Page 5 (2/2)

Well, occasional respect, when I wasn&039;t giving hi hiether-the man wasn&039;t ticklish! Talk about an unnatural creature

He&039;d bowed to my authority on more than one occasion, too-usually just before I started hurling heavy objects at his head to e You want to see so one of my orders Believe me, it didn&039;t happen all that often Whenever it did, he always had an odd expression on his face: part admiration, part annoyance

Nohere the hell was I? Dae all night, and was havingthe conversation, which had veered froion to atheist va for you to ask, Jeannie," I finally said I guess it wasn&039;t exactly unheard of for a olf to h so that the two of theotten thatwith us for a while

Get this: not only was it rare for olves toold humans, it was considered super-lucky for the Pack, and the offspring were usually exceptional Pack o there again Call me a chickenshit coward; that&039;s fine I just couldn&039;t do it again right now

"Mrinned, but didn&039;t rise to the bait, just shrugged "Good point"

I clearedthe whole-the wholeMundaneness? Mundanity? "So there are Presbyterian olves, and Catholic ones, and Lutherans-"

"And Buddhists and atheists and Hindus," Derik added

"Will you please stop that pacing and sit the fuck do!" I yanked my poor sore ankle out of reach of Sinclair&039;s foot "You look like a cheetah on crack"

"Back off, blondie," Derik snapped back and, if anything, sped up the pacing

"I&039;m surprised you didn&039;t draw your own conclusion," Michael said loudly, clearly trying to distract us I think he was clearly trying It was hard to knohat the guy was up to "Because clearly, all vampires are Christians"

"No," Sinclair said

No? What, no? How did we get off the topic of olf retribution for Antonia and on to religion? I got enough of the "let&039;s all pray to Jesus meek and mild" stuff I needed from Laura

"No?"

"No We, too, have Muslians We, too, have-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jeannie interrupted "That o about our lives with the objective ofpleasantness

"Fuck" Derik, thank God, had grabbed a chair, dragged it over, turned it so it was facing backward, and sat His blond hair fell into his eyes and he shook it out of his face with a quick, impatient movement "Why would a cross work on an atheist valance Jessica, I noticed, was all ears as well-she&039;d been so quiet I&039;d alotten she was in the room

"Or someone Jewish?" Derik continued

Because vampirism was a virusA virus that was very hard to catch, and even harder to pass on This was Marc&039;s theory, backed up by Tina and Sinclair-again, not all of a sudden After months and months and ht-mouthed if so line

Vampirism, as a virus, slowed your metabolism waaaaay down, but didn&039;t stop it Good points: you no longer sweated, or peed Aging seehtened senses Blah-blah

Bad points: vaestion (All of theht-hand woman (she had been the one to turn him into a vampire in the early part of the twentieth centuryyup, I was in love and regularly boinking a randfather), had eventually advanced this theory with Marc

Marc went into MD rounds that he could change his ed) that yes, it was a virus, and yes, a Jewish vae away from a cross Because we all know that&039;s what vao, crosses and holy water can hurt theht? Give it a estible, and you have the weight of a zillion horroryou holy water burnsthen holy water burns

But ere getting off the point

And it was driving ue off so I wouldn&039;t point out that Derik had made the same silly assumptions about va us morons

"-explain what happened?"

Eh? Aw, shit Michael was looking right at me I jerked my foot away in time and Sinclair&039;s Kenneth Cole-shod shoe clunked into the back of Michael&039;s desk

"Explain what happened?" I repeated hat I hoped was an intelligent question on my face

"Yes, to the Council"

Council? What council? That didn&039;t sound good at all Nobody had said anything about a council-I think Das-on in my life "Can&039;t you tell them what happened? You&039;re the boss around here"

"No" Click Closed End of argument I knew that tone-I&039;d heard it in ood to protest "We&039;ll be rounds just after sunset tomorrow I&039;ll need all of your testiroup

"Then what?" I asked nervously

He just looked at me, almost like he was sorry for me

Somehow, that was even worse than his cool fury