FIC: The Other Boy, 1/2

[scribblinlenore]

The Other Boy
22,000 words, NC-17, True Blood/Adam Lambert crossover

For hundreds of years, they dealt death with effortless efficiency, one mind, one desire. Eric couldn't say when that began to change, or why, and at times he tried to convince himself that there had been no change at all. Godric hunted at Eric's side just as he always had, but there was a certain distraction in the pursuit, a distance in the moment of the kill, a lack of malicious joy at the taste of blood. Too often it felt as if Godric was leading the way somewhere Eric couldn't follow.



In days long past, when Eric was still human, a hunter of elk and reindeer, he could smell a storm days before it hit, feel the minute shift of molecules the instant an animal decided to turn and attack rather than flee. Those instincts have never deserted him; they've only sharpened with age, taking on a preternatural keenness, exceptional even for a thousand-year-old vampire.

It begins with a feeling like the ground has gone liquid beneath his feet, as if he's being rocked by after-shocks from an earthquake a world away. It grows steadily stronger, clearer, this sense that something's coming, until finally it takes shape, an outline at once familiar and unwelcome. Eric considers that he might be wrong. Because even he wouldn't venture into a sheriff's territory without permission. But of course, Eric is rarely wrong, and casual trespassing is exactly the kind of thing he would do. Besides, there's no mistaking the prickle on the back of Eric's neck. No one else on earth feels quite like him.

The night he finally steps through the doors at Fangtasia-and Eric has no doubt he's taken his sweet time getting there, playing a cat-and-mouse game with Eric's instincts for the sheer hell of it-everyone in the crowd turns to stare. They part like the Red Sea to let him through. He always did have this effect on people, even when he was alive. At least, that's what he has always claimed.

Pam materializes at Eric's side. "What is it?" She cranes her neck. "Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. The other boy."

Eric turns an irritated scowl on her, but Pam knows him far too well to fall for it.

"Enjoy your reunion." She quickly finds somewhere else to be.

Adam makes his way through the throngs, hungry glances following in his wake. His dark hair is streaked blue. He's wearing eyeliner and lip gloss and-Eric doesn't even know how to describe the clothes. There's leather and glitter and what look to be wings. Apparently, you can take the boy out of the eighteenth century, but you can never quite take the dandy out of the boy.

He stops a few paces from Eric. "What? No kiss?"

"Halloween isn't for three months," Eric tells him in a deadpan.

Adam looks down at his outfit and back up again. "You don't like it?" The corner of his mouth tilts up in a smirk.

In a flash, Eric lunges, forcing Adam across the room, sending chairs and customers flying, until he has Adam backed against the wall, his arm across Adam's throat. This is the effect Adam has on him. "What do you want?"

"Well, hello to you too." A faint smile plays over Adam's lips. He's never been impressed by Eric's power.

That doesn't stop Eric from baring his fangs anyway.

"Temper, darling," Adam chastises him.

Eric reluctantly lets him go, but only because this shouldn't be settled in front of witnesses. "What are you doing here, Adam?"

For just a second, Adam's expression goes naked, blunt pain in his blue eyes, and Godric's name sears into Eric. He pointedly looks away.

Adam recovers quickly. "Yes, I am doing well, thank you. It's wonderful to see you too," he drawls sarcastically. "I see you still have your same gift for conversation."

"You need my permission to travel through this territory," Eric tells him gruffly.

"Is there anything more tedious than a bunch of boring rules?" Adam's expression couldn't be more unconcerned. It's a wonder, really, that he's lasted as long as he has.

"You never did have any respect for our customs." Eric gives him a disapproving look.

Adam shrugs. "I lived as I chose when I was human. Why should I be any different as a vampire?" He leans closer. "Come on. Aren't you even a little bit happy to see me?"

Before Eric can say no, Adam hooks a hand behind Eric's head, reels him in, and sticks his tongue in Eric's mouth. Eric bites him in punishment, and Adam's blood trickles into his mouth. He freezes at the taste of it, because there's a hint, just a hint, of their shared source. Then he's grappling at Adam, pulling him closer, clutching at his shoulders. Their hips press together, a hot spark of friction, and Eric licks and licks at that taste until the blood is all gone.

When Adam draws away, the cut is healed. "So, can I stay?" he asks with a lopsided smile.

For a moment, Eric still considers saying no. "Don't cause trouble."

Adam's eyes sparkle. "Who, me?" He leans close, and his voice takes an intimate tumble into a lower octave. "You taste like him too, you know." He licks a stripe across Eric's cheek. "Now." He claps his hands together and looks around. "What's fun to do around here?" He eyes a blond boy across the way, who stares back with big eyes, already hopelessly smitten. Adam winks at Eric and slips into the crowd.

Eric ignores the tightening in his gut, because it's so utterly ridiculous.

Pam comes sauntering up. "So why don't you just fuck him already and get it out of your system?"

"I have no idea what you mean."

Out of the corner of his eye, Eric can't help noticing that Adam has swept the blond boy out onto the dance floor. Can't help noticing that the blond boy's idea of dancing consists of trying to crawl inside Adam's skin.

Pam glances at him and then over at Adam. She bursts into a loud, bright laugh. "This is going to be fun."



"Vampires are the leeches that feed on the blood of human history."

A perfect picture of the moment when Godric made that declaration lives in Eric's memory. A tumbledown inn in Strasbourg. Godric framed in the open window, moonlight streaming in, streaking his dark hair blue. An unusually absent expression on his face, his eyes fastened on some distant horizon beyond Eric's imagination. Eric said nothing, because Godric was his maker, and what was there to say to something so incomprehensible? Wasn't it Godric who had taught Eric, in their glorious early days together, that the petty travails of humans existed to make sport for their betters, to satisfy their lust for blood and entertainment?

"We must go to Paris," Godric added in the next breath.

Vampires from all over the continent-and those who could make it from much farther abroad-were thronging to France with a carnival-like sense of expectation. Stories buzzed from vampire group to vampire group of riots in the streets, crazed mobs sowing violence like seeds on the wind, the delicious stench of fear hanging in the air.

Something like relief coursed through Eric, although he would never admit to such a feeble emotion. Godric wishing to go to Paris was something he could understand, at least.

Experiences tended to blur together after so long a time, but the day Eric had been reborn in Godric's image still gleamed vividly in his memory. It was raining when he awoke in Death's embrace, more alive than he ever had been in life, and Godric looked down on him with this primal hunger, this crushing tenderness. I will be your father, your brother, your child. Eric could feel the shape of Godric in everything he was, everything he would ever be.

For hundreds of years, they dealt death with effortless efficiency, one mind, one desire. Eric couldn't say when that began to change, or why, and at times he tried to convince himself that there had been no change at all. Godric hunted at Eric's side just as he always had, but there was a certain distraction in the pursuit, a distance in the moment of the kill, a lack of malicious joy at the taste of blood. Too often it felt as if Godric was leading the way somewhere Eric couldn't follow.

Paris. Paris would remind them who they were. Death and his companion.

A trampled dove greeted them at the city limits, desiccating in the dirt of the street, a fitting omen. The city felt coiled, an angry spring ready to snap. People roamed the streets despite the hour, ordinary citizens once, now slit-eyed with suspicion, begging for an excuse to violence with the very postures of their bodies. Eric and Godric moved freely, Godric's power wiping perception of them from feeble human awareness before it could even register, and yet a jangling energy shot through everyone they passed, a stirring of instinct, the way animals reacted to their presence.



One woman actually whirled around, staring blindly at where they stood, drawing a dagger from beneath her cloak, wielding it at the air with manic eyes. Eric imagined her neck in his hand-it would take only one-the press of his thumb into cartilage and bone, the satisfying snap as he taught her the true meaning of power.

Godric merely stared in puzzlement. "How does such a creature come to exist? What does she want? What do any of them want?"

They'd always been one mind, one desire, but here was Godric's curiosity like a fortress, standing between Eric and the pleasure of the kill. He let the cloaked woman go, a concession out of respect to his maker, but the hunger still lurked. In a narrow, filthy alleyway he took his due, a fleshy, sallow-faced merchantman who gaped in surprise, mouth round and moving like a fish, as the rich taste of blood and terror filled Eric's mouth. He covered the marks on the neck and flung the body away. It would be just another random death among so many when the body was discovered in the morning.

Godric waited while Eric fed, his expression dispassionate, neither hungry nor disapproving, with the bottomless patience that made him seem more ancient than time itself.

They moved on, and Eric cherry-picked his delights: a prostitute with muzzy auburn hair and a tear in her stocking that begged for his fangs to be put to the artery there, a street urchin with the fresh, sweet taste children always had, a young man dressed in tatters but with the scent of chocolate and sweet herbs clinging to him, a noble fleeing one fate only to find another.

Godric preferred watching the humans to making them a nightly banquet, as Eric did, as every other vampire in the city was doing. He would listen to their demonstrations in the streets, their whispered conversations, their chaotic chatter with a puzzled frown. "What do they want, Eric? Why do they struggle so?"

Who cares? But Eric hadn't said it. He'd hoped Godric would find the answers he wanted, and everything would return to the way it had been before.

Instead, they'd come upon Adam.

It was the song that caught their attention, carried on the wind, harsh words in a voice so glorious it was hard to believe it was human. Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons, marchons, marchons !

"Come, Eric." Godric led the way, sharply alert, the Godric of old, a creature of unerring instinct and inhuman determination.

The prison cart stood outside a stark gray stone building with a crenellated roof, jammed full of guillotine fodder, panicked faces pressed to the bars, arms outstretched, begging for help that would never come. Most of the condemned appeared to be peasants, roughly dressed. A priest huddled in his robes muttering prayers under his breath. A few prisoners looked like they might have been shopkeepers in happier times before someone suspected them of something.

But the singer of the song, that paean to revolution, wore the clothes of an aristocrat, dirty and torn but still obviously fine. His long body folded like a screen in the close space, his thick black hair messy and covered in dust, his face creased with grime, and yet there was an unrelentingly regal line to his shoulders, his blue eyes bright with defiance. Later they would learn he was the younger son of a noble family, courtiers to the King before the royal head had been separated from the royal body. Then he was just a voice swelling the night, Tremble, tyrants and traitors the shame of all good men, tremble!

The other prisoners yelled for him to shut up and threw straw mired with shit, the only weapon at hand, but he continued, more loudly, until the song was done.

"You mock us," the priest said gravely.

The man laughed, short and bitter. "I mock myself. My kind. Everyone who has ever believed that the world will always be the same."

"That's what they want. Change. Progress." Godric said the word as if it were a revelation, and stirred closer, watching the man as if here finally was the elusive answer he'd been seeking.

"We are in the arms of our Heavenly Father," the priest said. "That will never change."

The man smiled cruelly. "No doubt he will take the same care of us that he did of his servant Louis XVI."

A gasp passed through the prisoners. The priest crossed himself, while the man looked coolly ahead, as if nothing could touch him, as if he were a distant star.

"Him," Godric said with utter conviction. "Get him for me."

Eric went gladly. It had been so long since Godric had wanted anything, since he'd fed for any reason but necessity. The lock turned to metallic dust in Eric's hands. He wrenched the door open and trod over cowering bodies to loom above the man with the dark hair. Makeup still streaked his face, revealing freckles like chinks in armor. The man stared up at Eric, steadily, not trembling, not begging for mercy, his blue eyes clear and unafraid. When Eric tangled a hand in the collar of his jacket and lifted him off his feet, the man made no effort to pit his laughable human strength against Eric's, but he didn't crumple either, the way others did, resigned to their fate.

"Come," Godric said, beckoning for Eric to follow.

The streets blurred into a ribbon of light and dark, cobblestones turned to twigs and dirt. They didn't stop until they were far out into the countryside, no illumination but the moon. Eric dumped the man onto the ground, and he stared up at them from his knees, panting from the dizzying journey, his expression as coolly ironic as ever.

Godric stepped toward him, and joy leapt in Eric at the prospect of watching him tear out the throat that had made that unearthly song, as if he too would taste the pleasure of that blood, as if this would be the thing to heal them, one mind, one desire. But Godric merely touched his fingers to the man's chin, tilting it up. "What is your name?"

Eric would have expected insolence from the man, even from his knees, but he stared up at Godric, eyes wide and amazed, as if he'd never seen anything like him. He licked dry lips and said in a rough voice, "Adam."

"Adam," Godric repeated, still holding his chin. "Tell me, why do you mock those who believe the world will always be the same?"

"Because everything changes. All living things. Why should human society be any different?"

"Yes." Godric took his hand away. "Why should any society."

"Are you going to kill me now that I've answered your question?"

"I'm going to give you life." He turned to face Eric's dismay. "Trust me, my child. It is the right thing."

Eric felt as if he'd left his own body, floating at a distance, as he watched Godric stroke Adam's cheek, bend over him, so deliberately, watched Adam cry out, his head jerking sharply, neck arching. Godric's gaze found Eric's as he drank, blood smearing his mouth, and the look there said, This is for you as much as for me. A consolation prize when he'd promised, Your father, your brother, your child. Adam moaned, a low sound in his throat, and even that had a musical quality. And Eric knew. This wasn't going to be the thing that healed them. Not at all.



Eric's office is tucked away at the back of Fangtasia, a good-sized room that he keeps largely empty, just a plain, industrial-style metal desk with hard edges and two Danish modern chairs, uncompromisingly straight-backed. The walls are painted such a stark white it's a form of aggression, and he leaves them startlingly blank, without even a hint of color or texture. It's the interior-decorating version of sensory deprivation, and he finds it soothing as he wrangles with account books and sales tax records, the tedious price that comes with being accepted into human society. Not for the first time, he longs for the good old days of lurking and pillaging.

"Sheriff. I've come on important business from her majesty."

A bulky form fills the doorway, the presence that Eric has been sensing for the last fifteen minutes. He glances up irritably from the form he's filling out in triplicate. It's an uncivilized hour for a nuisance visit from one of the Queen's minions, the stink of twilight still hanging in the air. The minion sits without waiting to be invited, meeting Eric's eye brazenly, although he reeks of youth, not even a hundred years old. The palpable force of Eric's power should have him cowering; he trusts too much in the Queen's protection, and for a moment, Eric considers teaching him how foolhardy that is. But the stack of forms won't finish itself, and if he gets vampire gore on them, he'll have to start over. Saved by bureaucracy. His mouth twists with sarcasm at the thought.

"Her majesty said to tell you that she's waiting."

The minion delivers the line with B-movie bravado, and Eric absently wonders where Sophie-Anne picked this one up. Chicago in the 1930s maybe. A low-level thug-with a square, blunt body and a pushed-in, pockmarked face as if he's been on the wrong side of a sledgehammer-he'll never be anything else, for however long he lasts. Which won't be long, Eric guesses, not if he knows the Queen. This minion is nothing to look at, and he probably can't even spell Yahtzee.

"Tell her majesty I'm working on it," Eric answers in his own good time.

He and the Queen have been playing this same game of chess for months, both of them with the same shiny object flashing in their eyes, and only one of them can posses it. In the strictest sense, Eric can't prevail against Sophie-Anne, not without committing treason, but he can still so vividly recall how it felt when Sookie drank from him, the electric connection of blood more intimate than her mouth on his chest. Whenever he sees her now, she flusters easily, color creeping up her cheeks, from whatever dreams she's been having of him. Eric doesn't know what she is exactly or how useful she might actually prove to be, but he has power over her that the Queen can't touch, and he's not yet ready to give up his stake.

Something Sophie-Anne understands perfectly well, and her minion does not.

"Her majesty is tired of waiting," the minion blusters, like a child in grownup's clothes.

It takes the space between molecules to reach the minion's side. He blinks up at Eric like a newborn, eyes wide and disoriented for a long beat, and then terror blooms in his expression as his ham-handed brain catches up, does the math, comprehends the danger.

Eric's smile curls with casual malice. "Tell her majesty that I will let her know as soon as there is anything to report."

The newborn gets to his feet, sluggish and earthen compared to Eric, nodding nervously.

"I'll see you out." Eric holds the door for him, partly to watch him cower, because that's always fun, and partly because he doesn't want the minion lingering, scaring off the paying customers with his feeble attempt at menace.

Adam is just stirring as they cross the floor to the front entrance, never an early riser. He emerges groggily from the room he's commandeered, tousle-haired and bare-chested, sleep pants riding low on his hips. Eric rolls his eyes at the pajamas, ridiculous human custom, and remembers all the many evenings he waited around for Adam to finish his rather arduous toilette before they could go hunting. Candlelight gutters in Eric's mind. Adam, or the ghost of him, sits before a mirror, holding a brush in hand, smoothing powder over skin that is already as white as death, drawing in eyebrows with an arch so sharp it's like he's made of endless curiosity, lining his eyes with black so deep it makes the blue look bright enough to cut.

"The point is to fit in," Eric reminds him, slouching against the wall, hungry and impatient.

"Maybe that's your point." Adam's mouth tilts up in a knowing way, and Eric wants to do something to wipe the smile off his face. He's just not quite sure what.

The picture dissolves, and Adam is clean-faced, rumpled, stalled in the doorway. He's an accomplished actor-Eric has to give him that. He almost manages to cover up the look of recognition when he spots the minion. Sledgehammer Face is not nearly so subtle. He stares openly at Adam, a reptilian sort of calculation in his flat eyes that lingers even as Eric is showing him the door.

Adam makes a production of yawning once they're alone. "Does everyone get up at the crack of nightfall around here? It's so uncivilized." He pads over to the bar with the kind of determined nonchalance that sets every instinct Eric has on edge.

Adam has never been political. In fact, he's practiced a determined defiance of vampire society practically from the moment he was made. But if the Queen has somehow cajoled or bribed him into spying... then Eric will need to know what she's planning.

"That goes on your tab," he says brusquely as Adam cracks open a bottle of True Blood. "There's no free ride here."

"Yes." Adam's smile is small and tight. "Why would here be any different from anywhere else?"

Eric leaves him to his swill. Back in his office, he takes a moment before picking up the account books, closes his eyes, reaches out with his mind, threading his will through his human's thoughts. It's so much easier to deal with problems when the solution comes to him.

It takes Lafayette twenty minutes to arrive, although the trip from Bon Temps takes more like forty if there's any kind of consideration shown for traffic laws. Eric is pleased to see that Lafayette recognizes there's a higher authority at work here than the state highway patrol. Lafayette hovers on the threshold of Eric's office, the polar opposite of the Queen's minion, uncertain even though he's been summoned. Eric catches the delicious whiff of terror coming off him.

Lafayette jerks his chin up, tries to fight down the quaver in his voice. "I'm pushing the V like you asked. I don't know what else you want."

Eric nods to the chair, and Lafayette reluctantly sits. "It's been a while since we've seen each other, Mr. Reynolds."

The reaction is instantaneous. Lafayette's head ducks sharply, and he lowers his eyes to the floor. Eric guesses that it hasn't been long at all since Lafayette last saw Eric. Sometimes the erotic dreams go on for months after the transfer of blood. Eric lets his gaze linger, heavy as a hand on Lafayette's skin, because he can, because it's always a good idea to keep the human help off balance. Lafayette fights it, but finally can't help squirming in his chair.

"I have a job I need you to do for me." Eric cuts to the chase.

Lafayette recovers enough to offer an attitude. "What other shit you want me to sell now?"

"I need you to get close to someone. Find out what he's doing here. Who sent him." He pauses suggestively. "Use your powers of persuasion."

Lafayette's voice rises indignantly, "I'm not your whore!"

Eric regards him calmly. "Aren't you?"

Lafayette stares back down at the floor.

In a blink, Eric looms over him. "You're whatever I say you are."

Reluctantly, Lafayette follows him out into the club. Eric points out Adam, who's dancing. Lafayette regards him warily, which is so ridiculous it's almost funny.

"No need to fear, Mr. Reynolds. Adam doesn't believe in hurting humans, and he won't bite you unless you ask him nicely." Eric makes a disgusted face. "He's always been a disappointment."

Lafayette doesn't seem entirely convinced, but he says, with all the false bravado he can muster, "You're just lucky he's hot."

The opinion appears to be mutual, since it takes about three seconds for Lafayette to end up wrapped around Adam. Eric recognizes the delight in Adam's eyes-he saw it often enough during their time together. Apparently Adam still hasn't gotten over his ludicrous fondness for humans. No doubt he can sense Eric on Lafayette, understands that this human belongs to him. When Adam bends close to Lafayette, licks extravagantly at his neck, as if he can taste Eric there, Eric has to fight off the shiver that wants to travel down his spine. Adam is only trying to usurp what doesn't rightfully belong to him, Eric tells himself. That is a vampire's nature.

"I have a room," Eric hears Adam say. "We can be alone."

"Honey, I've got a whole house. Nobody hanging around, listening in like jealous little bitches."

Adam laughs delightedly. "Let's go then."

"The old-fashioned way," Lafayette insists. "I'm not leaving my car here for all these delinquent freaks to do God knows what."

"You can get us there fast?"

"I've got the reckless driving tickets to prove it."

Eric feels them go, the connection to Lafayette growing more muted with the miles, although there is no such luck with Adam. He watches Yvetta work the pole and sends Pam off to finish the paperwork he doesn't feel like doing, much to her annoyance. He's not waiting for anything to happen between Adam and Lafayette. He has much more important things to attend to.

Despite this, their first touch flashes through his head, the muted sensation of skin, contact, and he tunes in to it, concentrating. Information. That's what he's after.

"You don't have to do this." Adam's voice uncoils like a tendril in Eric's head, low, sinuous.

"The way you got me all riled up on the drive over here, I'm pretty sure I do."

Adam laughs. "I'll take care of you, baby. But you should know I'm not the kind to fuck and tell. So whatever Eric's fishing for, he's not going to get it this way."

"I'm not-I wouldn't-" Lafayette trails off, and there's a long pause and then a sigh. "Can we still have sex?"

"Oh honey, can we ever!"

Eric grimaces at Adam's unseemly exuberance and makes a note to discuss with Lafayette the meaning of "covert" and "persistence." He pushes away the connection, but before it breaks, he catches a hint of soft breath, the rustle of clothes being stripped off. And that's just-it.

A moment later, Eric looms over Lafayette's bed, where Adam is shirtless and bent over Lafayette, licking curiously at a nipple, making Lafayette arch and press, needy sounds spilling out of his throat.

Adam looks over his shoulder at Eric, grinning. "What took you so long?"

"Mr. Reynolds," Eric says, cool and formal.

Lafayette stares up at him with wide, unfocused eyes, as if he doesn't remember Eric's name. Or his own for that matter. You won't kill, but you have no problem using your powers for seduction, Eric had once challenged Adam. To which Adam had replied with a laugh, Please. Compulsion is for amateurs.

"Your business is finished here," Eric tells the human, nodding at the door.

Lafayette lets out a disgruntled sigh and drags himself up from bed. "Ya'll do know this is my house, right?"

It only takes a look to make him scurry. All humans could use a good month in a dungeon to teach them the proper manners, Eric thinks. It improves them greatly. Adam flops back onto the bed, casually sprawled. His gaze moves lazily over Eric, which would look like an invitation to anyone who didn't know him, who didn’t understand that Adam likes to fight his battles this way.

"So, this is what you do now? Send humans to take care of your business for you? There is such a thing as delegating too much, you know, Eric." Adam smiles up at him.

Eric can see the intentional provocation clearly for what it is, but that's never stopped it from getting under his skin. He takes a deliberate step closer.

"Why don't you just ask me?" Adam's voice drops so low only a vampire could hear it. He flashes another of his weapons, that soft, almost hurt look in his eyes, which has been infuriating Eric for as long as they've known each other.

Eric takes another step, puts his hand on Adam's throat.

"Or you could take what you want." Adam tilts his head back, offering himself, a parody of submission, since they both know there's nothing compliant about him in the least.

Still, Eric could. Take what he wants, whatever that is, fuck Adam or tear him apart with his bare hands, bring the house down around them both. He could. But.

Then Adam would win.

Eric takes his hand away. "A vampire doesn't give in to his emotions."

"That philosophy worked for Godric." Adam's gaze meets Eric's, bold and intrusive as always. "For you, not so much. And it goes without saying that it's never been my style."

Insolent creature, to question Godric, and the temptation resurges to teach him a lesson, although it's complicated by the desire to make him bleed, to taste him again. Finally, Eric turns to leave, because that's what Godric would do.

"You know where to find me when you change your mind," floats down the hall after him.

Below, Lafayette sulks on the sofa, a sullen tilt of his chin when he spots Eric on the stairs, the spoiled-milk scent of frustration coming off him in waves.

"Mr. Reynolds, thank you for the hospitality," Eric says with an ironic little nod.

"Cockblocker," he hears Lafayette mutter under his breath.

Eric smiles as he flies away. If he has to be stuck dealing with Adam, who is just as confounding as ever, at least he still has the simple pleasures.



Adam's ways have always been unusual, from the very beginning.

When Eric was turned, it had been a true rebirth; in the place of his humanity a vast, voracious hunger took shape. He and Godric cut a swath through Sweden, taking, feeding, sowing terror as carelessly as crows strewed stray seeds over the earth. When they reached that strip of land by the North Sea where Eric's people lived, it hardly registered. Nothing felt familiar, and he devoured his way through the human livestock, ruthlessly, no compunction about whom he was killing.

Adam seemed to awake with no more than a vague pang of need, something he found more annoying than all consuming. The first time Eric demonstrated for him how to feed, he stood off to the side, watching with an expression of mild repugnance as Eric tore out the throat of a stoop-shouldered laundress they'd caught on her way home from work.

"There has to be another way," Adam insisted, his lips pressed together in distaste, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

"He's made wrong," Eric said to Godric, gruffly, to hide the triumph that wanted to break through. A vampire who'd been made wrong had to be destroyed; that was one of their most sacred rules.

"Everything changes, Eric," was Godric's only response, soft and oddly hopeful, and then to Adam, "Show us. Show us another way."

Adam took that in and nodded slowly, with a thoughtful look. Eric dug deep into his self-restraint to keep from rolling his eyes. Godric was his maker, and Eric had looked to him for wisdom every moment of their time together, but what could they possibly learn from a whelp of a vampire who didn't even have the right instincts?

This conviction only grew as it became clear what Adam's way would be. He pursued blood with a courtier's delicacy and charm, much to Eric's disgust, beguiling rather than overwhelming with force, borrowing what should simply be taken as the due of a superior being. He never killed, but instead used his voice to make it good for the human, to seduce them into offering themselves up for his pleasure. Afterward, he would fix the human with a long soulful look, although there should be nothing like a soul left in him, an expression of almost reverential concentration, as if he were trying to give something in return for taking away their memories of him.

Eric looked away from these unseemly displays with disgust. Godric watched, both puzzled and curious.

"How is that you now find fascinating the same creatures you would have stepped over in the streets when you were alive?" Eric once challenged Adam.

"Don't you see? That's what makes it so amazing." Adam's face shone with excitement. "Nobility is separation, like living inside a fortress instead of skin. The only people you know are exactly like you. But now all of humanity is laid out for me like a banquet, and it's-" He cast around for the right word. "Enthralling."

Eric didn't bother to mention he knew perfectly well what nobility felt like, as a king, as the son of a king. There was no arguing with Adam's notions. Because he was made wrong, Eric felt certain.

The year they wintered in London, Adam took to the city like a big, gamboling puppy, as if he had never been either French or an aristocrat. Face paint and silk hose gave way to breeches and boots and a great coat with broad, military lapels. To Eric's raised eyebrow at the costume, Adam replied merely, "Everything changes. Fashion most of all."

In the evening, he insisted on going to the White Horse, the local tavern that stood a few doors down from the place they were staying, to carouse with humans, rather than lurking in the shadows outside waiting for gin-blurred dinner to come staggering their way, the way any self-respecting vampire would have done. Eric started to argue, but Godric found Adam's unaccountable taste for human companionship intriguing. So they went.

Adam strode through the doors, smiling and expansive with good will, as if he had no idea what the word "inconspicuous" meant. As if he were still one of the lowly creatures, snuffling in the dirt, dying every moment they were alive.

"Good evening." Adam beamed at the landlord behind the bar. "A pint of ale for me and my friends here."

He ignored the dark look Eric shot him and downed his ale in a lusty gulp, without gagging or even a grimace. He retained not just a tolerance for human food, but an actual fondness for it, more evidence in Eric's opinion that something was irretrievably wrong with him.

A fiddler played in the corner, the instrument battered and off-key, the man sawing out a rheumy country tune, the kind favored by drunks and the nostalgic-hearted, which apparently covered everyone in the place, since they all sang along. There shall I visit the place of my birth, and they'll give me a welcome the warmest on earth… Adam listened, head cocked, until he caught the tune, and then his voice joined the others, deep and resonant, with the same arresting emotion it had when he'd sung his own death dirge in that prison cart in Paris. The others gradually went quiet to listen until Adam was the only one left singing, and when the tune ended with a final flourish of the fiddle, the crowd showed its appreciation with boisterous applause and cries of "Give us another!"

Adam obliged with a gracious smile, and everyone in the tavern, even the roughs and the pickpockets who'd snuck in to work the crowd, listened quiet and enrapt, not even a stray rustle of movement interrupting the song. One young man in particular couldn't take his eyes off Adam-there was always one, it was always a young man-and Adam smiled in his direction more often than in any other. When he'd finished the last song, despite the tavern keeper's plea for just one more, the starry-eyed young man made his way over to Adam, offering his hand and ducking his head, a blush on his cheeks. These conquests of Adam's were always shy.

"That was-" The young man broke off as if there were no words, the pink of his cheeks turning a deeper shade.

"The most fun I've had in way too long," Adam said, voice like a purr in his throat, smile so bright and broad that the young man blinked, dazed.

The young man cleared his throat. "We could-" And then he froze, terror forming on his face at what he'd just been about to suggest.

Adam leaned in and said in a voice so low that only the young man and the vampires in the room could hear him. "Honey, not only can we, but we'd be fools not to."

Nobody paid any attention as Adam led the young man out back to the alley; Eric had never seen a vampire master the fine art of compulsion as quickly or as thoroughly as Adam.

"We should go," Eric said, pushing away the overly friendly bar wench who smelled like rotting vegetables on a hot June day. He was eager to feed, but he preferred more appetizing fair.

"Not yet, my child." Godric watched a man at a nearby table flirting with a blowsy, grubby-haired mill girl. Godric's expression would have looked impassive to anyone else, but Eric could see the glimmer of fascination, as if these dusty mortals with their pathetic pawing and wooing were somehow a discovery.

Eric sighed and rose to his feet. He craved amusement of a different kind, and baiting Adam would serve almost as well as hunting. The moment he stepped outside, he caught a ragged sob, a wet sound in the back of a human throat, pleading, almost mournful. He brightened at the thought that perhaps Adam had finally found his vampire's nature. A few steps further into the shadows, though, he could see that Adam was disappointing as always, with his arm wrapped lover-like around the young man's chest, moving urgently inside him, whispering against his neck as he lapped blood, "So good, honey, so good."

The young man whimpered, pushing his hips back into Adam's thrusts, arching his neck, offering what he'd never even known he needed. Ardent submission-that was Adam's true pleasure. The young man seized and went silent, shoulders shaking, as he found his completion, and Adam growled, low and guttural, pounding into the pliant body until he came as well.

"Mm," Adam murmured in a warm, dewy voice as he separated their bodies.

The human stood there as limp as a doll, dazed to the point that Eric expected drool to run down his chin at any moment, while Adam rearranged their clothes.

"Are you all right?" Adam stroked a thumb along the young man's jaw with unseemly tenderness. The young man blinked like an addle-brain, and slowly his mouth curved into a smile, cognizance returning to his expression, brightness to his eyes, a pink stain to his cheeks.

Adam smiled in answer, his face shining so brightly Eric had the urge to cover his eyes. Joy. That was the only word to describe that look. A wave of disgust overtook Eric, which was only natural, but the envy that was mingled in was harder to comprehend, and fury followed closely on its heels.

"This is what you do with your gift?" he hissed at Adam. "Waste it on beguiling humans?"

The young man started at Eric's voice. Adam stroked the human's hair, a furrow of concentration between his eyebrows until the human went slack and relaxed again, smiling at Adam dreamily.

Adam's lips curved up in wry amusement. "How do you know I haven't always had this effect on people?"

Eric snarled and attacked, and a split second later the young man went completely limp as Eric tore his throat out. He tossed away the empty husk and stared at Adam in challenge. I took your human. What are you going to do about it?

Adam merely fixed him with a look of distaste. "That really wasn't necessary."

Eric forced Adam back against the wall, making the bricks shake. "It's what we are."

"What we are is far more complicated than that." Adam had the temerity to argue, his voice infuriatingly calm, even though Eric had all the power here. Even though Eric could kill him. Godric would forgive him. Eventually.

Most vampires smelled only of old blood and the wind, but in the close press of their bodies, it was impossible to ignore that Adam had retained his human scent, vanilla and cedar and sunshine. Adam met Eric's gaze, intently, as if he could work his feeble magic on Eric, because of course it was too much to expect that he might back down like anyone who had any kind of sense. Adam was always confounding, his ridiculous fearlessness eliciting a tinge of admiration in Eric when it would have been so much simpler just to hate him.

Funny that courage should be Eric's weakness.

He tightened his grip where he held Adam pinned to the wall by the throat, but his thumb began to move without his permission, stroking over soft skin. Adam's mouth parted in invitation, and when Eric did nothing about it, Adam took the initiative, pushing against Eric's grip, craning his neck to reach. The kiss came light and curious, a bare meeting of lips, and that shouldn't have been a spark, but somehow it was. Eric took Adam's wrists in his hands, pinning them to the wall, bone grating against the rough brick. Now that he was in charge of the kiss, it was hungry and furious, his hips working against Adam's. He could feel Adam's hardness against his thigh, which made him vicious with triumph, and the fact that he was just as aroused…

He flung Adam aside, his body cutting the air. Adam landed a good twenty feet away, gracefully, on his feet. Eric expected the wounded look that Adam knew how to work so well, but instead he was merely resigned.

"We really don't have to be enemies."

Yet another thing Adam didn't understand about their kind.

Eric hissed, his fangs sliding free, and he circled, ready to move in for the kill. But then Godric's voice quietly called out his name. He hesitated before drawing his fangs back in, reluctantly. Adam remained still as a statue, giving Eric a deep, assessing look, as if this was all far from over.

Eric could never decide if what happened later was payback, Adam taking something from Eric the way Eric took his human, or if it was merely Adam being Adam. Either way, he should have seen it coming.

"I just feel like staying in," Adam said with a shrug.

When had he ever felt like staying in before? Eric would think that later.

It was less surprising that Godric chose not to go out; not only had his pleasure in the hunt dimmed, but he seemed to require sustenance less and less often these days. It will be the same for you, my child, when you are as old as I am, he'd assured Eric.

London of that day presented a Byzantine playground of lonely alleys, poorly lit cul de sacs, forgotten doorways where human life could end quickly, silently, a ruby feast on the tongue. Eric took his time; lacking a companion robbed him of none of his pleasure. In fact, without the burden of Godric's disinterest and Adam's outright disapproval, he was free to indulge, to savor. He worked his way through a rum-addled sailor on leave, a pretty young whore with a bedraggled feather in her hair, an urchin who'd come willingly at the promise of a few coppers. By the time he returned to the lodging house, he was so sated he could feel the sheen of his own power, every part of him vital with strength.

He was not the only one lost in satisfaction.

Outside the room, he could hear them before he'd even opened the door, airy sounds and low guttural groans, strangely human, so out of place here. Eric could have turned around, walked away, returned later-but this confrontation had been a long time coming, since the moment when Godric first sank his teeth into Adam's neck, and Eric had never backed down from anything, not a tough fight or a hard truth.

The two of them lay naked on the bed. Adam bent over Godric, his spine sharply arched. In the guttering candlelight, his pale skin gleamed, the freckles on his back intricate and everywhere, like the constellations in a night sky. He kissed Godric's belly, tenderly, put his mouth on Godric's cock, his hand resting familiarly on Godric's thigh. The look on his face was playful, curious, and Godric watched as Adam licked, sucked, caressed, his hand fondly touching Adam's cheek, his forehead creased with concentration as if he were trying to decipher a mystery of the universe.

When Eric was made, he woke up with inhuman hunger, not just for blood, but for the meaning that could only come from his source. The need for oneness swamped him, the compulsive urge to merge, to give, to take, Godric in him, him in Godric, body to body, blood for blood. They hunted and feasted and fucked, and Eric gloried in the beautiful contradiction, that he was dead and had never been more alive.

Even in this, Adam was made wrong, every touch, every kiss light and flirtatious, the ministrations of a dandy, so, so-human. And this with Godric, who was Eric's source, who was still so very necessary to him. Eric growled, low in his throat, a territorial declaration. He moved so fast the air felt liquid, drops on his skin as he shed his clothes. He made a place for himself on the bed, taking was what his, pressed against Godric's back, hands between Godric's thighs, dick inside him, moving, merging, urgently.

"Eric." Godric reached back for him, touching Eric's face with light fingers, the same way he had Adam's, his voice promising, your father, your brother, your child, as if nothing were different between them.

Adam continued to kiss and touch Godric: his lips and his chin, tracing the lines of ink over Godric's collarbones, the tip of his pink tongue teasing Godric's nipple, his palm wrapped around Godric's cock. Never once did his gaze waver from Eric, his eyes dark and huge and wanting. We don't have to be enemies. Because Adam understood nothing about their kind, and he probably never would. When Eric came inside Godric, it felt empty and final.

At the approaching dawn, they settled down to sleep, and when Eric woke again he was still tangled in Godric. He left the bed with care and dressed and went downstairs. If Godric had exerted his will only a little, laid claim to what had always been his, Eric would not have been able to stir past the threshold. But Godric let him go, and he passed into the night, into the world, alone, not even a fragile tendril of the past to hold him.

Everything changed. Even Death.



Adam never asks if he can perform at Fangtasia; he just commandeers the stage like he owns the place.

"I have a business to run," Eric harangues him the first time, without much bite. "Customers who come here for the entertainment."

Adam rolls his eyes. "Yeah, we wouldn't want the pole-dancing aficionados to go away disappointed."

Tonight Adam is dressed like a Hollywood version of the French aristocrat he once was, billowing sleeves, silver thread decorating the intricately tied collar, black pants tight as skin, the fly laced like a corset, practically begging someone to pull it open. Two hundred years haven't changed Adam's voice in the slightest. It's still startlingly beautiful, and it takes over the place, insidious that way, as intimate as a curl of cigarette smoke in an empty room with rumpled sheets.

The crowd stops everything else to listen, gaping, eyes glazed, in thrall-even the hopeless ones who'll go home with dried vomit on their clothes, even the desperate cases who come in every night with bruises on their necks and a pleading pick-me smile for every vampire in the bar. Adam sings French torch songs, throaty and emotional, and even though Eric would bet there's no one who has a clue what any of it means, they all listen like Adam is singing just for them, like the words might change their lives.

Eric tends to business with a purposeful air, not watching, not missing a thing: the shape of Adam's soft, pink mouth on every syllable, the way Adam's eyes close in concentration and he runs his hands over himself making most everyone in the place suck in an anticipatory breath. Most everyone, except Eric, who has business, very pressing, and maybe that's why Adam does it, to get Eric's attention, why he changes gears so abruptly, from songs about prostitutes and love to Allons enfants de la Patrie,
le jour de gloire est arrive !

Fangtasia recedes, and Eric is standing on a rutted, frozen street two hundred years ago, the dusty odor of old straw in the air, the sharp stink of shit. Adam's voice rises and falls incongruously, rich and lilting on the strident words, and for a moment, Eric can feel Godric's presence again, physical and familiar. When the illusion dissolves, it emphasizes the emptiness at Eric's side, the shape of the absence.

The crowd doesn't quite know what to make of this anthem, but when Adam finishes, they clap wildly anyway. He descends from the stage, and they throng around, wanting to touch him or fumble a few words, That was-, but they don't know how to finish. Adam listens, nodding and smiling, and the whole time he doesn't take his eyes off Eric.

Eventually he manages to slip free of his worshippers and orders a True Blood, lounging against the bar, right there at Eric's side, also familiar and so very physical, but not quite the right shape to blot out the absence.

"What was that?" Eric asks, not looking up from his purchase orders.

"I was feeling nostalgic." There's a careless shrug in his voice.

Eric raises an eyebrow. "For the guillotine?"

"Sometimes things need to change." His voice goes lower, like this is significant and somehow urgent, and Eric doesn't know if Adam means long ago or now, but he can feel Adam's gaze lingering.

Until it shifts away sharply, and Eric does look up then to see what's caught Adam's attention.

Near the entrance, a small blond human has run into a wall of vampires, three of them-the weak, useless sort who hang around Fangtasia in the unlikely hopes that Eric will one day have need of them, amusing themselves in the meantime menacing the human customers. They stare at the blond boy like they can already taste him.

"Tommy," Adam says. In three long strides he's crossed the room and positioned himself between the blond and the blockheads.

The biggest, stupidest of the trio takes a step toward Adam, baring his fangs. "Get the fuck away from our food, boy, and this doesn't have to get ugly."

Eric laughs, because when was the last time anyone called Adam "boy"? And then he laughs harder when Adam says, so very like himself, "Things got ugly the minute you three stepped foot in here."

The blockhead bristles and nods to his companions, ready to go on the attack, because there are three of them and Adam looks like Lord Byron amidst the plaid and trucker caps, a harmless songbird blown off course. Of course, Eric knows what these idiots don't, that appearances can be so very deceiving, that no one should ever underestimate Adam.

When he bares his fangs and hisses, there's a palpable wave of power to back it up. Eric feels the scorch of it all the way across the room. "This human belongs to me." His voice, so light and sensual while he was singing, shakes the floor now, and the three morons blanche, belatedly recognizing what Adam truly is.

Adam apparently still feels the need to demonstrate his ownership, and he grabs the blond human by the hair, exposes his neck, and sinks his fangs into tender flesh. "Adam," the human sighs, high and breathy, melting back, his eyes fluttering closed, a dreamy expression slipping over his features. Adam splays a hand possessively across the human while he drinks, a keep out sign, and when Adam pulls away with a final lick to the human's throat, he spells it out for the morons in case they've missed it. "If you even look at him, I'll make you sorry."

The trio, who'd been frozen in place during Adam's little demonstration, snap back to their senses. Whatever feeble survival impulse they have finally kicks in, and they scuttle off like cockroaches. Eric is almost tempted to admire Adam, but of course Adam has to go and ruin it by getting sentimental over the human.

"Tommy!" Adam wraps the human up in his arms, pulling him close, stroking a hand over his back. "You okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

The human shakes his head in a daze, a big, loopy smile as he nuzzles at Adam's jaw, hearts shining out of his eyes, which just makes Adam's hen-like fussing all the more ridiculous. If the human were any more okay, there'd be a come stain on the front of his jeans.

Adam doesn't stop touching him though, lightly, everywhere, as if reassuring himself that the human is still in one piece.

"Missed you," the human murmurs, snuggling closer.

"Missed you too, baby. Hey." Adam tips the boy's chin up to look him in the eye. "I thought you were going to stay back in L.A. Water the azaleas for me."

The bleariness clears from the human's eyes, and his expression goes stubborn. "That was your plan. I never agreed to it."

"I'm just trying to look out for you." Adam hugs the boy closer.

Eric rolls his eyes, because only Adam would put on a display of strength to scare off three vampires and then allow his human companion to disobey him without even batting an eye.

The two of them settle at the bar. Adam orders the blond boy a drink, and they hang on each other like teenagers. Eric wonders if it would do any good to remind Adam that he's over two hundred years old.

"I've been talking to Monte, by the way,” the human says, trying to sound nonchalant and failing completely, just as Adam fails at glaring at him. “Oh, don’t give me that look-yeah, I’m conspiring behind your back with one of your best friends, sue me. Adam… he’s ready whenever you are. He’s pulled together a band. They're just waiting for the word. We could leave for New York tonight. The Queen there, Monte’s heard of her too. Like you said, she’s totally into music and freedom and bringing people together and stuff. Come on, Adam. Let's just go." The boy bites his lip, looking pleadingly at Adam.

Eric can't imagine why Adam hesitates. Queen Stefani Joanne Angelina, the lunatic who rules New York, should be just to his tastes. Practically a celebrity in her own right, she holds court in a rundown former sequin factory known as the House of GaGa, collecting poets and hipsters and freaks of all persuasions, humans and vampires on equal terms-the only requirement that they're interesting. She calls it art. Eric calls it an embarrassment to vampires everywhere.

"You can make them love you," the boy insists fervently. "Show them vampire or human, it doesn't have to matter."

The boy doesn't know Adam very well if he believes this is something Adam hasn't done before. He's never been able to stay away from the human world, and they always love him. Maybe this time he'll go on one of those TV singing competitions or something, Eric thinks with an amused sneer.

"It could be so-"

Adam takes the boy's chin firmly in hand and kisses the rest of that sentence right out of him. "Let's talk about this later, okay?"

"Mm," the human murmurs, arms sliding around Adam's neck as he chases another kiss and another and another…

Adam laughs, low and throaty. "Okay, baby. Maybe we should talk about this now. Down the hall, second room on the left. I'll be right there."

The boy beams happily and insists on one more kiss before heading off.

Adam comes to stand beside Eric at the bar, and much to Eric's surprise, asks, "Is it okay if he stays here? It'll just be a few days."

Asking permission is not particularly Adam's style, and Eric gives him a long, considering look before shrugging. "He's your human. I take it this means you'll be leaving soon?"

"Not just yet." He meets Eric's eye. "I haven't got what I came for." His mouth curves up slowly, impudently, and then he's gone, crossing the room, disappearing down the hall.

Adam could be talking about so many things, Eric realizes, and he's not sure he likes any of the possibilities.



The night he left Godric, Eric didn't set out with the intention of making his own progeny. He didn't go looking for Pam, not in any conscious way. Just one day there she was, a cascade of satin and tulle as she descended from a carriage, her back straight, chin at a defiant angle even as chaperones hemmed her in, cutting her off from the world. Eric watched until she'd disappeared inside the opera house and lingered for a while afterward as if the air still held her shape.

He watched her from then on, with the discipline of someone who'd once planned battles, who knew how to gather intelligence and spin it into a strategy for achieving his objectives. He studied her family's house, a prim fortress of pale stone and carved pilasters, with its rigorous routine, morning callers and afternoon tea and evening parties, servants quietly moving in the background, severe in starched black-and-white uniforms.

Pam looked every bit the grand young lady in her pale summer dresses that floated around her, a cloud of lace, her broad-brimmed hats with their bows and feathers, but Eric had a military eye, and he saw the mutiny in her. He saw the fleeting expression when she thought no one was looking, sharp and intelligent, although a proper young lady was supposed to think about nothing more weighty than fashion and the weather. He noticed when her gaze lingered on the boy who drove the carriage, someone she should have looked right through. Sometimes he caught her distracted, staring into the air, as if she were imagining how everything could be different.

Perhaps this was what Godric had felt all those years ago, watching Eric on the battlefield, although the war Pam was fighting was very different, her opponent the deadly stranglehold of expectations. Godric had given Eric what he loved most. Eric could do the same for Pam. He could give her freedom.

People who'd never waged a campaign mistakenly believed that courage was the most important military virtue, but really it was patience. Eric had learned that long ago, chafing at it in his youth. Eternity had made waiting easier, and he bided his time, looking for a moment when he could get Pam alone, out of the shadow of servants and chaperones. He took up a position in the back garden; a thicket of trees and some strong suggestion kept him hidden as he watched the path that ran from the main house to the smaller one where the coachman slept. Pam, he felt certain, had walked that path before, and would again.

She showed a gift for strategy all her own, waiting for the dark of the moon, an overcast sky, a black cloak pulled around her that made her fade into the night. He felt proud of her for that, even before she was his. When he grabbed her around the waist, slid his hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out, she didn't faint. She bit him. He carried her away to a spot he'd scouted before, a graveyard where no one would disturb them, and when he bent over her, fangs out, she didn't look afraid. She looked furious. As he sank into her neck, tasted her blood, he knew, as Godric must have known: This is it. This is the one.

Afterward, once he'd explained to her, what had happened and what it meant, she laughed. "Oh, thank God. Now can we please get out of London? I've wanted to see something, anything besides England since I was old enough to walk."

They went everywhere. Florence. Madrid. The coast of Turkey with its turquoise water that glittered in the moonlight. It felt odd to have this experience from the other side, teaching Pam to hunt, to fight, to use her vampire instincts. When he thought back on his early days with Godric, the way Godric's eyes would shine and he'd murmur beautiful, beautiful at every new thing Eric learned, it all made sense now. Pam hunted gleefully at his side, gorgeously bloodthirsty, and after a particularly thrilling evening out, sated with blood, she'd topple Eric onto the bed and clamber on top of him and hold his wrists down, because she knew he would let her.

At times, he still wondered about Godric and Adam, where they were, what they were doing, but it was different now. Godric's absence didn't echo inside him with the same desperate emptiness, because he had Pam. Because he was someone's source.

In the mountains of Bavaria, they stayed at a public house that catered to vampires, passing the days tucked away in a beautiful windowless room with a carved bed and a feather mattress. Snow began to fall the second night after they'd arrived, and ice crystals glistened in Pam's hair as they roamed the countryside, surprising lonely travelers trying to make their way to shelter, the red stain of blood blooming across the fresh snow like roses.


Eric sensed the presence when they were still miles away from the inn, through the satisfied languor of having just fed, the prickly consciousness growing stronger as they stepped through the door, up the stairs. Godric stood by the fireplace, gazing into the flames, as if he could see things no one else could. It overwhelmed Eric then, the reality of Godric's presence, burning away the nagging sense of absence, the way a human might cauterize a wound, and he fell to his knees before his maker.

"My child." Godric touched his cheek.

Eric pressed into the touch, and it didn't seem to matter that nothing had changed, that the questions Eric couldn't understand still lingered in Godric's eyes. He didn't need Godric to be everything to him, not when he had Pam, not when the two of them made him feel like a scale settling perfectly into balance.

Godric's mouth curved into a small smile, as if he understood. "Who is this?"

Pam stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes huge with shock, to see Eric on his knees, to feel the power coming off Godric. Eric rose, and held out his hand to her, and said her name, and the moment felt complete, like the closing of a circle.

They never spoke of Adam, and Eric never asked where Godric went when he disappeared for days or weeks at a time and came back smelling like vanilla and cedar and sunshine. Eric heard the rumors from other vampires of course, the whispers among humans, not that Eric couldn't have predicted it for himself; Adam had gone native.

Part 2