Eternal: Chapter Eight, Part 1

Chapter Eight: Concerned Bystanders

A few weeks later, Valetta stopped by with a letter from the Council. It wasn’t necessarily bad news, but I had been hoping not to hear from them for a while longer. The letter requested frequent updates on our progress, with a lot more flourish and many more words.

“Very well, then, I’ll have everyone make an extra copy of what we’ve done so far. Did you want to keep it?” I asked, offering her the letter.

“You may.” She crossed her arms loosely. “You do not appear worried about this.”

“Because I’m not,” I said, going to find my binder. “I figured they would do this, and even if it hadn’t been updates, they would’ve had concerns after the first commercial aired. It’s why you and Mitchell are ambassadors.”

“We have no leverage with the Council, Abriel,” Valetta reminded me stiffly. “You are the only one we know who has any.”

“I didn’t say ambassadors to the Council, Valetta;” I filed the letter in one of the folders. “I’ll deal with them personally.”

“Then we are ambassadors to no one?”

I turned to face her, leaning against the counter. “I’m guessing that if there is a Council to govern vampires, there should be a similar institution for other…I don’t know what they—we, go by collectively…mystical beings, I guess.”

 “How do you know about the others?” she asked slowly, leveling her eyes at me.

“Did you really think I couldn’t guess?” When she shrugged, I walked around to the kitchen, taking inventory of everything Nick had been eating so I could restock for him. Drei and I ate occasionally, but it wasn’t really required for either of us. He needed blood and I needed to be outside. I could guess what Nick liked best by figuring out what was disappearing; to my knowledge, he hadn’t figured out I wasn’t eating.

“Once I actually started thinking about this—and it wasn’t that long ago, just about the time you and Mitchell showed up—I figured if vampires existed in hiding, reason suggested other groups did as well. And since I purposely chose the first few commercials to be more on the vague side to make people want to go to the website, I realized it might put the Council a little on edge, as well as the other groups.” I finished assessing the cupboards and moved to the fridge. “Thus, since you and Mitchell have been around a while and would actually know about the groups, I decided you two would be perfect to go around and calm them, assure them all it’s not about them. Voilà, ambassadors.” Finished with the shopping list, I turned to Valetta and asked, “So was I right? Or should I not have bothered?”

Taking a seat at the breakfast bar, she admitted, “I did not anticipate you arriving at these conclusions.” After a moment, she added, “Drei knows more about the other groups than Mitchell and I do. Why not him?”

I remembered I hadn’t yet spoken to Drei about that, about why he was with me and not in some other, more definite role; I needed to do that. “He’d be a great ambassador,” I conceded slowly, taking the seat next to her. “Part of the reason is because I think it’s usually a good thing for people to work in pairs, and you and Mitchell make a great pair. You balance each other and it’s…great.”

“But that is not why.”

Her dark eyes were scanning me, and I felt extremely conscious of everything she was doing, of everything I was doing. I looked away from her, my gaze boring holes into my intertwined hands before me. “I need him, still,” I whispered, knowing how conceited I must have sounded.

Nodding, she laid a pale hand on mine, and I realized for the first time how ghostly I must look to the others, how pale I had become. My skin tone nearly matched hers. “Of course, you do,” she said kindly, squeezing my hand a little. “This is still new…”

She was biting her tongue. Valetta and Mitchell had been working hard on not discussing what Drei had done; the few times they said anything on the topic, it always sounded like an accusation, as though they had been betrayed by him. It was topic they avoided for the sake of not arguing around or about me; while I was grateful, it also felt like I couldn’t raise questions with the only people who had answers.