Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) (62 page)

“Exactly,” said Reginald. “Your
lives
. What’s it like out on your streets?”
 

Claire sighed and gave a small, resolute shrug. It was a very adult gesture.
 

“So that’s it. You’ve decided already?” he asked.
 

“We can’t leave. You… you don’t know, Reginald. We have family and friends here. And you can’t know what it’s like to only have this one little thing that you fought for. We’ve never had much. This is the life we have. It’s… it’s
all
we have.”
 

“But as it gets worse out there…”
 

“We’ll be okay. I’ll call you every day.”
 

“But I can’t be there in time if something happens,” he said.
 

Claire actually laughed. “You’re not exactly a great bodyguard anyway, Reginald. And I say that in the best, most affectionate way possible.”
 

Reginald felt a spark of irritation and suppressed an urge to remind Claire that the only reason her mother was alive was because he’d intervened. The rednecks couldn’t have saved her in time. Even fat old Reginald had his uses.
 

Instead, he said, “I guess.”
 

“I’ll call every day,” she repeated.
 

Reginald took a deep, resigned sigh. He could work on her. He could convince her over time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, no matter what those damn Romans said.
 

“Fine,” he said. “But do it closer to nighttime. I need my beauty sleep.”
 

Claire touched her giant red zit, remarked that she needed it too, and laughed.

C
IVILIZED

THE DAY AFTER THE TGV attacks, Nicholas Timken contacted William Erickson, a human magistrate of little notice in the formal human political world but of considerable power in the area of human/vampire relations, to extend an olive branch in the spirit of interspecies cooperation. The story trended at the top of all of the vampire social networks and news outlets. It was heralded not only as admirable, but also as extremely gutsy.
 

Following the disaster, a heavy curtain of ice had fallen between the vampire and human worlds. It had the feel of cutting off, of forever drawing a line between the two camps — who, it was assumed, would both begin preparing for war. The humans knew that vampires had begun widespread, highly-coordinated attacks and required immediate retaliation. The vampires knew that humans would blame all vampires for the acts of a few, and that the best defense against an inevitable human retaliation would be a good offense.
 

Vampires authorities rallied other vampires in preparation for unbridled massacre. Human authorities readied the secret, highly-trained Anti-Vampire Taskforce shock troops — the modern descendants of villagers with pitchforks and torches.
 

Nobody spoke. The world held its breath, and waited.
 

But in that icy atmosphere, as calm as anything, Timken had phoned Erickson. Insiders on both sides reported being shocked by the stupendously naive nature of the call. It was as if Timken didn’t realize that everyone in Erickson’s office wanted to stake every vampire in existence, including Timken himself. It was as if Timken didn’t realize that he was being a total and complete asshole in calling. And Erickson, shocked by the move, had found himself listening to and then accepting Timken’s offer to send half of his now-800-strong Sedition Army troops to seek out those responsible for the “acts of wanton terrorism.” Troops headed out. Talk began anew. And slowly, tentatively, the world began to exhale.

Back on the home front, at Vampire Nation HQ, Councilman Brian Nickerson had returned to the Council. This had not happened lightly. Timken had reached out to all of the departed Council members via Fangbook, and then Brian, unsure what to think, had reached out to Maurice via Fangbook. After a week with no response, he then reached out to Nikki via Fangbook, and Nikki reported that Maurice never, ever checked his Fangbook inbox. Brian replied to Nikki:
LOL I knew that WTF.
Then he told Nikki about Timken’s message and asked what they knew about the new Council, the temporary Deacon, and whether or not he’d be safe to return. Nikki replied, for all three of them, that they didn’t know. Brian said that he had nothing better to do. He told them that he would flip a coin. Apparently he did flip that coin and it came up heads, because a few days later Nikki had a new Fangbook message from Brian, reporting that he’d returned to Columbus.

On his first day back at Council, Brian Skyped the Chateau with his report.
 

“He’s rebuilt the infrastructure under the Asbury — which, by the way, his group apparently bought. It’s nice down here,” he said. On video, he looked around the room, pointing changes out to the webcam. “He changed the layout. Because it won’t move every ten fucking days anymore, he’s making it much nicer and more permanent. There’s a game room now. And by the way, news flash: vampires aren’t meant to play ping-pong. The ball can’t move fast enough for those of us who’ve played, and when we try to make it move faster, we keep destroying the ball.”
 

“Vampires play ping-pong?” said Reginald, who hadn’t been paying much attention.
 

“Apparently Timken lived with humans for a while and learned it from them. But he was always playing against humans and slowed himself down, so this problem never showed up.”

“Timken lived with humans?” said Nikki. “And played ping-pong with them?”
 

“He’s a do-gooder,” said Karl, who’d walked up behind them, with a bit more venom than seemed necessary. Brian had never met Karl before. Karl hovered for a while and then left without introducing himself. When Karl turned to go, Brian said, “See ya, Dracula.”
 

“Oh, and check
this
out,” said Brian, reaching forward and rotating the camera to show the far side of the room. Along one wall was a full-size vintage Pac-Man video game, a pinball machine, and two large cabinets with glass fronts. Reginald reached forward and touched the screen.
 

“Are those vending machines?”
 

“Yup. Pouches of the best blood. And Bloodsicles in the freezer one. There’s even some human food, but nobody has touched it. Like…”
 

“I see…
Ho-Hos,
” said Reginald. His fangs came out. He covered his mouth self-consciously as if he’d just popped a boner in class.
 

The camera rotated back and showed Brian’s face. Reginald felt sad, as if he’d lost something.
 

“You should come back,” said Brian. “I’ve visited with Charles. He’s in one of the old holding cells, along with your boy Walker. There’s no threat to you here anymore.”
 

Reginald thought of the last time they’d been at the Council. The entire Guard corps had turned rogue and were calling themselves Kill Squads. Every vampire in the building had come at them with their fangs bared, then had tried to chase them into the sun and rip them apart. Maurice had been threatened every day as Deacon. And now, behind Brian, a few vampires were milling about as if everything were totally normal and no-harm-done, but Reginald forced himself to remember that the “normal” he saw was merely a thin veneer covering the murderous chaos that had reigned with the same group not two weeks ago. Civilization, thought Reginald, could be much like a Band-Aid.
 

“I think we’ll hang out here for a little longer,” said Maurice, giving Reginald a look that said he knew exactly what Reginald had been thinking.
 

Brian reported more good news. He said that the demeanor in the Council and in the streets had taken a 180-degree turn. It seemed, he said, as if the population just needed someone in charge to tell them that everything was going to be all right. It was a lie, of course — war was still heavy on many human and vampire lips, and the Ring of Fire incident was still far from understood or forgotten — but as Maurice himself had pointed out the last time he’d been at Council, sometimes people preferred a beautiful lie to the horrible truth. Brian added with an optimistic smile that the same vampires who had been ripping open the throats of random humans and painting with their blood a few weeks ago were now back to wearing their fashionable dark suits, combing their hair, and spending all their time preening and making sexual innuendo while acting vastly superior.
 

“All it took to change everything entirely was a change in perception,” said Brian.
 

“Yes, that’s all it took,” Reginald agreed. But while Brian meant it as a positive thing, the fickle nature of the population’s temperament was exactly what scared the bejesus out of Reginald. A vampire could be a killer one moment and totally civilized the next. And that was great, until you remembered that the switch could flip in both directions. If Reginald could throw a vampire, which he very much couldn’t, he would have uttered the aphorism about not trusting any among the Council any further than he could throw them.
 

“You don’t trust them any further than
I
can throw them,” said Nikki helpfully.
 

“You could throw them a half mile,” said Reginald. “I don’t trust them a half mile.”
 

Nikki shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
 

“
Exactly
,” said Reginald with a suspicious look.
 

With Timken’s men’s help, the human authorities soon located fourteen vampires believed to behind the TGV attacks. AVT troops stormed a dark bar that was reportedly the headquarters of their group of dissonants and found all fourteen vampire men and women together. The vampires attempted to attack the human soldiers, but they were unable to harm them through the specially designed armor that all of the AVT wore. Still, the vampires were too fast to catch, and a standoff ensued. Eventually the Sedition Army troops stationed outside moved in and used their Boom Stick weapons. None of the AVT or SA troops were injured. There were no dissonant survivors. Files were found on-site that speculated about weak spots in the high-speed rail system from an engineering standpoint. Calendars with key dates marked. Maps. Plots and plans.
 

The public cheered.

And back in the US, Timken kept his word about the upcoming free elections. A date was set; technology was put in place; the vampires of the Nation were informed and educated on the process. All voting was to occur through Fangbook — a system that impartial vampires declared to be imperturbable. Fangbook wasn’t like human Facebook. No individual could have two accounts, and profiles were indexed to a user’s blood. It was secure. It was fair.

“Do you buy it?” Nikki asked Reginald once while they were watching election coverage on Vampire YouTube.
 

Reginald, his eyes on the screen and a slice of pizza in his hand, nodded slowly. “Believe it,” he said. “Fangbook is arguably the most powerful force in the vampire world. You know how it’s indexed by blood and how everyone has an account whether they use it or not?” He tapped the screen. “If you worry about Big Brother, worry about this. Maurice doesn’t know everyone he’s related to by blood. But Fangbook does.”
 

But despite the Big Brother implications, Reginald had nothing further to say about Fangbook and its know-it-all status. His bigger concerns were Charles, who seemed to be both contained and being granted his reluctant rights, and Timken, who did indeed seem to be playing fair.
 

“Yes, there is good news and bad news here,” said Reginald. “The person who wins this election will be the vampire who most of the voters want to win.”
 

“Is that the good news or the bad news?” said Nikki.
 

Reginald took another bite of his pizza and chewed, watching Fangbook’s master feed scroll past. “Both.”
 

Reginald’s chief concern was the fact that he didn’t trust most vampires (not farther than he could throw them, anyway) and was certain that whoever they chose would be, in Reginald’s words, “An insufferable asshole.”
 

Nikki, always the optimist, disagreed. She opened a Fangbook election page and tapped it just as Reginald had done earlier. “Look at this list of candidates,” she said. “It’s miles long. Anyone can get on the ballot.”
 

“This is supposed to make me feel better?” said Reginald.
 

“Brian is on here. Maurice is on here. Hell, someone even nominated you. The nomination says, ‘He has a hot ass.’ ”
 

“You did that.”
 

“You don’t know that, hot ass.”
 

“There are no good choices,” said Reginald, nonplussed. “All we can hope for is a
less shitty
leader.”
 

“Well, isn’t that what humans do?”
 

Reginald laughed at that.
 

But despite the miles-long nomination list, sentiment two weeks prior to the formal Fangbook election was clearly divided across three candidates. As things stood, forty-seven percent were predicted to vote for Timken. A very dark and disturbing thirty-one percent backed the master of chaos, Charles Barkley. Five percent wanted Maurice to take the reins back, which Maurice found flattering but laughable and “not gonna happen.” The rest were undecided.
 

“Those,” said Reginald, pointing at the “undecided” wedge on a pre-election pie chart, “are the only vampires with their heads screwed on straight.”
 

Maurice punched him. “Don’t be a dick. Timken is going to win, and that’s fine. That’s the best we could do under the circumstances.”
 

But Reginald didn’t know. He didn’t trust authority. Not anymore. And maybe never again.
 

H
OT
A
IR

ON THE BIGGEST PRELIMINARY NIGHT leading up to the vampire election — the night the leading candidates would make their speeches — Karl had a formal banquet prepared at the Chateau. A large, ancient-looking and beautiful wooden table was placed in the cathedral room with twenty-four wooden chairs around it. Dozens of other chairs were placed around smaller tables. The largest, most comfortable chairs were placed in groups in the corners, creating cozy enclaves.