Amaury's Hellion by Tina Folsom Page B

toward him, his arms outstretched, wanting to be lifted into his father’s arms.
    “Papa!”
     But the moment Amaury clutched his son to his chest, the beast in him took charge, and the thirst overwhelmed him.
    Not knowing what he was doing, he sank his fangs into the boy. Moments later the lifeless body of his son lay at his feet, and his wife’s hysteric screams filled the night air.
    There was no way back from what he’d done. And as a new vampire, he didn’t know how to save him, how to perhaps turn his son into a vampire too, so at least he could have survived in some capacity.
    Only later did he learn how to create a vampire, how he would have had to feed his son his own blood at the very moment where his heart took its last beats.
    “Monstre! T’as tué mon fils!” Yes, he’d killed his own son.
    His wife’s screams were mixed with tears, her voice hoarse. But the way she looked at him when he came out of his momentary trance, when the beast in him was satisfied by the boy’s blood, those eyes condemned him to hell. Living hell.
    “Tu vas sentir toute la douleur du monde, des émotions de chacun, et tu seras infirme pour l’éternité. Jamais tu vas sentir l’amour du nouveau. Jamais.”
    What she condemned him to was what he deserved: to sense everybody’s emotions, to feel the pain that would cripple him for eternity with no love ever soothing his heart again.
    “Mon dieu, qu-est ce que j’ai fait?” What had he done?
    Amaury fell to his knees and wept.

Ten

    It was the last staff meeting for the night. Amaury was tired and drained. He could sense Gabriel wasn’t faring much better. Using their powers took a lot out of them.
    The chairs in the meeting room were arranged so Yvette could see everybody’s face and register them in her mind. Both Amaury and Gabriel stood next to her, off to the side, while Ricky stood at the podium and answered questions after he’d given his standard speech about the incidents.
    “That’s just what we need, the police digging around in our past,” one of the employees droned. A collective murmur went through the room.
    Ricky held up his hand to ask for silence. “I understand your concerns. Rest assured, we will not release information to the police if they don’t present us with a proper subpoena. As we all know, many of us have less than stellar backgrounds. But we’re past this. We’ve pulled ourselves out of this and have reformed ourselves.”
    Amaury noticed that Ricky used the collective we . He was an extraordinary speaker, always knowing what the crowd wanted, how he could win them over to his side. Many of Scanguards’ bodyguards were reformed criminals, and while Ricky wasn’t an ex-con, to imply that he was one of them was a smart PR move.
    “We’re in this together. One bad apple won’t spoil the entire batch. I believe in you guys. Without you, there would be no Scanguards. Without you, the world would be less safe,” he continued his pep talk. “The company needs you to stay strong and vigilant. If you suspect any wrongdoing, I urge you to come to me.”
    Amaury scanned the crowd and tried to filter out the various emotions bouncing around the room. His head was near exploding, but as always he didn’t let on. The emotions which bombarded him were what he expected: fear, dread, anger, disbelief.
    “We can’t allow these incidents to rip the company apart. Too many people depend on us. Too many jobs would be lost. We all have families that depend on us. Let’s not let them down.”
    “Are there any leads?” a question came from the audience.
    Ricky shook his head. “We’re not privy to any information the police deems confidential. We will conduct our own internal investigation though, and for that we rely on your input. Many of you knew both Edmund and Kent. So I have a favor to ask of you: if you think there is anything odd that happened to them before these incidents, anything that might be considered strange, or if you know