Bad Choices (Hypernaturals 8)

Debrief

We checked out of the Hotel with little regret since the tub is so small, and loaded the Honda Pilot and the Ram with our luggage. We four drove back in the Ram, because it is a monster, and only Jessica or Morgan really like to drive it. Rachel drove the Pilot with Marvin and Skye.

Morgan took the rudder of the beast, and I sat co-pilot. As we drove along, I looked on the Internet and read out loud the news about the overnight fire. "While we were innocently sleeping, or in one case, screwing and getting brains screwed out, it seems that there was a large fire in a warehouse. The good news is that no one was injured in the blaze. No one. Not a single person. Arson investigators think it was purposely set, but they do not understand why, since the large fire was well away from the warehouse walls. There is structural damage to the concrete floor because of the heat. The upper windows are all broken out because of that heat as well, pulling the smoke out into the night sky. One clever passer-by said it looked like a gigantic BBQ smoker. It seems that this warehouse has been empty for years, and was rented out. They found cars in the parking lot but no people inside the cars or the building."

I looked over at Morgan. "Damn! That Crew stuff must be half magnesium or something. They found a pool of melted metal that worked its way down into the cracks in the concrete floor, and they have no idea what it was or where it came from. That means the chairs melted and pooled. Geez."

Morgan's rendition of Donna Summers 'Hot Stuff' was cut off when the phone rang, and I put it on the truck speaker because it is Victoria. Damn it. It was a good version.

"Hi Victoria. You are on speaker with the family: Helen, Morgan, and Jessica all here too."

"Good afternoon. I just got off the phone with Rachel. I took a verbal report on the events evening. I also have been reading some of the unreleased information about the fire from the city Arson team. Also from the FBI. I just want to say 'Well Done'. Rachel told me, and I quote, 'the first family of Vampires came through again'. End quote. I like that image. First family. I was laughing with her about how we replaced Helen on the subcommittee because we were so worried about whether a male Vampire could be trusted. It is utterly humorous now because you did not have to do this one. This was a pure, human affairs situation. You did not have to get involved, but rather than have another scenario like the one at the last Conclave, where the global law enforcement was sitting on its hands while young people were being hurt, you did something. It was surgical. It was clean. There is nothing in the arson report about who. The Arson team has no idea why someone would do this, how the blaze was so hot, and so far, they have no idea there were people in that building. It was professionally set, but they have no idea why. The main structure is easily repairable, much to the chagrin of its owners. The police are running leads on the organization that rented it, and they have all the cars in the parking lot. One was broken into..."

Morgan interrupted "It had a dashcam. I had to remove it."

Victoria was amused. "Of course you did. Always thorough Morgan. Well. Good use of Crew resources if not actual Crew members. I am quite sure if you had asked Denise, Anne and Carol would have been there in a flash. What is the melted metal, just out of curiosity?"

"Used to be folding chairs, for the meeting goers to sit in. By using them it let us put wood and pack it in all the way around the former child molesters, so when the Crew goo flowed down from the plastic barrels, it would get to all sides." I explained. "That stuff gets hot!"

"That is the idea: why it was developed. Modern Vampire solution for modern times. By the way, I assume you Juiced the FBI insider, because he and the drugged-up little girl apparently drove north to Santa Fe, passed out, woke up, and called into his boss. He says he was going to go to the meeting to try and protect the little girls, because there were supposed to be two more, but has no idea how he ended up in Santa Fe and with one of the children. The FBI is not telling the locals about the meeting or who it was because it is an ongoing federal investigation, etc. The FBI knows there were supposed to be people there, and that their plant has one child confirms for them that there must have been, but with the evidence they have, they cannot easily come in and bigfoot the scene without raising suspicions of the locals about some larger crime they are not in the loop on. So like what happened at the resort in some ways. So ineffective, unlike you."