"Like a B-movie scriptwriter gone insane," she agreed.
"Regardless," I said, giving myself a mental shake to remove the Night of the Living Dead images from my brain and focus on more important things. It was easier said than done. "Well, hell. I've forgotten my point."
"Vampires are good; Brotherhood is crazy," Magda said absently. "What exactly is a lich, do you know?"
I ignored her attempt to sidetrack me. "The point is that you have no real reason for believing that vampires are the evil undead deserving of merciless slaughter, and I for one refuse to be a part of any such organization."
"But you are a part of it," Janice pointed out.
"Only until I can find someone to give the Zorya stone to."
"You were a part of the incidents in Iceland," Rick said, frowning. "You were involved in all those deaths."
"I told you, there were only a couple of people killed, and they attacked us-"
"The vampires wiped out the entire Icelandic branch!" Janice interrupted. "There were at least fourteen people altogether that your friends slaughtered."
I stared in openmouthed surprise for a moment before saying, "They're not all dead! Two were held by the Icelandic police, although the Zenith is now dead, and it wasn't a vampire who shot her. The others are in the custody of the vamps, but they're not dead, either."
"How do you know?" she asked, and for a moment, I was speechless.
I looked at Magda. "Christian wouldn't kill the reapers, would he?"
She looked somewhat doubtful. "I don't think he would. Not without cause. Did he say anything to you about what would happen to them?"
"No," I said, frowning as I cast my mind over the events of the last couple of months. "They don't have fourteen people, though. They only caught a couple of them: Mattias and Kristjana, and those two people who Frederic brought."
"Then it would seem that we aren't the only ones who can be accused of falling victim to blind faith," Janice retorted. "You don't know that the vampires are treating the Brotherhood, your own people, well at all. You only assume they are, but you don't know for a fact what has happened to them. For all you know, they could be dead."
I wanted to protest that point, but I had an uncomfortable feeling that any explanation I made would sound just as feeble as their mindless attacks. "You're right. I don't know for certain that they're not dead, but I highly doubt that it's so."
"They didn't hesitate to kill others," Janice said, her eyes calculating. "Why should they stop at doing so to those captives?"
"I've told you several times now, they're not that way. They seek justice for the deaths of their fellow vampires, yes, but they did not start this war, nor do they want to continue it. Can you say as much about the Brotherhood?"
"If you truly mean what you say," Janice said after she and her husband traded silent glances, "then you will not mind proving it."
"How so?" I asked, wary about falling into any verbal traps.
Janice lifted her chin. "The director of the board of governors sent us to negotiate with you. Yes, that's right, negotiate."
"What, specifically?" I asked, leaning against the desk.
Magda moved to my side in a blatant show of support.
"The director told us that you would refuse to do your duty."
"I'd have thought that was made clear by my replies to the letters and e-mails I've been pelted with from you guys demanding I go help out with one cleansing or another."
She studied me for a second, her mouth tight and slightly pursed, as if she smelled something offensive. "The director authorized us to negotiate a way for you to end your career as a Zorya."
"Excellent." I started to take off the bracelet bearing the moonstone.
"No." Janice held up her hand to stop me. "Removing a Zorya from the Brotherhood is not as easy as simply handing over the Midnight stone."
"Is there some sort of formal court-martial she has to go through to be stripped of her rank?" Magda asked.
"As a matter of fact, there are only two methods of removing a Zorya from the Brotherhood. The first is, naturally, death," Rick said.