronger as he entered Eric's office and found a strange girl sitting on his lap. He had been surprised to find out that Eric had claimed a human, and one that didn't resemble Sookie in any way. To think about the blonde telepath he had once loved was painful, but he had seen the love Eric shared for her. He didn't believe it could be true, but it had been. But now Sookie was gone, if not dead, and it seemed like Eric had gotten over the loss quite easily. But to claim a human, it was just unheard of by the former Viking. He had known Eric for a great deal of time and he had never known him to take an interest in any breather unless for a reason. Sookie had been a telepath and part faerie. She could have been of great use to Eric. So what did this girl possess that Eric desired for himself?
It was the smell, however, that was first in Bill's thoughts. The scent of dark magic, the same dark magic he had discovered at the cemetery earlier that evening, was all over the girl. She had seemed innocent enough, but he had heard her fluttering heart as he spoke about the maddened vampire. He had smelt her fear. She wasn't as innocent as she appeared to be. And he wanted to know why.
"I want you to learn who that girl is." Bill glanced back at his guard, his expression hardening. "I want to know everything there is to know about her."
"Yes sir." Bucky nodded and stepped back into the line with the second guard.
Bill thanked him before they began towards the dark SUV that awaited them in the parking lot. He shot one last look at the bar before climbing into the car, his intrigue only growing as that smell littered the air even thicker than when they had first arrived.
"What are you?" he wondered to himself in a whisper before shaking his head.
He would find out one way or another. And once he did, he would be sure to use it against Eric in whatever way that he could. He wouldn't let go to waste any sort of ammunition to rid the state, if not the vampire community of Eric Northman and his troublesome ways for good. He had to be calculated with his moves however, in order to not arouse suspicion in the two much older vampires. But he would discover who this girl was and the power she possessed. Before she became a threat to the great state of Louisiana and his kingdom.
"Get Nan Flanagan on the phone." Bill ordered. "I have a few things to discuss with her."