The Shape of Things to Come (Hypernaturals 15)

Forget Me Yes

I have heard the Vampire reveal numerous times. I have never heard Denise tell it, so I settled back and listened. Her point of view on things was not all that different from any other version I have heard, but it did go far deeper into what used to happen to males.

"My job, on Crew, after I was trained up, was like anyone else's on Crew over the last ten millennia. If a new male Vampire was determined to be unreliable while on probation, their subcommittee condemned them."

"Unreliable?" Miranda asked.

Denise paused, looked at her feet. Took a breath. "I was being circumspect, because that is, as you just pointed out whether you meant to or not, a really soft term. Different subcommittees may have had different standards. It means that they could not sexually control themselves, and in particular could not stop themselves from biting human women. It could have been a trajectory: A male they only thought was going to go bad because they could not stop seducing women. They fell in love with their power. They may have lost their probation officer: No male could not have one. It came down to one thing: Did the subcommittee trust the male on Parole or not."

"Oh... so Leon?" Miranda asked.

"Hard to say. He was never on Parole. Never had a Parole officer. Never bit a woman because he did not even know he had fangs. I will not lie: There are circumstances where if he had sex with this many different human women, there have been times when that would have been condemnation. But that leaves aside the fertility aspect. We only recently learned, or more accurately re-learned about the Catalyst. If Leon were the first Catalyst discovered and showed that he could have sex that resulted in children? I think he would have been nationalized. Taken into custody, and ended up standing at stud. It would have been assumed he was singular and that only he could have children. The Catalyst part would have come later. Perhaps much later. Hard to know. It took us discovering Ninovan, and learning what they knew, and having someone like Victoria as head of Council, to make it so that we are where we are today. Where a fully trained and trusted Catalyst male can be free. Which I will get to."

Miranda nodded.

"In the before times, and still to this day in one Geo, it was Crews job to execute the condemned."

"Execute..." Miranda said.

"Yes. The third catalyst alive today, a male named Alexander, once saw me slice off the head of a condemned male with my sword. He lives in terror of me to this day." Denise delivered that flatly, pulling out her feeling about killing. As with Morgan, I know Denise pretty well now. I could see them. Hear them. I am pretty sure Miranda got emotionless.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Miranda said.

"I wish. Not in the slightest. My goal by using a sword to behead them was to make it fast. The brain still operates for a while after it is removed from the body, but it goes into shock, and the male Vampire I just killed, whichever one it was, did not suffer. Much. If you shoot them or stab them or poison them, it takes a lot longer and they can suffer. I wanted to avoid that. I snuck up behind them and did the deed, and they never saw it coming. Once I found out that I had been fucking up all that time, and that male Vampires need time and space to come back to their senses and their older selves, I flat out refused to kill male Vampires anymore. Told the head of Council, Victoria, that to her face. She was on board with it by then and made me the Lead instead. No good deed goes unpunished."

"But, you aren't going to do that to Leon..." Amelia asked, with some understandable fear.

"Nope. I just said I refuse to do it anymore. I meant that. I will still kill when required. Not for that reason. I have to agree to the necessity. I beheaded a group of rapists not that long ago. To their face and while the others watched. It was not an act of mercy. Punishment, pure and simple. Adrian and I killed a group of men not too long ago. Men who were planning to kill Vampires just because we exist. Worse: They really had no idea what we are. They built an entire world of hatred around legends, myths, and some improperly Juiced encounters with real Vampires that left them knowing that they are the hunted. I will kill when I decide it is the correct thing to do. When I agree with the need. I will not kill Leon."