"Sarge tells me you were very upset yesterday," Anita said. She was picking dead leaves off an African violet. She didn't look at Cammie.
Cammie closed the door. She didn't want to sit down. "Finding that little girl was a bit of a surprise."
"Yes." Anita tossed the leaves into a round metal garbage can. They made a small ping as they landed. "Sometimes it can be."
"That's not what I mean." An anger Cammie didn't know she had rose inside her. "No one ever warned me about children. Ever. No matter what Sarge says."
Anita rose. Her round face was covered with a thin webbing of lines. The dimples in the corners of her mouth had become slashes that made her look as if she were constantly frowning. "What did Sarge say?"
"Not enough. She said I should know about these children. That everyone in Eradication knows that vampires can have children. No one told me, Anita. I don't like that kind of surprise in my work."
Anita nodded. She ducked under a spider plant and stopped beside one of the overstuffed chairs. "Surprises like that ruin concentration, don't they."
"They're dangerous," Cammie said.
"Dangerous? Did the child interfere with you finishing your task?"
Cammie clasped her hands together. "No."
"Did she try to hurt you in any way?"
"No."
"Did she get between you and her father?"
"He wasn't her father," Cammie snapped. "He was a vampire."
Anita's gray eyes met Cammie's. "He was the only father she ever knew."
"That's what Eliason said. I think it's a crock based on supposition."
Anita shook her head. "No supposition. I did the initial interview. That little girl thought of him as her father. Why is this so difficult for you, Cammie?"
"No one told me—"
"I don't think that's what you're angry about." Anita leaned against the chair. She looked matronly standing there, matronly and safe.
"How do you know what I'm angry about?"
"You've had trouble with procedure before. It has never made you this angry."
"I never encountered a child before."
Anita nodded once. "No. I suppose you haven't." She sighed, and stood upright. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
She grabbed a ring of keys off her desk and led the way out of her office. Cammie followed, pulling the door shut behind herself.
The hallway was cold compared with Anita's office. The spring sunshine filtering in through the tall windows looked thin. If she wasn't angry about procedure, what was she angry about? And why did she have to listen to Anita about her own emotions?
Anita's rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile floor. The keys jingled in her hand. Cammie followed, her own footsteps silent, as Sarge had trained them to be.
When they reached the end of the administrative wing, they turned right instead of left. Cammie held her breath. They were walking into a part of the Center Cammie rarely entered. Surveillance had one wing off this hall, Research had another. At the end of the hall, behind a double-locked door, was the Children's Wing.
Anita walked to the door, but did not open it. Instead, she unlocked a small wooden door. It opened to reveal a narrow staircase. Cammie frowned. She had always thought the door opened into a closet. More secrets in the Center. She wasn't sure she liked that.
Anita gripped the wooden railing with one hand. Her body brushed against the wall as she walked. Cammie had to bend as she went through the door. She was not all that tall—the staircase had been a later addition.
When they reached the top, Cammie gasped in surprise. A row of windows covered the left wall. Light filtering in from the Children's Wing provided the only visibility in the corridor. Painted backwards on the window were figures from storybooks—some permanent ones, like the Wild Things Maurice Sendak had consented to paint when he visited the wing—and some appropriate to the season. The Snow Queen had just disappeared, replaced by a half-finished portrait of Glenda the Good Witch from the Oz books. The children saw only a highly placed mirror with paintings on it. Cammie had never suspected that the adults could watch everything that happened through it.
"How long has this been here?" Cammie asked.
"Since we moved into the building," Anita said. "We need to know how the children interact without adult supervision."
The hall was filled with riding toys: child-sized mechanical cars, tricycles, wagons, and big wheels. On the other side of the reception desk, someone had built cushions into the wall and roller blades were lined up on a bench according to size. One little boy skated alone, with the receptionist keeping an eye on him. He skated in a circle, never stopping, never smiling, hands clasped behind his back, and eyes down.
The upstairs corridor branched off. Anita unlocked another door and stepped inside.
The room was larger than the narrow hall. Chairs were lined up against the window, and behind them was a desk with a computer on top. The computer was on. It hummed and the cursor blinked on an empty screen.
"This is the observation deck," Anita said. She slid into one of the chairs near the window and indicated that Cammie do the same. Cammie did not. She examined the computer, and found it to be standard issue, with a net link to the other computers in the building. Then she went to the window itself.
The room below was a playroom done in bright primary colors. Large windows opened to the garden outside. The sunlight filtering into the playroom looked as bright as the yellow on the carpeting. Toys covered the walls, and big foam cushions served as chairs on the floor.
In the center of a pile of cushions, surrounded by an army of stuffed animals, Janie sat. She clutched her stuffed dog against her chest. Her thumb was in her mouth, and she rocked back and forth as she stared at the sun.
"She's asked about the record player," Anita said, staring through the window at the brightly lit room below. "I assume you left it."
"She'd been listening to it when we got there. I thought it would hurt her."
"I'd send Whitney for it, but they've already sealed up the house." Anita leaned back, her face half in shadow. "You can't pre-guess another person's pain."
"But—"
"Don't but me. I've seen three generations of children through this place. We need to help whatever way we can."
"I'm sorry."
Anita nodded once. "That's better. I want you to get the court order and move through the red tape. The record player has to be here by this afternoon."
Cammie clenched her fists. "Is that why you brought me up here?"
"No." Anita waved at the chair. "Sit down."
Cammie didn't move.
"Sit down. You can't see from that height."
Cammie straightened her shoulders and eased the tightness in her hands. She grabbed the edge of the chair and pulled it back, sitting in it, but not resting. "All right."
Anita leaned forward again. Down in the room, Janie curled up inside her pile of stuffed toys. "Tell me what you do know about children and vampires."
Cammie swallowed. "I know that female vampires prey mostly on infants and children under five."
"And male vampires?"
"Kill men, mostly, and occasionally create a female vampire."
"But what do male vampires do with children?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Cammie kicked against the wall and pushed her chair back. Janie looked up, her expression startled.
"It's not completely sound-proofed up here," Anita said. "She can hear when you pound the wall. I don't want her any more frightened than she is."
"Sorry," Cammie said, not feeling sorry at all. The little girl had lived with a vampire. She hadn't turned him in. She hadn't tried to run away. She was as guilty as the vampire for the man's crimes.
"During the first thirty years of a male vampire's existence," Anita said as if Cammie hadn't interrupted them, "he still seeks companionship. He tries it first by creating female vampires, and when that fails, he adopts children. Sometimes, he
can father them—especially if he tries in his first year. As his addiction grows, and his humanity breaks down, he abandons the children more and more, until finally, he either uses them as prey or he creates younger, more powerful vampires. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"You're telling me I did the right thing."
"No." Anita put her hand on the glass, as if she were trying to touch the little girl. "I'm telling you that your actions yesterday ended a relationship. The vampire was still young enough to love this girl and treat her like a daughter. She lost her father—"
"Bullshit." Cammie whispered the word, then repeated it louder. "Bullshit. You people sent me over there. You told me to kill that vampire."
"Yes," Anita said. "And now I'm showing you the consequences of your action."
Cammie clenched her hands again, half wishing for a stake to drive through Anita's frozen heart. "Why?"
Anita reached out to her—first touch—and Cammie backed away. "Because you need to see it," Anita said.
"I need to see it?" Cammie took a deep breath. "I knew what I was getting into when you hired me for eradication. I knew that I would be slaughtering something that might or might not be alive. I never knew that it could have a family or be anything more than a creature that fed off us. Sarge promised us that we were not killing human beings."
"Since when did having a family make something a human being?" Anita asked.
Janie had fallen asleep, her head pillowed on the stuffed dog, thumb still in her mouth. "That little girl is human, isn't she?" Cammie asked.
"For now," Anita said.
Cammie finally sat down again. Her body felt heavy. "What do you mean?"
"We don't know when she was fathered or how she was raised. With luck, one of the psychologists can pull that information from her. If he was her true father, and he fathered her after he became a vampire, she will have hereditary tendencies that may not show up until her sex drive is in its peak—in her thirties. Usually we're lucky. Usually those tendencies show up much earlier."
"Then what do you do? Stake the kid?"
"Nothing so crude as that," Anita said. "She will go to live in a protective enclave where she will learn self-reliance and a way to survive without stealing blood. If those lessons do not take, the eradication team will have to take her."
"What if she doesn't have those tendencies?"
"Then she will have other problems, problems we can deal with here, and her new foster family will deal with on the outside. Over seventy percent of the children of vampires become vampires themselves. This is what we are trying to prevent. It is the most important work that the Center does. If we can stop the vampirism now, we protect everyone's future." Even though it was clear that Anita had said those words before, she didn't make it sound like a speech. Here was her passion. Here was the thing that drove her.
"If it's so important," Cammie said, "how come I've never heard about it until now?"
"Cammie," Anita said, "there has been no conspiracy of silence against you. You simply don't remember this part of your training."
"I remember my entire training. I also remember the two semesters I had when I got my psychology degree on vampirism and its history. Nothing mentioned children."
"They did, Cammie. The children of vampires are as big a societal problem as the vampires themselves." Anita held out her hand to Cammie. Cammie didn't take it. "We have counselors here at the Center. I think it's time you saw one. And remember, you can talk to me at any time."
Cammie stood up. "I don't need a counselor."
Anita sighed. "Getting help is a personal decision. But people repress things for a reason. You have blocked all information about children raised by vampiric men. Do you know why that is?"
'I never learned about it."
Anita put her hand on her knee. "Check your textbooks, Cammie, then see one of the counselors. Please."
Cammie nodded. She wasn't going to see anyone. She didn't need help. She never had.
Anita studied her for a moment. Something passed across Anita's face—a bit of a frown, an assessment. "No matter what you do for yourself," Anita said, "I still expect you to work unless the counselor says you can't. I want that record player. I've already told Judge Myerson that you would be there with a petition."
Cammie nodded. She didn't want to go back into that condo—alone, with the rich smell of decay all around her. The record player hissing and popping.
Him. Sleeping in the other room.
She couldn't go.
But she had to if she wanted to keep her job.
She glanced through the mirrored window at the little girl, huddled on the stuffed animals, sucking her thumb. They were linked, somehow. Janie's destiny was part of Cammie's.
And Cammie wanted that link to end.
Chapter Six
He came to consciousness slowly. His tongue felt as if it were glued to the roof of his mouth. Something had died in the back of his throat. His head was cushioned on a satin pillow, and the blankets covering him were made of the same smooth material. He blinked his eyes open. It was still dark.
His head throbbed. He brought a hand up, felt the warm skin of his forehead. What had he done last night? Had he had too much to drink? He didn't remember—
—thin, bubbly, like champagne—
—orgasm rippled through him, stronger than any since Candyce—
He sat up, swaying a little with the dizziness. He couldn't have done that. He must have come in, had too much to drink, and had nightmares. Nightmares. That was it.
He reached over to the bedside table and turned on the light. It had a soft glow that barely penetrated the darkness. Black curtains hung over the windows. The sheets were black, and he still wore the black kimono.
He reached under it and fingered his penis. Against the base were two tiny scabs. It had all happened. It was real.
The door opened and a slender woman of about thirty came in carrying a tray. She wore a tank top tucked into tight jeans. Her black hair was piled on top of her head, revealing a long and slender neck. She was tiny and lean. The black top revealed muscular arms without a trace of fat. Her breasts were small and compact. Even though she was no bigger than a twelve year old, she moved with power.
She set the tray beside the bed.
"Hair of the dog," she said. She had a slight accent. She trilled her 'r's and clipped the back of her words. German? Russian?
He reached for her. She laughed and sat down just outside of his grasp. "Not me," she said. "The glass."
The crystal goblet beside the bed was filled with a thick, black liquid. He picked it up and the scent brought his erection back. Blood. He drained it in a single gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
The taste was gone, and within a second the headache was, too. She placed a finger on the tent his erection made of the covers. The slight touch made him harder. She grinned. "Virgins."
Her face was pleasant but not pretty. All of her features were tiny, and her eyes were so dark he had to strain to see the pupils. She smelled different than any other woman he had known—a faint odor of healthy sweat combined with a cinnamon scent. And something was missing.
He couldn't hear the whisper of her veins. She didn't smell of blood.
She leaned back. Her nipples stretched the cotton top. He longed to touch them.
"I am Vangelina," she said as he reached for her again. She slapped his hand. "And stop that. I am old enough to be your grandmother."
"My grandmother is seventy-two."
"I was born in 1863," Vangelina said. "That makes me old enough to be your great-grandmother."
"1863?"
"Darling, get used to us. We are not human and we can live forever if we have enough blood." She took the goblet from him and licked the rim. Her tongue was gray. "Mikos has asked me to train you."
"Train me?"
"Early on, there are ways to survive and ways to die. You must learn how to survive and be strong. Yo
u must learn what you can and cannot do. You cannot, for example, treat your hosts like you treated that woman last night."
"Hosts?" he asked. "You mean that cow?"
She pursed her lips and set the goblet down. "Cow is an inaccurate term. Humans are not stupid. They are different. We are parasites that feed off them, and we are better off if they live. Humans kill cows and eat them. The analogy breaks down rather quickly."
"Mikos calls them cows."
She slid her hand along the sheet covering his penis. Her touch made him throb. He could barely catch his breath. "Mikos is not always right."
He was salivating. His mouth was filling with water. She stroked him. The satin fabric made him ache. He leaned toward her neck but she moved away. When she took her hand off his penis, he felt a physical loss.
"You are putty," she said.
He licked his lips. The desire for her—for blood—was so thick he could barely think. "Please," he whispered.
"'Please?'" She reached over, yanked his penis and twisted it. The pain knocked the air out of him. He couldn't even scream. "Your lust controls you. I could kill you if I wanted."
The lust was gone. Adrenaline flowed through his body. He inched away from her.
She smiled. Her teeth were small, white, and perfect. "I will not kill you. I am not stupid. Had I wanted to, I would have done so while you slept." She leaned toward him. "Now. You will listen to me when I talk to you. You cannot treat your hosts like you treated that woman last night."
"What did I do?" he asked.
"You almost killed her. If we left bodies around, the humans would find us, and we are very vulnerable when we sleep." Her smile grew.
"Oh," he said. The pain in his groin was beginning to subside. He blinked, trying to clear his mind. Vampires. He still did not believe that he was one of them. He had been president of his high school class. He had graduation from OSU with honors. Vampires hid in the dark. They weren't human.
Humans don't respond like that.
"It is hard to get used to, is it not?" She ran a hand along his leg. He flinched. She gripped his thigh. Her fingers were surprisingly strong. "When I turned, I was eighteen. The man who turned me had not planned to. He wanted me as host. Then he had to deal with me as a contemporary. It lasted nearly a year before he disappeared and left me on my own."
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