The Scientific Method

  He'd given her intellect and faith. Both had kept her at Brian's side, through the good and the bad. As a result, she now understood her grandfather's last comment that day all the more.

  More important, that one part is what makes everything else worth living and enduring.

  He sounds like someone I would admire.

  She looked up, saw Brian studying her again. Rising, he came to sit by her, offering her the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket.

  "Oh. Sorry." Mortified, she mopped at the tears.

  "Nothing to be sorry for," he said gently. He slid an arm around her, even as she tried to recover her composure.

  "I didn't mean to interrupt your work," she said. "You had a good fifteen minutes left." He could do more in fifteen minutes than most could in three days, his mind as quick as his vampire speed.

  "I'm at a good stopping place. You should have let your grandmother know you're coming."

  "I know." She fiddled with the handkerchief. "Sometimes it's easier not to give them time to think, prepare questions."

  "And she might have called your parents."

  Debra nodded. She couldn't bear to say good-bye to them again. She hadn't been as close to them as she was to her grandfather, but they were her parents, and they loved her. She wrote regularly, did video chats with them, but she'd weaned them off to less and less. Seeing the confused disappointment in her mother's eyes when Debra made this and that excuse for not visiting, even on holidays, had become excruciating.

  "I guess it's time to do it. In another few years it's going to be obvious I'm not aging. Maybe we'll do it after...Grandpa." Fake my death.

  She couldn't handle voicing it, any more than she could say aloud the reality her grandfather faced now.

  SS

  Brian sat silently, letting her struggle with her thoughts, even though he stayed close to them, making sure his mind touch was strong enough for her to feel him there. She leaned into it as a comfort, the same way she leaned against his side.

  Vampires understood that servants turned away from an identity of their own to bond with their Master or Mistress. No career achievements, no job except for caring for their vampire. Vampires also knew the problems of dealing with living family members of those servants, and had protocols in place to address it, to protect the vampire world and to sever those ties more cleanly. Faking a death was the most common practice, since vampires didn't live very public lives for the most part.

  Yet a vampire typically possessed a certain detachment about the impact of all that on their servant. He wondered if it was similar to the insensitivity that young adults demonstrated when taking the steps toward severing their childhood dependence on their parents, a necessary trait to ensure the future generation was capable of caring for themselves and the species as a whole. But the parents still grieved an empty nest, the child lost to adulthood.

  Until recently, most of the vampires with whom Brian brushed shoulders had servants as much as a century old, where those issues had been addressed and were well in the past. The distance that had grown between him and Debra over the past few years had detached him even further from it, but now he saw it under a glaring spotlight. She'd given up her family, her career, to work at his side, to serve him. Who did that? If she'd stayed in the human world, she'd likely be the head of her own facility, perhaps even researching how to slow down diseases like what was taking her grandfather's life now.

  Because he was incapable of not tangling up his personal ruminations with professional ones, he latched onto it as further evidence that chemical makeup determined which humans gravitated toward vampire bonding. Perhaps, when the right circumstances arose "activating" that makeup, it was no more a choice for the human in question than sexual orientation. Vampires were so sexual that gay and straight weren't really relevant classifications for them, but he had to say he definitely preferred women overall. Debra in particular.

  He inhaled her scent now, pleased with the mix of fragrances from her soap and shampoo, the touch of rosemary and lavender. Her clean smell made him think of fresh laundry hung out on the line, touched by the sun and wind. When he went with his impulse and nuzzled her hair, he caught her surprised, shy smile. She kept her head ducked down, though, tucking away notes in her computer bag.

  Debra didn't fit the profile they'd been building about which humans were predisposed toward becoming vampire servants. Gideon Green was a former vampire hunter who'd reached a crisis point. Jacob had been a drifter of sorts, working with his brother before operating as a Renaissance Faire player. Jessica had been forced to serve another vampire, and was then rescued by Lord Mason. Their circumstances had already divorced them from strong family ties. While they were just a sampling, he wondered how many servants had initially followed career paths with the potential for limelight.

  Debra's breakthroughs could easily have brought her widespread recognition, in her field and beyond it. Yet her scientific ambitions were purely service-oriented, also unusual. Ego usually was a key driving factor for one so accomplished in scientific endeavor. He had no doubt his ego and yes, a healthy dose of arrogance, were an essential part of his. But Debra was an extreme submissive, capable of shutting down ego or wellbeing to fulfill her personal markers for service.

  Debra had cited the typical servant party line several times, that it wasn't his job to pay attention to her wellbeing. He was the one being served, not the servant. But that was bullshit, wasn't it? There was far more reciprocity to it, as Jacob had stated baldly. If Lady Lyssa, head of the Vampire Council, had figured it out, showing it in ways large and small...

  He came out of his absorption at Debra's touch on his knee. Her faint smile didn't dissolve the sadness in her eyes, her drawn look. "What problem were you solving this time?" she asked.

  Did she realize there was a slight break in her voice? "The vampire-servant chemical issue. I think I've come up with a new variable. But we'll talk about it later."

  He wanted to focus on his particular exception to the rule, on a more personal level. The more time he spent in her mind, the more he realized how much he'd been missing. He surprised her on every level of it when he bent forward, put his other arm under her knees and lifted her onto his lap. "As you said, we have a few minutes before we get in the hangar. Take a nap."

  "But..."

  Tilting her head back, he kissed her protesting mouth. "No buts. Sleep." He kissed each eyelid closed, then her cheek bones when she tried to open them again, until she was stifling a very un-Debra giggle that made him want to smile, except his heart was too tight, considering the thoughts rolling through his head. "Sleep, servant."

  She gave a resigned sigh. "All right, but don't blame me if all this sleeping you want me to do makes us arrive in Texas unprepared."

  "Of course I'll blame you. That's why I have you."

  "Troll," she said, delighting him. When he pinched her, she nestled her head under his chin, gave a little sigh and subsided.

  Maybe it wasn't chemical at all. Maybe humans like her were just a miracle, a once-in-a-lifetime chance he'd fucked up immeasurably because of his misplaced sense of entitlement. He winced at the acid thought, layered with sentiment and guilt, but just because it was driven by his emotions didn't make it a false assumption.

  He rubbed her arm, held her. She sank into a fitful doze quickly. She was learning to sleep more often, but he'd had to punish her twice for not watching the time and coming to him at dusk without having obeyed his requirement that she sleep three hours. Though punishment might be the wrong term, since Debra reached a higher level of subspace with a higher level of pain.

  He'd been forced -- such a chore -- his lips twisted wryly -- to explore other methods of punishment. Ones that made her more mindful of his orders. Multiple forced climaxes while he had her strapped to a St. Andrew's Cross in Lyssa's well-equipped dungeon had depleted her to the point she slept six hours and lost half a day. Then there was depriving her of a climax entirely. That one
had made it difficult for her to sleep at all, but he'd made her stay in the bed with him until dusk that day, not allowing her to entertain herself except to document her sexual fantasies on paper until he roused. Then he made her masturbate herself to climax while he watched. She came within seconds, while he read what she'd written with exaggerated detachment. He'd tossed it aside, remarking on how erratic the handwriting had looked, and then taken her thoroughly, a pleasurable way to start the day.

  The more he did, the more he wanted to do with her. He wondered if by stifling it in their earlier years, he'd only delayed the overload of passion a vampire felt when he first took a servant. This past week, the thought had set off several new wrestling matches between his previous thinking and the current hypothesis he was pursuing with her, but so far the latter kept coming out on top. He was actually thinking of expanding their "off time". They both deserved at least one night a week where they did nothing. Enjoyed other pastimes. Since the research facility had been established by Council, he'd been so intent on proving himself worthy of their confidence, he'd driven himself and Debra seven days a week, grabbing leisure time as a guilty snack, not as a full course, leisurely meal.

  Maybe on the way back, they'd take a side trip. Not far off course; he wasn't going to presume too much on Lady Lyssa's generosity. However, he could take Debra to some place where they could just spend a night. Maybe Memphis. He expected she'd enjoy watching the evening duck walk at the Peabody. He imagined her standing on the roof outside the duck's grand enclosure, her hair rippling in the strong night breezes while she spoke gently to the birds. She loved animals.

  She also loved him. That was something most high-born vampires didn't think much about either, more concerned with obedience and service. Some vampires even deemed it a detriment for the servant to feel too much. His father was certainly that way. He'd approved of Debra, said she seemed logical and controlled.

  She could be. But she could also be something else entirely, a wealth of female emotion and yearnings as compelling to him as her sexual and scientific sides. He wanted to push her even further in that direction, see what they could experience if they both went down the road he was beginning to feel they should have explored years ago.

  But to get as far down that road as he suspected they both wanted to go, he had to win back her trust. The one thing that couldn't be commanded from a servant.

  SS

  They pulled up to the house at eleven o'clock. Debra had called her grandmother on the way. She'd told Brian the older woman tended to be a night owl, so it was no surprise when she answered on the second ring. Debra explained that they were on an unexpected layover, and asked if she could come by. Though her grandmother seemed surprised and a little stiff, Brian's impression through Debra's mind, she told them to come.

  Her stiffness made sense. Her granddaughter, who'd been so close to her grandfather, hadn't seen him in over four years. Brian recalled her last visit with him had been no more than a quick drive to the small Tennessee town when they were in Nashville. She'd done it during the day, after getting his permission. He'd told her as long as she had so-n-so stats ready by Friday, that was fine. Remembering it now, he winced at his callousness. Having those particular stats ready by Friday meant that she'd had to make it a pretty short visit.

  And he wondered why she was always exhausted.

  He knew the stereotype, that research scientists were oblivious to the world and people around them. The accomplished ones were often self-centered egomaniacs. He'd just never realized how very much he fit the mold. It was an uncomfortable mirror that even his vampire blood couldn't prevent him from seeing.

  Jed Sheldon, Debra's grandfather, lived with his wife in a modest brick house on a twenty-acre property populated with woods, unused cow pastures, ponds and several large outbuildings. The buildings had been dedicated to various inventions, if the littering of rusty metal contraptions and other discarded building materials around them were any indication.

  As their limo drove up to the house, Vivian opened the front door. The porch light bounced off some of those inventions, transforming them into bizarre lawn art. Debra stared through the tinted window of the car, and Brian gave her cold hand a squeeze. "Why don't you go on up and I'll follow in a couple minutes? Give you two a chance to say hello without a stranger at your back. Though if you prefer, I'll walk up with you."

  Her hand tightened on his. Her immediate reaction was: Yes. Don't make me do this alone. Then her shoulders squared. She ran through the scenarios, knew his suggestion was the best idea, given her grandmother's potential state of mind.

  His surge of protectiveness surprised him. He wanted to correct himself, override her. But he figured out the middle ground. "I'll be right behind you," he promised. And you know I'm as close as the nearest thought.

  She nodded, her hand still tight on his. Then the driver of the rental car opened the door and she let him go.

  Brian waved him away, letting him return to the front seat as he watched out the open door. He didn't know what he'd do if Vivian treated Debra cruelly. He and Debra both understood why she might react with hostility, but still...

  Yet when Debra hit the top stair, he saw it wasn't an issue. Vivian already had tears on her face, and Debra didn't hesitate, putting her arms around her grandmother so they could cry together.

  "I'm so sorry I haven't been here," he heard Debra whisper. "I think of you every day."

  His father had dispensed plenty of advice when Brian told him he was going to make Debra his first personally chosen full servant. Stay out of their transition from their old life, son. It doesn't concern us, and it's part of how they grow strong enough to serve us three hundred years.

  Brian remembered Debra weeping in the garden. Her desire to sleep and never wake, even as she curled her naked body up next to his like a trusting kitten.

  Fuck that.

  He left the car, but since Debra and her grandmother were still holding onto one another, exchanging murmurs, he paused in the shadows. Reaching out to one of the discarded inventions, he made the propellers rotate. It looked like some type of all-terrain vehicle that might run on windmill power. Another contraption seemed to be a modified vending machine. Jed's joy in taking mundane things apart only to put them together into something better was a trait his granddaughter had as well.

  Maybe he was one of those things.

  By the time he approached the door, he'd given both women time to pull themselves together. Debra turned, still holding onto her grandmother. "Grandma, this is Lo -- Dr. Brian Morris. I've told you about him."

  The fast flash of background in her mind was that she worked with him, that he was a close colleague. Like most human females, Vivian did a double take when she got a look at him in the beam of the porch light. Being excessively attractive was something vampires took in stride. It meant nothing, just a simple genetic fact and a useful tool for spontaneous feeding needs.

  As he took her hand with great courtesy, he noted it felt frail and tired. She looked like a woman pushing herself to the edge to care for a dying husband. But she nodded. "Come in. I told Jed you were coming."

  She turned her gaze back to Debra. "I haven't seen him so excited in a long time. But remember, his energy comes in bursts. He's likely to nod off on you, but he'll wake again within a few minutes sometimes. I don't want him to sleep through your whole visit, but..."

  "I won't tire him out," Debra promised.

  They stepped into a neat, comfortable house, the interior dfcor reflecting accents and colors reminiscent of homes decades ago. Brian often found the offices and homes of older scientists more comfortable to him for that reason. It was probably why he hadn't changed his mode of dress much since the 1950s, despite Debra's teasing.

  She'd seemed quite taken with his choice of jeans for the stargazing, though. He'd remember that in the future.

  "I made both tea and coffee," Vivian was saying. "There's some coffee cake that Deloris Willoughby brought by ye
sterday. He changes what he'll eat day to day. He had a few bites of it, but..." Vivian lifted a shoulder. Her chin trembled as she met Debra's gaze, then she closed her hand over hers. "Go in and see him, child."

  Debra glanced at Brian.

  I'll be right here. If you need me, you just reach out. But take as long as you need. Don't worry about the time. He's your grandfather.

  She nodded. Squaring her shoulders, she turned and moved down the hallway

  Vivian watched her go, then turned to Brian. Before she could speak, Brian gestured. "I have some work I can do, Mrs. Sheldon. It's late and I have no intentions of making you play hostess when you already have your hands full with so much else. If you wish to join her, please feel free to do so."

  It made her smile, an obvious effort despite being genuine. "You're very kind. If you don't mind, I'll do just that. It's been so long since they've seen one another..."

  "Please." He sat down, drew his handheld out of his coat, as if he were preparing to work. "Let me know if either of you need anything."

  "Thank you." He could feel her eyes on him, then she disappeared down the hall.

  As soon as she did, he put the handheld back in his coat and himself in Debra's mind fully. There was no way he'd be more than a breath away while she dealt with this. Truth, since the night under the live oaks, there were times he'd had difficulty pulling out at all, as if Debra were a book he'd had in his possession for some time, one he hadn't read in far too long. Remembering how much he'd enjoyed the first few chapters, he wondered that he'd deprived himself of the rest of the story.

  SS

  Debra sank down next to her grandfather. He was in a hospital bed, the full-sized bed gone to make room for it in their bedroom. A sofa in the corner bore a neatly folded pile of linens. She was sure that was where her grandmother was sleeping. Jed was so thin, half the size she remembered him. He was a tall man with handsome silver hair, a long face that could smile and crease like a wise, good-natured basset hound. Knowing his resemblance to that particular breed of canine, he'd sometimes bay like one, just to aggravate her grandmother.