Fat Vampire 6: Survival of the Fattest by Johnny B. Truant Page B

that two wrongs didn’t make a right. At the sites of at least three demonstrations, the two sides clashed, leading to bloodshed, and buildings burned.
    Eventually the time to depart arrived. Reginald and Timken climbed into an armored Lincoln Town Car and the soldiers loaded into an old human SWAT vehicle wearing armor much like Timken’s SA used to wear, save the bright red helmets. Then, with the car in front and the SWAT truck well behind, they made their way to an abandoned utility warehouse in the middle of a rolling section of upstate New York. The SWAT truck fell back while the car headed to the station, parked, and waited.
    A short while later, a similar black car arrived and parked twenty yards away. Reginald told the two guards who’d ridden with them to keep their weapons down and their teeth in check, then advanced halfway with Timken at his side. The other car’s doors opened and Lafontaine stepped out, flanked by two guards. The guards were armored. Each was holding a weapon similar to the ones Reginald had seen the AVT use in the war, now streamlined and somehow different. Then, as the two guards remained rooted, Lafontaine advanced alone, into the space between the two parties.
    When he was fifteen feet from Reginald and Timken, Lafontaine gestured toward the door of the warehouse. Reginald had already sent a crew to check the building for traps, and while the crew had been checking it out, they’d reported seeing humans on the horizon, watching through (and here, they’d laughed) binoculars. But Reginald, who didn’t laugh in reply, was sure they’d also be watching through the scopes of rifles filled with gray bullets.  
    They walked in.  
    Outside, the humans crested the hill. The vampire soldiers arrived on foot. And the two species began to cover the area like a swarm of locusts.

S IT -D OWN

    BOTH THE GUARDS AND LAFONTAINE — tall, overweight, balding, seemingly in his thirties despite records that placed him in his twenties — were wearing mirrored sunglasses in spite of the darkness. Reginald’s vampire eyes could usually see through mirroring, but he couldn’t see through Lafontaine’s glasses at all. They weren’t normal sunglasses. They had to be another human innovation, intended to keep things on the level and to keep the two vampires from meeting his eyes.  
    There was a simple card table (plastic, not wood) in the middle of the room. On each side of the table was one folding metal chair. Timken sat in one and Lafontaine, with a glance at Reginald, sat in the other. Reginald stood beside the card table, feeling like a waiter.  
    “You were supposed to come alone,” said Lafontaine.  
    “You’ll be glad he’s here,” said Timken. “Reginald is the best mind we have.”  
    Lafontaine glanced at him again. “That’s exactly why I’m not glad he’s here.”  
    “This was the only way it made sense.” Timken shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m just a figurehead. He’s our best negotiator. Not that I want him to bamboozle you, you understand. Just that we owe it to everyone to have the best minds on this.”  
    Lafontaine took a third look at Reginald, but this time he looked him over very slowly, starting at his feet and working his way upward. He spent a lot of time on Reginald’s face, trying to read him. The only other place he lingered nearly as long was Reginald’s huge gut.  
    Finally he turned his head, with its sparse hair, toward Timken. “Did you just say ‘bamboozle’?”  
    “You know what I mean. I just mean we’re not trying to trick you.”  
    “I know what it means. It just doesn’t sound like something a vampire would say.” He glanced yet again toward Reginald. “Are you two really vampires?”  
    “I could drink your blood if you’d like,” said Reginald.  
    Lafontaine stared directly at him, his mirrored lenses locked on Reginald’s eyes. Reginald had extended his fangs, but he was wielding them in the least threatening way