Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “No, please, I told you everything I know, I—”

Sam sneered at her. “You hadn’t honestly thought you’d be allowed to go on your merry way, had you?”

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked in a low voice.

“Well, that’s all up to Jude.” I turned to the brunette behind me. “Sam will be more than happy to have her way with this bitch if you don’t want the honour. It’s up to you.”

Jude straightened her shoulders. “No. I need to do this.”

Sam let out a petulant whine. “But I had something so good in mind.”

Smiling, I draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her aside. “Next time.” I looked back at Jude. “Once you’re done, you’re coming with us.”

“To her place to see her boyfriend?”

“No. If this organisation is as big as it seems and vampires are involved, we need to speak with Antonio first.” At her blank look, I elaborated, “The Grand High Master.”

Nodding, she rose to her feet and went to squat before Janine, her knife back in hand.

Janine began to sob, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the tears were false. “I didn’t steal her, Jude, it wasn’t me—”

“No, but if you hadn’t drugged me that day, I wouldn’t have been taken to have my abdomen ripped open, I wouldn’t have nearly died, I would never have been Turned into a vampire, and – most importantly – my baby would be with me, her mom, where she should be. What’s more, others wouldn’t have suffered the same fate. So the way I see it is…you’ve had this coming for a long time.” With that, Jude sliced open Janine’s throat. She didn’t move an inch from where she sat until Janine’s heartbeat had come to a complete stop.

Note to self: Never piss off Jude.

(Sam)

No less than twenty minutes later, we were back in the conference room. Antonio, Luther, and Sebastian had looked equal measures of concerned, enraged, and sympathetic as Jude told her story.

When she was done, Antonio sighed. “Unfortunately, vampires are just as involved in trafficking as humans are. In the case of vampires, they provide others with human adults and human children to be used as vessels or consorts. It’s been going on for a long time, and I’ve been sending my squads to end these operations for years.”

“Well, now there’s a new type of trafficking, and it’s a well-organised crime syndicate.” Jude leaned forward in her seat. “Foetal abduction isn’t so new for humans – this has been happening in countries like Columbia for years.”

“For years?” repeated Sebastian, stunned and disgusted.

Jude nodded. “There’s a high demand for children, particularly newborns. Countries where it used to be fairly easy to adopt from now have a lot of restrictions. Adoption’s a lengthy process, and they’ll seem like a life-time to those who are desperate for a child. Abducting newborns from hospitals is much more difficult now that the places are more secure and people are more alert and aware.

“In the case of vampires, adoption isn’t an option. Kidnapping children isn’t an option as something so bold can draw attention to the existence of vampires – no vampire would risk that. But buying a child provides little risk for them. Just as they longed to be parents as humans, they long for the same thing as vampires. The crime organisation that has specialised in trafficking has leaped on this. I suppose you could call it a niche in the market.”

Sebastian shook his head sadly. “But…why would they do that knowing that they couldn’t grow old with the child?”

“They most likely plan to Turn the child once they reach a mature age,” said Antonio.

“Don’t do what I first did.” Jude glanced at each person at the table as she spoke. “Don’t try to search for some logic. These people aren’t okay upstairs or they would never have done this to begin with, no matter how much they craved to be parents.”

“Why are you sure that vampires are behind this?” I asked her.

“At first, I hadn’t been – it hadn’t even occurred to me. I was determined to find the people responsible for what happened, and I thought it would simply be a case of finding out what the human authorities knew. They had naturally been looking into the deaths; just as with me, each woman had been left for dead in a wooded area. My gift is to erase memories, though I can’t erase any more than twenty minutes. So I questioned a couple of FBI agents and erased their memories of me afterwards.

“That was how I learned all about foetal abduction, and also about the ranks within the organisation. The Scout’s job is to parade around wearing pregnancy simulators and search for heavily pregnant women; they find out if the baby is mature enough to survive an op. After being drugged, the women are taken by Deliverers. No one has uncovered where the ops are performed, but because of the careful incisions on each of the victims, it’s believed that the Medics have extensive medical knowledge.

“But no one knows what happens after the Medics perform their operation. It was literally a dead end. There was nothing, no trace of anyone or anything. My Sire suggested that I let it go, but I couldn’t. One day, I was at home watching T.V., and half a dozen Pagori vampires just burst into the apartment. I was warned to stop asking questions, to stop poking around; that if I didn’t, they’d be back and I’d be dead. All I can think is that they thought I knew more than I did. Until that moment, it hadn’t even occurred to me that my own kind was involved.”

“Janine, the human, was shocked at the sight of us,” said Jared, who had his arm hung around my chair and was playing with my hair. “She clearly believed humans were running the organisation. I have to wonder when the human roles end and the vampires take over.”

I pursed my lips. “It might be reasonable to think that the Medics are definitely humans. The operations they perform cause a lot of bleeding. Surely that would be difficult for vampires, so maybe it’s after then they take over.”

Antonio nodded. “Yes, that’s a good point. It would also explain why the trail of information is stale after that.”

“It would also explain why the women are simply being dumped, left to die,” said Sebastian. “Vampires would never be so sloppy.”

“Who Turned you?” Antonio asked Jude.