Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,55

powers are greater, probably, but still unreliable. You show distinct abilities usually only associated with oracles and vampires. Additionally, among other things, you moved through space and are capable of stopping time. You’ve been in contact with something or someone you refer to as the Makers, and you’re in the confidence of creatures that are . . . dragons.”

“Yes.” It was actually pretty impressive when you spelled it out as she had. I was also amazed at how quickly she caught on.

“Carolina Perez-Smith funds the organization we know as the Order of Nicomedia, and that Order has basically declared war on the Fangborn, across the country, perhaps the world. How am I doing so far?”

“You got it, ma’am.”

“And you managed to escape from one of her facilities, bringing with you a third . . . version . . . of their, er, Fellborn experiments?”

“Yes.” I frowned. “I’d told that bitch of a guard she should let me go, before we broke out. That could be the only reason she fell for that trick. They were understaffed and ill prepared for the number of prisoners they had after Boston. And . . . I had some of my vampiric persuasion working on my side. But they were understaffed because Carolina helped organize and fund the attack on Boston. They needed more victims to advance their research on creating the Fellborn. And part of the reason Max was a failure was because Fangborn weren’t drawn to him to kill or be killed by him.” And that’s why no one attacked him on the chopper, I finished to myself.

“Yes,” Representative Nichols said. “She’s been using the Order’s synthetic copies of vampire venom to make people forget. Her news operations have been instructed to keep a lid on things, until she says otherwise. It won’t last, but we need to be the ones who determine how the world finds out about the Fangborn.” The representative looked down, checked her phone briefly. It was a stalling tactic, and to be fair, it was a lot for anyone to think about.

After Representative Nichols composed herself, she said, “We need to start informing the rest of the government about you. And to that end, we’d like to set up a demonstration, not only of the various Fangborn abilities, but of your own, um, peculiar talents. And I have people who might be able to help you with the artifact you mentioned—a sword? We have a lot of work to do.”

“Why don’t we just expose Carolina for what she is?” I asked. I probably hadn’t been the first or the only one to bring that up, but I had to know why we didn’t call her a kidnapper, a murderer, and a whole slew of other things. “Arrest her, shut down the Order. Bring on I-Day. With the information Max got us, we’ll have all kinds of public outcry, criminal prosecutions, you name it. We take destinies into our own hands when we take her weapons away from her. It’s time. Too many people know already.”

Funny how strange it was to use the word “destinies” and have it be meaningful to you directly. It sounded too grand for everyday use.

“It is one option,” Senator Knight said. His voice surprised me. He’d been so quiet through our discussion. Somehow, despite his tall thin build, his hawk-like nose on a distinguished face, and his air of authority, he was able to hide in plain sight, but that’s vampires for you. “It’s certainly the option I’ve been favoring for some time. We should have started immediately. I-Day will bring losses, inevitably. I’m not squeamish about the handful of dead Family and Normals the Order has.”

I stared at him. He had all the viciousness of a cobra. The heartlessness of a plague. “That’s not what I meant.”

“We can’t for the moment, for forty-seven very good reasons, as you well know, Edward,” Representative Nichols said sharply. “Zoe, you may have heard how there are many Fangborn Family members not accounted for at Boston? Ms. Perez-Smith let us know she has the forty-seven missing, as well as the civilians—Normals. She’s threatening to kill them and reveal the identities of all the Fangborn they know about. We go public with her, she goes public with us. Mutually assured destruction, and we want some control over how this data gets out. We’re at a stalemate, even with the information you brought us.”

Damn Carolina, and damn the Order, I thought. Bastards get to be evil just because