The Donor House: Advent Story (part 14)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

“That’s one of the problems we have. As far as humans are concerned vampires are vampires, because they couldn’t see the nuances until the House was opened and even now it’s hard for them to accept. Ever since we found out that vampires existed all we’ve been able to see are the ones who think this entire world belongs to them and are doing everything they can to keep control of it, usually by making the lesser race afraid of them, afraid of the dark, and by stealing their children to sell at auctions. We have the hunters, but they’re viewed as little more than a joke by the majority of vampires. In all honesty the majority of hunters I’ve seen have no idea what they’re really dealing with, because all they’ve seen are the vampires who wanted to die and chose to step in front of people who would end it all for them.” Caleb shook his head. “The most important job we can do is teach everyone about the different types of vampires – the two that are obvious: those who hunt and those who ask for willing donors; as well as those that are harder to see. Vampires who are making the best of what’s happened to them, the vampires who are following their creator because they don’t know what else to do, the newbies who aren’t wanted and find themselves in a really difficult position, those who were changed by the first and have no choice but to drink human blood…” He shrugged. “If I’d known all that before I’d still be afraid. There are still dangerous vampires out there. I just don’t think I’d have viewed all vampires in the same way and that’s what we need if the House is going to keep being successful. For this to be open for a decade, a century, a millennia, we need to teach humans why vampires need somewhere like this and why it’s good for the humans of this world as well.”

“Well said,” Lewis replied, making Caleb jump, because he hadn’t known there was anyone other than Blake listening to him, but he managed to smile. “Everything we do from now on needs to be with one eye on the long term. The choices we make as to which rules should be changed and which should be kept is one of the most important thing, especially as we grow, because even Alice and Nick won’t be be able to know everyone. I think, if we want to stay open for a millennia, we’re going to need more vampires involved at a higher level, but that won’t be something we need to happen for a little while. Nick’s projection is that we should have at least fifty vampires visiting the House regularly by the end of five years, although there are things that might happen to change that. Everything depends on how well our advertising works within certain groups.”

“I think it’ll be more than that,” Blake said, and Caleb found himself nodding. “When vampires give the House a chance they realise they can become a part of a community and that’s what we all want, I think. Even though we have a couple of visitors who keep more to themselves it’s obvious that being here is helping them in some way, so they keep coming back. They’ve found themselves a place where they can be who are they, rather than trying to be someone else, and I think that’s important for all vampires, because otherwise we end up trying to be something we’re not due to what we’ve become.”

“Does Nick think we’ll have enough donors?” Caleb asked, even though there were still too many for the number of visitors and he knew that having him there meant that they got more nights off than the vampires had planned for.

“Having you here helps.” Lewis smiled. “Most of the regulars can feed from you at least once a week and that means we have more donors available for visitors, especially those who haven’t been here before. We can take them to the donors who know the most about being a donor, like Georgie or Dom, without having to worry that Kisten or Jean-Luc will go without a meal. I know sometimes you feel guilty for needing our help, but you’re helping us as well, even though I don’t think it feels like that when you’re feeling at your worst.” He reached out and squeezed Caleb’s shoulder. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to deal with being an addict, but I’m glad you came here and I’m glad you felt you could accept our help. We will keep trying to help other addicts, even though a lot of them aren’t ready for the House yet.”

“That’s something I’ve never worried about, Lewis. I know you’re going to keep trying, no matter how hard it is, and I am grateful to you for that.”

“Has Blake told you about our plans?”

Caleb nodded. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that. Blake said he thinks that buying humans from the auctions will make you look bad, because it’s doing something that’s seen by the majority of humans as something wrong. Any vampire who purchases a human is automatically the wrong type of vampire, even though there are the few who buy at the auctions in order to protect any human they can.”

“Yeah, that was something we were worried about. No matter how we spin it we’re going to be seen as making the wrong choices, again.” Lewis sighed. “When we said that we were offering donors money in return for living here the local humans started arguing more about whether permitting us to open the ‘Death House’ was really something that would help the town, because it was as though we became more like the auction vampires when we said that, even though it was to pay off debts they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise. It’s not as though they were going to help the families who really needed it, like Morgan’s. Of course we may have more people here who were looking to pay off smaller loans, like those for going to university, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing a good thing by offering the help, and they are doing something in return for us.”

“Maybe I should tell them that you insisted on paying me as well, even though I don’t have any debts to pay off, because the whole point of the House is for vampires to help humans in return for the humans getting something they need. Of course as far as I was concerned it was enough that you were offering to help me with my problem.”

“Without money, Caleb, you won’t have any choices when you’re better. I want you to have a chance of having a good life, without having to worry about anything, and that’s exactly why I forced that money on you, especially as you more than deserve it for having to live with her.”

“I hope you’ll be doing the same thing for any other addicts who enters the House.”

“Of course I will.” Lewis shook his head. “Honestly, Caleb, any addict who actually choses to come here to get help will get exactly the same as you are, because it’s the right thing to do. That’s why I want to try to save some of the humans who are going through the auctions, especially the youngest ones, before they get to the point that you were at.”

“Think outside the box, Lewis. Any House vampire seen going to one of the auctions will be noticed and you can just imagine how the journalists will spin that one. No, what you need to do is work out a way of sending in a group of relatively unknown vampires to maybe ten of the big auctions to purchase at least three humans each, who will then be brought here. Once you’ve done that give each of them a choice – they can stay in the House, which you think is the safer option, or you can take them home, even though they may end up being gathered again. Hopefully we can talk a couple of the humans who chose to stay into keeping a blog about what happens after they were brought here and that way the rest of the world can see that you were only doing it to help.” Caleb smiled. “The other problem you would have if you send House vampires to the auction is that they’ll be recognised. Vampires will put the price up simply so we can’t afford to buy. By sending in unknowns we have a better chance of actually being able to make this work.”

“Unknown vampires might be a problem, because we won’t know them well enough, but your idea has advantages.” Lewis lent against the wall, staring out at the room. “It’s not something we can do any time soon. We don’t know where enough of the auctions are held, but once we do I really think it’s something we need to do. There are too many people becoming addicts, too many people dying, and not enough people doing anything to put an end to it all. All of the hunters act as though that’s what they’re doing, but they’ve never come across a true vampire. If they did they wouldn’t survive it.”

“Humans do what they can, but they don’t really know that much about vampires. There are vampires who take their children to be their blood slaves and they want to put a stop to that, even though they’re scared of the creatures who do it, so it’s either the really brave or the really stupid who make the choice to be a hunter. As they think all vampires are the same they go after anyone they think might be a vampire and if someone’s out at night they must be a vampire.” Blake sighed. “I know of a couple of addicts who were killed by hunters, simply because they were out at the wrong time. We always try to spend out days asleep and our nights awake, but it often doesn’t work. That urge doesn’t fade away for long enough to let us sleep as much as we’d like, because sleeping… it makes us feel normal for a little while, even when we’re at our worst, but it’s never for long enough. All I ever wanted was to be able to sleep for more than a couple of hours and my body wouldn’t let me.”

“For me the best thing about being at the House is that there are a number of vampires who stay up during the day.” Caleb glanced over at Jean-Luc, who he often spent a couple of hours with when he couldn’t sleep. “I know what we’re attempting to do, so I try not to ask any of them to feed from me before that should, but at least I can take my mind off how bad it’s getting by talking to someone about something. We always avoid any subjects that may make me feel worse, so it’s often really pointless things and I’m always grateful for it, because it’s something I know I wouldn’t have had if I was out on the street.”

“Occasionally we did try to have conversations, but it was one of the hardest things for us to do.” Blake shook his head. “We were all feeling awful, so we were trying to take each other’s mind off it, and yet all we could think about was how much we needed a vampire to feed from us, so that was often what we ended up actually talking about. Or what it was like when we were living with our vampires. It was hard, because we all missed them, even though they’d made us into what we were, as they were always there to feed from us. I hated him for what he’d done to me and I needed him to help at the same time.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Comments

[natalief.livejournal.com]

The way I see it, buying humans from the auctions to rescue them is still paying the vampires that are selling humans, putting money into the pockets of the auction vendors and so is encouraging the auctioneers/vendors to carry on catching and selling humans which perpetuates the auctions and defeats any attempts to stop them. Way to go run on sentence of doom.

Feedback

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> I try not to ask any of them to feed from me before that should<<

That should say "before they" above.