"The blonde," Tara said as she made a subtle gesture. "Her heart rate went up when she looked at us. It didn't feel like fear though."

"She thinks we're a couple," I replied as I looked at the woman in question. I added with a smile, "She also thinks she's straight, but I think she's wrong."

The attractive blonde was in her twenties, she dressed and moved like a student. There were a couple campuses downtown, I figured she attended one of them. She was minding her own business as she walked past when she glanced over at me and Tara.

It was about nine o'clock Sunday evening and we were sitting on a bench at Yonge-Dundas Square just watching the people go by.

We weren't even sitting that close together, and I didn't think we were acting like a couple. Though it crossed my mind that it might be nice to do so. I shifted closer to Tara and slipped my arm around her shoulders, she automatically leaned in against me and I felt her arm around my waist.

The blonde student glanced our way once more and this time our eyes met. Her heart rate jumped again as she saw Tara and I were cuddling now. The blonde quickly looked away as her cheeks flushed slightly.

It was nearly a full week since we drank that ancient blood. The past three days we'd both been aware of things starting to happen. There wasn't anything outwardly different about us. I was still a petite athletic teen, Tara was a tiny young woman. What we'd both noticed though was a huge improvement in our senses.

We could hear a human heartbeat from twenty meters away. We could see the warmth in their bodies, we could almost see the blood flowing in the little vessels just under their skin. And we could smell freshly-spilled blood from a hundred meters away. We could pick up countless tiny details as we just quietly observed.

I wasn't reading that student's mind, but along with her increased heart-rate I saw her breathing quicken slightly and noticed how her pupils dilated when she looked at Tara and me. I observed a dozen tiny details in her body and expression and my intuition told me what it meant.

Tara was still cuddling against me as she nodded towards another human. "Mister tough-guy there just went ten meters out of his way to avoid walking right past us."

She was right again. The guy was built like a wrestler or football player or something. He was at least six-foot-two, broad shoulders, muscles. He weighed more than me and Tara combined, but we made him so uncomfortable he went halfway across the square rather than come anywhere near us.

We weren't even trying to be scary. Granted we were in our 'looking for trouble' outfits. She was in her cute little Docs and her jeans, and she had her jacket with the bullet hole at her shoulder. I was in my torn black jeans and my beat-up black jacket. I had my chain over my left shoulder as usual. Even so, we still just looked like a couple small harmless girls, cuddling together on a bench.

I couldn't feel it myself, but I suspected we were both starting to cast auras. It was probably weak, only sensitive humans would get it. But to the ones who felt it, there'd be something about us that sent chills up their spine.

"It's weird," Tara said quietly. "Like we have some kind of super-power or something."

I shrugged and replied just as softly, "We do, cutie. And it's probably going to keep getting stronger over the next week or two. We're going to have all the power of a pair of centuries-dead vamps, but with the youth and vitality we have now. We might be among the strongest vamps in the Family by halloween."

That was a week from tonight. Most vamps ignored it, but then most of them were old and boring. I was only eighteen when I died and while I wouldn't dress up or get in trouble or anything, I did like to go out and enjoy the atmosphere. We could even flash our fangs and pretend it was a costume, as long as we didn't actually use them.

I was distracted by the scent of blood as an attractive brunette walked past us, and I felt another pang of hunger. For a moment my eyes went straight to her throat. I could hear her heart beating and I saw the warmth coming off her jugular vein. All that hot delicious beautiful blood was calling to me.

Tara gave me a squeeze and whispered "Stop staring."

Her words snapped me out of it. That was the downside to that ancient blood. About the same time our senses started growing sharper, so did our hunger. One bag of processed packaged blood a day wasn't enough to satisfy us anymore. We'd managed to control our urges so far, we kept each other in check. But my biggest concern was our hunger would grow stronger, and we'd be forced to break the Covenant.

Thanks to the rules, there was no 'legal' way for us to get more blood. We couldn't buy it, we couldn't steal it. And we definitely couldn't just take it from the source. We were only allowed to get it from the Family. The last delivery was only six days ago, if we went through it too fast and asked for extra rations they'd want to know why.

So for now, the two of us did our best to ignore the hunger, and focused on other things. Like the ongoing threats we faced.

There hadn't been any more killings lately. No more humans drained, no more vamps killed. Tara and I went out on patrol every night, and I mixed some training in with that. She was doing well. I saw a bit of her anxiety the first two nights after our visit to the mansion, but it faded by the third night.

I wasn't sure if that was thanks to the ancient blood or if it was because of her success with the dealer last week. I was chalking it up to the success though. That was a great victory and I was positive it was a big turning point for her.

As for myself, I went from being bored and watching TV all day long to having more study material than I knew what to do with. Isabelle's journal covered six decades of notes and observations, from nineteen fifty to two thousand and eight.

About half the stuff in there was personal, like she used it as a diary, but the other half was informational. Observations and knowledge. As if she knew those notes would be needed at some point, to either save the Family or to end it.

The older book was another treasure-trove of knowledge. It was like having a half-dozen ancient vamp friends to answer just about every question I had. I hadn't spent as much time studying it yet, I was still working my way through Isabelle's journal.

The only part of her journal I avoided were the entries about me. There weren't a lot, but from the night she met me till the end of the following year there were quite a few notes about her experiments on me.

The biggest shock I found in there was about the affair she had with Claudia. It started fourteen years after Claudia turned Isabelle, and ended in nineteen-forty-four when Claudia became matriarch. Worse than just ending, Isabelle realized her former lover didn't even seem to remember the affair happened at all. That's what tipped her off that something bad was going on with the Family's elders.

It took Isabelle a few years to get over the upset and loss, but eventually her grief turned to resolve. She made it her secret mission to study and learn all she could about what was going on. And she kept all that to herself, told nobody, and kept her notes in a journal no-one knew she was writing.

The most disturbing stuff in the journal related to the Covenant itself. Like on the surface it seemed to be a good thing. Peace between vampires and humans. No fighting, no killing. It was implemented in nineteen-oh-one by Claudia's predecessor. That was before Isabelle was even turned, and no-one in the family today apart from a couple elders were even around back then.

It meant we were a family of vampires who didn't know how to hunt. It meant we were isolated and shunned by other vamps around the country and the world. Almost no outsiders came here, and those who did were quickly chased away or eliminated for breaking our strict rules.

And it meant all of us depended on the Family for blood. To vamps who couldn't hunt, that was a commodity more valuable than money. Both blood and money were tightly controlled, everything was tracked and monitored and audited by the three accountants. Clive counted the cash, Harold counted the blood, and Julian oversaw them both.

Even information was tightly controlled. We weren't taught our history and legends, we weren't taught the extent of our abilities. They wouldn't even teach us how to turn humans properly except under tightly controlled conditions.

Isabelle realized, and I was starting to agree with her, this meant we were a captive and controlled population. We were monitored and tracked, our movements were limited.

Us enforcers had slightly more freedom than the rest of the family, but not much. And Isabelle started to realize we were prison guards rather than peace keepers. The rules we were upholding sounded good on the surface, but they also kept all of us isolated from other vampires as well as humans. They kept us in the dark and under control.

It all added up to something uncomfortable and unpleasant. Something really was rotten at the head of the Family, and they'd spent the past century making moves to ensure nobody would even notice we were living like prisoners. Or slaves.

We were all assigned a job and we were provided enough food and resources to do that job, but no more. We had no choice, no say, no freedom.

Isabelle shook things up by turning me, and by convincing them to let her keep me and train me. And I shook things up again when I turned Tara. Tara wasn't part of my Dame's plan, the two of us were wildcards nobody expected.

And I hadn't shared any of this with her yet. It wasn't a question of trust, I knew she'd stick with me regardless. I just didn't want to burden her with all this shit. Not when she was just starting to find her confidence.

Tara's voice pulled me out of my thoughts as she pointed out, "It's those two cops from last week."

They were on the other side of the street but they were watching us. The younger one had a scowl on his face, he was still angry with me for standing up to him. The older one was somewhere between relaxed and uneasy. He knew, or at least suspected what we really were. He was curious but wary.

I looked back at them, then I waved and motioned them to come over. I wanted to talk with them.

"What are you doing?" Tara asked quietly.

I shrugged, "I have some questions, they might have answers."

The cops looked at each other, then they cut across the street and came over. Tara and I let go of each other and sat up straight. I didn't expect any actual trouble from these two humans but we were ready just incase.

As they came up in front of us both, the older guy asked "What can we do for you young ladies?"

I replied in a casual tone, "You and I have run into each other a couple times over the years. I figured we were overdue for some introductions. My name's Samantha, friends call me Sam."

The younger cop looked uptight, he was still scowling slightly.

The older one sort of relaxed as he responded, "All right Samantha, nice to meet you. I'm Thomas."

I smiled, "Hi Thomas. Your beat includes St. James' Park, right? Were you working on October thirteenth? Did you hear anything about a murder there that night? Or a body found in the park?"

Both cops looked surprised at my question. So did Tara, for that matter.

The younger one started to say something but the old guy cut him off. "Yeah, we worked that night. And no, there wasn't a murder, or a body. It was a quiet night. Did a friend of yours go missing? Is that what you're looking for?"

"Something like that," I shrugged. "Thanks anyways."

Thomas hesitated like he wanted to ask me something, but instead he just nodded. "You girls have a good night. Stay out of trouble."

"You too," I replied.

Tara stayed quiet as we watched the two of them walk away.

I could hear the cops talking to each other as they departed, the old guy was telling the younger one about being polite and not antagonizing the public for no reason.

Once they were out of earshot Tara finally spoke up. "What does that mean? The murder was covered up before the cops even found out about it?"

I shook my head, "It means there wasn't any murder. Nobody broke the Covenant. It was a snipe hunt."

Tara frowned, "Carlos's death was real. There really is a Hunter. But if no human died, why's someone hunting us?"

I sighed and shook my head "I don't know. We're in danger, but I don't know who's behind it or why."

I had my suspicions of course. Maybe Carlos noticed the same sorts of things Isabelle did. Maybe he talked to the wrong person. The human death was obviously a lie, maybe the whole thing was a set-up to make us think Carlos was killed in retaliation for some fictional human murder.

The other possibility was more troubling. Out of the whole Family, enforcers were the only ones trained and toughened to fight. If we really were all slaves, enforcers were the only ones who represented a real threat to our masters.

Maybe after a hundred and twenty years of keeping us isolated, someone decided there was no more need for prison guards. After all, the prisoners were fairly docile and well-controlled nowadays. They didn't even know they were captives.

And if that was the case, any one of us could be next.

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