Hunter gagged as he sucked on the bottle of blood. “I thought you said there was flavored stuff you could use to mix into this stuff,” he complained. He took another tug on it and retched.

“You have to get acclimated to how the pure stuff tastes,” Kai said. He gave a soft and understanding smile and ruffled Hunter’s hair. “You must feed on real blood for at least two weeks before we can start trying out the fun additives.”

Hunter groaned, took another couple gulps of the blood, then set the bottle down again. “Can you tell me what happened to Alex and the other patients?”

“You really ought to focus on regaining your strength right now,” Kai said. He curled up next to Hunter on their bed and pressed the button on his remote to lift up the shutters.

“I did help in the investigation,” Hunter said. “I’d like to know what happened.”

“I know, but there’s time for all that. Look,” Kai said, pointing to the shimmering Dallas skyline. The night was clear, so the stars and the quarter moon were shining brightly in the area outside the city lights.

“Quit changing the subject,” Hunter said.

Kai sighed. “Well, we had to bring them down to Dr. Ife’s offices so she could work on the antidote to bring their skin back to normal. Then me and some of the other vampire agents had to user our influential powers to wipe from their mind the entire period of their abductions. That took a few days to safely do. Then we figured out where they all lived and crafted situations for their returns.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, to wipe three, four whole weeks of a person’s memory, and then to replace it by giving them constant messages about what their cover story is going to be… it can kill brain cells, actually,” Kai said. “It has to be done in many short sessions. The guy from Colorado, for instance, is going to have to believe he got lost on a hiking trip and hitchhiked back to his hometown.”

“Alex’s USB drives - what were they?”

“A program called ‘Compile & Condense’ that allows terabytes of information to be compressed into a single thumb drive. The other one, once we used Alex’s password trick, was the full contents of his work PC,” Kai explained, “including a full journal he was keeping about the DRS project. He was actually a volunteer for this whole thing.”

“What? A volunteer? That file labeled him as having been selected.”

“That was a smokescreen devised by the doctor,” Kai said, “after he learned Alex was trying to blow the whistle on him. Alex started out as a willing participant then tried to quit when the experiments started affecting his health.”

“Ah,” Hunter said. He took another chug from his bottle. “And Alex? Is he gonna be alright after all this?”

Kai frowned. “No, Hun. He’s not.” He paused to collect his thoughts. He could sense Hunter’s stunned reaction thanks to their new blood bond. 

“When our agents were loading him up to take him back to HQ,” Kai explained, “that… tumor-thing, on his chest… it basically imploded. The toxins went straight into his lungs. He didn’t… he didn’t make it out of InnerCore alive, Hun. I’m so sorry.”

Hunter sat there in shock. He blinked and opened his mouth, but only a small crackle of sound left his throat.

“We had our friends with the county coroner’s office take his body,” Kai said, taking one of Hunter’s hands. “We explained the situation; they’re going to remove the mass, clean him up, locate his nearest family. They’re going to declare it meningitis or something bacterial; the evidence will be there to back it up.”

“They can do that? Don’t they have their own oaths or something?” Hunter was surprised with how incredulous he sounded.

“It helps to have connections in the medical community, just like we do some of the law enforcement we deal with,” Kai said. “It wouldn’t do his family any good to hear how he really died. At the hands of a mad scientist trying to turn people part-animal?”

“Somehow, it doesn’t feel right,” Hunter mumbled. “Especially when someone murdered him - what about the justice part of closure?”

Kai sighed, looking back at the cityscape outside their window. “What matters is we got justice for Alex. And the others. And you,” he added. “I still feel really guilty for what I did. Greedy and guilty.”

“You did it because you love me,” Hunter said. It was his turn to grip his partner’s hand. “I didn’t want to die. And I’m not… technically. If I had to pick someone to go through eternity with, I’d want it to be you.”

“Thank you, Hun,” Kai said. He kissed Hunter on the lips.

“Thank you, Vampy,” Hunter said as he returned the kiss.

Kai wrinkled his nose and chuckled slightly. “Vampy?”

“Possible pet name,” Hunter said. “Trying it out. Thoughts?

“We’ll talk. We’ll see,” Kai teased.

There was a buzz from Kai’s phone. He tapped the talk button and held the phone to his ear. “Yes. Alright. Send him on.”

Kai gave an uncomfortable smile to Hunter as he put down the phone. “More good news on the way,” he said sarcastically.

Hunter changed out of one band T-shirt and into another, and replaced his pajama bottoms and sat on the living room sofa. Annabelle purred contentedly in his lap. Across from him sat Kai in one chair, and Calhoun in the other. Calhoun sat somewhat stiffly in his chair with his attaché case across his lap. He tried to smile softly as he spoke.

“You, ah, have a lovely home here,” he began.

“Thank you,” said Kai, threading his fingers together. “I spent a lot renovating it.”

“It shows,” Calhoun said. “And, uh, Hunter. I hope you are… improving.”

Hunter had been zoning out through the pleasantries. “Oh! Uhhh, yes sir,” he said, scratching between Annabelle’s ears, causing her to flex her claws happily. 

“I should tell you, uh… Hunter, that you are up for an award for your bravery and your… um… being wounded in action.”

Hunter blinked in surprise. “Oh. Really. Well, that’s… that’s very kind of you sir, thank you.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me, it’s our overseers, really.” Calhoun didn’t mean for that to come off sounding as if he didn’t care. He cleared his throat. “So, Agent Taylor, I suppose you know why I am here.”

“I reckon I do,” Kai said flatly.

“I don’t,” Hunter said, “but Kai said I might as well sit through it, so… let’s hear it?”

“While we understand the circumstances surrounding Hunter’s recent… change of status, shall we call it?”

“His vampirism,” Kai said, folding his arms across his chest. “That’s what it is. He’s a vampire now.”

“As you say,” Calhoun said, opening his case. “There is, unfortunately, a very clear rule about an Agent turning anyone into a vampire in the course of his duty.”

“It was a fellow agent,” Hunter said.

“And he was on the brink of death,” Kai added. His body position was tensing quickly.

“Be that as it may, doing so in the field was extraordinarily dangerous,” Calhoun said. “If it were to be done anywhere, it should have been here on your premises or at HQ under the supervision of Dr. Mwodim.”

Kai sighed out of frustration. “Fine. Got it. So what?”

“So, there has to be a disciplinary report made,” Calhoun said. “Believe me, this isn’t what I want to do. I’m being made a frickin’ Human Resources secretary here, but the decision from the overseers is this: Agent Taylor, you are hereby suspended for two months, effective tonight.”

Kai rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. I suppose there’s something for me to sign…”

Calhoun handed Kai a single paper and a pen. Kai scratched his signature into it and handed it right back to his supervisor.

Calhoun rose from his seat. “Again, I didn’t want to do this.”

“It’s fine, sir. I get it.” Kai stood up as well. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“I’ll see myself out,” Calhoun said crossly. “Hunter, please get well soon. You can take all the time you need.”

He made a quick exit out the front door.

Kai whipped out his phone. “Security, Calhoun’s on his way out; please give him clearance.”

“Is it serious?” Hunter coaxed the cat to perch up on his shoulder. Her purring kept his anxiety from creeping up as he asked.

“Yes and no,” Kai said. “It’ll go in my file. Enough of those infraction notices and I could be terminated.”

Hunter gulped. “Which kind of terminated?”

“Both.” His expression softened as he saw the worried face of his lover. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s the first one I’ve ever received, and I’ve been in this organization quite a long time.”

“So let’s try to turn a negative into a positive,” Hunter decided. “We have two months to do whatever. We could watch lots of movies, we can talk more about your history, mine if we have to,” he winked as he said this, “and just relax.”

“We can,” Kai said, going to the kitchen and taking two bottles of blood from the fridge and zapping them in the microwave. “In between your training sessions.”

Hunter groaned.

“Now, listen to me, love,” Kai said as the microwave beeped and starting warming their food. “Remember what I said to you; you have a lot to learn about being part of my kind, and a relatively short time to learn it in. It takes much longer to learn how not to be a monster than it takes to get it right.”

“Okay,” Hunter said, accepting another bottle of blood from Kai and beginning to drink from it. He did find this one to be less bitter and metallic than the one before. “So what is this training going to entail?”

Kai sat down, nursing his own bottle. “I think we’ll start tomorrow evening, with a lesson I call ‘Movie… and a Dinner.’”