10:30, The Day Before Yesterday

Book 2 Chapter IX - We Meet Again

Chapter 24 - We Meet Again

Owston bit through his cigarette in his surprise. "They're coming here?"

"Yes, sir," his secretary said, and since when the president's mood was deteriorating it was always good to pass as much of the blame as possible onto someone else, she added, "That's what Sangue said to the Colonel, and he had no reason to lie."

"But why are they coming here?" the president demanded, ignoring the second part of her speech.

He began to drum his fingers on his desk, searching for any explanation, no matter how illogical. Astor Owston was rarely at a loss. This was one of the times he definitely was. What could possibly interest the girl and the vampire in Washington, D.C.? It was unlikely they were coming to sight-see.

"He didn't say." The secretary saw the look on his face and hastened to add, "I don't think he knew his phone was tapped; he just didn't say."

No matter how calm they appeared, no matter how much they ignored their conscience, men who were guilty of a crime - or a host of them - were easily alarmed. An incident that even slightly tapped against a specific chord in their mind set off a chain of paranoid surmises that never came within twenty thousand leagues of the truth.

Owston was one of those men, and this was one of those times.

"What else did Sangue say?"

"He said they'd find InGEN waiting for them."

The president got up and began to pace around the room as he considered his next move. His secretary watched nervously, unsure if this meant the full force of his wrath was about to descend on her.

If anything happened to them while in InGEN's custody, a lot of questions would be asked and there would almost certainly be some discoveries he'd rather keep hidden. De Mon's revenge plan looked less and less feasible. Owston could keep the other vampires here, and let De Mon do what he liked with them, but the human and the former Mr. Cross would have to go back to Northern Ireland, and De Mon could kill them there, if he wished.

"Tell InGEN I said to send them back to New York."

"Yes, sir," the secretary said, turning to leave and hesitating in case he wasn't finished speaking to her yet.

"Oh, and send the head of secret police to me," Owston added, sitting down at his desk and lighting another cigarette.

"Yes, sir." She fled, more than happy to escape unscathed.

Ten minutes ticked slowly past before footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Pope, head of the secret police, presented himself in the president's office.

"About time you showed up," Owston grumbled. "Tell me, Pope, what do you know about vampires?"

Pope had seen and heard of many things that other people thought were hoaxes or fictional monsters. Just last week, some of his men had captured a werewolf in Louisiana. It stood to reason that if werewolves exist, nothing prevents vampires from existing, too, so he spent no time in questioning their existence. He had foreseen the possibility of their existence, in fact, and spent some time researching them.

"Vampire-like creatures appear in the folklore of countries all over the world," he recited from the articles he'd read, "and garlic, crucifixes and holy water are considered the best ways to ward them off. They sleep in coffins during the daytime and -"

Owston cut him off with a bored, "Yes, yes, I know all that."

Pope fell silent, waiting to hear if his boss would offer an explanation. He got a bit more than he bargained for.