The committee members fell silent one by one as they turned to look at Renee and Rafe. Renee felt her throat go dry and she tried to swallow past the sensation. The committee moved as one to sit behind a long table situated with its back against a wall of windows. The sun had set, so the city was growing darker with every passing moment. The lights in the buildings beyond were lit in the background. They had come up so many stories that there were few buildings in competition with this one height-wise. It made for an extraordinary view.
“Sit,” the shortest of the five invited her, pointing to a lone chair facing the long table they were taking their seats at.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stand.”
“You are fighting our desires already? This does not bode well,” the leader said gravely.
“I am not here to cower from you,” Renee snapped. “Let’s get that straight first off. I am here for you to evaluate my character. Nothing else.”
The leader looked surprised that she would talk back to them, but it didn’t seem to rouse his temper. At least, not on the outside.
“Please,” the black man said softly, his demeanor quiet and firm. “The interview might take a while. If you sit you are less likely to grow tired and will need fewer breaks. We all want this over as soon as possible. We all have other places we would rather be at this time of day.”
Renee let his words sink in and then slowly moved to take a seat in the chair. “You see?” she said. “I can be reasoned with. Rather than give me a bald command, you can explain your reasons behind your request and I will weigh them accordingly.”
She crossed her legs and settled back in the chair. She glanced at Rafe. “Doesn’t Rafe need a chair?”
“Rafe won’t be staying. He will be waiting outside.”
Anxiety immediately clutched at her belly. She wanted to argue with them, she wanted to insist that he stay, but she had no power to insist on anything. She was completely at their mercy and if she wanted this to go well she had to turn herself over to them entirely. She gave Rafe’s hand a squeeze then let go of it. He paused briefly to stroke her hair, then walked toward the exit in the room. At the last moment he turned back to them and said, “Remember, all of you, that her life is on the line. If you judge against her, you are consigning her to death. I hope this is not a decision you will come to lightly.”
“You do not need to tell us how to do our jobs or what our responsibilities are,” the leader said sharply.
“Thank you,” the black man said firmly. “You can trust that we will take all information into our decision.”
Rafe nodded and then left the room, the door shutting softly behind him.
“Let us start with proper introductions. I am Danton,” the black man said. “Our leader here is Josef. These other three are Tomas, Carlton, and Frazier.”
“It’s nice to meet all of you,” she said with her very best manners.
“We are glad to meet you as well,” Danton said warmly. “Although, this is quite the reverse of what we usually do. Tell me, have you told anyone about us since you were made aware of our existence?”
“No one,” she assured him.
“Were you tempted to?”
She thought of Jimmy and how he was walking around in ignorance. She thought of how his being close to her could put him in danger he wouldn’t understand.
“I was tempted, yes. But only inasmuch as I wanted others to be aware of the danger they were in just by being around me. I was worried for the safety of my friends. I thought that maybe if they knew they might be able to better protect themselves from a sycophant.”
“But in the end you decided not to tell. Why?”
“Because knowing about you would be putting them in just as much danger as not knowing about you. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. That and…it’s not my secret and not my place to say when or if it should be revealed. That should be up to you and your people entirely. Although, I do hope that one day you find humans worthy of your trust. I understand why you feel you must stay hidden, and knowing people the way I do, with my unique perspective as a homicide detective, I don’t disagree with your thinking.”
“How so?” Josef asked.
“I see a lot of crime driven by prejudice and hate. Almost twenty-five percent of the murders I deal with are motivated by hate or bias in one fashion or another. Bias against color. Religion. Gender. Sexual orientation. You name it. The human race, for all its diversity, really sucks at accepting that diversity.”
“We have seen this for ourselves,” Josef said. “But it is not just a matter of diversity. For us it is a matter of survival. We need to feed off humans. Can you imagine how humans would feel if they realized we were feeding from them?”
“They would feel used and would be afraid. Rightfully so, I might add. I know how I felt when I found out that I was fed from.”
“By Rafe. And yet now you accept him and what he has done to you. You accept him in spite of the necessary deceptions he has been forced to carry out.”
“I accept him because he came clean with me when it really counted. Even though he knew he was breaking your laws.”
“And now that you know, would you let Rafe feed from you again?” Danton asked.
To Renee’s surprise, she didn’t even hesitate. “If he had no other choice, if he truly needed me, I wouldn’t turn him away. In fact, I would offer myself to him. And I think you might find that there are many people in the human race who would do exactly that. They would volunteer to feed your people. The would groom themselves to be the proper vessels you needed just for the pleasure a feeding would give them.”
“That would be considered deviant behavior by your people no doubt,” Josef said grimly.
“There is much we do in our society that is considered deviant behavior by some, yet accepted wholeheartedly by others. BDSM, for instance. There are those who are disgusted by it and those who cannot live without it. But it is all legal for the most part. There are other things, like child pornography, that are illegal, but even they have their little societal niches. It’s sick, but it’s there.”
“Are you comparing us to child pornographers?” Josef asked harshly.
“I only said there would be a niche of people who might find the idea of being fed on as exciting and thrilling and something they cannot do without. There are people who will like being a food source.”
“This is true,” Danton said. “We already have several humans who have been exposed to what we are and who gladly—even enthusiastically—give themselves to us for feeding. But it’s not nearly enough to survive on.”
“That’s only because the world at large doesn’t know about you. You are giving yourself away to only a select few when the world is full of millions who might feel the same way.”
“Or millions who might feel threatened and would then seek to eradicate us.”
“Yes. I understand that this is an even more likely possibility. Like I said, this is why I understand why you wish to remain hidden in our society. But consider this, in this age of people easily spying on one another, of lives being hacked and information being stolen, it is only a matter of time before someone is discovered writing about vampires in the wrong email or talking about them on the wrong open line. Then you will be exposed without getting out in front of it, without you being in control of the release of information.”
“We have some of the best encryption money can buy. And we are very careful not to mention ourselves in any written form. We never mention the word ‘vampire’ out in the open. Should you be allowed to retain your memory of us, you would not be allowed to do so either. Do you think you could control yourself?”
“Of course I can. I’m not a child.”
“And you haven’t written anything down about us? Say, in a journal or diary? A letter to yourself that will explain everything and undo whatever hypno we might use on you?”
She bit her lip as she remembered her impulse
to do exactly that. But impulse was one thing, acting on that impulse was something else entirely.
“The thought did occur to me. But I do not commit to paper anything I am unwilling for someone else to discover. In a job where such clues lead to convictions all of the time, I have learned to be cautious.”
“Let’s talk about your job,” Josef said. “Do you—”
“Yes. Let’s talk about my job,” she interrupted him. “I am in a unique position. I know about your people. I know a crime has been committed by one of them. I also know that I am so good at my job that I could find this criminal to both our species. But I also know that no human would be able to bring in or punish a vampire. Not without great threat to the lives of many. So I propose this…let me look for the perpetrator. Let me use my considerable skills for your benefit. Let me find this guy and then let me turn over the information on how to find him to you.”
There was silence for a long minute, then Danton said, “What you are suggesting is very dangerous for you and those who are working the case with you.”
“Yes. That is why you need to act quickly when I find him. You must get to him before my people do.”
“And you are all right with our type of justice?” Danton asked.
“Your justice is your business. As long as it fits the crime.”
“The very act of being a sycophant is a death sentence,” Josef said coldly.
Renee hesitated, remembering what Rafe had told her about the rare few who might be rescued from a life as a sycophant.
“As long as you are certain they are irreclaimable.”
“I haven’t ever heard of one being reclaimable,” Tomas said.
“Maybe because you kill them with impunity. You don’t take the time to find out if they are able to be rehabilitated.”
“You see. Already you judge us for our justice methods,” Josef said.
“I judge my own people in the same way. Only usually it’s the opposite. I feel that our punishments are too lenient. There are just some people who should never be allowed out on the street again.”
“That is a harsh worldview. Not too dissimilar to our own.”
“It is a harsh world. I believe in the death penalty. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. That’s just my personal opinion. But that doesn’t keep me from performing my job as fairly and competently as I possibly can. I face killers and liars every day. A liar isn’t always a killer but a killer is usually a liar. Although, you’d be surprised how many simply want to unburden themselves of the crime they committed. It happens more often than you might think.
“As I understand it sycophants are always lawbreakers, but not always killers. There has to be a way to make your punishment fit crimes more properly. Death for feeding from a tainted source? That seems a bit harsh and a little extreme.”
“The thing is, you can’t tell a sycophant who is just dirty from a sycophant who is a killer. They all smell the same,” Danton said.
“Smell?” Renee asked.
“Vampires can smell the taint of sycophanthropy. It’s rather like the smell of a sweaty old tennis shoe. Musty and fungal and wet.”
Renee wrinkled her nose. “How delightful,” she said.
“It isn’t. And neither is this naive conversation,” Josef said coldly. “Who are you to tell us our punishment methods are wrong? You overstep yourself.”
“I didn’t say they were wrong. I simply said there had to be a better way of determining wrongdoers from pure evil. It’s the same struggle humans deal with every day. But can you imagine what it would be like if we put every drug user to death for their weakness? Every purse snatcher? Every shoplifter? There are degrees of crime and there should be degrees of punishment.”
“This is an ongoing argument in the higher echelons of our government, Renee. There are many who feel as you do. We are not a perfect society—far from it—but the law is the law as it stands now. All sycophants are subject to capital punishment,” Danton said.
“Then I will adhere to your law. I will do as I do in my everyday life…uphold the law and the legal system in spite of my personal feelings about crime and punishment. In fact, there are many detectives who feel as I do. But we do our best to see murderers punished to the fullest extent of New York State law.”
“And you are willing to ignore human law and allow vampire law to take precedence in the matter of sycophants and other vampires who are breaking the law?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I am. After last night I realized there is no way the police can go one-on-one with a vampire. If I had been alone in that alley—alone and unaware of how to kill a sycophant—I would be dead. And even if they did know how to kill one, do you know how hard it is to make a shot like that? The electricity they use is like getting hit by a Taser. Completely incapacitating. And it can be done from a distance and doesn’t need to be as accurate as aiming a Taser has to be.
“No, we don’t have the means or the strength to fight off sycophants alone. However, I do think I can help you catch them. If you allow me to, I can use my skills to lead you to them. Like this case I am working on now where a sycophant killed a human in front of witnesses. Surely this creature is a danger to you all, threatening your exposure with its recklessness. If you let me I can lead you right to him.”
Josef leaned forward. “We don’t need the help of a human to police our own.”
“Don’t you? Do you know where he is?”
Josef shifted. “That is a job for the authoritarians. Men like Danton here pursue such creatures. Turn over your information to him and let him do the rest.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can find him for you and then I can let the…the authoritarians take over.”
“It is very dangerous, what you are suggesting,” Danton said.
“My job is dangerous. I live and breathe danger every day. I’m not going to be cowed by a little risk.”
“What about if I asked you to do something that was even more dangerous than hunting down a single sycophant? Something that could bring down a whole network of them. They are drug dealers and human traffickers, so you would be helping to solve human crimes at the same time.”
“I say point me in the right direction. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
“It might take some time.”
“Then I’ll take some time off work. How much time?”
“That will depend on you and how quickly you can enter their network. However, it might require you to do drugs.”
Renee hesitated. She prided herself on her clean living and clean body. And messing with drugs, even once, was asking for a world of trouble she might not be able to escape from. She didn’t know how to feel about it.
“It’s not something I would enter into lightly. I’d have to think about it very carefully.”
“A wise choice. This is a very critical matter and time sensitive. Think about it and give me an answer tomorrow morning,” Danton said.
“You…you mean you’ll allow me to keep my memories intact?” She was floored that it had taken so little to gain the privilege. She had thought it would be harder. She and Rafe had worked themselves up over this so much.
“We have to take a vote. My vote is yes. We can use you. You will be very valuable to us.”
“I vote no. She is reckless. She has been continuing to hunt for the sycophant in spite of being told how dangerous it would be,” Josef said.
“I vote yes.”
“I vote no.”
That left it in a tie. Renee held her breath, looking at Tomas and praying he said yes.
“I vote yes. But keep in mind this privilege can be revoked at any time.”
“Yes. Of course. I will respect your faith in me. You can trust me. But you can also trust that I won’t keep silent if I disagree with something. I am not a lapdog willing to do anything and everything you say without question. I can be reasoned with, so appeal to my logic and we should get along quite well. I will let you know
about this assignment you are asking me to go on.”
“It will be very dangerous. If you are found out, you will be killed like that.” Danton snapped his fingers.
“As I said. I’m used to it. I worked two years undercover in a theft ring. I know what I’m getting into. I’ll let you know tomorrow. And…thank you. For letting me keep my memories. You don’t know how much that means to me.”
She got up from the chair and hurried toward the door before they could change their minds. She was through the portal and shutting it an instant later.
Rafe, who had been pacing the hallway, turned in surprise at the sound of the door. He audibly caught his breath and stood there unsure for a moment.
For all he knew they had wiped her memory, giving her the hypnotic suggestion to walk home and remember nothing of where she had just been. He stepped up to her and spoke her name softly.
“Renee?”
“Hmm? Oh! Who are you?” she asked.
Anxiety clawed through him. For a moment he was absolutely crushed. He had lost her. They had taken her away from him.
But then…then he saw the mischievous gleam in her eye.
“Renee!”
“Rafe!” she countered.
He reached for her, sweeping her up against himself and kissing her soundly. After he had left her breathless he pulled away and said, “That wasn’t funny.”
“It was a little funny,” she said, laughing as she patted his chest to comfort him.
“A very little.” He sighed on a big exhalation of breath. “But I am relieved you still remember. What did they say to you? That was quicker than I thought it would be.”
“I just told them how I felt about things. Told them my take on crime and punishment. Then they asked if I would be willing to go undercover for an assignment.”
“Undercover?”
“Something about drugs and sex trafficking.”
“No! Tell them no! I know exactly what they want you for and you need to tell them no!”
“I will do no such thing. Not without thinking it through first. And who are you to tell me no? You’re not my keeper!”