I woke in the morning to the sound of Theo rummaging around in some of the supplies he brought along to the capital. They had taken to storing several boxes on one of the extra beds in the room.
I did not complain, instead I simply made my way to a washroom and shaved, showered, and got dressed. I went out to the kitchen where the tall Jeffry was cooking breakfast. I considered helping, but it felt too much like the other humans' unthinking obedience to the leech.
Also, the location reminded me of talking to her when I had awoken the previous night.
Her human facade was fairly good, there were moments when I almost forgot what I was talking to and that was a fool move. I was losing my focus.
I could not afford to lose my focus. Melissa deserved revenge, humanity deserved revenge. I could not take them all out, but I could take out some, most especially the one whose face was burned into my mind. Once I got him, I would have greater freedom in choosing my targets.
I pushed aside the thought that she had almost seemed pleased with the idea of me killing other vampires. I did not want to do what she wanted me to do, but at the same time, what would I have done after I killed him if I had not met her?
Maybe I could get printouts of some of the worst leeches while I was back in the leech's lair and focus my efforts after he was gone from the world. It would make my life count for something in the end, because I had nothing else to give.
I was getting ahead of myself. There was no guarantee that he was even in there and if he was not I would be back to my search.
I wandered out into the entryway, just in time to see the leech come striding in through the door.
"Good morning," she said genially and then those hazel eyes fixed on me. "Jamie."
"Morning, Mistress." I tried to minimize my sarcasm.
She must have still heard it, because her soft lips stretched into that annoying smile again. I hated that beautiful face and the deceptive softness of her features.
"How were your council meetings, Mistress?" asked Javier as he wandered into the room behind me.
"Very good," she told him. "Sadly, my bill was defeated, but I sent Councillor Magnus's bill down as a flaming pile of refuse so the night was not a total loss."
"What was his bill?" I asked without thinking and then added as an afterthought, "Mistress."
She smiled more widely at my interest until her fangs clearly showed. "He wanted to increase the fledgling allotment to five new vampires per century. I'm sure we can all agree that there are more than enough vampires already, don't you think? I don't want more fangs near my property."
She went on before I could decide whether I was supposed to answer. "The human population is already in decline as it is. The idea is terribly short sighted."
I frowned. "No more than increasing the hunting season."
"Increasing the hu—?" Javier began and then stopped suddenly at a sharp look from the leech.
I glanced between her wicked smile and his confusion and wondered what I was missing. I decided I would not care.
Javier shrugged.
"You're both dismissed. Don't worry your pretty little human heads about politics."
My temper flared as she watched me with that annoying fake human smile of hers. I left the room.
* * * * *
As I spent time with the leech's slaves, I gradually began to notice that they were far from overworked. Other than supplying her blood, amusing her, and occasional orders, she asked very little of any of us. Most of my daily tasks while in the capital seemed to be concerned with maintaining her chambers and taking care of our own mortal needs. One of the tech slaves had been called upon on to provide blood for her coffee and Greg had been chosen to feed her, but otherwise we were left relatively undisturbed.
The others occupied themselves in various ways. I spent my time fantasizing about getting a look at the updated information we had stolen. I could not stop myself from hoping that he would be in there and that I might finally get revenge for Melissa.
As to what I would do after I managed that, maybe I could remember some of the worst vampires I had seen in her database and start staking them off one by one. There was not much else that I had to give to the world, and at least it would give my life meaning once I had achieved my goal.
* * * * *
Several days passed when the relatively peaceful idleness was broken by a knock on the door. Agro was the nearest of her trusted slaves, so he went to the door. Henry, one of the tech slaves, stood at attention so I copied him since I imagined he knew more about being a proper slave than I did.
Agro opened the door, revealing a small group with a vampire in the lead. He ducked his head towards the bloodsucker and stepped out of the way. His muscles seemed more tense than his usual preening cockiness.
I kept my gaze lowered, but watched surreptitiously as he led four humans into the room. They were shackled to the wall by the lead leach, exactly where Trisha and I had been when we had first been bought.
Once the humans were secured, the two vampires left the room and Agro shut the door behind them. Henry seemed to be watching him for guidance and followed as Agro left the room.
I did not leave immediately. I looked at the new humans and could practically feel their bonds on my own arms. I had been far from the only one down in the slave pits, but it was likely all the other humans who had been there with me were likely long gone in new places of misery, if they were even still alive at all. These would have been new slaves that had been hunted from the wilds or sold by their vampiric masters.
It would be out of line for me to talk to them and I would not have cared and done it anyways, but my promise to the leech made me hold my tongue. I did not want to give her an excuse to stop me from looking for that information. After I had found him, or found that he was not in the council's information, I would properly defy her as I pleased.
There was one female among the humans, pretty with shocking orange hair. She was stick thin and looked young, maybe even as young as fourteen or fifteen. I could not imagine why the leech had chosen her if she was looking for high quantities of blood, although who could say what she might be thinking.
The other three were all male and seemed to fit her pretty male requirements, so I did not question that choice further.
Only one looked at me, a man who was probably younger than me and very lean, but not with the appearance of near starvation. I did not let my sympathy show. I doubted he would want that. Instead I acknowledged him with a nod of my head before leaving the room.
* * * * *
I was waiting with the others when the leech finally returned to her chambers. She waltzed into her rooms with that satisfaction that was almost always prevalent, as if everything in her life was always her way.
My earlier temper had resurged at the reminder that she was no better than other vampires, a creature of cruelty and slavery. I was mostly furious at myself that I had somehow forgotten her nature for even one minute. I tried not to let it show.
She made her way directly over to her newest acquisitions. She stopped at the female. "What's your name, human?"
The girl whimpered.
"What was that?" she repeated. The girl flinched.
"Barb."
"Mmhmm. Delicious."
The girl made another pitiful sound.
The leech moved on to the next human. "And your name?"
He was as dark as Rocky, but not nearly as large. He did not say anything.
"Come on, fifty-seven three hundred and twenty-two. I asked you a question. Surely they taught you in the pens to always answer the question of your vampiric betters?"
"Stick it, leech."
Well, I liked this guy.
She smiled as if delighted and I was reminded that she seemed to get perverse satisfaction from being challenged. The poor man did not know that he was giving the leech exactly what she wanted.
"Come now, if you don't tell me I'll do unspeakably painful things to you. Is that what you want? All I want to know is what your human given name is. Holding it back will only hurt you in the long run."
She ran a long nail along his neck and he tried to twist away from her.
"Tell me," she said.
"Travis."
"Very, very good. I believe we're going to have a delightful time together, Travis."
The next man did not even try to resist. He was fairly muscular, considering he seemed to have been out roaming the wilds, but he had a nervous tick. I was certain he had seen some bad things in his time.
"Evan."
"I had not even asked you, yet. Perhaps I had a different question?"
"Sorry," he gasped. He was sweating and kept his eyes away from her. I pitied him.
She moved onto the final one who had met my eyes earlier, as if she had all the time in the world. "And last, but I suspect not least, what's your name, human?"
"Mark," he said. He glanced at me. I kept my face straight, hoping that he would understand not all the humans in her possession were completely under her control. At least one of us could remember what she really was.
She stepped back from the humans chained to the wall. She turned to us. "Marcel, Jeffry, Greg, Mantis, Javier, clean these four up to an acceptable standard. Jamie, you're dismissed. Mantis, come see me afterwards."
I wanted to disagree for the sake of disagreement, but at the same time I really did not want to be party to enslaving other humans, so it was just as well she was sending me away.
Let the leech lovers handle it. I wanted no part.