(no subject)
Dead Charmed
London, England October 2001
If it weren't for his Queen's need for information on this dismal part of the universe, Eric would not even be here in this situation, stuck in a country he hadn't willingly visited since his days in the light. Granted that had been over a thousand years ago, and he had been vikingr at the time with all its incumbent pleasures. The English never changed, not really. They were still the peasants ruled by warlords that they had been before, even if the warlords were duly elected, slightly bland men and women. The one thing that had changed was the sharp division of the magical from the non-magical. These Brits, who fancifully called themselves wizards, were still tree-worshipping savages as far as Eric was concerned, all with the added benefit of nearly Victorian prudery since the free-wheeling seventies.
Great. Boredom was sure to ensue. Unless...
He shifted slightly in his seat across from the bushy-haired paper-pusher in charge of the insultingly named Department of Magical Creatures. Eric was no more a creature than the girl's bushy hair was, as bad as the example seemed at the moment. It was the nightshift, of course, and she was just young enough to have drawn the unenviable duty of vampire intake through customs. Eric smiled, an expression calculated as much to unsettle as to charm. Her mud-brown eyes swept him from the tips of his boots to the crown of his immaculately braided head. "Mr. Northman, I must warn you that any attempts to use glamors on me will fail. After the war, the Goblins were tasked with emplacing certain devices in the Ministry against coercion, and as such have provided safeguards in this room to deal with... your race's methods of persuasion."
Eric had always hated priggish ex-schoolgirls, especially when they dealt with him as a threat... not that he wasn't. Eric was well aware of his special abilities and his appetites, and he wouldn't deny that warm flesh was a much better way to imbibe a meal than a cool plastic bag or soon a bottle of re-heated synthetic swill. Blood banks and synthetics were for the puritanical. He had always preferred hot roast to cold mutton, even as a human. Eric leaned forward bringing the full force of his physical beauty into play. There were vampiric glamors and then there were other means of persuasion.
He idly picked up the nameplate displayed prominently on the tiny desk that separated him from her. He peered at it as he said, "Ms. Granger, is it? What makes you believe that I might use any of my considerable skills to coerce you into doing something you wouldn't... welcome?"
He let his fangs descend, licking the sharp tips of them with his tongue, drawing a hiss from the girl as he tilted his head and looked through his pale lashes at her. Had he been any other vampire at any other time, such consideration for her paltry authority might not have deterred him, but Eric was here in Jolly Olde Englande as a representative of his queen, and as such, after the girl's initial frightened hiss, he reigned in his pulsing desire. Debauching little girls for a meal had never been quite his taste anyway.
She glared down her nose at him to little effect. Magical beings had never scared him, even as a human. Little girls with a blandly pretty faces and little else to recommend them, bothered him even less. He looked idly at his nails, worrying the end of his index finger as he felt roughness. He would need a manicure soon. He could count the hours until sunlight on a single hand, so no luck tonight. Perhaps, tomorrow. He yawned theatrically and hoped his customs experience would be over soon.
The girl shuffled papers and gave a small tick of her tongue against her teeth. "What is the exact nature of your business in the United Kingdom, Mr. Northman?"
Eric stirred his long legs, well aware of the figure he cut. He drawled with his best, hard-won southern charm, "As I stated an hour ago, Ms. Granger, I am here on state business for one Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Queen of Louisiana. She wishes to know the state of affairs in your world after your unfortunate civil war. We have concerns about how it might affect our future plans."
"Those plans being...?" The girl's unkempt eyebrows drew down, causing her nose to wrinkle.
Eric suppressed an outward show of irritation, even as the desire to crush the girl before him rose as a specter in his mind. "Our own and of no concern to you at the moment."
She spluttered and then said, "I see no alternative then, but to deny your entry ."
Eric rolled his eyes. "You have no authority over me. I am here as a diplomat. Don't tell me your Ministry is in the business of declaring war on foreign governments or their representatives, ma'am."
He drew the credentials given him by Sophie-Anne from the interior front pocket of his sport coat. "I believe you will see that all is in order."
He slid them across the surface of the desk and she snatched them from him. She began reading the documents with a look of distaste. Once done she swallowed audibly before looking up at him, her pupils dilated, her pulse picking up speed. Her pheromones peaked as Eric held out his hand for their return.
She said after a moment, "I suppose you'll want to speak with Signori Sanguini as soon as possible."
"Sanguini?" Eric had never heard of a more ridiculous name for a vampire.
"The vampire King of Britain? Surely you've heard of him since you are so highly placed." The girl's hand lifted towards a painting of a dark-haired vampire with a widow's peak and a small sneer. "That's him, right there..."
Eric followed her movement and suppressed a snicker of derision. "Sanguini? Is that what the fraud is calling himself these days? Two-hundred years ago, he was merely Black Jake Poole, failed con artist and pimp to a stable of rum-soaked, long-in-the-tooth ladies of the evening. He was certainly not enough of a vampire to assume leadership."
Perhaps the war had caused more problems for the English vampire community than Sophie-Anne had knowledge of.
The girl shot him a look of pure venom. "So, who is it, Mr. Northman, that you wish to see whilst in the United Kingdom? Under the terms of your... diplomatic visa ... as a Ministry representative, I do have the right to know with whom you'll be dealing. You do understand, after the war and all, that we can't be too careful about foreign governments having undue influence on matters of state."
"Of course, Ma'am. I simply wish to deal with people I know." He smiled charmingly again, this time noting with some satisfaction the lowering of her eyelashes and the telltale reddening of her cheeks.
"And they would be?"
"Malfoy. Lucius, I believe his name was." Eric watched the girl's features contort in several expressions, finally settling on weary disgust as his own sluggish blood heated at the mention of the man, much to his chagrin.
"I'll see what can be done."
&*&*&
September 21, 1979
The noise from the so-called band was deafening to Eric's attenuated senses. If he weren't hungry after his long journey, he wouldn't even be in this writhing mass of humanity as they slammed and shoved their way toward the chain-link covered stage. A youngish man with a ridiculously colored, foot-high mohawk stepped on Eric's toe as he drunkenly progressed past the vampire. Another equally drunken patron, a girl dressed in black with deadened eyes, sneered "'Hippy faggot."
She passed him with a derisive snort even as Eric fought the urge to pick the girl up and turn her over his knee. Eric was nearly a thousand years old, and certainly not averse to teaching such a young thing a lesson in manners. It was too bad she wasn't his type. Spankings could lead to quite interesting things from his vast experience.
The song ended and another even more raucous one began with jangling guitar strings, vulgar utterances, and screamed lyrics of this newest form of rock. He thought he had heard it called Punk, though the term was strangely offensive for an art form. Eric was sure his ears would be ringing the next day. Even vampires needed recovery time if they abused themselves continuously as he was so obviously doing in search of a quick meal. He retreated from the dance floor to a wobbling table on the edge of the room. The smell of vomit, sweat, stale smoke, and the warm horse-piss that the English called beer assailed his senses. Eric waved his hand in front of his face, as if that would dispel the stench surrounding him, even as he cast his gaze about for a likely candidate to dine on. A flash of silver caught his eye as a group of men dressed in a fashion from another century fanned out around the perimeter of the room. Eric watched interestedly as a silver-haired man raised a stick in the air as if to signal his companions.
Witches. Why did they always have to interfere at the most inopportune times? Eric was famished. Anubis Air might cater to vampires, but as with all airlines, in-flight meals had been cut back to the bare minimum. A small bag of O neg could only fuel a jet-lagged vampire for so long.
Before he thought, he rose from the seat and in a flash was beside the warlock, his hand on the arm which held the man's wand. "Friend, I don't think we need any trouble here tonight."
"Get your cadaverous hand off me!" The man's sneered, but the expression faltered as he looked up into Eric's hooded gaze. With a great deal of obvious effort, the warlock regained his superior air as he said, "I am here on express orders of the Dark Lord, you colonial cretin. If you value your existence you will depart at once."
Eric smiled down on the man, not letting the expression warm his eyes.
"Normally, I would allow you to do anything that you wanted to these... humans." The man's mouth worked soundlessly at the word allow, but Eric clamped his hand harder on the muscle, inflicting a bit more pain as he ground the muscle against the bone of the man's arm. "However, I've had a long trip with no meals to speak of, and I want to dine. I won't allow you to terrorize them right now. If you excite them too much, they get... a... gamey taste."
"The Dark Lord...," the warlock sputtered.
Eric drew the man closer, noting a mouth-watering scent rising from beneath the fusty black robes. Silver-hair smelled almost of... fairie. Eric shook the man in order to focus his own waning attention. "Is no match for a thousand year old vampire, surely even someone as arrogant as you knows that."
A young, hatchet-faced man with stringy black hair entered Eric's field of vision. "Malfoy, are we here to take tea with this creature or to do the Dark Lord's bidding?"
"Silence, Severus." Silver-hair said even as Eric moved closer to sniff the area above the now-named Malfoy's collar. Eric noted with some satisfaction the increase in the warlock's pulse and the spiraling of his unique scent to the vampire's nostrils.
"Tell me, norn, do I scare you?" Eric whispered into Silver-hair's ear. "Or, do I make you want something... different?"
Eric darted his tongue out, tasting the salty fear on the man's skin. Almost of their own volition, his fangs descended and he whispered, "Get rid of them. I'll make it worth your while."
"No... please," Silver-hair whimpered. "The Dark Lord... I have a wife... "
"How middle-class of you," Eric whispered, enthralled by the goose bumps that fanned out across the man‘s skin from his cool breath. "Get... rid... of... them."
Silver-hair nodded weakly, succumbing to the subtle glamour that Eric had employed on him, after his assent Silver-hair's scent took on the sharp tang of fear with a muskier, darker subtext. "The Dark Lord will..."
"I'll handle him, Melrakki," Eric crooned. "Don't worry your beautiful little head about your petty tyrant."
The music stopped as Big-nose hissed, "Lucius!"
Silver-hair sluggishly attempted to shake Eric's hold as he slowly began to come out of the slight glamour Northman had cast.
Eric had other ideas and he moved, taking Silver-hair with him at vampiric speed to the door which had swung open to let in another very probably drunken East Ender. Silver-hair let out a girlish squeal and then fainted, as Eric whisked him through the darkened streets to his rented rooms in an old warehouse that catered to vampires.
Once inside the completely light-proof room, Eric laid the warlock on his bed, arranging his long arms and legs in the way he had seen slain French knights laid out in his life before the long night. Though he wasn't normally one to desire males in such a manner, not since his maker, Appius Livius Ocella, had forced the issue on him, Silver-hair's scent caused a frisson of desire to curl in Eric's gut and radiate downward. He decided he would wait to indulge his senses when the warlock consented to such activities. Eric was supremely confident of the man's assent simply because he would ensure his compliance. Waiting would make the entire experience so much more... piquant.
Besides, Eric had always liked to play with his food.
&*&*&
When the girl had told Eric that Malfoy was under house arrest for his part in the civil war, the Viking hadn't expected the 'prison' to be so lavish. Eric was escorted to a decorous Jacobian parlor, brought there by a less than obsequious house elf. "Master comes shortly. You, Dark Vampire Creature Sir, mustn't touch anything unless invited by Master."
"I assume I might take a seat?" Eric asked with a sardonic tilt to his lips.
"Dark Vampire Creature Sir will do as he is told, but Master did say to tell him to take a seat even so." The elf sniffed disdainfully and then left the room with a small pop! thus leaving Eric to cool his heels, awaiting the pleasure of the Lord of the Manor. Eric chose a settee in front of the fire, striking a pose of laconic ease even while nervousness made what used to be his gut flutter. Casting his senses far afield, he listened to the noise in the house. Aside from the occasional scurrying of elves, the manor seemed dead. There was no homey noise of children or the wife that the man had mentioned all those years ago. Things changed, Eric supposed, as he attempted to squelch the desire that snaked through his body, even after all the intervening years. No doubt the warlock-- no, wizard-- had grown paunchy and wrinkled as such ephemeral beings were wont to do with the march of time.
Eric stretched, arching his back to relieve the tension that had plagued him since asking for the meeting, realizing with a small jolt that a portrait of a severe-looking man with Silver-hair's features followed his movement. Eric smiled and gave a small nod to the portrait, wondering if it were somehow sentient. He had dealt with few witches but those in Louisiana and those certainly weren't the type
to display their magic so pompously.
"Who are you, young man?" the portrait's tinny voice sounded over the short distance. "I don't believe we've been introduced. Are you one of those mudblood-loving blood-traitors that have incarcerated my son?"
"Why no, sir, I'm here on a mission for the Queen of Louisiana, Miss Sophie-Anne Leclerq," Eric drawled. "And you are?"
"Not a vampire," Malfoy said from the doorway. "Father, please leave us."
The portrait huffed, "I should have known. Is this what you've come to, boy? Having truck with Dark creatures? If the Dark Lord had won..."
"I would be slave to a near immortal, homicidal half-blood, Father dear, so spare me the tales of your glory days and the what-should-have-beens. I am well past your version of fairy stories now." Malfoy entered the room. Eric's breath caught in his throat at the changes time had wrought in the man.
Gone were the slim lines of his youth. He had broadened, thickened, but not unpleasantly so. Lines marred his features, but enhanced the planes of his face, gave him the gravitas that had been missing in his youth. His hair remained mostly unchanged perhaps slightly paler in the flickering witch lights. All-in-all Silver-hair had aged well. Eric stood, uncomfortably aware of the desire that had manifested itself upon the wizard's entrance. Eric said, "It's been a long time, melrakki. "
Malfoy ignored the comment and instead strode to a cabinet, bringing out a leaded-glass decanter. The incongruous clink of the neck of the bottle on glass filled the terse silence that descended on the room. He poured a bit of the liquor and drank it in one gulping motion before he sloshed more into the glass. As he lifted the second drink to his lips, he turned to Eric. "You'll understand if I don't extend the common courtesies."
"Certainly." It was all Eric could trust himself to say.
Malfoy crossed the room, skirting the area in which Eric stood, ending by the roaring fireplace. "The mud-- a Ministry official informed me you wished to interrogate me about the recent unpleasantness that plagued my homeland."
"Yes." It seemed that Eric could only speak in single word sentences in the wizard‘s presence.
Malfoy leaned against the marble face of the fireplace, sipping from his tumbler, his throat muscles jerking up and down with the effort to swallow. A small drop of the amber liquid escaped, collecting on the man’s lower lip, making the pouting feature glisten.
&*&*&
Eric slid his body sinuously along the warlock’s chest, coming to rest as his jutting cock reached Silver-hair’s lips. The man stiffened as if to object, but instead his tongue snaked out of his mouth almost curiously. A drop of moisture dotted his petulant bottom lip as he drew back upon Eric’s hiss of pleasure. Northman pressed closer, his balls aching, and Silver-hair’s tongue darted out again, smoothing over the glans, before his lip’s opened wider, greedily taking more of Eric's cock into it. Northman loved the way he made it disappear into that hot cavity.
Eric set a punishing pace as he snapped his hips forward, nearly choking the warlock. He recognized in Silver-hair an innate sense of superiority, a need for iron control and Eric aimed to break that control this night before he drank from him. When Silver-hair remembered his time with Eric, it would be with a sense of crawling, shameful need, not the haughty control of his class. If Eric knew nothing else, he knew that this man desired to be sexually dominated at least once in his life. He didn’t care what Silver-hair did after or how it affected him. Only this time mattered to the vampire.
Eric slowed his pace as the man clawed at his buttocks, bucking his hips against Eric's back as if seeking release. The vampire stopped moving altogether as the man moaned, his eyes glassy, his perfect hair matted with sweat.
"Your turn." He smiled wickedly and proceeded down the warlock's body with bared teeth and a slick, questing tongue.
&*&*&
They talked for an hour, with Eric asking pertinent questions and Malfoy responding in monotone. He eventually informed Northman of the deaths, his own divorce, the shambles his life and those of his compatriots had become, the shameful fact that a child of seventeen had wreaked such Biblical vengeance on all who had followed the reincarnated abomination. There was not only horror to be had from the tale, but also an element of self-pity that Eric found distasteful. Powerful youth had faded to defeated middle-age. It wasn't the meeting Eric had wished for after he had been ordered to England. He had hoped...
It was no matter what he had hoped, what was occurring was a disaster. Malfoy remained aloof, standing by the fire, occasionally trekking back to the liquor cabinet to replenish his drink.
After the fourth time, Eric rose and followed him. "Stop."
He put his hand on the neck of the bottle, forcing it back down to the mirrored surface of the cabinet. The wizard sneered reflexively but did not raise the crystal decanter again. "As you wish, vampire. You are here, after all, on duty."
Eric felt the man's pulse race as he lifted his hand away from the bottle and raised Lucius' pale fingers to his lips. "Do you remember, norn?"
The wizard closed his eyes, covering the naked yearning that began to kindle there. "What is it you want?"
Eric didn't answer, only drew Malfoy to him, sniffed the skin exposed above the collar of the wizard's neck. "You still smell the same."
The vampire's desire surged even as Malfoy pushed past him. "I asked you what it is you want, vampire? If you want to replay what occurred twenty years ago, I have aged. I am no longer the pliable youth you fucked."
"Into the mattress, as I remember." Eric stalked toward him. "I don't want a mere repeat, Silfr hár . I do enjoy variety."
&*&*&
At last, after hours, he entered Silver-hair. A blissfully erotic moan tore from the warlock's throat as Eric seated himself fully, filling the man, balls resting on him. "Gods..."
Eric withdrew almost fully. Silver-hair clawed his back, scored his pale skin, and drew dark blood. Eric hissed, a low animal noise as he slowly, inexorably pushed back into the hot flesh below him. He repeated the action over and over, just as slowly and methodically as his own control would allow as the warlock howled frantically.
"Please!"
Eric surged forward taking Silver-hair's cock in his hand as he lowered his head and took his first taste of the very heady blood of his conquest. It flowed over his tongue, the undertones sweet like a fine wine. He drank and Silver-hair came, drawing Eric along with him into that realm of pure sensation.
As they both subsided, Eric kissed the man's sweat covered brow, murmuring, "You are mine now. No one will dare touch you."
&*&*&
The wizard retreated. For every step Eric took towards him Silver-hair took two backwards. He ended up flush against the wizard whose back was against the far wall, surprised to feel the man's heat through the layers of unnecessary cloth he swathed his body in. He took time to look the man over. It all slid into focus as he looked at his unhealthy pallor, the slight tremors in his arms, the way his eyes had lost their luster. "What...?"
Malfoy sagged against the wall, his expression closing like it was controlled by springs. The wizard attempted to break Eric's hold on him before answering, "I'm dying. The Healers seem to think I have less than a few years. Cruciatus sickness, you see, a wasting disease."
Eric was an intimate of death. He had done it, dealt it, and lived it for the last millennium. Death was a cold master who gave no quarter and offered no comfort. He looked at the man, and could finally see the finger of death on him. It would neither be long in coming nor would it be merciful. Eric cursed, using the tongue of his age for the vilest of the words before he said, "I told him you were not to be touched, that I had marked you as mine."
"You weren't here. You left after you delivered your message." There was no accusation in the statement. Eric let the wizard go struggling with the urge to destroy who had hurt what was his, knowing he was years too late.
&*&*&
The much vaunted Dark Lord, a painfully skinny, middle-aged wimp that had a high voice and effeminate taste in clothes, was ridiculously easy to manipulate.
Eric had been 'cordially' escorted into a moldering manse on the Isle of Man by two brutish thugs who apparently shared a brain between them. He arranged his features to one of bored interest as the night's festivities took place around him. An orgy of torture, blood, and flexing of magical might occurred around him. The red-eyed sociopath smiled at the spectacle as if he were an indulgent grandfather encouraging innocent play amongst his rambunctious grandchildren. Screams rent the air, not a noise that usually bothered Eric, but wearing under the circumstance. If the display was meant to intimidate, Eric could have saved him the effort. Elizabeth Bathory had been an acquaintance of his. She had been a true showman.
Once the dubious festivities had concluded, the wizard motioned Eric forward with an imperious wave of ring bedecked fingers. The self-styled lord dismissed all of his followers. Eric stepped around a bit of blood spilled on the floor-- internally decrying the waste-- and stepped onto the raised dais. He bent over the smaller man, leaning on the back of his throne-like chair, drawing on his full six and a half feet to impinge on the man's carefully constructed aura of invulnerability.
Without waiting to be addressed Eric began, "As you are well aware. I am here on business for my queen, Miss Sophie-Anne Leclerq. She wants to let you know that Louisiana has always been neutral and will remain so unless given provocation. She also wishes to convey her concern about certain elements who have been seen recruiting in her city. She wishes you to withdraw your people immediately."
"Does she?" The wizard licked his lips, the tongue darting out on the colorless lips like a snake's. He leveled a haughty glare at Eric while touching his wand to a tacky tattoo on his forearm. "I don't take orders from Dark creatures or their minions. Karkaroff, take this creature from the room!"
Eric clamped the man around his throat, his face mere inches from warlock’s. The vampire almost let go of the seething skin. The man felt and smelled wrong. "If you know what's good for you and your little band of anarchists here, you will belay that order right now."
Eric lowered his head to the man's throat, wrenching it up with a slight pull on his hair. "Call off your recruiters and leave Louisiana out of your plans, and my queen is willing to remain neutral."
Eric snapped his fingers and two creatures in dark armor appeared as if out of thin air at his side. The Britlingens remained impassive as Eric turned his back on the wizard. “These two will ensure your compliance for the coming weeks. You will also call a moratorium on all transgressions related to me. My friends will ensure that also.”
Eric strode out of the room, relying on his senses to anticipate any attacks if the wizard were foolish enough to act against him outside the paired mercenaries presence.
And at least Silver-hair and his wife were safe for the six weeks of the Britlingens’ contract. Eric owed him that much for such a pleasant evening.
&*&*&
“I can cure you...,” Eric began, though he knew the amount of permission he would need to get to turn such a powerful wizard might use centuries of favors that he was owed. “Or at least let you live.”
Malfoy gave a weak lift of his lips. “No need. I have no desire to cheat death as my former master did. I have ensured my immortality through my heir.”
Eric felt his own answering smile as he drew the man into his arms, relieved that he would not have to turn him. It was a painful process for both. “Now that the niceties are dispensed with, why don’t we get on with the real reason I chose to speak with you, Silfr hàr .”
“Surely you can’t still be interested.” Malfoy’s color was high in his cheeks. “I’ve aged and you’re still... beautiful.”
Eric propelled him to the soft Persian carpet in front of the fireplace while he steadily unlaced and unbuttoned the man’s ridiculous costume. “False modesty doesn’t become you.” He pulled the linen shirt apart, revealing a ripped abdomen and still smooth skin. “Shut up and show hospitality to your guest. I’ve waited years for this.”
Eric’s mouth watered as the wizard lowered himself onto his knees and began as they had all those years ago.
&*&*&
Monroe, Lousiana 2004
Eric waited in his office, looking over the books. Something was wrong with the figures, but he just couldn’t concentrate on them at the moment. Not with the letter waiting for him. It was addressed to him from a solicitor's firm in London known for their dealings with the supernatural element in that city.
He slid his hands through his hair, kept loose for the meeting he had with Bill Compton and his fang-banger. He had been surprised by Compton’s interest in a human. Compton was typical of the time he was made, prudish to the point of blue-balled ridiculousness, moral for no reason other than propriety. Eric had wondered at one time whether the man had made it through his change with all his parts in working order.
The door opened and Pam, in all her lovely, spun-sugar pinkness, entered. She played her finger along the edge of his desk maddeningly. Eric raised his eyes as she began tapping a perfectly polished fingernail against the wood. “Must you?”
“You haven’t opened your letter.” Straight and to the point, that was his Pam, and the reason he trusted her above all of his creations. “It might be important.”
“It is.” Eric turned his attention back to the ledger, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.
Pam opened her mouth then closed it and then said, “I’ll let you know when Compton and his girlfriend get here.”
She left the room, her expensive scent lingering past the shutting of the door.
The letter lay on the desk, an accusing white spot on the dark surface. Eric glared at it and attempted to at least look busy for Pam's next inevitable interruption. The white gleamed under the low light of the lamp, seemed to throb with the dance music that had just started, signaling that Fangtasia was open for business.
Eric slapped his old-fashioned, nibbed stylus down on the desk and snatched the letter up, intending to throw it away. Something shifted in the envelope, something heavier than the standard letter; piquing Eric's interest.
He opened it with the letter opener given him by the Queen upon completion of his last mission for her. Gingerly easing his fingers inside, he retrieved a short note and a rice paper covered packet.
The note was standard lawyerly prattle regretting to inform him of the death of one Lucius Malfoy... yada, yada, yada... he had been bequeathed... blah, blah, blah... He set it aside with a vague feeling of irritation that he knew was masking deeper regrets and opened the packet.
A perfect likeness of Lucius lay inside, a miniature wrought on ivory in vibrant enamel. Eric ran his finger over it, smiling sadly as silfr hár preened as only he could do. Eric looked on it a moment more, battling the urge to weep, before placing it in his desk drawer just as Pam knocked and popped her head into the office. She smirked as she noticed the opened letter but merely stated, "They're here, and you are not going to believe what a treasure Compton has unearthed in that ancestral backwater of his. She's simply delicious."
Eric, in the way of such an ancient being, pushed the past where it belonged and went to greet the night's diversion.
Hár= [Old Norse, ON] hair
Silfr= [ON] silver
Melrakki= [ON] white fox
norn= [Icelandic*] witch
vikingr= [ON] Scandinavian pirate or raider from around the tenth century.
I have read that the tongue spoken in Iceland is the closest to Old Norse which the language a thousand year old Viking would speak. I used an Old Norse online dictionary for most words, but had to use an Icelandic dictionary for the term for witch. If I have made mistakes please let me know.
Thanks to Leni Pedersen for her help in understanding Nordic/Germanic syntax. Don't blame her if I effed up. I can be very hard-headed when I want to be.
Characters and Terms:
Lucius Malfoy: HP. wizard, Death Eater, sex god
Severus: HP. wizard Death Eater, another sex god.
Hermione Granger: HP. witch, Harry Potter's friend, Know it all.
Sanguini: HP. Va pire mentioned as attending a party in the HP books.
Eric Northman: SVM. Viking vampire, owner of the vampire club Fangtasia, Sheriff of Area 5 in the Kingdom of Louisiana. Undead hotness.
Pam: SVM. Eric's child and right hand person.
Bill Compton: SVM. A vassal to the Queen of Louisiana, irritating prig, confederate soldier.
Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq: SVM. Vampire Queen of Louisianna.
Britlingens: SVM. Nearly indestructible mercenaries from a different dimension. It takes a great deal of money to make contact with them and to pay for their skills.
Cruciatus: HP. An illegal and excruciating curse that can cause madness.
Fang-banger: SVM. A derogatory term for humans who wish to have sex with a vampire merely because they are a vampire.
Voldemort: HP Self-styled Dark Lord, leader of the Death Eaters, the group to which Lucius owes his allegiance. In 1979 he still had hair and a nose.
Elizabeth Bathory is a real historical figure that gave rise to certain vampire myths. She was a serial killer who bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth. She was eventually punished for her misdeeds, though since she was a noblewoman, she wasn't executed. She lived out her final days in isolation and with no access to virgins.
London, England October 2001
If it weren't for his Queen's need for information on this dismal part of the universe, Eric would not even be here in this situation, stuck in a country he hadn't willingly visited since his days in the light. Granted that had been over a thousand years ago, and he had been vikingr at the time with all its incumbent pleasures. The English never changed, not really. They were still the peasants ruled by warlords that they had been before, even if the warlords were duly elected, slightly bland men and women. The one thing that had changed was the sharp division of the magical from the non-magical. These Brits, who fancifully called themselves wizards, were still tree-worshipping savages as far as Eric was concerned, all with the added benefit of nearly Victorian prudery since the free-wheeling seventies.
Great. Boredom was sure to ensue. Unless...
He shifted slightly in his seat across from the bushy-haired paper-pusher in charge of the insultingly named Department of Magical Creatures. Eric was no more a creature than the girl's bushy hair was, as bad as the example seemed at the moment. It was the nightshift, of course, and she was just young enough to have drawn the unenviable duty of vampire intake through customs. Eric smiled, an expression calculated as much to unsettle as to charm. Her mud-brown eyes swept him from the tips of his boots to the crown of his immaculately braided head. "Mr. Northman, I must warn you that any attempts to use glamors on me will fail. After the war, the Goblins were tasked with emplacing certain devices in the Ministry against coercion, and as such have provided safeguards in this room to deal with... your race's methods of persuasion."
Eric had always hated priggish ex-schoolgirls, especially when they dealt with him as a threat... not that he wasn't. Eric was well aware of his special abilities and his appetites, and he wouldn't deny that warm flesh was a much better way to imbibe a meal than a cool plastic bag or soon a bottle of re-heated synthetic swill. Blood banks and synthetics were for the puritanical. He had always preferred hot roast to cold mutton, even as a human. Eric leaned forward bringing the full force of his physical beauty into play. There were vampiric glamors and then there were other means of persuasion.
He idly picked up the nameplate displayed prominently on the tiny desk that separated him from her. He peered at it as he said, "Ms. Granger, is it? What makes you believe that I might use any of my considerable skills to coerce you into doing something you wouldn't... welcome?"
He let his fangs descend, licking the sharp tips of them with his tongue, drawing a hiss from the girl as he tilted his head and looked through his pale lashes at her. Had he been any other vampire at any other time, such consideration for her paltry authority might not have deterred him, but Eric was here in Jolly Olde Englande as a representative of his queen, and as such, after the girl's initial frightened hiss, he reigned in his pulsing desire. Debauching little girls for a meal had never been quite his taste anyway.
She glared down her nose at him to little effect. Magical beings had never scared him, even as a human. Little girls with a blandly pretty faces and little else to recommend them, bothered him even less. He looked idly at his nails, worrying the end of his index finger as he felt roughness. He would need a manicure soon. He could count the hours until sunlight on a single hand, so no luck tonight. Perhaps, tomorrow. He yawned theatrically and hoped his customs experience would be over soon.
The girl shuffled papers and gave a small tick of her tongue against her teeth. "What is the exact nature of your business in the United Kingdom, Mr. Northman?"
Eric stirred his long legs, well aware of the figure he cut. He drawled with his best, hard-won southern charm, "As I stated an hour ago, Ms. Granger, I am here on state business for one Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Queen of Louisiana. She wishes to know the state of affairs in your world after your unfortunate civil war. We have concerns about how it might affect our future plans."
"Those plans being...?" The girl's unkempt eyebrows drew down, causing her nose to wrinkle.
Eric suppressed an outward show of irritation, even as the desire to crush the girl before him rose as a specter in his mind. "Our own and of no concern to you at the moment."
She spluttered and then said, "I see no alternative then, but to deny your entry ."
Eric rolled his eyes. "You have no authority over me. I am here as a diplomat. Don't tell me your Ministry is in the business of declaring war on foreign governments or their representatives, ma'am."
He drew the credentials given him by Sophie-Anne from the interior front pocket of his sport coat. "I believe you will see that all is in order."
He slid them across the surface of the desk and she snatched them from him. She began reading the documents with a look of distaste. Once done she swallowed audibly before looking up at him, her pupils dilated, her pulse picking up speed. Her pheromones peaked as Eric held out his hand for their return.
She said after a moment, "I suppose you'll want to speak with Signori Sanguini as soon as possible."
"Sanguini?" Eric had never heard of a more ridiculous name for a vampire.
"The vampire King of Britain? Surely you've heard of him since you are so highly placed." The girl's hand lifted towards a painting of a dark-haired vampire with a widow's peak and a small sneer. "That's him, right there..."
Eric followed her movement and suppressed a snicker of derision. "Sanguini? Is that what the fraud is calling himself these days? Two-hundred years ago, he was merely Black Jake Poole, failed con artist and pimp to a stable of rum-soaked, long-in-the-tooth ladies of the evening. He was certainly not enough of a vampire to assume leadership."
Perhaps the war had caused more problems for the English vampire community than Sophie-Anne had knowledge of.
The girl shot him a look of pure venom. "So, who is it, Mr. Northman, that you wish to see whilst in the United Kingdom? Under the terms of your... diplomatic visa ... as a Ministry representative, I do have the right to know with whom you'll be dealing. You do understand, after the war and all, that we can't be too careful about foreign governments having undue influence on matters of state."
"Of course, Ma'am. I simply wish to deal with people I know." He smiled charmingly again, this time noting with some satisfaction the lowering of her eyelashes and the telltale reddening of her cheeks.
"And they would be?"
"Malfoy. Lucius, I believe his name was." Eric watched the girl's features contort in several expressions, finally settling on weary disgust as his own sluggish blood heated at the mention of the man, much to his chagrin.
"I'll see what can be done."
&*&*&
September 21, 1979
The noise from the so-called band was deafening to Eric's attenuated senses. If he weren't hungry after his long journey, he wouldn't even be in this writhing mass of humanity as they slammed and shoved their way toward the chain-link covered stage. A youngish man with a ridiculously colored, foot-high mohawk stepped on Eric's toe as he drunkenly progressed past the vampire. Another equally drunken patron, a girl dressed in black with deadened eyes, sneered "'Hippy faggot."
She passed him with a derisive snort even as Eric fought the urge to pick the girl up and turn her over his knee. Eric was nearly a thousand years old, and certainly not averse to teaching such a young thing a lesson in manners. It was too bad she wasn't his type. Spankings could lead to quite interesting things from his vast experience.
The song ended and another even more raucous one began with jangling guitar strings, vulgar utterances, and screamed lyrics of this newest form of rock. He thought he had heard it called Punk, though the term was strangely offensive for an art form. Eric was sure his ears would be ringing the next day. Even vampires needed recovery time if they abused themselves continuously as he was so obviously doing in search of a quick meal. He retreated from the dance floor to a wobbling table on the edge of the room. The smell of vomit, sweat, stale smoke, and the warm horse-piss that the English called beer assailed his senses. Eric waved his hand in front of his face, as if that would dispel the stench surrounding him, even as he cast his gaze about for a likely candidate to dine on. A flash of silver caught his eye as a group of men dressed in a fashion from another century fanned out around the perimeter of the room. Eric watched interestedly as a silver-haired man raised a stick in the air as if to signal his companions.
Witches. Why did they always have to interfere at the most inopportune times? Eric was famished. Anubis Air might cater to vampires, but as with all airlines, in-flight meals had been cut back to the bare minimum. A small bag of O neg could only fuel a jet-lagged vampire for so long.
Before he thought, he rose from the seat and in a flash was beside the warlock, his hand on the arm which held the man's wand. "Friend, I don't think we need any trouble here tonight."
"Get your cadaverous hand off me!" The man's sneered, but the expression faltered as he looked up into Eric's hooded gaze. With a great deal of obvious effort, the warlock regained his superior air as he said, "I am here on express orders of the Dark Lord, you colonial cretin. If you value your existence you will depart at once."
Eric smiled down on the man, not letting the expression warm his eyes.
"Normally, I would allow you to do anything that you wanted to these... humans." The man's mouth worked soundlessly at the word allow, but Eric clamped his hand harder on the muscle, inflicting a bit more pain as he ground the muscle against the bone of the man's arm. "However, I've had a long trip with no meals to speak of, and I want to dine. I won't allow you to terrorize them right now. If you excite them too much, they get... a... gamey taste."
"The Dark Lord...," the warlock sputtered.
Eric drew the man closer, noting a mouth-watering scent rising from beneath the fusty black robes. Silver-hair smelled almost of... fairie. Eric shook the man in order to focus his own waning attention. "Is no match for a thousand year old vampire, surely even someone as arrogant as you knows that."
A young, hatchet-faced man with stringy black hair entered Eric's field of vision. "Malfoy, are we here to take tea with this creature or to do the Dark Lord's bidding?"
"Silence, Severus." Silver-hair said even as Eric moved closer to sniff the area above the now-named Malfoy's collar. Eric noted with some satisfaction the increase in the warlock's pulse and the spiraling of his unique scent to the vampire's nostrils.
"Tell me, norn, do I scare you?" Eric whispered into Silver-hair's ear. "Or, do I make you want something... different?"
Eric darted his tongue out, tasting the salty fear on the man's skin. Almost of their own volition, his fangs descended and he whispered, "Get rid of them. I'll make it worth your while."
"No... please," Silver-hair whimpered. "The Dark Lord... I have a wife... "
"How middle-class of you," Eric whispered, enthralled by the goose bumps that fanned out across the man‘s skin from his cool breath. "Get... rid... of... them."
Silver-hair nodded weakly, succumbing to the subtle glamour that Eric had employed on him, after his assent Silver-hair's scent took on the sharp tang of fear with a muskier, darker subtext. "The Dark Lord will..."
"I'll handle him, Melrakki," Eric crooned. "Don't worry your beautiful little head about your petty tyrant."
The music stopped as Big-nose hissed, "Lucius!"
Silver-hair sluggishly attempted to shake Eric's hold as he slowly began to come out of the slight glamour Northman had cast.
Eric had other ideas and he moved, taking Silver-hair with him at vampiric speed to the door which had swung open to let in another very probably drunken East Ender. Silver-hair let out a girlish squeal and then fainted, as Eric whisked him through the darkened streets to his rented rooms in an old warehouse that catered to vampires.
Once inside the completely light-proof room, Eric laid the warlock on his bed, arranging his long arms and legs in the way he had seen slain French knights laid out in his life before the long night. Though he wasn't normally one to desire males in such a manner, not since his maker, Appius Livius Ocella, had forced the issue on him, Silver-hair's scent caused a frisson of desire to curl in Eric's gut and radiate downward. He decided he would wait to indulge his senses when the warlock consented to such activities. Eric was supremely confident of the man's assent simply because he would ensure his compliance. Waiting would make the entire experience so much more... piquant.
Besides, Eric had always liked to play with his food.
&*&*&
When the girl had told Eric that Malfoy was under house arrest for his part in the civil war, the Viking hadn't expected the 'prison' to be so lavish. Eric was escorted to a decorous Jacobian parlor, brought there by a less than obsequious house elf. "Master comes shortly. You, Dark Vampire Creature Sir, mustn't touch anything unless invited by Master."
"I assume I might take a seat?" Eric asked with a sardonic tilt to his lips.
"Dark Vampire Creature Sir will do as he is told, but Master did say to tell him to take a seat even so." The elf sniffed disdainfully and then left the room with a small pop! thus leaving Eric to cool his heels, awaiting the pleasure of the Lord of the Manor. Eric chose a settee in front of the fire, striking a pose of laconic ease even while nervousness made what used to be his gut flutter. Casting his senses far afield, he listened to the noise in the house. Aside from the occasional scurrying of elves, the manor seemed dead. There was no homey noise of children or the wife that the man had mentioned all those years ago. Things changed, Eric supposed, as he attempted to squelch the desire that snaked through his body, even after all the intervening years. No doubt the warlock-- no, wizard-- had grown paunchy and wrinkled as such ephemeral beings were wont to do with the march of time.
Eric stretched, arching his back to relieve the tension that had plagued him since asking for the meeting, realizing with a small jolt that a portrait of a severe-looking man with Silver-hair's features followed his movement. Eric smiled and gave a small nod to the portrait, wondering if it were somehow sentient. He had dealt with few witches but those in Louisiana and those certainly weren't the type
to display their magic so pompously.
"Who are you, young man?" the portrait's tinny voice sounded over the short distance. "I don't believe we've been introduced. Are you one of those mudblood-loving blood-traitors that have incarcerated my son?"
"Why no, sir, I'm here on a mission for the Queen of Louisiana, Miss Sophie-Anne Leclerq," Eric drawled. "And you are?"
"Not a vampire," Malfoy said from the doorway. "Father, please leave us."
The portrait huffed, "I should have known. Is this what you've come to, boy? Having truck with Dark creatures? If the Dark Lord had won..."
"I would be slave to a near immortal, homicidal half-blood, Father dear, so spare me the tales of your glory days and the what-should-have-beens. I am well past your version of fairy stories now." Malfoy entered the room. Eric's breath caught in his throat at the changes time had wrought in the man.
Gone were the slim lines of his youth. He had broadened, thickened, but not unpleasantly so. Lines marred his features, but enhanced the planes of his face, gave him the gravitas that had been missing in his youth. His hair remained mostly unchanged perhaps slightly paler in the flickering witch lights. All-in-all Silver-hair had aged well. Eric stood, uncomfortably aware of the desire that had manifested itself upon the wizard's entrance. Eric said, "It's been a long time, melrakki. "
Malfoy ignored the comment and instead strode to a cabinet, bringing out a leaded-glass decanter. The incongruous clink of the neck of the bottle on glass filled the terse silence that descended on the room. He poured a bit of the liquor and drank it in one gulping motion before he sloshed more into the glass. As he lifted the second drink to his lips, he turned to Eric. "You'll understand if I don't extend the common courtesies."
"Certainly." It was all Eric could trust himself to say.
Malfoy crossed the room, skirting the area in which Eric stood, ending by the roaring fireplace. "The mud-- a Ministry official informed me you wished to interrogate me about the recent unpleasantness that plagued my homeland."
"Yes." It seemed that Eric could only speak in single word sentences in the wizard‘s presence.
Malfoy leaned against the marble face of the fireplace, sipping from his tumbler, his throat muscles jerking up and down with the effort to swallow. A small drop of the amber liquid escaped, collecting on the man’s lower lip, making the pouting feature glisten.
&*&*&
Eric slid his body sinuously along the warlock’s chest, coming to rest as his jutting cock reached Silver-hair’s lips. The man stiffened as if to object, but instead his tongue snaked out of his mouth almost curiously. A drop of moisture dotted his petulant bottom lip as he drew back upon Eric’s hiss of pleasure. Northman pressed closer, his balls aching, and Silver-hair’s tongue darted out again, smoothing over the glans, before his lip’s opened wider, greedily taking more of Eric's cock into it. Northman loved the way he made it disappear into that hot cavity.
Eric set a punishing pace as he snapped his hips forward, nearly choking the warlock. He recognized in Silver-hair an innate sense of superiority, a need for iron control and Eric aimed to break that control this night before he drank from him. When Silver-hair remembered his time with Eric, it would be with a sense of crawling, shameful need, not the haughty control of his class. If Eric knew nothing else, he knew that this man desired to be sexually dominated at least once in his life. He didn’t care what Silver-hair did after or how it affected him. Only this time mattered to the vampire.
Eric slowed his pace as the man clawed at his buttocks, bucking his hips against Eric's back as if seeking release. The vampire stopped moving altogether as the man moaned, his eyes glassy, his perfect hair matted with sweat.
"Your turn." He smiled wickedly and proceeded down the warlock's body with bared teeth and a slick, questing tongue.
&*&*&
They talked for an hour, with Eric asking pertinent questions and Malfoy responding in monotone. He eventually informed Northman of the deaths, his own divorce, the shambles his life and those of his compatriots had become, the shameful fact that a child of seventeen had wreaked such Biblical vengeance on all who had followed the reincarnated abomination. There was not only horror to be had from the tale, but also an element of self-pity that Eric found distasteful. Powerful youth had faded to defeated middle-age. It wasn't the meeting Eric had wished for after he had been ordered to England. He had hoped...
It was no matter what he had hoped, what was occurring was a disaster. Malfoy remained aloof, standing by the fire, occasionally trekking back to the liquor cabinet to replenish his drink.
After the fourth time, Eric rose and followed him. "Stop."
He put his hand on the neck of the bottle, forcing it back down to the mirrored surface of the cabinet. The wizard sneered reflexively but did not raise the crystal decanter again. "As you wish, vampire. You are here, after all, on duty."
Eric felt the man's pulse race as he lifted his hand away from the bottle and raised Lucius' pale fingers to his lips. "Do you remember, norn?"
The wizard closed his eyes, covering the naked yearning that began to kindle there. "What is it you want?"
Eric didn't answer, only drew Malfoy to him, sniffed the skin exposed above the collar of the wizard's neck. "You still smell the same."
The vampire's desire surged even as Malfoy pushed past him. "I asked you what it is you want, vampire? If you want to replay what occurred twenty years ago, I have aged. I am no longer the pliable youth you fucked."
"Into the mattress, as I remember." Eric stalked toward him. "I don't want a mere repeat, Silfr hár . I do enjoy variety."
&*&*&
At last, after hours, he entered Silver-hair. A blissfully erotic moan tore from the warlock's throat as Eric seated himself fully, filling the man, balls resting on him. "Gods..."
Eric withdrew almost fully. Silver-hair clawed his back, scored his pale skin, and drew dark blood. Eric hissed, a low animal noise as he slowly, inexorably pushed back into the hot flesh below him. He repeated the action over and over, just as slowly and methodically as his own control would allow as the warlock howled frantically.
"Please!"
Eric surged forward taking Silver-hair's cock in his hand as he lowered his head and took his first taste of the very heady blood of his conquest. It flowed over his tongue, the undertones sweet like a fine wine. He drank and Silver-hair came, drawing Eric along with him into that realm of pure sensation.
As they both subsided, Eric kissed the man's sweat covered brow, murmuring, "You are mine now. No one will dare touch you."
&*&*&
The wizard retreated. For every step Eric took towards him Silver-hair took two backwards. He ended up flush against the wizard whose back was against the far wall, surprised to feel the man's heat through the layers of unnecessary cloth he swathed his body in. He took time to look the man over. It all slid into focus as he looked at his unhealthy pallor, the slight tremors in his arms, the way his eyes had lost their luster. "What...?"
Malfoy sagged against the wall, his expression closing like it was controlled by springs. The wizard attempted to break Eric's hold on him before answering, "I'm dying. The Healers seem to think I have less than a few years. Cruciatus sickness, you see, a wasting disease."
Eric was an intimate of death. He had done it, dealt it, and lived it for the last millennium. Death was a cold master who gave no quarter and offered no comfort. He looked at the man, and could finally see the finger of death on him. It would neither be long in coming nor would it be merciful. Eric cursed, using the tongue of his age for the vilest of the words before he said, "I told him you were not to be touched, that I had marked you as mine."
"You weren't here. You left after you delivered your message." There was no accusation in the statement. Eric let the wizard go struggling with the urge to destroy who had hurt what was his, knowing he was years too late.
&*&*&
The much vaunted Dark Lord, a painfully skinny, middle-aged wimp that had a high voice and effeminate taste in clothes, was ridiculously easy to manipulate.
Eric had been 'cordially' escorted into a moldering manse on the Isle of Man by two brutish thugs who apparently shared a brain between them. He arranged his features to one of bored interest as the night's festivities took place around him. An orgy of torture, blood, and flexing of magical might occurred around him. The red-eyed sociopath smiled at the spectacle as if he were an indulgent grandfather encouraging innocent play amongst his rambunctious grandchildren. Screams rent the air, not a noise that usually bothered Eric, but wearing under the circumstance. If the display was meant to intimidate, Eric could have saved him the effort. Elizabeth Bathory had been an acquaintance of his. She had been a true showman.
Once the dubious festivities had concluded, the wizard motioned Eric forward with an imperious wave of ring bedecked fingers. The self-styled lord dismissed all of his followers. Eric stepped around a bit of blood spilled on the floor-- internally decrying the waste-- and stepped onto the raised dais. He bent over the smaller man, leaning on the back of his throne-like chair, drawing on his full six and a half feet to impinge on the man's carefully constructed aura of invulnerability.
Without waiting to be addressed Eric began, "As you are well aware. I am here on business for my queen, Miss Sophie-Anne Leclerq. She wants to let you know that Louisiana has always been neutral and will remain so unless given provocation. She also wishes to convey her concern about certain elements who have been seen recruiting in her city. She wishes you to withdraw your people immediately."
"Does she?" The wizard licked his lips, the tongue darting out on the colorless lips like a snake's. He leveled a haughty glare at Eric while touching his wand to a tacky tattoo on his forearm. "I don't take orders from Dark creatures or their minions. Karkaroff, take this creature from the room!"
Eric clamped the man around his throat, his face mere inches from warlock’s. The vampire almost let go of the seething skin. The man felt and smelled wrong. "If you know what's good for you and your little band of anarchists here, you will belay that order right now."
Eric lowered his head to the man's throat, wrenching it up with a slight pull on his hair. "Call off your recruiters and leave Louisiana out of your plans, and my queen is willing to remain neutral."
Eric snapped his fingers and two creatures in dark armor appeared as if out of thin air at his side. The Britlingens remained impassive as Eric turned his back on the wizard. “These two will ensure your compliance for the coming weeks. You will also call a moratorium on all transgressions related to me. My friends will ensure that also.”
Eric strode out of the room, relying on his senses to anticipate any attacks if the wizard were foolish enough to act against him outside the paired mercenaries presence.
And at least Silver-hair and his wife were safe for the six weeks of the Britlingens’ contract. Eric owed him that much for such a pleasant evening.
&*&*&
“I can cure you...,” Eric began, though he knew the amount of permission he would need to get to turn such a powerful wizard might use centuries of favors that he was owed. “Or at least let you live.”
Malfoy gave a weak lift of his lips. “No need. I have no desire to cheat death as my former master did. I have ensured my immortality through my heir.”
Eric felt his own answering smile as he drew the man into his arms, relieved that he would not have to turn him. It was a painful process for both. “Now that the niceties are dispensed with, why don’t we get on with the real reason I chose to speak with you, Silfr hàr .”
“Surely you can’t still be interested.” Malfoy’s color was high in his cheeks. “I’ve aged and you’re still... beautiful.”
Eric propelled him to the soft Persian carpet in front of the fireplace while he steadily unlaced and unbuttoned the man’s ridiculous costume. “False modesty doesn’t become you.” He pulled the linen shirt apart, revealing a ripped abdomen and still smooth skin. “Shut up and show hospitality to your guest. I’ve waited years for this.”
Eric’s mouth watered as the wizard lowered himself onto his knees and began as they had all those years ago.
&*&*&
Monroe, Lousiana 2004
Eric waited in his office, looking over the books. Something was wrong with the figures, but he just couldn’t concentrate on them at the moment. Not with the letter waiting for him. It was addressed to him from a solicitor's firm in London known for their dealings with the supernatural element in that city.
He slid his hands through his hair, kept loose for the meeting he had with Bill Compton and his fang-banger. He had been surprised by Compton’s interest in a human. Compton was typical of the time he was made, prudish to the point of blue-balled ridiculousness, moral for no reason other than propriety. Eric had wondered at one time whether the man had made it through his change with all his parts in working order.
The door opened and Pam, in all her lovely, spun-sugar pinkness, entered. She played her finger along the edge of his desk maddeningly. Eric raised his eyes as she began tapping a perfectly polished fingernail against the wood. “Must you?”
“You haven’t opened your letter.” Straight and to the point, that was his Pam, and the reason he trusted her above all of his creations. “It might be important.”
“It is.” Eric turned his attention back to the ledger, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.
Pam opened her mouth then closed it and then said, “I’ll let you know when Compton and his girlfriend get here.”
She left the room, her expensive scent lingering past the shutting of the door.
The letter lay on the desk, an accusing white spot on the dark surface. Eric glared at it and attempted to at least look busy for Pam's next inevitable interruption. The white gleamed under the low light of the lamp, seemed to throb with the dance music that had just started, signaling that Fangtasia was open for business.
Eric slapped his old-fashioned, nibbed stylus down on the desk and snatched the letter up, intending to throw it away. Something shifted in the envelope, something heavier than the standard letter; piquing Eric's interest.
He opened it with the letter opener given him by the Queen upon completion of his last mission for her. Gingerly easing his fingers inside, he retrieved a short note and a rice paper covered packet.
The note was standard lawyerly prattle regretting to inform him of the death of one Lucius Malfoy... yada, yada, yada... he had been bequeathed... blah, blah, blah... He set it aside with a vague feeling of irritation that he knew was masking deeper regrets and opened the packet.
A perfect likeness of Lucius lay inside, a miniature wrought on ivory in vibrant enamel. Eric ran his finger over it, smiling sadly as silfr hár preened as only he could do. Eric looked on it a moment more, battling the urge to weep, before placing it in his desk drawer just as Pam knocked and popped her head into the office. She smirked as she noticed the opened letter but merely stated, "They're here, and you are not going to believe what a treasure Compton has unearthed in that ancestral backwater of his. She's simply delicious."
Eric, in the way of such an ancient being, pushed the past where it belonged and went to greet the night's diversion.
Hár= [Old Norse, ON] hair
Silfr= [ON] silver
Melrakki= [ON] white fox
norn= [Icelandic*] witch
vikingr= [ON] Scandinavian pirate or raider from around the tenth century.
I have read that the tongue spoken in Iceland is the closest to Old Norse which the language a thousand year old Viking would speak. I used an Old Norse online dictionary for most words, but had to use an Icelandic dictionary for the term for witch. If I have made mistakes please let me know.
Thanks to Leni Pedersen for her help in understanding Nordic/Germanic syntax. Don't blame her if I effed up. I can be very hard-headed when I want to be.
Characters and Terms:
Lucius Malfoy: HP. wizard, Death Eater, sex god
Severus: HP. wizard Death Eater, another sex god.
Hermione Granger: HP. witch, Harry Potter's friend, Know it all.
Sanguini: HP. Va pire mentioned as attending a party in the HP books.
Eric Northman: SVM. Viking vampire, owner of the vampire club Fangtasia, Sheriff of Area 5 in the Kingdom of Louisiana. Undead hotness.
Pam: SVM. Eric's child and right hand person.
Bill Compton: SVM. A vassal to the Queen of Louisiana, irritating prig, confederate soldier.
Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq: SVM. Vampire Queen of Louisianna.
Britlingens: SVM. Nearly indestructible mercenaries from a different dimension. It takes a great deal of money to make contact with them and to pay for their skills.
Cruciatus: HP. An illegal and excruciating curse that can cause madness.
Fang-banger: SVM. A derogatory term for humans who wish to have sex with a vampire merely because they are a vampire.
Voldemort: HP Self-styled Dark Lord, leader of the Death Eaters, the group to which Lucius owes his allegiance. In 1979 he still had hair and a nose.
Elizabeth Bathory is a real historical figure that gave rise to certain vampire myths. She was a serial killer who bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth. She was eventually punished for her misdeeds, though since she was a noblewoman, she wasn't executed. She lived out her final days in isolation and with no access to virgins.