Victims

February 21st, 2011

Reese Catton manages campaigns. The dirty side of campaigns. And he has dirt suggesting that his candidate’s opponent is a vampire’s slave. But in politics—as in life—nothing is as it seems. Not even the relationship between vampires and politicians…

A vampire story by Stoker Award nominee Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Availble for 99 cents on Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and in other e-bookstores.

Victims

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Published by WMG Publishing

1995

Her name had shown up twice before, in ’68 when Nichols had run for governor of California, and in ’72 when he made his unsuccessful bid for the presidency. No one had investigated her. Women’s issues were different in those days, and women were not viewed as the voting block they are now. Besides, we couldn’t make anything on Nichols stick.

We decided to investigate her before we talked with the Senator Lurry. The task of interrogating her came to me.

I used Senator Lurry’s outer office because it looked properly intimidating — mahogany trim, marble inlay floors. The desks were wide, oak and handmade. A coffeemaker, constantly in use, sat on top of one of the green metal filing cabinets, but the rich scent of French Roast couldn’t overlay the mausoleum stench of an ancient building that has stood in humidity for a generation too long.

I arrived a half hour early, then adjusted my tie and peered at my reflection in the shiny glass on top of the secretary’s desk. The cowlick had refused to be tamed again. I licked my hand and patted the spot, wishing for the fifteenth time that I could use boyish to my advantage. From the neck down I was perfect: broad shoulders tapering into narrow hips, legs firm and muscular. My face was the major problem. Oval-shaped with wide eyes and pouty lips, it made me look like a twelve year-old in his father’s body, which was the reason I worked behind the scenes for Senator Lurry instead of out front as most of the Cattons had in the past.

I didn’t dare look naive in front of a woman named Veronique.

Especially a woman with a history like hers.

Downstairs a door slammed shut. I jumped. High heels clicked on the marble floor, the sound echoing in the empty building. I had often worked late, but never alone. Near midnight on those evenings, the place had a hum to it that I always associated with an election or a smear campaign. Never with an interview.

She had insisted on the time. “A woman in my profession,” she had said, her voice husky through the phone lines, “looks best after dark.”

I tugged on my black suitcoat. I wasn’t really alone. Morse sat in the Senator’s office, watching through the fake mirror in case the lady decided to ply her trade on me.

The footsteps grew closer. I rearranged the papers on the desk top, toyed with sitting down, and then decided to remain standing. I still hadn’t learned all the tricks to power and intimidation.

The door opened and she slipped in. She was heartbreakingly thin, with perfect legs that tapered into a model’s body. She wore spike heels, fishnets, and a leather mini-skirt that revealed each curve around her hips. Her black Irish lace blouse set off her porcelain skin. Her lips were dark red, her cheekbones high and her eyes an amazing shade of brown. No wonder she ran the most exclusive escort service in D.C. No man would be able to say no to her.

I stepped from behind the desk, resisting the urge to wipe my hands on my pants legs. I approached her, palm extended. “Reese Catton.”

She placed her fingers lightly in mine. Her skin was cool, not cold as I had expected. “Veronique de la Mer.”

Her voice was husky and warm. A tingle ran up my spine. Ever since vampires and vampirism had come out of the closet five years ago, the news and the tabloid press had been full of articles on the sensual effect of the predator-victim relationship. It didn’t seem to matter that all but a few psychopathic vampires had long ago given up killing human prey — choosing instead to use a handful of willing people to provide blood, much as a blood bank did for a hospital — (“the supermarket approach to blood-sucking,” the New York Times had called it) — the fear, loathing, and sexual tension caused by the human/vampire relationship filled the popular imagination.

Just as she filled mine.

Dry facts weren’t giving me control. I took a deep breath, and slid into the leather chair behind the desk.

“I hope you understand why we contacted you,” I said.

“Oh, yes.” Her voice was soft. “It’s about Governor Nichols.”

She had an edge when she spoke his name, a frission of anger just beneath the surface. I swallowed, feeling calmer. “I hope you don’t mind if I tape this conversation.”

“I expected you to,” she said, and folded her hands demurely on her lap. I pressed the button underneath the desk, activating the room’s taping system, and wondered for a moment if vampires’ voices taped. But I knew they did. We had gotten tape on one just a few weeks ago. They didn’t reflect or film — but that was because of the silvering in the mirrors.

“I understand,” I said, leaning forward and placing my arms on the desk, “that you’ve never spoken with anyone about Governor Nichols.”

She smiled, revealing straight, white teeth. “Oh, I’ve spoken with people,” she said. “Only no one believed me.”

I froze. Her last sentence had thrown me. We were planning, with her cooperation, to smear the former governor by linking him to a vampire as her cow. Our preliminary surveys of 150 voters showed that such a thing would work as effectively as gay bashing had in the eighties. “What do you mean?”

“On July 4, 1966, your friend, the former governor of California, raped me.” She never took her gaze off mine. She spoke calmly, but the ends to the words were clipped as if she had to spit them out.

I let out the air I had been holding. She was lying. We couldn’t bring this to the media. They would skin her alive. “Why didn’t you press charges?”

A half smile, curving those delicate lips into her firm cheekbones. “I tried. It was 1966. I was told that a woman who ran an escort service shouldn’t complain when she got famous business.”

“Who told you that?”

“The detective in charge,” she said. “An unfortunately deceased man named Petrie. His superior officers backed up his prejudice. I haven’t spoken of the incident since. I figure it would be even tougher to convince people now that they know I belong to a completely different race.”

“Why didn’t you go after him?”

Her eyes seemed to tilt downward with an expression of deep sadness, as if she were disappointed in me for asking the question. “Come now, Mr. Catton. What did you expect me to do? Fly into his house on bat wings and rip out his throat?”

“Something like that,” I mumbled. My cheeks grew warm. I guess I had expected that. Old fictional images died hard. Studies had shown that vampires lacked the ability to shapeshift and mesmerize, although they did have centuries’ long lifespans and the appearance of eternal youth.

“Mr. Catton, I have used my political contacts for the better part of two decades to keep the former Governor of California out of the presidency. But times are changing, and the country doesn’t seem to care what kind of man he is as long as he presents a positive media image. Grandfatherly always seems to work in this country. Well, as you know, any connection with me would ruin Nichols’ grandfatherly image.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “The problem you face is that I am unwilling to be linked to that slime romantically or parasitically. We will denounce him as a man capable of extreme violence or you will not have my cooperation.”

“Forgive me,” I said from my chair, “but I don’t think Middle America would care that you got raped.”

She took a step backwards as if I had slapped her myself. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Middle America would simply figure that a woman like me deserved it.”

I was shaking by the time I got home. Alison had gone to bed, leaving a single light on near the fireplace. Embers glowed, light reflecting across the shiny hardwood floor. This place always filled me with a kind of pride — the way the couches framed the oriental rugs, the fresh flowers on the Duncan Fife end tables, the lemon-scented neatness of the condo itself. Even though I had been raised a Catton, my mother kept a messy, “lived-in” house in Connecticut that hide my father’s wealth. I preferred an immaculate, House Beautiful style.

Except tonight. Tonight I wanted to kick off my shoes, scrunch the rugs, and huddle near the television set. But I pulled off my shoes and hung them on the shoe rack in the closet beside the door, walked stocking-footed across the slippery floor and sat at the dining room table, staring at the fruit basket, perfectly arranged, with bananas on the side, oranges at the base and apples on top.

Veronique had gotten to me.

I had never been naive, not even when I had come to Washington as a page for Senator Lurry fifteen years ago. Any pretensions I had may have had remaining toward Truth, Justice, and the American Way were then bled out of me in George Washington’s poli sci department and at Harvard Law. Politics in this country had become the battle of the image. Whoever controlled the media controlled the campaign.

Veronique and her escort service hadn’t been necessary in ’68 and ’72. Nichols had done a good job of destroying his own campaign. Then he disappeared behind the scenes, became a scion of the Republican party, helped Reagan and Bush achieve office, and maintained his own series of perks. The media had forgotten all about the bumbling “youth” candidate who had challenged Nixon in the ‘72 primaries, and saw only the trim, natty grandfather who had helped the Republicans become a power in the eighties. A viceless, happily married man who spoke of family values, and allowed Pat Robertson to fund his campaign.

The kind of man Senator Lurry — whose presidential ambitions had died the night of his daughter’s suicide in ‘80 — despised. Lurry had vowed to clear the way for the Democratic challenger, whether that might be Clinton, Gore, or a wildcard no one had ever heard of. We had demolished Quayle before he even announced, but Nichols was proving to be as teflon as Reagan had been.

The rape charge wouldn’t stand. I had been right. Middle America wouldn’t tolerate it. They would bring down the messenger.

I sighed, and placed my forehead on my arms. We had contacted Veronique because the call girls had not so inexplicably shut up, the records had disappeared on the reported spousal abuse in the mid-seventies, and the college plagiarism charge hadn’t caused a ripple in the polls. An affair with a vampire, we figured, still had taint, even though it was nearly thirty years old.

Although it would be a gamble. If word of the smear got out, Lurry would lose his position as champion of the non-traditional. Vampires, gays and minorities formed a large percentage of his constituency.

If Lurry got caught, he would, of course, blame his assistants.

He would blame me.

iii

“What’d he do?” Lurry asked. “Force her to bite him at gunpoint?”

He was a big man who barely fit in the desk chair that had been specially designed for him ten years previously. He had long jowls that spoke of too many meals and the red, bulbous nose of a hard-core alcoholic. His voice boomed, even in the small office. It always amazed me that he could tarnish the image of anyone.

I shot a glance at Stuckey, his press secretary. She had a small, heart-shaped face, almond eyes, and cafe au lait skin. Her mixed heritage was as much a part of her job as her way with words.

“She didn’t go into the details of the rape,” I said.

Stuckey leaned back in her chair, her long slender fingers playing with the ruby on her left hand. “We would need proof of some kind. Police report, photographs —”

“Photographs are impossible.” I picked the lint off my black pinstriped pants leg. “And she said that the police refused to believe her.”

“If they were called to the site, someone had to write it up,” Stuckey said. “It’s probably buried in some back file in a basement somewhere. I’ll bet Nichols didn’t think to cover his tracks on this one.”

“I don’t see any reason why he had to. Reese was right. Middle America isn’t going to give a damn that some blood-sucking parasite got slapped around thirty years ago.”

Stuckey jutted out her narrow chin. Forty years ago, someone might have said the same about her. I hated it when she got that look. “Be careful, Senator,” she said. “The Republicans would love to hear you talking like that.”

“For god’s sake,” he said, leaning forward. His exquisitely tailored suit strained at its buttons. “It’s the truth.”

“There’s another truth,” Stuckey said. “She has been an influential member of Washington Society since the thirties. She contributes to all sorts of charities, and it could be said that her escort business provides a necessary service for this community. There is no overt evidence of prostitution, and any employee who provides sexual services on a regular basis drops off the payroll of the service and appears on the payroll of the client. Would she make an articulate spokesman, Catton?”

I nodded. Something about Lurry’s reaction was bothering me. “She would, except that we can’t film her.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Stuckey said. “Neither can they. I say let’s see what we got and then make a decision. We might be able to use the woman after all.”

“No,” Lurry said. He folded his hands over his chest.

Stuckey raised one eyebrow. She opened her mouth to speak as I put a finger on her arm.

“What’s your connection with her, Senator?” I asked.

His expression didn’t change but his gaze seemed to go flat. It was a look I recognized from his press conferences: the Lurry Method of Avoiding the Truth. “She runs an escort service for the Washington elite, Reese. There’s no telling what kind of dirt we might inadvertently dig up.”

I suppressed a sigh. Lurry had always been a wild man; the wildness had gotten worse since his daughter’s death. During my college years, the staff had worked hard at covering his destructive tracks all over this city. I had worked hard when I came on board the second time to hold onto other staff members, particularly the women, who hated his roving hands and not-so-subtle innuendo. The others trusted me, because they knew I was a family man, a man who would never treat others the way Lurry did.

But this was something that had fallen through the cracks.

Stuckey had come to the same conclusion. She hated working for Lurry, hated that the man behind the excellent political record was a petty tyrant, sexist and a bigot. “It might be your last chance to get Nichols,” she said.

Lurry spun the swivel on his chair so that he looked out the window instead of staring at us. He was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “I don’t care. We can’t afford the risk. We’ll have to find some other way.”

“I doubt there is another way,” Stuckey said. She left the room. I followed more slowly. As I closed the door, I saw Lurry reach into his liquor cabinet. It was too early to drink, even for him.

Despite Lurry’s refusal to pursue the investigation, Stuckey continued. So did I. I was too intrigued to let it go. Maybe after we had the evidence, Lurry would allow us to run to the media. It had happened before.

Stuckey put one of our best detectives on the case, a secret infiltrator who had no visible connections to us. The detective would make it look to the police like an investigation of Veronique de la Mer instead of an investigation of Nichols.

That would keep the information out of the press until we were ready to put it there ourselves.

Stuckey and I were supposed to meet with the Senator after the detective’s report came in, but I had some questions of my own to answer.

Veronique’s escort service had headquarters near the Hill. I parked a block away, and waited until no one was looking before I entered the building. The elevator took me to the sixth floor offices. As I stepped through the double glass doors, a level of tension left me.

The offices were tasteful. The colors were out of date: the muted grays and pinks of the mid-eighties, but the garish purples and neon greens of the early nineties would have looked out of place here. Flowers in waterford crystal vases stood on runners that crossed antique tables. All of the furniture was antique, mixing periods to great effect: the tables were Early American, the couches late Victorian, the lighting and the crystal were modern. The decor gave the feel of a place that had been in business for a long, long time. The carpet absorbed my footfalls, and I was alone in the waiting room. I assumed that was on purpose. It made the clients feel as if discretion was part of the service.

A woman entered through a sliding glass door. She wore a white silk dress that flowed around her voluptuous body. Her long black hair flowed down her back, as untamed as the dress. “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

Her voice was as well modulated as the rest of her. A shiver ran down my spine. “No,” I said, a little more harshly than I expected. “I am from Senator Lurry’s office. I would like to see Veronique.”

The woman nodded once. “Come with me,” she said, and without waiting, went back through the glass doors.

The hallway was long and narrow, and smelled faintly of lilacs. Closed doors along each side gave this area a forbidding feeling that the front didn’t have. Privacy above all else.

How odd. Veronique mastered privacy in her business, yet she was willing to give it all away to bring down Nichols.

She really had to hate him.

The woman opened the double mahogany doors at the end of the hallway, then stepped aside so that I could enter. I stepped into another waiting room, although this one was more flamboyant than the one I left. The colors were red, black and deep browns, and all of the furniture was late Edwardian: heavy with thick upholstery. The room had a masculine feel as if it were designed by a man for a woman.

The door closed behind me. I sat on the edge of the couch, feeling sixteen again, and at the interview for my page position. I tugged on the knees of my trousers. They were tight across the groin.

A door opened, and then Veronique was in the room. She wore her hair piled on top of her head, revealing a slender well formed neck. This time she wore a suit. The jacket was open, and the shell was cut low across her breasts, revealing cleavage and a bit of nipple. She sat on the edge of her desk and crossed her legs. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Mr. Catton.”

I swallowed. I was a happily married man. Alison and I had a good sex life. I didn’t need anything else. “I’m here on business.”

She smiled. “Most people are.”

“No,” I said. “For Senator Lurry.”

“Ah.” She got off the desk and retreated behind it, tugging her coat across her chest. “You want to know details. How can a human male rape a woman of superior strength? It’s really quite easy, Mr. Catton. It simply takes planning. He must learn where I sleep, for that’s when I am most vulnerable, and learn how to tie me up, how to immobilize my mouth. Determination, Mr. Catton —”

“That’s not why I’m here,” I said. I couldn’t stand the calm tone she was using with me. “I’ve been thinking about this. We’re investigating your claim now, but it doesn’t completely make sense to me. Assume that I believe you, what’s in this for you? You have other, more subtle ways to bring down Nichols. Why chose a haphazard method that may not work?”

She smiled and leaned back, letting the coat pull open again. The shell was thin and it stretched across her chest, outline her breasts in detail. Her nipples were hard points against the material.

I forced myself to look at her eyes.

“You’re very smart, Mr. Catton,” she said.

I licked my lips. She made me nervous, here, in her lair. “I try to be.”

“Then perhaps you will understand that I am tired of being hidden. My people have been out of the closet, to use your quaint phrase, for five years now, and we are still fighting myths and prejudices. We live long lives, and have experiences that encompass entire generations. We understand policy and its ramifications better than you do. But our limitations, Mr. Catton, became obvious once the camera was invented. We cannot run for office. We could not even try until a few years ago.”

I tugged again at my pants legs. It was good they couldn’t run, good that television cameras couldn’t pick them up. With their charisma, they would win, every time. “People are too afraid of you to elect you.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know. But things change over time. We have seen that with African Americans and with women. We have decided that it is better to fight in an open forum than behind the scenes.”

“To put you up against Nichols media machine is to sacrifice you to the prejudices of the American people. You’ll lose.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But I’ll damage Nichols, and I’ll start the awareness that vampires are not the all evil, all powerful beings the movies have made them out to be.”

I ran a hand along the crushed velvet upholstery. “I don’t understand how choosing to become a victim will help you politically.”

She shrugged, and smiled, just a little. “Then, Mr. Catton, you’re not as smart as I thought.”

I immediately hurried home. Fortunately Alison was there. Much to her surprise, I dragged her to bed, and we made love like newlyweds in their sexual prime. We had just finished when the doorbell rang.

She brushed the hair from her forehead. “You go on,” she said, pushing me a little. “I need to shower. I’m already late for a Women in Business meeting.”

I slid on a pair of jeans, walked barefoot to the door, and looked through the peephole. Stuckey was there, her face pale beneath the make-up. She clutched a stack of folders to her chest. Her briefcase rested on the floor beside her.

I pulled the door open.

“We need to talk,” she said, and came in without an invitation. Her shoes left little prints on the hardwood floor. She set everything on the diningroom table, pushing the basket of fruit aside to make room.

I sat down beside her, opened the files, and barely looked up when Alison kissed me good-bye. The files were dusty, the old police reports more detailed than I had expected, as if someone had been planning a case. A client had found Veronique, naked, blood-covered, and half dead in her waiting room. She had been tied with silver wire, a garlic bulb shoved in her mouth, and slashed from groin to sternum with a knife. The reports were filed by four separate officers, and a pathologist. Veronique had been conscious enough to demand her private doctor, and instead of being treated by the hospital staff, she had been treated by a man now known as the vampire’s equivalent of doctor to the stars.

The files included photos of the crime scene, and Veronique’s account, both on tape, and in writing, of the rape itself. The investigation ended as soon as the nature of Veronique’s profession became known.

Stuckey watched me as I read Veronique’s account. Nichols had not been alone. Four other politicians of his generation had been there to take care of Veronique properly. Three of the four were dead — one in a single engine plane crash over the Appalachians, one in an unsolved murder in Mexico, and one of an undiagnosed variety of pernicious anemia which the doctor associated with leukemia but which was now known to be caused by bad reaction to secretions in vampire saliva.

The fourth was alive: Senator Jason Lurry, then a first term Congressman from the great state of Texas.

I brought my head up. Stuckey was watching me, elbow on the table, chin resting on her palm. “She set us up,” I said.

Stuckey rolled her eyes. “Veronique is not the problem,” she said. “It’s Lurry. He lied to us and to his constituents from the beginning. Did you read why he participated?”

I shook my head. I had stopped when I saw his name.

“Because she was withholding favors from them. Political favors. She was refusing to use her sexual influence to aid their careers.”

I let my breath out slowly. “Raping her was certainly not the way to get her to help.”

“No,” Stuckey said, “but it sent a message throughout the community. A lot of people knew what she was. They must have figured these men had a lot of muscle behind them to get her as badly as they did.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. A headache was building behind my eyes. It all made sense now. Lurry and Nichols had ceased being friends in ‘67. Something must have come between them then, something to do with Veronique. They managed to succeed without her, but not to the heights they had wanted. And whenever they had come close to achieving those heights, something had successfully damaged their careers — like Lurry’s daughter’s suicide.

“What I don’t understand is why she’s doing this now,” I said. “I talked to her. I said going public would make her a victim, and why would anyone want to be a victim? She laughed at me and called me naive.”

Stuckey blinked at me, and then grinned. “You’re not naive,” she said. “You’re just privileged. Reese Catton, son of politicians, product of private schools and Ivy League law schools. Even your name has the sound of wealth.”

I squirmed, suddenly cold without my shirt. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you’re one of the lucky few who’ve never been victimized.” She leaned forward, a flush rising beneath her dusky skin. “Reese, honey, victims are victims when they remain quiet. They gain power when they speak out.”

The headache had moved to my temples. “She had power. It looks like she controlled their careers from the inside.”

“But that’s a revenge cycle,” Stuckey said, “and no more empowering than punching a man who mugged you. You need to read more about ways to help the powerless. Look what empathy did for Bobby Kennedy.”

“Yeah,” I said, standing. “It got him assassinated.”

This time we met in neutral territory, at the Lincoln Memorial. I waited on the steps after dark, in the shadow of Honest Abe himself.

Honest Abe, who had suspended civil rights, and freed the slaves as a matter of political expediency. Honest Abe, who really wanted to send all the blacks back to Africa.

I heard her before I saw her. Heels clicking against the sidewalk, a purse clutched to her arm. She wasn’t wearing hooker clothes or a business suit. This time, she wore jeans and a mohair sweater. The outfit suited her more than the others had.

“You set me up,” I said, before I could see her face in the streetlight.

“No.” She climbed the stairs and sat beside me on the top. She smelled faintly of lilacs. “I have just learned that it is easier to convince people when they discover the information for themselves. You wouldn’t have believed me if I attacked your precious senator. You believe me now.”

I did that. If nothing else, I believed Veronique’s version of those events back in 1966. “What do you want from me?”

“We need a spokesman. You are our best choice. You are young, moving into that youthful handsomeness that this country associates with its romantic leaders. But the problem is you have no dreams, no ideals. We will give those to you.” She ran a hand through her hair. There was nothing seductive about her this night. “You see, what your histories have forgotten is that the symbiosis went beyond the physical. Your people provided the energy, the power, and the drive. Ours the sense of community and continuity. Over the centuries, we failed to keep our end. We stagnated, and you rebelled — a rebellion that culminated with the invention of the camera and became codified with the publication of Stoker’s horrible political tract. But we have learned our lesson. We would like to forge a new voice in the political history of the western world. We would like a new alliance, and we need your help.”

I leaned back, resting my elbows on the cool concrete stairs. I should have been used to power games; I had initiated enough myself. But I had been off balance in this one from the beginning. “Why me? Why not someone like Stuckey?”

“Because,” she said, “you have no personal axes to grind, no commitment to anything except yourself, your lovely wife, and your home. We don’t want someone with other ties that might interfere with our cause.”

Words were carved into the walls above me. Great words, spoken by a man considered by many to be one of our best leaders. Who knew why he ran for office. Power-madness? A belief he could make a difference? Ego? All three or none of the above?

I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know anything about you people. For all I know, you could be trying to take over the country.”

She smiled, her teeth flashing in the streetlights. “Isn’t that what every special interest group hopes to do?”

“Not every special interest group has the power of persuasion that you people have.”

She touched my hand. Her fingers were cold. “I should make myself clear. I’m not asking you to run for President. I want you to resign as Lurry’s aide, then help me make a public case against them.”

Her fingers were long and slender, the nails tapered. “Forgive me,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “But I was right that first night. Middle America won’t care that you were raped.”

“Make them care. That would be your job.”

I moved my arm out of her grasp. “There are better people for that. Image brokers, people who make their living changing public opinion.”

“But none are as unimpeachable as you.” She leaned back beside me. “Think of it. You worked for Senator Lurry. You discovered the information yourself. It so appalled you that you are jeopardizing your own political career to speak out against him.”

I tilted my head back so that I couldn’t see her. Abe’s carved legs, spread slightly apart, towered above me. She would do this, with or without me. And she would fail, but the die would be cast. Conversations would start; people would talk; ideas would get aired like they had at the beginning of each intellectual and perceptual revolution.

The balance of power was shifting beneath me. I could cling to the old or leap to the new. Or I could attempt to straddle the middle, and watch the world as I knew it crumble beneath my feet.

I had planned to resign anyway.

I needed a new job.

“Let me bring Stuckey along and I’ll do it,” I said.

“You may have anyone you want on your team.” Veronique stood and wiped off the back of her jeans. “Come to me after you’ve publicly announced your resignation. We’ll finalize our agreement then.”

She walked down the steps, heels clicking until the darkness swallowed her. I didn’t know how I ever thought she wanted to be a victim. She had more power than all the rest of us combined — the power of her convictions. I envied that. It was something I had never seen in Washington.

Maybe the world was shifting more than I thought.

“Victims” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch first published in Sisters of the Night, edited by Barbara Hambly and Martin H. Greenberg, Warner Aspect, 1995.