I spent the night observing how matters were being handled at New Haven, mostly to fill my time until Jamie would wake up and I could talk to him again. The situation was rendering me rather dismal.
Once I grew tired of poking my nose into the humans' affairs and was satisfied that things seemed to be in order, I wandered around and spoke with the night guards. Most of them did not seem to find my presence to be particularly troublesome, but neither did they seem particularly welcoming. I supposed it made sense. Unlike my home, if this place were to be discovered, my duplicity would be quickly uncovered along with it. We were not quite ready for that interesting moment yet.
Still, images of a world of free humans doing and making interesting things swirled through my mind. I missed the kaleidoscope of humanity and I wanted it back, but I could be patient. The current game was still afoot.
And there was another game that still maintained my attention even more than my desire for the new world I wanted to build. I could scarcely wait for the moment when I would see Jamie again. I was eager to explore this new situation in which we were no longer antagonists.
The night dragged on so terribly slowly that I could almost imagine that the vampire affliction had affected the whole world and caused it to fall out of the stream of time, but finally then the first light tinted the eastern horizon.
Fighting the most absurd urge to go and drag Jamie out of bed like an overeager puppy, I made small talk with the fresh guards who came on after the change of shift.
Finally, I simply sent a human to go and find out if he was awake, because I could not take the wait any longer, and it would be inconvenient for me to show Jamie around the compound after the sun came up so my impatience even had a practical level. The errand boy, Gene, the product of another former human indiscretion, ran with enthusiasm to find Jamie, while I waited and tried not to look like I was extremely excited to see him. The fact that I was even tempted to act with such undignified enthusiasm was indeed a bad sign of how terribly this man had gotten under my skin.
And then, instead of Gene returning, the very object of my obsession left the main residence and come towards me without any sign of hesitation. I could not help but admire his intrinsic fearlessness and the strong form that contained it. My smile was naturally borne of my pleasure. "Good morning," I said to him.
"Good morning."
It was so simple, a meaningless greeting, but at the same time the lack of hostility stuck me hard. His ire had indeed been endlessly amusing, but...
Was this, perhaps, what I had wanted from the first, but had feared to dare hope for?
I covered my inward confusion with another confident smile. It was one thing to talk to Jamie of vampiric weaknesses and another entirely to possibly demonstrate my own.
"So, I imagine that Shania showed you around the residence already, Jamie."
"She did."
"And you've eaten already?" Gene might have interrupted his meal, for all I knew, and it was generally important to keep my humans properly fed.
"Yeah." He looked at me. "Have you?"
"I fed before we left home. I dislike risking blood starvation. Terrible things happen when you starve a vampire. I'll have a bite again shortly before I return. Come along now, Jamie. I've got things to show you."
He started walking without complaint.
I started his tour with a bit of pleasing drama as we walked. "So, this, as you already know, is New Haven, the heart of the human rebellion I began to nurture when the obnoxious council blowhards became too much to bear. We chose this location because of the natural fortifications blocking it from easy discovery. My home is actually quite near the edge of my territory, and the only proper road through leads straight to there, it's all terrible gravel roads to my other various enterprises."
He seemed to be listening with some interest, so I continued talking. "New Haven isn't the only place where such activities take place, but it is where most of the leaders of the effort are stationed. I'll introduce you to them as we go. Did I tell you what you're going to be doing here?"
"Somewhat."
"Hmmm, yes, I had been just figuring it out as I went, since I had been so surprised that you had returned. Now, it's set, I'm going to have you work under Connor. As I said, he's in need of some assistance, and I think your unique abilities will be useful, although I'm going to leave it to him to decide how to go about utilizing them. Back at my home, Leif helps with coordination between myself and New Haven as well as strategy, and has a number of humans underneath him, although probably not as many as he should have. Leif's one of those sorts who wants to keep a firm grasp on every little matter. Connor handles everything on this end, and he also could use more help in my opinion, which is where you come in."
As we walked, I pointed out various buildings and Jamie listened with quiet attentiveness. Had he been so reserved before Jack and his ilk had murdered his family?
Realizing I was sidetracked by the puzzling human yet again, I turned my attention back to our destination.
"And this, this is the main operations hub, where much of the planning and organization goes on. While I do trust you, Jamie, it's always better to keep the information to a minimum with these things. Connor will let you know what you specifically need to know in your capacity working with him."
I walked toward the door and strode inside. The building was fairly quiet because it was early, but there were at least a couple humans moving around inside. I led Jamie in the direction of the sounds, and found myself at Connor's door.
I could not quite resist messing with him, just a bit. With a grin, I said, "Go on, knock. Immortality is no reason to be rude, is it?"
His face was studiously blank, and then he raised his fist and knocked. Jamie met my eyes and raised his eyebrow. "Did I pass your test this time?"
I laughed, rather in spite of myself. "Of course. How could you not?"
The door opened and Connor's assistant Belle peered out into the hall. "Oh, Mistress Vienne. Are you looking for Connor?"
"He's not here yet?"
"My apologies. He should be in any minute." She let us into office and then scurried away like a frightened mouse. The nervous human seemed a terrible candidate for a member of the rebellion in temperament, but she was a very good right hand woman for Connor and he seemed satisfied with her performance so I tried not to judge her anxious jumpiness too harshly. I was indeed impressively intimidating, so perhaps there was another side to her that I simply did not see.
Steady footsteps approached, so I turned to see Connor approaching. As always, he was impeccably neat from his perfectly groomed hair to his pleated pants.
"Greetings, Vienne. Were you waiting long?"
"Not at all," I assured him. "Your timing is, in fact, perfect."
But first, introductions. As far as I knew, Jamie hadn't met the older man during his previous forced visit to New Haven. I rather doubted Connor was any happier about the whole staking incident than any of my other humans, but I wanted to facilitate a good relationship between them going forward. I dearly wanted Jamie to be satisfied with his decision to return to me.
And, the best way to deal with a gaping wound was to further aggravate it, was it not?
"Jamie, this is Connor, the head of my hidden military. Connor, I'm certain you've heard of Jamie and his rather keen talent for staking vampires. I've some experience firsthand and he is most impressive."
Jamie stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Connor merely raised an eyebrow and commented, "Evidently."
Perhaps he was not as bothered as the others, which could only be good for Jamie's future here.
"So, I know you only found out that you were going to have Jamie working under you yesterday, but I'm curious at what your first thoughts are on his utilization."
Connor looked between the two of us and settled on the human. "Well, I obviously don't know you as of yet, Jamie, but from reports and Leif's impressions, we'll find a use for you yet. I believe you can read?"
"Yes, I can."
"That's good. There was also the suggestion of getting you involved in training since you've got practical experience few others have."
Connor continued talking, and Jamie nodded periodically. I sat back and watched the exchange. I was pleased by Connor's unemotional and businesslike approach to Jamie. This was going to work. I smiled at the confirmation of my brilliance in delegating and stopped listening because Connor's words had begun to bore me.
Instead, I examined Jamie's profile as he seemed to become increasingly comfortable with the older human. His form relaxed just a bit, not entirely of course, since his unthinking habit seemed to be always on guard. How much of that had been instilled in him by his parents, and how much of it after their deaths?
I wanted to know more about him, and not just the things that I could surmise by observation. Neither did I want to force the information from him. How did one draw a human into a conversation as if an equal, without vexing or intimidating or commanding him? Perhaps I would watch the humans around me more closely and learn their methodology.
Belle returned to the room and returned to her desk after a quick greeting to Connor. She glanced a couple of times at me furtively, and I also did not miss the way her eyes strayed to Jamie a few times with an entirely different expression than the caution she directed at me.
Quite suddenly, my satisfaction at my genius plan for so cleverly placing Jamie slipped away and that feeling similar to sharing my feeders with other vampires took its place. Was I jealous?
On the surface, the idea was absurd. I was well aware that I was possessive of my humans, but I did not typically care what they got up to amongst themselves insofar as I was not inconvenienced.
The thought was intensified by another glance from Belle in his direction. Apparently her inferior human vision could still see well enough to know that he was an excellent example of human aesthetics.
But jealousy? What absurdity. Even as a human I had had little use for the emotion. My family had been extremely wealthy and I had been gifted the beauty and the intelligence to turn situations to my advantage, and my indefinite state only heightened my abilities. I had always been the one who had inspired jealousy in others.
I mulled over the possibility that I, the ancient Vampiress Vienne, might feel jealous that a female human was looking at my favourite male with such clear appreciation. She would surely not be the only one. Jamie was uniquely impressive, and I had no doubt that his fearlessness would only heighten their interest in the same way that it had piqued my own.
Worse, there was a higher concentration of females here than at my own home. I had little competition for his attention when he had been constantly surrounded by my favourites, but here there would surely be more females who wished to capture his heart.
And I found that I very much wanted to obtain that heart for myself.
Of course, I could simply order all the females to stay away from him and I had little doubt that they would obey. I could use compulsion upon them so that they could not see his virtues. It would be easy enough to call Belle away and order her to ignore her attraction to him. As much as the idea appealed, I brushed it away.
Surely, I could win him over as I had won over the other humans who had loved me. I was certainly at a disadvantage since he had always bore such an instinctive hatred of my kind, but my games with humans were always more fun when I had a handicap to make it more challenging.
I had found my new game. My usual tricks and strategies were unlikely to work, but I was going to master this challenge and win this one if I had anything to say about it.