"Oh, my little cub, how could I possibly be mad at you?" said Viktor, his eyes turning back from red to green. "I know how hard it is when you have to take a life so that others could have a better one. I understand your fear, but know this… no matter what you do or don't do, I will always be here for you."
Standing up, he gave me a soft kiss on the forehead and went back to his original seat. "So, what are your plans for the Jenny situation?" he asked, making it clear that he did not care about what happened at House Gypsy.
I shrugged my shoulders and rubbed the knots in my neck… (the muscle kind, not the string kind… My threads don't make knots). "Honestly? I have no idea what I am going to do. Most days I'm wondering if I even am keeping my head above the water because it feels like I am downing."
In the months that I have taken this position, it seemed like all I was doing was putting out the fires set by the previous Head of House, and nothing was making sense. I could not figure out her motivation to involve the humans.
Dark magic I could understand. I mean, once she found out how low on the totem pole she actually was, she would want the power to climb up. That drive was simply human nature and I could not fault her for that. But if she wanted that type of power, why wouldn't she just go to Vlad and ask to turn?
"You are thinking awfully hard," chuckled Van Helsing. "I can almost see the smoke coming out of your ears."
"Ha ha… very funny," I said sarcastically not putting too much heat into it because he was right. I was constantly thinking about this situation, every waking minute of every day. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe I was looking at this from the wrong perspective.
Crimes were committed for one of five reasons: greed, anger, jealousy, revenge, or pride. I mean, that is a highly oversimplified list and it does not take into account a lot of factors… but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, it was because of one of those things.
But Jenny could be in any one of those categories….
Greed: She wanted more power or more money.
Anger: She was made that she was human in a world of monsters and thought she deserved everything that the immortals did.
Jealously: She wanted to be a monster, even though she was only human.
Revenge: She hated the monsters for what they had and wanted to get back at them.
Pride: Being able to run circles around the Van Helsing would be a matter of pride to anyone. The fact that Viktor did not know this was going on under his nose would be a point for anyone.
But why bring in the other humans? Just what was it that I was missing?
I collapsed onto my desk and let my head bang off of the top. Hearing Viktor chuckle, I turned my face so I could look at him (glare at him) while continuing to rest my cheek on the cool wood.
"You are making this way too complicated," he laughed as he reached over and brushed aside my hair that was resting on my upturned cheek. "Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one."
"That she was a bitch and wanted to give the world a giant fuck you?" I said sarcastically. Cause even going through my lists of motives, that is the only one that spanned all five categories. She was pissed and wanted to take the world down with her.
I straightened up and looked at Viktor, my eyes widened. He simply raised an eyebrow to me.
"She is using the politicians and military to corrupt the country, she is using demons and dark magic to start wars and at the end of the day, she planned to become the most powerful human in the world and sit above everyone else," I said as my eyes widened even more as the words flowed out of my mouth.
Viktor smirked. "It seems like something that she would do."
"And that is why the politicians that were in direct contact with here were so rotten. They were inadvertently causing the downfall of all mankind for their own benefit." I stood up and did a little dance in happiness.
"So, what is your next step?" asked Viktor taking a sip of his plum brandy.
"Pick one of the five that was here earlier and use him as a warning for the others," I said, finally coming up with a concrete plan to deal with the mess in front of me. I wasn't naive enough to think that I could completely eliminate the rot from the government or even people in general, but I would squash any more ideas of demons coming into this world.
And if there were any currently here? I would simply take them out as I could.
------
It was over an hour's drive from that damn mansion out in the middle of nowhere to his office, but General Greyson needed every minute of that to collect his thoughts. He stared out the window as his driver brought him back.
The words that that woman, Natalia Tesalor, said kept going through his mind in a constant loop. Was his supervisor really trying to kill him? If so, why? Was it because he refused to change his team? Because he didn't want them to undergo the experiments that so many others were doing? Because he kept refusing missions for them?
A hundred different scenarios ran through his head, but not a single one of them made any sense. There was no such thing as monsters. The very idea was as ridiculous as the idea of the politicians using witchcraft to get what they wanted.
But… how was it that those who opposed his superior ended up on failed missions and died as a result? On the surface, there was nothing suspicious about it, men died in combat all the time, it was an extremely unfortunate side of the job, but they were all highly trained men and women and the missions seemed easy enough.
And then there were all of the missions that his superiors sent his team on, only for them to consistently escape death by the skin of their teeth.
The drive was over much too quickly, and General Greyson thanked the driver and went up to his office, making a short stop to his secretary to see if there were any messages.
"Nothing, Sir," she said, looking at Greyson. Nodding his head, he entered his office and sat down at his desk, still thinking about what his next step should be.
He hadn't even been at his desk for five minutes when his secretary notified him that he had a call on line one. "Sir, General Richards is on the line for you," said his secretary as Greyson started at his phone. Natalia had warned him that he would get a call from his superior and here it was.
Picking up the phone Greyson pushed out a happy voice, "Duncan! How are you?"