by Seth Eden
Tess put together notes for their report, but he knew she had already written off the Council. She already met with the resistance group in Urbana and had gone over a plan to free the creche. Unless the Council pulled off a miracle and abolished all creches, that mission was about to go down and Kal planned on being there when it did.
“The Council’s been shaken up,” Loren explained as they pulled up in front of the squat cement building in downtown Chicago surrounded by Vampyren guards. “I’d say about half are sympathetic to some kind of shared power between Vampyren and humans. In which case, they’re more likely to be sympathetic to the cause of the children’s treatment.”
“What about the abolition of forced breeding?” Tess said, though the way she said it Kal could tell she wasn’t optimistic.
Loren only snorted at that. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Tess muttered.
“Let me take the lead,” Loren told them, as they were let through the two sets of double doors and down a corridor to the Council chambers. “Some of them aren’t going to be happy about listening to a human woman talk at all.”
“Oh goody,” Tess said under her breath.
“They’ll get there,” Loren said, sounding almost apologetic. “But I do have a strong voice on the Council. So far I’m the only one who’s laid out a decent strategy for fighting the Lucian so they trust my opinion.”
Tess was about to say something else but Loren quieted her as they entered the Council chambers where the Vampyren statesmen sat around a large half circle. They were talking quietly amongst themselves, going over some maps and notes, when one of them waved a hand at Loren and beckoned them forward.
“Loren,” the elder Vampyren said. “You’re here to report on the creches?”
“Not so much me,” Loren said, clasping his hands in front of him. “This is Tess and Kal. They’ve witnessed first hand the conditions of a very large creche here in Chicago—"
“But these creches are regularly inspected,” one Council member said, already sounding impatient.
“But there aren’t any standards,” Tess piped up. “They’re inspected so the leadership can say they were inspected. I assure you if there is a standard that the creche I saw was actually meeting, it is a terrible standard, sir.”
That led to a lot of grumbling and murmuring at the Council table and Loren cast Kal a sort of exasperated look as if to ask him to get hold of his woman… which wasn’t likely.
But he cleared his throat and said, “If we may, we’d like to describe what it is we saw? And I’d remind the Council we are speaking of children who are all half-Vampyren and range in age from newborn infants to adolescents.”
Tess and Kal proceeded to lay out what they’d witnessed in as much detail as possible. Kal tried to remain somewhat dispassionate though he found himself choking up a little talking about how the kids had attacked each other because they were so hungry. It was getting to a few Council members, he noticed. That was something.
By the time they were through, Loren was sitting at the table with the Council members. Kal watched him observe his fellow members, clearly looking for some emotional response. About half of them looked affected, a few looked totally uncertain. Kal wasn’t sure what that meant for their chances but once they’d finished he grabbed Tess’s hand and squeezed it. The less she said at this point, he thought, was for the better.
“We will confer,” Loren said. He didn’t look very optimistic. “You may wait outside. We’ll call you back in.”
Out in the echoing corridor, Tess paced impatiently while Kal leaned against a wall. The Council, he suspected, wasn’t going to give them much. He was already thinking about the plans Tess had laid out to liberate this creche. There were around thirty resistance members at Urbana, all hiding out in the second dormitory under the very noses of the Vampyren men who stopped by to have sex with the breeders on campus. Thirty would be enough, he hoped. Although wherever they ended up taking the children would need some staff, and they’d need trade contracts for supplies, especially blood…
“The only humane answer is to abolish the goddamn creches,” Tess said. “And that isn’t going to happen.”
“No,” Kal agreed.
Tess was pacing down one end of the hallway all the way to the other at a hurried pace and he sighed and went to meet her one of her laps, making her stop in front of her and clutching her shoulders.
“This isn’t going to happen quickly,” Kal said.
“They came and they brutalized us,” Tess said fiercely. “And now they brutalize our children. And their children. Most of which are the product of rape.”
“I know,” Kal murmured. She leaned into him and he took that as a signal that he should hug her. It was still sort of an alien impulse to embrace someone in a way that wasn’t sexual. There was no hugging on Vampyr. He found it rather comforting, although the purpose now was to comfort Tess.
“You’re a stiff hugger,” Tess said, chuckling into his shoulder. That made him tense up more, but she just pulled away and patted his arm. “You’ll get used to it.”
“You can come in now,” a guard said, having pushed open the chamber doors.
Kal followed Tess inside and they stood at attention again. He was already thinking about the ride home. They would move on the creche quickly, he mused. But there would be a little time, he thought, to spend time with Tess and get to know her further. They would eat tonight and he’d stay in her bed again. But he couldn’t think about that now. The last thing he needed was to get an erection while speaking to the Council.
“We’ve discussed your report,” one of the Council leaders said. His name was Mahn, Kal had learned in the course of the meeting. He was peering down at notes he’d made on a pad of paper. Kal suspected he just wanted somewhere to look other than into their eyes. “Obviously, we still require the breeding of offspring to continue the Vampyren race but...”
Tess snorted at that and Kal shot her a look. She clenched her jaw and looked away. Mahn sighed heavily. He seemed conflicted.
“But,” Mahn said, “we agree that conditions might be improved for these children. We’ll need to devise real standards first and get everyone to agree to them and then educate our inspectors accordingly. But this is a good start. We will discuss those new standards soon. We believe this is a fair compromise and I think we all know the relationship between human and Vampyren is evolving. Let this groundbreaking agreement be a beacon for our future peaceful cohabitation.”
Mahn ended his little speech, and the Council looked up at Tess and Kal expectantly, as if they all deserved some kind of congratulations. The only exception was Loren who slumped in his seat, eyes narrowed, looking unhappy about the whole thing. But despite that he got to his feet and cleared his throat.
“Thank you for… meeting us halfway,” Loren said. “I hope this is a first step in further negotiation between human Vampyr.”
Tess said, “But—"
Loren shook her head, and she snapped her mouth shut, glowering as the three of them left the Council chamber. But in the corridor, Loren bid them goodbye, looking apologetic about the whole thing.
“This was never going to happen all at once,” Loren said. “It is a start though, Tess.”
“Tell that to the kids feeding off each other in the creche,” Tess bit out. With that, she turned on her heel and stomped outside, sneering at the Vampyren guards as she went.
3
Tess
Tess was hugging Kal like a teddy bear and it was strange how perfectly normal that felt. He was running his fingers through her cropped hair as she kissed his chest. Now she rolled away and leaned on her elbow, rubbing her legs together under the sheets. The Council’s decision had been disappointing if unsurprising. Kal tried to impress upon her how much progress had been made in terms of human and Vampyren relations on the ride home.
“They wouldn’t have bothered offering up standards for creches before,
” Kal said now. “They barely thought of humans as sentient. They’d completely dehumanized you.”
She appreciated that he said “they” and not “we” but it didn’t make her feel much better.
“Well, it’s not changing fast enough,” she muttered.
“I’m guessing that means we’re storming that creche,” Kal said, fidgeting with Tess’s earlobe.
“Hell yes, it does,” Tess said. “You with me?”
“Of course, I am.”
“Good,” Tess said. “We move tomorrow.”
At that, Kal sat up in bed and gaped at her. Tess was quick on her feet. He’d realized that much. But a mission like this needed to be planned and people mobilized. A hundred things could go wrong. But she only gazed back at him steadily and suddenly he felt very stupid.
“You’ve planned it all already,” he said.
“You were out fighting the Lucian.” She climbed on top of him, sitting right down on his groin and he groaned, arching up into her. She was naked, and he marveled at all her creamy skin. He gripped her thighs, and she leaned down to kiss him. Her breasts brushed against his chest, teasing him. He was getting hard again. “I had to do something to pass the time without you. Oh yeah, and the resistance has a new name.”
“Oh yeah?” He mumbled against her mouth. “What’s that?”
“Free the Children,” she whispered, before kissing him deeply.
Tess woke before Kal and by the time he was stirring, she had showered and dressed for the day. She was planning on it being a very big day. There were just a few details she needed to iron out. But considering she was used to flying by the seat of her pants and working with, if she was lucky, a few random but well-intentioned unskilled people, she wasn’t too worried about the haphazard nature of this particular mission. If nothing else, Urbana had more resources than she was used to. She had access to weapons and tech via what was now called Free the Children. She also knew Loren would help out where he could if she asked him, as long as it didn’t mean endangering his position on the Council. She planned on asking him.
Loren was trying to affect change from the inside out. She could understand it on some level. But it grated at her and she found herself biting her tongue, wanting to rage against the measly bit of “compromise” the Council had offered. It was as good as nothing and she was supposed to just accept that “progress was slow.” That sort of thinking was not exactly her nature.
Tess stuffed her feet into her boots and scrawled a note that said “meet me in the cafeteria by eight.” The Lucian battle, she knew, had taken a lot out of Kal. He wouldn’t even tell her what he’d seen fighting them but he’d mentioned that three men had died and he’d ripped a Lucian’s heart out. That was all that he’d say and his eyes had been far away. She didn’t want to push him too hard if she didn’t have to.
That was another good reason to plan this herself. It had worked out okay on other missions.
Tess marched down the hall and rubbed her still sleepy eyes as she pounded on Crystal’s door. She needed coffee before she could go on any mission. Good coffee was nearly extinct nowadays, but doubling the strength of weak coffee did the job well enough. The cafeteria usually had coffee ready about this time. She told most of Free the Children to meet her in the cafeteria before breakfast was served at nine. She pounded on Crystal’s door again, impatient to get to the cafeteria before all that precious caffeine was gone.
“Crystal!” Tess hollered, pounding on the door again. “Mark!”
Crystal answered the door, her typically long, dark ponytail falling around her shoulders. She narrowed her sleepy eyes at Tess and said, “Can I help you?”
“Aren’t you doing the liberation today?” Tess said, frowning. “You said you’d join—"
“Yes yes,” she said, yawning. “I’ll be done in a sec.”
“And Mark?” Tess said. “We need Mark.”
“Mark is naked,” Crystal said, shrugging. “He’ll be right down.”
“Okay, well chop chop,” Tess said. “This is serious shit.”
Tess hurried down the stairs and even in a jacket, the chill morning was brisk. She rubbed her arms as she jogged across the quad to the cafeteria. She checked her watch; a cheap thing she’d found in a bombed-out junk shop. So far, it had kept perfect time, and she hadn’t needed to replace the battery yet. It was five minutes to eight. Winter was starting to feel more like spring and she saw tiny white flowers blooming along the frosty grass. That was something nice to see; green, lush grass. The lawns at Urbana had been watered by the snow. She found herself feeling a little hopeful at the sight of things growing.
Tess pushed open the cafeteria’s double doors. There were already a few Free the Children people sitting at one of the long tables and they nodded good morning to her. She was about to go scrounge up some coffee when Mara, a human woman who Tess was convinced must have been a bodybuilder before the invasion, hopped up from her chair and handed her a steaming paper cup of coffee.
“Creamer and sweetener, right?” Mara said. Her voice was deceptively soft for how tall and muscular she was. She probably could have passed for a Vampyren woman if she wanted, except that her dark hair was short. Tess inwardly took note of that. It was good to pick up on your advantages and assets even if you didn’t know what you’d use them for yet.
The resistance had been happy to be dubbed Free the Children was rag tag but strong, she thought. They’d done well rescuing some humans out of feeding tanks using some guerilla warfare techniques that kept the Council guessing. They were a good sized group, but they were quick and they moved around a lot, never staying in one place too long. Though she knew some people like Kal slipped in and out of working with them.
“What time are we leaving?” Mara said, taking a seat on a long bench again.
“Ten on the dot,” Tess said. “Just need to go over this plan one more time. It’s a little involved. But I’ve found a dark site where we’ll take the children and we’ll be getting to work stocking it with supplies and making sure it’s staffed after the mission. It’ll be some work.”
“We’re ready,” Mara said, and the others nodded in agreement. Tess’s ears perked up as others trickled through the door and waved hello before going straight to the coffee station in the corner.
Tess had worked with groups before. She’d fallen into leadership roles just as she’d fall into freeing kids. But she was intimidated to find herself the head of a full fledged resistance cell like this one. She’d been surprised to find that they didn’t have a real leader. They always made decisions collectively. She hadn’t wanted to step on toes but it had been their idea to designate her as the head of the cell and all of Free the Children now.
Mara glanced at the others as they sat around now, sipping their coffee, still waking up. She looked like she was waiting for permission to say something and Tess braced herself. “We just want you to know,” Mara said slowly, “we’re fully behind you. The reason we wanted to change our name and have you lead us is, a lot of us feel that taking care of the kids should absolutely be the first priority of human liberation and for, if it’s possible, a truce with the Vampyren. Because as much as we’d like to kick their asses right back to Vampyr or kill em’ all, it’s not happening. They’re here and they’re not going anywhere and we have a lot of kids who are half Vampyr. But they’re also half-human. We feel like you understand what the future will look like better than anyone. That’s why we appointed you. We thought we should let you know.” Mara nodded curtly following her little speech, and the others nodded in agreement and muttered their approval.
“Thank you,” Tess said, sipping her coffee. “I appreciate that.” She figured the less said the better. The remarks had overwhelmed her, but she didn’t want to get soppy about it. Better to keep things business-like. Crystal arrived, and she looked like her usual wry self and once she had some coffee in her, she started chatting with everyone. Mark arrived late and his gaze stuck to Crystal like glue as h
e sat down in back. He adored her, Tess could tell. It suddenly occurred to Tess that if things with Kal became long-term, Crystal would sort of be like her sister-in-law and Kal would be her brother-in-law. Not that anyone was bothering with marriage these days. But she found she liked the idea of that. If they could come out of this thing with some sense of family and connection, that would be alright.
Once everyone was assembled and seemingly awake, Tess took a breath and began going over the plan again. Their plot was a bit of a caper but it would take the Vampyren guards who kept watch outside the creche by surprise and it would get them away from their post.
“Everything depends on one of our members,” Tess said, clasping her hands behind her back. She nodded at the youngest and smallest member of Free the Children, an eighteen-year-old boy named Patrick, himself an escapee of a creche. His parents died in the first sweep of invasion. “Patrick here is eighteen and looks…”
“Thirteen,” Crystal said with a snort.
“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick said, giving everyone a little wave. “I know it.”
“Patrick here is going to sneak into the creche.” Tess went on, her gaze flitting over the faces of everyone in attendance. They were all sitting up and watching her with rapt attention. On her way to Urbana, she had been bracing herself for people who might say they were committed yet not be able to follow through. They might even have the best of intentions or they just might not have anything better to do. But she’d been pleased to discover that Free the Children was full of determined, skilled, strong, and serious people. Not that they were humorless. But they knew when it was time to buckle down and get shit done. It heartened her that she had such a talented group at her disposal. “Sneaking into a creche is a lot easier than sneaking out, particularly if you look like Patrick. All he needs to do is get walls, catch the attention of a guard, and run out again. The guards will be on the lookout for groups like us or other Vampyren. They’ll be on the lookout for a lot of things. They won’t be on the lookout for a teenage boy breaking into a creche.”
