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

Angel Love

Neither Cert nor Alexander have been in evidence at any Boot Camp event I have attended so far, and that is true of all meals in the Cafe.

They are avoiding me.

I avoided their sessions in the classroom building. I am recused from their Now Boot Camp/formerly probation cases.

For those two, it is kind of both.

In Cert's case, she is here until she is not a murderous bitch anymore. I think that is not only going to take a very long time but some serious psychotherapy. Undoing a millennium of murder. She was not always a psychopath, so under there somewhere may still be original generation Cert. Before she earned her current moniker, which is short for 'Certain Death'.

In Alexander's case, undoing centuries of sexual privilege. That one seems easier on the surface, but I think it's almost as hard. A horrid combination of deep-seated animal needs and a long life full of not having to deny himself anything but biting a human. He got the no-biting part right, so maybe there is hope? More likely, he does not have the Vampire ingrained need to bite. I don't. Maybe when you are a Catalyst, that drive is replaced with another? On the upside, we are not saying he cannot have sex. We are saying stop dropping babies all over the place.

His pathology is not that he wants to be a father. He obviously couldn't care less. What he wants, more than anything, is for Jessica to tell him he is the best lover on Earth and to beg him for more sex. On that fateful night, when she was so underwhelmed by his efforts, something broke in his head. His narcissism was given full voice and runs his life right now. All he can see is how it is about him.

I am not here to irritate either of the loonie birds. Anne gave me their schedule, and I planned my routes and schedule accordingly. I am the central irritant in both of their lives, and this camp already will have enough reminders about who is, in theory, in charge here.

It is not me, but you will never hear that from Crew. The downside of all this bullshit of Anne and Denise insisting on my positional respect so calling me 'boss'. Council paid for the place. Denise, Anne, Luciana, and Crew run it. Victoria is my boss. I'm, like so many other things, merely the catalyst in the middle.

Setting aside my pavlovian, knee-jerk hatred of it, I understand this particular positional respect from the Crew is a good/bad thing. The new male Vampires need to know about me. Need to know that their lives are brand new and they have this awesome fresh beginning. Cert and Alexander do not need that reminder, because it illuminates their personal failures as Vampires.

I made a point of eating in the Cafe to be available for questions and concerns from anyone. I am not a politician. I am not high and mighty. I'm just me. I think that the new Vamps need to see that too, and it is not as if I can be anyone else. I only know how to be this one flavor of hippy-dippy guy. If Crew's position's respect is good, so is being a regular vampire-flavored person walking through the day, same as anyone else.

Anne, sitting with Denise and the rest of the family that came here, is taking notes when people drop by for a chat. Being approachable means I might hear things they might not otherwise get.

We are getting everything from 'my faucet leaks' to 'I need to bite someone now' types of issues. One goes to maintenance for immediate repair. The other goes to the volunteers' room. A special room over in the bunkhouse is set up for people to come to find out how they can help. Despite my casual feeling about Anne having sex with people assigned to Boot Camp, and similarly, despite my equally casual feeling about sexual professionals, we are not running a sex-for-rent establishment. Boot Camp is to help young or misguided Vampires get on track.

In Cert's situation, get back on track. I am not sure Alexander ever was on track. I expect there to be other Vampires assigned to here as time goes by. Other older Vampires who have similarly lost the path. It's a pretty damn wide path unless you are a threat to the secret, and then it is the straight and narrow. That is part of the problem with Alexander's behavior. Nothing is quite the threat to us from modern humans and their technology as a human gene sequencing a Vampire/Human baby. That is going to make the humans go 'Say what?'.