Chapter 9 ~ The good spirit of the house

Meanwhile in Shreveport, Louisiana… The next evening…

"Oh my, poor Ginger!"

With sympathy in her heart, the little creature watched the woman, who she held dear to her heart, struggling with the stereo. She had known her for so long now... But of course Ginger didn't know that. No one knew she had been there when Eric and Pam first came into the video store and had been forced to own it by that magister. With a grin, she remembered Eric's somewhat shaggy short hairstyle, before he restyled it about ten years later to a much less advantageous hairstyle that had been in fashion at that time. It was then that Ginger had joined them. Since then, her Viking had undergone an enormous optical development and now looked simply handsome!

But thinking about his wonderful long hair her mind darkened. The familiar atmosphere she had maintained for so long, first in the video store and then in Fangtasia, which she had always supported with her life energy and knowledge until the business had become a success, threatened to slip away from her. And why? Because of such a flimsy girl who not only came to a vampire bar in a flowery dress, but also at the side of a vampire Eric didn't like. Oh yeah, she had sensed right away that her Viking didn't like that Bill Compton. They must have had a bad history with each other... But that's why it made perfect sense to her that Eric had taken an interest in this young Sookie Stackhouse because he simply wanted what the other vampire had. Males…

Well, knowing this didn't mean she liked it. Not one bit. And the worst part was, that girl was a distant relative, too. Very distantly related. Kind of like a cactus was related to a water lily. They were both plants, but that was it. That this Sookie wasn't a pureblood fae didn't matter – she had the spark and thus probably all the powers of a full-blown fairy. And that would get her Eric in a lot of trouble. Because whenever sky fae were involved, there was trouble! And that made the little creature nervous.

Extremely annoyed about this last night's development she impatiently kept tapping her fingers against her knees. She couldn't wait to make her evening rounds. Because afterwards she would be able to go to him. Oh yes, that had been her beloved routine for over twenty years now. Of course, Eric wasn't sleeping every night in that secure room at the bar that only Pam and she knew about. She hadn't dared to follow him to his house. If he noticed her scent there, he would ask questions and she wanted to avoid that. And so she had been content in such evenings to admire his lovingly selected souvenirs of his home country in his office or to snuggle into the pocket of his leather jacket when he left it hanging over his chair.

But today he had stayed here. She had been surprised by this, as she had assumed that he would go home after the police raid. But the longer she had thought about it, the more this reason became clear to her – the scent of the sky fae was still hanging in the air and Eric had wanted to fall asleep with it. A sad sigh came out of her chest and only with effort she could suppress her jealousy. Oh yes, jealousy could be ugly. Of course, she was perfectly aware that she was probably doing the girl a terrible injustice. Sookie looked like the nice and innocent girl from next door and had most likely been taken by surprise by this Bill Compton. Probably didn't even know herself what she was… The girl couldn't have had much of a family, since the sky fae hadn't lived in this realm for ages.

But well, before she continued to rack her brains over her very distant relative, she had some work to do. With a deep exhalation she allowed all negative thoughts and feelings to leave her body and turned her attention back to her immediate surroundings. Silently, she waited until Ginger hit the stereo with a hearty curse in the mistaken hope that this would magically repair it. Of course this didn't happen, and still cursing, Ginger stalked away in her high heels. The creature quickly rose from her place behind the wine bottle on the top shelf, stretched her limbs briefly and then jumped unceremoniously onto one of the music boxes. Then she slid further onto the main unit and stroked lovingly over the black case.

"Hello beauty, it's you and me again, huh? But don't worry, I'm gonna fix you up again so you can play music for us for a long time to come."

And that she did – thanks to the many times before, she found her way into the interior without any problems and started to work routinely. What she noticed right away was that the inside smelled like beer. Annoyed, she wrinkled her nose.

"Did you have to take a shower again? At least it would smell good if it had been sparkling elderberry blossom champagne. I don't know what they all like about beer!"

She sighed and searched on. Just before she could reach the circuit board, she had to make herself a little smaller. But then she stood in front of it and immediately saw that one of the two large ceramic resistors had soldered itself out.

'Wow, there must have been a lot of current flowing through!'

Shaking her head, she set to work – because the stereo couldn't stay silent. In less than an hour the bar was supposed to open again and a bar without music was unimaginable. From her small rucksack she took out the necessary tools and started to repair the soldered joints. After so many years as the technical first aid woman of Fangtasia's electronic equipment she could do it almost in her sleep.

Not even ten minutes later, she carefully looked out of the little loophole again to see if the air was still clear and then jumped to the floor while she assumed her human size.

Taking a deep breath, she held her arms in the air and stretched extensively until every tension was released. She loved her work, but being in these cramped surroundings was very exhausting sometimes. When she lowered her arms again, she noticed that her nail polish had been scratched off in some places.

"Damn it," she muttered. She liked the color very much as it was the latest acquisition of Pam's that had been sent to her from Paris. And it was always very risky to go through Pam's things. She had almost been caught by the vampiress once before and had been able to hide with wildly beating heart at the last moment. Unfortunately the bottle had fallen over due to her hasty movements and that was noticed by Eric's progeny of course. Since then she had to be extremely careful, as the vampiress walked through the bar with open senses to find out who or what could get into a locked room and had tampered with her nail polish. Had her situation not been so serious, she could have laughed – Pamela looked most amusing with a sniffing nose and eagle eyes that scanned her surroundings attentively.

That had been three days ago and the danger wasn't yet over. Because Pam didn't give up that easily. That was also the reason why she had to hold back with her cleaning ritual for the bar, just like in the night before. The danger was simply too great that her scent lingered in the air too long and drew unwanted attention to her unnecessarily. And that was something she wanted to avoid at all costs, because she liked her life there...

Putting the finishing touches on her lower lip, Pam looked at her image in the mirror. A new evening, a new chance to find out what the fuck was going on. In any case, she was now dressed appropriately for the occasion. The blood red corset emphasized her breasts wonderfully and the black fabric of the rest of the dress would draw the attention of the vampires and vermin to her without much effort. That meant whoever was sneaking around would have Eric all to themselves and Pam's chances were good that the newly installed and thoughtfully placed cameras would pick up something.

With a self-satisfied smirk, Pam left her small office, locked the door to it, and tucked the key into her cleavage. From the direction of the bar, she heard initial music and a shrill cry from Ginger, followed by a victorious "Ha!" Apparently she had managed to fix the music system after all. The blasted thing was really bitching a lot lately, though, only to work again when it was needed. If she remembered correctly, and Pam always remembered correctly, it had already happened eight times in the last five months.

Could that be a coincidence?

With a thoughtful expression, Pam stopped in the middle of the hallway. Then she pulled out her phone from a pocket hidden in a fold of her skirt and opened the corresponding app, which she used to manage the newly acquired cameras. The video was quickly found in which Ginger could be seen banging on the device in obvious frustration, only to walk away with an annoyed expression on her face.

In the background, Ginger now turned up the stereo properly and while she continued to run the video, not taking her eyes off the screen, Pam went into Eric's office.

"What are you watching, Pam?"

She could feel Eric's gaze on her, but she was still intently following what was happening on the screen. Only, absolutely nothing was happening!

"Damn it!" she muttered, and then looked angrily at her maker. "Do you hear that?"

"If you mean the infernally loud music Ginger turned up, then yes." He smirked with a raised eyebrow. "Maybe you should tell her to turn it down a bit. I suspect that's the reason the stereo doesn't work sometimes."

"Oh, and since when do you know anything about electronic devices?"

"Don't be so snippy, Pam. And while I appreciate your rude nature toward others I don't think it's appropriate to use it with me."

Oh she could sense that Eric was pissed. What pissed Pam off was that they didn't know if they could even talk about the important stuff in Fangtasia without being overheard. She had approved of him contacting Godric from the outside, because it was quite reasonable to expect her oh-so-highborn majesty to wiretap her sheriffs. Especially when she ordered them to sell V for her. Malicious tongues had long rumored that she was broke, but that she was capable of such a thing had surprised even Pam. For Eric, of course, it was an exceedingly awkward predicament - either he violated his loyalty oath or he broke one of the most punished laws in vampire society! And Pam didn't want to imagine what the Magister would do to him if Eric was caught...

In addition, there were the murders of the two women who had been regulars, the extremely good-smelling flowery and mysterious sunshine with the strange name Sookie, who wanted to play detective and apparently had no instinct for self-preservation in the presence of vampires, and the strange occurrences here in the bar. And their offices. And the secret sleeping chamber where only Eric and herself had access.

"Well," Pam stretched the word inappropriately long, "either Ginger has unwittingly developed a knack for fixing broken electronics by vigorously laying hands on them, or we have Heinzelmännchen in the house. In any case, things haven't been right around here for quite some time!"

"Well," Eric struck the same tone as she did, "in that case, you'd better call the Ghostbusters."

"Ha ha!" Pam laughed dryly. But before she could vent her displeasure any further, at the fact that Eric just wouldn't take the matter seriously, he nudged her inside their bond. That made her pause just in time and open up inside so she could perceive his thoughts.

Not here, Pam. And if then as good cop, bad cop... Let whoever is here come to me thinking I'm open-minded about them...

So he actually had his head out of his thick headed ass now? Or Godric had washed his head. His message hadn't revealed anything to that effect, but that hadn't been assumed. Her maker and grand-maker had always been secretive about each other, and for most of her second life Pam had been trying to decipher which wavelength the two actually swam on.

Anyway, good cop, bad cop was he going to play? She had no problem with that, and maybe it would actually do some good.

"You know? Whatever," she threw back at Eric and then stalked out, acting offended. At the bar, she would find Ginger to vent her displeasure on. And that woman never complained about being treated rudely by her, for which Pam pitied and liked her in equal parts...