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“No. I expect them to be fucking warned.”
“We shouldn’t have come back,” another voice said.
Athelinda’s head snapped around. “This is our home.”
“We can find another settlement.”
She slammed her hand down on the polished arm of the chair. “No. Not again.” She flashed an angry glance around the room. “Have you forgotten why we came? For Merilyn. We stay. And we protect what is ours.”
“How?” This from one of the younger Colony members. Jonah. “Seems like we’re just waiting around for them to kill us.”
Murmurs of agreement from his friends beside him.
“We’re waiting to be proven innocent,” Athelinda said steadily.
“They’ll use the kid’s death as an excuse to attack us.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Attack them first. Take them while they are sleeping.”
Athelinda rolled her eyes. “And then what? How will you fight against the soldiers that come? The UV grenades that flay the skin from your face. Do you think you can pick up your limbs and put yourself back together after a missile strike?”
He scowled. “So we just do nothing? We let them treat us like animals they can murder at will?”
“We do not attack first,” Athelinda said, more firmly.
“Maybe we should.” Cain again. “Maybe it’s time for a Gathering.”
The Gathering—the last mythical battle between humans and vampyrs. The victors gathered the souls of the fallen. Many vampyrs, especially the young, romanticized the idea. Probably because they had never actually had to fight for their survival.
Athelinda stood. “Ever killed a human? Ever killed anything other than a goat or a pig?”
Cain stared at her sullenly but didn’t reply.
Athelinda nodded. “I have. More than you could imagine. I’ve feasted on their corpses. Some days I dream of doing it again. But I don’t. Because killing them only endangers us. I won’t put the Colony at risk because you have a hard-on for human flesh. Now, are there any more questions, or are we done?”
A hand rose in the crowd. Gwyneth, a graceful, quiet woman with two young daughters.
“Yes?” Athelinda said now.
“Will this affect the supplies?”
A good question.
“Right now, I don’t know,” she said carefully. “However, we should operate on the assumption that they will be delayed, or perhaps suspended for a time.”
Unhappier murmurs. Athelinda could feel their questions crowding her head. Uncertainty, fear…and hunger.
“We can survive without the supplies,” she said firmly.
True. But what was survival if everything pleasurable had been stripped from it? Athelinda had long ago realized that the mind, human or vampyr, was not designed to endure long periods of absolute reality. It was why we dreamed, of course. But also, why we made up stories, read books, watched plays and films. It was also why humans drank and took drugs. For vampyrs, there were other stimulants that eased the long nights of the soul.
“And I think we’d all like to know—how is Merilyn?” This from Gwyneth again.
Merilyn. Athelinda felt the knot in her stomach tighten. She fought back the lump rising in her throat. Merilyn was the oldest member of the Colony and the last of her kin. Merilyn’s husband had passed fifty years ago, and her children and only grandson were now also dead. Athelinda bit back hard on this thought because the anger and grief it conjured in her would be too much, and she could not let the mask of composure drop.
“She is dying.” She cleared her throat. “It won’t be long now.”
