Greetings! Sorry I wasn't able to stick with the once a week posting. I was busier than I anticipated. I hope you enjoy this chapter even though it's late! Thanks to Cageyspice for editing.

I wasn't sure which was a bigger shock: that Eric was driving a Ford coupe that was polished to a high shine even though it must have been several years old, or that he was holding the door open for me and offering a hand to help me step inside.

"Get in." He tipped his head toward the car. I might have thought he was annoyed and impatient if I hadn't already been introduced to the way his eyes sparkled with amusement even when his jaw was firmly set with apparent anger.

They were definitely twinkling now.

I laid my hand in his and was surprised when I didn't let go as soon as I landed in my seat. Our eyes locked before he released my hand and shut the door.

I shook my head. Though I didn't often have reason to ride in a car, the thought of being a passenger in a vampire's automobile was outright laughable. Bill hadn't been fond of motorized transport, and since all vampires could move much faster than something as pedestrian as a car could travel, I hadn't ever pictured any other behind the wheel. But it suited Eric, somehow. Apparently he appreciated novelty.

In less time than it took for me straighten my skirt, Eric had already climbed in beside me and turned the ignition. He winked at me as the engine came to life. "Hold on tight," he said.

Even if he was a vampire, I was still amazed at how smoothly Eric manipulated the clutch. He was switching gears effortlessly, despite how fast we were rolling down the busy streets of the Quarter. The iron beast was an extension of him, obeying his commands, submitting to his will. I shuddered slightly and forced myself to look away from his hand as it jerked around the gearshift and turned my attention to the passing scenery of the street.

Though there were people all around us walking in and out of the nightclubs and waiting for the streetcar, in the close confines of the cab, Eric and I were very much alone. It was a far more intimate setting than what I was accustomed to. As we zipped through the crowds of people making our way toward the waterfront, I felt as if I were watching a movie. The thoughts of others were nothing more than buzzes of bugs and chirps of birds or flashes of color—the way the sky and grass look while you're spinning on a merry-go-round. I caught myself smiling before I glanced back over at Eric and realized this was not some joyride. I was not out for a night on the town with a handsome, charming man. I was not supposed to be having fun.

"Eric?"

His eyes darted just briefly in my direction and his gaze fell on me long enough to know I had his attention.

"You never told me who sent you to my door the night before last. Who recommended you seek my services?" He hadn't answered the first time I'd asked, but I thought I'd give it another try. There was something off about the timing of this case. What had prompted Eric Northman's shadow to appear in my doorway the night before my brother was arrested? It didn't feel like a coincidence.

"I think you are more famous than you realize, Sookie Stackhouse."

"What do you mean by that?" I'd done work for a few politicians, some well-known businessmen, but I couldn't picture any of those clients spreading word about my services to anyone, and least of all a vampire. Bill hadn't mixed much with other vampires, and I'd steered clear of them since we'd parted ways. Even though I knew there were many who roamed the streets of New Orleans after dark, I didn't personally know any others, so I couldn't even hazard a guess as to who Eric and I might have in common.

"I mean, don't underestimate yourself," he glanced in my direction again, and judging by his serious expression, he wasn't trying to make a joke.

The cab suddenly felt very stuffy, the air thick and heavy. I shrugged off my coat and clumsily rolled down the window a few inches to let the breeze through the car. The fresh air made it easier to think.

"Well, if you won't submit to that line of questioning, tell me what you expect me to find for you this evening. Are you really suggesting that your waitresses are fleecing you? If they were so cunning, wouldn't they be better off robbing the drunken owners of any of the other barrelhouses in the Quarter rather than risk their lives trying to swindle a vampire? Can it be they just don't realize with whom they are dealing?" This theory just didn't work. It wasn't that I doubted my own skills; I was a damn good detective, and my talents lay in my ability to analyze the facts as much as my telepathy. But the fact was, Eric had an ulterior motive even if everything he'd told me so far was true. I needed to find out what that was.

Eric took a sharp corner and his eyes off the road as he turned to reply. "You've already ruled out Bruce. Other than my business partners, they are the only two who had any opportunity. I'd rather not kill them both, if it can be helped."

"You promised you wouldn't kill any humans," I reminded him.

The light from the streetlamps cast strange shadows on his face as we moved down Canal Street, and his eyes were obscured by the darkness. "So I did."

"I'm not convinced your thief is even human. Who are your business partners?"

"Pam, of course. She told you she was my second. We are partners in the bar with Long Shadow. You met the bartender, I believe?"

I didn't have time to answer before the Ford collided with a dark figure. Eric's arm flew out in front of me to prevent me from being thrown from the vehicle. There was a crunch of compacting metal and the shriek of breaking glass as I jerked forward. Unfortunately, when my arm shot up to protect my face, it was met with cascading shards of glass. The wheels of the car skidded to a stop; the man—or whatever it was that we had struck—got up from the pavement and scurried off into an alley, apparently unharmed.

As soon as I had sense and breath enough to speak, I turned to Eric and asked, "What the hell was that?"

A low growl escaped from him, and he wrapped his arm around me, hastily jerking me from the wrecked vehicle without acknowledging my question.

"We have to get out of here," he mumbled. "Hold on." And we dashed to a secluded area and took to the sky.

By the time I realized we were flying it was too late to protest. I closed my eyes tightly, so I wouldn't be tempted to look down, and only opened them again when my feet came to rest on solid ground. I shook off Eric's arms but was nearly toppled over before he caught me in his grasp again.

"I didn't know vampires could fly," I said. I was dizzy and disoriented and feeling not at all like my normal self. I looked down at my arm to find it covered in blood. That had to be contributing to my lightheadedness.

"We need to get you inside," he replied.

"What about your car? We can't just flee the scene of an accident!" I argued, but held back from adding that medics would have tended to my bleeding arm quite diligently.

"Oh, that wasn't my car," Eric said with a laugh.

Of course it wasn't. I hoped he'd glamoured the keys away from the owner, rather than killing him and stealing them, but I knew better than to ask.

"Come, I'll get you patched up." He swept me up in his arms bridal style before I could protest.

We'd landed on the roof of my building. I often came up here to lie in the sun and read on lazy afternoons. It was blissfully quiet, the hums of people's minds dying out as they drifted in the wind. The city was never completely silent, not even up here, but it was as close to the peace of the countryside as I'd gotten since I'd moved to New Orleans.

I didn't stop to ask how Eric knew how to climb down the fire escape and enter my bedroom. It was a relief enough to be in out of the freezing cold and inside the warm safety of my apartment.

"Where do you keep bandages?" he asked after depositing me in the chair in the corner by a small table.

I pointed Eric to my small bathroom. When he returned, I saw he'd also grabbed the bottle of whiskey from my efficiency kitchen and a clean cloth from my linen closet. I was surprised Eric knew how to clean a wound. Vampires heal rather quickly, so I wondered why he'd had the need to possess such knowledge.

"Thanks. I can take it from here," I said, wincing from the pain. The cuts weren't deep and hadn't hit any major veins, but they still stung like hell.

"There's glass embedded in your skin," Eric said, pulling my arm flat against the table, palm up, so he could examine the wounds. He knelt in front of me to get a closer look. He was so tall this put him at my eye level. "I'll have to pick them out before this gets bandaged up."

"Sorry I got blood on your shirt," was all I managed to say.

"This is the second in so many nights you've ruined," Eric said with a faint smile before turning his attention back to my arm. He started to take off my watch, but I jerked my hand away.

"I've got it," I said, and pushed, but I couldn't work the clasp, my other hand was shaking so badly.

"Leave it on. I can work around it." My arm tensed. He frowned. "This is going to hurt," he said, brandishing the tweezers he'd also found among my toiletries. He looked at me with regret, but I only nodded. He scooted up closer to me and guided my good hand to his shoulder. "Squeeze if you need to; you can't hurt me."

As delicately as possible, Eric picked the shards of glass from my hand and forearm. I couldn't look at him, or my arm, while he worked, so I fixed my eyes on a crack in the plaster of the wall near the ceiling, taking full advantage of his offer to dig my other hand into the muscles of his shoulder. He didn't flinch at the pressure.

"Why do you wear a watch that doesn't work?" he asked after several moments of silence.

I bit back tears—tears that weren't completely the result of the pain of him digging tiny pieces of glass out of my arm. A human wouldn't have noticed that my watch no longer kept accurate time. And this was the second time he'd remarked about my timepiece.

"We all have our tokens, Mr. Northman," I said. I wasn't the only one who wore something for reasons beyond form or function. I'd spent enough time pressed up against Eric's chest to know he wore some sort of pointy pendant underneath his shirt—perhaps a long tooth of some kind, or maybe a talon. It certainly wasn't a utilitarian item or a fashion statement. Since my hand was already on his shoulder, it wasn't hard to reach under his collar and feel for the cord of leather. "What is it that you wear around your neck?"

His eyes narrowed at me slightly, but Eric didn't reply, and instead turned his attention back to extracting glass from my arm. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying, but it was too late—he'd already gotten me thinking about Gran, and I couldn't hold back any longer. I refused to let the sobs that welled in me escape, but silent tears streamed from the corners of my eyes.

"Almost done," he said as he dropped another chip of glass onto pile on the table. "But you're going to have scars," he commented as he poured whiskey on the rag and wiped down my cuts. I grimaced from the sting, but he held my arm firmly against the flat surface of the table. "I can prevent that, if you like," he suggested.

That was twice that Eric had tried to get his blood in me. I tried not to dwell on that fact. "Oh, that's not necessary. It'll match the others." This wasn't the first time I'd been injured in the line of duty. In fact, these would be minor in comparison to some of the others. Eric arched his eyebrow, urging me to elaborate, but I couldn't find the words to explain and I certainly wasn't showing him where else I had scars criss-crossing my skin.

"Want a shot of this to take the edge off?" Eric offered me the bottle.

"No thanks," I said. "I'm not much of a drinker."

"Yet you keep a bottle of whiskey under your sink. Do you have many guests?"

I snorted, very inelegantly, which earned me a small smile from Eric. "Not hardly." It was a bad sign that I was developing a catalog of his different smirks, grins, and smiles. I was definitely paying too much attention to his mouth. His lips were the slightest shade of pink contrasted with the perfect whiteness of his skin. They were full and looked too soft to belong to a vampire, even if they didn't always hide his fangs.

We were both silent as he wrapped the bandage around my arm. He was slow and deliberate about it, adjusting the thin fabric with great care.

"Thank you," I managed to whisper.

He leaned forward, and at first I thought he was going to kiss me, which would have been unexpected, if not unwelcome.

It turned out he was only interested in tasting my tears. The brush of his mouth against my cheek was tender and predatory all at once and I gasped before trying to hold myself as still as possible. When he leaned back enough to look in my eyes, his were blazing blue flames.

"It is unfortunate that we don't have more time." He paused to lick his lips. "As it is, we are already rather late. Pam is not known for her patience."

He couldn't mean that we were still going to the warehouse after what had already happened. All I wanted to do was collapse on my bed and sleep with the hope of waking to find this whole ordeal a bad dream, not go interrogate some waitresses. I hadn't even asked about the strange car accident that I was sure was no coincidence or gotten any more answers about Jason. But Eric stood and helped me to my feet. I swayed a bit, still shaking.

"Steady there," he said. "I've got you." His arm circled around my waist, and I leaned back to look into his eyes.

I couldn't refuse. Not only did I realize Eric had no intention of letting me go, my brother's life was at stake.

"You better."