“How are you doing?”

Small talk first, then. “Keeping busy. I’ve been doing some consulting and some writing. Actually, a bunch of publishers have been approaching me about writing a book about getting you re-elected. Just in general, that’s enhanced my résumé.”

“I am very glad to hear you say that, Barel, because I wish to hire you again.”

Barel frowned. “The next D.A. race isn’t for three years.”

“Not for District Attorney. You are aware, of course, that Emily Krascznicki has declined to run for a full term, so Alex’s seat is open. I would like to throw my hat into the ring, as it were, and I wish you to run my campaign.”

Pulling her cardigan tightly around her chest, Barel took a deep breath in before replying. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Big Charlie recoiled as if he’d been slapped. “Not at all. I believe that, with my own profile increasing, this might be an ideal time to —”

“It is not an ideal time! It’s the worst time in the history of the universe for you to be running for dog-catcher, much less U.S. senator! If you run, you will be absolutely destroyed. Remember what happened with Reverend Mann? Picture that mishegoss every single day. Public opinion on vamps is going down into the drain with every passing day, and if you try to run, you will be ruined. Hell, they’ll probably force you to resign. People with I1V1 are getting lynched out there, Hugues!”

For several seconds, Big Charlie didn’t say anything. His huge hands were folded together, elbows resting on his metal desk, staring at an indeterminate point to Barel’s left.

“I appreciate your honesty, Barel. It is the quality of yours that I’ve always admired most.”

“Thank you. So you won’t do it?”

“I have not decided yet. In truth, I had not decided when I asked you. That you will not be willing to represent me —”

“I didn’t say that.” Barel spoke without thinking. She liked Big Charlie; she generally made it a rule not to like (or dislike) the people she worked for, but the prosecutor was such a teddy bear it was impossible to think ill of him. And she didn’t want to disappoint him.

But after mulling it over for half a second, she realized she had to. “But I’m saying it now. It won’t just be career suicide for you, it’ll taint everyone who works for you. Don’t do it.”

There was some more small talk after that, and then Barel shook Big Charlie’s enormous hand and left the office. She figured that would be the end of it. He had almost always taken her advice, and whenever he hadn’t, he’d regretted it right afterward.

So she was stunned to hear the following as she watched Good Morning NYC over her morning tea: “Our top story on the hour: Big Charlie is running for Senate!”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Barel immediately opened up her laptop and started composing an e-mail to Big Charlie that boiled down to, “What the fuck is wrong with you, you schmuck?”

The man himself showed up on her screen as she frantically typed. “There has been an increasing call for more legislation against those of us who have contracted I1V1, and I believe that it is past time that those of us who have the virus had a say in how that legislation is crafted. Senator Kapsis lost his life to a family member who had the virus, and my announcement today is by way of reminding people that we are not monsters. We are people. Senator Kapsis’s nephew was violent before he contracted the virus. And I was a District Attorney before I contracted the virus. I believe that I will be able to represent my home state in Washington regardless of whether or not I can alter my shape into a wolfen form.”

“And faeries will come flying out of my ass,” Barel muttered. Big Charlie’s heart was in the right place, and nothing he said there was wrong. She made a mental note to send a well-done e-mail to Judy Alejo for that statement, as it was well put together.

But it wouldn’t do a lick of good. Nobody was going to vote a vampire into office.

“State Comptroller Frank VanDerMeer has already announced that he will be running for the seat on the Republican side, but Big Charlie will have to survive a Democratic primary that already includes former New York City Mayor Aaron Barr, Manhattan Borough President Emma Jaffe, and State Senator Dianne Axisa. Oughtta be a fun race.”

The one piece of good news was that no one on that list was going to scare anyone from running. Barr was far from the city’s most popular mayor, a one-term wonder who created almost no impression, and Jaffe, Axisa, and VanDerMeer were bland career politicians who had almost no profile. Were it not for I1V1, Big Charlie could take the election in a walk.

As she was typing her poison pen letter to the D.A., she got a notification of a new e-mail. It was from Mickey Solano.

Barel frowned and clicked on the icon to open that mail.

Then she decided she was going to need another cup of tea. Possibly with some whiskey in it.

— 16 —

Transcript of a commercial paid for by

Citizens for Humanity.

By the people, for the people. This great country has always been about its people. But now it’s in danger from creatures who may look like people, who may sometimes even appear to be people, but they aren’t. Sadistic, brutal, vicious killers, with more of them every day.

And one of them is running for Senate. They call him “Big Charlie,” but what they should be calling him is a monster. And he’ll bring the monsters’ agenda to Capitol Hill.

Don’t let this happen. Let our country be for us, not the monsters who scare our children — who scare us. Make sure that when you vote for Senator, you don’t vote for Hugues Charles.

Paid for by Citizens for Humanity.

— 17 —

Judy Alejo was on the phone with her sister when Helen Lashmar came on. So busy had she been with organizing interviews with Big Charlie that she hadn’t even checked to see what she’d be doing, and she hadn’t actually spoken to her sister in almost a month. Not that that was a bad thing from Judy’s perspective, but now Perla was complaining to mami about it.

So Judy called her, and ignored the roundtable segment on Lashmar to listen to her carry on about how wonderful her two children were.

Just as she was about to bang her head into the desk, she caught Lashmar say, “ — their candidate threw his hat into the ring: Mickey Solano, who was Big Charlie’s opponent in his latest re-election as Bronx D.A. We’ve got —”

“Perla, I gotta go.” Without waiting to hear her sister’s objection, Judy hit end on her phone and dropped it on her couch while grabbing for the cable remote. Grateful for DVR technology, she rewound.

Lashmar was sitting at her desk with the I1V1 logo that RSN had been using for all their news stories on the “vamp sitch,” as the vice president had insisted on calling it. “— ozens of Senate races starting to heat up, probably the one with the most heat is for junior senator of New York. The hottest of the hot-button issues is the vamp virus, I1V1, and the New York race has made it white-hot with the candidacy of Hugues Charles, an admitted vamp. Known as ‘Big Charlie,’ the current Bronx District Attorney has joined a wide field of Democratic candidates to replace Senator Emily Krascznicki. Today that race took a big turn when another candidate threw his hat into the ring: Mickey Solano, who was Big Charlie’s opponent in his latest re-election as Bronx D.A.”

Cursing, Judy leapt from the couch to find her laptop.

The camera angle changed to one that had Solano’s smug face on a screen while Lashmar turned to look at him. “We’ve got him here via satellite to talk with us this morning. Thanks for coming on, Mickey.”

“It’s my pleasure, Helen.”

Yeah, I’ll bet it is. She found her laptop on her dining room table and opened it.

“This is your second run at Big Charlie in two years. What makes you think that this time will be different?”

I’m an even bigger asshole? Judy thought uncharitably as she impatiently waited for the laptop to start back up.

“It’s only been a year, but the world has changed a lot in that year, Helen. The vampires are a real problem, and we can’t just nod our heads and say they’re just victims. It’s time to get tough. Honestly, Charlie’s doing great in the Bronx, and that’s where he belongs. Let him stay in the community he’s been such a big part of, and leave the legislation to the rest of us.”

I was right, he is a bigger asshole. He didn’t used to be this patronizing. Her laptop finally came back online and found her apartment’s wireless network. She started a new e-mail message to Big Charlie.

“Now you’ve hired Barel Grindberg as your campaign manager, and she ran Big Charlie’s winning campaign against you.”

“What!?” Judy rewound the DVR again to make sure she heard that right.

“— ired Barel Grindberg as your campaign manager, and she ran Big Cha —”

“That bitch.” Judy had always liked Barel, and couldn’t believe she’d stab them in the back like that.

“Hey, I was just happy that she was available.”

Solano droned on, and Judy got more and more livid. She knew that Barel had specifically advised Big Charlie against running again, and now she wondered if that sage advice had come before or after she’d been hired by Solano.

She finished composing the e-mail and then realized she needed to talk directly to Big Charlie.

Solano was droning on as she grabbed her phone. “— can’t help but be an advocate for the vampires, and that’s not what we need. We need objectivity. Charlie’s been on the front lines of it, both as a victim and as a prosecutor. Hell, a third of the criminal trials in the Bronx in the last nine months have been vampire-related, and a quarter of the civil ones.”

Judy shouted at the screen, “ The D.A. doesn’t handle civil cases, you dumb fuck!”

Big Charlie’s voicemail came on. With a sigh, Judy waited for the beep. “It’s Judy — call me back the minute you get this!”