Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) (21 page)

“If only,” said Maurice.

“In fact, let’s go there now,” said Reginald. “We can hang out with Charles, who never leaves and travels with the Council every time it moves. Get some donuts.”
 

“They don’t have donuts at the Council,” said Maurice.
 

“I know that. I said
get
some donuts. They have whole 24-hour stores filled with donuts now. We can give some to Charles as a peace offering. Not the good ones, though. Just those shitty plain ones with the little handles baked into them.”
 

Maurice laughed.
 

Charles Barkley, who inexplicably refused to go by “Chuck” or “Charlie,” had been a major force behind Reginald’s accusation and trial. Following the trial, he’d wormed his way into a spot on the Council — a process over which the Deacon had no control. Once in, Charles had immediately begun pushing ultra-liberal legislation whose sole intention seemed to be to infuriate Maurice and insult Reginald.

“I
really, really
don’t want to go,” Maurice repeated.
 

“Get up,” said Reginald. “It’s time to make-slash-get the donuts.”

And so, over a flurry of protests, Reginald loaded Maurice into his car and they drove to the pickup location at the scheduled time. Then, once cuffed and blindfolded, they spent several hours in the back of windowless SUVs pretending they didn’t know where they were.

“I know we’re
not
on Neil,” said Reginald. “And I know we didn’t juuust…
now
pass that Starbucks I go to all the time.”
 

“Should I knock on the cab and ask them to stop, so that you can get a caramel latte?” said Maurice.
 

Thanks to the blindfold, Maurice was just a voice in the darkness, but Reginald’s brain and senses had become refined enough that he could “see” his surroundings by listening to the way sounds bounced off of the objects around him. He clicked his tongue a few times and listened to the echoes to be sure he saw what he thought he saw.
 

“Don’t make that face at me,” he said to Maurice. “Just because
you
don’t like coffee doesn’t mean other vampires can’t appreciate it.”
 

Maurice said nothing.

Several hours later, Maurice and Reginald found themselves walking down a long and familiar-sounding hallway. Ten minutes after that, their handcuffs and blindfolds were removed and they made their way to the Council chamber, where they found Brian Nickerson sitting in a chair, texting on his cell phone. Brian was six-foot-seven and weighed over three hundred pounds of solid muscle. Under his bulk, the chair he was sitting on looked like a toy.

“Brian,” said Maurice, “let that poor chair go.”
 

“Maurice,” Brian replied, standing and gesturing at Maurice’s black wardrobe, “let Hot Topic go out of business.”
 

Brian’s massive frame was topped with a head of wiry, thinning brown hair. He had a square face and wore invisible-rim round glasses. Brian was the only vampire Reginald had seen who wore glasses. He didn’t need them, of course, but they were a human affect that he rather enjoyed, like Maurice with his sword.
 

Brian had been 44 human years old when he’d been turned five years ago. By modern standards, 44 was quite old. With bootcamp becoming more and more stringent, it was rare for humans over 35 to make it through. Most graduates were under 30, and Charles kept trying to pass legislation that would place a formal age limit on applicants, regardless of their bootcamp performance — bad news for Brian’s wife Talia, who at 37 hoped to wait eight more years to become a vampire, which was when she figured their youngest child would be old enough to be without her during the daytime.

Despite his young age as a vampire, Brian was one of the most senior Council members. Of the seven who had survived the last meeting, only one other had served under Logan. The rest had been killed by either Nikki or Maurice during the coup, and Brian had survived because Maurice had told Nikki to “avoid killing the guy who looks big enough to be three guys.” The vote for Reginald’s execution six months earlier had been eleven to one. Brian had been the sole holdout.

“You’d better watch your back, my friend,” Brian told Maurice. “These others here, they’re out for blood.”
 

“Arguably, with a vampire population, that doesn’t mean much,” said Reginald. He looked up at Brian, who looked like a wall. Even at just five vampire years old, Brian’s enhanced strength would likely allow him to lift the Council arena. It was frightening to imagine him in a thousand years.
 

“Your blood too, Reginald,” Brian said.
 

“They’re always out for my blood,” said Reginald, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m kind of used to it by now. I didn’t fit in with my co-workers and I don’t fit in with vampires. I didn’t fit in through high school and college. I’m considering joining a fat running group because my sub-par speed would impress them. Maybe I could become their leader.”
 

“The only thing stopping them from trying to kill you again is this guy right here,” said Brian, laying his hand on Maurice’s shoulder. Maurice’s head came to Brian’s nipples. If Brian had been hollow, it would take at least four Maurices to fill him if they were packed like Tetris blocks. “And you know the law. Right now, the law is protecting you, and the Deacon controls the law. But as soon as they find a way to change the law so that the Deacon no longer controls the law? Well, then, watch out.”
 

“But Maurice controls the law,” said Reginald.
 

“Until they change the law,” said Brian.
 

“If they try to change the law, Maurice will block it,” said Reginald. “Because he controls the law.”
 

“Until he doesn’t,” said Brian.
 

It was futile to argue with Brian because he’d been a lawyer prior to being turned. There were many jokes about how Brian, who was too old to pass bootcamp, could only have gotten through because he’d been able to show years of prior experience as a bloodsucker.

“Brian,” said Maurice. “You were at the last meeting, right? So what happened?”
 

Brian shrugged. “Gas explosion?”
 

“I mean, what did you
see?”
 

Brian shook his head as if exasperated by a question he’d been asked a thousand times. “I don’t know, man. Loud noises. Bright lights. Lots of ash and smoke. I even got a few seconds of sun myself, but I’m young, so it just singed me a bit. Then I grabbed Councilman Klein and used him as a shield. You remember Klein? Liked to eat babies.”
 

“I remember Klein.”
 

“Once he started to poof, the debris had mostly fallen and I dove the fuck under it. Bunkered in. Then a few hours later, the cavalry arrived. End of story.”
 

“But what caused it? Was there… I don’t know… an attack? Anything you saw that indicated foul play?”

“I don’t see how. No blurs that looked like running vampires. The roof just kind of blew off.”
 

Reginald stared at Brian. It seemed impossible that he could be hearing himself.
The roof just kind of blew off?
Were all vampires so jaded about death that they’d lost their fear of it? Were they so used to being the apex predators that they couldn’t imagine anyone — or anything — being out to get them? Reginald had been right to assume the Guards’ complacency back when they’d brought Nikki in. In death, vampires seemed to have lost the ability to see past the obvious.

“An incubus named Altus came to visit us about it,” said Reginald. “And
he
says…”
 

“Altus!” Brian blurted, interrupting him. “I love that guy. He’s an asshole. And yet, he knows he’s an asshole. It’s what makes him so awesome.”
 

“
He
says there was foul play,” Reginald finished.

“How could he possibly know?” said Brian. “It wasn’t incubi, I can tell you that. They’re not fast like we are.”
 

“He says he just knows, and that it wasn’t an accident.”
 

“Interesting. So what kind of foul play removes a roof?”

“What kind of gas explosion doesn’t make a huge noise and a fire?” Reginald countered. Reginald liked Brian, but Brian was being dense.

“There may have been noise and fire,” said Brian. “It was pretty confusing. You lose track of things.”
 

“Nothing is on the videos,” said Reginald, who never, ever lost track of anything anymore.

“Really! Strange. Well, it’s not like our guys do forensics. We got out of the wreckage, they glamoured those that needed glamouring, and the humans wrapped it up. Maybe we’ll never know.”
 

Now Reginald was just getting annoyed. “Why are you so blasé about this? Almost four hundred vampires died with no warning. Doesn’t that bother you? You were in a building when the roof came off and death rained from above. You lay buried under rubble for hours.”
 

“I don’t know what to tell you, Reginald. Shit happens. A few years of knowing you can’t
die
and can only
be killed
changes your perception. And no, I’m sorry, but I didn’t see any vampires being foul, or playing, or getting up to any foul play. Besides, it was sunny out. They’d never survive to pull it off.”
 

“Well, what if it wasn’t vampires?” said Reginald.

“What would it be if it wasn’t vampires? Don’t tell me you think humans could pull a roof off. We have patrols in bunkers around the place at all times. Humans would need a crane, and nobody saw a crane, or any other kind of equipment.”
 

Maurice put his hand on Reginald’s chest. “Don’t say it.”
 

“Altus says it was angels,” said Reginald. It sounded dumb when he heard the word pass his lips, but he had nothing left. Brian simply wasn’t listening.
 

Brian gave a huge belly laugh. “This is from Altus? No surprise there. He’s a
superstitious
asshole. All incubi are. They think they’re demons; did Maurice tell you that?”

“Yes. But listen…”
 

“My youngest kid still believes in the tooth fairy. She’s as dead serious about it as Altus is about angels and demons and Heaven and Hell. Maybe the tooth fairy destroyed the Council.”

“Look, I’m not saying that it was literally…” Reginald began. But at that moment, in the background, someone began shushing the assembly, which meant that the proceedings were about to start.
 

“We should go up to the Deacon’s box,” said Maurice. He nodded a goodbye to Brian, who tipped them both a salute.

Maurice led the way from Council chamber, up a hidden set of stairs, into a boxed-off area in the stands. A chill ran through Reginald. He’d seen this place before, from below, from the floor of the arena, when he’d been on trial for his life. It was as if he’d gone back in time, and he and Maurice were stepping into the bodies of other people. Maurice would be playing the part of Logan, the Deacon he’d deposed. Reginald would be playing Logan’s Deputy, who in Reginald’s mind’s eye was constantly making notes on a clipboard. Both were dead now, of course, and Reginald wanted to knock on wood and tell himself that history wasn’t about to repeat itself. Maybe Brian had lost his fear of death, but Reginald certainly hadn’t. It was being unfit that did it, he supposed. Maybe the Brians and Maurices and Charleses of the world had become predators, but Reginald still felt like prey.

And prey, by instinct, was always looking for the threat. He could feel it now. Just two weeks ago, this same building — in a different location — had been ripped apart by someone or something, and none of the milling vampires below him seemed to care. It was just business as usual for them. They had laws to pass, bigotry to spread. But Reginald could feel the threat hanging in the air, as if it was about to happen again.
 

He shook it off. Obsessing would help nothing right now.

Beside Maurice, in the box, was a large chair, like a throne. The throne was made of what looked like sandstone. That was another thing that was different from when Reginald had been here as a prisoner. Back then, the throne had been made of carved wood. Maurice had exposed the wooden throne as a safety hazard when he’d shattered it from behind, sending miniature wooden stakes into Logan’s heart.
 

At the fore of the box, standing in front of of the throne, was Charles Barkley. He was rapping a stone against the arm of the chair and calling for order.
 

“Charles,” said Maurice.
 

Charles looked back and smiled. He continued rapping the stone. “Order!” he said.
 

“That’ll do, Charles,” said Maurice.
 

“Order! This meeting of the Vampire Council is called to order!”

“Give me the stone and go back to the Council room,
Councilman
Barkley.”
 

“Who are you and where is the Deacon?” said Charles, smiling vaguely.
 

“Last chance, Charles. I’m asking nicely.”
 

“I’m doing you a favor here. They don’t know who you are, Maurice.
Deacon
Maurice…”
 

“Deacon
Toussant
.”
 

“… but they do at least know me. Now, if some stranger suddenly shows up in the Deacon’s box claiming the Deaconship — some
small
stranger, say — then…”

There was a blur and a breeze as Maurice moved to Charles’s side and deftly broke his neck. He turned Charles’s head so far that it ended up facing backward, the skin on his neck ripped all the way around like a bloody necklace. Charles screamed, and that did finally bring the noisy room to order.
 

Maurice took the stone from Charles’s hand and said, “Go back to the Council chamber, Charles.”
 

“This
REALLY FUCKING HURTS!
” yelled Charles.