miracles - eric northman

chapter twenty-four

| TWENTY-FOUR |
GOING, GOING, GONE

After Pam got over her initial shock, she picked up the cane that the Magister dropped. She pointed that silver tip at his chest above his heart before sinking it in without hesitation. He turned into a mess of blood and guts on the floor that was still sizzling from being burned.

"Good riddance," Pam stared down at the mess in satisfaction before throwing the cane onto the mess.

She allowed herself that moment of satisfaction before she exclaimed, "Now, what the fuck are we gonna do? We're in such deep shit."

"Because he was Authority?" she tried to understand.

"Yes," Pam sighed. "His death won't go unnoticed and no doubt they'll think Eric is responsible. He'll probably even take the blame to protect you."

Her eyes widened before she said protectively, "Well, then I'll burn the Authority, too."

Pam chuckled, "This was a nice trick but you can't take out the Authority. You're kidding yourself."

Eira went to argue that she could, in fact, do it because killing vampires was what she was born to do. But then she realized that with the way Pam stared at her in disbelief that Eric never even told his progeny about what she could do. He kept her secret only to himself and, perhaps, it should stay that way. Vampires would be very interested in learning about her so the less Pam knew the better.

"So..." Eira questioned. "What do we do?"

"Well, we clean this up first," Pam looked at the mess. "There can no trace of this."

Eira looked down at the mess that had stopped sizzling finally as she nodded. She was hoping that since she didn't actually kill the vampire and just merely burned him that her supposedly dangerous grandmother wouldn't have sensed anything. Since her powerful grandmother didn't miraculously appear out of thin air, she felt like she was in the clear. At least, she hoped.

Pam vamp sped up the stairs and then came back with cleaning supplies. It seemed like she was about to say something before she pushed a rag into her hands and commanded forcefully, "Get down on your knees and act like you're cleaning it. And whatever you do, you don't say a word."

Eira did as she said and dropped her to knees. She started to soak up the blood with the rag. But then a vampire sped down and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Eric.

She started to smile and went to get up but Pam put her hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. He stared a bit in shock before he looked at Pam, "What happened?"

"Don't look at me," Pam said. "Look at her."

Eric almost didn't want to believe it as he placed his eyes on her. He didn't want to believe that she'd place herself in danger so easily as he stated hopelessly, "Tell me you didn't."

Pam furrowed her eyebrows. It was like he knew Eira could do something like this.

"Pam was in danger..." Eira went to argue but Eric placed a finger over his lips for her to be silent and she listened as two other vampires came down the stairs.