The metal grey building loomed like a gravestone, but Rhett still moved towards it. His large feet feather light on each of the sixty-five steps up to double wide doors that lead into the stale air of politics. The long coat protected him only from the harshness of the morning sun, but could do nothing once he entered. There were regal columns all around him, and every one of them declared the same thing: that he should be anywhere else but here.
There were already too many humans in this place for his comfort. They smelled of asinine concerns like missed cups of coffee and bureaucracy. The pettiness of their woes stunk, and Rhett felt his stomach turn in protest. A small woman with a severe bob haircut bumped up against him on her way to the exit. Her scowl became a look of slight alarm once she peered into Rhett’s eyes, and hurried away as fast as she could. This was nothing that Rhett wasn’t used to every day. Human expressions changing right in front of him once they understood once they realized in whose presence they stood.
There was no need to read the map at the side of the next hallway. Two right turns, then a left and straight ahead until he reached the dark blue door in the east wing. The same path that he had known for four decades, yet rarely taken.
He gave three sharp knocks and waited.
“Come in,” said a deep voice. “It’s open.”
Rhett turned the brass doorknob and entered a large office. The ebony desk sat close to an oversized window, and the walls were covered in large paintings of the city, all commissioned by little known artists who wanted to impress the ancient man sitting behind the desk. The crisp navy suit was a stark contrast to his paler wrinkled hands and face - a face which, at the moment, was tilted down as he scribbled with a pen on a piece of paper, his laptop forgotten on his left side.
“Seeing you here is troubling,” the older man said, still not looking up but gesturing a left hand to the seat opposite his desk. “I’m sure you’ll be brief. You usually are.”
Rhett said nothing, but sat down. His eyeline swept to the thinning hair, completely snow white now. Then to the deeply-lined face, and then to the noses they shared.
“You look older,” Rhett mentioned softly.
The elderly man chuckled, and finally looked up. His aquamarine eyes were a shade and intensity that made Rhett feel like their mother was seeing him from beyond the veil of death.
“It’s been three years since we’ve seen each other,” the other man said. “I am older.”
“I text you,” Rhett bristled, already annoyed by the way this conversation was going. “Send emails… stay in touch as much as I - ”
“What is it that you want, Rhett?” the man snapped. His voice was sterner now. As if Rhett was avoiding the pressing news he had for some ridiculous reason. “You only come here in person with your...”
The old man motioned again at him, this time with an impatience that the vampire hadn’t seen since they were both small children.
“With your sweeping coat and icy glare when there’s no other choice. You only see me… really see me when something is so beyond your depth that you need me to pull a few strings or use my influence. So, out with it. What the hell do you want?”
Apparently directness was a hereditary trait in their family. It had just laid dormant for the man who was staring at Rhett with such seriousness as he waited for yet another shoe to drop. The silence in the room was broken only by the soft ticking of the antique wall clock. Like a heartbeat that would eventually stop.
“I need pure blood, Cole,” Rhett murmured.
His older brother scoffed and then leaned forward in his chair.
“You know very well that you have the ability to go to the any of the registered blood clinics in the city to get your allotted six-month supply. No questions asked. So unless you somehow are suffering from a memory issue that I’m not aware of… then there’s more to it than that.”
Rhett couldn’t help but flinch at the level of awareness that Cole had always possessed, and even more so now with what old age and wisdom had given him, along with being in the Vampire and Human Relations Department for what was fast-approaching a half of a century.
“How many vials do you need?” Cole prompted. “I may be able to find a work-around to get you an advance… as long as it’s for an understandable - ”
“I need ten tubes,” Rhett said in a rush. It was actually more like twelve to fourteen, but he would be able to stretch out the supply in a couple of ways.
Cole’s jaw dropped, and his eyes went suddenly wide.
“ Ten ? Why in the world do you need that much? Wait, you’re not doing something insane like trying to start your own mixing dispensary, are you? There are laws and regulations for that, Rhett. Granted, I’m pleased that you’re wanting to finally take some business initiative to…”
Cole paused, then looked slightly crestfallen at Rhett’s face.
“So, that’s not it then.”
“No, it’s not.”
The silence was there once more, but this time there was a tentative amount of dread that accompanied it. Like the two brothers knew there was a bomb in the room, and it was only a matter of time before it went off. The ticking second hand of the wall clock didn’t help with this feeling.
“How old is she,” Cole whispered. The expression in his eyes desperate to be wrong on his second guess.
“It’s a he. Created last night,” Rhett answered, not returning his gaze. It was easier - better - to keep his face lowered to the dark tiled floor. What he did felt so much more shameful now, in the the light of the morning. His brother had spent over half of his life trying to protect him and others like him from being labeled as nothing but unfeeling monsters, and yet look at what he had fucking done. Due to a sensation of want that he hadn’t had for so long.
There was a rattled breath, but Rhett refused to look up into the wrinkled face.
“Fine then. He. ” Cole said. He sounded so far away. “And you are completely sure that he’s been turned?”
Rhett’s first nod was so stiff that he nodded again just to make sure that Cole registered his reply. “He smells like honeysuckle, Cole. Like the ones momma used to have in the backyard. It took me a while to connect the scent, but…”
“Shit,” Cole whispered. It was the second time in over a decade that Rhett could remember his older brother cursing. Rhett carefully tilted his face up to watch the elderly man become even older before his eyes. The balding head was in slightly shaking hands. “So it's not just that you were just passively involved…”
“I’m sorry,” Rhett said. The words felt dry and awkward in his mouth. Almost otherworldly. “It was wrong for me to throw this burden on you. I’ll go and see if I can figure - ”
Rhett had been halfway out of his chair when Cole held out his right hand, staying him. His heavily-lined cheeks and lips were both in quiet contemplation as Rhett sat back down, wondering what was going to happen next. Cole could do anything to him now. Rhett had more or less confessed to a capital crime. There was only so much that the government could bend to family ties.
“Did you care for this newborn while he was still human?”
Rhett knew that this question might come. It was one of the first questions that was always asked of the impending creator by the panel who assisted the rebirth. During regulated changes, the answer didn’t matter. The vampire chosen to turn the human was picked based on factors that had nothing to do with love or companionship.
“No, I did not,” Rhett said. “I came across him bleeding to death in an alley near my apartment.”
It was very apparent that Cole had not expected that answer. He had spent the majority of his later years becoming expertly good at hiding his emotions in the face of vampires. Yet Cole definitely looked visibly shaken by this revelation.
“You saved his life then?”
Cole’s voice came in a velvety layer of quiet admiration. The light eyes twinkling in the growing morning sunlight that floated through the giant window from behind him. Rhett didn’t respond, although his mind knew that this was exactly what had happened. Cole continued to stare.
“I need his name,” Cole said, after what seemed like years. “Along with everything that you know about this man.”
Rhett huffed, and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Charles Lincoln Neal,” Rhett began, “and he had a gun on him when I found him. Robbery gone wrong. Hadn’t asked him all the details yet.”
The sound of typing from the laptop joined the ticking of the clock. Slender fingers were speedy as Cole began preliminary searches of Link’s name in the data bases. The blue white glow of the screen illuminated his weariness more than ever.
“That’s all you have?” Cole questioned.
“Yes,” Rhett replied. “Unless you will force me to tell you his most potent childhood fears and fiercest sexual desires…”
Cole crinkled his nose with his face still glued to the monitor. “No to both, thank you.”
Within a few clicks of his mouse, Cole sighed heavily, and then turned his laptop around so that Rhett could see the screen. There - in what was clearly a black and white surveillance shot - was Link. His dark glasses on, sitting in the window seat of a diner not too far from the alley. His cup of coffee to his lips and plate still half full of eggs and bacon. Neither the hoodie or face ruined by bloodshed, and Rhett’s breath hitched at the sight. Link looked like he had seen a lot of heartache in his life, and in the starkness of the various shades of gray of the still picture, you could see that he was indeed, a very troubled man. The vivid blue eyes that Rhett had only seen for such a tiny amount of time before he’d sunken his fangs into Link’s burning flesh looked a stunning flash of silver in monochrome.
“So, this is him then?” Cole asked, way more gently than was warranted.
“Yes… that’s him.”
Cole sighed and then twisted the laptop back.
“He doesn’t have a known criminal record for anything,” Cole confirmed. “At least not here, so that may help us in the long run with getting him eventually registered. Is there anyone who can corroborate your claim as to how you found him?”
Rhett shook his head, still fixating on how lonely and hopeless Link had looked in that diner.
“Then that makes this more difficult,” Cole said dryly, “but not impossible. How has he taken to the changing so far, assuming that he is aware of it under the circumstances?”
“He is aware, and overall… other than the initial attack to feed, he's been settling down well. Had a vial I had stashed in my fridge about an hour ago.”
Cole hummed as he glanced back at the laptop. His hands occasionally typed or clicked the mouse on a spot that Rhett only could imagine.
“He's got a few notes here for psychological issues,” Cole remarked offhandedly. “But I'm sure that you're aware of that, you being an Emoter.”
“Yes, I'm aware.”
Cole chuckled again.
“What's so amusing?”
“It's nothing, just…”
The elderly man pulled his hands away from the keyboard and placed them in his lap. The soft note of nostalgia appeared in the blue-green eyes.
“You'll forever look like you did when you were changed, but inside you'll always be the same little boy drawn to a challenge. What our poor parents went through with your need to make things better. Just compelled to try to fix the world one broken toy or hurt baby bird at a time.”
Rhett sniffed in contempt at the sentimentality of the old, but kept his mouth shut. Him as a child was hardly relevant to who he was now, despite some vague similarities to what was happening.
“I may have to use every bit of my political clout that I have left, but… if you truly do want to follow whatever this is, Rhett… I’ll do it. I’ll protect you one last time, as long as you use the protection to help him, too.”
Cole pointed at the screen, and even though Rhett couldn’t see Link’s face anymore, he knew of course who Cole meant. There was a rush of painful warmth that flooded his chest and upper arms. It was something so close to gratefulness that Rhett almost needed to leave the room. To run away. But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
“Thank you, but… I must know why? I only need blood, not for you to potentially destroy your entire career for a reckless mistake that I - ”
Cole raised his hand again, and just as when they were little boys, Rhett always stopped to listen. For the first time since forever, the blue-green eyes were so kind that it broke Rhett a little inside.
“I see the way that you reacted to him, little brother. And don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re going to say. That it’s just your body’s endorphins and dopamine and all the other chemicals that ramp up during a change. I’ve known you now for seventy of my seventy-five years on this world, and I know when you care about someone, Rhett. And I know what you look like when you’re opened to something more. Whatever this man - or should I say, what this new vampire has - is calling to you. I haven’t seen it in such a long time… that it’s worth me sticking my neck out.”
Rhett was smiling, and for once it felt okay to do so. Cole smiled back.
“Besides, we always knew you’d be the death of me eventually. Might as well make it a worthwhile one.”