Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Looking For Her Fix

The detention facility the Crew has in Austin is in an old house near downtown. It looks like an old house because it is. Built in the 1800s. The Crew also has the house to the immediate right, on the street, and the house directly behind it, over on the next street. They will get the house diagonally across from it soon. The human law firm that currently has it will outgrow that building. Move closer to the courthouses. When they do, the Crew will snag it. Helen already did the deal. She's Helen, so the real question is probably how little the Council paid for it. Not that I know. Helen would tell me if I asked I am sure, but she's the money person for Council and the family. I understand enough about finances to have bought my house and paid my taxes over the years. Helen is far more fiscally devious than that.

The Crew-owned three-house-complex is labeled as being various things on the outside for the human world. Interior design. A data sciences group. A corporate-only law firm. It's all actual businesses that also front for Crew activities.

I do not think my idea for combining Boot Camp and continuing education all the brilliant, since the Crew already does mixed purpose stuff like this. I think the 'brilliant' part is the idea that when you have a brand new male Vampire, and they are coming into power and youth and Vampire sex drive, that there be Crew around to absorb that.

To me, that is not brilliant. As Helen would say, it's 'bloody obvious'. I'm a male Vampire though, so I might have a unique point of view on the subject. Crew has spent all this time down the millennia stomping on us because of that drive, not training, directing, guiding, and leveraging it.

The idea of combining a Crew training facility with a male Vampire training one may be better than I am giving myself credit for. It is not as if any of this has ever been done. It's all 'think outside the box' stuff for the traditional and staid ways of the Council and Vampiredom in general. One of the reasons I like Victoria is her willingness to change things up.

Under the biggest of the three buildings, which is a light blue, white-trimmed two-story, there is a basement, and in the basement is a Vampire proof cell. One great big cell. Also a break room.

We went down the stairs to the basement. There is an elevator, but that is for moving big things up and down the building. Cell doors, when they installed them, for example.

'We' is Helen, Rachel, Vera, Angel, Denise, Morgan, Jessica, and myself. Eight people to talk to one pitiful excuse of a human. 6.5 of them want to kill her. Rachel has not voted yet.

Inside the detention area, there is a desk, with a computer in one corner and along the wall opposite the cell. The cell is built into the far corner and is large. Bars down two sides, and strong enough to hold the most powerful Vampire. Welded Stainless Steel bars that are four centimeters in diameter, not iron.

Outside the cell, on one wall is a view screen, for allowing the prisoner to watch National Geographic programming. As many 'Ted Talks' as they want. That kind of thing. Might as well use your downtime to expand your mind.

Inside the large cell, there is a bunk bed along the wall, a stainless steel commode and sink in the corner, Going to the bathroom is not a private thing in a cell. As this one has a human in it, there is no fear of her escaping this massive thing. The same kind of overkill as fishing with hand grenades, but this is the cell we have so it's the cell Sandy is in.

Sandy is sitting on the bunk, her shoulders hunched forward. She looks a little depressed. We all trooped into her living area.

Sandy looked up. Surveyed her tormenters. Focused on me. "You and your friends going to tie me to these bars like it is a cross. Have sex with me now? You don't have to. I'll take you on here in the bed. Floor. Whereever. I won't fight back or anything."