Van stood up. "I think you are deluding yourself. The way you are teaching him, he does not need to know anything. He will be dead soon."
"Then how did he learn control so quickly? He had a willing cow in his bed when he woke up, yet he's here, sipping—sipping, mind you—from a goblet. How long did it take you to learn how to drink in a civilized fashion?"
"I do not remember," Van said with a firmness that implied that she did. "It was over a hundred years ago."
"It took me nearly a year." Mikos took another swig and faced Ben. "Most vampires die in that first year because they get caught. They get caught because they cannot control themselves. You have extra strength, and have taken more blood than I have seen any virgin take, and yet within a week, your body is under control."
"Hereditaries are different. They may seem in control, but the power overtakes them," Van said.
"Just because you saw it once doesn't mean that it will always happen." Mikos set the bottle on the table with a glass thump. "His body will develop differently from ours. It has been preparing for this from birth."
"The humans think they can reform hereditaries." Van's slender fingers played with the back of the chair.
Mikos gave Van a slow, cold look. Ben didn't understand the undertones of the conversation. They were fighting about something. With him as the focus. "I would wager," Mikos said, "that our Ben was on the forefront of the reform movement." Without taking his gaze from Van, he said, "Ben, who was the first vampire you ever remember meeting?"
—breath foul. He scooped Ben up and tucked him under his arm, carrying him to the kitchen. Ben kicked, but did not cry out. "Daddy," he whispered. "No…"—
"You're the first vampire I ever met," Ben said. The other memory was strong, but odd. The man who had carried him across the room had not been the father he had left in Oregon. "Although my friend Steve was one."
"Your friend Steve." Mikos' tone was mocking. He took a sip from the bottle. "Remember Steve, Van?"
"He was a fool," Van said.
"He was once human."
"Does that mean someone turned him?" Ben asked.
Mikos nodded.
"No one turned me, but I changed." Ben frowned. This was making no sense to him.
"Humans call it puberty," Van said. "Only in the hereditary vampire, it lasts nearly ten years, until the vampire is strong enough to survive on its own. Tell me, Ben. Did you kill the woman?"
Ben took another sip from the goblet. His hand was shaking. He hadn't killed Candyce, but he had come close. Too damn close.
He still wasn't completely under control. The thought of Candyce made him want to grab that redhead before she left and drain her.
He didn't move. "No," he said.
"No?" Van asked. "You took your first blood without killing?"
Ben nodded. Van's eyes were wide. She appeared to be seeing something beyond him.
"I told you," Mikos said. "He's strong."
"He's dangerous," Van said. She grabbed Mikos' bottle and stalked out of the room.
"What's with her?" Ben asked.
"You terrify her. You bring back memories she would rather forget."
"Memories of what?"
Mikos grinned and caressed Ben's cheek. "In time, caro mio. In time. Let's start with your questions instead."
Ben finished his glass, got up and poured himself another. He would rather have asked these questions of Van. Mikos was too smart. He would understand that Ben's questions weren't all innocence. Then Ben would not play the innocent.
"I have never seen a set-up like this before." Ben returned to his chair and straddled it. "Do you own the building?"
"And the Italian Restaurant, complete with garlic." Mikos smiled. "It's a nice front."
"For what?" Ben asked. He took a sip. The wine tasted good.
"Not much really. You see most of what we do. It's an idle time. We've been waiting for something to change."
"Who was Ian?"
"Bothers you, doesn't it? Killing a man."
Ben shook his head. "I enjoyed it." The words were hard to get out. He had enjoyed it. Sometimes, when he thought about it, he was surprised at his lack of shock, his own ability to adapt so easily.
Mikos took his bottle and set it on his lap. For the first time, he seemed to be measuring Ben. "No qualms?"
Ben paused. He should have had them. The life his parents had taught him, the career track he had been on, all those petty concerns about legalities and good grades and other people—it was as if they had never existed. As if that life had belonged to someone else. That Ben would have been horrified at his actions with Ian. This Ben felt a faint stirring of sexual desire.
"It's not something I would do every night," Ben said, "but I don't regret it. I want to find out what's happening here."
"Van didn't lie to you. The money comes from investments made a long time ago. I have more assets than I care to think about. Ian helped me manage those, until I caught him embezzling from me. Stupid human. He had two weeks to get the money for me. He did not. He seemed to think he was invaluable."
"Was he?"
"Very few people are essential to any operation. Ian was not one of them." Mikos took a swig from the bottle. "I am smart enough to keep the people I need alive."
"Where did you get your money?"
Mikos smiled. "That is an indelicate question."
Ben stood up. Someone peered in the kitchen door. He walked over and shut it. "You talk as if I am the person you've been waiting for. I have no clue if you give this speech to every new recruit. But the lifestyle I have adopted thanks to you does not allow me to live the life I had planned. I can't go to law school in the daytime. I can barely be around humans now. Sunlight always bothered me, which was why I was going to stay in the Northwest, but now even daylight makes me queasy. My body brought me into this, but since you have helped me regain my mind, I want to know everything I can about this operation. You make the trains run on time. That question got answered right away. Now I want to know how you afford it."
"You are a good American boy. You will not like what I have to tell you."
"I killed for you. I think that no longer makes me a good American boy."
Mikos set the wine bottle down and ran a hand through his hair. He leaned back. "I left Germany in 1944 when it became clear that nothing would save the Nazi cause. Most of us supported Hitler, and there was even talk that he was one of us. When Hitler came to power in the early 1930s[C&F68] , I already had a good economic base from investments, stolen money, years of careful planning. The Nazis gave me the opportunity to kill with impunity as long as the dead belonged to the prescribed groups. I started early, and made sure that most of my victims' assets became mine."
"Jews?"
"Some. The richer ones. A few Catholics, and a number gypsies. I invested in Sweden under various aliases—a smart move, as it turns out—and in motion pictures here in the States, again under different names. Some of my money remained in Germany and it is now gone."
Ben started to ask a question. Mikos held up his hand to stop it.
"In 1944, with the help of friends, I left Germany. My friends got me to Alaska, where I lived for four barren years. When it was safe, I settled in Chicago, and spent the next twenty years bringing over my friends. The Midwest got wise to us by the mid-sixties, and the stupid newbies started dying. I moved West, bought up much of Seattle, and have been here quietly ever since."
"You have lived like this for decades?" Ben was growing bored after three nights. He needed something to stimulate his mind, to keep him active. The sex was wonderful, but sex and food were not all there was to life.
Mikos corked the wine bottle and set it on the table. "I was tired of running, and I am also not the kind of man who lets his reach exceed his grasp. Too many of us do that, and then we die rather spectacularly."
"I don't understand," Ben said. "You speak of living quietly and then you talk of high hopes for me. Is that what you tell ea
ch virgin?"
"Ah, no," Mikos got up and ran his hands in Ben's hair. Ben let Mikos touch him, although the instant arousal from a few days earlier was gone. "You shall save me from dying of boredom."
"Me?"
"Yes. The children you will father will have a power beyond even our imagining. We must guard and protect them for they are worth more than we shall ever be. The children of hereditaries have twice the strength of their parents. Twice, Ben."
Mikos slid his hands inside the kimono. Ben caught them. Mikos sighed and returned to his chair. He took a sip of his wine before continuing. "But even before you have children to raise, you will have something to do. Most hereditaries live in Europe, and die when their natural inclinations show themselves. The Europeans believe that vampirism caused much of their problems in this century. In many centuries. Examine history closely, my friend. Our race began in Northern Europe. The wars there were bloody, often focused on exterminating the foe. Even the World Wars sought to annihilate. Many of our people died—too many. For a while, we wondered if the race would survive—the real race, not those like me who had been turned, but the powers, the hereditary vampires who could concern themselves with more than eating and fucking."
"I grew up here," Ben said.
"Yes, but where were you born?"
"The Midwest."
Mikos nodded. "We have seen a handful of hereditaries come out of there. Children of vampires. Some were immigrants—children of hereditaries. But others were children of the turned. We are an amazing race, for we can create more of our kind. And you, I will wager, are the child of an hereditary. An immigrant, perhaps—or a late developer whose father had fought in one of the World Wars. Did your parents have an accent?"
—too much noise—
"I don't remember," Ben said.
Mikos took another sip of wine. "We'll see what you remember. The Midwest housed most of our people for a long time. There and northern European settlements in the East. Most vampires die, rather brutally. Slayings by former vets who served in the World Wars. Curious, don't you think?"
Ben closed his eyes. The afternoon in high school when the coach had kicked him off the basketball team for pummeling an opponent until blood sprayed everything, the girls who refused to date him again because his love bites were too painful. The signs were there. "I'm sure someone would have noticed me. How come I made it up here?"
"Because," Mikos said, "someone was thoughtful enough to ship you out West. When I came here there were no vampiric enclaves. The vets forgot what they saw in the war, and chalked it up to war crimes. It has only been in the last two decades that our numbers here have grown."
"No one understood?"
"And if they did, they were not paying attention. Vampires are not a problem here. Life is good. You have heard that as often as I have. Westerners have a strong regional snobbery that makes "diseases" of the east an impossibility."
Ben grabbed Mikos wine bottle, uncorked it, and drank down nearly half. When he finished, he wiped his mouth off with his hand.
"You are part of a new generation," Mikos said. "The first hereditaries to become adults in the United States. With the freedoms granted by this country, the court systems, and the protections for individuals, we have an opportunity we have never had before. If we are careful in the West, unlike other parts of the country where we are already known, we can establish ourselves completely. I have the money, Ben. As soon as your body adjusts, you will have the energy."
"To do what?"
"To gain true power."
"Political power?" Ben cupped the bottle against him. Power. He loved feeling a cow beneath his fingers. Political power was that sexual feeling on a grand scale. Excitement whispered through him.
"But Van said we can't go in front of cameras. Mirrors and stuff."
"Power is never held in the political arena. Power is money, Ben. The people who control the economy control the politicians. And, we have some evidence that hereditaries can be photographed. We will experiment with you."
"People with the money have power," Ben repeated. He set the bottle on the table, and twirled it, making a chiming sound. "You will have the money."
Mikos smiled. "I like your mind, Ben."
"Then you will not serve me, as you said."
Mikos shrugged. "We shall see, won't we?"
Chapter Eleven
Another night without much sleep. Whenever Cammie dozed, she felt forbidden sunlight on her back, heard the door open, and her father snap Camila! Ben was crying. Ben was always crying, and she couldn't shut him up. She grabbed the dowel Mr. Conner at the corner drug store had whittled down to a point (just in case, Cammie)— and woke herself up.
Over and over again.
Once she had picked up the phone to call Eliason. She let his number ring twice before hanging up. This was hers. She had to deal with it.
Alone, as she always had.
Dawn found her at the kitchen table, skimming Laura Kinsale's Flowers in the Storm, a novel Cammie had read four times because, she knew now, it was about someone who survived against incredible psychological, physical, and emotional odds. The book gave her no comfort now, but she tried to escape anyway. Still, that deep, angry voice echoed in the back of her head:
Camila!
Camila, how's a man supposed to sleep around here with that racket?
Camila! Shut him up. Shut him up or I will!
Finally she set the book down and turned on Good Morning America, not because she liked the program, but because the Today Show reminded her of breakfasts at her foster home, long, tedious breakfasts in which her foster father read the paper, her foster mother cooked, and Cammie dutifully ate everything from burnt waffles to runny eggs. Even now, she could taste the fake maple syrup.
She shut off the television. Her brain would give her no peace now. The secrets were out. She could no longer hide them, even from herself.
She sighed. She had taken the Westrina Center's scholarship because she had needed the money. She had shown an aptitude (not surprisingly) for psychology with an emphasis on vampires, and the major had interested her. Nothing else really had. She thought she had found her calling. Instead,[C&F69] the Westrina Center had sought her out because they knew what she was. She had joined them because she had no choice, because she was doomed to re-enact her past until she could escape it.
Damn Anita for using her. Damn Anita for using them all.
In the name of healing.
I can't say any more, Sarge had said. This is Anita's baby. You'll have to make an appointment with her.
Sarge didn't like it. Sarge had never liked the program, and that was why it had suddenly become a very big deal. Not because of Cammie's reaction, but because Sarge was again confronted with Anita's program of self-healing.
All those eradicators. Cammie watched colleague after colleague grow quiet, or haunted, and then disappear. She had always thought they went into counseling because they had trouble with the violence. Instead,[C&F70] they had gone because their memories were returning.
People never last longer than three years, Eliason had said. When did the dreams start?
It was a pattern. A pattern no one wanted to discuss.
They wanted to shunt her away to someone she didn't know, someone who would tell her this was normal.
It wasn't normal. Cammie had a 78 percent chance of becoming like the people she staked.
You need to remember, Anita had said.
Cammie remembered. She remembered the house and the smell of blood and the dowel—
She stood up. In an hour, she had to meet Whitney. She turned on the radio to WORT—a station she rarely listened to—because it played music that she wouldn't associate with anything. She made herself a breakfast that she didn't eat, and changed into a dark sweatshirt and dark pants. Her gloves were still in the van, but she supposed that blood from one eradication wouldn't hurt another.
Cammie purposely left so that she would hit the worst of rus
h hour. Driving kept her busy. She felt dizzy, distant from herself, as if everything worked on automatic pilot. When she pulled into the Center's parking lot, she had no memory of the journey there at all.
Whitney was standing at Reception. He was wearing his black clothes, but his bright red hair stood out in contrast. He turned sharply as Cammie pulled open the double glass doors and DeeDee looked down at her desk. They had been talking about Cammie.
So everyone knew. And everyone had understood, except Cammie herself.
"I thought you wouldn't come," he said.
"Been talking to Eliason, huh?" Cammie's voice was flat. Eliason was just like everyone else. He played a good game, but in the end, he only cared about himself.
Whitney shook his head. "It's just happened to me before. I recognize the signs."
Cammie glanced at DeeDee. "So that's what you were talking about? 'The signs?'"
"Come on, Cam," DeeDee said. "Child stuff is confidential."
"My file's on the computer. Sarge called it up."
DeeDee grabbed a file from her desk. When in doubt, act beautiful and brainless. It didn't work with Cammie. Cammie knew DeeDee had a brain.
"Don't deny it, DeeDee. You've been poking around in confidential files."
"I asked her to call it up," Whitney said.
"You?" Cammie whirled. "What gives you the right to investigate my life?"
"My survival. Cammie, you acted pretty fucking weird at the last eradication."
"That doesn't give you any right to dig into my business."
Whitney ran a hand around the back of his neck. He sighed.
"Three years ago, Whitney had a partner who lost it in the middle of a staking," DeeDee said.
"DeeDee—"
"She asked what gives you the right. I think the fact that you nearly died once because of Anita's save-the-children program gives you the right to dig when no one talks to you." DeeDee jabbed the files against her nails to punctuate each word.
"I don't get it, Whitney," Cammie said. "What makes you stay when everyone else seems to disappear?"
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