by P. S. Power
It was exactly what he’d been meaning to find for himself, even to the dark blue color. It had a sliding door on the passenger side, as well as seats in the front, in case he needed to take others with him. The amazing thing was new looking, and smelled of chemicals and plastic, which was probably the new car smell he’d seen referenced.
“I love it. This will work perfectly for making house calls.” For that matter he could probably live in the thing if he needed to. It didn't have a shower, but other than that it had everything he needed. Plus, it could be driven, which was the point of such things.
Oaks moved in, his giant form catching attention as Simpson was being pulled to the side by an attractive vampire man, and clapped Liam on the shoulder.
“It was Tiffany’s idea. I hope it isn’t out of place? Work oriented, but…”
Liam didn't understand what he meant, but nodded anyway.
“It’s perfect. I can set it up to do treatments in the back, maybe put in a dentist’s chair? I’ll need to learn how to do things like that. I’ve been meaning to anyway. Thank you. All of you.” He ran around hugging people, then doted on the van for a while. Everyone else was probably getting bored, but the three people being questioned had been removed and he had to distract from that, somehow. Finally, he laughed, hugging Brenner again, for the third time.
“We should go back in. Did everyone get enough cake? Ice cream?” He’d only had the one small piece, not needing more. The other prometheans had more though. Not all of them, but Oaks and Martha did. So did all the werewolves. He didn't know, but thought that they might actually just eat more than human beings did on average.
That he could do that was true. It simply wasn’t needed. Even if the food was good. The cake had been interesting for him, he had to admit. It wasn’t really a thing he loved, he decided. The sweetness was nice, but slightly cloying. The ice cream was something he’d never tried at all, so he had some of that, and found it better. It was cold too, which was pleasant, since it melted as it went down his throat.
Mary and Brenner got everyone organized into teams, to play a game that involved seeking hidden objects that were on the property. Clarissa and Robert were the winners for that one, working together to find all of the secret packages. They were given hundred-dollar gift certificates for an online store.
After that they were told to mingle for a bit, the vampires and their friends back in the room. The three FBI people all seemed a bit dazed. After half an hour, people just talking, several of them wishing him a happy birthday, Sanchez raised his right hand.
“As most of you have caught onto already, this isn’t just a party for Liam. That too, of course. We needed to clear the rest of the people from work. That…”
Sondra moved forward then, her face somber.
“Agent Carlisle is with us. So is Agent Daugherty. Agent Simpson… Is the leader of those who slaughtered your previous master, Ridley.” Dramatically, she pointed a finger at the woman, who seemed panicked suddenly. She tried to run. It didn’t work at all. “Seize her!”
There was a bit of struggle, since the woman, who Liam personally liked well enough, fought, going for her gun. There were too many people on her at the moment for that to work.
Across the room, looking confused, Rich Simpson, her ex-husband, stepped forward.
“What the fuck, Kim… This can’t be true.” He seemed to be getting ready to fight for her, when Sondra shook her head.
“I double checked the work myself. I fear it is true. We can question her again, in front of everyone?”
That seemed to be a good plan, though Liam didn't even bother to nod. It was interesting how the dynamics of the room changed then. All of the humans moved closer to one another, for protection. The vampires clumped as well. The werewolves were in a looser group and the prometheans all stepped back and to the sides, making a ring around the room. Liam joined them in that, understanding the basic idea.
If a fight broke out, they could control it from the outer edge. Not perfectly, but well enough to prevent a guilty human woman from escaping.
Agent Carlisle, seeming angry, as he had for the entire evening, glared at Sondra.
“What the hell, Sondra? You mind tricked me?”
There was a soft smile and a nod from the pale lady.
“I did. It was Agents Brenner and Agent Sanchez that requested it. Not that your good will was truly in doubt. We have a plan though, which should aid us all. It requires your specific aid, however. The others were merely loose ends that we needed to see to. Clearly. I wouldn’t have thought you so devious and politically minded, Agent Simpson.” That was for Kim, of course. Sondra actually seemed mildly impressed with the actions.
After a moment, most of the room wasn’t however. Liam had to wave, over the talking and noise that sprang up.
“Can we compel Kim again? We all need to hear her words.”
Which didn’t make any difference to the larger plan, but he’d learned over the last months that people, all sorts, needed to have the right information and for it to be verified in extreme cases.
It was interesting, seeing what Sondra did then. She walked forward, waving her hand at Kim as the other woman tried not to make eye contact. That didn't work very well, the vampire darting her head to the side rapidly, catching the woman’s eyes with her own. It had to be done twice, but on the second time the human woman went still, straightened and simply stared at Sondra.
“Kim, you need to focus on what I’m saying now and answer honestly, do you understand?”
There was a nod first, then a murmured reply.
“Yes.”
Sondra didn’t move much at all, only her mouth, as she spoke.
“You led the SAU into attacking AIC Ridley. Why? Explain the whole thing to us. Carefully.”
Everyone in the room seemed uneasy, though they were silent as the woman began to relate the tale to them all.
Kim didn’t slump or do anything except speak, blankly.
“It started about three years ago. Around the time of my divorce. I’d never been all that comfortable with some of the other groups. Especially the blood suckers. We’ve had to cover up too many deaths for them. They’re never punished for it. So, I built a team. Slowly and carefully, over time. I started with some of Rich’s old friends, since they were the only ones with any hope of taking down the vampires. At least at first. No one else knows. I thought that was the case. I was approached myself, after the team was created, by the State Department. They… They’re the ones behind the war right now. They didn’t know what we do, about all the things out there in the world, but had enough to know they had to do something.”
She took a deep breath, continuing without being prompted.
“Ridley… I was tasked with approaching her, by State. I did it carefully, starting about a year ago. She didn't know it was me, but also wasn’t having it. She refused to help us, saying that our job was to protect those that are different than we are. That was fine. Even the people from other agencies thought so. Except that Ridley started an investigation, using Rich, trying to find us. Trying to uncover all of our hard work and planning. They were getting too close, so we had to take action.”
Brenner cleared her throat, commanding attention. There was anger in her voice, directed at Kim. At least her eyes were.
“So you ordered Ridley killed? The others were just, what, collateral damage?”
There was a slow nod from the woman.
“Right. I managed to distract some of you, here. You had Liam with you. A promethean. We knew not to engage with him directly. He wasn’t our target or enemy, so we avoided making him into one, while stalling some of you here. At the same time, I showed up, as an alibi. I was never in on the real action. I told them to remove Ridley though.”
Vernon, the werewolf, growled a bit. It seemed a bit disgusted, instead of being done in anger.
“We should kill her. Those others were let go by the humans. Ridley was on our side, though
.” There was a head shake, but he didn’t go on.
Liam had heard that the others had vanished, the tactical team that had confessed to the murders. He’d thought they might be dead and didn't know that they weren’t at the moment. Vernon obviously thought that something different than that had taken place. It was nearly as plausible as the men and single woman being taken out. It depended on how useful the other groups thought they might be.
Part of him wanted to speak out and claim that leaving the woman alive made sense. They could, at the very least, try to use her to gain a foothold with the others in on the project with her. His plan didn’t require that, however. It was, in the end, merely that he didn't want people to die if they didn't need to. Given everything, it might well be that Kim Simpson had given up her right to stay alive.
Liam felt slightly sad about the idea. She wasn’t incredibly close to him, but they’d met and she’d been kind to him. Reasonable and polite. Even playful and fun. It meant he didn’t really want to see her die, in the moment.
Interestingly, it was Oaks who stepped in for her. His deep voice grumbling on a level that Liam could feel, all the way across the room.
“We should avoid killing, if possible. The humans have laws and rules and this is, in the end, their issue. Their kind died at the hands of this woman’s minions. She’s of their people. Their system should be involved. Not that I don’t take your point, sir. Ridley was also one of ours. The plan we have currently requires us to show that we, the others of the world, are the sensible ones. Beings that can be dealt with, without much fear or pain.”
Vernon started to sneer, then rolled his eyes and ended on his daughter.
“All right. How do we do that? Call in the cops and have her give herself to them? She’ll probably vanish too, if we do that. You know that, right?”
That started a different conversation, mainly about how to track the woman, using magic. The elves took over that part, casting a complicated sounding spell on her, working for half an hour, as everyone else went over the idea of murdering her, instead of handing her over. Most of them were actually on the pro-killing side, which was interesting. Even the prometheans mainly were. All of them, in the end were willing to let her go, to use as bait.
Several of the FBI Agents left to see that done, driving the woman into the town nearby, to the police station. The rest went over the new plan, several times. Liam finally speaking about the projections he’d gone over.
He shrugged.
“The end result will be a concentration of force, mainly against the vampires. My best guess is that they’ll go after Queen Narran directly, using the forces that they created, using various means. Everyone else should be left alone. It won’t really end the war, but instead of a battle that we can’t see coming, against thousands of innocent people, by hundreds of armed humans, we should be seeing a fight against ten or twenty of the enemy. The diehards that can’t, or won’t, let go of the idea of violence being the right answer. Most people will listen to reason, if it’s presented correctly.”
Nicodemus moved forward then, his powerful if short, body commanding the room to pay attention due to his posture.
“Queen Narran is aware of this factor. It has been thought better to take the risks upon ourselves than to leave others open to potential harm. We would ask that there be aid for us, if it’s at all possible. We aren’t the weakest fighters in the world, but unknowns are a problem, even for the most powerful.”
Liam nodded then, agreeing with the basic idea.
“I’ll do what I can, personally.” He didn’t even think of asking the others of his kind to do anything. It probably wasn’t going to be needed. Even if it was, this wasn’t really their fight. In his projections, so far, he hadn’t worked out anything about that portion of things.
That there would be violence before it was over for the vampires, but nothing else in particular.
Interestingly, one by one, the others of his kind started to nod. Even Opal did it, which got half the room to stare at the small being.
Martha spoke though, her voice sounding perfectly normal. She didn't even sound to have an accent.
“I too, will stand with you, if allowed. For too long my kind has allowed the world to drive us out, away from the places where we can be of the most use. It is, I suspect, past time for us to make our presence known. For us to stand and say that we will not allow destruction and death at the hands of the mob any longer!”
It was a good speech, if short. One that seemed to be echoed by the others. All of them. Especially the part about the mob. All of them straightened and took deep breaths on that portion of things, as if it were particularly impactful.
Then, out of all of them, Liam was the only one to have never been chased from a village or city by people with torches and pitchforks. At least metaphorical ones. It had been in the book that he’d read. The one that Oaks had written about their people. It was interesting, but at least the vampires seemed to understand that portion of things. So did Mary, who seemed nervous, even if what they were planning would, in the end, make things less dangerous, not more.
She moved over to him, touching him on the arm.
“They won’t need you to fight.”
That was probably true, of course. Still he smiled and shook his head.
“I don’t know if that is the truth yet. We will be safest standing together, at a guess. I need to find out more, if I can. We should get to the first part of the plan though, since there’s a time limit on when it will be most effective. Then I can see what will be needed as for the rest of the matter?”
He didn’t want violence, if he could help it. His desire didn’t mean it wouldn’t come. The trick would be in minimizing it as much as he possibly could.
Chapter ten
The next day, after an evening of attempting to look at potentially violent scenarios that weren’t coming to him for some reason, Liam settled into work and study for the day. Letting the rest of things go, for the time being. Not because he didn't want to work on things. He wanted the information or at least to know what he was supposed to do in regards to protecting the vampires from attack.
Nothing was coming though. It probably meant he was doing something wrong, rather than it being blocked from him, or a thing that he didn’t want to look at. Whatever the reason was, his trick wasn’t working, in regards to a coming attack.
Just to check he looked at several other topics, including the likely medical customers for the day. That seemed to be working just fine. Indeed, he was accurate enough that at ten, he was out in the woods, as a woman stepped from a tree. It wasn’t the same one he saw before, which was a thing he’d been ready for. She had the same flu though, which meant he was ready to take her temperature and use the same suggestions for her that Edith Vera had, rather successfully, put into action. The other Dryad was already doing better. This one, who seemed a bit younger, passed over a small handful of gems before flowing back into the same tree that had been used before.
The things in his hand were interesting to look at, so he took them in and placed the things in his room. He was rarely in there, but it was useful for holding things, like many of the gifts he’d been given the night before. They were all welcome and the idea behind them was kind and well meant. Really, it was a bit surprising that so many had bothered at all, since they knew that his party was a fiction. They hadn’t treated it that way though, even as they left. He’d been hugged many times at least, even after the bulk of the event had turned out to be about strategy.
As if they were saying that the party was important to them. It was a bit strange, though not bad at all. He had to admit that he wasn’t really getting that part of things. He tried to be helpful, with the medical help and dental services… He also charged for those things. Not a lot, all the time, but it was real enough. The Dryads were functionally over paying, which he took to be them putting funds in for others who couldn’t afford things that might need him later.
; That and being friendly was about all he had to offer though.
According to his prediction there would be several more patients that day, in a slow but steady stream, starting at around noon. Only six, but he was ready for them each time. Of interest, one of them was a man who looked human, except that he had a dislocated tail. Liam had thought it was a dislocated finger. It was treated the same way and while the fellow, Gerald, needed some help with it, the man actually understood what to do about the problem.
The naked thing was about a foot long and tapered at the end, reminding him of the possums he’d seen in the woods. The fellow was older and dressed in a nice suit, which was tailored to hide the extra appendage. If he was of a specific type of people, it wasn’t brought up.
Other than his job and finding out what he needed for his van and the tools to work on it, he simply learned about chemistry. It was interesting, especially since he finally reached enough knowledge to begin to understand what was being done when making a promethean. Not exactly how it worked. He was almost certain that no one had that information yet.
They knew what chemicals would transform flesh into an undying thing that was very different and unique. They didn't know what was happening to the cells though. Of interest, the flesh had to be dead first, and plant matter was unaffected by it. Almost all of it that had been used had come from mammals, which was interesting to note. He had to find that particular in his head, from memory, since it wasn’t online or in a book he had access to.
Still, the new information he was getting gave him enough knowledge to know how to make one of his own people, using proper technique. Not that he couldn’t have managed it after reading Oaks’ book, of course. The difference was that now he could do it without slopping things all over the place and making a mess.
Possibly. He knew that having the book learning and doing something for real wasn’t the same thing at all. It was a bit lonely, sitting there and studying all the time, but he kept himself busy. After the last patient showed up, the house still empty, he simply sat there for a moment, thinking about what he needed to be doing.
