Eric's on his throne, paying the bills, when quests arrive. Magister! In the company of Queen Sophie-Anne, making a call at Fangtasia! and seeing Eric for the first time since the Compton trial for killing Longshadow. Eric shows them proper deference, and when they tell him to shut down the place for the night, he offers to take them to his office. Sophie-Anne grins and admits that the office is bugged, by herself, but puts a shine on it: "It's how I know I can trust you!" Like she bugged his office as a fun experiment in proving his strength of character. Like Pam before her, the Queen takes a shine to Yvetta (WHY?), saying she can stay even after throwing everybody else out. The Magister says even Yvetta has to go.

From Eric's throne: "Trouble abounds in your fair state," the Magister explains. "It would seem your idyllic little home is competing to become the V capital of the world." The Queen acts like she's totally about to like barf about that, and they play a funny little game of acting/not-acting as they discuss the horror of draining. "Our blood is sacred. Wasting it on anything other than procreation is blasphemy," says the Magister, and Sophie-Anne waves one delicate hand perfectly: "Madness." Eric gets in on it: "Desecration." So they all agree it's bad. I like the idea of them having fun with this, but also I think it makes sense: Old-school vamps like the Magister actually do act this ridiculous, they think it's normal, so of course acting like a pompous ass is exactly what they should do. Still, it's weird to watch.

Eric hasn't noticed the V rate rising, either in his Area or his club, which the Magister finds weird because the other Sherriffs definitely have, and in fact only a vampire could be supplying this amount, or else vampires would be missing left and right. And since Eric can proudly say that no new vamps have gone missing in his Area -- since when, probably since Malcolm's nest -- he must accede. God, I love the Magister. This actor, he just kills me. How can you be that hot when you are one hundred and eighty-five actual years old? Anyway, the Queen is just incensed and hilarious and Eric's sort of gulpy and funny the whole time, and finally the Magister is at least satisfied enough to pretend to be satisfied.

I'm still curious as to what this whole scheme is about, although if it's the Queen herself, I wonder if it means she's trying to raise and bond with an army of human addicts? Because we do know that her particular Thing is mental communication with her vampire children, right? So maybe her blood-bond would be more active as well? I realize that's taking a lot on faith and basically assembling the idea from not too much info, but there's a lot we still don't know about how this shit works, and it seems like the kind of thing that would get her off. I'm not talking a Maryann-level possession, just a way of being in contact with the richest and most desperate people in the Queendom -- Remember Pussylover, in Texas? -- and being able to affect their moods and maybe decisions. That sounds useful, right?