Sharon’s Note: Working with your spouse can be weird. Unless you do it regularly, it’s like there’s a whole other side to the person yo love that you’ve never seen. It can be rough and bring about disagreements, but with proper communication they can be just disagreements, not fights. Warning: A couple talking to each other instead of at each other.
Ansie looked at her phone. The vampires had kept her waiting in the lobby for close to an hour. The city’s vampire government worked out of a nice building downtown that could easily have been a high priced lawyer’s office. She wasn’t about to leave, but she was about to march past the poor receptionist and tell the acting liaison that she was going to see him now.
Somewhere in the city there was a vampire breaking the rules, and people were dying.The hunters had a deal with the vampires to stay out of each other’s way as long as the vampires took care of vampire problems. With six people dead in five days, someone had to do something, and if the vampires couldn’t move fast enough the hunters would.
Either the secretary could tell that Anise was out of patience or she had phenomenal timing, because she cleared her throat politely. She was new, and didn’t know Anise yet, so was making a point of being polite. The other secretary had known her for years, and would have spent the entire time shed been here telling Anise about her grandkids.
“The liaison can see you now. He’s in meeting room three. If you’ll follow me . . .”
I waved her off before she could stand up. “Don’t worry. I know the way.”
I braced myself for a possible fight as I walked down the quiet hallway. Both Dimitri and Susa were on duty tonight. If I was talking to Dimitri, this would all go smoothly. He was a decent guy. If it was Susa. . . well, it would be an interesting night. The new vampire hated me because I was a hunter.
When I turned the corner into meeting room three I froze. “Jack? I thought you weren’t working tonight.”
He blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t, but they called me in to deal with the hunter liaison since Dimitri and Susa are out hunting the rogue. They didn’t tell me the liaison was you.”
“It originally wasn’t supposed to be, but Jeff got called home because there was something up with his kid.” I sighed. “This is slightly awkward.”
“Yeah.” Jack nodded sympathetically. “We’ll just keep to the rules we set if something like this were ever to happen. We do our jobs the best we can and don’t bring it home in the morning.”
“Right.” Anise shot her husband a quick smile before resuming her game face and sitting across from him at the table. “Now, I’m going to assume you’re up to date on the rogue situation?”
“Yes.” Jack folded his hands and assumed the absolute stillness that vampires sometimes did and Anise wasn’t used to seeing in him. “I understand that the death toll is alarming, but we are working on it. It’s the reason the other two liaisons aren’t here tonight. The master of the city is applying all his resources to this hunt.”
“Not all his resources. He hasn’t called on us for a joint operation,” I countered.
“No, but we don’t feel it’s necessary at this time. We will catch the rogue.”
“Time is of the essence here. I understand that most of your people don’t feel comfortable working with us, but this guy kills too fast to be timid about this. We can’t risk rumors of a serial killer getting out. The media would explode.” I tapped my finger on the desk like the ticking of a clock.
Jack sat silently for several seconds, deep in contemplation. Finally, he said, “Would you give us tonight? We’re hard on the hunt, but if we can’t catch him tonight, we’ll let you know before we retire for the day. You can pick up the hunt in the morning and we’ll join you to combine forces at sun down. Is that acceptable?”
Now it was my turn to consider. The rest of the city’s hunters had really wanted to start on the hunt tonight, but if the vampires really were closing in on the rogue we could do more harm than good.
“Alright. You have a deal.” Anise rubbed a hand over her face. “Do you ever get annoyed at the fact we can’t do this over the phone?”
“You know the master is paranoid about technology.” Jack shrugged.
“And with reason,” I agreed, “But this was a long way to to drive for a less than five minute conversation.”
Again, Jack shrugged. “Well, I only had to work long enough for this meeting tonight. Can I take a pretty lady to dinner?”
Anise smiled. “Yeah. Just let me call in about our resolution, and we can head out.”
Gray Matters: The Works of Sharon and James Gray 