Victor Tollman was a large man. In his football days, he’d been a decent ruckman. His gym work became a little harder and a took little longer with each passing year, but he maintained excellent health and physique well into his fifties. He had a friendly face and salt-and-pepper hair, with a neat beard to match.
He sat in his office, in a huge leather chair that seemed large even to his sizeable frame. If not for the swivel base, it would have made a halfway decent throne. His desk was a piece of oak the size of a single bed.
Victor was watching a live feed of the reception security cameras, centred on the man standing in front of the reception desk. The image was distorted, the figure appearing as nothing but a blur.
“Can you hide from cameras like that?” Victor asked the man standing beside him, likewise watching the screen.
“Yes,” Vermillion said.
Vermillion had pale skin, dark hair, and narrow but sleekly handsome features. He was tall and looked to be in his mid-twenties, although Victor suspected he was older. He wore an impeccable black suit that cost more than Jason’s last car. Of course, Jason’s last car had been a rather dismal bomb, which he hadn’t given a thought to with Shade on hand.
“Is he one of you?” Victor asked.
“Perhaps,” Vermillion said, “but I don’t think so. I’ll know once he gets up here.”
“What else might he be?”
“I’ve warned you about fishing for information, Victor,” Vermillion gently admonished. “Too much knowledge and too little power is a volatile admixture.”
“Instead of withholding knowledge, you could just give me power,” Victor suggested.
Vermillion shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. “You’re relentless, Victor.”
“That’s the footy player in me,” Victor said. “You’ve got to be hungry if you’re going to win.”
Jason followed a blank-faced office worker from the elevator and down a corridor that terminated in a large set of wooden double doors. The functionary dramatically pushed them both open to grant access to the room beyond. It was more akin to one of Emir’s cloud palace lounges than an office, taking up a full third of the top floor. Two walls of the office were banks of windows. The room resembled the inside of a gentlemen’s club, with multiple sets of leather chairs and couches, a movie projector, and two separate bars.
If it was a gentlemen’s club, though, the gentlemen in question were of the unrefined sort. The walls were covered in paraphernalia glorifying football. From the preponderance of Collingwood merchandise, Jason guessed that Victor Tollman was originally a Melbournian.
The only part that looked even remotely like an office was buried away in the corner, away from the windows. A leather throne sat behind what was either a well-constructed desk or a poorly constructed boat. Walking towards him from that corner of the room were two men. Jason turned his attention to them as the office worker left, closing the doors behind her.
The larger of the two men was older, but vigorous, judging by sight and aura both. He reminded Jason of Hiro’s thug, Growl, but with fewer steroids and more brains. The seemingly younger man looked like a sexy mortician. His aura was bronze rank and rather disconcerting in its familiarity. It was definitely that of a vampire, but without the wild savagery of those turned by a monster that Jason had encountered in the past. This man was clearly a different breed, with a clean, controlled aura.
The younger man stayed back while the older one came forward to boisterously shake Jason’s hand. The physical contact brought up the man’s information in Jason’s view.
Victor Tollman
Human (normal rank)
“G’day, mate,” Victor greeted.
“G’day,” Jason said. “If I’d known you were a Collingwood supporter, I might not have come.”
Victor snorted derision.
“Go the mighty pies,” he said with a grin, then moved aside, a clear invitation for the other man.
The tall, pale man stepped forward and Jason offered his hand. After a brief pause, the man shook it.
Craig Vermillion
Greater Vampire (Human, araneid bloodline, bronze rank)
“Jason Asano,” Jason introduced himself. “Just call me Jason. Mind if I call you Craig?”
The tall man’s lips pressed thinly together, but he otherwise didn’t react as he let go of Jason’s hand.
“I go by Vermillion, professionally.”
“No worries, mate,” Jason said with a grin. Jason had grown a few centimetres taller with the ascension to bronze rank, but he was still towered over by the two men.
“You can just call me Vic,” Victor said. “Let’s park it, yeah? One of the good things about being rich as buggery is owning good chairs.”
They sat down in a trio of lounge chairs around a low table.
“Would you like some refreshments?” Victor asked. “There’s nothing really worth drinking at noon on a Tuesday, but I can have someone bring in water, coffee, tea…”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Jason said. “You asked to see me, presumably because you heard about what happened with Ari.”
“Yep,” Victor acknowledged.
Jason then turned to Vermillion.
“How much does he know?” Jason asked.
“He’s had a glimpse,” Vermillion said. “He knows what I am and that there are other things out there. Enough to see that there are dangers he is unequipped to combat.”
“Dangers you are equipped to meet.” Jason chuckled. “In return for certain accommodations?”
“Yes,” Vermillion said unashamedly. “What have you told your uncle?”
“That if I tell him any more, he may find himself involved with those dangers you mentioned.”
“That is a wise approach.”
Victor didn’t show it on his face, but Jason could see the frustration in Victor’s aura. He guessed that Victor was unaware that his emotions could be read that way, which Vermillion no doubt kept secret for his own advantage. As for Vermillion himself, his controlled aura revealed none of his emotions, at least to Jason’s senses. It was an unusual level of control for a someone not an essence user.
“Those dangers may not be something you can keep from your uncle’s door,” Victor said. “The EOA have seized control in Perth and Melbourne, and now they’re making no secret of their overtures into Sydney.”
Jason had already guessed the EOA to be more than ordinary criminals, although it was postulation based on very little information. It was starting to look like his world had an entire ecosystem of hidden magic, which Jason needed to learn about before he stumbled into trouble. More trouble.
“What is it that you want from me?” Jason asked Victor.
“I have a level of cooperation with Vermillion’s organisation,” Victor said. “They are, however, unwilling to expand the scope of that cooperation when the EOA come inevitably come knocking at my door. When I heard that someone else from Vermillion’s general circle was affiliated with one of my employees, I wanted to see if we could come to an arrangement.”