Vandewater moves closer, stands over the kid, looking at his face.

– Now he has great potential. He could accomplish remarkable feats.

The boys have begun assembling the works from the briefcase.

– With nurturing and care, with a firm hand to steer him, he might become something worthwhile. A scholar of our kind, one who might someday unlock all the secrets of the Vyrus. A statesman, to unite the Clans. A poet, to write verses of our plight. An able soldier, to take arms in the coming battles.

One of the boys takes the kid’s arm and inserts an IV needle into a vein.

– But it is not to be. I will not have him.

The blood cup is fitted to the hose and the blood begins to fill one of the pint bags they have at hand.

– I will not have the brown, black, and yellow in my land. Once, yes, they had a place. But they proved treacherous. And they will not be given a second chance.

The bag is full. One of the boys closes the valve at the end of the hose, slips the full bag free, and connects a fresh one. Blood flows.

– Do you know what you are looking at?

I shake my head.

– There is no reason you should. You are looking at a weapon. A very old weapon.

Another bag full, another attached.

– Although it has never been used as such before. In the past it has always been simply a vice. Albeit a very dangerous one. And very exclusive.

Another bag.

– One wonders where the original inspiration came from, who it was that stuck their finger in the air and declared, eureka!

She picks up one of the full bags.

– I suspect it was an accident.

She walks toward me.

– I suspect it was a Vampyre, crazed with hunger, attempting to feed on someone who had been very, very recently infected. Through some odd set of circumstances, this Vampyre fed only for a moment. And made a discovery.

Behind her, another bag is filled.

– That, when consumed, the blood of one freshly infected will induce the most remarkable sensations. Remarkable, and addictive.

She raises an index finger.

– An unbelievably expensive addiction, mind you. For who can afford to be addicted to blood twice over? Who can bear the risks of hunting not just for sustenance, but for pleasure? Thus the exclusivity.

They’re massaging the kid now, rubbing their hands over his legs and arms, as if squeezing dry a tube of toothpaste.

– That expense lies also at the heart of the secret as to why something like this has laid buried for so very long. Of course, I say something like this, knowing that nothing else like this exists. The point being, our lives are difficult to say the least. And they can be very long. And, if one does not have resources, very boring. An effective distraction from the basic needs for survival would be compelling in and of itself. Even if it were not addictive.

Another bag.

– It was decided some time ago, some very great time ago, that this was an indulgence that could not be afforded. It was declared anathema by the body that governed the Clans. When there was such a thing. In fact, that was the name it was given.

She shows me the bag in her hands, holds it in front of my face so that my nostrils are full of the stink of it.

– Anathema: the name for both the substance itself, and the habit of indulging in it. It was forbidden. The addicts were hunted and slaughtered. It became a crime so heinous, no one even knew of its existence. And so you see my personal values employed.

She turns to face the kid being wrung dry on the floor.

– Employing something of the past in a new manner, in order to shape the future. It flows out of these sacrifices.

She points at the window.

– And we send it onto the streets below. To wear holes in their unity. To create dissent and expose weaknesses. To drive their children to hunt to excess and endanger themselves. Thus, it is a weapon.

One of the boys has hoisted the kid by his ankles. A bag fills in fits and spurts.

Vandewater turns back to me.

– A weapon that, given time, will spur a war.

The kid is dry. They begin to bundle him in the plastic sheet.

– It will drive the Hood to threaten war on the Coalition. Predo, clinging to the status quo as he does, will attempt to avoid this. But he will have no choice. The chaos reigning in the Hood will force him to take action. Especially once I have assured him that I will be taking action whether he does or not. He will not risk losing this settlement. Particularly not when he sees how vulnerable to attack I have made the Hood.

She points at the two plastic wrapped bodies.

– Put them in the kitchen for now.

Two of the boys haul them out of the room.

She shows me the bag of blood again, holds it balanced on the open palm of her large hand.

– And that is what you are looking at.

I look at her.

– Me, I thought I was looking at a lady who’s crazy as a shit-house rat.

She nods.

– Vulgarity. Of course. The refuge of the weak-minded. Scoff if you like. But there is more.

The boys come back and begin replacing the furniture they had moved. She raises a hand and one of them brings a chair. She sits.

– Once the Hood has fallen. Once we have reclaimed our territory and these boys and their brothers and sisters know the security they have never known. The security that would have been theirs if the Secretariat had never bowed to those animals. Once that is secure, my attention will turn south, to our lands below 14th Street.

The room has been put back together. Two of the boys continue to stand watch over me while the others gather together the anathema and pack it in the briefcase.

– In fact, that project has already begun. Gradually, much as we did here, the anathema is being introduced. Which, I would imagine, is the reason you have come so far away from home in the first place.

She looks at me through her glasses again.

– Another thing.

The boys come over to the couch, one of them carrying the briefcase full of anathema.

– While in modest amounts anathema’s effects are essentially euphoric, larger amounts are quite agonizing, if not lethal.

She hands one of the boys the pint she’s been holding.

– It takes an experienced and steady hand to administer the perfect dosage to inflict that agony without inducing an undesired fatality.

The boy unwraps a clean syringe.

– But if done properly, such a dose is every bit as effective as the most savage torture.

He begins to draw anathema into the syringe.

– Minus the mess and inconvenience.

She holds up a finger. The boy stops filling the syringe.

She points at it.

– This, I believe, would be your ideal dosage. If I were to inject you with this, every muscle in your body would warm and relax. A slight sweat might break out over your face. The worries of your everyday life would cease to have weight. Music would fill your ears such as you have never heard before. Images would light the undersides of your eyelids. Shapes, colors. Fantasies, but also more concrete hallucinations. Communal visions that are shared by all who have experienced anathema. Visions that some would say prove conclusively the spiritual nature of the Vyrus. Though I am not among them. But perhaps you are, Mr. Pitt?

Again she lifts the glasses to her eyes.

– I have heard that you sometimes associate with Daniel and his followers. Are you one of them? I’ve long suspected that Daniel’s interests are not so ephemeral as he claims. It would not surprise me to discover that you are in fact his agent. Predo and Bird running you for their ends, but all the while, secretly, you are an instrument of Enclave concerns. It might be so. It might be so and you might not even be aware of it, Daniel being so subtle as he is. Would you care to have such visions? Unlock a deeper level of meaning within the Vyrus? You’ve been infected long enough to ask questions, haven’t you? The first years of infection being filled as they are with simply learning to cope, deciding if you want to live this life at all. The next several with learning the tools of survival. The next several with learning to fit in, to adapt to being infected in an uninfected world over the long term. And finally, if you have the endurance, the cleverness, some set of tools to keep you alive, you begin to ask questions. What is the Vyrus? What are the Vampyre? How long have we been here? Where did the Clans come from? Are there more of us out there in the world? How many? Do they all live as we do? And, of course: What am I?