Truce and Lies

Grant: people still die

Conor was not what I had expected. Instead of looking worried or even disheveled, he had strolled into the theatre with a perfectly tailored suit and a dark look in his eye. I wouldn't have thought that one month would have changed him so.

We found a room with a couple of old couches; both Aidan and Conor were asleep in minutes. I normally stayed with Aidan, but I decided to creep back downstairs to see what the distant yelling was about.

I couldn't make out the words for all of the echo throughout the building, but once I stepped into the room, Stefa whirled on me and didn't say anything for a long moment. The room used to be the bar portion of the restaurant. I had spent hours behind the counter, holding the tray for Stefa's glasses. At the time I had thought it was to humiliate me, but now I wondered if she had been trying to keep me safe from her clan. Perhaps it was both; Stefa was good at multitasking.

"Good morning, I think," I said. "I can find something else to occupy my time with if this room is unwelcome."

Stefa's eye narrowed. "You were feeding your father information about my clan," she said.

"The way you say that makes it sound like it was illicit information," I countered. "He found about the bodies because he had asked me to investigate, independent of you or yours. He heard about the explosion because you didn't have the sense to hide the body from the little girl who found it."

Stefa winced. "Poor Megan."

"Indeed," I continued. "I know that you managed to piss off every vampire in three hundred miles; is there anything else I should know?"

"And they're after Conor," Stefa said. "And I don't know what to do. This is the west most point of my territory and we'll be safe here for now. Unless, anyone else has something to add that I don't know," she remarked tetchily.

I was missing something but didn't dare ask.

"You've talked to my father then?" I questioned.

"Yes. Peter said they'd watch Chicago in our absence. They've already seen an uptick in murders in the past three days, so that's awesome." She sat abruptly and rubbed her temples. "Conor and Aidan are asleep?"

"Yeah, up in one of the old dressing rooms," I said. "We came because we wanted to bring Conor back home."

"I know," she replied. "After all this, I might let you."

Pat and Mike had been silent through this exchange, but with a glance from Lin, grabbed the cooler behind the counter and dragged some stools over to the bar. We all sat as Lin found glasses, pouring blood into each one. I took it without complaining about the blood's origin.

"You were hunters, Lin, Grant," Stefa said, taking a sip. "Tell me, how do we deal with Helen?"

Lin let out a sigh. "We don't know how large her territory is, how many is in her clan, or who she is allies with. Taking her head on would be suicidal."

"Not if we didn't take her on," I remarked. "The hunters are becoming a resource. They don't exactly trust you, but they have to admit that we're not the greatest enemy here."

"You'd throw your father in the fray?" Pat asked skeptically.

"He'd hardly be on the ground with a machete," I pointed out. "And with our information, they could be strategic, rather than the haphazard reactionary method the hunters adopt."

Stefa laughed. "You've gone native, haven't you?"

I couldn't protest. I didn't miss my human life. It was a strange realization, but I wanted to go back to the farm and pull weeds with Aidan. I missed food and sleep, but not the person I had been before. He hadn't been as happy as I was now.

"I can call my father; see what he thinks," I said instead. "The whole board is meeting in Chicago, or at least was yesterday. If there was ever a time to partner, it's now while they can vote on it."

"Humans are not going to vote to work together with vampires," Mike scoffed. "And if they do, they'll just turn on us afterward. That hunter girl pulled a gun on you every time she saw you."

I finished my glass and spun the cup in my hands, thinking through how we could pull this off.

"We'd have to make a deal with the hunters," I said slowly. "Some sort of immunity for our help."

"They are still going to stab us in the back," Mike insisted.

I shrugged. "Hunters are crazy vulnerable. One of the reason we're supposed to kill any hunter who is turned is because I know all their methods, their locations, their people. No way they've changed up everything just because I vanished, that would cost too much. We could cripple the whole agency. Well, I could cripple the whole agency. I don't want to," I added when Stefa's eyebrow went up incredulously. "But what Lin said to me two months ago has stuck with me. The only ones any good at hunting vampires are other vampires. Humans are making this a lot worse."

"Even if we are able to come to terms, we still kill people, Grant," Stefa observed. "Everyone at this table has. By the human society's terms, we are murderers. If you weren't so dependent on Aidan and Conor, you'd be basically feral right now."

"So I need to learn control," I admitted. "Stefa, I'm trying to come up with solutions and you keep shooting them down."

"She does that normally; don't feel special," Lin remarked. "But she has a point. There's nothing we could offer to the hunters that would be enough to wipe the slate. So while it's a good thought, we'd have to manipulate the hunters from afar. Or just dump them information and hope they aren't stupid." He sighed. "Back where we started. Who else is coming?"

"The younger ones are with Hannah. They're going to finish the hunt and meet us...wherever we end up," Stefa replied.

She sounded nearly distraught. It was strange that this was the same woman who had kidnapped me a month ago. I had a harder time hating her with her singed hair and ragged nails. If not for her pale skin and inhuman cheekbones, I wouldn't recognize her as a fellow vampire.

I rose my chair. "I'm going to check on Aidan."

I met Conor at the doorway, surprised that he had been able to sneak up on the group. He had taken off his jacket and tie and looked more like a lost model than a werewolf on the run. He frowned at me as I approached.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I am," he said. "I don't know about them."

He nodded toward the room of vampires and then accompanied me back up the stairs.

"Aidan and I will probably go back to Montana now," I mentioned. "You could join us, if you wanted."

Conor made a grimace. "I don't think I can go back to Montana," he said. "I like the city. I like being with Stefa, and I don't think Ralph would let her back on the property."

"He would if you'd come back," I promised. "You know they would. You're his son."

He shrugged and was about to reply when I grabbed his shoulder.

"No," I said firmly. "Conor, that means something. If not to you, then definitely to Ralph and Mel. When they told you not to come for me, they were trying to protect you..."

"You're talking to me like I don't understand that," Conor snapped. "I know they care, Grant. But they don't understand me. Being with Stefa, being with her clan, this is first time in months that I have felt normal. That I've felt...human." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you. I still don't articulate as well as I wish I did."

"That's just being human," I told him. 

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Conor is strange through others' eyes. Thanks for reading!