Conclave (Hypernaturals 3)

Number Three Goes on the Whole Time

Morgan and I walked along the side of the washboard road. We enjoyed a companionable quiet, listened to the wildlife, and looked at the raw beauty around us. Morgan stopped to pick up rocks every now and then, flipping them over to study them. She likes unique rocks, and some of these are metamorphic or igneous in a landscape of sedimentary rocks. Nice quartz or pyrite crystal is worth a quick look. We aren't in any hurry at the moment. William is nowhere around here anymore. If he shows up, we are both well-armed, and he'll be full of holes.

After about ten minutes lallygagging up the road, we were joined by Helen, Carol, Anne, and Jessica, zooming up. There is no one around to see a group of women running at about twenty miles an hour. They could have gone faster, but I am sure that speed is a real stretch for Helen.

"Denise getting the car?" I inquired generally

"You took off." Carol non-replied "We looked up and you were gone

I shrugged. "Morgan and I decided to follow the trail. See where that went. You all decide anything useful? Get pamphlets for Iceland issued? Or did you pow-wow this long to select Denise for car duty?"

I don't really know Carol, but she looked like she is a bit irritated by my disrespectful tone. I think in the scheme of things, members of the Council hit squad are used to getting respect even from others around them in the Vampire community, more or less from snotty little brats like me.

Jessica headed off any escalations by answering "We went beyond Iceland. Discussed other places a Vampire could hide. We came to no useful conclusions. It all comes back to this: we do not have enough information." 

Jessica laid it on thicker, to really keep Carol at bay. "Ever since I met you, Adrian, I seem to spend a great deal of time trying to figure out things. Why is the cop crazy? How do you track him? What are Sirens? What do the drug dealers have to do with anything? Why is that man hanging upside down and being beaten?"

I gave her Jessica best innocent shrug. "I'm an enigma, frequently wrapped in a gauze bandage, I admit."

Jessica lathered more on. "After all the beatings and meat hooks and hammers, still have a hard-on the moment you wake up. You'd think something would distract you."

Anne jumped in "Now you are just showing off. No wonder you married him so fast."

"That's it. The only reason." Jessica agreed

Carol looked me over. "You don't seem that remarkable on the outside. Nice enough looking I suppose."

Now I am starting to get that feeling of being the prime rib in the butcher's display case.

Jessica kept playing at whatever she is up to. It is not like her to talk this way. "Oh, it's not the outside. It's when he's inside that counts."

"Enough!" Anne said "We get it. You got lucky. Get Lucky. A lot."

Helen connected to what Jessica is doing. She delivered the punch line, pointing out to Carol, Anne, and Denise why they are getting the unneeded details about our love lives. Helen looked meaningfully at Carol. "He walked away, Carol, and we didn't notice." 

Helen looked at me, then back to Carol. Helen included herself in recrimination. "We stood there and talked and ignored him like he was not there. You, Carol, are acting like he should have asked permission to leave when he was being ignored. We do that to male Vampires. It is our lifelong way. Adrian, if you have not figured it out from the Conclave, and the getting off parole, and the way he freed Melissa, and all that other stuff, is not only extraordinary, he is a Vampire. Our Vampire. If we treat him like a cute little piece of tight male ass, we deserve what we get, including being reminded that Jessica gets laid way more and way better than you do."