Dimitri showed up in the basement early one evening. “How is my little human doing?” He asked me, like I was his pet. I glared at him, angrily. I wished that I was a dog and that I could bite him. Or maybe a cat, so that I could scratch his eyes out. How did he think I was doing? I wondered. “I have some good news for you. I’m moving you to more…scenic surroundings,” he explained.
I could only guess how scenic these surroundings were, having noticed the shitty decorating job throughout the rest of the place that I’d seen. Dimitri was not someone who should do Trading Spaces, I thought to myself. I rolled my eyes, but Dimitri didn’t seem to notice.
“Don’t worry, it will be more suited to your beauty,” he winked at her. “I wouldn’t want you to get ready for your party in a dirty basement such as this. You would ruin the new dress that I bought you.”
Like I cared? I hadn’t really seen the dress, since there was no lights on in the basement. All I could tell was that the fabric felt like a soft material like velvet or something. I’d tried it on and it fit nicely…I could only imagine what Dimitri’s tastes in clothes were. Judging from his usual robes, I hoped that someone else had picked it out instead of him. He struck me as the type who frequented costume shops regularly. And those were just his normal clothes. I’d hate to see what he wore when he dressed up completely.
He probably wore a cape too, I scoffed in my mind.
“I’ve invited all of the guests and so far, everyone is coming…except for one. Can you guess who it might be?” He teased me.
I wanted to know why he cared what I thought about his guest list. “Um, the president?” I quipped back at him, knowing that it was the furthest thing that he expected.
I’d startled him, I could tell. I grinned, mischievously.
“Who?” he asked, puzzled and confused.
I wished that I could’ve laughed aloud. The expression on his face was hilarious. Priceless. He looked like a deer caught in some headlights.
“Nothing, forget it,” I waved it off, decided that it had been enough fun. “Who hasn’t replied yet?” I decided to play along with his game.
“One, Eric Northman,” he grinned, wickedly at me.
I stood there stunned, speechless. Eric? Here? I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wait to see him. But then I realized that Dimitri had something brewing. I could tell by his watchful gaze, that he was curious to see how well I took this news. “You’re setting a trap,” I deduced, looking at him hard.
“Me?” Dimitri laughed. “Now, why would I want to set a trap for Eric?” He pretended to be all innocent, but I could see through him.
“I don’t know,” I replied. That was the thing that stumped me. I have no idea why this vampire wanted revenge against Eric and wanted to use me in the process to get to him. What did Eric do to him in the past? I wondered. “Why don’t you tell me?” I quipped back.
“Patience my dear, you’re about to find out at our party,” he grinned at her. “Now, let’s get you all ready.” He ushered me out of the basement, his assistant, Mr. Big (I’d nicknamed him) grabbed my arm and pulled me in the direction that they wanted me to go.
We got upstairs, started walking down the hallway, until we got to a huge foyer. It was grand. It reminded me of the grand foyer of Tara in the movie, Gone With The Wind. There were paintings hung on the walls of various people, who I’d never seen before. I wondered if Dimitri had stolen this house from some poor family whose house it had belonged to for centuries.
They walked me up the grand staircase and reached the top of the stairs, then walked down one of the wings, that extended from the center of the grand foyer. Door after door, we walked by, until Dimitri opened one up and Mr. Big pushed me through.
I stumbled and fell to the floor, having lost my balance. I heard the door lock behind me. I knew that I had no way to escape, unless I decided to climb out of one of the windows. I got to my feet, slowly, taking in my more…comfortable surroundings.
Why didn’t they put me in here before? It would’ve been a whole lot nicer, I thought to myself.
There was a big canopied bed in the center of the room. Various boudoirs and chairs that I could tell were antiques. There was a floral pattern on the walls. The fabrics were both lush and very feminine. Obviously, I was in a ladies room. It was beautiful. There were doilies on the table tops and flowers on some of the tables.
I spotted two windows, with their floral drapes on either side. I rushed over to one of them to take a look down.
Hmmm, how to do this, I wondered to myself. I bit my lip, while I thought about it.
I could see creepers and ivy in front of the window. I wondered if my weight might be too heavy for me to climb down. I decided that I needed to see what was below the window, just in case I fell. I hoped it would be a soft landing.
I tried opening the window, so that I could get a better look, but I discovered that it had been nailed shut. Great, now what was I supposed to do? I wondered. Dimitri must have known that I would try to use this opportunity to make an escape.
Well, I could adjust, I thought to myself. I was my Gran’s granddaughter, I thought. I was creative. Plus, I had some fae blood in me. I would just have to find another way to runaway. It would just be harder to figure out, that’s all. All I knew, was that I needed to figure it out soon, so that I could warn Eric not to come here.
Eric was still going back and forth on his decision to attend the party or not. He was curious, but yet, he was just not looking forward to a party, because Sookie was still out there…he didn’t know where she was or how she was doing. He was beyond worried now. He felt bereft and adrift at sea, whereas he used to feel like he was at home. Now, he just felt lost. As if he’d lost his compass and maps and the night sky was cloudy, so he couldn’t find his way by the stars either.
There was a knock at his office door, he knew it was Pam. She opened it up, sticking her head through the opening. “Care for some company?” She tried to cheer him up, but it wasn’t succeeding. She frowned, when she noticed how dishevelled he looked. His long hair was a mess and his clothes looked dirty. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. “I could get you a snack, if you wanted me to,” she offered, hopefully.
This was so not like Eric, she thought to herself. She had never in all the years that she’d known him, ever seen him like this. It made her angry and resentful towards the person who had taken Sookie.
Eric shook his head. The only thing he wanted was for Sookie to return home, safe and sound. That was it. Was it too much to hope for?
Pam was at a loss, looking helpless and confused. She backed out of the doorway once again and headed back towards the bar, shaking her head. “Sorry, he’s not up for visitors.” She told a man standing at the bar.
“Well, he’ll want to see me,” Niall explained, then used his magic on Pam.
“Okay, come this way,” Pam motioned for him to follow her. She led him back to Eric’s office, not bothering to knock this time. “Eric, he insisted that he wanted to talk to you,” she explained, when Eric looked up, irritably at their interruption.
Niall walked in, took a look around, then looked at Eric with pitying eyes. “Look, Eric. We get it. We know. You miss Sookie…so do I,” he scolded him sternly. “But do you think this is the Eric that Sookie wants to see right now? The one, who she needs?” Niall shook his head, disapprovingly at him. “No,” he answered his own question. “But if you want to drown in your own sorrows, that’s fine by me. I just wanted to come by here to tell you something.”
This got Eric’s attention. He looked up at him, hopefully. Eric hoped that Niall had good news to share. He had never felt like this before in his long life. He didn’t want to feel this way, ever again.
Niall had Pam’s undivided attention as well. Her gaze zeroed in on him, trying to figure out if Niall was going to tell Eric the truth.
“I think I know what’s going on,” he replied. “I think I know either who has Sookie or who is involved in her disappearance.”
Eric sat up straighter in his chair. “Tell me,” he insisted, showing the first signs of life in a long time.
“Well…what do you know about Dimitri?”
Eric shrugged. “He’s a philanthropist. He’s unscrupulous. He’s dramatic and does a lot of things for show,” Eric explained what he knew. “Why?”
“I did some investigating…sure enough, the only vampire who has done magic on his own kind, like he has done on you…was Dimitri. Then, I did some more digging. He recently came back here, has he not? He also goes way back with you. I think you owe him something, if I recall?” Niall explained. “I’m not sure if I want to know what that is, but he definitely fills the description of means and motivation.”
First the first time in awhile, Eric smiled. He stood up to face Niall. “If you weren’t a fairy, I’d come over there and hug you right now,” he said, feeling a new sense of purpose and resolve. “How the hell did you find all of this out?”
Niall shrugged. “I have my ways…” he grinned at him. “I came here as soon as I filled in all the missing pieces. But I do have to warn you…I’m not entirely sure that he has Sookie. It could all be a dead end.” He warned.
Eric didn’t care. This was the first clue that he’d had in a long time. It was worth taking a shot. “I’m going to the party,” he announced, decisively. “If there’s the slightest chance that he does have her, I want to be there.”
Niall nodded his head in understanding. “Go get ’em,” he encouraged, then he disappeared in thin air.
Eric pondered what Niall had told him. If he was right…then he could have Sookie safe and sound back in his arms by the time dawn appeared once again. He couldn’t wait.
He quickly sped home, changed, showered and got ready for the party. He needed to see with his own eyes if Sookie was there or not.
The party was in full swing. I was stuck standing beside Dimitri all night. He had announced to the crowd, how he was honored to be in the presence of a renown telepath. He had big plans for me.
I wasn’t impressed. Didn’t I have any say in the matter? He had kidnapped me, sure, but that’s no guarantee that I would still do his bidding. I needed to make my escape and fast…I didn’t know what Dimitri’s plans for me really were and that scared me.
Please Eric, come and find me soon. I pleaded in my mind.
A woman came up to me, who was about my height with wavy red hair and a big crooked nose. There’s someone who needs a nose job, I thought to myself.
“Hi, I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” the woman introduced herself to me. I just stared at her, finally able to read someone’s mind. She was a human. I could tell. Her thoughts centered around power and money. She also liked to play around with potions and things. I just knew that she was a witch of some kind.
I had never seen her before, so I studied her now. I briefly wondered if she’d been involved in the Witch War a number of months back, while Eric had been under a witch’s curse. I wondered if Amelia and Octavia knew her too.
“I’m Agatha,” she introduced herself, staring at me, as if I were some sort of test animal.
“And I’m Sookie, ma’am,” I replied back.
“Aren’t you the sweetest thing? All polite and everything,” Agatha gushed. She was trying to see inside my head. I could tell that she had never run across a telepath before. “What am I thinking?” She wondered.
I could see images in my head, so I told her. “You’re thinking of birds singing and flowers blooming,” I replied back. I was beginning to feel like I was under a spell. What the hell? It was like she was hypnotizing me.
It was a weird feeling. I’d never been hypnotized before, unless you counted those hypnotists who made you do funny things on a stage. This felt like I was slowly losing control. I couldn’t look away, no matter how hard I tried. It was very scary.
Suddenly, the spell broke as Dimitri interrupted. “My dear, Agatha, you know that now is not the time,” he scolded the witch. “I’m sorry, Sookie,” he turned to me, after giving Agatha a certain look. “Come this way, my dear, I want you to meet someone,” he ushered me away from Agatha and her hypnotizing ways.
I was greatly relieved. For a few moments there, I was pretty sure that Agatha could make me do whatever she wanted me to do. It was a very scary feeling.
Dimitri walked me towards another guest. While we exchanged small-talk (which I have no idea how I could keep up such an act) I felt like I needed to take a break. I really had to go pee. I made my excuses. Shock of all shocks, Dimitri didn’t follow me or send someone to watch me. I don’t think he realized that if I wanted to, I could easily escape. I think his ego was so big that he really didn’t think that I’d be able to do anything other than what I said I would. That gave me a great idea, as I headed out the room, towards the powder room.
I did my thing, wondering which would be the best way to leave. Through the front or the back door. I had checked it out from my new room. My window faced the front gates to the property. I knew that Dimitri had Weres guarding the entrance, just like they had at the palace in Jackson, Mississippi.
I fixed my hair, checked my make up, in the mirror. If only Eric could see me now, I thought. I had never looked better, in my opinion. The dress was a slinky black dress in velvet (not at all shocked, that Dimitri had picked velvet as his fabric of choice) that draped over my curves, with spaghetti straps at my shoulders. There was just enough tail at the hem that would make it harder to run in. If my hair was black and I had a white streak now the middle, you could call me, Lily Munster. I looked creepy and dressed for Halloween, but I still thought that I looked good.
I gazed at myself one more time in the mirror, took a deep breath, then opened the door. I peered around the corner, making sure that the coast was clear. I had removed my shoes in the powder room, so that my footsteps wouldn’t be overheard and I was glad. Those shoes had hurt my feet. It was also easier to walk this way.
I walked down the corridor, the front foyer up ahead in the distance, where the front door was. I decided that it would be the best possible exit because I could head straight ahead and not have to manoeuvre around the house. I could make a bee-line to the front gate.
I heard someone coming, so I ducked out of sight behind a bouquet of flowers. When the coast was clear, I started to head for the door. Just as I reached it, I could hear a voice behind me say, “Where are you going, Sookie?”
I stopped in my tracks, paralyzed in fear.
Eric raced to the address that Dimitri had given him. Eric hadn’t been very religious in a long time, not since he’d been human, but he began to say prayers now. Please, let her be there. Please, let her be alright. He hoped and prayed in his mind. He would promise anything, if it meant that he would find Sookie there, alive and well.
He was lucky that he didn’t get pulled over by the police. Memories, came to him, of another time when he’d actually been pulled over. Sookie had been in the car with him. They had been coming back from her dinner with Niall, when she had met him for the first time. It had been a Were, who had been ordered to kill him and take Sookie. He had stopped the attempt then, he recalled, but now he was dealing with something entirely new.
This time, he hadn’t protected her. She had been missing for God knows how long. If a police car, did catch him, he was of a mind to keep on driving. He was getting a feeling that Sookie was indeed at Dimitri’s. It would take both heaven and hell to keep him away from her now.
He pulled into the long drive, passing the guard at the gate. Eric knew right away, from the smell of him, that he was a Were. Eric would have to come up with a good plan in order to get Sookie away from there. He pulled to a stop outside the front door and flew up to the doorstep.
He somehow knew that speed was of the essence. He could feel Sookie’s fear. He was relieved to finally be able to sense her once again. He barged in to open the front door, just in time to see Dimitri grab her and start to head towards the basement door.
“Dimitri,” Eric called out, angrily.
Erika's Not-So-Secret Diary 