"This is absolute bollocks, do you hear me, Viking?" Lucifer's voice finally got through to him. Eric blinked, realizing he'd been staring into the candle flames again. Lost. In a nothingness.

That's where his soul was supposed to be. Simply gone. It wasn't in hell or purgatory. And he had no misbeliefs that it was up in heaven, missing Almighty Father or not. But it wasn't with him, and there was nowhere else it would be, right?

"Eric," Lucifer was talking to him again. "Listen to me."

Eric shook his head, trying to get the endless flames out of his eyes. He turned to realize that Lucifer was crouched next to his chair, trying to gain his attention. On his other side, Lafayette was no longer seated at the table, but pacing back and forth in the cramped dining room, muttering about never, ever doing a séance again for crazy white people.

"Eric." This time Lucifer was losing patience. Eric stopped watching Lafayette and turned back to the man crouching next to him. Looking down at Lucifer's face was a completely different experience than looking at him from the same height. The planes of his face looked different. Softer. It didn't help that there was concern in those beautiful brown eyes—it was like looking at Sookie when she was worried about him. Except completely different at the same time.

The concern was there. The caring brown eyes staring deep into him where a soul was supposed to be. Sookie had done that too when he'd been scared and alone and confused. It was the depth of emotion in her eyes that had undone him and pulled his own emotions out, unravelling everything he'd worked so hard to become, even after she'd lifted his curse. Eyes that cared, that worried and drew him out of himself. Eyes that you could fall in love with.

He kept telling himself that Lucifer Morningstar's eyes were nothing like Sookie's eyes. But he was lying to himself. Because it was just as easy to get lost in them. To feel safe when they gazed upon him.

But the similarities ended there. Where Sookie was blonde, Lucifer's hair was so dark a brown that Eric would almost consider it black. Sookie's skin had been flawless, soft as could be—Lucifer's perpetual five o'clock shadow promised roughness against fingertips. One was short; the other tall. One showed up in his bar in a white sundress with a floral pattern that had probably come off the rack at Target—the other in an exquisitely tailored designer suit.

Having someone like Lucifer look at Eric in that way was completely different than Sookie.

Yet it felt just as good.

"Don't believe a word that spirit said, Viking," Lucifer was still talking to him. One of his hands was on Eric's knee. The touch, combined with that look of pure concern, was doing all kinds of things to Eric's thoughts. But no matter how attracted he was finding himself to the man, the words sobered him and completely kiboshed the mood.

"She said my soul was gone," he told Lucifer. "What more proof do we need that I'm damned? I won't even end up in hell, at this rate. I'll just cease to exist!"

He grew still, his thoughts going back to the year before. "Godric ceased to exist," he said quietly. Something in his chest twisted at that and before the tears could start, he leapt to his feet and flew through the beaded curtain out into the living room. He couldn't let Lucifer see him cry again. Not two nights in a fucking row. And Lafayette? Absolutely not.

He was out of Lafayette's house in a human heartbeat, not so much as a goodbye or even a thank you to the man for helping them reach the spirit world. Why should he though? He hadn't gotten the answer he'd hoped for. The spirit had said he didn't retain his soul and his soul wasn't in purgatory. That meant Godric's soul . . .

The tears came fast and surprisingly hot. They always did when it came to his maker. It was the one point in his life where he had always accepted he had emotions. He had loved Godric fiercely, more than he'd ever loved anyone else, including his human family. Certainly more than any human lover he'd taken. Even Pam. To hear that Godric had gone to his true death hoping for salvation only to be greeted by a deep nothingness? That was more heartbreaking than Eric's own soul being damned.

He was standing halfway between Lafayette's porch and the Corvette, shoulders hunched, and trying to stop the damn tears from leaking out of him. He was a fucking vampire. A Viking at heart. He didn't have time to cry for the loss of Godric's soul. What would Lucifer think?

A hand on his shoulder told him he didn't have to wonder. The devil was standing behind him. He didn't budge, didn't turn around. Just stood there, breath held and eyes closed as he willed himself to gain control of the heartache and tears. God, he was such a fucking mess.

"Don't believe what she said, Viking," Lucifer said, his voice quiet and comforting. "I certainly don't intend to. We'll find a better answer elsewhere."

Eric snorted in disbelief. "You heard her! There's an emptiness where my soul is supposed to be!"

Lucifer made a scoffing noise and the hand left Eric's shoulder. A moment later and they were face to face. "Did you not hear the venom in her voice, Viking? Of course she'd tell you something like that. It doesn't make it true. Her aim was to hurt and it seems she succeeded."

Eric rolled his eyes. Clearly. It was impossible to hide tears when you were a vampire, even after you'd stopped leaking like a faulty spigot. "If what she says is true, that means we're all doomed. There's nothing for us after the true death. Me. Pam. Tara. My sisters and brothers, wherever the hell most of them are. Bill. Worse, though. Godric chose to meet the sun. If this is true . . . then Godric's gone." The tears threatened again and he growled, angry at himself.

"Might I ask who Godric is?" Lucifer asked tentatively.

"My maker," Eric said. "The one who turned me, taught me, showed me how freeing being a vampire could be."

"Your father," Lucifer supplied.

Eric nodded but then his shoulders slumped. Both his father and his maker were gone now. "More or less."

"I can see why that might worry you. That you won't be able to follow him when the time comes." Lucifer shifted before him, clearly unused to standing still for even a handful of minutes. "How did he die?"

"He chose death," Eric spat out, teetering on the edge of either crying again or lashing out in anger. He wasn't sure which way he would go—but neither would impress Lucifer. "He had a change of heart; decided vampires and humans should co-exist. Love each other, care for each other. And then decided it was time for him to go. He seemed to think he was moving on to a next life. One full of love and acceptance and no more need for death. So he met the sun. By choice." Eric cringed at the memory.

Seeing Godric at the top of that building, ready to meet the sun with only Sookie at his side.

Quite possibly the worst sunrise of Eric's existence.

And now . . . to think that Godric had met the sun with hope in his undead heart, only to be engulfed by a black emptiness. It was unbearable.

"He's . . . gone." Eric clenched his fists and his fangs popped out at the intense turmoil he was feeling.

Before he could do something idiotic, like smash the windshield of his own car, Lucifer reached forward . . . and pulled him into a hug. It was tight, the kind where you held on like you were drowning and the other person was the life preserver. Eric stood there stiffly, unsure what to do, the entire length of him pressed against the other man. Just like every other touch from the man, the hug was warm. Lucifer was like a heated blanket; that's what he was like. And as Eric stood there rigidly, he felt himself melting from it.

His arms came up to wrap about Lucifer's waist and he dropped his head against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of the man. He could hear Lucifer's heartbeat, and the idea was absurd—the creature that ruled hell had a heartbeat and the soulless vampire did not. Yet, it was soothing all the same. The hair behind Lucifer's ear tickled Eric's cheek and he held on tighter. Five heartbeats. Ten. Twenty. Eric counted them, finding the sound soothing, the idea of the devil's blood rushing through his veins a balm for the fact that Eric lacked a soul, damned or otherwise.

Lucifer's one hand was rubbing Eric's back and the motion—so intimate and caring—finally calmed the vampire down. "Fuck." He pulled away from Lucifer, not because of everything that had just happened but because of something far more embarrassing. "I ruined your suit," he told Lucifer when he received a quizzical look.

Lucifer looked confused and then shrugged out of his linen suit jacket to spy the bloody mess Eric had left it in when he'd accepted the devil's embrace. "It appears you have," Lucifer said. "My own mistake. No regrets, Viking." He folded the ruined jacket over his arm and looked Eric squarely in the eyes again. "I do not believe what the spirit said, and neither should you. She clearly had a problem with vampires, which tells me her answers were probably not as honest as they could have been. I am not giving up. And neither will you."

"I won't?" Eric asked as Lucifer grabbed him by the arm and steered him toward the Corvette sitting in Lafayette's tiny driveway.

"No. I won't let you. We'll keep searching for the answer, even if it takes me tracking down Dad and demanding it from him. I swear it to you. I will find the answer." Lucifer contemplated the car then put his hand out, wiggling his fingers. "Keys, please. I'll be driving."

Eric went to argue, but Lucifer grabbed his wrist firmly, turning him away from the car. "I will be driving, Viking."

Frustrated but at least feeling better than he had ten minutes before, Eric finally fished the keys out of his pants pocket and handed them to Lucifer. He watched with some unease as Lucifer unlocked the silver Corvette and eased behind the wheel. It felt wrong letting someone else drive his car, but at least the man wouldn't move the seat or anything. They were the same height and build after all.

He grudgingly went around the car and folded himself into the passenger seat, feeling all kinds of wrong. It didn't help he had just been crying—and that Lucifer had helped him out of it. The Corvette started up sweet as you please and Lucifer made happy noises as he listened to the engine purr. Lucifer crawled out of the driveway, but as soon as they were on the road, he peeled out of there, leaving Lafayette and the spirits that surrounded him in a squeal of rubber on asphalt.

The drive back through the dark was silent, even after Eric spent a few fruitless minutes trying to scrape the blood off his face with some napkins from the glovebox. Even Lucifer seemed lost in his own thoughts. Clearly his thoughts were serious because he seemed to go through a kaleidoscope of his own emotions. So much so that the man was filling the car with his scent—and he smelled delicious. Paired with the fact that Eric could feel the turmoil inside the man and knew it was all for him? He was getting hungrier by the second and he wanted nothing more than for Lucifer to be his next—willing—meal. Desperately.

He wanted more, if he was being honest . . . but just a taste would suffice for now.

When they finally reached the parking lot for Fangtasia and Lucifer had lovingly parked next to his own Corvette, Eric was out of the car and putting space between them before he did something that the devil would make him regret. But Lucifer wasn't letting him go, because the tall man tailed him, talking as he always did. "We're not giving up, Viking. There must be other people we can question; things we can still do. Perhaps more books to peruse. I won't let you think you're doomed when I know you aren't."

Eric turned on a dime and Lucifer almost walked right into him. He stopped at the last second and Eric refrained from jumping him, like he'd tried to do that first night. He wasn't so foolish as to think he could probably grab the man, but still . . . He respected the man now. Maybe even liked him. A lot.

"Please," Lucifer almost begged, the emotion in his eyes matching what Eric felt coming from him. He was concerned for Eric and desperate for him to agree to keep searching for the answer. "Don't believe her, Eric. She lied."

"I agree," Eric said. "You had me convinced back at Lafayette's house."

"Oh," Lucifer rocked back in surprise. He cocked his head to the side. "Then what's the problem?"

"I'm hungry," Eric said. "Starving. And you smell exquisite, Lucifer."

This got a surprised but cocky grin from the man. "Do I now?" He almost preened at what he assumed was a compliment.

"You do. And unless you want me to bite you, I'd like for you to give me a bit of space." Eric gave him a smile of his own, showing the fangs that had come out the moment he'd begun to get hungry in the car. He felt himself growing hard at the idea of Lucifer saying yes.

"Bit of a problem with that scenario," Lucifer said, seeming to not give a shit about Eric's warning.

"And that is?" Eric growled as he leaned closer to the man. His neck was right fucking there. Just one sip. Just to taste the man so he could dream of him when the sun rose. That's all he wanted and he didn't think he'd take no for an answer.

"I don't bleed, Viking," Lucifer informed him. He pulled at the cuffs of his light blue shirt, feigning a boredom that Eric knew was a baldfaced lie. The man wasn't scared but he was certainly exhilarated. At the thought of Eric wanting to bite him, perhaps?

"You don't bleed?" Eric asked. Impossible. He could smell the man. He could hear his heart beating!

"I'm an angel, remember. Invulnerable, and all that." Lucifer stopped and thought. "Well, except around Chloe, of course, And we're nowhere near her. Thank Dad for that. I don't think I could stand seeing her right now."

"You're invulnerable . . . except around Chloe. . ." Eric found himself envious of the idea that a single person could make Lucifer bleed and perhaps even die. Why he felt jealous he couldn't understand, and yet he did. The emotional pull Lucifer must feel around her must be intense. "What makes her so special?" he asked.

"Aside from dear old Dad making her specifically for me? I haven't the foggiest," Lucifer said, a bit bitter. About whether his father had helped create Chloe or whether he had feelings for the exact person his father had created for him, Eric wasn't quite certain. Lucifer sighed. "In either case, I don't bleed unless she's around, so I'm afraid you're out of luck. If the circumstances were different, I wouldn't hesitate to say yes."

Eric's nostrils flared and he felt saliva filling his mouth. God, how he wanted the man. And yet . . . it was impossible. How frustrating. "I appreciate the sentiment," Eric replied. "However, I do need to find my next meal."

"Yes, of course!" Lucifer came forward and dropped Eric's keys into his hand. "How rude of me. You've other things to do tonight besides entertain the devil. I'll leave you to it."

He turned to head toward his car but stopped just before he got in. "See you again tomorrow, Viking?" he asked hopefully.

Eric nodded, pretending as if he didn't care. But inside, if he had a heart, it would be hammering.

Oh yes, he would definitely see the devil again tomorrow.