Tallulah's next few nights after the full moon party are mostly filled with trying to explain why she's living in the house while her people are still outdoors. Unsurprisingly, and as expected, comments about her intentions and whether she's allowed herself to forget what happened rule the majority of the simmering conversations. It's only by pointing out that she put her own life in danger multiple times for their village that the hotter heads are forced into disgruntled silence.
Kofi hasn't been back to visit or even speak with her since the full moon night, but neither has she seen the other two of his leadership group. The House, with a capital "H" they call it, she's pretty sure. She's unsure if they're called House Bear or anything similar to the tribes in the Wilds, and no one has precisely gone out of their way to clarify it for her.
Tallulah finds herself in her room, sorting through an overabundance of clothing. She complained once the night before about having nothing to "just wear," and that must have been terrifying for the tailor and stylist because about three hours after that, there was a veritable car-load's worth of assorted clothing brought in by servants. She pulls out one floor-length dress slightly, keeping it on its hangar, and laughs. The red dress is ridiculous; it looks as though it was attacked by feathers everywhere. She slots the dress back where the servants placed it and then strolls a couple of steps over to look over the less ornate clothing.
She finally settles on a dark, pine-colored boat-necked shirt for the night, and as she tries to pull it out, she sees it's already been paired by her assigned stylist with some coated black skinny jeans and a black pair of heeled boots. She smirks, thinking about her home in the Wilds, with her "closet" of four different outfits depending on the work she's doing that evening and night. She continues to be amused while changing into the night's attire, leaving what she slept in behind in a laundry receptacle. She already knows it will be taken by one of the domestics at some point when she's not around, having experienced it the previous nights in this room.
All fresh and clean, dressed for the night, Tallulah sets out of her room, intent on finding out more about the homestead or, at the very least, the vampires who run it. As she steps out of her room, directly across the hallway, about five feet away, stands a disgruntled-looking Micah.
"Ah, hello, Micah. Waiting for me?"
"Hello, Miss Tallulah. Yes, you could say that. There's been an incident which requires your attention."
"My attention? An incident?" Tallulah starts to pull her hair back but realizes she doesn't have a hair tie. With an awkward movement, she drops her hair back down past her shoulders.
"Two of your people attempted to steal one of the house's horses and escape the homestead grounds."
Tallulah's face immediately shifts into a slight degree of concern–she remembers the vampire-enhanced dogs they have roaming the area outside of the main fence at night. Her breath catches in her throat, almost afraid to ask her next question. As if reading her mind, though, Micah continues.
"They are still alive, though we're having to put down the injured steed–a good earner for the house, by the way. I will take you to where the transgressors are being held." He exhales once, not bothering to hide his irritation. "I've been informed that you're to render judgment on behalf of the house."
"What? Why me?"
"Because that is what I was told."
"I mean, why are they assigning me to decide on punishment?"
Micah looks at Tallulah like she's stupid and doesn't try to hide it again. He purses his lips, his dark facial features and eyes betraying how little he thinks of her and her people. She didn't realize he had such a distaste for the faeries on the homestead grounds until that moment.
"Because, Miss Tallulah, they are your people. I would imagine the house believes it is doing you the favor of choosing their punishment rather than assigning it themselves."
"I see."
She waves a hand, gesturing for Micah to lead her. As he moves forward to take them through the house, her green eyes bore into the back of his skull as she feels her irritation rising. Irritation stems not just from the way he's treating her as a second-class citizen with an undeserved free ride but also from the fact that some of her people would do something so stupid. She feels the strength of the moon outside humming in her veins, and for a few seconds, she fights off the urge to show Micah who he's passive-aggressively disrespecting. She convinces her mind that acting on her dark urge would serve no purpose, reminding herself of the young Elijah's plea concerning Micah when they met so many nights ago upon their arrival at the homestead.
Micah stops at a few security doors as they make their way toward the back of the expansive wood and stone structure into more "working" areas for the house staff. Each time they pass through the security doors, Micah gazes back at Tallulah to make sure she's following, but other than that, they share no gazes or words. Before too long, they walk through a large kitchen humming with activity–bypassing a full complement of chefs and aides–then through two separate walk-in cold rooms. The first one, a freezer area with hanging meats of varying animal origin, and the second, a frigid room, set just above freezing temperature, which holds racks and racks of ruby red liquid in sealed packs hooked up to some plastic piping that seems to be circulating the blood constantly.
She pauses in the cold room full of bagged blood and looks around, diverting from Micah's chosen path to walk over to a wall-length set of doors. Micah stops and balefully sighs–realizing Tallulah's footfalls are no longer behind him–before turning back and jogging to catch up with Tallulah while she walks towards the specialty racks.
The large built-in racks are intended for wine bottles in a wine cellar, but they've been reconstituted to hold bottles of what is clearly blood. The bottles are all individually hooked up to a machine that appears to turn the bottles and circulate their contents every few minutes. Tallulah tilts her head at the interesting technology the vampires use, having never seen anything like it before. She takes one bottle off of the rack and tilts it towards her so she can read the handwritten label on the front:
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
> 19 y/o male, virgin
>
> Intoxicated by venom:
>
> Spiny-Headed Sea Snake
>
> Blood type: AB-positive
While she reads the label, Micah clears his throat. She gazes momentarily in his direction before casually sliding the bottle back into place on the rack.
"What is this?"
"I don't understand the question, Miss Tallulah."
"What is all of this?" She gestures around the room, then pointedly at the racks in front of her. "Who is it for?"
"This is one of the caches of blood for house members. The packs are for general usage. The bottles are strictly by allowance only–only one of the house may choose to allow their usage."
Tallulah denotes the difference in usage of the same word there. Apparently, the vampires are grouped at large by their allegiance to the "house," but the ruling trio–Kofi, Percival, and Serena–are also called the "house."
"There's so much."
"This is only one room and one location. There are others. It's another's job to track and maintain these rooms. If you don't mind, Miss Tallulah, we should continue."
"Yeah, sure."
She steps back and gestures for Micah to continue. He gives her a blank-faced look before turning and leading them back to the main walkway through the room. Another set of security measures is passed before they finally step into what feels like a different area of the home entirely.
The security door they just moved through opens directly to stairs leading down into a well-lit, yet fairly nondescript, cinderblock and concrete hallway, with none of the adornments that the rest of the homestead has. There are two straight and painted lines on the floor, one red and one yellow in color. They walk up the hallway, following both lines, and when they come to a junction, the red line on the floor splits from the yellow. Micah continues to lead them along the yellow line, his pace not hurried but also not slow. Her boot's heels click with each step on the simple, smooth concrete floor, echoing down the long, lighted hallway as they continue going further underground.
Finally, after several turns and two more sets of steps, they come to a thick metal security door being guarded by a vampire she doesn't recognize. The man is a giant ball of muscle, and he has both an assault rifle in his hands, a pistol on his left hip, and a knife attached by a sheath to his right thigh. He also seems to be wearing body armor that makes him look even more imposing than his physical frame already is.
"Good evening, Mister Haas. This is Miss Tallulah, who is supposed to see the two prisoners and determine their punishment."
"You're ten minutes late." The man says in response, his voice so deep that it initially sounds entirely fake to Tallulah.
"Apologies." Micah quickly responds, clearly submissive to the vampire. "We had a little bit of a detour, and this is her first time coming here, so there–"
"Don't care. Be on time next time."
The muscular hulk of a man looks past Micah as if he doesn't exist, his cold blue eyes settling on Tallulah. He studies her much more carefully than the half-glance he gave to Micah.
"Hello, Mister Haas." Tallulah intones.
"Just Bragi is fine. You're the first to see them. We have rules for viewing our prisoners, which every visitor must abide by." He exhales before continuing and listing off those rules for Tallulah rotely.
"The first rule of viewing the prisoners is that you are not allowed to touch them. No exceptions. The second rule is that you are not allowed to touch the cell in which they are kept–I especially recommend that for you, as you probably don't wish to be electrocuted. Third, if I–or another of the guards–say for you to do something, you do it with no questions asked. If you agree to these rules, I will grant you admittance."
Micah looks at Tallulah as if standing there and waiting for her. Tallulah returns the glance for a second at Micah dispassionately, the urge to retaliate for his earlier passive-aggressiveness still floating in her mind. Finally, she looks back towards "Bragi"–well, up at Bragi–and responds.
"I don't see any problem with those rules. I agree."
Bragi dips his head in response, his cold blue eyes passing right over Micah. When he does that, Micah turns and walks away, clearly dismissed. Tallulah now understands why Micah is so disgruntled–all vampires treat him like something they scraped from the bottom of their shoes. Tallulah tries to note that in her mind, cataloging their treatment of even their supposed protector guards. Bragi touches his hand to a small panel, then looks in a small slot that scans his eyes, and the thick metal security door unlocks. Bragi pushes the door open for Tallulah and then gestures for her to head inside the ample space.
The door quickly reseals itself and locks once they are inside and it's closed. Tallulah gazes over the long row of professionally installed jail cells, some empty, others with individuals in them. At the very end of the room, she can see another door leading to what appears to be a kennel with caged animals inside. She doesn't get a good look at it as Bragi ushers her toward one of the first cells in the line of them. They bypass two cells with pale people inside. Although they look well-cleaned and fed, they also look a bit sickly. A few more moments of gazing as she's ushered by, and she realizes why: there are little track marks on their arms, where they've been bled with needles–probably to help supply one of those blood storage rooms Micah walked her through.
She frowns a little but elects not to say anything. Some part of her knows that it isn't right to cage people and tap them for their blood. Still, the louder part reminds her that we don't judge a cat for hunting mice, a crocodile for whatever comes into their watering hole, or lions for stalking wildebeest–so why should she judge vampires for how they get their sustenance?
Bragi stopped next to a cell, two empty ones down from where she gazed over the people being used as blood "donors." He turned to look at her as she approached and pointed to a small black line on the floor.
"Best to stand here; that way, you're not tempted to break the rules I gave you before we came here."
"Is that part of the rules?"
"What?"
"Is standing on the line part of the rules?" Tallulah carefully clarifies while trying not to sound snide.
Bragi looks at her for a few seconds as if he is also trying to decide if she is being derisive to him. He exhales through his nose once, apparently deciding that Tallulah wasn't, because he politely responds.
"No, you don't have to stand on the line."
With that, he strides a few paces to sit in a metal chair beside a couple of empty others against the wall. Tallulah nods to him, then turns with a loud exhale to see who it is inside the cage in front of her. Remembering the warning about electrocution, she only takes a few steps forward to peer into the cage.