Eric was the first to arrive at the Compton plantation, having bypassed both Alcide's pickup truck and Chloe's white rental sedan, not giving two shits that he blew past them when the two solid yellow lines told him it was illegal to do so. What was Chloe going to do? Try to issue him a ticket when she wasn't even in the right state? Besides, he had more important things to worry about than ticking off the Californian Detective.

Like shaking down Bill's security staff to find out how they'd let their own damn king get abducted. Not to mention their letting Lucifer get dragged into the mess too. Not that they gave a shit about a complete stranger. But he was Eric's devil, damnit. He was important. So very, very important.

The guards at the gate seemed relieved when they saw Eric pull up, clearly looking for a vampire that could take charge, and who better than the Sheriff of Area 5? He was probably the closest Authority representative to Bill's place, which Eric was sure grated on the King's nerves. Even as the guards were ushering him in and promising to let the others gain entry, Eric was wondering if Bill wouldn't gladly let Eric leave—if it meant they could be out of each other's hair for good. Maybe when all this was fucking fixed he could see about making that happen.

He was goddamn tired of vampire politics.

He parked his silver car at the foot of the steps that led up onto Bill's porch. The metal shutters on the windows were open and light blazed from every window, as if Bill's staff thought it would help the king find his way home from wherever he currently was. It was such a huge difference from the day Bill Compton had moved into Eric's Area 5 just a few short years before. Then the house had been falling apart, in disrepair for decades because the owner, Bill's great-great-something or other grandson had let it go to ruin in his old age. For a while, Bill had lived in squalor, seeming to appreciate the idea of a vampire living in a rundown plantation mansion.

But then Bill had killed the Queen and taken her place—and completely changed once he had power.

Eric got out of his car, glancing back to the gates to see not just Chloe's rental car and Alcide's truck, but Tara's car as well. It seemed that Pam had gotten the call and brought everyone with her. Thank God. He needed the buffer of a handful of sarcastic bitches to deal with a worried Sookie and a self-righteous Chloe. The guards were treating their job like it was just another day at the office—checking each car in, writing down names, and calling ahead to the guards inside.

A quick scan of the grounds revealed only the regular cars in the small parking lot which Alcide was now turning his truck into. No sporty little Corvette—which had been missing from Eric's own parking lot when he'd left Fangtasia. Did that mean Lucifer wasn't the mysterious guest? He wanted to hope but he didn't think he had a right to.

Eric climbed the few steps up to the porch and opened the door to Bill's home and homebase, not bothering to knock. Why should he? The staff clearly knew he was on the property and it wasn't like he was here to kill the king. The king was fucking missing so there was no one to kill.

The foyer was eerily quiet, no guards milling around, no music playing from the living room, no tapping of keys from the office. Just the ticking of a grandfather clock. When the others began coming in, making enough noise to wake the dead, a door slammed open on the second floor and there was a blur as Jessica came running down the stairs at breakneck vampiric speed. "Thank God you're here!" she cried out and at first Eric thought she meant him.

But then she rushed right past him to Sookie, throwing her pale arms around the woman and clinging to her like only a scared teenager could. Eric scowled, a bit embarrassed that he thought that kind of response had been about him. By the time the main foyer was full of Eric's ragtag band of women—and a disgruntled Alcide and frowning Amenadiel—Bill's head of staff had come in from wherever he'd been hiding.

Unlike Jessica, this man zeroed in on Eric right away. "Sheriff Northman. We're so relieved that you're here. The King has been abducted and we're not certain what to do with the information we have. We were wondering if you might have some insight or perhaps a course of action."

"And what information do you currently have?" Eric asked, not giving two shits that Bill was missing. But if the other man that had been kidnapped was Lucifer, he needed to know everything. He'd help them find their damn King if he could just get his hands on whoever had stolen the devil from him. Heads were going to roll. Of that he was certain.

The chief of staff paused to look at everyone, frowning. Clearly there were too many people now involved. Whether it was due to space or not wanting so many in on what had actually happened, Eric wasn't sure. It didn't matter, either way. "Just show me," Eric said. They didn't need an entire crowd. Everyone was slowing him the fuck down anyway.

Sookie finally let go of Jessica. "No, I'm coming too," she announced and the chief of staff nodded his head. It seemed Sookie had an all-access pass still. Typical of Bill.

Chloe surged forward, flashing her detective's badge. "I'd like to hear what's going on. I might be of some help." Eric scowled. Too many people. Too many stupid, annoying women.

The chief of staff thought a moment but then nodded. He looked to Jessica. "Could you please entertain the rest of the guests while I bring Sheriff Northman and these two ladies to the surveillance room?"

"What the fuck is even going on?" Pam asked, arms folded. She was wearing last night's clothes and looking a bit wrinkled, and annoyed as all hell at having been summoned. Especially since Eric had yet to even utter a single word to her.

"Jessica can explain," Eric told her, having no patience to tell her what had happened when the chief of staff was already heading for the hall that would lead them downstairs and into the bowels of Bill's fortress.

"You summon me here to cast me off to Jessica?" Pam griped, but Eric was already walking away, Sookie and Chloe following behind.

"We could play some Wii games if you'd like?" Jessica offered, sounding scared even as she tried to offer some southern hospitality.

The chief of staff quickly introduced himself to Chloe—asking simply to be called Malcolm, even though Eric was pretty sure that was his last name. Chloe exchanged pleasantries, explaining where she was from and what she was doing in the area.

"Well, I'm not sure if the mystery man is your friend, Detective Decker, but we'll find out soon enough," Malcolm said as they marched down the stairs into the basement compound beneath Bill's house. When he opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, Chloe stopped and did a double take at the sleek hallway that she walked into. This place clearly had been made long after the plantation was built, and everything was modern and high-tech, just the way Bill liked it. Upstairs he had a mixture of new and old but ultimately what appeared to be a lavish lifestyle, but down here where he kept his biggest secrets, it looked like an institution. And it very much was—Bill had everything from a lab to prison cells to offices, and everything was sterile and white and lit far too brightly.

"How on earth is this under that mansion?" Chloe asked, her sensible shoes squeaking against the perfectly waxed floors.

"It's amazing what untold wealth and unlimited freedom can do, isn't it?" Eric mused. "This is all very recent, too."

Malcolm didn't bother adding his own reply, simply led everyone down the hall to a door marked SECURITY. He swiped his pass, punched in a few numbers on a keypad and then pressed his thumb into a fingerprint scanner. Eric would say the security protocols were ridiculous except for the fact that Bill actually was missing. Even this entire setup hadn't been able to protect him from someone who wanted him either dead or in their possession. Maybe Bill did have reason to be worried for his own safety.

The door finally opened, warmer air rushing out into the cool hall, beckoning the four of them into the dark room. There were two more of Bill's staff sitting along a long desk with row upon row of monitors. Not that either one was looking at the monitors. They were sitting on either end of the table, facing each other as they argued about something.

"What's the problem, boys?" Malcolm asked, his voice strained. Eric didn't think this was the first argument he had broken up since they'd found their boss missing.

"Frank seems to think this could have been prevented if we had guards on top of the roof," the one man said. "But I think that's just getting ridiculous."

Malcolm frowned. "Frank isn't wrong. Whoever did this smoked us from the air intake in the new central air system. Which is on the roof."

The man frowned. "I still think it's a ridiculous idea to have someone guarding the roof twenty-four seven."

Malcolm shrugged. "I would normally agree, and King Bill would have too—until today. As it is, we've got Sheriff Northman here to help us. Thank you Sookie for going to get him."

Eric raised his eyebrows in surprise, looking at Sookie.

"What?" she asked, exasperated. "Do you really think I want to go to Fangtasia every single night? I've got a life of my own, you know."

Eric snorted a dry laugh. "Could have fooled me," he said. He turned to look at all the monitors. There were 24 in total, showing various rooms throughout the house—from multiple angles—to multiple shots of the grounds, all of it undoubtedly able to be monitored with or without light. "Can I assume you at least got what happened on video?" he asked.

"Of course," Malcolm said, indicating for Eric to move to a larger screen deeper in the room. "That's why I've brought you down here. Maybe you have some insight into what happened."

"What did happen?" Eric asked as he took the proffered seat in front of the screen. Malcolm began fiddling with a mouse and keyboard, pulling up a file on the computer.

"Someone gassed the entire complex," Malcolm said. "Which doesn't matter if you're a vampire—or whatever the hell Bill's guest was—but it knocked the rest of us out completely. And while we have video cameras on the roof, they're pointing to the woods and the cemetery, not the roof itself, so we have no footage of them tampering with the air system. I can tell you the cars didn't show up until after we were gassed, so they sent in a single operative who seemed to know where our blind spots were. Once we were rendered unconscious, the rest showed up."

The man clicked a few times and a video was brought up, moving through the different camera angles throughout the house every ten seconds. Eric watched as one by one, the human staff that Bill employed all began to grow weak until everyone had either sat down or simply slumped to the ground before passing out. "As you can see, no one was prepared," Malcolm said, clearly disgusted with his men—and himself. "Whatever it was, it had no scent. Whoever did this set us up to remain out until well after they were gone with the King and his guest. We've got someone testing for what it had been, but it might be a few hours before we have results."

"What about the front gate?" Eric asked.

Malcolm shook his head. "All that guard remembers is being attacked from behind. He was the first one to wake up, but he's got a nasty concussion and ended up having to go to the hospital to get stitches."

"Who was the King's guest? Surely you must have a name if you let him in," Chloe said.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the name, ma'am," Frank said, shaking his head from his spot on the other side of the room. Malcolm closed out the one video and clicked to open another. Eric leaned into the screen as Bill's dim library was brought up. Lit by those damn gas lights and a small fire in the fireplace, it was supposed to be the one room in the house with no electricity. The camera angle pointing into the room from above the doorway proved that to be a lie.

"This starts before we were gassed," Malcolm said. "They were quick to do so as soon as this man came in."

Bill was standing by the fire, his shoulders slumped in exhaustion, clearly waiting for someone. The time stamp in the bottom right corner of the video told Eric it was an hour and a half after sunrise, which would track with how long it took to get from Shreveport to Bon Temps. Lucifer's car wasn't outside the mansion at the moment, but that didn't mean a damn thing. Eric knew that. And when Lucifer's familiar dark-haired head walked in beneath the camera, Eric's stomach dropped.

Fuck.

He clenched his eyes closed, just for a second.

"Lucifer," Chloe said the man's name with a disappointment that rankled Eric. Like there was something wrong with Lucifer meeting a vampire King in the middle of the morning.

"No shit?" asked one of the security men. "His real name is Lucifer Morningstar? We figured it was some kind of code to keep his identity secret between him and the King."

"Yes, it is," Chloe said, leaning over Eric's shoulder to get a good look at the screen. "His real name, that is."

Eric refrained from telling her off, but her getting in his space angered him. Instead, he looked at the screen, drinking in the sight of Lucifer shaking hands with Bill and the two exchanging what seemed to be small pleasantries. It was clear that Bill was not at his best, looking exhausted. The King needed his rest but instead he was meeting the devil in daylight hours—showing just how much Lucifer had scared him the day they'd come to visit just a few short weeks before. One did not turn down the devil's request for a meeting, even if you were King.

"Why isn't there any sound?" Eric asked, his fingers sneaking up to touch the screen where Lucifer was, as if he could touch the man himself. God how he wanted to. Lucifer was supposed to have met him at sundown—and instead was missing. Missing.

"Normally we do have sound—in the other rooms. But while King Bill wanted an eye on the library, in case something should happen to him when he's speaking with a private guest, he didn't want the staff hearing those conversations. Eyes but no ears."

Eric frowned, wishing he knew what Lucifer was saying. It was about him, Eric knew that. But what? Was he begging or was he making a deal? Could a King even agree to letting his Sheriff move to a different state? Or was it the Magistrate's job? He wasn't certain . . . but Bill seemed happy enough as the two men conversed silently before the fire.

"So if someone gassed the entire building, why didn't they pass out as well?" Chloe asked, gesturing at the screen.

"Gas wouldn't harm a vampire," Malcolm informed Chloe.

"It won't?"

Eric shook his head, his fingers outlining the small Lucifer on the screen. "You can't poison a vampire. Well, I suppose you could poison his food source, thus weakening him, but gassing the air won't work. We don't need to breathe to survive like a human does."

"But then why is Lucifer okay? He's not a vampire."

Eric scowled. "He's told you why countless times and yet you never listen to him. Metaphors, you say. Elaborate stories."

"Mr. Northman, if you believe Lucifer is the actual devil, you are living in a world of daydreams." That mocking tone from Chloe seemed to relegate him to the same respect she gave Lucifer. Why was she even fucking here if that's how she thought of him?

"Detective, you live in a world with vampires—imagine all the other supernatural creatures that exist that you aren't aware of. If you can believe I exist, why can't you believe Lucifer when he tells you his truths?" Eric's eyes never left the screen and the miniature versions of the devil talking with Bill Compton.

"I have never seen anything proving Lucifer to be Satan," Chloe replied shortly.

"Well, he's not a human," Sookie shot back at Chloe, surprising Eric. "His thoughts were shiny, different."

"His thoughts?" Chloe asked.

"Shut up, both of you," Eric growled, his eyes still on the screen. Although shiny thoughts—that was an interesting revelation. Perhaps he'd ask Sookie about it some time when he wasn't about to lose his shit.

Lucifer and Bill's conversation had continued on while everyone in the security room had been distracted—but then both men looked in surprise toward the camera—at three men dressed all in black with special face masks that came into the room, a rifle pointed at each of the occupants. No doubt silver-tipped wooden bullets, to keep a vampire at bay. But clearly Lucifer was feeling invulnerable at the moment—otherwise he'd have passed out with the rest of the human guards on watch during the day. What on earth had changed? Because as sure as Hell was a real place, Eric still couldn't feel the man.

"This is where things get weird," Malcolm said.

Eric had expected Lucifer to simply be caught up in whatever hole Bill had managed to dig himself into. He was, after all, on Bill's property. Clearly this was Bill's problem. However, Eric was not expecting these men in bulletproof vests and breathing masks to start talking to Lucifer. Nor did he expect to see Lucifer begin to get angry while Bill sort of shrank into the background, hoping to be forgotten.

A growl escaped Eric's throat and his hand hit the screen again, fingers curling.

Everything that was unfolding in Bill's library seemed to indicate that it was Lucifer the men were after, not Bill. And when Lucifer's anger seemed to turn into fear, everything suddenly began to go horribly wrong. It took his taking just one stumbling step, listing to the side, for everyone—the intruders on the screen and the people watching in real time—to realize that Lucifer was suddenly feeling the effects of the gas in the room. Just like that, two of the men were on him, one pistol-whipping him into submission, the other tackling him to the ground where they stuffed a rag nearly down his throat before the devil was fully out of commission.

Fear, Eric decided. It was the terror on Lucifer's face that had changed everything. One of the men had said something that had scared Lucifer to his soul—and somehow made him vulnerable. But what could scare the devil like that? Eric knew what was scaring him, and it was the fact that someone had stolen his lover from him with no clear answer as to why.

The third man never stopped aiming his gun at Bill. Words were clearly exchanged. A small argument. But when it became clear to Bill that no one was coming to save him, he finally nodded his head in submission and Eric watched as Lucifer was carted from the room and Bill followed, closely guarded by the third man.

While it was obvious they had been after Lucifer Morningstar, it seemed King Bill Compton of Louisiana was just as useful. Perhaps they planned on using him as leverage to get whatever it was they wanted? Eric continued to stare at the screen long after the video ended. His hands were curled into tight fists and he was seeing red.

Someone had been following Lucifer—that much was clear.

Assuming Lucifer had people who wanted him hurt—which might not be so surprising when you're a gorgeous, rich club owner in L.A.—why did they take Bill, too? Why not just take off with the devil and leave the King behind? It's not like Bill could have followed them. It had been daylight when everything had happened. Nor would Bill have really cared enough, Eric thought. He wasn't friends with Lucifer—he was clearly scared of the man.

But they'd kidnapped Lucifer while he'd been under Bill's roof—and they'd been ready to infiltrate the mansion, regardless of the fact that Lucifer had only ever been there once before. Whoever these people were, they'd been after both of them. Who were they? Where had they gone?

Eric's fear and anger mixed together, making him a dangerous, violent creature sitting in a chair surrounded by humans and a half-fairy. Any wrong move and Eric might just kill someone—just for being negligent at their job and letting the most important man in Eric's life disappear.

"So do you think you can help us find the King?" Malcolm asked. "Does any of that make sense to you, Sheriff Northman?"

Eric stood from the desk, shoulders hunched about his ears. He needed to do something and he needed to do something now. Before he was set off and did something he'd later regret, while weeping for his lost soul.

"I'll find the King," he told Malcolm, not bothering to tell him it was only secondary. Let the human think he was doing this to help the pompous, annoying vampire Bill. No one need know different. "And when I find the people who did this, I'll fucking kill them all."

If anyone is curious, the title of this chapter is from the song For the King by Peyton Parrish. I was very happy that I could get some Viking metal into my playlist for this chapter. :)