Dead and Gone

The closer I got to the vampire bar, the more my pulse picked up; this was the downside to the blood bond I had with Eric Northman. I knew I was going to see him, and I was simply happy about it. I should have been worried, I should have been apprehensive about what he wanted, I should have asked a million questions about the velvet-wrapped bundle, but I just drove with a smile on my face.

Though I couldn't help how I felt, I could control my actions. Out of sheer perversity, since no one had told me to come around to the employees' entrance, I entered through the main door. It was a busy night at Fangtasia, and there was a crowd waiting on benches inside the first set of doors. Pam was at the hostess podium. She smiled at me broadly, showing a little fang. (The crowd was delighted.)

I'd known Pam for a while now, and she was as close to a friend as I had among the vampires. Tonight the blond vampire was wearing the obligatory filmy black dress, and she'd camped it up with a long, sheer black veil. Her fingernails were polished scarlet.

"My friend," Pam said, and came out from behind the podium to hug me. I was surprised but pleased and gladly hugged her back. She'd spritzed on a little perfume to eclipse the faint, rather dry smell of vampire. "Have you got it?" she whispered in my ear.

"Oh, the bundle? It's in my purse." I lifted my big brown shoulder bag by its straps.

Pam gave me a look I couldn't interpret through the veil. It appeared to be an expression that compounded exasperation and affection. "You didn't even look inside?"

"I haven't had time," I said. It wasn't that I hadn't been curious. I simply hadn't had the leisure to think about it. "Sam had to leave because his mom got shot by his stepdad, and I've been managing the bar."

Pam gave me a long look of appraisal. "Go back to Eric's office and hand him the bundle," she said. "Leave it wrapped. No matter who's there. And don't handle it like it was a garden tool he left outside, either."

I gave her the look right back. "What am I doing, Pam?" I asked, jumping on the cautious train way too late.

"You're protecting your own skin," Pam said. "Never doubt it. Now go." She gave me a get-along pat on the back and turned to answer a tourist's question about how often vampires needed to get their teeth cleaned.

"Would you like to come very close and look at mine?" Pam asked in a sultry voice, and the woman shrieked with delighted fear. That was why the humans came to vampire bars, and vampire comedy clubs, and vampire dry cleaners, and vampire casinos ... to flirt with danger.

Every now and then, flirtation became the real thing.

I made my way between the tables and across the dance floor to the rear of the bar. Felicia, the bartender, looked unhappy when she saw me. She found something to do that involved crouching down out of my sight. I had an unfortunate history with the bartenders of Fangtasia.

There were a few vampires seated throughout the bar area, strewn among the gawking tourists, the costumed vampire wannabes, and the humans who had business dealings with the vamps. Over in the little souvenir shop, one of the New Orleans vampire refugees from Katrina was selling a Fangtasia T-shirt to a pair of giggling girls.

Tiny Thalia, paler than bleached cotton and with a profile from an ancient coin, was sitting by herself at a small table. Thalia was actually tracked by fans who had devoted a website to her, though she would not have cared if they'd all burst into flames. A drunken serviceman from Barksdale Air Force Base knelt before her as I watched, and as Thalia turned her dark eyes on him, his prearranged speech died in his throat. Turning rather pale himself, the strapping young man backed away from the vampire half his size, and though his friends jeered as he returned to his table, I knew he wouldn't approach her again.

After this little slice of bar life, I was glad to knock on Eric's door. I heard his voice inside, telling me to come in. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. "Hi, Eric," I said, and was almost rendered mute by the surge of happiness that swept through me whenever I saw him. His long blond hair was braided tonight, and he was wearing his favorite jeans-and-a-tee combo. The T-shirt tonight was bright green, making him look whiter than ever.

The wave of delight wasn't necessarily related to Eric's gorgeousness or the fact that we'd bumped pelvises, though. The blood bond was responsible. Maybe. I had to fight the feeling. For sure.

Victor Madden, representative of the new king, Felipe de Castro, stood and inclined his curly dark head. Victor, short and compact, was always polite and always well-dressed. This evening he was especially resplendent in an olive suit and brown striped tie. I smiled at him and was just about to tell him I was glad to see him again when I noticed that Eric was eyeing me expectantly. Oh, right.

I shucked off my coat and extracted the velvet bundle from my purse. I dropped the purse and coat in an empty chair, and walked over to Eric's desk with the bundle extended in both hands. This was making as much of the moment as I could, short of getting on my knees and crawling over to him, which I would do when hell froze over.

I laid the bundle in front of him, inclined my own head in what I hoped was a ceremonious manner, and sat down in the other guest chair.

"What has our fair-haired friend brought you, Eric?" Victor asked in the cheerful voice that he affected most of the time. Maybe he was actually that happy, or maybe his mama had taught him (a few centuries ago) that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

With a certain sense of theater, Eric untied the golden cord and silently unfolded the velvet. Sparkling like a jewel on the dark material was the ceremonial knife I'd last seen in the city of Rhodes. Eric had used it when he officiated at the marriage of two vampire kings, and he'd used it to nick himself later when he'd taken blood from me and given me blood in return: the final exchange, the one that (from my point of view) had caused all the trouble. Now Eric lifted the shining blade to his lips and kissed it.

After Victor recognized the knife, there was no trace of a smile remaining on his face. He and Eric regarded each other steadily.

"Very interesting," Victor said finally.

Once again, I had that feeling of drowning when I hadn't even known I was in the pool. I started to speak, but I could feel Eric's will pressing on me, urging me to be silent. In vampire matters, it was smart to take Eric's advice.

"Then I'll take the tiger's request off the table," Victor said. "My master was unhappy about the tiger wanting to leave, anyway. And of course, I'll inform my master about your prior claim. We acknowledge your formal attachment to this one."

From the inclination of Victor's head in my direction, I knew I was "this one." And I knew only one male weretiger. "What are you talking about?" I asked bluntly.

"Quinn requested a private meeting with you," Victor said. "But he can't come back to Eric's area without Eric's permission now. It's one of the terms we negotiated when we ... when Eric became our new associate."

That was a nice way to say,When we killed all the other vampires in Louisiana except for Eric and his followers. When you saved our king from death .

I wished I had a moment to think, far away from this room where two vampires were staring at me.

"Does this new rule apply only to Quinn or to all wereanimals who want to come into Louisiana? How could you boss the weres? And when did you put that rule into effect?" I said to Eric, trying to buy some time while I collected myself. I wanted Victor to explain the last part of his little speech, too, that bit about the formal attachment, but I decided to tackle one question at a time.

"Three weeks ago," Eric said, answering the last question first. His face was calm; his voice was uninflected. "And the 'new rule' applies only to wereanimals who are associated with us in a business way." Quinn worked for E(E)E, which I suspected was at least partially vampire owned, since Quinn's job was not putting on the weddings and bar mitzvahs the company's human branch dealt with. Quinn's job was staging supernatural events. "The tiger got his dismissal from you. I heard it from his own lips. Why should he return?" Eric shrugged.

At least he didn't try to sugarcoat it by saying, "I thought he might bother you" or "I did it for your own good." No matter how bonded we were - and I was actually struggling against the temptation to smile at him - I felt the hair on the back of my neck rising at Eric managing my life like this.

"Now that you and Eric are openly pledged," Victor said in a silky voice, "you certainly won't want to see Quinn, and I'll tell him so."

"We're what ?" I glared at Eric, who was looking at me with an expression I can only describe as bland.

"The knife," Victor said, sounding even happier. "That's its significance. It's a ritual knife handed down over the centuries and used in important ceremonies and sacrifices. It's not the only one of its kind, of course, but it's rare. Now it's only used in marriage rituals. I'm not sure how Eric came to have possession of it, but its presentation from you to Eric, and his acceptance, can only mean that you and Eric are pledged to each other."

"Let's all step back and take a deep breath," I said, though I was the only person in the room who was breathing. I held up my hand as though they'd been advancing on me and my "halt" gesture would stop them. "Eric?" I tried to pack everything into my voice, but one word can't carry that much baggage.

"This is for your protection, dear heart," he said. He was trying to be serene so that some of that serenity would run through our bond and drown my agitation.

But a few gallons of serenity wouldn't calm me down. "This is so high-handed," I said in a choked voice. "This is sheer gall. How could you do this without talking to me about it? How could you think I would let you commit me to something without talking about it first? We haven't even seen each other in months."

"I've been a little busy here. I'd hoped your sense of self-preservation would kick in," Eric said, which was honest, if not tactful. "Can you doubt that I want what's best for you?"

"I don't doubt that you want what you think is best for me," I said. "And I don't doubt that that marches right along with what you think is good for you ."

Victor laughed. "She knows you well, Eric," he said, and we both glared at him. "Ooops," he said, and pretended to zip his mouth shut.

"Eric, I'm going home. We'll talk about this soon, but I don't know when. I'm running the bar while Sam's gone. There's trouble in his family."

"But Clancy said the announcement went well in Bon Temps."

"Yes, it did, but at Sam's own family home in Texas, it didn't go so well."

Eric looked disgusted. "I did my best to help. I sent at least one of my people around to every public venue. I went to watch Alcide himself shift at the Shamrock Casino."

"That went okay?" I asked, temporarily sidetracked.

"Yes, only a few drunkards acted up. They were quelled quite easily. One woman even offered herself to Alcide in his wolf form."

"Ewww," I said, and got up, grabbing my purse. He'd distracted me long enough.

Eric rose and vaulted over the desk in a movement that was as startling as it was impressive. Suddenly he was right in front of me, and his arms went around me, and he held me to him. It took everything I had to keep my back stiff, to keep from relaxing against him. It's hard to explain how the bond made me feel. No matter how furious I got with Eric, I was happier when I was with him. It wasn't that I yearned for him uncontrollably when we were separated; it was just that I was aware of him. All the time. I wondered if it was the same for him.

"Tomorrow night?" he said, releasing me.

"If I can get away. We have a lot to talk about." I gave Victor a stiff nod, and I left. I glanced back once to see the knife shining against the black velvet as it lay on Eric's desk.

I knew how Eric had gotten the knife. He'd simply kept it rather than returning it to Quinn, who'd been in charge of the wedding ritual between two vampires, a ceremony I'd witnessed in Rhodes. Eric, who was some kind of mail-order priest, had officiated at the service, and afterward, he'd evidently kept the knife just on the chance it would come in handy. How he'd retrieved it from the wreck of the hotel, I didn't know. Maybe he'd gone back during the night, after the daytime explosion. Maybe he'd sent Pam. But he'd gotten it, and now he'd used it to pledge me to him.

And thanks to my own dazed affection ... or warmth ... or infatuation ... for the Viking vampire, I had done exactly what he'd asked without consulting my common sense.

I didn't know who I was angrier with - myself, or Eric.