The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 2: Chapter 10

The council chambers were rife with the typical inane yammering of my fellow councillors as I took my seat amongst them. I pondered the heights of their general stupidity, and the few exceptions were hardly enough to bring up the average intellect to something worthy of note.

I waited expectantly for the magistrate to begin the session, not so much because I was looking forward to the ordeal, but because I wanted it over. Voting for and defending Davidson's bill was the only bright spark of amusement likely in this whole dreary quarterly and he did not have the influence to get his bill in early in the proceedings as I did.

It was not entirely Jamie's departure that was making me gloomy, since I generally felt impatience at the beginning of these meetings. Most eventually had something to look forward to, but this one, apart from Davidson, seemed dismal.

I had already been approached by a number of vampires trying to curry my favour for their bill with opulent promises of future support, and some underhanded bribes as well. I was not interested in the future support, but it really was hard to say no to being given ten humans for a simple affirmative vote.

Still I refused, not only because of my policy to keep my cards close to my chest, but also because I would not vote for their annoying bills in a million years.

Collar regulations? Did I really need the nitpicky council bossing me around on another matter? I thought not.

A limit on the number of owned humans? The fool clearly did not know of my openly recorded collection—not to mention the number I kept under the table to support my rebellion—and I was hardly going to allow myself to be penalized simply because I had the capability of keeping them alive for decades rather than using them up and recklessly discarding them with the trash. I would absolutely be arguing against that bit of nonsense.

Really, if these idiots ever listened or used their brains in even the smallest capacity, they might understand if you do not recklessly kill your humans you have more at the end of the day. Basic mathematical concepts clearly eluded them.

Perhaps I had erred in never turning humans before the wars. I could have sought out useful humans with intelligence and skills, and perhaps even a film director and cameraman or two and turned them, and the world would not be so overwhelmed by boring, indefinite morons.

Simply because I had not liked being forcibly turned against my will and because most other vampires were bores did not mean that I could not have allow a few reasonable humans to become vampires if they wished. I was not going to turn those few odd humans who sought out the condition, but perhaps a reluctant but resolute human could have become a good vampire. It was food for thought.

I was sidetracked from my silent complaints by the sound of the magistrate calling everyone to order. The conversations quieted quickly and I watched as the proceedings began.

The first few bills brought forward were sheer dross and were not worth the minutes that they took to be explained, although I cared little about the outcomes one way or another. I voted against one and for the one that was obviously going to lose, just to make my choices difficult to follow for anyone who might be paying attention to my voting habits.

Then, the collar regulation fool went up and said his spiel about the reasons why we should all have some standard regulated nonsense. The idea was rather annoying since the collars for my humans were carefully designed by talented humans for comfort and my more specific purposes. Besides, they had cost me quite a lot of time, money, and resources and I was not at all pleased with the idea of flushing that down the drain. I was prepared to torpedo the bill, but Ivan went up and made short work of it because he too was apparently happy with the current state of things and had no desire to change. He did not often speak, but when he did, vampires listened and followed his lead. He was one of my most dangerous foes, if only he knew enough to realize it.