Birth of a Dark Nation

by Rashid Darden

  Cissy squealed and Steve immediately patted me on the back and smiled. I was in shock.

  "What?"

  "If you will all kindly open the envelopes before you, you will find inside offer letters. We believe you will find the compensation to be generous as well as commensurate with your unique experiences.

  "The foundation has a large board of directors. The gentlemen before you, Victor Pearl and Dante Oliver, are members of the board of directors as well. They will provide you with the tools you need to get your jobs done."

  I remained speechless even as I opened my offer letter.

  "This is amazing," Cissy said, under her breath.

  "Holy shit!" Steve shouted. Dante smiled.

  I opened my letter and skimmed to the bottom.

  Six figures.

  My hand began to tremble.

  "Please let Dante and Victor know what your decisions are. And please know that above all else, the foundation believes in you to lead Magdalene House into the future, boldly, in service to those who need it the most. Good day."

  The screen went black. Dante turned off the TV and wheeled the television out.

  "Any questions?" Victor asked.

  "Several," Cissy said.

  "Ask away."

  "Obviously the foundation is national and pretty…blessed, if you will. Where does the money come from?"

  "We're a very old family foundation. We're actually all descendants from the so-called 'free people of color' in New Orleans. We're no Rockefellers, but we've done well over the years."

  "And what do you all…do…now?" Steve asked.

  "I'm a musician. My cousin Dante…well, he does a lot of things. But all in all, our Uncle John is the head of the family. He's something of an investment banker."

  "I see," said Steve, eyeballing Dante.

  "I can assure you that our family has years of experience on various nonprofit boards, even aside from our own foundation. And we're not here to interfere. We're here to get you what you need. We've been on the ground for weeks now, maybe even months, trying to figure out what's best for Magdalene, and our uncle truly believes, based on the evidence, that you all are his dream team, and that Justin is ready for this challenge."

  "Are you ready?" Steve asked.

  "I know he's ready!" Cissy said.

  "You guys…I don't know…this is so much…" I said.

  "Think of it this way," Cissy said. "You can't do any worse than Ernie."

  "Nothing gets much worse than Ernie," Steve added.

  I looked at the offer letter. Then at Cissy and Steve. Then at Dante, who smiled.

  "Okay. If Steve and Cissy are in, then I'm in, too."

  "Hot damn!" Steve said. Dante smiled and nodded in approval.

  "But we've got a lot of work to do. Our brand is wrecked. We've got to change everything. Meetings after meetings. Press releases. Maybe even give this place a paint job. Have an open house. We need to let DC know that Magdalene House is under new management."

  Victor smirked.

  "I'll be sure to let Uncle John know all of your decisions. He hurriedly left the room. Dante followed him, but not before placing his hand on my shoulder and giving it a light squeeze.

  "Nigga…" Steve whispered to me.

  "What?"

  "You were behind this whole thing, weren't you? From Ernie getting arrested to this takeover!"

  "Like hell I was! I didn't ask for any of this man, I swear!"

  "Tell me this, though. Dante…he a corner boy! How the hell does he come from a wealthy family?"

  "I don't know, Steve."

  "You don't know?! Y'all are dating!"

  I shrugged. Annoyed, Steve turned back to his offer letter and searched for a pen to sign it with.

  "Do we need to research conflict of interest policies?" Cissy whispered. "You know…I'd hate for you to lose this job if you stop dating Dante."

  "I'll be fine, Cissy. Trust me."

  Life was changing for me at a break-neck speed and I was fine with every moment of it.

  Sunday Dinner

  Dante and I were relaxing in front of the television at his place. I watched the news as I usually did, watching Annette Mitchell fill in for the regular anchor. I jotted down notes in my pad related to work while Dante peacefully read a book.

  Questioning him about the events at Magdalene were fruitless. All I got from him was that his Uncle John Smith was influential and they did what he asked.

  For me, it was a job—a good job—and I wasn't going to challenge that too much.

  I never knew that being an executive director was what I wanted most out of life, but I loved all of the work I had to do. Assembling my new team was like casting a reality show. I wanted a Technology Director who would take over my old job, but also be responsible for rolling out a brand new training that would've made sense when he got the envelope. But maybe he doesn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth program for our clients so they could be certified in various Microsoft and Adobe products. Even if all they did was know how to design party fliers, I wanted them to be more useful to society.

  I also needed an Executive Assistant. I didn't need someone who answered the phones. I wanted an ambitious, driven assistant whose sole goal was helping the organization shine. I was looking forward to diving into the stacks of resumes I received for both positions. Cissy and Steve, too, were looking forward to creating their own departments.

  We were taking our time, though. Cissy was in the throes of creating a grand reopening for the organization. In a manner of weeks, Washington would know that Magdalene was back.

  In the midst of my jotting notes, Victor bounded up the stairs from the basement.

  "It's time for Sunday dinner," Victor announced to Dante. "And he's coming."

  "Me?" I asked. "I already ate."

  "It's not your meal, dumb-dumb. It's for us. I don't like to eat and drive."

  Victor tossed me a set of keys.

  "Where are we going?" I asked. "And I feel like you didn't say 'please.'"

  "Oh, I'm sorry. George Washington University. Now."

  "No!" I shot back. "I'm getting tired of your funky ass attitude. I am done for the evening and I don't feel like driving across town all the way to GW to take your ass to dinner. Now maybe, if you fix your lips to say please, I might feel like it."

  Victor bared his fangs.

  "Please," Victor hissed.

  "Okay. Maybe now I feel like it."

  ~

  A little over 20 minutes later, we sat in a white van in the tony Foggy Bottom neighborhood of DC, right off of Virginia Avenue, just steps from the State Department.

  "I…circle thing…B. Is this it?" I asked.

  "Iota Theta Beta," Dante corrected. "Sorority."

  "Why are we here?" I asked.

  "Dinner," Victor answered while hopping out of the van. "Stay silent and watch."

  Victor and Dante produced brown work jackets, brown caps, and clipboards. From the back, Dante got flat cardboard and swiftly popped them into empty boxes.

  "Follow me," Victor said. The guys walked to the front door of the Victorian row house and rang the doorbell. Shortly, the door opened and revealed a pretty brunette girl.

  "Can I help you?" she asked.

  "Yeah, I got packages here for Iota Theta Beta?" Victor said.

  "I'll sign for them," she said.

  "Hold on, let me get a pen," Dante said. He put down the empty box and pulled a small flute-like instrument from his pocket. He put it to his lips and played four notes.

  The girl froze.

  "What's your name?" Victor asked.

  "Lindsay."

  "Lindsay, how many girls are in the house today?" Victor asked.

  "Eight."

  "Call them to the parlor. Tell them it's a house meeting with special guests."

  "Sisters!" the girl shouted. "House meeting! Quickly, we have some guests!"

  Within three minutes, the parlor was filled with puzzled girls. White,
Asian, Latina. All pretty. All slender or athletic. Lindsay sat quietly with the same glazed-over look on her face.

  "So, what's going on?" a blond asked Lindsay, while glancing at the three of us.

  Again, Dante played his four notes. The entire room became still and silent.

  "We greet thee in the spirit of Dominique Bellanger," Victor said.

  "We welcome thee in the spirit of Dominique Bellanger," the girls responded in unison.

  "We have traveled across burning sands and dangerous savannahs to be here today," Victor continued.

  "And we have waited patiently for you."

  "We have survived the middle passage and decades of danger."

  "Yet we never doubted that you would return to us."

  "We are your protectors, forever and ever."

  "And we offer ourselves to you, the living legacy of Dominique Bellanger. We present ourselves to you: one body, one flesh. Iota Theta Beta. In the blood."

  "What…the hell…" I whispered.

  "Shut up," Victor hissed.

  Each woman had her eyes closed, her chin up, and her neck exposed. Dante moved toward the women on one side of the room and Victor to the other. They sniffed the air around each one.

  "I want those three. Maybe the one by the window," Victor said.

  "Fine. I'll take these three. Not this one though," he said, pointing to a blond wearing a green t-shirt.

  "HIV?" Victor asked. Dante nodded.

  "I could tell as soon as I came in the house that one of them had it," Dante said.

  "You can smell HIV?" I asked. Dante and Victor looked at me, puzzled for a second.

  "That's right…you guys can't smell it," Victor said. "Such a pity."

  "Justin, I need you to stand watch by the door, make sure nobody else comes in the house for the next twenty minutes," Dante requested. I nodded.

  Victor had already buried his face in Lindsay's neck. Judging by the bob of his Adam's apple, he was drinking slowly, but deeply.

  I stepped back into the hallway where I could keep watch at the door while watching Victor and Dante drink the girls' blood. I watched Dante bare his fangs and plunge them into an Asian girl's neck. She winced and exhaled slowly as he drank. He didn't caress her. Didn't hold her. Just held her head at an angle and drank. She was just a vessel to him. He didn't look at her like he looked at me. He did, however, behave with a certain grace throughout the whole process, as though he was sorry he had to do it. He always fixed the girl's hair and straightened out her shirt when he was done. Victor, on the other hand, just drank and moved on.

  It took about five minutes to properly drink a girl without draining her too much. I noticed that Victor and Dante showed a lot of restraint. I knew they wanted to just drain them and be done with it, but it seemed that this set up was consensual, somehow. I made a mental note of it.

  When Victor was done with his first girl, he used his fang to prick a hole in his index finger. He used his blood to heal and seal the puncture wounds he had made in his victim. Slowly, right before my eyes, the teeth marks disappeared.

  In about twenty minutes, they were done, and it was time to go.

  "Fare thee well, my darling sisters," Victor said. He was staggering toward the middle of the floor, trying to address the women again.

  "This is the tricky part," Dante whispered in my ear as he leaned on me for support.

  "Are you guys…drunk?" I asked.

  Dante smiled.

  "Blood drunk," he said. "Like…euphoria."

  He leaned closer to my face and inhaled deeply.

  "What do you bathe in? I've always wanted to ask you that."

  "Soap and water," I said, looking askance.

  "Like…regular soap?"

  "Zest. I told you that before. Remember?"

  He smiled and let his eyelids droop shut. Victor tried to continue his monologue to the ladies.

  "In the name of…Dominique Bellanger…" he started, and then stopped.

  "Shit, what's the words?" he said to himself. He looked down at his hands and appeared to be counting with his fingers.

  "Oh yeah, okay…fare thee well, my darling sisters. In the name of Dominique Bellanger, I bid you blissful rest. Keep the lights burning for your brothers in the blood."

  "Fare thee well, darling brothers. Your sisters ever wait," they responded in unison. As one unit, the women passed out.

  "Oh my God," I said. "Are they okay?"

  "Yup," Dante said. "Now we have about five minutes to get the hell out of here before they wake up."

  "Then let's go!" I said. Me, Victor, and Dante high-tailed it out of there and were on the road back to the house in no time.

  As we drove, Victor lay in the back of the van, fast asleep and snoring. Dante sat up front next to me.

  "What did you think?" he asked me. His eyes were still half shut, like he had smoked a blunt.

  "That was interesting."

  "Did it creep you out?"

  "Drinking the blood? That part? Naw. I mean, it's what you do. It's who you are. Never seen it before, but if that's how you gotta eat, then it is what it is."

  He nodded.

  "You know I don't like none of them girls, right?"

  "I know."

  "I'm serious."

  "I know."

  "I only like you."

  I kept driving.

  "I said I only like you."

  "I know Dante, jeez."

  "I just want to make sure you know I was just eating."

  "Dante, are you apologizing for having dinner? I said it's okay, I know you gotta eat, shit! Yes, it was weird seeing your lips on those bitches, but I swear, I am good. For real."

  In a flash, he slid next to me and had his nose buried in my neck.

  "Dante, you are gonna make me have an accident!"

  "I just wanna be next to you."

  "You're being weird."

  Dante put his hand on my knee and slid it up my thigh.

  "Dante…"

  "I just wanna…"

  "Dante." In another flash, his hand unzipped my pants and pulled my penis out.

  "Dante! What are you…stop that!"

  I tried to move his hand, but he was too strong.

  "Just want to show you who's number one. Just don't crash."

  I placed both hands back on the wheel and tried to concentrate on driving while Dante gave me one of the best blowjobs of my life. His hot mouth slid up and down on my shaft, making me hard in an instant. His superhuman strength and speed led me to climax just as we pulled into the driveway.

  No—I didn't crash.

  Brotherly Love

  "So, where are we with the development team?"

  I sipped my tea slowly during my senior staff meeting with Steve and Cissy. We'd been working diligently toward our grand re-opening of Magdalene House and I was eager to hear where we stood.

  "The development team has been assembled and will be ready to start after Labor Day. We've got Jules St. Jean in the communications manager role. Morehouse grad. Formerly with a charter school network. Wanted to work in the HIV sector after volunteering in Haiti for two years."

  "I like him so far," I said. "And development manager?"

  "Erin Rogers. Spent six years at an HIV organization in Kokomo, Indiana. Expanded their capacity from six figures to seven."

  "Damn. I like that."

  "Hell yeah, me too!" Cissy smiled a lot these days. She finally got the staff she needed to perform her job. I liked to see her smile.

  "And your intern program?" I asked.

  "Everything's good with our Georgetown partnership. These kids are just itching to learn grant proposal writing."

  "Good. Definitely wish I had been as motivated at their age. Steve, what's up with the programs?"

  "Everything's good. I've got five newly minted social workers ready to go: two from Howard, two from Catholic, and one from George Mason."

  "I trust at least one is male?" I joked.

  "Hardy har h
ar," Steve replied. "Trust, I got the five best people, male or female. Also, I hired Mrs. Greene as the live-in house manager and Mr. Saunders and Ms. Hancock for nights and weekends."

  "Excellent! I remember them from back in the day, before the big layoffs. I'm glad to have them back. We are doing big things, here. Anyway, I've decided to hire Quinn Turner to be the director of technology."

  "The young lady?"

  "No, the young guy fresh out of American. His portfolio was fantastic. He has a grasp on both the creative things I want done as well as the engineering. He knows his way around a database. And he also has a desire to teach and design programs. I'm a little worried he might have too much on his plate, but we have enough in the budget to hire another person in that department."

  "Our budget…" Cissy said.

  "Yeah," I smiled. "We're crazy rich right now!"

  "It's a blessing," Cissy replied. "I'm still worried, though. What if this all goes away?"

  "It won't go away, Cissy. You've seen the tax forms for the Foundation. They're filthy rich. Their money makes money. And they've given us enough to have the nonprofit of our dreams."

  "And we're responsible with it, you know?" Steve added. "We're not wasting their money. We're about to build Magdalene House into something bigger and better than it's ever been. This technology thing is about to put us back on the map!"

  "Okay, okay," Cissy relented. "It's just too good to be true, almost."

  "I hear you," I said. "But I believe in us. The Foundation picked the right people to move us forward. And…well…I'm just happy to be able to work with my friends."

  Steve and Cissy smiled with me.

  ~

  After work was done for the evening, I walked over to Dante and Victor's place, where I'd taken to parking my car, since I spent so much time there. When I got there, I saw that the door was ajar. I tapped on it then walked in.

  Dante and Victor were once again engaged in a bitter argument.

  "I asked you to load the van hours ago," Victor said, glancing at me angrily while he berated Dante.

  "I'm sorry, shit. I told you, I've been busy."

  "The fuck have you been busy with?" Victor asked. "Getting fucked by this piece of meat over here?"