The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 2: Chapter 6

After spending a couple of nights at New Haven, I returned home and resumed my life as it had before I had let one human male shake me so terribly.

It was not that difficult to do so, since I had lived without the delightful entertainment of Jamie for such a long time. It was like falling into old habits. I oversaw my humans and watched their little interactions. Javier seemed quite happy with the addition of Davidson's female, and I found some small satisfaction that he was satisfied, for he had given me much.

If my life seemed just a touch more hollow than it had been before I had acquired Jamie, it was only in my mind. I had everything that I had had before. I was surrounded by humans with that spark of rebellion that so pleased me and I still had my fulfilling plans for dismantling the irritating structural mess the vampires had made of my world. Losing one human was nothing I had not experienced a thousand times before and survived seamlessly.

And so, I did what I did best. I amused and distracted myself. When I was not plotting ways to vex Davidson while still supporting the bill I had agreed upon, I haunted Leif's office, the halls, and challenged my humans to various games. They acquiesced readily enough, but I could not escape the feeling that they were walking on eggshells around me, more than was strictly normal.

I ignored this intuition, because I had nothing to gain from it but more dissatisfaction. I did what I needed to do. I listened to progress reports as they came in and continued to help my humans learn to fight my kind. Many were quite terrified to fight me, which boded ill if they were ever forced to fight a vampire who truly meant them harm. I could only hope that their survival instincts would give them an edge if ever they found themselves in such a situation. I did not inform them of their dismal performances.

It was a relief as we began to prepare to leave for the quarterly, because I fully intended to wring as much enjoyment from these meetings as possible.

It was one thing to look for a challenge when playing games with my humans, but with my fellow monsters for whom I felt little love, I could act without restraint so long as it did not show my hand.

* * * * *

It was evening, a couple of weeks after I had released Jamie and a couple of nights before the next quarterly. Leif was lecturing me on my strategies for the coming meetings. I nodded in agreement while I tried to focus on his words. He was of the belief that if he did not repeat instructions over and over to me I would forget them in a fit of flighty amusement seeking. I would perhaps be insulted, but his opinions often had merit.

Therefore, I tolerated his anxious behavior and did not order him to stop, even though I was fairly certain that my most recent injury I had recklessly courted had damaged my appearance of invulnerability in his eyes. I took a long sip of my indulgently metallic coffee and watched him across his desk.

"I know that you can handle it," he began before what would surely be a description of the reasons he feared the opposite, "But I am still concerned that you're aligning yourself with Davidson too much lately. You are aware that the other councillors already have their attention on you, and—"

"I always keep their attention on me, Leif. I enjoy it, and no one expects the insurgent to be hiding in the spotlight."

He continued as if I had not spoken. "And while I am aware that you have nurtured your wildcard persona, that does not mean that the other vampires might not assume you're losing your edge and starting to get sympathetic towards the plight of humans. We can't have that."

I rolled my eyes at him, merely to wind him up. "It will be fine. I'll have my feeders scream with extra agony while I'm there, and I fully intend to vote on every small anti-human bit of legislation that I can manage this time to offset it." Perhaps I could find some cotton to stuff in my ears while they acted so convincingly.