Chapter 12
It was already the early hours of the morning. Andre jumped out of the back of the van to the open the large sliding front doors to the office so that George could drive inside and park. Charles and Michael had already arrived and were unpacking the black bags filled with debris from the back of their van. George parked parallel to them and the whole team set about carrying the body bags to the vats of the disposal room.
As we were doing so, John struck up a continuation of our previous conversation, acting as though the interruption had never occurred. This appeared to particularly irritate Andre, who was exhausted after his first experience of cleaning. Despite this he diligently participated in playing his part in the process of obliterating all the gathered evidence.
"We did not come to an agreement on the course of action to take", John said while holding one end of a body bag and backing away from the vans.
I could see that Charles was about to launch back in to the same argument they had been having a few hours earlier, so I added my contribution to beat him to it, without thinking too much about what I was going to say. I held one end of the bloodstained mattress and George supported the other while we awkwardly shuffled towards the disposal room.
"They way I see it, we have a dilemma... We obviously cannot just allow the Rogues to exist, as they are untamed and wild and will therefore attract attention and inevitably expose The Secret. Even if we were to cut our losses and retreat, that would show us to be weak and that would open the door for more gangs of Rogues to expand", I said in a calm voice, thinking as I was talking.
Charles and John who had one end each of one of the body body bags, both nodded. I could not see the others behind me but I could sense that they were listening.
"However we cannot start full scale recruitment. Firstly we have no cover by which to obscure it from the Humans. It is harder than ever these days as they are all connected to each other on their computers".
Michael who walked past carrying a black bin bag full of debris, looked as though was about to interrupt but I continued before he could.
"Secondly, as Charles said, as soon as the Rogues discover that we are recruiting, they will engage in the same process, and they had a whole club full of volunteers already. If our recruitment drive does not attract attention, the combination of both sides drawing strength from the local Human population surely will".
Stating our dilemma out loud, an issue to which no one had a solution, made everyone think for a moment instead of blurting out opinions. Surprisingly it was George who broke the silence. After we tossed the mattress into one of the disposal vats, he straightened up and spoke.
"That is not the full extent of the problems. If we were to create an army, who would lead it? None of us were officers in the war... None of them survived the last battles. Our only experience of war was as cannon fodder. Sure we govern ourselves now but there is only six of us and even then we cannot agree on a course of action. Who among us has the faintest idea of how to lead an army?"
We were all stunned into silence. I felt minuscule. Who was I to presume I could just create and lead soldiers. The same paralysingly thought must have occurred to Charles and John, for they also stopped in their tracks, midway though carrying one of the body bags to the disposal vats.
The first to offer a practical solution was Andre. He was dragging one end of the last body bag out of the back of the van while he spoke. He had pulled it out upside down so that the zip made a horrible scratching noise as it dragged across the stone floor. The noise and the exertion of doing the job single handed prevented him from finishing his idea, so Michael picked up the other side to help so that he could speak properly.
"We don't necessarily have to make an army. I'm sure the Rogues don't want to make one either. Think about it, they would be a pain to put up somewhere, they would all need feeding, and that would be a huge fucking headache for both sides. Why don't we start smaller and just recruit a few so we match the size of their crew?" he suggested quite brilliantly.
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The Midnight Cleaning Company
مصاصي الدماء[COMPLETE STORY] Fleming is a Cleaner. Stripped of an individual identity, a slave in all but name; reduced to a cog in the infrastructure that maintains The Secret. A decadent secret society of vampires cavorts across Europe, throwing lavish partie...
