Smiling kindly, he said, "I know you will."
He opened the door and they stepped out of his office. Dylan was waiting sitting on a desk, one foot on the chair, scrolling down on the small device screen. When he saw them, he stood up readily.
"She's all yours, Dylan," Lucius said. After that, he went back to his office.
“Let’s go,” Dylan said without asking how her meeting with Lucius had gone. It was just as well, Rebecca wasn't too eager to talk about it, either. Besides, she had a feeling he had overheard every single word they had said in that office.
Rebecca followed Dylan out of the room, and in the direction of the elevator; although they were not going to the underground. This time, he guided her to a set of stairs right next to the door to exit the building. The scent coming from the outside wasn't strong, but enough for her to recognize trees, soil, and even a few animals. It was a sunny day and Rebecca had to fight her wish to step outside of the agency if even for a moment to breathe fresh air.
It wasn't the time. There were other matters that needed her attention.
"You haven't asked me how it went with Lucius," she said as they started their way to the second floor.
"Is there something I should worry about?"
She thought of what the director had told her, about Dylan surviving only on blood for decades. Rebecca considered mentioning that, but thought better of it. "He said I should take care of you," Rebecca told him. "That you were special to him."
"He cares about all the agents," said Dylan after hearing that.
Rebecca doubted it was just because he was one of his agents. In fact, she remembered clearly when the director had implied they would need to kill Dylan if he didn't find a partner. He had looked concerned when he'd voiced it.
"You’ll like Jake," Dylan began when they started on the second-floor’s hallway. Just like the first floor, it was covered in framed art with a few doors on either side.
“He’s the lawyer, right?” Understanding what the agency's protocol was, Rebecca knew she would meet with the vampires’ attorney. She would then need to talk with the agency's psychologist to complete her first evaluation. "You can stay with me when I talk to the lawyer, right?"
“Jake? Yes, don't worry," he was quick to reply. His hand went down to search hers. Whatever he had once been, during the time when he had forgotten his humanity, was gone when he was with her.
They stopped in front of the second door. On it, a wooden sign with the words Harrison and Associates had been hanged clumsily from a nail. It made it look careless and unprofessional. It didn’t fit with what she’d seen from the rest of the agency’s headquarters.
The walls were painted in a soothing beige color instead of the dull gray out in the hallway. The lawyer’s office had several framed paintings that greatly improved the small windowless room, a fan hanging from the ceiling was spinning. To the left was a long and tall bookshelf with a plethora of books filling it. When Rebecca took a quick glance at the book’s titles, she wasn’t surprised to find most of them were on the subject of law. Some titles were so cryptic she couldn’t imagine what they could be for.
The wooden desk looked sturdy and was probably custom made. From under it, a young man popped up after having been searching for something in a drawer. Closing it, he placed a few pens on the desk, inviting his two guests to take one of the two brown leather chairs sitting on top of a faded rug.
“Nice office,” Rebecca commented.
The young lawyer offered a welcoming smile. She knew he was a vampire, but if he had bumped into him on the street, she wouldn’t have thought there was anything out of the ordinary about him.
“Thank you, Ms. Sawyer,” he replied cheerfully. Standing up, he introduced himself, “I’m Jacob Anders. Jake.” Rebecca felt so at ease with him she didn’t hesitate to shake hands with him. The young lawyer took one look at Dylan and simply nodded. “It’s been a while, Dylan.” Rebecca looked at their dry exchange with curiosity.
“Jake,” Dylan muttered, sitting back and getting comfortable.
For a moment, Jake studied Dylan. It was almost as if he expected something more from him. Seeing how the werewolf hunter just sat there, Jake pursed his lips and sat back down. “It really has been a long time, Torrence.”
“It has,” Dylan sighed and agreed.
“I would ask what’s new,” Jake continued, “but I can see you haven’t changed a bit.” Glancing at Rebecca, he added, “Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” Rebecca could have sworn she saw Dylan blush as he shifted his weight awkwardly. Jake seemed to enjoy taunting him, not being able to wipe a grin off his face as he ordered the documents on his desk. “How’s that big case going, Dylan? Any progress?”
Big case? Rebecca assumed he had to be referring to the reason Dylan left her on her own after receiving those messages the day before. He had mentioned he had been following that case for years. Curiosity filled her once more, thinking she would find out as soon as she proved she could be her partner.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dylan said flatly.
It was clear Dylan wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat. Clearing his throat, Jake understood he needed to go back to the business at hand. Facing Rebecca again, he said, “Well, Ms. Sawyer, I guess you’re eager to start. Let’s begin, then.”
The lawyer had several manila folders piled on his desk. Opening the one on top, he read over the information quietly, a pen between his teeth. Rebecca waited as patiently as she could although she was dying with anticipation when she was made to wait. “What is the reason you became a vampire, Ms. Sawyer?” Jake asked. Rebecca hadn’t expected that question. Why? ‘Because she had wanted to’ didn’t sound like the best answer to give. Caught open-mouthed and with a lack for words, the lawyer tried to guess. “No blood transfusion, no illness. I see a couple of accidents in your file, but they’re old. Wait a minute,” he paused for effect, “You didn’t accidentally turn, did you?”
Rebecca felt the sarcasm. Immediately, she turned to Dylan for answers.
Rolling his eyes, Dylan said, “Cut the crap, Jake, you know pretty well I turned her.”
Jake Anders stopped playing with his pen. He froze as if that had been the most frightening piece of information he had been given in a long time.
“That’s not forbidden, is it?” he purposefully overreacted. Rebecca couldn’t tell if he was serious or if he was joking.
Dylan raised both eyebrows, “What are you talking about? You know why we’re here. I mean it, stop this nonsense.”
“Why would it be forbidden?” Rebecca asked, alarmed.
“It’s not,” Dylan said in a tired tone. Then, to Anders. “You know it’s not.”
Jake Anders shrugged. "It just hasn’t happened in a long time, Dylan. I mean, when Lucius called I had to ask and-"
“Rebecca is special,” interrupted Dylan, “to me.”
For a second, Jake Anders seemed frozen in time. It didn’t last long, soon he was laughing out loud, startling them both. “Right,” he said after calming down. “This young – very young woman is supposed to be your new partner. A werewolf hunter.”
“Yes, Jake. Now, stop fooling around and get down to business.”
Rebecca knew they had some kind of secret feud between them, but their banter had brought up a question she hadn’t thought of before. “It doesn’t happen often, does it?”
“What does?” Jake wondered, interested.
“What I did. People don’t voluntarily become vampires, do they?”
Shaking his head, Jake answered. “Nope.”
“Becca, it’s irrelevant and-”
She ignored him. “How long since someone was turned?”
Jake didn’t need much time to think about it, “Well, back in 1961, John Kennedy suggested we stop turning human beings into vampires.”
“It was a suggestion, not a mandate,” Dylan clarified.
Rebecca was finding Jake to be a great source of information. Sh
e couldn’t miss her chance to get answers. “JFK? Are you talking about the former president?” Jake nodded. “But, why stop them? What happened?”
Frowning, Jake opened his mouth to reply, but stopping himself, he turned to Dylan instead. “Did you not tell her anything?” he demanded of him.
Sighing, Dylan remained stoic. “I told her everything she needed to know. I explained what would happen to her body, I told her about the changes she would go through, and I told her she would need to work hard to become a werewolf hunter. I even explained to her how not everyone is genetically fit to become a vampire. I didn’t think she needed a history lesson.”
Rebecca looked at him. “It interests me to know why not many do what I did willingly. I’m not blaming you, Dylan, I’m just curious.”
“See, Torrence? She’s curious,” echoed Jake.
Giving up, Dylan exhaled and said, “Fine, we can spare a few minutes. Tell her.”
Looking giddy, the lawyer prepared to tell her more. “It all started with blood transfusions. Once they became an everyday thing around the 1930s and the number of accidental transformations started growing exponentially, we had an overpopulation problem,” he explained. Then, “I’m sure Dylan told you how there are two ways to create a vampire, one is by giving a human the blood of someone who is already a vampire, and the other is just bad luck. We still don’t know exactly how it works, but after all these transfusions started taking place, we realized that some people can be turned with the blood of another human being. Kinda like the mixing of the right blood types or something. We’re still trying to figure that one out.”
“That’s what happened to Jake. He’s an accident,” Dylan mused.
“What do you mean? Are you saying human blood can create vampires?”
Jake nodded, “Yes, Ms. Sawyer, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
That didn’t make any sense. Making a face, she turned to Jake in what appeared to be disgust. “So, you drank human blood while you were human and that turned you into a vampire?”
Jake snorted, quickly composed himself, and started to explain again, “No, Ms. Sawyer, I did not drink human blood.”
“But, he sure likes it now,” Dylan teased.
Rebecca turned to look at Dylan in surprise, while Jake narrowed his eyes in contempt, “I apparently don’t like it as much as you do, agent Torrence.”
This time, it was Dylan’s turn to shift in his seat uncomfortably.
Rebecca once again ignored their quarreling and pressed for more answers. Turning back to Jake, she asked her next question, “You had a blood transfusion, then?”
“Right.” Jake was more than happy to correct the story. “You see, Ms. Sawyer… may I call you Rebecca?”
“Of course!”
“Rebecca, blood transfusions have been increasing from the dozens to the hundreds to the thousands in the past decades.” He thought it over, “I wouldn’t doubt we’re in the millions in this starting millennium, and that’s only in the United States.”
“Are you saying that people go to a hospital, get a blood transfusion, and wake up vampires?”
“Yes. That’s right.” Dylan answered her question.
That was a scary thought, “Is there a specific blood type that triggers it?”
It was Jake who took the next question, “We don’t know, Grant hasn’t found a pattern.”
“Grant?”
Dylan said, “The guy who invented synthetic blood.”
“Oh.”
“Synthetic blood helped with our problem, by the way,” Jake added.
Rebecca tried to figure it out on her own. “So that blood doesn’t create vampires?”
“It doesn’t,” Jake pointed out. “That helped in a decrease of those accidental transformations. Grant’s a hero in these parts of the world.”
Dylan turned to Rebecca. “He’s a scientist.”
Rebecca asked, “How many accidental transformations are there now?”
“We’ve had an average of 3.3 changes a year in the last decade in the United States. Pretty manageable.” Jake Anders seemed to know his numbers well.
That was still three or four people a year waking up with their lives forever changed. What happened to them? Their families? Rebecca had to find out. “What happens when someone wakes up a vampire, they must really freak out.”
Jake had an answer for everything, “We take them in, we register them, and offer them a choice.”
They register them. “A choice?”
“They can work for us,” Dylan started.
“Or they can go back to their lives,” Jake added, “at least for a while.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, like it is the case with you now, these people won’t age or die,” the lawyer explained. “That means every few years we have to move them to avoid suspicion. They need to start over and be relocated where no one knows who they are.”
“That sounds terrible,” Rebecca realized. “It must be horrible to have your life all set and then suddenly you need to leave everyone you love behind.”
“True,” Jake sounded disheartened. He had been one of these unfortunate people, hadn’t he? His transformation had been accidental and completely unexpected.
Dylan seemed to notice her quiet observation, because he said, “Jake is happily married now. Don’t feel so sorry for him.”
Offended by his words, Jake narrowed his eyes threateningly as he turned to face Dylan, “I was a soldier during the Civil War with a wife and family and I had to leave everything behind to-“
“Don’t be so dramatic, you know you would have died if you hadn’t become a vampire,” Dylan dismissed his sad story quickly. “At least you got a second chance.”
Jake scowled and looked at Rebecca instead. “This is the man you have chosen to spend your life with?”
Rebecca found that funny.
Jake told her, “We were partners once, you know? He’s the reason I became a lawyer.”
“I did not make you quit, Jake,” Dylan said in protest.
As startled as she was, Rebecca understood, “You were partners?”
“Briefly,” Jake added.
Dylan reflected, “I had no idea he was leaving until I got a call from Lucius one morning. By then, he was gone. I didn’t get much of an explanation.”
“I left because no one can work with him.” It was plain he was teasing him. “I wouldn’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be different with you,” the tone of sarcasm in the lawyer’s voice did not go unnoticed, “since you are, like he said, special.”
Dylan stopped his rambling, “This is not why we’re here, Jake. If you still have a problem with what happened, feel free to pay a visit to Dr. Stevens.”
Jake smiled in triumph. Rebecca hadn’t had so much fun with someone in a long time. She loved Dylan, but he was seriously lacking a sense of humor.
“You’re right,” the lawyer admitted. Looking at his watch, he said, “It’s getting late, too, and I still have to drive back to the Crimson building before heading home.”
“Well, I need some air,” Dylan announced. “I can bring you two something to eat, if you’d like.”
As if they hadn’t been quarreling minutes before, Jake said, “Can you bring me a burger?”
Dylan looked irritated. “Sure.”
“From Fox Joint?” asked Jake absentmindedly, his eyes now on Rebecca’s documents.
“Fine,” Dylan replied. When he turned to Rebecca, she was still trying to figure out what was happening now. They hadn’t sounded like the best of friends before. “Burgers for lunch?” he asked her.
“Sounds great.”
He nodded, “Wonderful, I’ll be right back.”
Vampires, Rebecca thought, they are just humans, aren’t they? It doesn’t matter what you are, people will always have the same interactions with other people. They will always need someone to connect to.
Dylan left the room and Rebecca couldn’t help but smile in Jake
’s direction. She was glad to find Dylan hadn’t lied. They were all just men and women. Perhaps they wouldn’t die and had amazing abilities, but deep down, they were human.
Jake looked up to say, “Are you ready, Rebecca?”
Yes, she was ready.
They took a few hours to go over every single document together. Dylan arrived with lunch and Jake read everything to her and waited for Rebecca to decide what to do about her former life. For instance, she had to decide what to do about her house and her car. She had to choose what to do with her bank accounts, too.
Jake also explained the difference between becoming a vampire civilian and a vampire agent. She understood that to work for N.A.V.S.A. – the North American Vampire Secret Agency – Rebecca Sawyer would technically need to disappear from the world.
It was all very interesting to her since it provided a more clear view of how she would be perceived by the rest of humankind.
Amongst the documents they reviewed, she needed to sign an agreement to live by the new laws that now pertained to her as a vampire. As she read them, she understood they were all vital for the safety of everyone around her. The first one stated vampires should not kill humans. The second one said something about treating them as equals.
Apart from explaining the laws, Jake briefly went over the agency’s relationship with the United States government, starting with George Washington and all the way to the actual president.
Who would have thought the country’s leaders were well aware of the existence of the supernatural?
Finally, she had learned details about the agency’s entry examination. She would train for as long as it took, and when she was ready, she would need to be tested in her abilities and performance in the field. Only after passing this test would the agency consider her a field operative.
Once she couldn’t think on any other questions and after she had signed every document, Jake Anders cleaned his office to return to his firm.
“It’ll be interesting to see if you can keep her, Torrence,” Anders said as he clicked the last lock on his briefcase. Dylan gave no reply, and so Jake turned to Rebecca, offering his hand. “The best of luck to you, Rebecca”
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