Chapter 7

“So that’s it?” Eira tilted her head to the side, and raised her eyebrows in question.

“Yes dearest child, that is all. Ah, by the way—would you allow me your locket?” Eira hesitated, she never took that locket off for anything, but this was Octavia, and she trusted the witch.

Eira and Amelia watched as Octavia chanted something in a foreign tongue, and when she was done, she handed the locket back to Eira. “So you’ll never lose it. It will always be with you, and it will always find its way to you.” Eira smiled at the elder witch and pulled her into a hug. “Thank you so much—but…” She pulled away.

“Why are you helping me? You’re good friends with Grandfather and no doubt you know about my father, so why?”

“A harmless prank on your father, I figured he needs to learn his lesson, and your grandfather doesn’t seem to be doing much to help, even though he wants too. He is rather busy in Faerum.”

Eira sighed. “Yeah, he’s trying to undo all the damage left behind by some rogue Faery…Warlow or something..”

“Alright child, enough worrying about the world. Tomorrow is a day of fun and celebration! Go on, sleep for tomorrow is another day.” Both Amelia and Eira grinned at Octavia. The girls, were very excited to spend some quality time together, after all they hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and what better way than to spend it with your best friend doing a sleep over?

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Eric woke up suddenly, he quickly sat up  his eyes brimming red with his tears. His blood tie to his daughter had disappeared.It felt like there was a hole in his chest, and  he could feel that the sun was already beginning to set. Eric got out of bed, and began to dress himself. His mind was racing, where was his daughter? Had Niall come for her? Did something happen during his dayrest?

He didn’t want to think the worst had happened.

He wanted to believe that she was safe with Niall. With his whole undead heart, he wanted to believe this.

When Sookie died, it was just like this, he was in his dayrest when it happened, and he was unable to leave to see what had gone on. That terrible feeling was coming back, and he just needed to know that Eira was still safe.

His little girl was safe, that’s what he had hoped, and prayed to his gods.  He cursed , wishing himself to be some kind of other creature instead of a vampire. Being a vampire was suffocating him right now. He was unable to go out during daylight hours to check on his daughter, and back then he was unable to get to Sookie.

He paced back and forth in his light tight bedroom, until finally it was time to emerge. He left his bedroom with his quick vampire speed, and he went outside to find Eira’s guards. Lucky for him, he had caught her scent just outside.

“Wolf!” Eric roared, barely containing his rage.

“Where is she?!”

Alcide had shifted back to his human form, and he walked to Eric. “Eira glamoured me, she said that you won’t find her unless she wants to be found.” Alcide said automatically.

That wasn’t enough. If Eira had left, anything could have happened to her on her excursion. He then narrowed his eyes at Alcide. He was able to be glamoured by his daughter, which was something he wasn’t expecting from the young child.  According to Niall, she had never glamoured anybody, but here she was glamouring a werewolf.

The child was clever, he had to admit it.

“Where is she?” Eric said with gritted teeth.

“I can’t say.”

Eric felt his anger come back up. She had glamoured him not to tell him her whereabouts as well. It only infuriated him more.

Eric stepped up to Alcide, and locked his eyes. “You will tell me where my daughter is.”

Seeming to have worked, Alcide then responded with a “I dropped her off at the Shreveport Airport. I don’t know where she was going from there.”

Before Eric could castrate the said wolf, he retreated back into his home to make some calls.

“I want you to check any flights that have left Shreveport, look for an Eira Brigant and update me with any details.” Once that call was done, he phoned Niall.

“Brigant, where is she? Is she with you?”

Niall knew then that his granddaughter had rebelled against her father.

“No, I would have known if she came here. She called me the other night, she wanted to leave your home, but I insisted she stay a while longer.”

That hurt more than it should have. But it had to be expected, it’s not like he was father of the year with her. He barely interacted much with her, aside with making sure she was well rested and fed daily.

“I can’t feel her.” Eric finally said. “I had her take my blood, and suddenly our tie is gone. It vanished.”

“You are worrying far too much. My granddaughter is clever. I can try to use my own magic to pinpoint her location, as kin we are able to do so. I will let you know if I get results.”

Eric sighed, and ran his hand through his hair, his phone rang and he picked up, hoping it was someone with answers.

“Sir, we couldn’t find that name in any of the flights in Shreveport. We could not trace her phone either. We found it’s location in a restroom at the airport, the phone was found and a faint scent of magic lingered as well.” He crushed his phone in his hand, and just then, Pam waltzed in. She was going to ask him what had his panties all in a twist but the answer was clear. Her favorite little fairy princess had done something, just like she had hoped. Pam decided not to touch the subject, Eric would tell her when he was calm.

“Master shall I go get another replacement phone?” It wasn’t rare that Eric would break his phones every now and then, so now they had opted for keeping spares for every time it would occur.

When Eric didn’t respond to her she realized that Eric was really pissed, and instead she just went off to find him another phone. In the mean time though, Niall had popped in, making Eric take a defensive stance against the Fairy Prince.

“Relax Viking, I couldn’t reach you so here I am.”

“Do you bring news?”

The look on Niall’s face gave Eric the answer he needed, but he still wanted to hear it from the Fairy’s mouth.

“I could not find her. Not even by trying to locate her through our blood. She is not dead either, so you can rest assured she is somewhere. I do hope she is safe, she isn’t a weakling either. I will say this, there is powerful magic surrounding her which makes it impossible to find her. I’d say that it’s most likely that she used a cloaking spell. “

Eric’s emotions kept switching back and forth through anger and worry. He didn’t want to think that she was kidnapped by someone that was trying to use her against Niall. If she wasn’t kidnapped then yes either way he would be furious with her!

“Where the hell would she find someone to do a cloaking spell?” Eric said, his eyes narrowing at Niall, and in the moment  Pam had returned with Eric’s new phone. Then, that’s when it hit Niall, his grand daughter was friends with the witches. Amelia was Octavia’s grand daughter and he didn’t doubt that Amelia knew a cloaking spell, she was Octavia’s granddaughter after all.

“She’s in New Orleans. Her best friend is a witch, and the granddaughter of Octavia Fant. That is the only way for her to have escaped so easily. The witches are holding a ceremony tomorrow for Hallow’s eve. You will find your daughter there. The witches have always welcomed her with open arms.”

“Then we leave tonight.” Eric said. “Pam you will come with me, if we leave now we will make it in time to check into a hotel. Tomorrow night we commence our search, and we will not rest until she is found. If I have to kill a few witches to get to her then I will do it”

“Eric, remember the last time you crossed a witch. It didn’t go well for any of us.”

Eric didn’t reply to Pam, his mind was on his daughter. He would never forgive himself if something had happened to her

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It was the night of Samhain, and both Eira and Amelia were strolling down the busy streets in the French Quarter. The people were singing and dancing to the sounds of the trumpets and saxophones, people were dressed in different kinds of costumes, which made blending in all the more easier for the two girls.

“Are you going to feed?” Amelia asked. She knew Vampires fed off of humans, and this place was full of humans with fresh blood flowing through their veins. They were intoxicated which should make it all the more easier for her best friend to feed.

“Amy!” Eira hissed and wacked her friend on the arm. “You know I feed from bags, not humans. “

“You should try a human. No one is watching you, and come on we’re at a party Eira. Live a little, you’re not just a Fairy Princess.”

Her best friend was a bad influence, is what Eira thought. Even if she wanted to feed, none of the humans around smelled good. She didn’t want to taste tainted blood, she’d much rather head to a vampire’s place to find their donor pool. But even then she was underage and under no circumstances would she ever set foot into such a place. Donor pools were disgusting. She had never been to one, but she had seen the minds of the donors.

“Yeah, but these people smell horrible, Amy.” Amelia then rolled her eyes. “Party pooper.”

“Yes, Amelia I’m going to drink from some intoxicated human and probably get sick afterwards. ” she deadpanned.

“Would drinking from a drunk human give you a buzz?” Eira narrowed her eyes at her best friend. “Amy! We’re under age!”

Amelia scoffed. “Come on, does that really count for a vampire? What about Vampires that were turned at your age a few hundred years ago?”

“That’s different, they’re hundreds of years old. I’m not. I’ve been alive for sixteen years, not hundreds and if I come home smelling all weird I’ll never see the light of day again.”

Amelia began to laugh. “Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Eira please, you’re already grounded for life for escaping prison.”

“Shut up I didn’t ask for your input.”

The party continued on in the French quarter. Eira could smell that there were many other supernatural creatures in the quarter, many of them vampires and weres.

Eira was enjoying herself, she laughed and she danced, and she twirled to the beat of the music. There were people of all different ages and sizes dancing in the crowds alongside her, candy was being thrown around and children scattered to fill their buckets. Despite it being Halloween, people still wore bright colors down in New Orleans . Happiness radiated off of the young girl. It had been a while, but for tonight Eira could forget her worries and just be a normal girl without responsibilities, and for once she could pretend she didn’t have a Fairy Prince for a grandfather, and she could pretend that her father wasn’t some powerful ancient Viking vampire.

“The Cities of the dead.” Amelia said with glee when they had arrived at their destination. The name in itself was creepy, but the place was even creepier.  Eira had heard of this place. This was a graveyard, and since people could not be buried underground they were kept in these above ground tombs. It truly did look like a miniature city, except you could tell that it was a graveyard with all the crosses and statues that decorated the place. Eira shuddered, the witches had strange tastes, but this is where their ancestors were also buried, and today her best friend was going to be a part of this coven and she was going to receive more power from her ancestors, however that worked.

Witch magic was complicated.

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Eric had been out since the sun had set. They had arrived close to sunrise so there was no time to even begin looking for his daughter until sundown, and he doubted she would be awake at the hour. He really hoped she was with this witch friend of hers, and if she was, he would assume she was asleep at those hours and not out partying like most teenagers do.

He probably wouldn’t be able to handle that either.

Bourbon street was filled with people dressed from head to toe in costumes. The Halloween costumes were different to what people would wear at Fangtasia. The clients in fangtasia dressed in skimpy revealing clothing and it was all black, no one pretended to be vampires but the goth look really got out of hand during Halloween. New Orleans was different though, the people here wore bright and happy colors. The music was as lively as ever, and people just danced and twirled to the sounds.

His daughter was somewhere in this very city. He wouldn’t find her in this crowd of people, not if she had cloaked herself from him.  He probably wouldn’t be able to pick up her scent either. No, this was difficult. He knew she was safe, but he needed to confirm it with his own eyes. He needed to see her, he needed to know she was safe.

He needed to find a witch, a witch that would tell him where the ceremony was being held, since Octavia had been no help at all. When they managed to contact the elder witch, she merely laughed and said that Eira would be found when she wanted to be found.

That infuriated him and he had left the hotel room before he had caused anymore damages.

He was pretty sure he had traveled all over the French Quarter, and there was no signs of witches anywhere. The only thing spotted in the crowd were other supernatural creatures none of which, knew where the witches held their special holiday rituals.

His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He took it out, and noticed it was his child, Pam. He picked up hoping to hear some sort of good news tonight.

“Master, the coven are gathered at the Cities of the dead. I haven’t seen a trace of your daughter, but I have a good trusted source of information that this is where the witches will be holding their rituals tonight.”

Niall hadn’t called him, and Niall didn’t seem too worried about Eira, which infuriated Eric. The Fairy was nowhere to be found tonight so it was just Pam helping with the search. Not like he could ever count on the Fairies anyways, he had Pam and his child always pulled through for him, just like right now. She always came to him with results. He couldn’t be prouder.

But he groaned when Pam mentioned the location of where his daughter might be.

The Cities of the dead is where vampires would hide before the great revelation, with the permission of the witches of course. You had to have had a good relationship with a witch in order to be allowed in there. The place was warded and the witches were not ones to be trifled with, one witch could deal damage, but an entire coven of witches could raise hell. Vampires very rarely were allowed into the place, and if his daughter was there, then she must have had a good relationship with the witches.

“Excellent.”  Eric hung up, and he vamped himself out of the crowd of people, he took to the sky and moments later he landed infront of the graveyard, where Pam was waiting for him, with a beautiful red head standing next to her.

“Master, meet Alice. She’s a friend, “ And by friend, Eric knew that she meant fuck buddy. “She belongs to this coven and she’s our ticket in here.”

Eric seemed very skeptical about this. He wasn’t too trusting of the witches.

“And your coven leader is aware of your…guests I presume?”

“Worry not, Northman. Our Coven leader allows us to bring guests of our choosing.” She motioned for them to follow her.

“Now , I welcome the two of you inside. But know that the minute you intend to do harm it won’t end well for either of you.” The witch warned.

“Rest assured we mean no harm” Eric replied, unless of course his daughter was harmed, then he would make no promises.

Eira Halloween costume

 

 

 

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I have a treat for you all next chapter! I really enjoy writing out Eira. She has this stubborn spirit that she inherited from both parents. She’s a little on the mature side like her mother, but she’s still a teenager doing stupid things like sneaking out of her house to go party with her best friend. Eric really won’t find her unless she wants to be found by him. Which by the way, she actually does. 

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