The Inquisitor
Title: The Inquisitor
Author: septemberoses
Fandom: True Blood
Rating: R for torture, hurt/comfort
Pairing: Eric/Godric
Word Count: 5300
Note: I've created a backstory detail of Godric being an inquisitor (i.e., a torturer) for the vampires, which I've referenced in passing in several of my fics. I am exploring the idea more fully in this one. Given the subject matter, this fic isn't especially graphic, all things considered. There are two somewhat interwoven story lines. This fic is dedicated to Blissy83 in thanks for my new, awesome LiveJournal look! It is PRETTY FUCKING NINJA, Blissy!
"How did everything work out?" Eric thought he might as well break the ice and ask; they'd gone long enough without words, although they'd been busy in other ways since Godric had arrived at the hotel room where he knew Eric would be waiting. If Eric was no longer required to be in the dungeon for the questioning as he had once been, he was there for what was needed after, and from him alone. Godric had stripped and showered and then pushed Eric down on the bed and took him quickly and silently, the first time, like a thirsty man downing a glass of water. And then again, slower, Eric still submitting to whatever was asked of him. It had always been this way. He didn't ask himself whether he was above such things now. His maker needed him, and he was there.
"It was fine," Godric answered. "I got what they wanted, and the tribunal will settle it now. All that has nothing to do with me." The vampire authorities had stepped in, and the long-simmering war that had flared up between the factions using Copenhagen as the base for their drug-running and other illegal dealings had been brought to a halt, at least for the time being.
"So it's finished? You're done?"
Godric glanced at him before rolling over on his back in bed to stare at the ceiling, looking thoughtful.
"With my duties as inquisitor? Apparently, unless they find the two vampires they're still looking for. I'm not sure how much it matters at this point, unless they want them for punishment." This was why Godric had been sent to Denmark in the first place, with Eric accompanying him as always for additional security, among other things.
Godric's summons was unusual but not surprising. If the organization simply wanted to extract a confession that suited their needs, i.e., the "facts" that had already been decided upon, any inquisitor of even marginal talent would do. But when they wanted the truth - the real truth, with names and dates and details - and the case was sufficiently important and complex, then Godric was called in. In that situation, he had a gift. He could get useful information from the most criminal-minded vampires, often the best of liars. He had a sense for sniffing out evasions or half-truths. He could judge the shades of nuance between a vampire demonstrating actual ignorance and one who was lying, even by omission. His reputation as an inquisitor had grown over the centuries until it preceded him. There were times, now, when a vampire to be put to the question took one look at who was waiting there in the dungeon and confessed before Godric even lifted a finger.
"How many did you question altogether?"
"Nine - no, ten. Some took longer than others. Every now and again there's still a surprise, even for as long as I've been doing this. The young one, the one you helped into the dungeon? He held out for most of the night -- far longer than I thought he would. And as it turned out he had some of the most useful information. So I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised after all. He does seem very bright; perhaps next time he'll choose his allies better."
Eric grimaced at the word helped. He'd have guessed that particular vampire's age at less than a hundred. He'd put up a struggle, cursing and kicking all the way; nothing that slowed Eric down much in terms of chaining him up for the questioning, but he never gave up fighting, though he could see resistance was futile. In a way, Eric respected it. Eric had left shortly thereafter. The vampire having refused to cooperate, Eric wouldn't have bet on more than an hour of Godric's tender ministrations before he'd started to sing, so it was his turn to be surprised. If that vampire had been trusted at his young age with valuable information, he must be connected (or possibly even related) to one of the older, more powerful ones. Eric made a note to find out who it was, before that connection came back to haunt them in the future.
Godric was quiet now that they had finished. Eric looked at him, unable to decide what, if anything, to say. Godric's work as an inquisitor had long been a sore point between them, more so in the last century, as Eric's own advanced age and authority served to bring them closer to being equals in the eyes of the organization. If he was excused from attending now while Godric worked, he had watched before with varying degrees of distaste, which he'd kept well hidden. Many vampires - almost all of them, probably - were drawn to the profession of torturer (and that was what it was, whatever they called it) because it provided a legal sanction for their sadism. Eric himself had killed more humans than he could possibly remember, and plenty of vampires, particularly in the old days. He understood bloodlust and revenge. He had toyed with humans and even vampires like a cat with mice. He knew himself to be capable of cruelty. But it was another thing to spend hours or days in a dungeon slowly extracting information, through the most unpleasant of methods, that did nothing to serve your own immediate needs.
"Did it bother you at all?"
"What? The torture? No." Godric sighed. "You've asked me this before. And each time the answer's the same. Why would it? I'm very good at my job, Eric. I'm not ashamed of that. And they shouldn't have been behaving the way they were. If they were less greedy and had more self-control I wouldn't have been summoned in the first place. They'll pay their fines. None of them will be sentenced to death as far as I know. What more could they ask for?"
"You think everything's black and white."
"Well, you think everything's more complicated than it is. Nobody's more familiar with the gray area than you are, Eric. They broke the rules."
"Vampires break the rules all the time."
"Yes, and if they're going to do so in a way that draws the attention of the human authorities, or injures others of their kind, then don't ask me to sympathize. They knew the risks."
Godric had an entire method worked out for his approach to torture which Eric understood, although it hadn't been explained to him directly. If his maker was going to question a group of vampires on a related issue - as he did on this trip - he sorted them out and started with the youngest, who were generally the most frightened and had the least to lose by talking quickly.
Godric had patience with them - a gentleness, as strange as it sounded. He was calm. He did not threaten. He projected an empathy that Eric knew he actually felt, which made the entire thing even more baffling. He would talk to them as they hung there, terrified, chained up and naked, waiting. He would speak to them as equals, with kindness and delicacy. Here were his first questions; he wanted answers, although they were not to lie if they didn't know. He told them that if they did know, however, and they lied anyway, they would be sorry later. It was almost funny, how much information he got without ever lifting a hand against them.
He'd told Eric once that he liked to put off the actual torture as long as possible, particularly for those who hadn't been questioned before. He usually left them hanging there alone with their thoughts for a half-hour or so before he went in. They'd often imagine such terrible things that they began to spill their secrets just thinking about what he meant to do to them with the array of implements laying about in most dungeons. Then, armed with that information, he could begin a more informed questioning of the next vampire on his list, giving them a bit (not all) of what he knew already, so that they'd think long and hard about lying, or how much they were going to suffer, and whether it was still worth it.
As Godric worked he was thoughtful and precise, grave and dignified. Having agreed to the task, he would do it to the best of his ability; he and this vampire (who was being tortured) would work on solving the vexing problem together. Assuming they'd been set up in a regular dungeon, there was a wealth of devices to choose from, but often Godric used what he'd brought - his personal favorites, whips and and floggers and canes, made to his specifications. They were expensive and were fitted into their own bespoke case, and nobody besides Eric and one or two others was permitted to touch them. After they were used, of course, they'd need to be cleaned.
If it was a younger vampire being tortured, one who seemed especially recalcitrant rather than frightened, Godric might take out the lash and give a quick, generous taste of the delights to come. Vampires (like teenagers) seemed to go through a phase where they thought of themselves as truly immortal. They might look at Godric arrogantly from the chains and hurl insults, sure that they, themselves, could not be broken, having never had an opportunity to experience what they were disdaining. With them, he timed his blows far enough apart to allow the skin to begin to heal, but close enough together so that they never recovered from the agony they felt each time the lash bit into them. He didn't cut them to the bone - which he could do - but kept them conscious, so that they could meditate for several miserable minutes on the hours and days that stretched out before them. Many of them confessed immediately.
If they lied, or still failed to talk, Godric was calm but implacable. He would remain there, using his skills to ratchet up the pain, until he got what he had come for. Humans had their own advantage here. There were limits on what you could do to them, particularly if you wanted them to live afterward; and sometimes they died anyway, without giving up their secrets. But vampires wouldn't - couldn't - die unless you killed them deliberately, although they no doubt found themselves wishing they would. Eric himself had been tortured, and by nobody as skilled as Godric. He never forgot it. Sooner or later, they all reached a breaking point.
"I wish you wouldn't do it."
"Eric, I could hardly ignore a summons like that."
"I mean do it at all. You could stop. Take your name off the list. Let them use somebody else."
"Why should I? It's not so terrible. I don't pull their fangs from spite, or rape them, or worse, all of which is common during questioning and you know it. Everyone looks the other way as long as you're producing satisfactory results. I don't mutilate them to bleed them out and weaken them. Even the young one I questioned last night, as difficult as that was for him, I'd be surprised if he wasn't healed sufficiently to stand before the magister this evening for his sentencing. They're going to be questioned one way or another, Eric. All things considered, if I can get a higher quality of information and inflict less lasting damage, isn't that better for everyone involved?"
"That's because you're such an expert at the pain," Eric muttered.
"Well, yes, there's that." Godric raised an eyebrow and looked at Eric. "I wouldn't be much of an inquisitor otherwise, would I? And if the first two vampires I questioned told me details of every last scheme they were involved in, including those that had nothing to do with why they were there, rather than have me use the lash on them for another five minutes, that's all to the good, isn't it? I didn't punish them further, even though I could have, and they were off to the magister before the night was half over."
"You burn them."
"Well, the skin's very sensitive. For the amount of pain it inflicts, the damage isn't so great."
Eric thought of the smell and was disgusted. It made him angry, although he knew he wasn't being rational.
"I know it's legal, but how can you do it?" Eric bit back the rest of his sentence. As it was done to you. And to me.
They'd both known pain. They'd been in countless battles over territory, in larger wars, they'd starved and bled and suffered at various times over their very long lives. Being vampires made them almost immune from death, but they could be hurt - had been hurt - and healed many times.
It was natural that over so many centuries Eric would have been captured, even held and tortured. He still viewed vampires as lawless in their essential natures, but things had once been much looser than they were now. He'd always known, in those earlier days, that Godric's existence and their continuing bond had offered him an additional protection many vampires didn't have.
But there was only one episode that stood out in his mind, no matter how much time had passed since. He'd gotten crossways with a shirt-tail-riding minor aristocrat, a refugee from the revolution in France, a nobody who'd shown up in the Louisiana territories and, armed with plenty of stolen gold, set himself up as the self-styled King of the South. Eric, working farther north, wished him nothing but ill yet figured he was welcome to that mosquito-infested swamp if he wanted it, as long as he didn't get in Eric's way.
But it was Eric who found himself taken by surprise and thrown in a root cellar. He'd let his guard down, foolishly underestimating both the King's reach and his mindless greed. Eric had relied, as always, on the fact that Godric loomed like an ancient threat in the background, conferring protection over his child even when he wasn't there. But that only worked if the other vampire cared. As it turned out the King, a rich young upstart and more than a little mad, didn't care at all.
"You think your maker will protect you," he'd mocked. "Well, where is he? Why hasn't he come to rescue you?" In dark moments Eric remembered his words as he laughed at Eric's agony.
At first Eric thought they only meant to gain all the information they could about his business dealings, his territory, his spies. But by the end of the first week (he was guessing at time by then), having given up anything and everything he had to give, in the small part of his mind that was still capable of reason, he realized they could never let him go. Not after what they'd done. Earlier the King himself had said, "I'm going to make an example of you," but Eric had thought it would be by his living to tell of it, not by dying, and not like this. This was a dog's death. He deserved better.
Since they could have ended him at any time with a stake, they were now continuing to toy with him for their own amusement. He knew it was over for him, but even as the flame of his life burned very low he managed a little resentment. How could he possibly still be coming to his senses after what they'd done? If he'd stop waking they'd get bored and finish him, and then he could go to Valhalla and again be a whole man. He must still be healing a little, although he didn't know how, given his blood loss from all the parts of him they'd hacked off for fun here in this dank underground hole. Perhaps he did have a soul, like the flaming wick on the shrinking candle, and it wouldn't go out until everything else was consumed? He wondered how many days it had been, and how much longer until he was finished. He hoped it would be soon.
They came and unchained him, lifted him up, and carried him outside to die. He could smell the night air. After what they'd done already, being burned to death by the rising sun sounded pleasant. He longed to see those rays once more as he died; he'd missed them as a vampire. But he could no longer see, or really feel much of anything except relief. His mind was almost free at that point, floating up to soar above his broken body. He drifted along, contented, and then there was nothingness.
And then there was pain --- more pain, terrible pain, and he cried out in fury. Hadn't he already suffered? He had died a warrior's death, if not precisely in battle. He had been consigned to the flames, as was the custom, even if not on a pyre. Where was Valhalla? Had he been sent by mistake to a lesser place, like Hel? Even so, where were his fingers, his toes? Why should he have to endure these phantom pains now, from parts of him that were no longer there? He couldn't see - they'd taken his eyes as well; where were those? This was outrageous. Had he not been brave, a fighter -- in human life, and again for centuries afterward? Had he not been loyal? He was a good leader. He had been … not too greedy. He had outlived most. And this was his reward? Some half-life, perhaps, to be gotten through before he joined his old friends in the feasting hall, raising a cup and boasting of his exploits? The sadness came over him then. He hadn't been able to say goodbye to Godric, who would not be following him there, going instead (if he ever went) to the gods of his own people.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to Godric's memory. Even that hurt his parched throat. He couldn't move, there was something pressing down on him. The maddening pain went on, and he couldn't fathom why. Sometimes he heard sounds, but nothing he could make sense of - high whistles, and low rumbles. Sometimes he felt as if his body was lifting up, floating in the air. He would feel hot, or cold. And then would come the feeling that he was drowning, which was strange, it must be some ancient memory. He hadn't died by drowning, he knew that much. It was so unfair.
And then one night he felt it - he was sure - he felt Godric's shade nearby. Had Godric died too, then? That was sad. Perhaps that was why he hadn't come for Eric, although Eric hadn't expected him to, the vampires who'd taken him had covered their tracks carefully, even going so far as to leave evidence behind that suggested a different culprit. (Perhaps he wasn't giving the King the credit he deserved.) Eric had hoped that eventually Godric would avenge him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again into the blackness. He'd not prepared himself properly for death, he could see that now. It was an easy mistake to make if you were immortal. That must be why he was stuck in this middle place. But if this was a place of punishment, then Godric wouldn't be here in his mind, would he? Then again … perhaps that was the punishment - that he would have the sense of Godric, always near, and yet be unable to hear him, to see him. To touch him. He felt the tears run over from his ruined eyes at the thought of it, the now-familiar agony in his body that no longer existed. He could feel the ache in his ribs as he began to sob, but there was no sound, which only made him cry harder, although he should have been ashamed.
He was on fire again - his hands, his feet, being seared away. He screamed into the nothingness, and to his great surprise a roar sounded in his ears, startling him into silence. What was it? When the roar stopped he could hear panting - ragged, frantic, close by - and after a moment he realized that what he was hearing was himself.
"Eric, be still." The Godric-shade was still there, miraculously, in the darkness.
"But it burns!" His voice croaked. He shouldn't be shouting at his maker's ghost like that, but he was still furious. Had his crimes been so terrible? This was all deeply unjust.
"I know, I'm sorry about that, it can't be helped."
And then the flood again, and the pain, and the bile rising as he fought against - something draining into his mouth, choking him. Unable to fight, he swallowed. It was mead, the nectar of the gods, sweet and warm and honeyed, like ancient blood. So sweet … it tasted like Godric's blood. He drank and drank, blissful, enjoying the dream while it lasted, until he sank again into darkness.
"Why does it hurt so much?"
"I don't know. But it does. The hands are the worst. Perhaps it's because they have so much feeling in them." Eric couldn't have said his hands were the worst, necessarily. It was all bad.
"No, stop fidgeting," Godric said. "You'll injure them again. I shouldn't have to command you."
"They … itch. Or something." He couldn't describe it precisely. His skin crawled.
"Good. They're supposed to."
"Why can't you take this thing off my eyes?" He hated not being able to see.
"Everyone says they'll heal faster if they're bandaged."
"Did you ever lose an eye?"
"No. I had a foot off, once."
"How?" Eric hadn't known that.
"Being careless. I didn't make that mistake again."
"What if …" Eric licked his lips. He still felt parched all the time, as if he could never have enough to drink. "What if they don't come back?"
"They will. It takes time, that's all. You're healing much faster; I can see it, even if you can't." Eric thought about how disgusting he must have looked - must still look, even now.
As if Godric knew his thoughts, he felt lips press softly against his cheek.
"Can you feel that?"
"Yes." The numbness in various parts of his body was fading. The lips moved down to his throat.
"How about this?"
Eric nodded.
"There, you see?" Godric kissed his chest, touching it briefly with his tongue, as if tasting Eric's skin.
"Shouldn't you go and feed?" Eric's voice still sounded hoarse; he hoped it would heal too. It was annoying.
"I already did, thank you. And I need to feed you before you fall asleep." Godric kissed his chest again and then shifted his body.
Eric gasped, his back arching in pleasure against the blankets beneath him. He tried to hold his hands quite still next to him, so Godric wouldn't chide him, or stop. It pained him to move, and he didn't care.
After a moment Godric laughed.
"Well, that seems to be working correctly." Godric lowered his head again, and then, for a few precious minutes, Eric had something else to dwell on besides his hurts.
"I'm sorry?"
Godric had been speaking and Eric, lost in his memories, had failed to listen. He was back in this room now, in Copenhagen, in bed, with his maker. Those other things were long behind him.
"Would you rather I did something else to them? Something that would take longer?"
"I'd rather you didn't do it at all. You don't need to. Nobody would hold it against you if you didn't. You don't need the money. You don't even enjoy it properly - not like the others. At least with them I understand why they do it." This was folly. He was overstepping his bounds. Godric would get angry, but Eric couldn't seem to stop himself.
"But I do enjoy it, Eric. I enjoy the puzzle of it - making the pieces of information fit together. I enjoy feeling useful. I enjoy knowing that much of what I find out is used to stop even greater bloodshed."
"If it doesn't bother you, then why are you like this? Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about." Eric's voice was more bitter than he meant it to be. He knew he was both foolish and wrong, which only irritated him further.
"Because it's tiring, Eric. Not just physically tiring - which it is - but it's not an exact science, not even for me. They say things after awhile just to get me to stop. I have to sort through all of that, and figure out what's true and what they're making up."
"You never feel guilty after?"
"Honestly? With humans, sometimes, yes, although thankfully I don't get many of those. It's not clear to me that humans really understand who they're dealing with until they find themselves in front of the magister, or me, asking for mercy they're not going to get. With vampires? No. I don't have to put anyone to death - as you know - and everything else I do is a temporary discomfort."
Eric squinted at him.
"I can't believe you just called it 'discomfort.' You think they don't remember what you did to them?"
Godric had every right to be angry; Eric was well across the line now. But Godric wasn't angry. Instead he looked at Eric with a strange pity.
"I know they remember, Eric. Just as you remember. Although I wished it otherwise, if you'll recall."
For some time after Eric healed, Godric had asked - had almost begged - to be allowed to remove the memory of the torture, but Eric had refused. He'd take the rage and the terror that never left him, that haunted him in his sleep, over having part of his mind excised. Godric could simply have done it, of course, whether Eric consented or not. The fact that he hadn't was a clue to the essential nature of their bond.
Eric looked down, and then away. Of course Godric would know what he'd been thinking about. Of course he'd be patient, understanding the source of Eric's anger better than Eric understood it himself. And this was how Eric repaid him?
Eric cleared his throat. Since they were skirting around the topic they never discussed, and he was already ashamed of his behavior, he hadn't much more face to lose. There was something he had long wanted to ask.
"You never told me what happened, Godric. To the King, I mean."
"It was better that you didn't know. Then nobody could say you'd had a hand in it."
"But … I couldn't have." Eric's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of it. "I couldn't even get out of bed. And by then everyone said he was missing, and most likely dead, but they couldn't be sure."
"It was true he was gone, but I didn't find him for months after. He went into hiding once I took you back. We killed everyone we found there, but he'd have known who was behind it."
"So you were there?"
"Of course. I had plenty of help, but I wouldn't have left it to someone else. It was too important."
Other parts of what had happened were seared into his brain, but that night was mostly a void. He thought they'd come to kill him, he could recall that much.
"I don't - I didn't realize you were there."
"No, I didn't think so. By then, the less you remembered, the better. I took you and I hid you away. I had my own enemies besides the King, and you couldn't defend yourself. I was careful. I didn't want it known how badly you'd been hurt." For my pride, Eric thought. And for yours.
"But in the end," Godric said with a small note of satisfaction, "I found him. I was patient, and he got careless. Perhaps he was tired of running. Or maybe he thought that, since I had you back, I was willing to let it go. Either way, the end was the same."
"Nobody ever found anything that proved it. That he was really dead."
"I knew they'd never find anything, and that was safer for both of us. Nobody mourned him, Eric. He was a tyrant. He had no respect for what had been there before he was. We could never have gone on as we had been, with him in power. We had the beginnings of trade, and rules and laws, even if they were crude and not always clear or just. He would have destroyed it all and taken us down with him. We would have descended back into lawlessness, the way it had once been."
"So that's why you did it?"
"He did what he should not have done."
Eric wanted to hear him say it, to be sure he was understanding correctly, even though it hurt him, which was foolish. What difference did it make now?
"You killed him so we could go on trading as we'd been doing. So we wouldn't lose the alliances we'd already begun to make. The beginnings of our self-rule." That was sensible, nobody could deny that Godric took a long view of things.
Godric cocked his head, studying Eric's face in the darkness.
"No, Eric," Godric answered, his voice gentle. "That was what we all gained by his death. I killed him because of what he did to you. Surely you must know that."
How could he have doubted? The truth, extracted by him after all this time, was less satisfying than he'd expected.
"How did you do it?" he asked softly. He'd always wondered.
"He was very clever. But he was less cautious than he should have been, and too trusting of those he'd thought were his allies. People feared him rather than loved him, and some of them feared me more. Or trusted me more, I couldn't say."
"No … I meant …" Having gone this far, he would know. "I meant, how exactly did you kill him?"
"Do you want to know how much he suffered for what he'd done? Does it matter who betrayed him, and why?" Godric's voice was kind. "He got what he deserved, Eric, a death that was fitting for the crime he'd committed. It was an ancient punishment, not one I invented. I didn't drag it out. I had other things to attend to. But he was glad of the end, when it came. Even then I was skilled." He paused, watching Eric's face. "Is that enough?"
Eric nodded. He already had countless images of evil swirling through his head. He didn't need any more.
"All right, then. I'm going back to my room. We're both tired. We need to sleep." Godric began to slip from the bed.
"No … wait." Eric caught his hand. "Please stay. Stay here tonight, with me. I won't bother you. I promise."
"Eric …"
"You need to feed more."
"I'm all right."
"You never drink enough when you're fucking me." Godric smiled at that, but it was the truth.
"Please." Eric reached over and stroked the side of his maker's face gently, and then leaned back against the pillows and offered up his neck. Godric didn't have to feed, but he was hungry, Eric knew it. And tired. "Just eat, and go to sleep. I swear I'll treat you like a brother."
Godric laughed.
"Eric, that's disgusting." He leaned forward, settling in on top, and Eric enfolded him in an embrace as ancient as they were. He caught his breath at the fangs driving in, a momentary pain that quickly went away. He closed his eyes and ran one hand up and down Godric's back, soothing him, feeling the power there in all that muscle, all that sweetly scented skin, while the other hand stroked Godric's hair, as if he were a child with a fever. After a few minutes Eric reached out and eased the blanket over them in the darkness, knowing that if he did so, and if he was very quiet, Godric would fall asleep just as he was, and then Eric could hold him close until he fell asleep himself.
Author: septemberoses
Fandom: True Blood
Rating: R for torture, hurt/comfort
Pairing: Eric/Godric
Word Count: 5300
Note: I've created a backstory detail of Godric being an inquisitor (i.e., a torturer) for the vampires, which I've referenced in passing in several of my fics. I am exploring the idea more fully in this one. Given the subject matter, this fic isn't especially graphic, all things considered. There are two somewhat interwoven story lines. This fic is dedicated to Blissy83 in thanks for my new, awesome LiveJournal look! It is PRETTY FUCKING NINJA, Blissy!
"How did everything work out?" Eric thought he might as well break the ice and ask; they'd gone long enough without words, although they'd been busy in other ways since Godric had arrived at the hotel room where he knew Eric would be waiting. If Eric was no longer required to be in the dungeon for the questioning as he had once been, he was there for what was needed after, and from him alone. Godric had stripped and showered and then pushed Eric down on the bed and took him quickly and silently, the first time, like a thirsty man downing a glass of water. And then again, slower, Eric still submitting to whatever was asked of him. It had always been this way. He didn't ask himself whether he was above such things now. His maker needed him, and he was there.
"It was fine," Godric answered. "I got what they wanted, and the tribunal will settle it now. All that has nothing to do with me." The vampire authorities had stepped in, and the long-simmering war that had flared up between the factions using Copenhagen as the base for their drug-running and other illegal dealings had been brought to a halt, at least for the time being.
"So it's finished? You're done?"
Godric glanced at him before rolling over on his back in bed to stare at the ceiling, looking thoughtful.
"With my duties as inquisitor? Apparently, unless they find the two vampires they're still looking for. I'm not sure how much it matters at this point, unless they want them for punishment." This was why Godric had been sent to Denmark in the first place, with Eric accompanying him as always for additional security, among other things.
Godric's summons was unusual but not surprising. If the organization simply wanted to extract a confession that suited their needs, i.e., the "facts" that had already been decided upon, any inquisitor of even marginal talent would do. But when they wanted the truth - the real truth, with names and dates and details - and the case was sufficiently important and complex, then Godric was called in. In that situation, he had a gift. He could get useful information from the most criminal-minded vampires, often the best of liars. He had a sense for sniffing out evasions or half-truths. He could judge the shades of nuance between a vampire demonstrating actual ignorance and one who was lying, even by omission. His reputation as an inquisitor had grown over the centuries until it preceded him. There were times, now, when a vampire to be put to the question took one look at who was waiting there in the dungeon and confessed before Godric even lifted a finger.
"How many did you question altogether?"
"Nine - no, ten. Some took longer than others. Every now and again there's still a surprise, even for as long as I've been doing this. The young one, the one you helped into the dungeon? He held out for most of the night -- far longer than I thought he would. And as it turned out he had some of the most useful information. So I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised after all. He does seem very bright; perhaps next time he'll choose his allies better."
Eric grimaced at the word helped. He'd have guessed that particular vampire's age at less than a hundred. He'd put up a struggle, cursing and kicking all the way; nothing that slowed Eric down much in terms of chaining him up for the questioning, but he never gave up fighting, though he could see resistance was futile. In a way, Eric respected it. Eric had left shortly thereafter. The vampire having refused to cooperate, Eric wouldn't have bet on more than an hour of Godric's tender ministrations before he'd started to sing, so it was his turn to be surprised. If that vampire had been trusted at his young age with valuable information, he must be connected (or possibly even related) to one of the older, more powerful ones. Eric made a note to find out who it was, before that connection came back to haunt them in the future.
Godric was quiet now that they had finished. Eric looked at him, unable to decide what, if anything, to say. Godric's work as an inquisitor had long been a sore point between them, more so in the last century, as Eric's own advanced age and authority served to bring them closer to being equals in the eyes of the organization. If he was excused from attending now while Godric worked, he had watched before with varying degrees of distaste, which he'd kept well hidden. Many vampires - almost all of them, probably - were drawn to the profession of torturer (and that was what it was, whatever they called it) because it provided a legal sanction for their sadism. Eric himself had killed more humans than he could possibly remember, and plenty of vampires, particularly in the old days. He understood bloodlust and revenge. He had toyed with humans and even vampires like a cat with mice. He knew himself to be capable of cruelty. But it was another thing to spend hours or days in a dungeon slowly extracting information, through the most unpleasant of methods, that did nothing to serve your own immediate needs.
"Did it bother you at all?"
"What? The torture? No." Godric sighed. "You've asked me this before. And each time the answer's the same. Why would it? I'm very good at my job, Eric. I'm not ashamed of that. And they shouldn't have been behaving the way they were. If they were less greedy and had more self-control I wouldn't have been summoned in the first place. They'll pay their fines. None of them will be sentenced to death as far as I know. What more could they ask for?"
"You think everything's black and white."
"Well, you think everything's more complicated than it is. Nobody's more familiar with the gray area than you are, Eric. They broke the rules."
"Vampires break the rules all the time."
"Yes, and if they're going to do so in a way that draws the attention of the human authorities, or injures others of their kind, then don't ask me to sympathize. They knew the risks."
Godric had an entire method worked out for his approach to torture which Eric understood, although it hadn't been explained to him directly. If his maker was going to question a group of vampires on a related issue - as he did on this trip - he sorted them out and started with the youngest, who were generally the most frightened and had the least to lose by talking quickly.
Godric had patience with them - a gentleness, as strange as it sounded. He was calm. He did not threaten. He projected an empathy that Eric knew he actually felt, which made the entire thing even more baffling. He would talk to them as they hung there, terrified, chained up and naked, waiting. He would speak to them as equals, with kindness and delicacy. Here were his first questions; he wanted answers, although they were not to lie if they didn't know. He told them that if they did know, however, and they lied anyway, they would be sorry later. It was almost funny, how much information he got without ever lifting a hand against them.
He'd told Eric once that he liked to put off the actual torture as long as possible, particularly for those who hadn't been questioned before. He usually left them hanging there alone with their thoughts for a half-hour or so before he went in. They'd often imagine such terrible things that they began to spill their secrets just thinking about what he meant to do to them with the array of implements laying about in most dungeons. Then, armed with that information, he could begin a more informed questioning of the next vampire on his list, giving them a bit (not all) of what he knew already, so that they'd think long and hard about lying, or how much they were going to suffer, and whether it was still worth it.
As Godric worked he was thoughtful and precise, grave and dignified. Having agreed to the task, he would do it to the best of his ability; he and this vampire (who was being tortured) would work on solving the vexing problem together. Assuming they'd been set up in a regular dungeon, there was a wealth of devices to choose from, but often Godric used what he'd brought - his personal favorites, whips and and floggers and canes, made to his specifications. They were expensive and were fitted into their own bespoke case, and nobody besides Eric and one or two others was permitted to touch them. After they were used, of course, they'd need to be cleaned.
If it was a younger vampire being tortured, one who seemed especially recalcitrant rather than frightened, Godric might take out the lash and give a quick, generous taste of the delights to come. Vampires (like teenagers) seemed to go through a phase where they thought of themselves as truly immortal. They might look at Godric arrogantly from the chains and hurl insults, sure that they, themselves, could not be broken, having never had an opportunity to experience what they were disdaining. With them, he timed his blows far enough apart to allow the skin to begin to heal, but close enough together so that they never recovered from the agony they felt each time the lash bit into them. He didn't cut them to the bone - which he could do - but kept them conscious, so that they could meditate for several miserable minutes on the hours and days that stretched out before them. Many of them confessed immediately.
If they lied, or still failed to talk, Godric was calm but implacable. He would remain there, using his skills to ratchet up the pain, until he got what he had come for. Humans had their own advantage here. There were limits on what you could do to them, particularly if you wanted them to live afterward; and sometimes they died anyway, without giving up their secrets. But vampires wouldn't - couldn't - die unless you killed them deliberately, although they no doubt found themselves wishing they would. Eric himself had been tortured, and by nobody as skilled as Godric. He never forgot it. Sooner or later, they all reached a breaking point.
"I wish you wouldn't do it."
"Eric, I could hardly ignore a summons like that."
"I mean do it at all. You could stop. Take your name off the list. Let them use somebody else."
"Why should I? It's not so terrible. I don't pull their fangs from spite, or rape them, or worse, all of which is common during questioning and you know it. Everyone looks the other way as long as you're producing satisfactory results. I don't mutilate them to bleed them out and weaken them. Even the young one I questioned last night, as difficult as that was for him, I'd be surprised if he wasn't healed sufficiently to stand before the magister this evening for his sentencing. They're going to be questioned one way or another, Eric. All things considered, if I can get a higher quality of information and inflict less lasting damage, isn't that better for everyone involved?"
"That's because you're such an expert at the pain," Eric muttered.
"Well, yes, there's that." Godric raised an eyebrow and looked at Eric. "I wouldn't be much of an inquisitor otherwise, would I? And if the first two vampires I questioned told me details of every last scheme they were involved in, including those that had nothing to do with why they were there, rather than have me use the lash on them for another five minutes, that's all to the good, isn't it? I didn't punish them further, even though I could have, and they were off to the magister before the night was half over."
"You burn them."
"Well, the skin's very sensitive. For the amount of pain it inflicts, the damage isn't so great."
Eric thought of the smell and was disgusted. It made him angry, although he knew he wasn't being rational.
"I know it's legal, but how can you do it?" Eric bit back the rest of his sentence. As it was done to you. And to me.
They'd both known pain. They'd been in countless battles over territory, in larger wars, they'd starved and bled and suffered at various times over their very long lives. Being vampires made them almost immune from death, but they could be hurt - had been hurt - and healed many times.
It was natural that over so many centuries Eric would have been captured, even held and tortured. He still viewed vampires as lawless in their essential natures, but things had once been much looser than they were now. He'd always known, in those earlier days, that Godric's existence and their continuing bond had offered him an additional protection many vampires didn't have.
But there was only one episode that stood out in his mind, no matter how much time had passed since. He'd gotten crossways with a shirt-tail-riding minor aristocrat, a refugee from the revolution in France, a nobody who'd shown up in the Louisiana territories and, armed with plenty of stolen gold, set himself up as the self-styled King of the South. Eric, working farther north, wished him nothing but ill yet figured he was welcome to that mosquito-infested swamp if he wanted it, as long as he didn't get in Eric's way.
But it was Eric who found himself taken by surprise and thrown in a root cellar. He'd let his guard down, foolishly underestimating both the King's reach and his mindless greed. Eric had relied, as always, on the fact that Godric loomed like an ancient threat in the background, conferring protection over his child even when he wasn't there. But that only worked if the other vampire cared. As it turned out the King, a rich young upstart and more than a little mad, didn't care at all.
"You think your maker will protect you," he'd mocked. "Well, where is he? Why hasn't he come to rescue you?" In dark moments Eric remembered his words as he laughed at Eric's agony.
At first Eric thought they only meant to gain all the information they could about his business dealings, his territory, his spies. But by the end of the first week (he was guessing at time by then), having given up anything and everything he had to give, in the small part of his mind that was still capable of reason, he realized they could never let him go. Not after what they'd done. Earlier the King himself had said, "I'm going to make an example of you," but Eric had thought it would be by his living to tell of it, not by dying, and not like this. This was a dog's death. He deserved better.
Since they could have ended him at any time with a stake, they were now continuing to toy with him for their own amusement. He knew it was over for him, but even as the flame of his life burned very low he managed a little resentment. How could he possibly still be coming to his senses after what they'd done? If he'd stop waking they'd get bored and finish him, and then he could go to Valhalla and again be a whole man. He must still be healing a little, although he didn't know how, given his blood loss from all the parts of him they'd hacked off for fun here in this dank underground hole. Perhaps he did have a soul, like the flaming wick on the shrinking candle, and it wouldn't go out until everything else was consumed? He wondered how many days it had been, and how much longer until he was finished. He hoped it would be soon.
They came and unchained him, lifted him up, and carried him outside to die. He could smell the night air. After what they'd done already, being burned to death by the rising sun sounded pleasant. He longed to see those rays once more as he died; he'd missed them as a vampire. But he could no longer see, or really feel much of anything except relief. His mind was almost free at that point, floating up to soar above his broken body. He drifted along, contented, and then there was nothingness.
And then there was pain --- more pain, terrible pain, and he cried out in fury. Hadn't he already suffered? He had died a warrior's death, if not precisely in battle. He had been consigned to the flames, as was the custom, even if not on a pyre. Where was Valhalla? Had he been sent by mistake to a lesser place, like Hel? Even so, where were his fingers, his toes? Why should he have to endure these phantom pains now, from parts of him that were no longer there? He couldn't see - they'd taken his eyes as well; where were those? This was outrageous. Had he not been brave, a fighter -- in human life, and again for centuries afterward? Had he not been loyal? He was a good leader. He had been … not too greedy. He had outlived most. And this was his reward? Some half-life, perhaps, to be gotten through before he joined his old friends in the feasting hall, raising a cup and boasting of his exploits? The sadness came over him then. He hadn't been able to say goodbye to Godric, who would not be following him there, going instead (if he ever went) to the gods of his own people.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to Godric's memory. Even that hurt his parched throat. He couldn't move, there was something pressing down on him. The maddening pain went on, and he couldn't fathom why. Sometimes he heard sounds, but nothing he could make sense of - high whistles, and low rumbles. Sometimes he felt as if his body was lifting up, floating in the air. He would feel hot, or cold. And then would come the feeling that he was drowning, which was strange, it must be some ancient memory. He hadn't died by drowning, he knew that much. It was so unfair.
And then one night he felt it - he was sure - he felt Godric's shade nearby. Had Godric died too, then? That was sad. Perhaps that was why he hadn't come for Eric, although Eric hadn't expected him to, the vampires who'd taken him had covered their tracks carefully, even going so far as to leave evidence behind that suggested a different culprit. (Perhaps he wasn't giving the King the credit he deserved.) Eric had hoped that eventually Godric would avenge him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again into the blackness. He'd not prepared himself properly for death, he could see that now. It was an easy mistake to make if you were immortal. That must be why he was stuck in this middle place. But if this was a place of punishment, then Godric wouldn't be here in his mind, would he? Then again … perhaps that was the punishment - that he would have the sense of Godric, always near, and yet be unable to hear him, to see him. To touch him. He felt the tears run over from his ruined eyes at the thought of it, the now-familiar agony in his body that no longer existed. He could feel the ache in his ribs as he began to sob, but there was no sound, which only made him cry harder, although he should have been ashamed.
He was on fire again - his hands, his feet, being seared away. He screamed into the nothingness, and to his great surprise a roar sounded in his ears, startling him into silence. What was it? When the roar stopped he could hear panting - ragged, frantic, close by - and after a moment he realized that what he was hearing was himself.
"Eric, be still." The Godric-shade was still there, miraculously, in the darkness.
"But it burns!" His voice croaked. He shouldn't be shouting at his maker's ghost like that, but he was still furious. Had his crimes been so terrible? This was all deeply unjust.
"I know, I'm sorry about that, it can't be helped."
And then the flood again, and the pain, and the bile rising as he fought against - something draining into his mouth, choking him. Unable to fight, he swallowed. It was mead, the nectar of the gods, sweet and warm and honeyed, like ancient blood. So sweet … it tasted like Godric's blood. He drank and drank, blissful, enjoying the dream while it lasted, until he sank again into darkness.
"Why does it hurt so much?"
"I don't know. But it does. The hands are the worst. Perhaps it's because they have so much feeling in them." Eric couldn't have said his hands were the worst, necessarily. It was all bad.
"No, stop fidgeting," Godric said. "You'll injure them again. I shouldn't have to command you."
"They … itch. Or something." He couldn't describe it precisely. His skin crawled.
"Good. They're supposed to."
"Why can't you take this thing off my eyes?" He hated not being able to see.
"Everyone says they'll heal faster if they're bandaged."
"Did you ever lose an eye?"
"No. I had a foot off, once."
"How?" Eric hadn't known that.
"Being careless. I didn't make that mistake again."
"What if …" Eric licked his lips. He still felt parched all the time, as if he could never have enough to drink. "What if they don't come back?"
"They will. It takes time, that's all. You're healing much faster; I can see it, even if you can't." Eric thought about how disgusting he must have looked - must still look, even now.
As if Godric knew his thoughts, he felt lips press softly against his cheek.
"Can you feel that?"
"Yes." The numbness in various parts of his body was fading. The lips moved down to his throat.
"How about this?"
Eric nodded.
"There, you see?" Godric kissed his chest, touching it briefly with his tongue, as if tasting Eric's skin.
"Shouldn't you go and feed?" Eric's voice still sounded hoarse; he hoped it would heal too. It was annoying.
"I already did, thank you. And I need to feed you before you fall asleep." Godric kissed his chest again and then shifted his body.
Eric gasped, his back arching in pleasure against the blankets beneath him. He tried to hold his hands quite still next to him, so Godric wouldn't chide him, or stop. It pained him to move, and he didn't care.
After a moment Godric laughed.
"Well, that seems to be working correctly." Godric lowered his head again, and then, for a few precious minutes, Eric had something else to dwell on besides his hurts.
"I'm sorry?"
Godric had been speaking and Eric, lost in his memories, had failed to listen. He was back in this room now, in Copenhagen, in bed, with his maker. Those other things were long behind him.
"Would you rather I did something else to them? Something that would take longer?"
"I'd rather you didn't do it at all. You don't need to. Nobody would hold it against you if you didn't. You don't need the money. You don't even enjoy it properly - not like the others. At least with them I understand why they do it." This was folly. He was overstepping his bounds. Godric would get angry, but Eric couldn't seem to stop himself.
"But I do enjoy it, Eric. I enjoy the puzzle of it - making the pieces of information fit together. I enjoy feeling useful. I enjoy knowing that much of what I find out is used to stop even greater bloodshed."
"If it doesn't bother you, then why are you like this? Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about." Eric's voice was more bitter than he meant it to be. He knew he was both foolish and wrong, which only irritated him further.
"Because it's tiring, Eric. Not just physically tiring - which it is - but it's not an exact science, not even for me. They say things after awhile just to get me to stop. I have to sort through all of that, and figure out what's true and what they're making up."
"You never feel guilty after?"
"Honestly? With humans, sometimes, yes, although thankfully I don't get many of those. It's not clear to me that humans really understand who they're dealing with until they find themselves in front of the magister, or me, asking for mercy they're not going to get. With vampires? No. I don't have to put anyone to death - as you know - and everything else I do is a temporary discomfort."
Eric squinted at him.
"I can't believe you just called it 'discomfort.' You think they don't remember what you did to them?"
Godric had every right to be angry; Eric was well across the line now. But Godric wasn't angry. Instead he looked at Eric with a strange pity.
"I know they remember, Eric. Just as you remember. Although I wished it otherwise, if you'll recall."
For some time after Eric healed, Godric had asked - had almost begged - to be allowed to remove the memory of the torture, but Eric had refused. He'd take the rage and the terror that never left him, that haunted him in his sleep, over having part of his mind excised. Godric could simply have done it, of course, whether Eric consented or not. The fact that he hadn't was a clue to the essential nature of their bond.
Eric looked down, and then away. Of course Godric would know what he'd been thinking about. Of course he'd be patient, understanding the source of Eric's anger better than Eric understood it himself. And this was how Eric repaid him?
Eric cleared his throat. Since they were skirting around the topic they never discussed, and he was already ashamed of his behavior, he hadn't much more face to lose. There was something he had long wanted to ask.
"You never told me what happened, Godric. To the King, I mean."
"It was better that you didn't know. Then nobody could say you'd had a hand in it."
"But … I couldn't have." Eric's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of it. "I couldn't even get out of bed. And by then everyone said he was missing, and most likely dead, but they couldn't be sure."
"It was true he was gone, but I didn't find him for months after. He went into hiding once I took you back. We killed everyone we found there, but he'd have known who was behind it."
"So you were there?"
"Of course. I had plenty of help, but I wouldn't have left it to someone else. It was too important."
Other parts of what had happened were seared into his brain, but that night was mostly a void. He thought they'd come to kill him, he could recall that much.
"I don't - I didn't realize you were there."
"No, I didn't think so. By then, the less you remembered, the better. I took you and I hid you away. I had my own enemies besides the King, and you couldn't defend yourself. I was careful. I didn't want it known how badly you'd been hurt." For my pride, Eric thought. And for yours.
"But in the end," Godric said with a small note of satisfaction, "I found him. I was patient, and he got careless. Perhaps he was tired of running. Or maybe he thought that, since I had you back, I was willing to let it go. Either way, the end was the same."
"Nobody ever found anything that proved it. That he was really dead."
"I knew they'd never find anything, and that was safer for both of us. Nobody mourned him, Eric. He was a tyrant. He had no respect for what had been there before he was. We could never have gone on as we had been, with him in power. We had the beginnings of trade, and rules and laws, even if they were crude and not always clear or just. He would have destroyed it all and taken us down with him. We would have descended back into lawlessness, the way it had once been."
"So that's why you did it?"
"He did what he should not have done."
Eric wanted to hear him say it, to be sure he was understanding correctly, even though it hurt him, which was foolish. What difference did it make now?
"You killed him so we could go on trading as we'd been doing. So we wouldn't lose the alliances we'd already begun to make. The beginnings of our self-rule." That was sensible, nobody could deny that Godric took a long view of things.
Godric cocked his head, studying Eric's face in the darkness.
"No, Eric," Godric answered, his voice gentle. "That was what we all gained by his death. I killed him because of what he did to you. Surely you must know that."
How could he have doubted? The truth, extracted by him after all this time, was less satisfying than he'd expected.
"How did you do it?" he asked softly. He'd always wondered.
"He was very clever. But he was less cautious than he should have been, and too trusting of those he'd thought were his allies. People feared him rather than loved him, and some of them feared me more. Or trusted me more, I couldn't say."
"No … I meant …" Having gone this far, he would know. "I meant, how exactly did you kill him?"
"Do you want to know how much he suffered for what he'd done? Does it matter who betrayed him, and why?" Godric's voice was kind. "He got what he deserved, Eric, a death that was fitting for the crime he'd committed. It was an ancient punishment, not one I invented. I didn't drag it out. I had other things to attend to. But he was glad of the end, when it came. Even then I was skilled." He paused, watching Eric's face. "Is that enough?"
Eric nodded. He already had countless images of evil swirling through his head. He didn't need any more.
"All right, then. I'm going back to my room. We're both tired. We need to sleep." Godric began to slip from the bed.
"No … wait." Eric caught his hand. "Please stay. Stay here tonight, with me. I won't bother you. I promise."
"Eric …"
"You need to feed more."
"I'm all right."
"You never drink enough when you're fucking me." Godric smiled at that, but it was the truth.
"Please." Eric reached over and stroked the side of his maker's face gently, and then leaned back against the pillows and offered up his neck. Godric didn't have to feed, but he was hungry, Eric knew it. And tired. "Just eat, and go to sleep. I swear I'll treat you like a brother."
Godric laughed.
"Eric, that's disgusting." He leaned forward, settling in on top, and Eric enfolded him in an embrace as ancient as they were. He caught his breath at the fangs driving in, a momentary pain that quickly went away. He closed his eyes and ran one hand up and down Godric's back, soothing him, feeling the power there in all that muscle, all that sweetly scented skin, while the other hand stroked Godric's hair, as if he were a child with a fever. After a few minutes Eric reached out and eased the blanket over them in the darkness, knowing that if he did so, and if he was very quiet, Godric would fall asleep just as he was, and then Eric could hold him close until he fell asleep himself.