Vampire Politics

Hi folks, this is Bree, with an update on our vampire situation. (Not our resident vampires, but vampires in general as relate to us. I realize that with all the bloodsuckers around us - and I mean that "bloodsuckers" in the nicest possible way - it gets confusing.) 

As our regular readers probably recall, back in February we defeated a powerful group of ancient vampire bullies who called themselves the extremely pretentious title of The Elders. Defeated as in gone, gotten rid of, never to return again to mount a counterattack. We were, as far as we could tell, safe from them.

What we weren't quite sure was whether they were all killed by the fae army, or whether some of them slipped away in the mass exodus of vampire hangers-on who showed up hoping to participate in a bloodbath just for the sake of the bloodiness. (Vampires are not, as a general rule, particularly kind people. Clare, Tabitha, Cécile, and Marie-Grace are pleasant exceptions to the mean rule.) Real battles aren't like books or movies - they're confusing and chaotic, and you can't really keep track of what every single person is doing the whole time. It's easy to miss things, even big things like enemies running.

If some of them slipped away, we weren't sure what to do about it. Go after them? That seems kind of heartless, hunting them while they're down. On the other hand, if we just ignored them, they might grow strong enough to come back... not to mention the people they'd eat in the meantime. It was a conundrum - but one that was unexpectedly solved.

The remains of the Elder group sent us a messenger. How do these people always know where to find us? We aren't even home! But anyway, they sent a messenger. Three of the Elder group survived the battle, one of their leaders - although not the head honcho - and two underlings. To our even greater surprise, the remaining members of the Elder army sent not threats, but terms of peace.

They offered: To give up their pretensions of vampire leadership. Never to attack us again. To lift the orders of execution they gave their people regarding any of our family members. And... most surprising of all, they promised to stop eating humans. More of a win than we could have hoped for.

All we had to do in exchange was not kill the remaining three of them. Which seemed like a fair deal, since we didn't really like the idea of more killing anyway, and this would mean they wouldn't be dangerous anymore. It seemed like the best possible ending. There's no reason not to accept; it's what we wanted anyway, and if they don't keep up their end of the bargain we don't have to hold up ours either, so it's all gain at no cost.

However, we sent back one more term of peace: They have to let Gia stay with us, even though she worked for them.

They accepted that requirement too. They didn't seem to have a problem with what we were asking; they didn't actually seem to remember who Gia was when we mentioned her name. We had to remind them that she was their employee. They seemed indifferent to what happened to her and said we could "keep her" - which sort of makes her sound like a pet or a cheap souvenir, but at least they aren't coming for her. Clearly she means a lot more to us than she did to them. Gia seemed really relieved that her connection to them is officially terminated.

So ends our conflict with The Elders, I guess. No uncertainty, and no loose ends.

We still have vampire-related problems, though. There's a major power vacuum (explained in more detail in the linked post) now that the pretentious vampires aren't around to keep the crazy vampires from blowing their whole secrecy gig. 

We've been trying to get away from it all while we're on vacation, but we keep tossing around ideas for what to do. There's no leadership every vampire will accept - even The Elders, for all their violence, were ignored by most vampires most of the time. There's no one else we know of who could get a majority to listen. Certainly not us. Most of us aren't even vampires, for one thing, and they will want to be ruled by their own. Also, we're still kids, and running around trying to impose martial law on insane vampires isn't exactly a task we're eager to take up.

So... what to do?

We went round and round - finally Summer had what actually seemed to be a workable idea. What about some kind of vampire council, or parliament? There's no potential leader everyone would accept... but if every potential leader had some support, they could work together to make things happen. We'd be willing to take part, and we'll get the ball rolling - and we plan to lay some ground rules, like no killing humans. Not sure how well that's going to go over, but we have to try.

Finally, some stability is on the horizon - we hope - in the vampire corner of our world.

Love,

Bree