Missing Vampire: Reward Available (Hypernaturals 6)

Kuzman

We headed back to the front door, past Marta, who watched us with no small amount of concern. I gave Kuzman points for balls: One on one with a Vampire. He had to know by reputation alone that if I took it into my head to pound him, he could do nothing about it.

As it is only the two of us and I can take care of myself, the Vampire squad stayed behind. I saw four pairs of unhappy eyes tracking me out of the room. I asked Angel to keep her eyes on him, and now I am leaving. The other three pairs have different reasons. The Crew paid more attention to the room, to their credit.

IR  scan of Kuzman showed he has no serious weapons. A small pocket knife. I know three pairs of eyes back there knew that too.

"So, Liaison. Again: what brings you to my Hall?" Kuzman asked, very curious but not hostile. Very self-confident. I am guessing he is a very good singer.

"About one month ago, I came through here. Found this Hall. I was herded here by some humans. Do you know anything about Human Supremacists? In the USA they call themselves the Human Purity Alliance. I have no idea if that is their name here or not."

"I have heard rumors that such humans exist, yes." Kuzman nodded. We walked slowly together through the rows of cars. I heard the Hall door open, and I am pretty sure four people came outside to watch me. Morgan would be able to hear us as well.

"They exist. I was captured by them in the USA and tortured. Their goal is to control and or wipe out all non-human species that look like them. Vampires first, but Sirens as well. They hate Vampires more, but they hate Sirens. We think that is because they do not like the idea of being involuntary blood donors MORE than they hate the idea that Sirens seduce them. You only seduce women, and for many humans, it's OK to treat women poorly. If Siren men liked having sex with human men, they would hate you all more than us, more than likely. Supremicicsts often are also homophobic. Once one is a bigot, you can hate anything."

"I see..."

"I was kidnapped, out of the airport in Istanbul. I was right at the terminal when they took me. Surprise attack. I escaped, killing three of them in the process. You might have read about that?"

"I read something about three well-armed bodies in an ambulance. No identification.  It set off the Turkish police for a while, but ultimately they could not determine who the people were, or how they came to be there. There was a rumor of a possible fourth person."

"I am that rumored fourth person, and I ran for my life from them. I only need to be tortured one time in my life to know I have no taste for it."

"I see." That seems to be Kuzman's go-to English phrase.

"As I ran across Europe to get to my family..." I thumbed back at the Hall without looking "Those four standing there on the porch in part."

Kuzman glanced back. "Yours?"

"Mine." That's going to amuse Angel to no end. "It took me about a month to get to them, and while I was running, I kept seeing vans full of HPA hired goons, and they pushed me, by virtue of their presence on roads and very obviously looking for me with high tech military gear, to this Hall. When I arrived here, I found four vans full of human Purists waiting for me, most of them on the outside guarding the place, but about ten to twelve on the inside. Their plan was to take me, then kill everyone here more than likely. Perhaps also take a few specimens of Sirens for study and vivisection."

I just used a word Kuzman did not have in his English. "Vivisection is studying a living being while they are alive, even awake. Cutting and taking specimens from. They stuck a needle in my right and for example. Also my knee and leg muscles. Things like that."