Disclaimer : Charlaine Harris retains sole rights to the SVM and its characters and I am in no way attempting to infringe on the world she has created. Her characters are being borrowed as creative inspirations, and are being portrayed here merely through my interpretation of their interactions. Some of the dialogue has been borrowed from True Blood, episodes 7 and 8, and all credit goes to the HBO writers, Alan Ball, and the actors themselves for bringing it to the screen - I just interpret it for my own uses in this story.

Author's Note : I've had this sitting on the back-burner for a while but recent negotiations with Eric resulted in it becoming a little more fleshed out. This story takes place during Dead Until Dark / True Blood Season 1, and was inspired by the 'Eric vs Bill : The Long Shadow Staking' debates. I hope, here in Chapter 1, both CH's version and the TB version can be upheld. I may add two more chapters to this (one for each universe) to highlight the differences in how this went down. But in both versions I just couldn't imagine Eric not being 10 steps ahead, like he always is. There was just something missing from our devious Viking's normal method of operation and I hope this fills in the gap. He assures me that he did, of course, know how everything would turn out before he went ahead with his crazy plan. I'm doing my best to keep a straight face and nod obediently in response.

This is my first attempt at writing from Eric's POV so please be gentle. Also please keep in mind where this takes place in the timeline of the Sookieverse. Eric was still a pretty scary character in Book 1 and I didn't try to reign him in too much.

As always, thanks for reading.

"Explain."

"W-well, sir, it's just like I said. I f-found a –"

"Discrepancy. I heard that the first time. What I want to know," I took a step closer to Bruce, "is how this happened."

Tonight had been a good night, until this. Fangtasia had drawn a sizeable crowd for a weekday night and I was pleased with the bulk of our guests. No one had broken any of our rules on the premises and there were two lovely young female blood sacks that would be waiting for me when the club closed.

Finding out that our accountant had discovered sixty-thousand dollars missing from our accounts was severely dampening my mood.

Bruce swallowed hard. "I-I-I d-don't…" His stuttering was really prolonging this. I sighed inwardly and worked on catching Bruce's eyes with my own. His gaze kept darting around the room beyond me like he was looking for somewhere to run. Humans never ceased to amaze me with their idiocy.

Another step closer and Bruce had no where to look except at me as I filled his field of vision, but he refused to look up at my face. I narrowed my eyes. "Bruce!"

He was startled enough to jerk his head up and I had him. Humans were forever thinking of themselves the most superior creatures on the planet but the bulk of them were nothing more than sniveling cowards good for a feed and a fuck if they were lucky. The rest could 'die in a fire' as the new saying went.

"Now, Bruce," I said gently as he gradually relaxed, "I want you to tell me what you've found about our accounts."

"I ran the numbers at least five times and they don't add up. There's sixty-thousand dollars, give or take a few hundred, missing."

"And when did you discover this?" If he had been keeping this to himself for any length of time Bruce was going to have to find a new profession. Probably one that didn't involve the use of his hands.

"Three days ago."

That seemed reasonable. "When did the money disappear?"

"Over the course of four to five weeks about a month ago. I was doing the quarterly tallies when I discovered it."

"And what precisely was the nature of the theft?"

"Cash from the bar. I only noticed when I added up the reported take for a given night directly against the amount deposited. And then it took me some time to drill down which days were specifically being affected."

Most humans seemed to prefer the plastic swipe cards for their transactions but those that were smart only brought cash with them to the bar. Glamour is a bit high-handed for petty thievery but it wasn't uncommon for some of the younger vamps to use their abilities to scam a few hundred dollars from unsuspecting humans. The regulars had adapted. "Do you have a list of the dates?"

"Right here." Bruce offered me the folder he'd walked in carrying and I was pleased that he'd spent his three days wisely. I took it from him and flipped the cover open, scanning down the dates rapidly.

"Have you told anyone else of this?" I asked as I looked for a pattern. Bruce didn't know it but this was the most important question I had asked him all night. The music from the club and the closed door to my office would have obscured our conversation enough that not even a vampire could have overheard us, which was as I wanted.

"No, I only came to you."

Bruce remained obediently silent as I calculated my next move. I considered that he might be the thief, or could be staging this entire scenario as a way of ingratiating himself to me, but that just didn't mesh with what I knew of him. None of my employees, especially those that had any real amount of responsibility, came to be under my employment without thorough screenings and background research. Occasionally an unsavory character would slip through but I've yet to miss anyone intending me, my business, or my underlings true harm. This was a first at Fangtasia.

I released Bruce from my glamour and he immediately began trembling while a look of confusion settled on his features. Deciding he'd earned it, I threw him a bone. "You did well Bruce. Speak of this to no one else and I will discover for myself who has been stealing from us. Of course," I added, just to keep him on his toes, "if I find out this is some poorly conceived attempt on your part to thieve from vampires I don't think you'll be getting your Christmas bonus this year." My fangs popped forward intentionally as I smiled. "You may go."

Bruce sobbed and ran from the room.

My child came in not long after, while I was rooting through our file cabinet looking for the records of our employees schedules. "It seems you have scared our accountant into quite a state again."

I didn't turn to look at her and continued my search. "Did he leave out the back or the front?"

"Back." I could hear Pam's frown before she even moved into my peripheral vision.

Good, I thought to myself. "You don't need to be concerned," I said to her, switching to my native tongue. "But we may need a new staff soon."

"What have they done this time?" she asked in the same language as smoothly as if she'd been speaking it from birth. Technically she had.

"It seems that we are missing a significant amount of money from the past quarter."

Pam's face transformed into a gleeful expression. "Who do we question first?"

"I'm finding that out now." I'd found the matching dates and took them over to my desk, laying them side by side with Bruce's records.

"This was all taken in cash?" she asked once she discerned the information from Bruce's spreadsheet. I was slightly amused that she chose a time like this to show-off that she could read upside down from the other side of my desk.

"So it would seem."

"I'm curious why they wouldn't just neglect to report the sales. Was it all from the bar?"

"No, it appears that the bar and the gift-shop were both shorted."

"One of the humans then."

I looked at her sharply. "Do you know something I don't?" I asked her, my voice stern. It wouldn't be the first time Pam kept information from me but it would be the only time that it have proven detrimental.

"No, my Master," she said smoothly, inclining her head respectfully in acknowledgement of my tone. "But there have been rumors. The source was too contemptuous to warrant bringing it to your attention."

"And now?" I watched her while she reevaluated.

Her eyes flicked back to mine when she finished. "Supposedly there is a new local fighting ring. I have not attempted to seek it out because I knew you would want nothing to do with it and if you did not know about it you would not be responsible for any foolishness resulting from it. It is run by shifters."

Fighting rings meant gambling debts. "What vampires are supposed attendees?" I knew Pam would have covered her lack of discretion by obtaining as much relevant data as possible. Willful ignorance was not a trait that promoted longevity and it was a lesson I taught to her early.

"Taryn, Odessa, Long Shadow, Glen, Erin, Carmichael." She rattled them off without even having to count on her fingers.

I frowned. Pam's list included all the usual suspects for enjoyment of such activities but the obvious conclusion from it… "You will not keep information from me when it concerns a direct associate, is that clear?" My voice was just as sharp as I intended it to be.

"Yes, Master." Her eyes burned and I knew she also understood what I was not saying aloud.

"Leave me."

Pam vanished from my office as only a fellow vampire could.

I sat back in the chair behind my desk and propped my feet up on its surface. My arms crossed in front of me out of long habit and I retreated into myself as I sorted through tonight's revelations.

A few minutes later I stood, returned the employee files to their proper place, stored Bruce's folder in the safe that only I had access to (it had a sheet of silver pounded in between the layers of steel to prevent vampire tampering), and left my office. It was 1:30am and if my chosen companions hadn't reconsidered the intelligence of their choice to spend an evening with a vampire they would be outside waiting.

Anyone watching would certainly not notice anything different in my nightly behavior. It was not the first time Bruce had run from Fangtasia barely in control of his bowels, or the only time that Pam and I had sequestered ourselves for a private conversation. No, to all outward appearances everything was normal.

Inside of course I was seething. I could think of more than a dozen plausible possibilities for the thief's identity but my mind and gut kept coming back to only one feasible conclusion. There was a mortal expression for it and I had reflected on the irony many times over the years since it had come into existence. Occasionally, I did have to admit, despite the odds against them the idiocy of humanity would stumble upon an apparent universal truth.

As I bid farewell to Pam by way of a silent nod this 'rule of thumb' echoed ominously in my thoughts.

Ockham's Razor: All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.

I met his eyes where he stood behind the bar just before I walked out the door into the moist Louisiana air. We exchanged a nod, not unlike any other night. Did I detect a flicker of contempt? Was that a smirk he had to struggle to keep off his face? Would our till be shorted again this evening because he had been here?

I couldn't know for certain that Long Shadow was the guilty party, not without exposing the theft to public knowledge, and I could not tolerate such an appearance of foolishness. A delicious plan to discover the truth began forming in the recesses of my mind. Couldn't a scene be set to provoke Long Shadow's pride? I began mentally running through the possible outcomes of such a scenario while I scanned the parking lot.

The two women were there, waiting by my red corvette. One was actually daring to lean on it and I had to repress a boil of anger. That one would not have quite as pleasant an evening as I'd originally planned.

Neither would Long Shadow, once my arrangements were in place. I felt myself stir at the prospect of bloody vengeance and smiled at both the women. My fangs had partly run out and I could smell their fear, excitement, lust, and primal terror. Neither of them would remember what it felt like to be bitten of course but I would let them keep their memories of the other pleasures of my company. With a little luck these two would become new additions to the ranks of addicts that couldn't help thronging to the bar in hopes of getting another taste of vampiric satisfaction.

Of course, they would never get it from me again. I did not do repeat performances. But let it never be said that Eric Northman failed to deliver.

***

It had been an entire week since Bruce had told me of the missing records. I was running out of time to come up with a plan for dealing with the situation before I lost my temper and was provoked into acting before it was prudent. I had found out, through careful interrogations of the human employees, that at least one of them was helping Long Shadow by taking money from the gift-shop when they were on duty there. Of course the word of a human against a vampire was useless to me when it came to our system of justice. Unfortunately his stupidity had only extended to stealing from me, not to involving credible witnesses.

I almost wished I had the time to find out why he had done it but knowing the reason would not have changed how I dealt with him. He would die for this betrayal, I just had to find a way to make the kill seem legitimate and damn the consequences. Everyone knows that I am more than fair to those who have sworn me fealty. If I were harsher people would fear me more, yes, but I dislike ruling by the sword as they used to say. People are far more useful when they are not preoccupied worrying that the slightest offense might get them in trouble. But it did mean I had to be a bit…extreme in dealing with transgressions against me especially in regard to those who held a higher than normal position of trust. It was necessary to reinforce the point that I only allowed my minions the comfort of relaxing around me, relatively, as long as they didn't cross me. What was that human saying? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice… Well, that was why I made sure there never was a second time.

Tonight I sat in my normal spot, all but ignoring the crowd of tourists and fangbangers that swarmed around me. I had no need to feed tonight and none of the humans here seemed appealing anyway. Last week's crowd had been much livelier.

To make sure the guests realized my indifference to them tonight, my attention was focused entirely on my cell-phone. I would never have purchased one with a keyboard if Pam hadn't recommended it but apparently she had discovered the intrigue of text-messaging from one of her ever changing human companions. And although I would never tell her if she asked me, it was a very useful feature.

But apparently my façade was not fool-proof. Oh no. After all, nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool. "Excuse me," said a particularly husky female voice from the edge of my raised platform. I raised my eyes as Long Shadow appeared at the girl's elbow, ready to perform the honors of throwing this insolent blood-bag out of the club if that was my wish. His presence grated on me but I kept it from showing.

"May I take a picture of you?" the fool asked as I evaluated her coldly. She was blonde and slightly husky, wearing a dark t-shirt that seemed to be her only consideration for the fact that she had planned to come to vampire bar. Definitely a tourist. My thoughts flickered briefly to another blonde that I had recently become acquainted with, one who was much more fascinating than this creature could ever be. I dismissed the memory for the moment.

Why not? It was always fun tormenting the vermin. I set my phone down on the chair next to my 'throne' and then steepled my fingers, allowing my fangs to pop forward as I did so. "You may."

No sooner had she clicked the button then Long Shadow was plucking the phone from her fragile fingers. He brought his fist down on it over top of a table. "No pictures."

"He said I could take it," she responded, a trickle of fear in her voice.

Reaching for my phone again I explained patiently, "I did not say you could keep it."

The girl looked at me one more time and I smiled indulgently at her. As she walked away shaking Long Shadow had a good laugh over her humiliation. The entire incident had taken less than thirty seconds.

My brief thought of Sookie Stackhouse sparked the beginning ideas of a plan to deal with Long Shadow as well as an answer to a more personal issue. I wanted to see her again of course but Bill refused to bring her back to Fangtasia for any social reason. How he had found such a unique and singularly beautiful human woman was a mystery to me and one that I spent no small amount of free time pondering.

This really was too perfect to pass up. My very next text-message was to Bill, setting things in motion.

**

I didn't bother opening my eyes as the bathroom door squeaked open and Bill entered the room. Even without seeing I could sense his exasperation at finding me soaking in his tub. It served him right. "I texted you three times. Why didn't you reply?"

"I hate using the number keys to type." Yep, definitely surly. "What are you listening to?" he asked in a tone that he no doubt hoped sounded more disgusted than curious.

"From my younger days. It's really quite beautiful if you know old Swedenish." I left a calculated pause between that answer and my next words. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"A favor or an order?"

Trust Bill to need to ask the obvious. I slid my eyes open to regard him with a small amount of contempt. "Depends on how you look at it." He clenched his jaw and I decided to go with the least direct explanation, just to draw out the tension.

"Honestly," I had to fight the urge to smile, "did you think you could keep her to yourself?"

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