The Alien Agenda (9 page)

“We are very nearly incapable of suicide.”  I said simply.  I had known all along what Sonafi felt.  Her fear and loathing of her own self.  Of the things she did.  Things she could not stop herself from doing when the hunger was upon her.  How she hated herself in her times of lucidity.  That there wa
s nothing she could do about it.  “Our will to live is too strong.  It is why so many of us go rogue.  A Vampire assisted suicide.”

“I did not think life could ever be worth living, but you proved me wrong.  One time I am grateful to have been proved wrong.”  Sonafi said.  “I would now fight ferociously, do anything, to maintain this life.  I have found it to be very rewardin
g and worthwhile.  It is hard to believe I thought so differently once.”

“I don't think any have ever claimed that it is easy to be a Vampire.  Our role may be the biggest one ever cast for a sentient being.  Maybe it was meant to temper us.  Prepare us for something bigger.  Whatever Divinity presides over this our existence has made bigger plans for us.  That is my belief.  He but prepares us for His purpose.”

Sonafi did not say anything.  Her hands were busy with her packing and her eyes avoided mine.  I could only sigh.  This was the way she got any time I mentioned the subject of God.  She had lost all belief in the possibility of her own salvation, God accepting her after the things she had done, that she refused now to discuss it.  I believed that God would forgive.  That He would not hold against us those things we had not been able to control.  She could not believe so, however.  The things she had done weighed too heavily on her conscience.  I let the subject rest.

“I do not think I will like being stripped of my telepathy.”  I said, referring to Brid's device.  “I don't even want to imagine what it will be like.”

“Very much like losing our eyesight, in its own way, I should suppose.  We'll all have to wear them if we want to make the surprise complete.”  Sonafi said, rejoining the conversation just as if there had been no lapse.  She had become adept at tuning out anything to do with God, but then able to tune right back in afterward when the topic changed, as I always immediately did so.  I supposed it was her respectful way of dealing with my periodic entreaties to open her mind to the possibility that she was not irrevocably dammed.  I had become used to it, but of a sudden she had given me something else to think about.

“Who said you were going to participate!”

“Whose saying I'm not?”  She retorted.

“I'm saying it right now.”  I said hotly.

“You may be Elder, but I do not suggest you go there with me.”  Sonafi said menacingly, and she meant it, I could see.  She had grievances to air with the Others, grievances she meant to make heard.  “You will need all the help you can get.  Nor do you have a say in the matter.”

“I had merely hoped to
keep you out of this.”  I said as I saw the measure of her resolve.  “I was only thinking about you.”

“Tell it to someone who doesn't know you better.”  Sonafi said, having none of it.  “There are few enough Elders as it is.  You can turn none of us down.  You think only of yourself and the years you would spend breaking in a new woman.  I know you well enough.”

“If you are what you call
broken in
then I have failed utterly.”  I gave her an exasperated look and was rewarded with the smallest glint of amusement twinkling in her eyes.  But that was only her eyes.  She scowled at me meaningfully.

My Sonafi is an ind
ependent soul.  She does not concern herself with what others think.  Honestly, I do not think our relationship could have worked in any other way.  The dominant/submissive relationship model would have long grown stifling, if Sonafi had been that type.  It would have suffocated our independent natures, for both the dominant and the submissive.  Such relationships might suffice for short lived humanity, but we who measured our lives in eons, possibly eternity itself, we had to find something with more meaning.  Sonafi and I had found that, and maybe I was selfish, but having found it, I did not want to lose it.

This is why so many Vampires go rogue.  That they have simply been unable to find meaning in these long lives, and that they have not found it because they do not know where to look.  A Vampire
’s physical prowess may increase as he ages, but we Vampires are no more intelligent than our Human counterparts.  Our increase in physical prowess does not equate to an equal increase in intelligence.  In many cases it actually serves to cement narrow minded views into immovable ways of seeing the world and the things that are going on within it.  A Vampire may educate himself, but an education in itself does not always elucidate, make clearer the unknown, and there was nothing more unknown than the mysteries of the mind; be it a Vampire, a Human, or an Other.  I do not think that anyone would argue that the Others had any mysterious other-worldly comprehension of the working of mind, not with their callous unconcern for the sovereign right of other beings, their total lack of morality in the face of what amounted to genocide of an entire sentient species.  No race which was completely sane could do what was being done here.  There was something missing.  Sanity was not a trait I could attribute to the Others.

“I really just cannot face the prospect of losing you.”  I said.  “I truly do not think that I could go on if I did.”

Sonafi softened, seeing that I was serious.  “Why do you think that I must insist that
I
participate?  You blind old fool.”

Maybe I
was
a blind old fool, after all.

CHAPTER 7

Sonafi and I were no different than any other Vampires in our need for Human retainers to aid us in those things we could not do for ourselves.  We had possessed, as servants, a family now prosperous and numerous for their fealty, service and loyalty to us.  Humans with such loyalty were not as easy to find as one might think, and money alone could not purchase such devotion.  The head of that present day household, James Ray Burns (an Americanized name, to be sure) now stood in front of me, patiently and confidently listening to what I had to say, full of the awareness that he would never have anything to fear from me.  That was the trust we held.

Though he was right that he would never have anything to fear from me, we needed our Human retainers more than they needed us, and yet, Humans were remarkably short on the kind of awareness that makes a
Juvenile Vampire so afraid of an Elder.  Something that might even be equated as common sense, I thought, and yet, was I absolutely correct in my own analysis?  Weren't Vampires even now learning the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit?  In either case, James Ray Burns stood before us now, in our parlor, a room they called the 'living room' here, unflinching, unafraid, though it was the full of night and neither Sonafi nor I had yet fed this evening.  He was simply not afraid.

His family had served us for so many generations that my face must by now be recorded in his racial memories.  I supposed that it was possible that far from bringing him fear, I brought him the feeling of instinctual security, comfort and assurance.  It was a mutually beneficent arrangement.  A price tag could not be effectively affixed upon the services the Burns have performed for us.  We have always compensated them accordingly.
  They are, in effect, our life-line, and without them, in these times, we would not be as comfortably secure as we were.

I handed James Ray, as he preferred to be called, the keys to our new home and a slip of paper with the address written down upon it.  I normally used the Burns to locate such new residences.  That was one of the big things Human retainers could do that a Vampire normally could not do for himself, but Brid had made this purchase electronically, the home purchased through a mortgage lender who had foreclosed upon it and who had been, apparently, only too happy to resell it in this manner.  It was right here in the city.  I was even familiar with the neighborhood.

James Ray took the keys and the address, towering over me as he did so, a huge man, green eyed, lightly skinned, his face neutral and unemotional.  I felt the slightest tickle of fear run through him at our nearness.  Then I smelled it as it came out in his sweat.  James Ray was not a Human who feared easily, either, and he had no reason to fear me, but it was not something that could be controlled at these closest moments of contact.  He stepped back quickly and looked away.

“I always get just the slightest bit of nerves when I am close to you.”  James Ray said, as if reading my mind.  “I don't know why I can never entirely get used to you.  It simply seems beyond me.”  He exhibited just
the slightest nervous give away by twirling the key ring on his finger, for something to do other than think about his fear.             

“Only the slightest bit.”
  Sonafi complimented him.  “Few Humans can control themselves so well.”

“Due only to long a
ssociation.”  James Ray said, with the ever so slightest smile.  “It never seems to get any easier, though I know in my conscious mind that I have nothing to fear from either of you.  I just seem to react.”

“No more so than any other and a great deal less than most.”  I said.  “You are a man peculiarly in control of your faculties.”  Though James Ray had served us all his life, was now in his late sixties, knew thoroughly well how much I counted on him, how much we counted on him, I always tried to give him a word of encouragement or praise whenever business brought us together.  To stay the mania that close associ
ation with a Vampire could instill- insanity, paranoia, schizophrenia, others, all to which men were susceptible when in close association with Vampires. I did not know how that felt personally but I had seen many others succumb to it and knew it to be a very real thing.  I could smell its results.  Besides, I did not enjoy creating fear or making others suffer.  I’d had my fill of that.

“Thank you.”  James Ray said modestly, and then looking around the room, with its packed boxes and appearance of readiness.  “Are you ready to be moved?”

“You may make the move today.”  Sonafi answered.  “Will you be able to move everything in one day?”

“Will we be moving the two of you, as well?”  James Ray asked discreetly, looking aside as he spoke.  It was a position of ultimate power over a Vampire
and why having trusted retainers was so important.

“Just our belongings.”
  I answered.  “We have made arrangements elsewhere.”

“I hope we have not displeased our Masters.”  James Ray asked deferentially, in Old World etiquette, bowing as he did so.

“Not at all.”  Sonafi said.  “We have done away with the coffins.  Detestable things.  There would be no way for you to transport us securely.  Our trust of you and your family is secure.”

“That is reassuring to hear.”  James Ray said, raising and momentarily meeting her eyes.  “If there is nothing else, I should retire and get my rest.  Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

“There's nothing else.”  Sonafi said, and James Ray excused himself, and departed, having to stoop to go through the doorway and then closing it gently behind himself.  When he was gone, Sonafi said; “It won't be long now.”

“I suppose not.”  I agreed, knowing she referred to the changing of the guard. 
When James Ray would choose one of his family members to replace him.  The Burns, or the De La Fonts, as they had been known previous to coming to the United States, had been serving us a long time.  I remembered each one of them in turn.  Humans did not evolve in the same way as Vampires.  We had a living evolution, where Humans had constantly to undergo the cycle of death and rebirth.  A continuity of genes that carried forward the best of what had been retained, but also the addition of those little changes included along the way.  Human evolution was the addition of small little changes in each generation that multiplied into large alterations over extended periods, yet the past easily intermingled in my mind with the present, when often the present individual closely reminded me of one of his predecessors.

“Forty years he has been serving us.”  Sonafi said.

“He reminds me physically much of Julian.  Do you remember Julian?”  I asked.

“As if I should forget.
  The fool.”  Sonafi said.  “He almost cost his entire line their place with us.  He was so good with a sword, too.”

“He let his mouth get him into something, finally, which he couldn't fight his way out of.”  I said.  “After he was killed in that duel and we had to go to his brother
Marote we have seen a steadier hand at the family rudder.”

“A cooler head, I'll grant.”  Sonafi agreed.  “It has always amazed me that there could be two such sides to the same coin. 
Such a disparity even among brothers.  Those wild genes crop up still.”

“Johnnie is James Ray
’s favorite, but I have made it clear that I prefer Charles.”  I said.

“You made
a decision without me!”  There was fire and ice in her eyes.

“
Johnnie is a drug addict, dear.  He seems very unreliable.”

“Julian was a drinker and opium user, yet you held no grudge against him.”  Sonafi pointed out.  She had always preferred the more extroverted members of the Burns/De La Font family, while
I the steadier, less interesting but more reliable side.  The two personality traits were always to be found in every generation, no matter from which personality trait side they had sprung.