“NAOKO INFORMS ME you are aware of the standard means by which vampires are made,” Brick began, his voice infused now with more of his Louisiana drawl.

“…He tells me that you determined the patterns there, the biological linkages between humans and ourselves. While he also told me that information used to be restricted within your leadership, given the outburst of your friend there…”

Brick motioned a lazy hand towards Jem.

“…I’m going to go forward assuming that has changed in the time since Naoko was a part of that team.”

The vampire glanced around the table, measuring us.

His eyes remained utterly still as he went on in a voice that still held a hint of that presence-infused melody.

“Naoko tells me your scientists know of our blood types, and how they interact with the DNA of specific humans. He tells us you know how those linkages determine which humans we are easily able to turn into vampires and which we are not.”

Without waiting for an answer, he looked at me.

“It is true. All of it. That is normally the only way we propagate our species.”

He glanced at Nick, giving him an openly affectionate look that made my teeth grind.

Before I could look away from either of them, Brick’s crystal eyes returned to Black.

“The reason for that is simple. We value our own lives.” The vampire’s eyes remained serious, borderline grim as he surveyed our side of the table. “Newborns are unstable. They are volatile. Many of them die. Many of them commit suicide. Many of them simply cannot control themselves and must be put down for the safety of our community as a whole. They often have little respect for, or understanding of, the need for anonymity of our race. Some of them turn on their sires, or on vampire-kind as a whole.”

Pausing, Brick gestured towards Nick for emphasis.

“They do rash things,” he added, his fangs showing briefly as he looked at Nick’s face. A kind of frustrated fondness rose there, like a parent being forced to apologize for a vandalizing child. “Like lying to and manipulating their masters to get free of their supervision for several hours. Like deliberately going against orders and attacking the dear friends of those with whom their masters would like to forge an alliance…”

Letting his words trail briefly, Brick shook his head.

His crystal eyes returned to Black’s.

“I am sorry for that, Quentin… truly,” he said heavily. “As I told you on the phone, Naoko is still working through some issues associated with his new condition. Dorian is doing his best to instruct him, and to calm him. Naoko is quite stubborn, however. He is also quite clever, and often finds ways to evade us that are most unexpected.”

Seeing the fond look he aimed at Nick, I felt my teeth clench harder.

They continued to grind together the longer he spoke.

“…In any case,” Brick added, giving me a faint glance. “My point is, vampires do not often tie their own lifespans to such unstable creatures willingly. Because vampires must be of a certain age before their venom matures enough that they can sire little vampires, those who could sire a new vampire have generally been around long enough to be quite comfortable and happy with what they are.”

For the first time, Brick allowed himself a faint smile.

“…For the same reason, most vampires of that age are not willing to risk their own lives to create a newborn who could quite possibly get them killed in a matter of months, if not days, or even hours. Therefore, unless there is very good reason to do so, my kind generally only create new vampires through the genetic compatibility of our venom. That way, if the newborn does something colossally stupid…”

Holding up his hands in a kind of helpless gesture, he looked at me.

“…the vampire sire does not die as a result of that stupidity. The young vampire merely extinguishes his or her own new existence… and the wheel of time grinds on.”

Brick glanced around at all of our faces, either to gauge our understanding, or our reactions to his words, or both.

“What I did in creating Naoko is exceedingly rare,” Brick added. “Exceedingly rare. Truly, it is almost never done, particularly in these modern times, where there are so many ways one might unwittingly kill oneself. Particularly now that seers roam among us.”

He paused on Jem’s face, then looked at Black.

“Therefore, I am not remotely surprised that no one in either your Pentagon science labs…” Again, that flash of fang. “…nor in your own, personal medical teams, Quentin, ever came across even a single case of it.”

Brick leaned back in his chair.

“Naoko is unique,” he said simply. “Truly, I would not be at all surprised if he is one of only a small handful of vampires alive created in such a way. Normally it only occurred back in our early years, and then generally for one of two reasons. Love…”

He glanced at me, his dark eyebrow quirked.

“…or for purposes of ending or taking over a particular human bloodline. That generally happened with human royalty, or some other clan of political or cultural significance. It was also generally done as part of a broader racial strategy.”

Glancing around at our faces, Brick went on in that serious voice of his, his expression wiped of any trace of humor.

“When we are first born,” he said, glancing at Nick with a faint frown. “We are a bit sociopathic, I’m afraid. That would be the modern term, I believe. Sociopathic. Psychopathic. Imbued with a lack of conscience and deeply anti-social tendencies towards those apart from ourselves. We behave as what has come to be known colloquially as ‘serial killers.’”

Turning, he gave me a grim stare.

“This is a stage within our development. Personally, I believe is evolutionarily determined to a degree, in that it gets us over any initial squeamishness about our new state of being… our new dietary requirements, in particular. We are given a period of time… weeks sometimes, usually months, sometimes years… where none of the emotional impact of our change disrupts our physical adjustments to our new biological categorization.”

Lingering briefly on the words in his Louisiana drawl, Brick quirked an eyebrow at me.

A smile never touched his lips.

“It is quite distressing, of course, for those who knew the newborn as human,” he conceded. “The newborn truly does seem to be a different person entirely… devoid of the empathy, emotional connection, understanding, and, well, humanity, that their loved ones were accustomed to experiencing in them from before. It is quite normal to think that every hint of who they once were, every trace of their previous personality, has been erased as a function of the transformation. For many, it seems easier to view that person as dead.”

Brick’s eyes again fell on me.

After a pause, he infused his voice with that compelling melody, gently hammering each word.

“This. Phase. Passes,” he said, holding my gaze. “It is a mere blip in the life of a fully transformed vampire. One that keeps them alive, and feeding, and away from sharp objects they might be tempted to use on themselves, were they feeling particularly maudlin some night over their change in life circumstances and diet.”

Brick swiveled his gaze from me to Black.

“You, Quentin, changed my mind about seers,” he said simply. “I know you think I am toying with you, calling you friend, establishing short-term alliances with you only to betray your trust… but there is some seriousness to my teasing with you. I do wish us to be friends. Moreover, my mental change on this topic has only manifested over time, which partly accounts for my vacillations in mood when it came to possible alliance with you in the long term.”

Frowning, he leaned back in his chair, measuring Black with his eyes.

“Prior to meeting you and your lovely wife, I confess, my goals in addressing your kind’s presence on my world were straightforward. Truly, there was only one goal. There was only one strategy. I intended to wipe you and all of your offspring out. Utterly, and completely.”

He made a vaguely apologetic gesture with one hand.

“You see, I truly saw it as my Earth, Quentin. I saw your kind as aliens and interlopers. Moreover, from what I’d been told, you’d somehow managed to mangle your own world and so wanted to steal a not-insignificant portion of mine. As such, since you were not natives here, you had no intrinsic rights to live or exist here. If you posed a threat, which you clearly did in my view, you lost those rights altogether. Like with any invasive, dangerous species, I saw myself as fully within my rights to defend myself. Moreover, I thought the means of defending myself and my people was simple. Extermination.”

His lip curled in a delicate frown, flashing a bit of white fang.

“Charles is not a good ambassador for your kind, Quentin,” he added, his voice a touch colder. “I can see now, how my opinions about your race were built largely on prejudices stemming from assumptions I’d made about your race’s character… most of which, it gradually became apparent, I gleaned from observing Charles.”

Brick’s crystal eyes flickered up from where he’d frowned down at the table.

“I now believe I was wrong in many of those assumptions,” he said, unfolding his fingers in a quick display of his palms before weaving them back together. “I believe our species can share this world peaceably, Quentin. But in order for that to happen, you need to understand us, just as I feel I am gradually coming to understand you.”

From next to me, I felt a plume of fury leave Black’s light.

I didn’t look over at him, but felt my light wind and coil more deeply into his.

I honestly don’t know if I did that to calm him down, or more because I resonated with what I felt there, in his light.

Like Black, I was following the trail the vampire king was leading us all down.

I was already understanding why he’d decided to do this to my friend, and the sheer, inhuman calculation of it was enough to make me want to rip his heart out where he sat.

I didn’t move though, or speak, and after a pause, Brick went on.

“Do you know that some of my people believe we are relatives, in a sense… seers and vampires? That we are biological permutations of the same cosmic impulse? There are some in my kind who believe that impulse was merely twisted slightly from one dimension to the next, made to manifest in a slightly permuted form between our worlds.”

Brick paused, glancing at me, then at Black.

His crystal eyes remained serious as he added,

“I am seeing more of those similarities of late. I confess, now that I am looking for them, rather than for reasons to hate across our racial lines, I see these similarities all the time. From speaking with Naoko, I know he sees them, too. I now truly believe we share far more in common with one another than either of our species has acknowledged. I believe we share more in common with one another than we do with humans… as much as it might pain you to hear it, Mr. and Mrs. Black.”

His mouth turned grim as he glanced at me.

“I know you believe my people to be without feelings… but I assure you, the exact opposite is true. Like your people, vampires feel in a way that is far deeper than humans, more intense than humans. For the same reason, our emotions require more maturity and self-control than humans to manage… particularly given our need to keep our true natures hidden. Like your people, our long-term, monogamous couplings are also relatively rare, but are deeply emotional and volatile compared to those of humans.”

Pausing, he made a conciliatory gesture with one hand.

“I appreciate that these observations might not be particularly welcome to hear from me at this juncture… especially after yesterday, Quentin. But it is true. The newborn phase is an anomaly, as I said. Once Naoko grows into himself, he will be more like you than he was before, in ways that you will only be able to discover for yourself if you give him that chance.”

The vampire scanned all of our faces, his expression wary.

In the end, he returned his stare to Black’s face, his glass-like eyes deadly serious.

“We would do well to get to know the true nature of one another,” he cautioned. “We might yet be able to share this planet peacefully… and learn to live compassionately towards the humans with whom we share this world.”

The silence on our end of the table grew thick.

Truthfully, I would have been surprised if any of us knew how to even respond to that.

All that came to my mind was curse words.

That, and an overwhelming desire to see the vampire’s neck once more impaled on the end of Black’s sword.

I don’t know if Brick saw that on our faces or not.

When none of us answered him, he went on speaking in that same, careful voice, his words deliberately calm, deliberately measured.

“Naoko has not yet truly begun to shift into the next phase of his transformation,” he said, glancing at Nick. “This is in part because he is fighting that shift… which again is perfectly normal, and understandable, and nothing to be distressed about. If he is like the vast majority of young vampires, he is likely afraid. The feelings coming up for him are intense… far more intense than anything he’s ever experienced prior to now.”

Glancing again at Nick, the vampire king made a delicate frown.

“As a result, it is only natural that those feelings are frightening,” he continued. “Naoko, moreover, is very clever, as I said, which means some allowances for his psychology must be made. It is often the most intelligent of our kind who struggle the most with this at first. Which again, is only natural, I suppose. The most intelligent often struggle in the human world too, from what I have observed… I imagine the same is true for seers. Because Naoko comprehends the depth of the emotions he will face, he has the intelligence to block those emotions in various ways, using complex mental strategies. It might be several more months before he fully enters the stage of emotional remembering.”

The barest smile touched the vampire’s lips.

My hatred intensified when I realized that smile was pride.

“Naoko here is unique in quite a few ways, I am discovering,” the vampire added, that proud smile teasing his lips. “To call him ‘clever’ is a disservice, really. I am realizing now he is quite the genius in the rough.”

Brick aimed that fiercely proud smile at Nick.

“He has proved quite challenging for us to control for that reason,” the vampire king added. “Truthfully, the extent of his intelligence and resourcefulness shocked all of us a bit. While I knew he was no fool as a human, I had no idea just how intelligent he was, not until I made him into a vampire. I feel quite lucky to have him with us, to be honest.”

That pride reached Brick’s voice when he added with a less-subtle smile,

“Do you know that he very nearly killed Dorian during his first week of training? Do you have any idea how utterly extraordinary that is?”

Brick let out a low chuckle, glancing at Dorian, who returned his look with a faintly quirked eyebrow and a smile of his own.

Nick never took his eyes off our end of the table.

Unlike the other two, a smile never touched his lips.

“Luckily,” Brick continued in that Louisiana drawl. “Dorian here is a bit of a masochist. He also doesn’t easily intimidate. He persevered in his attempts to educate Naoko, and began to have some success with him once he realized the extent of his intelligence and approached him more as an equal. Even so… it is truly amazing how close he came to escaping us, even with my entire family actively watching over him.”

Shaking his head bemusedly, Brick glanced at Nick, then back at us.

“He laid traps for us. Physical traps, that actually worked. One had Dorian hanging from the ceiling of our private apartments in Paris.”

Brick chuckled, as if unable to help himself.

“…Later,” he added. “After we thought we’d more or less brought him to heel, he turned to more subtle strategies to control us. Once, he even managed to turn a somewhat coercive training exercise around on Dorian, manipulating him via a psychological gambit to get away from us yet again. He is quite psychologically perceptive… and highly adaptive, in addition to his strategic and spatial gifts.”

Smiling at Nick with an open affection, Brick added,

“…He’s also got Dorian and myself quite wrapped around his finger, I’m afraid.”

Brick unclasped his hands, holding up his palms in an exasperated, semi-helpless gesture, as if to say, What are you going to do?

His amusement evaporated as he faced Black.

“I know that is no excuse, Quentin.”

The vampire’s voice changed, reverting to that presence-infused tone, even as it deepened, growing the most serious I had heard it.

“I am not excusing what happened yesterday in any way,” Brick continued. “I both deeply apologize and accept full responsibility for what happened to your friend. I was mortified when I learned of it… positively mortified. I confess, I was also relieved that he had not killed anyone, at least. You have no idea how unusual that is, for a vampire of his age. While that is small comfort, I know, it was a relief for all of us nonetheless.”

Another silence fell over the group.

In it, Brick surveyed all of us, including the row of seers standing behind me.

I found myself staring at Nick, unable to look away from him.

When no one else spoke, I did––before I knew I intended to.

“He did that to Kiko,” I said.

I felt every eye in the room swivel to me.

I looked only at Nick.

“…He raped Kiko,” I said. “He wrote that message on the wall to Black. In Dex’s blood. After nearly killing Kiko. Nick did that.”

I waited a beat, for Nick to look over at me.

After a deliberate-feeling pause, he did. His expression exuded indifference, his crystal eyes flat as they gauged mine.

“Why?” I said, speaking to him that time. “Why would you do that, Nick? Explain to me how you could have even one ounce of the Nick I knew still inside you, and you could rape someone you considered a friend? Explain how you could nearly kill her, then leave that fucking message on the wall for me and Black to find?”

The silence deepened.

Nick didn’t look away from me. He didn’t even blink.

In the same set of seconds, I realized I couldn’t see him breathing.

I was about to speak again, when Jem’s voice rose from behind me.

“You are saying he will change?” the seer said.

His accent came out stronger than I’d ever heard it.

I turned my head, looking over my shoulder at him.

Jem didn’t look at me, but I saw his jaw harden as he stared at Brick, his green and violet eyes reflecting light from the industrial-style overhead lamps.

“Nick,” Jem clarified, when the vampire tilted his gaze up, focusing from me to Jem. “Naoko, as you call him. That is what this long-winded lecture is about, na? That he will become more like himself again, once he regains his ‘emotional memories,’ or whatever it is you’re calling them? That once that happens, we’ll have the basis for a real alliance?”

Brick looked at him.

From the faint frown on his lips, he clearly heard the emotion in the seer’s voice. He stared at him shrewdly, right before his glass-like eyes swiveled to Nick.

“This one is fond of you, Naoko,” he observed, frowning slightly. “You neglected to mention him.”

“Because I didn’t think he even knew who the fuck I was,” Nick said.

Nick’s voice made me physically jump.

Then it made my heart pound wildly.

It sounded so much like him, a pain stabbed into my chest. Still, I heard a hint of that more melodic quality in his words, too.

He sounded utterly bored as he went on.

“…Other than him fucking the human I wanted to fuck, and drawing the eye of every female in our camp, I knew nothing about him. He’s one of those who walked through the door in New Mexico. He’s their leader… was, until he joined Black.”

“Well, he knows you,” Brick said, still studying Jem’s face. He seemed nonplussed by the observation, even as he aimed his next words at Jem. “Are we going to have a problem, friend? Or can you control yourself until we finish here?”

Frowning, I looked at Jem a second time.

That time, I saw what Brick saw.

Jem was breathing harder, a dense, cold fury emanating from his light. He didn’t just look warlike that time; he looked murderous.

Black clearly felt it, too.

Glancing at Jem, he motioned towards him with a few flicks of his fingers. I felt him send something with his light, too.

Whatever that second thing was, he didn’t accompany it with words.

Jem looked at him.

His green eyes blazed with heat, but he really looked at Black, and as he did, he seemed to see something there, some affinity or understanding.

Whatever it was, it caused him to back down.

Temporarily, at least.

Brick continued to measure Jem warily, even as he directed his words back at Nick. “You are certainly much more popular here than you led us to believe, beloved one.”

Nick didn’t answer. He didn’t even change expression.

The impression I got off him was a mental shrug.

Brick looked at me, then at Black, his expression cautious. “I apologize for the emotional trauma this is no doubt causing you and your people… particularly your wife,” the vampire said, his voice cautious. “But I needed to marry our camps, so to speak. This struck me as the most efficient way to do it… if not exactly the safest way for myself.”

I glanced at Black.

He was staring only at Brick now.

His expression held nothing. I could feel him through the bond structure we shared, but not a single piece of him showed in his face or his eyes.

“You knew I wished this,” Brick added, looking between me and Black. “I intended it for your wife originally, as you know. I truly thought it would be the best of both worlds, for both of us. I know how fond you are of having your blood drawn by one of our kind, Quentin. I truly hoped and believed your wife having this ability… this additional means of pleasuring you… might be something that would add to your marriage. To your sex life, at least. In addition, how could you better understand our kind than through being married to one of us?”

Black’s face didn’t move.

Even so, I felt a curl of heat below my feet that was difficult to keep off my face. It reminded me so much of Koh Mangaan, I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at him.

“…It was drawn to my attention, however,” Brick continued carefully, now watching me as much as Black. “That turning Miriam posed unforeseen risks. Not so much due to her mixed blood. I was already relatively certain her blood was compatible with becoming one of us. No, the problem was her marriage to you, Quentin.”

Adjusting his body minutely in his chair, he assessed our faces, then went on in that careful voice.

“Due to the nature of how your people bond, I could not predict how Miriam… or you yourself, Quentin… would react to such a radical change in one of your physiological natures. I was told the bond makes you both quite volatile to any changes in the other already, and that to enter further instability into that mix could have deadly consequences. Not simply for Miriam, but for you, Quentin. And for me, since I would be changing her the way I changed Naoko, which would make at least Miri’s and my own life dependent upon one another. Possibly, it would make all three of our lives mutually dependent.”

Frowning faintly, he added,

“I was warned about this primarily by members of your own kind. Efraim, in particular, was quite insistent that for Miriam to become one of us, it had to happen prior to the completion of the bond between the two of you. He seemed to think I was playing with gasoline and matches to experiment with such a thing even then, Quentin… but he said to try this with a fully completed bond was tantamount to suicide.”

Inclining his head, Brick glanced at me, then at Black.

“To be honest, Efraim hated the idea, regardless of when it occurred. Now that I understand your species better, I am sympathetic to this view. The bond is sacred with your people. I respect that sentiment. Truly. I would not have even entertained such an idea, were I not so desperate to link our peoples before Charles had time to indoctrinate you fully to his racist obsessions.”

Pausing deliberately, Brick added,

“After New York, and after Dorian got me out of that hellhole in Virginia, I assumed it was too late for our peoples to ally with one another, Quentin. I assumed you had been fully brainwashed into Uncle Charles’ army by that point.”

A smile tugged at Brick’s lips.

It wasn’t a sarcastic smile, but one that struck me as genuinely pleased.

“Imagine my surprise when you appeared in that swamp in Louisiana, Quentin, looking for me. I was quite flummoxed on how to react at first. I also couldn’t quite bring myself to hope what this change of mind of yours might mean. Then, when you let Dorian and myself leave that ambush in D.C. unharmed, and even requested our help on that island with those human lunatics, I knew the gods of the underworlds had to be sending me a sign.”

I felt the heat coil up hotter out of Black.

I also felt his crushing guilt as he comprehended Brick’s words.

Still, his expression didn’t move.

“I never forgot Efraim’s warning, however,” Brick said, his voice thoughtful. He tapped the top of the table lightly with his fingers. “I remembered what he said about the two of you. I remembered him telling me that using one half of a mated pair to create a blood-link between our peoples could fail spectacularly… not to mention constitute a tragedy the likes of which I might never forgive myself. So I looked for another way.”

Glancing around at the faces on our side of the table, he shrugged eloquently.

“I decided it would be better if I avoided anyone who was compatible with my vampire blood, although I do have the ability to create any of my children via the blood-link, if I so chose. More importantly than any of that, however, I wanted someone who would be an asset… both to my people and to yours.”

Pausing, he made another of those apologetic gestures.

“In the end, the choice was clear. For me, at least.”

Brick’s eyes swung to Nick, his voice thoughtful.

“I admit, I was partial to Naoko as soon as I noticed him. Once I saw how fond your wife was of him… and you, yourself, Quentin, despite your obvious jealousy of his relationship to Miriam… I knew it had to be him. The more I observed him, and noted his personality traits, his skill sets, his intelligence, the more convinced I was that he would make an excellent addition to my family. Truthfully, I was quite pleased.”

Glancing cautiously at me, then at Black, he added,

“I am still quite pleased. I consider it an extraordinary honor to have Naoko in my blood. Whatever you might think of us, we wish him no harm whatsoever. Quite the contrary. We all love him dearly. All of us do. Irrespective of the blood-link I share with him, we would protect him with our very lives. Without hesitation.”

Brick’s voice grew harder.

“It is important to me that you understand this, Quentin. Naoko is family now… for both of us. Trust me when I tell you, for vampires, that is no less a thing than it is for seers. He is a part of me now, and always will be. I hope that is something all of you will grow to understand. At the very least, I hope you will grow to respect the power this has over me.”

The silence grew dense.

When none of us broke it, Brick went on in a somewhat lighter voice.

“And yes,” he said, directing his clear, cracked-crystal eyes up at Jem. “To answer your question, friend, he will regain more and more of himself as time goes on. His emotions are already returning in small snippets of memory, here and there. He can avoid and repress them for now, but that won’t be possible for very much longer. Once that happens, you might truly be surprised at how much of your Nick Tanaka remains… even inside a vampire’s body.”

Again, he paused, listening to our silence.

That time, however, he didn’t seem in a hurry to break it.

Unfortunately, none of us seemed to know how to break it, either.