Hey Mr Bloodsucker, Sucks To Be You

Chapter 30

Cappa ~#~

Another summoning. Another meeting. This time when I pushed open the door to Joanna's conference room, there was only her inside, and none of her clingy associates.

She was sat at her desk, head in her hand and eyes trained on her moniter. She let me appraoch without saying a word, and waited until I'd closed the door and stode back over to her desk before speaking.

"What do you want, Joanna?"

She narrowed her eyes at me. "You could talk to me with a bit more respect, Cappa."

"What do you want, miss?"

She scowled at me, dismissing my words with her expression.

"I've been doing some research into this Book of Text." She twisted the laptop around for me to see when I approached, fixed on my face. "Apparently they're very rare, and Dante didn't possess a copy. None of my contacts has traded with him." She tapped her fingers on the top of the screen. "So my only conclusion..." She mumbled thoughtfully. "Is that he's teamed up with someone else who does."

Great. Just great. I rubbed a hand over my forehead. He's doing exactly what Hale would've done, Turning and making a Clan for himself. This is bad.   "So what do we do?"

Joanna brought the computer back round again.

"I doubt that we can do much but wait for his next move."

"Which helps up how?"

"It doesn't." She raised her eyebrows. "But this does give us an oppurtunity."

I laid my palms flat out on the table. "Which is?" Showtime. Straight to the chase as always.

She stood up. There was a nervous air about her tonight for some reason, and I knew that she knew whatever she was about to suggest I wouldn't like. "You're going home."

That however, hit me like a freight train. I glared at her for a moment, shocked that she would have me returning to a place with such bad memories, and not just those that she knew about. Of all the horrible things, Ashings and vampires torn apart by bloodlust, she couldn't possibly fathom the horror that it would bring. Along with those memories came the shudder of fear from Hale's memory, slowly evolving into an outraged anger that she could demmand such a thing of me.

"Why?" I managed.

"Because we're going to stop Dante." She said matter-of-factly. "Lots of my clan died too that day, so what if Dimitri is the end product of experiments?"

I got what she was saying. Dante could've used the ash from as many dead vampires as he liked from the battlefield, including those of Joanna's that died.I realised she'd given a lot of thought to this, and it made me sick to my stomach.

"I won't have him use my own people against me." She suddenly became very interested in the door.

What did you say to that?

"Look how Mai was affected." Joanna was hitting my weak spot, and she knew it. "So it won't be any different for my clan. Can you imagine what it would be like for them? So we can use that."

"What?" I couldn't be hearing this. Not even Joanna could be that cold.

"If he came for her once, he'll come for her again." She looked uneasy, but her voice was firm.

What she was getting at dawned on me.

"No." I told her blankly. "No, you can't."

"I don't need your permission."