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“Go ahead,” I tell him, feeling like a scolded child.
“You are familiar with the Hawthorn I presume?” he asks. “The river that runs through Tribane, splitting it in half.”
“Yes.” I reply in a quiet voice.
“Well, the South side of the Hawthorn is vampire territory, while that which lies on the North side of the river belongs to the Slayers, the Dhamphirs, and,” he glances at Marcel with an amused expression, “the magic wielding humans.”
My mind is a labyrinth of shock, amazement and confusion, not to mention still being a tad slow from the alcohol I consumed last night. Plus, I think I’m still suffering from the after effects of Ethan’s revelation that vampires are actually real, so excuse me if it takes a while for all of this to sink in. There are magic wielding humans? Is that just a fancy definition for a witch?
My relatively easy acceptance of all this is actually scaring me a little. I should be locked in my bedroom right now in fear for my life. But here I am, facing the situation head on, maybe I’m not such a coward after all.
“Okay, so why exactly do I need to know all this?” I ask with worry.
“Because,” says Ethan, “in a very short space of time you have caught the interest of two opposing parties, and there has to be a reason for that. I do not believe in coincidence.”
“Yeah well,
I didn’t believe in vampires two days ago, but look at me now, all entangled in some sort of supernatural politics.”
“Even so,” replies Ethan. “We must get to the bottom of this, and venture to come to an agreeable conclusion. Now, if I might explain,” he says, looking to Marcel seemingly for permission. Marcel gives a swift nod of his head.
“Very good,” says Ethan. “Tegan, your new employer here, Mr Marcel Girard, proprietor of Indigo and Head Warlock of district two is loyal to the Governor of North Tribane, Mr Siegfried Pamphrock. Pamphrock is a dhamphir and leader of the DOH.” Ethan addresses Marcel now, a vaguely satisfied expression on his face. “Tegan came into contact with your Defenders of Humanity last night Mr Girard, a terrible messy business that was.”
“Yes,” says Marcel, without a speck of emotion. “A team was sent to clean up that very mess early this morning.”
“Good, good,” says Ethan with frightening cheeriness, as though he could stab Marcel with one swift thrust of a dagger and be grinning manically all the while. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was telling Tegan the true identity of her new work mates. So, Mr Girard’s business partner here, Gabriel Forbes,” he pronounces the name slowly, with cruelty in his blue grey eyes, “is a dhamphir Wiccan, and therefore his loyalties too lie with Governor Pamphrock. You never could decide what you wanted to be could you Gabriel? A witch or a dhamphir, but then again, the minds of simplistic folk are generally indecisive, are they not?”
I’m not sure if I like how Ethan is acting toward Gabriel, who appears as though he might jump from his seat and attack Ethan at any moment, but then I see his tense shoulders relax with some effort and he replies calmly, “I never considered simplicity to be a negative attribute.”
“Of course not –” says Ethan, about to say something else when I interrupt.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “You said that all dhamphirs are enemies of vampires and live on the North side of the river, but isn’t Delilah a dhamphir? So how is it that she seems to be aligned with the vamps? And another thing, if dhamphirs are the offspring of vampires then why are they also your enemies?” I finish, proud of myself for having picked up on an inconsistency in this information.
“Delilah is an isolated case,” says Ethan, taking a minute to glance at his half-sister with genuine affection, as she stands by the door at the back of the office.
“Our father was a very powerful man when he was alive, and she was his only daughter. That meant she was special, you see, so she was raised with vampires on vampire territory. Normally dhamphirs are rejected by our race because their blood is not pure, so they’re raised by their human parent after they are born, and in most cases they are taught by their human mother or father to despise the vampire race because their vampire parent rejected them. A lover scorned and all that. Once fully grown, a young dhamphir is normally head hunted by the DOH and recruited into their organisation to kill vampires. It is highly important for them to recruit dhamphirs as it is believed, though disputable, that they possess all of the strengths of a vampire with none of the weaknesses.
“For example, our sensitivity to daylight is cancelled out in a dhamphir by their human genes. Also, they only require a minuscule amount of blood to survive. The DOH was created by a dhamphir, but it is largely made up of human slayers, since dhamphir births are few and far between, often the DNA refuses to mix.” Ethan stops speaking here, and the room is encased in silence.
I study Marcel and Gabriel, sitting tensely in their seats, and wonder why they didn’t speak up and defend the dhamphirs and the DOH while Ethan spoke so matter of factly about them. Surely they would have something to say about the glib way in which he spoke of an organisation they are supposed to be loyal to. Or maybe their silence is due to the fact that they’re outside of their territory, and it would be unwise to start a fight when they are in such a vulnerable position.
The gap in conversation gives me a moment to clarify everything in my head. So, Marcel is a warlock, the male version of a witch. And Gabriel is a dhamphir, a human/vampire hybrid. And I, foolish, bad luck having, danger courting, broken mirror that I am, have become messed up in all of these petty, antagonistic politics.
“So if this Pamphrock guy is the head of the DOH, then who is the leader of the vampires?” I ask, breaking the period of silence.
Ethan grins. “That would be my good friend Sir Howard Herrington, he would be akin to your City Mayor. He governs over vampire territory, everything that lies on the South side of the Hawthorn.”
“Sounds…important and terrifying,” I answer with sarcasm, not liking Ethan’s superior tone of voice. Gabriel lets out a heavy sigh, and for some reason Marcel looks uncomfortable, as though trying hard to stifle a laugh. I wonder why. Perhaps there’s something funny about this Sir Howard Herrington. Gabriel looks at me then, for the first time since I’d entered the office, and he smiles.
Ethan scowls vaguely in my direction as though humouring my comment. “If you say so,” he replies. “Anyway, if I might continue, the problem that arises here is quite the anomaly. In general, very few humans know of our existence, the exceptions lie mostly with those recruited into the DOH, or if they are a member of one of the twelve magic holding families. Aside from these there are a small amount of blood donors, but they are usually drained of blood so often that they are no more than empty shells. They do not have much in the way of conscious thought.”
“So you take people from their lives and turn them into your own personal blood donors,” I conclude. “Don’t you have any kind of a conscience about that?”
“They volunteer,” Ethan replies harshly. “It is of no concern to me what people do of their own free will. You Tegan, however, are not a blood donor nor a slayer nor a magic holder, and so, we must decide what to do about you. This gentleman here,” he gestures to the vampire beside Lucas, “is David Rollans, and he is one of our rare neutral vampires. He is loyal to neither Pamphrock nor Herrington. Of course, that kind of a station comes with its own dangers, however that is beside the point at the moment. Due to his position as neutral, David is to be our mediator here today. His presence is required for Marcel and Gabriel to be present in vampire territory. If he were not here, their crossing the river would be seen as an act of open aggression and would have to be dealt with accordingly. In the same way that the presence of the slayers who followed us last night was a hostile act. When an individual or group of individuals from either side crosses the river they are in essence declaring war.”
I let that sink in, realising that my apartment is in fact in vampire territory. Now there’s an unsettling thought. I’d much rather live amongst the slayers and the warlocks, at least they aren’t going to try to drink my blood. There is a tension filled silence for a minute that is gratefully broken by a gentle knock on the door.
“Come in,” Ethan calls, and a leggy blonde enters wearing a black boob tube and a denim mini skirt with red leather high heeled ankle boots. I ponder what kind of agreement is going to be made about me. The vampires seem to have a hard time messing with my mind, so wiping my memory as Lucas did Amanda’s last night is out of the question. My heart beats rapidly as my stupid brain conjures up images of my dead body, wrapped in bin liners, being dumped into the Hawthorn.
