by Chloe Garner
“I am smart. And I adapt well. I think that vampires are more adaptable than you’d expect because they stay an adaptable age. But I didn’t grow up in a tech-native world the way that you did. I didn’t grow up in with the scientific method, for crying out loud. I don’t even remember if I went to school, that’s how big an impression it made on me. I’m good at what I do, and it sure is impressive, but when you’re looking for someone to invent something no one else has done before? That’s not me, darling.”
Tina nodded, turning her head as Hunter came downstairs. He was using a towel to dry his hair, but he was dressed.
“I have a meeting in ten minutes, if you guys wouldn’t mind staying out of the den and keeping any shouting matches to a low roar.”
“You know us,” Tell said. “We’ll do our best.”
Tina smiled, watching him go by.
“I’m not asking so don’t tell me,” Tell muttered as Hunter went back out of sight.
“You got it,” Tina answered. “So, the Order.”
“The Order.”
“We know how Colette knew about them, but how did they find out about Kyle? Does it matter?”
“I’m not sure it does,” Tell answered. “What I want to know is whether they’re going to kill Kyle or induct him, and if I have a mandate to stop them from inducting him.”
“I think you do,” Tina said. “They’re desperate to kill his sister. Surely he doesn’t know that, and if he did, he wouldn’t hang out with them.”
Tell tipped his head back and forth.
“I’m not so sure I’d go that far,” he said. “Don’t underestimate people’s willingness to act in their own selfish self-interests.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” Tina said. “Mostly self-interests are selfish.”
“Kyle’s more than most,” Tell answered. “I’m not sure he wouldn’t use the fact that he was Colette’s brother as a bargaining chip to get in, in the first place.”
“And she’s so worried about him that she’d risk her own life to reach out to you?” Tina asked. He nodded.
“She’s that kind of woman,” Tell said. “One of the reasons I liked her so much.”
“Well, I’m interested in what they’re doing to prep Kyle for sacrifice as much as anything, so I’m not exactly the most objective person involved here. If you do have a mandate to keep them from inducting him, how would you do that?”
He sighed, a noise that was almost despair.
“The list of tactics that won’t work almost runs in parallel to the reasons I can’t call Sophie off,” Tell said. “I don’t have enough currency that matters to buy anyone off, and unless I’m literally willing to kill all of them off…” He pointed a finger at her. “… and that is not tactically feasible… they’re just going to keep coming because it’s ideological, not rational.”
“If you say so,” Tina said non-committally. “But I see your point. Though, the idea of just holding him here until he comes to his senses isn’t anywhere near as bad with Kyle as it is with Hunter. I’d just lock him in somewhere and slide food through sometimes.”
Tell snorted.
“You would not. You just like to talk about it.”
“If he’s as big a loser as you say he is?” Tina asked, and Tell shook his head. She shrugged. “Fine, you’re right. So let’s talk about you not having a mandate to keep him out of the Order.”
“Colette says he doesn’t know what he’s messing with,” Tell said. “That I need to protect him from it. And if I just take her word for it…”
“That’s a mandate,” Tina said. “Just to put a word to it.”
He sighed.
“I know. I know. And the thing is, I believe it. It’s just a big D&D game to him right now. Running around in a brown robe completing quests and leveling up. They’ll be treating him like a celebrity, to his face, and he’ll be getting all of this attention from men who take themselves very seriously.”
“Seductive,” Tina said, and Tell nodded.
“Very. Hard to convince him that they could be anything but well-intentioned.”
“Confirmation bias,” Tina said. “He likes them, they like him, therefore everybody must be good.”
“Except that they want to kill him and see if he comes back,” Tell said.
“The exciting part,” Tina supplemented. “The problem is if they decide to just kill him and not see if he comes back.”
“Mercenary,” Tell said, and Tina smiled.
“Look, I appreciate your loyalty, but Lily was innocent, I was innocent, the fae were innocent… the cases where we’re running around risking our lives, we’re doing it for people who don’t deserve what’s happening to them. Well, at least I like to think I belong in that grouping. Or for our friends. But this guy? I’m just hard-pressed to be moved to action based on the picture you’re painting.”
“You need to pull it together, Matthews,” Tell said. “You’re talking about a man who is a jerk with an ego the size of Montana, not a man who deserves to die at the hands of a death cult.”
Tina considered this for a moment.
“Is it different from watching a jerk smoke himself to death?” she asked.
“Wow,” Tell said. “Yes. It is different, letting a man walk into a building where you know for a fact that another human being is going to slit his throat, compared to watching a man do something that has a high likelihood of causing him harm or death. Self-inflicted only counts as self-inflicted so long as there isn’t another human out on the other end of it doing the inflicting.”
Tina nodded.
“I see your point,” she said. “I do.”
“You’re slipping,” he said gently. “It’s too easy to view human life as disposable when you literally consume it as your feed. I don’t know if you would have felt this way about Kyle or not when you were human, but you need to keep your eyes open for it, regardless.”
Tina nodded.
“They aren’t cattle,” she said, then raised an eyebrow. “Just prey.”
He laughed.
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
“And you were right,” she said. “It makes the relationships make so much more sense. And you make so much less sense. I thought that you were the rational-minded one and that Ginger and Hunter were sociopaths or something, but looking at it from here… It starts to make more sense, how you’re the odd one.”
“I adore you, as well,” he said with a wink. “I’m downloading footage from my camera now, on the Order building. You want to review it with me to get used to identifying their leadership?”
“Tell, how am I going to figure out how they’re making Kyle resurrect if I’m not allowed to leave the building?” Tina asked. He shook his head.
“I know that they’re close to going for it,” Tell told her. “So I’m not going to stay human for long. You’re going to get your samples and your images and your pound of flesh or whatever else, and then I’m going to have Hunter turn me again.”
Tina shuddered.
“That’s so awful,” she said. “To just jump back and forth like that. You should have gotten some time to enjoy this.”
He shook his head.
“No. I… It may just be superstition, but I think I’m done with my days of freedom as a human. Every time I’ve done this, my time to fever is shorter. I think this is my last trip across. I’m going to be contagious almost immediately, and it’s possible that doing it again might even kill me. We need to get me turned back before my symptoms go too far, just to be sure that neither one of you spread it by touch with someone from outside. This is…” He drew an even sigh. “This is how it has to be. I’m not grieving, so you shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I do quite well as a vampire, so this trip to the mortal side is simply for science.”
“Well, if the next one is going to kill you, I suppose we ought to make sure that we get this one right,” Tina said and he smiled.
“I’ll do what I can to get your technicians
lined up,” he said. “The faster the better.”
Tina considered that maybe she had done this in the wrong order; she hadn’t assumed that this was the last try for Tell’s samples as a human, and that might have changed things.
Maybe he’d known and maybe he hadn’t, but the decision was made, now, and she was going to live with it.
She went to get her computer, researching smallpox for a few minutes.
“You know that there are antiviral medications that might work on smallpox, now?” Tina asked. “Just recently tested.”
He shrugged, not looking up from his own computer.
“I wonder what you do to get them that doesn’t involve the entire country’s medical emergency response collapsing on me,” he answered.
That was a valid point.
“You aren’t going to diagnose smallpox without blood testing or spots,” Tina said. “So we’re good to go until you actually get good and sick.”
“Hopefully we’ll be done by then,” Tell answered. “You want to come look at these?”
Tina nodded, coming around to sit next to him on the couch and watching as he fast-forwarded through the footage, clicking now and again to take screen grabs of specific individuals.
He gave her names and roles within the organization, and she went to get her notebook, checking against her notes on his notes and the old pictures he’d had in his folder. She never had put together the organization map that she’d intended, so she started pulling out the old photos, making sure he’d marked names on the back so she didn’t mess up and lose who was who, then started mapping them on the floor, pulling out smaller sheets of paper to go next to the ones where more information was worthwhile.
“You going to be able to recognize them when you see them?” Tell asked.
“Probably won’t remember their names, but I’ll know who to avoid most carefully,” she said. “And who I want to kill first.”
Tell shook his head.
“That’s getting to be too much,” he said. “You wouldn’t let us kill the man from the Kaija factory, and I respected you for that. I don’t like the idea that you could just walk into a room and assassinate people. It’s not who you are.”
“It’s not who I was,” Tina answered. “I have no clue who I am.”
He glanced at her, then squinted.
“You mean that, don’t you?” he asked. She nodded.
“I do. I feel like I’m still finding out, day by day.”
“I’ll admit that you’re changing quickly as you adapt to being a vampire, but who you are today is the same as who you were yesterday, plus a little bit here or there. Same as ever. You are still Tina Matthews, your parents are still your parents, and your life is still your life. That’s what forms you. Not the fact that I bit you and made your heart stop.”
“That’s a simple way to look at it,” Tina said. “My fundamental nature changed. I was prey and now I am a predator.”
“No,” Tell cut in quite aggressively. “You have always been a predator, among the community that you were aware of. You just didn’t know it. They all did. Yes, when you came to work with me, you met predators who really did make you into prey, but you ran your office like you were standing on the table with a bullwhip. They all did what you said, even when they outranked you and even signed your paycheck. You were dominant in your classes at school and in your relationships there as well. Passive, quiet, sometimes, curious, but… I dug into you, when you first showed up, and I saw it. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you didn’t, but you’ve always had a woman inside you who would throw a chair at a man to try to save her own life or someone else’s.”
“I did do that,” Tina murmured, and he nodded.
“Yes, you did. And you stormed out into a room full of werewolves right after. Not the smartest move, certainly, but hardly prey.”
She drew a breath.
“You’re avoiding the point,” she said. “I did have a fundamental change to my nature. I want to drink blood. I like that people… react to me the way that they do. It’s disgusting, the way they fawn over me and how they are attracted to me for… Chemicals? It’s really nothing more than that, is it?”
“It isn’t,” Tell said. “Unless you’re willing to accept the presence of magic in the world, and I know that’s a pointless road to go down again, just now.”
“Indeed,” Tina answered.
“All right, I’ll see you that pieces of your makeup had a step change. But you know who you are. You just have to focus on not losing her. You didn’t wake up suddenly, someplace you’d never been before. You’re exactly where you were yesterday. You’re just heading in a direction, and you need to make sure that that direction ends up someplace that you want to be.”
Tina closed her eyes and nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Okay. Yes. That I believe.”
“Good,” said Tell. “Because we have a new problem.”
The timestamp on the image said that it was three in the afternoon.
As far as either of them could tell, no one had seen her.
Tina wasn’t altogether convinced, but Tell was.
The woman standing outside of the Order yoga center was Colette.
The image wasn’t perfect, given how far away the camera had been when it had taken it, and Tina argued that it left room for doubt, but Tell was adamant.
He’d recognize that woman anywhere, and it was her.
And she was there.
Looking at the door to the center with her hands on her hips.
“Do you think she went in?” Tina asked.
The camera was only taking images every fifteen seconds, and Colette was only in two of them, with the same pose in each.
“If she did, she’s dead,” Tell said. “Trade herself for Kyle? She’d do that.”
“How do we find her, if she’s still alive?” Tina asked. Tell sighed.
“Janna, I guess. I hate to get in direct contact with her, but… I mean, she could be here on her own, with her new identity and all of that…”
“You need to look for hotel reservations, rental cars, plane tickets,” Tina said. “See if you can’t track her down using her new name.”
“I hate to,” Tell said, staring at the picture. “Stir up too much dust online, someone clever could figure out what her name is just because I’m looking for it.”
“Then don’t look for it,” Tina said. “Pull up full passenger lists and rental lists and just read them. Find her. I’ll go get her.”
“You can’t bring her here,” Tell said. “I’ll kill her, and the Order… We don’t want to make contact unless we have to.”
“We have to,” Tina said. “I’ll take her to Hunter’s place. Or put her on a plane back to red sun desert wherever. But she can’t be here. Not… Not if she’s going to do that.”
Tell shook his head.
“I know. I can’t believe she came back, after everything we went through to get her out the first time.”
“She did, it’s done,” Tina said. “Unless that isn’t really her. But if you say it is, then we need to get to her before they do. Does that building have cameras outside?”
“Yes,” Tell said. “But I taught her cameras. And she was smart. Unless she forgot in all that time… which could have happened.”
“I’m going,” Tina said, standing. “I’m going and I’m going to go listen through the same wall that you did. We need to know if they have her.”
“What will you do if they do?” Tell asked.
Tina shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t go through that door without knowing what you’re going to do,” Tell said. “Otherwise you’ll just get the both of you killed.”
“I’m going in after her,” Tina said. It had been true, even when he’d asked the first time.
“No,” he said. “Even if they’re going to kill her right that minute, you can’t get in and out without them getting you, and if they get you, t
hey are going to kill you. You don’t walk away from that, do you understand? No way.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Tina asked.
“I’d recommend leaving so you don’t have to listen,” Tell said. “If you have to stay, just… don’t go in there. There’s no one to back you up, and I’m serious that they could take all three of us in a stand-up fight.”
“Then I’ll blow the building up,” Tina said.
“With what munitions?” Tell asked.
Tina thought of the stash of stuff she had hidden away in her room, trying not to let her eyes tell him what she was thinking.
“Tina,” Tell said darkly. She shook her head.
“If they kill her and I’m just sitting a few feet away, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Then you shouldn’t go at all,” Tell said. “It wouldn’t be trading your life for hers, or anything resembling that level of nobility. It would just be throwing your life down the hole after hers. And probably mine, too. Probably Hunter’s. Because you know that we wouldn’t just hang out here and be sad.”
“That’s blackmail,” Tina said.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“You’re saying I should stay?” Tina asked. He shook his head.
“I’m saying that you need to prepare yourself for a situation where you can’t do anything.”
Tina closed her eyes.
“And what are the other situations?” she asked.
“You go because it’s possible they know where she is and they’re going to go get her. That they have her and they’re holding her someplace you can get to. That they have her and she’s on a clock that we can schedule to. Or even to know that they never even saw her. But if they are going to kill her imminently, she made her decision and there is nothing we can do to take it back.”
“Why would she do that?” Tina asked. “I get coming. But to just go and stare at the building?”
Tell gave her a sideways smile that lacked mirth.
“She was always like that,” he said. “Tough and direct to the point of foolish.”
“Thought you said she was smart,” Tina said, and he nodded.
“Right up until it conflicted with direct. She completely lacked tact.”
