North American Vampire Council & Past Calling (Hypernaturals 12 & 13)

NorthAm Meeting

When the con-call ended globally, we immediately proceeded to have a NorthAm meeting. Fucking hell. My first Council meeting already. I suppose it makes sense. Everyone is on the phone or in the room, and the new victim needs orientation.

I would have preferred to go hide and rage somewhere. Not where my kids can see me having a breakdown.

Victoria called it to order. With four of us in this room, the screens only had eight more faces on them now.

"Well, ladies and gentleman, that went down better than I expected. I thought for sure I was going to get some shit from South America, at the very least. So traditional down there. Or PacRim. Quiet, some very stiff faces, but no shit. Everything was perfect. And so: Adrian! Welcome to the North American Vampire Council. I am sure you have many questions, but since Rachel and Helen live with you, and I am here, we'll save most of the blocking and tackling types of things for offline. We run our meetings short and to the point. No one here likes to have their time wasted."

Vampires that live thousands of years and no one likes to waste any of it. I like that point of view.

"First off, as you know, we don't have the probation subcommittees anymore. That was partly your doing. Before you were even on this Council, you and yours were affecting how we do business here. We do have certain areas of speciality. Different functions that report into groups or individuals. For example: we have an archeology subcommittee, and Nova heads that. The mission is to make sure that Vampire remains from ancient settlements are not brought to the public eye. Nova has asked to have you on that subcommittee, knowing your love of all things science. Do you agree?" Victoria asked.

I looked at the screens and picked out Nova. "Hi, Nova. Sure. That sounds super interesting and thank you for thinking of me for that!"

OK. That assignment is better than I would have thought. If you are going to be condemned to being on Council, being on Council doing science is nice.

"No problem." Nova said, with a gesture. "I look forward to working with you. I'll call you later so we can talk about stuff. Helen is also on that sub, so you have in-house expertise already."

Fuck. That is going to make it harder to kick Helen's ass.

Fuck that again. I am going to kick her ass to the moon and back. I know she engineered this.

I have never really asked Helen about her Council stuff, figuring lowly males never need to know how the bread is made. Hell: Jessica told me when I first turned this does not happen. Males do not get on Council. I was pissed about that idea back then. Now it happened, and I am pissed it happened to me.

Helen looked happy that we now have a subcommittee in common. More pillow talk! As if.

"Obviously, you are a Siren Liaison, friends, and lover with the OTHER Liaison and now you are Council, so I think you retain the Siren relationship. You helped change how that worked, and we clearly want that to continue. As you said downstairs: the Siren world is quiet. That one is yours to run however you see fit. Where you used to report to me on that, it now reports to you. You have done excellent work there. You forced yourself on the Siren lab raid, for example, and you and Morgan were quite the team. If you want others besides Vera involved, pick a few to help, or not. Up to you. As a Council member, you just let us all know things as we need to know them. My rule about things when other people run them? No surprises. Communicate. Make sure we know what we need to know. Do not blather on about stuff we do not: That is not a thing I am worried about with you."

Humm. Mine to run. They might regret that. So might Vera. Damn! I can totally offload Liaison! Make it just one.

Larry will hate that too. Even better. No more meetings where Siren women tease Larry by flirting with me. OK. This part works.