Hi all,

Welcome to my newest story! Think of it as a political thriller with a supernatural twist. All of the characters you know and love are here. Some are supernatural. Others are not. My original plan was to write all of this and then post, but the feedback really helps motivate me so I'm posting. I'm not updating on any sort of schedule, but I have a large chunk written so I will try to be timely.

A big thanks to Chisaii-Kitty for beta-ing and to Pepperminty Rose for pre-reading and convincing me to keep going.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.

Prologue...

Sookie Stackhouse's senior year started tomorrow. She could hardly believe it. She was giddy with excitement. This was her year. She'd be applying early decision to Dartmouth, like the rest of her family had. Sam Merlotte was her boyfriend – well, maybe not yet, but he would be. He'd arrived at school yesterday. He would come tomorrow to help her move her things. Sookie lived so close she never arrived until classes actually started. The first few days were just for getting settled. Tomorrow would be fine for her. Holderness was only maybe 30 minutes away from her house, but her grandparents were rarely here in New Hampshire. They mostly lived in Washington, D.C. That was where her grandfather worked. And his grandfather before him. Her grandfather was a Senator for the great state of New Hampshire. As for Sookie, she was thrilled to get to go to boarding school and not have to deal with all those Washington types all year lone. Even now, she could hear the low murmur of voices downstairs, politicking away.

She flopped on her bed and put her head phones in her ears, which was why she was so startled when she clearly heard a man's voice.

I must convince him that this will not work. It is not time.

She looked around her bedroom confused. It had sounded like someone was whispering in her ear. Or more like right into her brain, but surely she had imagined that. She pulled her earphones from her ears and listened. It seemed that the house was quiet. She could only hear a murmur of people downstairs. She knew her grandfather had some men over this evening, that wasn't really unusual. She was about to replace the headphones thinking she had dozed off and imagined the whole thing when she heard it again. It was a weird, creepy voice. Commanding and whispery at the same time and it echoed in her head.

You will not reveal what you have learned. You will convince them to bury the truth.

She sat up on her bed, frightened. She didn't know anything. I don't know anything she thought back at the voice and then realized that she was talking to voices in her head. That wasn't a good thing, not at all.

She hesitated for a moment before rising and padding to her bedroom door and opening it just a crack. She listened again. Soft classical music. Polite discussion. No creepy whisper voice. She started down the hall to the top of the stairs and peered over the curved railing into the foyer. She could see the light in her grandfather's study.

She was wearing a sweatshirt, boxer shorts and slippers. She knew she should go back upstairs. Whoever was visiting her grandfather wasn't expecting to run into a teen in pajamas. Depending on who it was, they might not think it was very funny. And then her grandfather would frown at her and discuss appropriateness. She hated that.

Listen!

She was. She couldn't stop. She tiptoed down the stairs toward the study. She felt like the voice was coming from there.

You will not reveal what you have learned! You will see those tapes destroyed. You can do it. You will do it.

And then she heard her grandmother's voice, slightly higher and louder than she ever would have expected. Sookie thought about going to get one of the guns that her grandfather kept locked away or calling the police, that would be a better plan, because her grandmother sounded frightened. And Sookie had never heard her beloved grandmother sound frightened. Nothing frightened Gran because she truly believed that life was a miracle and we were all creatures in need of love, so what was there to be frightened of. Life begins. Life ends. The world is love. There is no reason to fear. Sookie had been raised on it. But right now, Gran sounded scared to death.

"We hear you." Her grandmother's voice was strong in the study while her grandfather sounded subdued. Almost confused. "He'll get it done."

"Thank you Mrs. Stackhouse. That's all we ask. Good evening."

The door to the study opened rather more rapidly than Sookie was expecting and she turned to dart back up the stairs but caught her slipper on the carpet and she went down on one knee. It hurt and she winced but not just because of the pain, the stairs weren't carpeted and it had created a rather loud thud when she landed. Still, she hoped in the dark they wouldn't see her.

Well, well, what have we here?

The thought was so loud that Sookie brought her hand to halfway to her head before lowering it. She couldn't hear thoughts. No one could. And why had she even thought it was a thought, it must have been a voice. Someone spoke to her.

She turned and looked toward the front door expecting to find the man that had spoken. Instead, she saw Gran staring at her eyes wide with fear and a gentleman standing next to her. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with dark hair and broad shoulders. He was quite attractive. Sookie smiled at him, for a girl like her, it was almost a reflex.

The gentleman gave a slight bow. Again, ridiculous because who bowed these days. It was almost the new millennium. "Miss Stackhouse."

She'll be all the leverage we need. He'll fall into line. Keep the secret. A young girl like that is so difficult to protect. Teenagers are always in trouble these days.

Sookie felt her spine grow rigid. What the hell? Was he threatening her? And he hadn't said that out loud? What was going on? She rubbed at her temple again. An ache was forming in her mind. Were those his thoughts? They were clearer than her own. And louder.

Sookie continued staring at the dark haired man standing by the door. His eyes seemed so strange and she felt as though she could feel his thoughts pressing into her now.

You have never seen me before. I was not here. Should we meet you will not know me. Vampires do not exist.

She wanted to scream at him to stop. Stop lying to her. Stop shouting in her head. He was so very loud. And what the hell was he talking about…vampires! There was no such thing as vampires. Sure, she liked Buffy as much as the next girl, but come on. Vampires!

Normally, she would have spoken up. That's how her grandparents had raised her, respectful, but direct. But she couldn't speak. She was too frightened that she had obviously heard voices that no one else was hearing. Was she going insane? No one else seemed to think anything was odd. Well, there was obviously some tension, but nothing like the terror she was feeling.

Gran crossed toward her. "Sookie dear, are you hurt?" And then tossing a rather scathing look toward the visitor, "Good evening, Mr. Compton."

The man nodded. "I'll leave you to your evening." Her grandmother knelt by Sookie on the staircase looking concerned. She did not respond to Mr. Compton. It was about as ride as Sookie had ever seen her grandmother be, at least to company. Mr. Compton glared at her grandmother's back. "I'll just show myself out."

Adele Stackhouse did not turn around or give any sign that she had heard him at all.

Sookie watched him go over the top of her grandmother's head as the older woman examined Sookie's knee. He had an odd way of moving, he seemed to glide out the door more than walk. He shut the door firmly behind him. It echoed a little through the house.

"Who was he?" She felt like her voice shook as she said it, but her grandmother didn't appear to notice.

She gave Sookie a false smile. "Just someone wanting a favor from your grandfather. Just like lots of others." Sookie didn't believe her, but let the lie stand.

"He creeped me out."

Gran nodded. "Yes, he creeped me out too." She stared at the closed door for a few more moments and then rubbed Sookie's shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. "All packed?"

Sookie nodded and Gran rose to her feet. "I'll be up in a moment to make certain. And hear all about the young man that's picking you up tomorrow. I just want to go and check on your Grandfather, he isn't feeling well."

A look of concern crossed Sookie's face. Her grandparents were getting older and they still kept up such an active schedule, which was not surprising since Mitchell Stackhouse was the senior Senator from New Hampshire. "Are you still leaving tomorrow too?"

Gran smiled at her. "It's nothing to fret over dear. We'll leave tomorrow afternoon. We have to be back when term starts. Run along and I'll be up shortly." It was said kindly, but it was still clearly a dismissal. Sookie "ran along" because what else was she going to do. Tell her grandmother that she'd been hallucinating and hearing voices. Not damn likely. Not with her senior year about to start. Sookie took the stairs two at a time.

Bill Compton walked toward the waiting town car. It was almost cliché really, it was a dark and stormy night here in New Hampshire. Cold for September. Real Halloween weather. The perfect night for a vampire to be out terrorizing and all that.

He snorted in amusement at the thought. He hated it up here. He missed the balmy warmth of his home in Louisiana. Not that temperature affected him, he just liked the way the humid air felt on his skin. Nothing humid about it up here, well, at least until June when the air became swamp-like and the black flies came out. Honestly, there had to have been a southern Senator that would fit their needs, wasn't there?

He jerked open the door to the town car rather harder than he had intended causing the passenger inside to raise her eyebrows slightly in irritation. "Well?"

Bill adjusted his coat jacket and stretched his legs. He glanced at the other passenger and inclined his head slightly. "It's done. They're with us, your majesty."

Sophie Anne, Queen of Louisiana, looked out the window behind Bill and contemplated the house. "His wife didn't sound glamoured."

Bill shook his head, it had been a perplexing moment and he thought briefly about lying about it. But he had always abhorred men who could not be honest about their skills and he would not be that kind of a vampire now. He was known for the strength of his glamour. As well as his manners, humans usually took to him. "She was not. It appears that she is quite strong-minded. The child as well."

Her majesty's well-shaped brows came together, Bill wondered if she had to re-shape them every night or had she died like that. If she had, what had she done in her life to be so well-groomed? She was looking at him now. He could see her mentally ticking through files, thinking, remembering. "Child?"

"The grand-daughter," he began to say, but she was already waving away the explanation.

"Yes, yes. A high school student. She's unimportant." She leaned forward to rap sharply on the partition separating them from the driver. "Let's go."

Bill looked back out the window as the car began to pull away from the house. "Are the Stackhouses entirely human, majesty? The girl…she smelled…"

Sophie-Anne glanced at him momentarily and began digging in her briefcase for something, clearly disinterested in the Stackhouse child. "Maybe not. They're quite an old family. We had their history traced before marking Mitchell. You'll see that in older families – otherness. Things weren't always so defined. And they seem to be open in a way that others are not."

To Bill, she sounded impatient with the current state of things. "You sound impatient with how things are. And yet you're fighting to keep us hidden when others want us exposed."

The rooting through the bag ceased and she turned her head slowly, predatorily, to look at him. "Are you not in line with that aim Mr. Compton?"

If Bill's heart had been beating, it would have stopped. She scared him. He swallowed unnecessarily. "No, majesty. I was merely making conversation."

"Make it to someone else. There will be a time to reveal ourselves. This isn't it. At least not as far as my interests are concerned."

Bill nodded his head. "And what other interests would matter, my liege."

The Queen snorted and pulled the file folder she had wanted from her bag. She opened it and began reading. Bill had been dismissed. His only other job was to ride in silence to the airport.

Sookie began her senior year the next day. Sam Merlotte came to pick her up in a new silver BMW 325i. He smiled widely at Sookie, made polite chit-chat with her grandparents and then reached for her duffle bags to bring them out to the car. Sookie followed him out the door. Her grandparents stood on the porch watching. They'd been quiet this morning, quieter than usual.

Sookie walked down the brick steps and then turned to run back up to the porch to hug her grandparents. First her grandfather and then her grandmother. She hung on a little as she hugged her grandmother. "Are you sure everything is alright? I don't want to go if everything isn't alright."

Her Gran smiled and stroked her cheek lovingly. "Of course it's alright dear. Everything is fine. You go. You have things to do. And so do we. We'll see you in a few weeks."

Sookie looked at her grandmother and nodded.

Her grandfather reached over and touched her hair lightly. "What's all this sadness? You've got a busy few weeks ahead. Early decision applications. You know five generations of Stackhouses have gone to Dartmouth."

Sookie rolled her eyes at him. "Really, Grandpa. I don't think you've ever mentioned that before."

Mitchell Stackhouse grinned. He liked his granddaughter. She was sassy. "Must have slipped my mind, pumpkin."

Sookie rolled her eyes again before kissing him on the cheek.

She crossed the driveway and opened the door to Sam's BMW. Sliding into the passenger seat she smiled at Sam and he started the car – this was a good way to start her senior year. She turned and waved to her grandparents as they sped down the driveway off to Holderness.

Sookie never forgot that night and over the years she blamed it on many things from sleep deprivation to stress, none of which she believed, but she never heard another voice, so she assumed it must have all just been her imagination…or something like that. And that was what she told herself for the next nine years.