Mason stood, stunned. In less than a heartbeat, it had gone from being a living animal to ash and black embers, still glowing orange in places.
Simone noted that Mason didn’t blanch. He was shocked, as everyone was the first time they saw a vampire in sunlight, but he seemed to hold no compassion for the thing. No one in The Project gave a second thought to killing a vampire (though Trevor surely hated having Aidan shoot it before its death), but for a civilian to so easily accept it was interesting. She decided to make her move. “Let’s keep it simple. We need you because you are capable of fighting in this conflict and it is the most important one there is. So what do you say? Will you join us?”
Mason thought for a moment before finally looking away from the remains of the vampire to lock eyes with Simone.
“No.”
25
Alexander took a moment to admire Miranda as she arrived. She was pretty without being stunning, but it wasn’t like she put any effort into it. She was a complete minimalist, who kept her dark red hair pulled back in a ponytail constantly. Alexander realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it down. She had been the third vampire he made, after Maya and Gabriel, but she was the first who turned out the way he wanted. Maya was obviously useful in her own way, but rejected the basic nature of being what she was. Gabriel had been interested in immortality only insomuch as it allowed him more time to research. But Miranda was his true protégé.
She was always eager to make Alexander proud, and he suspected she viewed him as something of a father figure. She had been something of a spur of the moment decision to turn, without nearly as much homework going into her as he’d put into Maya. He wasn’t sure what her home life had been like growing up, and she had never shared. Truthfully, Alexander didn’t much care. Vampires so seldom resembled who they were in their human life. Gabriel had been the exception to prove that rule.
Miranda’s had been the first nest he’d set up for one of his brood, though it hadn’t been intended for her. In the early days, he hadn’t understood the need for these separate nests to insulate himself. He’d had delusions of Maya being his companion, and he’d only turned Gabriel so that he could make better use of Maya. After some of Maya’s more… erratic behavior, he’d realized the need for his offspring to have their own space, lest they draw unwanted attention to him. He had begun setting up this home for Gabriel, before his tech-savvy offspring made it clear he wasn’t interested in Alexander’s crusade. He’d been the owner of a home with no occupant when he’d run into Miranda, but the idea to turn her was hardly his initial goal. He’d actually been in the middle of feeding on her when the notion struck him that he could turn her instead. This was a fact that he’d never shared with her, however; the vampire equivalent of being adopted. It was fitting that his offspring he’d put the least of planning into had turned into his best.
Looking around at the modest underground home Miranda had, he felt a twinge of guilt for never finding her something nicer. After he and Gabriel had mutually agreed to part ways, the seed money he had given his progeny to continue their research had turned him quite a tidy profit. There weren’t many companies still in the technology game these days, and it had been easy for Gabriel to find a niche from which to profit. Alexander had used his newfound wealth to find himself a much more permanent, much nicer space to call his own (and thank God he had now that The Project had interrogated Gabriel!).
Miranda was beaming. They talked frequently over the phone, but mostly about assignments, and it had been too long since he’d come to visit her in person. The biometric locks still opened for him though, his standing invitation apparently not revoked. He rose to meet her. “We need to find you a nicer place,” he said truthfully, but perhaps not intending on following through right away.
“Nonsense. This place is plenty nice for you to never visit,” she said, needling him for his prolonged absence.
He was not used to being uncomfortable, but Miranda was too valuable to him to risk her feeling unappreciated. “I…” he struggled to find something to say to excuse his behavior.
She waved him off. “You’re a busy man. I was just giving you a hard time. Although I will admit to being curious why you called me off the hunt for the handsome man.”
“Really, he’s handsome?” Alexander was somewhat taken aback. Not jealous, of course, just surprised Miranda thought in those terms.
Miranda chuckled, “Only if you have eyes.”
Alexander changed the subject. “I wanted to see you because your thirtieth birthday is coming up in just a few weeks.” Even vampires counted birthdays, they just counted them from the day they were turned.
“Aw, you remembered,” Miranda faked a coy smile.
“Of course I did. It’s an important one. Have you felt any… different lately?” Alexander broached the subject carefully, not wanting to put any ideas into her head that weren’t already there.
Miranda smirked. “Are you asking if I’m having some sort of vampire mid-life crisis?” After Alexander didn’t respond, she went on, “Yes, there’s a restlessness. I catch myself wondering what kind of vampire my victims would make. And I…” she paused.
“Go on,” Alexander encouraged.
“Wish I could make my own vampires. Christ, I don’t even know what word to use. Children? Offspring? Progeny?”
Alexander had been expecting the answer, but it was still surprising. That made three of them; all three vampires who’d lived to thirty years old had found themselves compelled to make more of their kind on exactly their thirtieth birthday. He didn’t have time to think of the implications of that right now, and he wasn’t sure they mattered anyway. “After you turn thirty, you’ll be able to make more of our kind. Your instincts will tell you how. And for the record, I call them offspring.” He wondered for a moment if Maya could turn new vampires? Was the answer even relevant?
Miranda stared off into space. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” said Alexander, unsure of what else to say.
“How do you know?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“Because that’s when it happened to me, and that’s when it happened to Gabriel.” She looked at him now; it might have been too long since Alexander had seen her, but it had been decades since she’d seen her sibling.
“Gabriel can turn humans now?” She seemed somewhat neutral on the prospect.
Alexander smirked. “Not anymore. He wasn’t careful with who he turned, and it led The Project right to him.”
“Oh. Well, he never was much for this life anyway,” Miranda observed.
Alexander tried to keep her on topic. “No, but there’s still a lesson to be learned from his death.”
“And you came all the way out here, because you thought I’d go spreading immortality like Typhoid Mary and get myself killed?” She walked past him into her room. Alexander could hear her take her shirt off to change, so he remained in the main room. Besides the bedroom and main room, there was just a small nook for Miranda’s computer desk. Not much use for things like bathrooms and kitchens in vampire home design.
“No. I have no doubt that you’d be selective and have a goal in mind when you turned someone. I just wanted to make sure you were smart about it when you did.”
“How so?” she called from her room.
“Give them their own home. You’ll have to select it as I did with you, so that they’re protected during the day. Never show or tell them where you live. If they knew and The Project got ahold of them, well, interrogation is more effective on them. The young ones haven’t redefined pain like we have.” Once you got used to immortality and every wound healing, pain became background noise like temperature or humidity.
“I still don’t know why you won’t tell me where your nest is. You know I wouldn’t talk and it’d be nice to drop in on you once in a while,” she said, emerging from her room in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and ridiculous fuzzy slippers.
“It’s for your protection too.
If they found you, but realized early on that you didn’t know where I was, they’d make your death quick,” he lied, “and I’d rather you didn’t suffer.” He’d seen with Gabriel that what a vampire knew didn’t have much correlation with how swift a death they were granted, but he hoped it sounded comforting.
“Well that’s… dark,” she said, “whaddya say we focus on me not getting caught?” She patted him on the cheek as she walked past him to her computer. She was being much surer of herself around him on this visit. He wasn’t sure if it was just the added years, or if the same shift that was making her capable of reproducing was making her more independent as well. If that were the case, what a sense of humor evolution had, mirroring human’s puberty in vampires.
She had turned her computer on, but was only half-interested in whatever was on the screen. “So what brought you all the way out here then?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve been to our Facility in Pennsylvania. Would you care to pay a visit with me?”
“You can’t handle the ‘people farm’ on your own?” she mocked.
“When I said I think of the vampires I make as offspring, that’s the rest of them. You are my heir, though since I plan to live forever, with perhaps a slightly different connotation than humans give it. Still, it’s time you ruled a portion of the kingdom.”
She tried to hide her disgust. “I’m not big on the idea of running your underground apartment complex. I’d like the role of Royal Executioner much more than Heir.”
Her frankness surprised Alexander, but he tried to recover. “You wouldn’t just be running our Pennsylvania Facility. You’d be handling North America. We need a base of operations on the West Coast and I need to turn my attention to other areas. When we strike, it must be worldwide. It must be coordinated and decisive. The man I’ve had you hunting is a trump card; a shortcut capable of handling Europe and Asia on his own when turned, maybe more. Even so, he can’t be multiple places at once. I need someone to take over what I’ve begun here, someone who can continue to grow our ranks but stay under the radar. And most importantly, I need it to be someone I can trust to do it correctly and strategically.”
“Kai would never listen to me,” she offered as a weak rebuttal. The two of them had never gotten along. Kai had always thought of himself as Miranda’s equal, but the idea was laughable. Miranda continued trying to poke holes in the idea: “And Finley might not like the idea of answering to someone else.” Finley was the vampire Alexander trusted to run the Pennsylvania Facility in his absence.
“Then Kai would come with me. Perhaps in a few years, I could trust him to handle South America or Australia, or somewhere else not quite as important to me as North America, and in the meantime, he could help me set them up. He’s not much further from thirty than you are. And you and I both know Finley won’t have any trouble trading answering to me for answering to you. He’ll hardly be difficult to keep in line.”
Miranda bit her lip, deep in thought. “I’m still not sold on it.”
“You don’t have to decide now,” Alexander replied, “but we need to leave now before we waste anymore moonlight. The Facility is a two-day drive.”
Miranda sighed. “I’ll get changed again.” She frowned, looking at her slippers as she wiggled them.
26
Trevor had obviously been reading the situation entirely different than Simone. As soon as Mason had said ‘no’ it had been quiet chaos in the warehouse. Right when he thought they’d laid solid groundwork and it was time to head back to the basement for the rest of the pitch, Simone sprang the question far too early. Mason was biting, but everyone there could see that he wasn’t on the hook when she tried to reel him in. After he declined her offer, Dr. Westfield had taken a deep breath before nodding to one of Trevor’s men. The son of a bitch must have used Trevor’s absence while he abducted Mason to set this up and now this man was the one tasked with killing Mason. Thankfully, Trevor had put that together quick enough to tell the soldier, “Belay that order.” The man had stood down, as Trevor knew he would. His men were nothing if not loyal, which meant Westfield must have lied to the man about Trevor’s approval. When Dr. Westfield realized that Trevor’s man wasn’t going to kill Mason, he had started to move towards the nearest soldier with an eye on his sidearm. He had only taken a step or two before Aidan moved in front of him and placed a hand on his chest, shaking his head. “Bad idea,” was all Aidan had said, but Trevor was thankful that the two of them were on the same wavelength.
Mason hadn’t moved for any of this, but had obviously realized how it could have gone down. He either had enough faith in his own abilities, or had seen that enough of the room was on his side to not run for the exit.
“Mason, how about I drive you back to your office. I’ll even let you sit up front this time. No shackles.”
Mason dutifully moved towards Trevor. “It would be a nice change of pace.” The two men had headed for the van when Simone turned with a confused look on her face. “But Mason…”
“The man’s made his decision, Simone.” Trevor could see that she recognized her blunder in pressing Mason for an answer too soon, but all keeping him here would have done was increase the chance of an open conflict. Best to remove the catalyst and let The Project’s cooler heads prevail. As he and Mason climbed into the van, Aidan moved to a position between them and the main group. The message (and Aidan’s loyalty) was clear.
The entire scene had taken maybe ten seconds to play out, but Trevor was happy to have some time while he drove to sort through what the consequences were going to be. Dr. Westfield obviously now knew where he stood in The Project: wherever Trevor allowed him to. It was not a role Trevor wanted, nor was he gunning for Dr. Westfield’s job. It was merely a consequence of the role that Westfield himself had given to Trevor all those years ago. Whoever oversaw the actual soldiers would inevitably be the unofficial leader of an outfit like this and the figurehead in charge only had as much power as that leader allowed.
He realized that he and Mason had been driving in silence for a few minutes. “Don’t take it personally. Dr. Westfield was just doing what he feels he needs to.”
“I don’t, but I also don’t think he’s just going to change his mind because I’m out of sight. Am I going to have a problem?” Mason asked a legitimate question.
“No, those men are loyal to me, and they’ve seen where I stand now. Aidan will be contacting our men back at our headquarters who weren’t here and letting them know the situation,” Trevor lied. He certainly wished that’s what Aidan was doing, but he knew he’d need to check on the rest of his men once he dropped off Mason. He also made a mental note to make sure the man Dr. Westfield had told to kill Mason knew not to take those kinds of orders without Trevor’s explicit approval.
Trevor could tell that Mason was still nervous, so he changed the subject. “If you don’t mind me asking, why’d you turn us down?”
“A lot of reasons. Ten minutes before she asked, I didn’t know vampires existed, then I’m supposed to be the point man in her army against them.” Trevor winced. That was exactly what he’d suspected. Mason continued, “I needed time to think through everything she told me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she was being honest, but that’s a big story to take on faith. And I’d want to talk about some ground rules. It goes a long way to see Aidan, another Sanguine – no idea why we’re called that by the way –,” Mason was talking quickly. He still obviously had a lot of adrenaline in his system.
“It’s an acronym for – you know what, not important. Continue,” Trevor caught himself.
“It means a lot that Aidan isn’t hooked up to machines somewhere while you guys run experiments on him. He’s obviously your right-hand man. But I’d want assurances that the same goes for me, regardless of how special your scientist thinks I am. So basically, I still had a lot to chew on, but she asked me for an answer, and I gave her one. You seem like the good guys, but I’m just not a fighter.”
�
�Could’ve fooled me, launching yourself like a bullet back in the warehouse.” Trevor muttered and let the subject drop, even though he could tell there was something else Mason wasn’t telling him, and they rode on in silence.
After a few more moments, Mason broke the silence. “Plus, there’s a girl.”
Trevor took one hand off the wheel to clap it against his thigh. “There it is! I knew there had to be another reason.”
Mason stopped looking out the window and turned to Trevor. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Only seems fair,” Trevor answered.
“Why are you guys even fighting this… war, whatever you want to call it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but mankind isn’t doing so hot. So you guys take down Alexander, and then what? Humanity flames out in twenty years anyway?”
“When this all started, it was before The Fall. It just sort of kept going after that. Some of us are optimists, hoping civilization can pull out of its nose-dive. Some of us are pragmatists, assuming that after enough people die off, nature will find its balance again and recover. And I think Aidan might just like killing things. But we all made the same choice: whatever happens, humanity should be the ones responsible for our own extinction or survival, not vampires. And so we fight. I’ll tell you something else: if it wasn’t for this girl, I bet you’d make the same choice.”
Sanguine Series (Book 1): The Fall Page 16