Conclave (Hypernaturals 3)

Siren Women

I pointed over at Rachel. "The first time we fought the Sirens it was Rachel and I. The odds five to one against us. Sirens are, as a group, big, burly, and strong: More than a match for the average human. The Sirens know they are not as powerful as a female Vampire, but they could not be quite sure what the quantifiable difference actually is. They took a wild guess and figured five to one would be enough to win, especially with me in the mix. A male Vampire and a female Vampire against ten Sirens should surely work out in their favor."

I went for the laugh by smiling rather wickedly and regarding the audience. "They were quite miserably mistaken."

That got laughs and grins, and hostility in the room eased in some places, although it increased in some other places. I know including myself on the side of the powerful Vamps is having the effect of pulling some into alignment with me, and making others more hostile. It could not be helped. I am not embellishing. This is what actually happened. Further, I am part of them now, like it or not. I am Vampire, even if of the lower rent variety.

I indicated Jessica and Helen as I spoke. "The second time we fought, they learned five to one did not work out for them so we were pitted against a larger group. Seven to one odds. We changed the Vampire lineup. Jessica, Helen, and I versus twenty-one Sirens."

I paused to make sure this next part clear "Please do not be misled by my somewhat caviler, 20-20 hindsight. Sirens are physically powerful. They are individually no match, physically, for a Vampire." I turned and pointed over at Rachel on her dais raised chair "Rachel is not a trained fighter, and yet she held her own against ten of them." I next indicated my housemates "Helen and Jessica are good fighters, and they cleaned the floor with them. Even I did OK."

A titter of laughter. I aimed that one right into the female prejudice against the male Vampire. The ones that are polarizing away from me for daring to include myself in their ranks.

I have one more sop to the Vampire vanity in the room. It is a true thing too, even if I am pandering to some degree. "I want to note right now something about Melissa. She was not given a fair fight. A chance to go face to face against the Sirens as we did. A sneak attack took her down, unawares. Once they had her, they never gave her a chance to fight. Melissa was handcuffed when she delivered to me, and the handcuffs not run-of-the-mill. Not cop cuffs or fur-lined ones from a sex shop. These things were manacles. Custom designed to hold a Vampire. That is part of why our situation is dangerous. They know they cannot beat us physically. They know they were hunted to near extinction before, and so they know that to go against us means they need to expose us to humans. That is their plan, and they will do it if they think they are being hunted again. It is no idle threat. They think they can escape human detection better than we can."

I waited for a second to punctuate this. "Or... At least they did. I gave them pause on that one, and I will get to that in a sec."

I really wanted this to be fully understood, so I waited again. I looked from left to right. A long, inclusive sweep of the eyes. I stopped and held some defiant eyes in a look. "How I stopped them from blowing our cover with humans is a side-effect of what I can do. Being Hypersensitive, I mean. I could not let them think they stood a chance of winning mutually assured destruction, via humans. The dirty little secret is that Sirens are actually correct. They are less evolved away from Human than we are. They can more easily hide among humans. In fact, they can interbreed with humans still, so in that respect, they are still of humans, even as they are really not. Not in any way that matters."

"This takes me to my first two points." I pushed my index finger back with the index finger of the other hand. "One: Vampires know that Sirens exist. Again. We can go looking for them. We have the senses to find them, once we understand what we are looking for. You all have Sirens living in your countries. Near you. If you hunt them and kill them, and it gets back to the Siren ruling body, they will use a scorched earth policy to kill us. All of us. They will use humans for a proxy war, and that is a war we cannot win."