"One of Hallow's girls is here to see you."
Eric looked around the door of the closet in his office to see Pam standing by his desk, her arms folded across her chest. He wore jeans, but he was barefoot, and the shirt he'd selected now dangled in his hand. It was New Year's Eve, always one of Fangtasia's busiest nights, when humans celebrated another year of life and vampires celebrated another year without it. The bar was covered with "Begin Your New Year with a Bite!" banners. He certainly didn't have time for more of Hallow's shit.
She had shown up a few nights ago, demanding half of his business, and he had no idea how he could get around it. Together with Pam and Chow, he had considered the options: in short, they had none. Her threats of sabotaging the club with her witchcraft were nothing to take lightly; either way, it seemed, he would lose a great deal of money. It had been the only thing on his mind lately.
He exhaled an impatient curse. "Show her in," he said. He tossed the shirt aside.
The young witch stepped into his office, followed by Pam and Chow. She looked around for a moment and took a seat. The three vampires leaned back against Eric's desk. Though they must have looked intimidating to any other person, the witch seemed nonplussed.
"Speak," Eric said. If he would be forced to humble himself to a mere lackey, he would at least start the meeting with the upper hand.
"I come to offer you a deal on Hallow's behalf," she said calmly.
Eric cast a brief glance at his partners. This was unexpected. "Continue."
"My mistress says that if Mr. Northman agrees to… entertain her for seven nights, we will satisfy ourselves with a fifth of your profits." She gave them a serene smile. "I think you will agree that this is a good offer, one that requires much less sacrifice on your part."
"No."
Silence blanketed the office, and for a few seconds, Eric didn't realize that he was the one who had given such a ridiculous answer. Pam's mouth hung open in disbelief. No? In his mind he saw Sookie's face and knew that he had, indeed, refused Hallow's generous – if insulting – offer.
The witch still looked calm. "No?" she repeated, as if she were a teacher talking to a child who had given the wrong answer in school.
"I am no whore," he said in a low voice. "Especially not for a witch."
"Eric, we aren't going to get a better offer than this," Pam said. She spoke quietly, well aware that she was on dangerous ground.
Chow had no such qualms. "We're talking millions of dollars!" he exclaimed angrily.
Every sensible, pragmatic part of his mind was now in open rebellion with whatever part of him repeated No like a mantra. "Even if I do this thing," he said, "what is to stop the witch from changing her terms in the future?"
"We can deal with that problem later, if and when it arises." Pam was still looking at him with complete bewilderment on her face. "Master, I don't understand why you refuse this offer."
Neither do I, he wanted to tell her.
The witch rose. Her smile twisted into a smirk as she faced them. "I see that you vampires guard your virtue like a precious gift," she taunted. "My mistress will be so disappointed to learn that the famous Eric Northman is, in fact, a prude. We look forward to owning half of your little business venture."
Eric's fangs ran out, and he growled low in his throat, but it was Chow who leapt at the witch.
* * *
He didn't know what force compelled him to run in the direction he did; he didn't know his own name. He knew only cold, the sting of gravel on the soles of his feet as he ran, and the fact that something nameless clutched at him from the inside and pulled him towards it. The desperation and pain of it would have crippled him if it didn't also demand that he run to it, like a man who flings himself onto spikes because he has to, he wants to, he must.
A car pulled up alongside him, its lights illuminating the road for some distance ahead. "Can I help you?" asked a female voice.
The moment he looked at her face, the pain in his chest swelled almost unbearably, and it drove him even harder. He continued running straight ahead. Behind him, a car door slammed shut and the woman's voice called, "Eric, it's me!"
Was the pain on her account, then? He would kill her, rip her limb from limb. I am vampire, he realized as his fangs extended. He whirled around to face her in an attack stance, baring his fangs at her. And then, just as suddenly and inexplicably as it had come upon him, the compulsion – the pain – vanished, leaving only emptiness in its wake. Somehow the emptiness was worse.
He regarded her for a moment as she stood some yards away. She was frightened. She was also confused. He knew these things as if they were his own feelings. Perhaps they were his own feelings.
"Stay back, woman."
She obeyed him. "What are you doing out here?" she asked.
What kind of creature controls a vampire with agonizing need, only to drown everything in an ocean of nothing? She didn't look supernatural, though she did smell good. He relaxed somewhat.
"Who are you?" he asked her.
"You know darn good and well who I am," she replied. "What's up with you? Why are you out here without your car?"
No, he had no idea who she was. As much as he wanted to know the answer to that question, he was much more interested in the fact that she seemed to know him. She had called him Eric a moment ago, though he didn't know that name.
"You know me? Who am I?"
"Of course I know you, Eric," she said, using the name again. Wouldn't he know if that were his name? "Unless you have an identical twin. You don't, right?"
Siblings, yes, long ago. He couldn't remember them, but he felt that it was so. But they must be gone, unless they were vampires as well. "I don't know," he told her. He straightened to his full height and felt his fangs retracting. The woman relaxed as well; he both saw and felt it.
"You don't know if you have a brother?"
"No, I don't know." He suddenly feared that she would run away from him, taking with her the knowledge of who he was. Until the veil lifted, she was his only anchor. "Eric is my name?" he asked uncertainly.
"Wow," she said. She was shivering in the cold. "Eric Northman is the name you go by these days. Why are you out here?"
He looked around at the dark road, lit only by the beams of her headlights. In both directions he saw only blackness. All he knew was right here, in this patch of yellow light. "I don't know that, either."
"For real?" she asked. "You don't remember anything?"
"For real." The words tasted strange in his mouth, an idiom that he must have learned at some point long ago. He took one tentative step in her direction.
"You know you're a vampire, right?"
That he did know. The teeth… the fact that he didn't breathe… "Yes," he nodded. "And you are not."
"No, I'm real human, and I have to know you won't hurt me." She looked at him for a moment. "Though you could have by now. But believe me, even if you don't remember it, we're sort of friends."
Even if they hadn't been friends before, she was his only friend now, and he needed her. He met her eyes. "I won't hurt you." Somehow he felt that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to.
She hugged her arms around herself, still shivering. "Come get in my car before you freeze."
"I do know you?" he asked after a moment's hesitation.
He sensed her annoyance as if it were carried in his own blood. "Yes," she said. "Now come on, Eric. I'm freezing, and so are you." She ran her eyes from his face to his feet. "Oh my God, Eric, you're barefoot."
All traces of apprehension evidently gone, she walked right up to him and took his hand. The warmth of her skin felt comforting against his palm, and he followed her to the car. She opened the door and motioned for him to sit, which he did.
"Roll up your window," she said, pointing to a handle on the side of the door before she closed it. He stared at it for a moment, then did as she said.
She opened a door on the opposite side of the car and joined him inside. Every time she exhaled, he could see it, a little puff of air that vanished in wisps, and it fascinated him. From behind their seats she withdrew a worn blanket and spread it over him, tucking it behind his shoulders. Then she turned a couple of dials in front of her, and warm air blew out towards them.
They drove for a minute or two when he realized with some surprise that she was feeling lust. A second later, she laughed, and he looked at her with confused interest.
"You're the last person I expected to see," she said by way of explanation. Perhaps she wasn't aware that he had sensed her sexual thoughts. These were usually private, after all. "Were you coming out this way to see Bill?" she asked. "Because he's gone."
That name meant nothing to him. "Bill?"
"The vampire who lives out here?" she prompted. "My ex-boyfriend?"
He wasn't happy about another vampire living near here. If they were enemies, and this second vampire attacked him in this vulnerable state… He answered her with an uneasy shake of his head.
"You don't know how you came to be here?" she asked again.
Again he shook his head. He had already told her he didn't know. Why didn't she believe him?
They sat in silence as she drove the rest of the way to a pretty white house. "Here we are," she said. She parked her car and turned it off. There were lights outside the house, but even so, the woods surrounding them looked dark and ominous. This woman should not live here alone.
"This is where you live?" he asked her.
"Yes." She must have seen the doubt in his face because she added impatiently, "Oh, come on."
She got out of the car, and he followed her example, though he stood close to the vehicle and wrapped the blanket fully around himself as she climbed up the steps to her porch. Reassured by the warm light he saw when she pushed open the door, he joined her on the porch.
"You can come in," she said as she walked in, and he followed her. She closed the door behind him and looked him over. "Oh, Eric."
He felt her pity. It should have shamed him – a human pitying a vampire – but it didn't.
As he watched each of her movements, she found a large pan and set it in the sink under running water. It took a minute, but eventually steam began to rise up from the water. When the pan was full, she turned off the water and set the pan on the table. She turned to him again and pointed to his jeans.
"Pull them off."
He did as she told him, kicking the dirty jeans aside and quickly pulling the blanket back around himself. Again he felt lust from her, and he realized that he must be the object. Were they more than friends, he and this woman? She pointed at one of the chairs. He sat obediently and watched her as she set the pan down and moved his feet into the hot water. It felt better than anything he could remember feeling, and he let out an appreciative groan. The woman fetched soap and a cloth, then returned to him and washed his feet. Her hands were soft and gentle… loving, even, though he wasn't certain what that meant. He suddenly felt very protective of her.
"You were out in the night," he said.
"I was coming home from work," she explained, lifting one wet hand to point at the logo on her shirt, "as you can see from my clothes."
"Women shouldn't be out alone this late at night."
She smiled. "Tell me about it."
Surely someone in this woman's life had cared about her enough to explain the dangers? If they hadn't, he would. "Well," he began, "women are more liable to be overwhelmed by an attack than men, so they should be more protected--"
"No, I didn't mean literally," she interrupted, looking up at him with another smile. "I meant, I agree. You're preaching to the choir. I didn't want to be working this late at night."
He didn't understand which choir he was preaching to, but he was confused about too many other things to ask. "Then why were you out?" he pressed.
"I need the money." She dried one of her hands on the white cloth she'd draped over her knee, and withdrew some money from her pocket. She tossed it carelessly on the table. "I got this house to maintain," she continued, "my car is old, and I have taxes and insurance to pay, like everyone else."
It angered him that no one saw fit to take care of someone so beautiful and good. His life was a blank to him, but he felt sure that such goodness was not the general rule among humans… or his own kind, for that matter.
"Is there no man in your family?" he asked her.
"I have a brother," she said. She turned one of his feet and traced her finger gently down a long, deep cut. "I can't remember if you've ever met Jason."
He couldn't remember, either. He watched as she took the pan back to the sink and added more water. She began to clean the deep cut with the washcloth, and he winced.
"Your brother permits you to do this working?" he asked through gritted teeth.
She frowned up at him. What had he done wrong? "Oh, for goodness sake, Eric, Jason's got his own problems."
Caring for his sister was evidently not one of them.
She dried his feet and stood, pressing one hand to the small of her back. She was tired. Perhaps he could stay here and care for her. They needed each other, after all, and he had nowhere to go.
"Listen, I think what I better do is call Pam," she said. "She'll probably know what's going on with you."
He tried to place the name, but it was no use. "Pam?"
"Your second-in-command," she explained. Was he a person of importance? He was about to ask her when she held up her hand to stop him. "Just hold on. Let me call her and find out what's happening."
Under the circumstances, he trusted nothing and no one. No one but this woman, whose presence was increasingly natural and calming. He knew nothing of any Pam. "But what if she has turned against me?" he pointed out.
"Then we need to know that, too. The sooner the better."
He sat quietly as she made the phone call. He could hear both ends of the conversation. She had heated a TrueBlood for him, and he drank it gratefully as he listened. From the sound of it, his second-in-command, this Pam, was loyal to him and worried about him. He wanted to believe it, but he wouldn't trust it yet. The woman referred to him as mentally damaged, which stung, even though he could hardly deny it. The woman also promised to keep him tonight, and he was flooded with relief. If she let him stay, he could talk to her about his plan to stay and take care of her.
"You get over here at nightfall, you hear me?" the woman was saying. "I don't want to get tangled up in your vampire shit again."
That didn't sound promising. He wondered if he was the cause of her anger at his kind. She hung up the phone and fixed her eyes on his.
"Okay," she said, "here's the deal. You stay here the rest of the night and tomorrow, and then Pam and them'll come get you tomorrow night and let you know what's happening."
He didn't especially want to see "Pam and them," or anyone else for that matter, until he could figure out what had happened to him. At least he would be safe tonight. "You won't let anyone get in?" he asked her.
Her voice was kind when she answered him. "Eric, I'll do my best to keep you safe." She slid her hands down her face and looked at him again from under heavy eyelids. Tired, his blood said, and he had to remind himself that it was her, even though he felt the same. She took his hand as she had earlier, and this time he held onto it more tightly.
He followed her into a warm and comfortable room that smelled strongly of her. Quietly, he stood to the side and watched as she opened a closet, moved some boxes, and lifted a carpet that cleverly disguised a trapdoor. "This is where you can sleep," she said. "When I get up, I'll put the stuff back in the closet so it'll look natural." She smiled at him.
The hole in the closet looked dark and cold, and he found himself unwilling to leave her. She was all he had at the moment. It was too soon to give her up. "Do I have to get in now?" he asked.
She hesitated. "No," she said slowly. "You don't have to. Just get in before sunrise." She frowned and looked worried for a moment. "There's no way you could miss that, right? I mean, you couldn't fall asleep and wake up in the sun?"
Something instinctual told him the answer. "No, I know that can't happen," he told her. "Can I stay in the room with you?"
After a small giggle, which effectively abolished any sense of pride he may have had left, she sighed, "Come on."
Her room felt familiar, but he had no idea why. Perhaps it was the strong scent of her. He sat and watched her every move until she slipped into the bathroom with a bundle of clothes. Apart from running water, he heard nothing. She emerged a short while later in a nightgown that looked as soft and inviting as anything he'd ever seen. Before she got into the bed, she let her hair down, and it fell around her shoulders in beautiful waves.
Without waiting for an invitation, he joined her in the bed. He longed to touch her, to curl himself around her comforting warmth, but he did not. It struck him then that with all the strange names he had heard that evening, including his own, he did not know hers.
"Woman?" he asked quietly. She gave a short murmur in reply. "What's your name?"
"Sookie," she said. "Sookie Stackhouse."
Pam, Chow, Jason, Bill… those names meant nothing. Even "Eric" carried little meaning. Her name was the only one he could associate with someone real and tangible, and he clung to it. "Thank you, Sookie."
"Welcome, Eric."
Eric. When she said it, it sounded true.
To his surprise, she felt under the covers for his hand, and he slid his fingers through hers as their palms met.
* * *
When he awoke the following night, he heard voices. One was Sookie's, the other a male. He pushed up the trapdoor slightly, reached up to slide over the items that Sookie had stacked on top, and then opened the door fully to climb out. Looking down, he realized that he still wore only his red underwear – hardly appropriate if he was about to meet a guest of Sookie's. He looked around the small bedroom and found a brown bathrobe laid out on the bed. It was a little short, but it would serve. He pulled it on and crept cautiously towards the voices. They were talking about him.
"What kind of clothes?" the male voice asked.
"Work clothes," Sookie replied.
"Anybody I know?"
Eric stepped in, holding the bathrobe closed around himself. "Me."
The man stared at him for a moment, then looked at Sookie. "This is your newest man, Sookie?" he asked. "You didn't let any grass grow under your feet. And I need to get him clothes?"
Eric didn't like the way this man spoke to Sookie, as if she were a common slut. But he said nothing. The man did bear a resemblance to her, and he wondered if this was the brother.
"Yes," Sookie told the visitor. "His shirt got torn last night, and his blue jeans are still dirty."
The man looked at Eric again. "You going to introduce me?"
"Better not," she said.
That stung; mentally damaged he may be, but he was nothing to be ashamed of. He extended his hand to the visitor. "Eric," he said simply. What else could he say? That was all he knew.
"Jason Stackhouse, this rude lady's brother." So he had been right about the resemblance, he thought as Jason accepted his handshake. This was the man who didn't pay enough attention to his sister's care and safety. "I'm assuming there's a reason why you two can't go out to buy him more clothes."
Sookie tucked some hair behind her ear and looked at her brother sternly. "There's a good reason, and there's about twenty good reasons you should forget you ever saw this guy."
Eric opened his mouth to protest, but Jason spoke first. "Are you in danger?" he asked her.
"Not yet," she replied, casting a wary glance at Eric.
Jason took a step closer to him. Eric almost backed away before he realized that he was a good deal taller and stronger than this human man could ever be.
"If you do something that gets my sister hurt," Jason said in a low voice, "you'll be in a world of trouble."
Perhaps he had been wrong; perhaps this man did care about his sister. But not enough. Eric nodded. "I would expect nothing less. But since you are being blunt with me, I'll be blunt with you. I think you should support her and take her into your household, so she would be better protected."
Jason gaped at him like a fish, as if he had never heard of the concept of supporting the women in his family. Finally, he cleared his throat and turned back to his sister. "Ten bottles of blood and a change of clothes?"
"Right," she nodded. "Liquor store'll have the blood. You can get the clothes at Wal-Mart." She gave Eric a quick look up and down. "Oh, he needs some shoes, too."
He felt ashamed of himself, standing here like an incompetent child, but he kept his chin high. Jason stepped closer to him again to compare their shoe sizes. His high-pitched whistle was startling.
Jason grinned at Sookie. "Big feet. Is the old saying true?"
Eric tried to recall an old saying about feet, but he came up with nothing.
"You may not believe me," Sookie said with a smile, "but I don't know."
"Kind of hard to swallow." Jason chuckled. "No joke intended. Well, I'm gone."
Eric crossed his arms and stood near the window, watching Jason's truck until it disappeared. Sookie was standing in front of her fire, dangling a hairbrush absently in one hand, and he joined her there. She was thinking about something. The firelight cast a warm glow on her skin. She was lovely.
He looked at her carefully. "I'm sorry I came out where he was here. You didn't want me to meet him, I think."
"It's not that I'm embarrassed to have you here," she said, smiling up at him. "It's that I have a feeling you're in a heap of trouble, and I don't want my brother drawn in."
Whatever trouble he was in, he had no intention of dragging anyone in, much less Sookie and her family. Especially not her. "He is your only brother?" Eric asked her.
"Yes." She swept her gaze over to the fire and stared into it. "And my parents are gone, my grandmother, too." She sighed. "He's all I have, except for a cousin who's been on drugs for years. She's lost, I guess."
Her sadness and loneliness felt like his own, traveling through his blood into every inch of his body. He wanted to tell her that her brother was not all she had, because now she had him – Eric. He would devote himself to her protection and happiness like her brother never did. I have no one else, either, he almost said. Instead he said simply, "Don't be so sad."
"I'm fine."
There was something he suddenly knew about his nature. Something he suddenly knew about her. "You've had my blood." Her body tensed up like an animal in a trap, and he felt her distrust, sudden and strong. "I wouldn't be able to tell how you feel if you hadn't had my blood. Are we…" He stepped closer to her and inhaled her scent. "Have we been lovers?"
Perhaps that could explain why her presence calmed him, the reason he trusted her, the desire he had to hold onto her the way a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood.
She hesitated, and her face flushed. "No," she said. He knew she was telling the truth.
"This is not your brother's bathrobe," he said, looking down at himself and then back up at her. She shook her head. "Whose, then?"
"Bill's."
She had mentioned that name last night. Bill was the vampire who lived nearby. "He is your lover?"
She gave a short nod. "Was."
Last night she had asked if he was going to see Bill. "He is my friend?"
"Well, not exactly," she said slowly. "He lives in the area you're the sheriff of." She searched his face, apparently looking for some sign that he knew what she was talking about. "Area five?" she prompted.
None of that meant anything to him, so he made no reply. Sookie started brushing her hair, and the static in the dry air caused the yellow strands to rise up around her in a kind of halo. If he could feel her, did that mean that she also knew his feelings? Did she know at this moment that he wanted to be her lover? She smiled at herself and met his eyes in the mirror. Desire, his blood sang; it was hers.
He wasn't sure how to proceed. It wouldn't be proper to make advances on her. She knew their relationship better than he did, and she was a woman, so it must be her place to decide what they did. "Do you need something?" he asked.
Her cheeks were pink now. He knew he'd had her blood before, and now he wished he could remember what it tasted like. She couldn't possibly taste as good as she smelled, could she? He wanted to find out.
"I'm just fine," she said.
She wanted him, but she would not let herself have him. Was this how things always were between them, or was she being careful with him because of his mental state? He convinced himself that it was the latter.
"Your friends will be here soon," she said lightly. "Your jeans are in the dryer, and I'm hoping Jason will be back any minute with some clothes."
"My friends?" he asked.
"Well, the vampires who work for you. I guess Pam counts as a friend." She shrugged. "I don't know about Chow."
Pam and Chow. More names from last night, and they meant as little now as they did then. "Sookie, where do I work? Who is Pam?" If he was a sheriff, he must have an office somewhere.
"Pam works for you at Fangtasia. That's a bar you own up in Shreveport. Chow works there, too. And like I said before, you're a sheriff. You're in charge of this whole area. That's one of the reasons Pam and Chow are so worried about you."
"You don't know much about what I do."
"Well, I only go to Fangtasia when Bill takes me, and he takes me when you make me do something."
He didn't like the way that sounded. In his ordinary state of mind, did he treat Sookie badly? Did he summon her and give her orders and expect her to obey without question? This would explain her unwillingness to act on her desire for him. Then again, she was a human, and therefore not his to command, no matter what his position was.
"How could I make you do anything?" he asked. She had stopped brushing her hair, and he saw in the mirror that his own was a tangled mess. "May I borrow the brush?"
"Sure."
She gave it over and watched him brush his hair for a little while. Her desire for him was stronger than ever, but still she said nothing. After a few minutes, she left his side abruptly. Hoping that she wanted him to follow her into her bedroom, he did just that. He stood a few yards away from her and watched as she pulled her hair up and studied it in the mirror.
"You are tense," he observed, moving closer to her. She let out a little gasp of surprise, and he backed away. "Sorry! Sorry!"
She looked up at him angrily, her eyes narrowed. He didn't know what to say. Fortunately, her face softened, and she shook her head. Before the long silence became too awkward, there was a knock on her door.