“And violent,” I said. “Let’s not forget violent.”
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “They need good, steady, strong human servants to provide emotional balance and a ready supply of safe, clean blood. Servants who aren’t easily riled to help them navigate the human legal, financial, and social systems. Which is why the blood-slave and blood-servant relationships were put into the Vampira Carta. You know of it?”
I nodded. Troll had mentioned it.
“According to the oldest of us—Correen, who lives here with Clan Arceneau—without this stability, vampires go rogue faster. They need the long-term, lifelong bonding that takes place with the slave and servant relationship. They need it. They need us.”
“Is that what Correen thinks happened with this rogue I’m after? He lost his blood-servant?”
“She thinks it’s possible.”
I tapped my fingernails on the glass, little tinks of sound as I thought. “What’s the difference between slave and servant?”
“Time, money, and monogamy,” Brian said. “A blood-servant is a paid employee who offers work and blood meals in return for a salary, security, improved health, expanded life span, and other benefits resulting from a few sips of vampire blood a month. If the relationship works, then a servant is adopted into the vampire’s family, becomes part of the financial, emotional, and legal running of it, just like an adopted child would be, but with the benefits not dropped when he or she reaches majority. Servants are too important, too difficult to replace, to let grow old, unhealthy, or slow. Of course, getting out of the relationship is problematic from our end too.”
“We’re hooked on the blood,” Brandon offered, “and on the relationship, which is . . . intense.” The brothers shared a quick look that said the type of intense was sexual, but was also something else. Something I hadn’t penetrated yet.
“A blood-slave is a blood-junkie, but one who doesn’t have a permanent master,” Brian said. “Slaves are passed around between masters, usually only inside a family, but not always, and without a contract or the security offered in the longer-term relationship. They’re used for food, fed on several times a month, and might be offered a small salary and an occasional blood sip in return. But slaves do it for the high they get when they’re fed on, not the relationship.”
I rubbed my head, more as an excuse to think than to relieve tension. I had known there was a difference between blood-slaves and blood-servants but the particulars weren’t easy to discover. And I was certain that I didn’t have the full picture now. I hadn’t gained much new info from this conversation, but I had discovered, over the years, that I would eventually use and expand on what I learned. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll think about all this. Okay if I call you with questions?”
“Not guaranteeing we’ll answer, but you can always ask,” Brandon said.
I dropped my hand and stood, stretching. “Okay. So on that note, how about two favors. First, call the other security people and tell them I’m riding around, learning the lay of the land. Ask them not to shoot me if I bike up to their doors.” I grinned to show I was only half jesting. “And . . . tell me. How old are you guys?”
Brian laughed. Brandon sighed, looked at his watch, and handed his brother a five-dollar bill, saying, “We have a standing bet. You asked within the first hour. So I lose.”
“And?” I asked.
The twins exchanged a look, the kind that only those who have worked closely together for years, like old married couples, or twins, share, the kind that says so much more than words. Brandon said, “We were born in 1822.”
I stared. “Crap. You’re old farts.” The brothers laughed, at which point I realized I had spoken aloud. I smiled weakly as they showed me down the hall toward the door, while offering assurances that they would pave the way for me with the other security personnel.
I thought I was done, until I passed the hallway mural. I stopped midstep, midword, midthought. The nighttime pastoral scene was of vamps having a candlelit picnic. Naked vamps. And the food was naked too—alive and human. I couldn’t help my blush when I saw Brandon and Brian were part of the scene, and that they were depicted as being very well endowed. Very, very well endowed. My blush made the brothers laugh, one of those manly he-men laughs that said they were, indeed, well endowed, and that they thought blushing was cute.