Earlier that day…

Eric

Chapter XIV

To begin with, being awakened while in death's sleep was an irritant second only to silver on flesh. I had no idea why Pam voluntarily did this. I hated every conscious second of the day I had to endure. It was physically and mentally taxing; the earlier in the day, the worse the symptoms. I grew more tolerant as I grew older but, no matter my age I was never exempt from my nature. I was a child of the night. My guards wouldn't wake me unless it was critical. Not life or death but serious enough that they thought it worth a interrupting a day's rest. My thoughts were clouded and my eyes bleary. Batanya was sending a steady low burn into my palm. It wasn't painful, but it wasn't pleasant either. It was meant to help me focus. It took five minutes or so but my body began responding to my commands and the worse of the grogginess was fading.

I looked beside me and Pam wasn't in bed. We had left together and had gone to a safe house on the borders of Michigan after the debacle at the hotel.

"Her people came for her at dawn. Two of ours escorted them back," Clovache said, answering the unspoken question, "They checked in and gave the all clear at noon."

Remaining seated wasn't making me less fuzzy headed. Slowly I got to my feet, swaying slightly. Clovache handed me a blood and my personal cell phone.

"Illeta," he said.

"I seem to have misplaced your wife." my sister said in greeting.

"I don't understand."

"I arranged for food to be brought to her but when the messenger arrived she was already gone. The only scent in the room was hers."

So that meant no one took her. She had left. It was bad enough that I was losing rest over a woman who apparently had a hearing problem; Illeta shouldn't be troubling herself as well. The incident at the hotel had irritated me greatly. I'd told her not to do something and she had disobeyed me. I understood that brash act somewhat but this was deliberate.

"Go back to sleep, Leta," I replied.

"I'm sorry. I should have—"

"All is well," I assured her. "Do not trouble yourself."

I didn't care where she was but her disappearing act left me unable to fulfill a clause in the marriage contract that insisted I adequately protect her. This was something else I expressed last night. From the moment she married me, she would need bodyguards. She'd never been away from home, so I assumed this was the only place she would return to. I hoped to be wrong. The ramifications of her being so careless weren't even worth contemplating. Her small town had been overrun by all manner of reporters. If she didn't know it, she would soon find out.

My head ached, and given the mood I was in, someone—probably Sookie—was liable to get hurt. For her sake I hoped she had a very compelling explanation for her noncompliance on simple tasks. This was her second night as my wife and the second time she had disobeyed me. I didn't have time for such everyday tribulations. She needed a reminder of her place and just what she had to lose.

"Status report," I asked Batanya, hanging up.

"Hellion has a trail," she replied.

"Is there anyone local that can pick them up?" I asked, lying back down. I would send the jet but I needed it to get out of Chicago come first dark.

"New Orleans Police Department has a chopper waiting."

"I want her returned quickly and quietly."

Once I gave the orders I allowed death's sleep to pull me under again.

~ooooo~

From the information I'd been receiving at intervals since dark, Hellion had yet to find Sookie. I'd landed in New Orleans and still he had nothing. This was strange for him. Hellion was a tracker. If he'd crossed paths with it once, he would find it as long as it remained in this realm. That he was having trouble finding one human woman was baffling. The delay further irritated me, but I left those matters to my security team. They were good at what they did and there were better things for to give my attention.

I was given a tour of my office the same night. I also met with most of my staff and settled into work. This was like every other high end office building. It was sixty-stories high with floor-to- ceiling glass. I was more concerned about the quadruple computer monitoring system. It allowed me to simultaneously monitor nearly everything I owned. I felt a momentary sense of relief as I settled into my leather-bound chair at my polished mahogany desk. I was finally free to settle in for a while.

"There's a problem," Batanya said, entering my office.

I arched a brow in question. Having issues and unexpected events arise was a normal part of my day. Sometimes it was extreme like the bomb in Chicago, but most of the time it was routine. Batanya always handled it without needing to involve me, now with the exception of Sookie, of course, only because she was yet to be assigned permanent guards.

"Your wife was attacked," she said.

Perfect. "Is she dead?" I inquired. That would be just what I needed.

"No," she replied, "She's beat to shit though, cracked skull, bruised trachea, fractured eye socket, and a broken nose. Hellion needs a medic, a cleanup crew, and a containment team."

So not only was my wife disobedient, she was also a magnet for violence. I was beginning to question how she had made it so far in life with both those qualities. I really thought we had an understanding. I thought she was wise enough to simply stay under my radar and ride out her time as my wife. Apparently I had given her much too much credit. I finally came to the

realization in giving her an inch, she wanted to take a mile. Sookie was most likely attempting to test her limits by defying me. She was going to learn a hard lesson.

"Make it so," I said.

"No can do," she replied, "Two of ours flew out with Pam. They are at least a day away. Hellion is on the scene. Clovache and I are here. Everyone else is holding down the fort."

My guard consisted of ten Britlingens. Each came with a specific skill that made them invaluable. Talented as they were, the minimum to adequately guard a property the size of my house was six. As it was I was stretching them thinly, anything more would compromise the safety of the home entirely.

"I called the French maid," Batanya continued, "As usual she told me to get bent sideways."

The French maid, or Thalia, was a tiny Greek vampire who was older than I. She acquired her nickname during the French and Indian War. She also headed a band of four other vampires. They were vagrants and the most ill-tempered undead in the New World. Old as they were, they had the temperament of drunken sailors. Long ago it had landed them in over their heads. I stepped in and paid their fines, and they were now in my retinue.

Before I had Britlingens, I had the French maid and her band of misfits to help me deflect conflict. The problem was they didn't work well with others. Still, every now and again, I needed to supplement my security with Thalia and her coarse brand of problem-solving skills. She also had a penchant for knife work and I wanted to unleash this on whoever thought it wise

to attack something belonging to me. Britlingens have a strict code, and torture was not part of this.

"Thalia," I said once the line connected.

"Tell me I get to knife someone," she said as her greeting.

"You get to knife someone," I agreed, "Knife them for as long as you want and as slowly as you want."

I connected her with Batanya and went back to work. This time of year there wasn't a lot of moonlight to burn. By two a.m., my wife had been flown back the house. She was not in great shape. Indira, one of Thalia's mates, had to give her blood at some point during transport. The daemon doctor had been summoned. All of this nonsense took me from the office a few minutes early in order to cover my ass, per the marriage contract. I couldn't kill Sookie or, through my own inaction, cause her death. I had to at least confirm that she was receiving adequate care.

The first person I saw as I entered through the main gates of the compound was Thalia. She was sitting cross-legged on the trunk of her blood-red muscle car, smoking a cigarette. Smoke floated from her nose in billowing wisps. Being dead, she couldn't derive any pleasure from the act and the smell had to irritate, but I had yet to see her without a stick between her lips. I ignored the smoke, ignored the fact that her car was parked in my courtyard - half over a flower bed and a knocked over statue. I didn't use her skills because she was polite or mannerly, or even completely sane.

"From what we could gather his ‛I hate vampires so I'm going to strangle teeny human women who consort with them' routine began with his sister," Thalia said as her hello, "There were two others from the small town. He thought to use your wife as a martyr to deter all fang lovers."

She banged on the trunk of her car loudly and in response, a frantic heartbeat and the smell of fear spiked from inside. He screamed and begged, but no one who could hear cared. He reeked of terror, but it wasn't all his. Some of it belonged to my wife as did the majority of the blood, sweat, and tears on him.

"He doesn't want to be my friend," she said in a sing song voice, "Isn't that terrible?"

"You're fucking nuts," Clovache said.

Thalia giggled. Yeah, she had issues, but then again most vampires suffered some kind of mental hang up, me included. I left her to it and continued my on path inside.

Before I entered my wife's suite, Hellion found me in the hall way. "This should have never happened and I take full responsibility," Hellion said, hanging his head, "I couldn't draw a proper bead on her and I should have called it in. I resign, forfeit my full wages, and will arrange immediate deportation."

Britlingens had a one track mind. His charge got hurt so it was his fault. To date this was the very first failure; at least it was in his opinion. I didn't count it against him. You couldn't protect someone insistent on being reckless with their safety. If her attack wasn't a big enough indicator she needed to find her place and play her part, I didn't know what was. Maybe now she would learn. When I told her to do something, it was in her best interest to comply.

"Neither your captain nor I find fault in your actions," I told him, "Your resignation is rejected."

He nodded and left. I looked in, and the daemon was just removing a syringe from my wife's arm. The sutures from her left eyebrow were being removed. Indira's blood had done its work. I could still see some swelling on the left side of her face, but the fracture of her eye socket had been made whole. There was only mild swelling and light scratches. She didn't look nearly as injured as Batanya had described hours ago. Despite her best efforts, any media fallout from her attack had been averted. My wife would be up and about the next day. There seemed to be no harm done. It didn't mean she didn't have things to answer for.

I didn't see Sookie until three days later. I was on my way out, and she was having dinner. I sat at the end of the lengthy table and watched her. If she registered my presence she didn't show it. I wasn't sure if it was a tactic to avoid repercussions of her actions or disrespect. I found I couldn't get a handle on her personality. She was supposed to be introverted, so I expected her to be shy and meek but this didn't align with her flagrant disregard for my word. The fact that I was spending mental energy attempting to discern her personality was odd and irritating.

"Explain to me what discreet evacuation means to you, because I can assure you it doesn't include blaring fire alarms, mass exodus, and flashing lights."

She looked up at me and opened her mouth as if to speak, but I waved my hand for her silence. "Once you explain it you can tell me if I wasn't clear when I said, "while you are out 'take the guards you have been assigned'."

She opened her mouth but again, I waved her off. This time, she bowed her head and I could see the tension in her shoulders. It wasn't my aim to frighten her. I think her attacker had done a good enough job of that. I simply wanted to convey there was no place for future antics like these.

"While we are on the subject, what part of 'stay with Illeta until I send for you' translates into you leaving the safe house and getting yourself beaten to within an inch of your life?"

"I'm sorry," she said raising her head.

"It is done, ju…

"I think I just hallucinated," she continued looking at me.

She did look a bit confused and she had suffered head injury. "I will send for the doctor."

She nodded, "Yes, do that. Maybe she can tell me I didn't just hear you blame me because a psychopath tried to murder me."

There was no way she thought to talk back and be sarcastic while doing it. I narrowed my eyes at her, "If you are looking for my sympathy at being attacked, I have none. In case the attempted bombing at the hotel wasn't a big enough indicator, it isn't one psychopath. It is an entire sect of extremists."

She got up and began walking out of the room. She took several steps before it dawned on me that she was turning her back to be and leaving before she was dismissed, definitely looking to test me. "Sit," the command was given in an icy tone that forced her to comply.

She stopped mid-step, then kept walking. I felt my irritation grow to anger in that small window. She was testing already depleted patience and wasting time I didn't have. "Now," I added.

I Know I've been gone longer than what you guys are used to but hang in there. I don't want to promise to come right back