To Protect and Serve Ch. 08

Normally Clara would take a sub to a playroom, but with the influx of new people competing for play space, she sometimes had to bring someone back here. If Shamira went in there, Clara might command her to participate. Shamira turned and went back to the lounge, only to find that Bangaly and his two lionesses were playing "assert feline dominance" with Renata. Apparently, the big werelion used his other submissives to hold his prey down while he mounted her and fucked her senseless.

Renata seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly. Shamira gave up and went to Monique's shop to get fitted. She and Lillian had been making out, but Monique was willing to stop and do some measurements. The werewolf woman had the sense to keep conversation to a minimum after one look at Shamira's face.

Eventually, Shamira simply got tired of looking for a place inside the house and wandered out to the golf course. She debated working off some irritation by playing around, but then thought better of it. Her golf skills were such that it would probably make her angrier, not calmer. She kept her eye out for spiders, but didn't quite feel the dread she used to. She made her way over to the garage, pulled herself into the back of a Cadillac Escalade and drifted into a fretful sleep.

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The next day . . .

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They say that when you sleep that you resolve personal issues and tend to be less depressed than when you went to sleep. Needless to say, not all such ideas are absolute rules. When Shamira pulled herself out of the back of the SUV, she had a crick in her neck and a scowl in her heart.

She went straight to the firing range to get her ranged weapons training in. Her reflexes had improved since her death, leaving her able to cluster her shots together at will. She was practicing with a modified M-16 when she got some unexpected company.

Banshee was smart enough to wait until Shamira had emptied her clip before making her presence known. It wasn't that she was afraid the other vamp would intentionally hurt her, but the message the doms had all gotten from Shane indicated that the girl wasn't in a stable frame of mind. "Are you ready to work on your spider wrangling?"

Shamira stared straight forward. "I'm not really sure that today is a good day."

"Good or not, it is part of your regiment."

Shamira pulled the clip from the weapon and put everything back in storage. "If you were going to pull rank, why bother asking me?"

"For some, the illusion of control is enough to achieve contentment. I should have remembered that you see through illusions." Banshee held the door open for her companion. "After you."

Shamira wanted to stomp all the way to Banshee's room, but it would have been to childish, even for her. She followed her mentor in to the spider habitat area, feeling that familiar chill overtake her. It wasn't nearly as potent as it used to be, something she was somewhat proud of.

"Let me guess," Shamira said, "Shane told you what happened? Why is it I'm not supposed to say anything negative about him to anyone, but he gets to trash me to everyone on a whim?"

"Because life is horribly unfair. And because he is the boss," Banshee said smoothly. Banshee quizzed Shamira on which species were venomous, which ones might were web spinners, which ones were ground walkers, and other characteristics of the different types. Shamira was able to get close to the glass on all of them, and didn't even freak out when Banshee let one of the tarantulas out to crawl across that delicate Asian skin.

"I've always loved spiders," Banshee practically crooned, looking at the arachnid as if it were her child. "Just very efficient creatures. I never understood why some people fear them. Then again, I grew up in a much different culture. What is scary by some peoples' standards to us was . . . was like Saturday morning cartoons." She moved slightly closer to Shamira, happy that the woman didn't back up.

"Culture is more important to some people than others, particularly for those whose culture is somewhat extreme. You are angry with Shane because vampiric culture, or the culture of magical creatures, conflicts with your culture. Human rules . . . police rules. And you take those rules more seriously than many. It is an admirable quality," she said, "but you must learn to adapt."

"These rules that you consider so harsh . . . the notion of leaving some to die while Shane puts on a gala . . . is barbaric to you. To me, or at least the 'me' that Shane first brought over, he is far too compassionate. Where I came from, absolute ruthlessness was how one gained and kept power. Perhaps that is why I enjoy working for him so much. Not having to worry about being killed for minor insubordination is strangely refreshing."

"So you're saying that I shouldn't be mad at Shane because there are worse ways of doing things than his?"

"I am saying nothing of the sort. Shane did not ever truly understand the world I once lived in. Mafias from every country play by their own rules and whether you like it or not, the rules don't change when a new player enters the game. If Shane attempted to enter my old world and attempted to play by the laws of magical creatures, he would have accomplished nothing or been killed. Likewise, if I attempted to play by the rules of the Yakuza, not that I would ever want to again, I would be hunted down and killed by the Tribunal. Both worlds have their ceremonies, their brutalities --" Banshee took a step forward, but Shamira didn't step back.

She held up her hand so that the tarantula's many eyes were looking at the young vampire. It was an alien creature, but it had become familiar to her over the years. "-- and they each have their own beauty. Shane attempts to change the rules, but he can only do so much in the face of thousands and thousands of years of tradition and secrecy. These things take time. You walk in, barely a month old in our world, and want all the rules to change just like that . . . for your sole benefit."

"Screw my benefit!" Shamira growled. "People are dying out there, sacrificed to make this evil fucking drug, and I'm supposed to sit on my thumbs or do 'research' while Shane gets ready for the fucking prom."

"So as a police officer, you broke the laws that you found inconvenient? At will?"

"However stupid some of those laws were, no, I didn't break them at will. But there were exceptions --" Shamira stopped for a moment. Banshee and the tarantula were very close now, and she had to divert her attention towards it. 'It's just a big bug,' she said. 'Okay, it's not really a bug, but it's still creepy.'

"And there are exceptions to our laws as well. We do not know who the Tribunal is sending, but we know this is going to be important. If Shane does not appear to be in complete control, he might lose power or territory, and then the hunt for the morning star trade may not happen at all. So he does what he can, in silence and secrecy and staying off the human radar."

"I'm sure the vampires being bled to death will appreciate his discretion," Shamira replied bitterly. That damn spider was just a foot away from her, and it looked much bigger up close.

"Actually, they might. Do not make the mistake that this does not weigh on Shane's conscience, or any of ours for that matter. You insult us all and do us a disservice to think that the suffering of others is a small matter for us. I have witnessed more suffering in my almost two centuries than you can imagine."

Shamira had dug in her heels on this issues and wasn't about to change. "How much of that suffering did you stand by and watch?"

Banshee was hard to unhinge but just for a moment, her eyes tightened. Shamira had pissed her off. "I did what I had to do."

"And how does that excuse help you sleep?" Shamira shook her head, knowing that she should leave and cool off, but she couldn't go until Banshee allowed it. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Shamira visibly winced as Banshee held her hand close and the spider was able to reach out and touch Shamira with one hairy leg. She would not run . . . she would not scream. "I can't stand by and do nothing. Those faeries were terrified. If we hadn't gone down there, no one would even know about their problems. They need us, any weres or vamps that might be getting drained need us, and --" She stopped again, as the tarantula had climbed completely onto her shoulder. For the first time she could remember, she was too angry to be afraid.

Banshee had recovered from her own moment of anger. She sympathized with the girl's plight of compassion. "In answer to your earlier question, I still have nightmares sometimes . . . about the things I have seen, done, have allowed to be done, or have had done to me. And to this day, despite it all, I do not regret my actions. In your world, it is unethical to torture someone, even if it means saving thousands."

"Other humans do not share your view. You should know that given the choices I have just mentioned, I would torture someone, and I would do it with tears in my heart. I wish that we could play by your rules, but creatures of the night would simply not abide. You are an ally of the shadows, but there are things in deep darkness that would rip you asunder as soon as look at you and not consider it wrong at all. It is simply their nature. You must understand these things if you plan on surviving in this world."

She took the tarantula back onto her hand, and she was able to see a definite relaxing as the arachnid was put back in its enclosure. She looked back and just saw stubbornness in the other woman's eyes. She wasn't going to back down, and Banshee knew that could lead to problems and heartache. In the end, she felt she had lied a little bit. She had just wanted Shamira to realize that she should obey because things could be worse. Shamira just wanted them to be better.

"You may go," Banshee finished. She had yet to sample this woman's wares one-on-one, but today would not be that day. The younger vampire would not embrace it and, for Banshee, that meant there was no point. All she could do was watch Shamira stalk away.

Shamira was angry, but she was trying to calm down. Banshee had actually gotten her even more worked up, so she decided to let off some steam. She grabbed a set of golf clubs and headed for the course. Okay, maybe her game sucked even more when she was mad, but she needed to do something. She wasn't sure how far she could push Shane without being punished, but she knew it was inevitable.

She tried reminding herself that sting operations sometimes took a long time, but thanks to Henry, she couldn't get the image of what the blood-letters did to their victims. She'd seen the face of the faeries, full of fear and mistrust at what had been done. Okay, maybe she was only being asked to wait a week. She wondered if the rest of the house would be content to wait a week if they were the one who was captured.

After completing the full nine holes forward and backward, and accomplishing nothing more than wrapping her five-iron around a tree, she decided to go for a drive. No one had called her to claim her for the evening, so she figured she was still on Shane's shit-list for challenging him. She got to the garage and began looking for a car. The Roadrunner was out of commission for a while, so she had to pick a new favorite. In a huge garage full of the finest vehicles imaginable, nothing seemed to really catch her eye, and she wasn't in a position to go asking anything of Shane. Hell, she wasn't in the mood to ask him for anything.

Bunny came bouncing in as cheerful as the day she died, which was an odd sentiment as far as Shamira was concerned.

"Hey! Going somewhere?"

"Apparently not," she muttered. "May take a walk."

"Hey, Shane asked me to go pick up some stuff so the magic types can expand the wards. Wanna come?"

Shamira didn't mean to say it the way she did, but her next diatribe came out as a mockery to the ditzy quality of Bunny's voice. "Oh, I so totally don't want to!" Then she growled, "Go run his errands. Heck, why don't you fetch his paper and his slippers too."

Bunny stopped and looked like she'd been punched in the face. "Listen, I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean --"

"Oh don't cry," Shamira snapped, her anger continuing to feed itself. "Go do what you're supposed to, then go do WHO you're supposed to. Just get out of my face." Shamira left the garage on foot, no idea where she was going. She just knew that she had to get going before her dead blood started to boil.

Shamira didn't look back as she just started walking. If someone needed her to do something besides sit quietly on her ass, they could call. She didn't understand why she couldn't think rationally anymore, and she was damn sure that Bunny hadn't deserved to get yelled at, but her mouth was on a roll and her brain couldn't catch up.

She'd only been gone for fifteen minutes when the phone started to vibrate, indicated that someone had texted her. She looked down and saw it was from Clara. It basically read that Shane was pissed, on a warpath, and that she had better get her ass back right away. Shamira sighed, and she knew it was time to pay the piper.

Clara was waiting for her outside, her face unreadable. "What has gotten into you?" the young-looking beauty said. "You actually got Bunny so upset that she couldn't drive. She's been in with Shane trying to figure out what SHE did wrong to set you off. Then Banshee showed up and suddenly Shane gets this look in his eye . . . anyway, he's damn mad."

Shamira clenched her jaw and looked away, then started to walk past Clara, figuring she might as well get it over with.

Clara put a hand on her friend's shoulder, only to have it shrugged away. "What is with you?!" she asked, getting in front of the more muscular woman and blocking her path. "Why won't you talk to me? You didn't bother coming to bed last night, I haven't seen you since you left for Macon, and now you've got Shane pissed, Banshee frustrated, and Bunny is practically crying --"

"Oh, give it a rest," Shamira snapped. "When did you start caring about Bunny's feelings?"

Clara's face hardened. "Yeah, she grates on my nerves sometimes, but I've never done or said anything to try and hurt her. She's a sweet girl who's been through a hell of a lot, and she didn't deserve to have you go off on her like that." Then Clara's face grew more gentle. "Shamira, I really care about you, but I can't help you if you don't talk to me."

Shamira wanted nothing more than to just rant and rave and do the old cry-on-her-shoulder bit, but she couldn't. Her state of mind was way too far gone for that. Her mouth opened, but her voice was denied access.

"Please?" Clara asked, her normally stern voice breaking.

Shamira looked at that face and felt something uncomfortable deep in her chest. She didn't want to hurt Clara. The woman had been her friend, mentor, confidante, and lover since Shamira had been brought over. She had embraced Shamira's perversions and helped the new vampire come to grips with them.

The two of them had a connection that had been born when a human cop locked eyes with a homeless girl who had turned out to be a vampire in disguise, and that relationship had made Shamira whole. And Shamira was afraid that if she forced Clara to take a side that she would side with Shane. Shamira wasn't sure if she could handle that.

"You can't help me here," she whispered, her voice ragged with anger and anguish. Then she walked on, leaving Clara by the door, and headed for Shane's office. The room was chilly, despite the fact that Shane's eyes looked ready to burn holes in Shamira's skull. Bunny sat off to one side, trying not to look as broken up as she obviously felt. Banshee sat on the other side, looking resigned. And Shamira felt a presence slide into the room behind her, and it smelled unmistakably of Clara.

Shane's voice came out even and dreadfully calm when he finally spoke. "I have had enough. I tried being patient. I tried remembering the circumstances of your rebirth. But I have explained the reality of the situation, and you continue to defy me, question the way I run my house, and now you're taking your petty issues out on other people."

"Petty?!" Shamira blurted.

"Shamira," Clara whispered, "don't --"

"Clara, keep out of this. As a matter of fact, leave."

"Hey, it's me you've got a problem with!" Shamira growled, but she heard Clara slip out again.

"And you have a problem with me, but you took it out on Bunny. Correct? Shamira, I asked you a question."

Shamira was gritting her teeth so hard, she thought that she might break a fang. "Yeah, I took it out on Bunny, and I'm --"

"No," he interrupted, "you don't get to apologize yet. You will apologize when I tell you that you can." He watched as she raised her hand as if to point at him, but she wound up just snarling and otherwise staying silent. "It's obvious that you're not ready for all of this. I need my enforcers to understand our law and respect it. I thought you would be up for it, but I think we need to start you over at square one. You need to learn to be a vampire, and then maybe --"

"What the fuck?!" Shamira said, her anger growing. "Learn to be a vampire?"

"You make your situation worse every time you speak," Shane said. "Yes, you need to learn to be a vampire. Vampires need to understand their world and understand the traditions of the magical world. How can I expect you to deal with the culture of others with any sensitivity if you can't even respect your own?"

"Hey, so far YOUR culture is the only damn one I have a problem with." Shamira was going to say something else, but someone grabbed her around her from behind, putting a hand over her mouth while wrenching one arm behind her back. Somehow, Banshee had snuck up behind her, and she was fucking strong.

Shamira was powerful for a fledgling, but Banshee was bordering on full vampire status. That was when she remembered that the Asian vamp had some kind of ability to cloud minds so that you simply didn't pay attention to her. "Bitch!" Shamira shouted. She tried to twist away, but she stopped when she felt her shoulder try to pop out of its socket.

"Lord Stapleton, please --" Bunny started.

"Bunny, this is for her own good. All I asked is for her to compromise a little . . . wait a week. Instead, she behaves like a child. Banshee, take her to solitary."

Shamira was so pissed she was seeing red. She felt her fangs extend, and she was damn well going to bite Banshee if she got the chance. But this wasn't the assassin's first time at the rodeo, and she maneuvered Shamira out the door. Outside, Clara was standing there looking lost, but Shamira noticed that she didn't say or do a damn thing to help.

Shamira actually got free for a moment by rolling forward, bringing Banshee with her and then headbutting the other woman when they were on the ground, but Banshee latched on and Renata appeared out of nowhere. Renata actually looked scared, but the two powerful women wound up shoving Shamira into a coffin shaped cell in the basement and closing the door.

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Two days later . . .

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They had actually let Shamira out after of her cell after the first day, but she'd cursed at Banshee, spit on Shane, then turned and stepped back into the cell on her own. The hunger kicked in on the second day, and they actually slid her a blood pack which she refused to consume . . . at first. She hadn't eaten at all since before her trip down to Macon, and vampiric hunger was much more intense than anything she had experienced when human. She drank and cursed herself, though she wasn't sure why.