Callen looked confused, "You were protecting me?" He bit back a derisive laugh that threatened to explode from him, "I didn't feel very protected growing up." He had to admit.
"As a hybrid, you would have appeared as a normal mortal, until you hit puberty and started to change. Investigations had uncovered that your mother had had a child with Garrison, we found Amelia too late, the hunters found her and she was killed. For this we wept." Mikhail said sadly. "As you know, Vampire children are very rare; if we find one who is like your sister, good and pure of heart, they are to be nurtured and cherished. All too often hybrids are wild and bloodthirsty and need to be dealt with."
Callen took a deep breath as the Clan rulers words washed over him.
"Are you going to deal with me?" He asked, shooting a worried look at the others who had been mostly ignored by the vampires surrounding them. He was worried about a few who had been looking at them like they were food and he did not want to leave them without protection.
Sam and the team, for their part were worried too.
Deeks because his now pregnant wife was being eyed up by one of the men, leaning languidly against the wall, as disinterested as he seemed on the outside, Deeks' gut told him he was getting more and more fixated on his wife as time went on.
Hetty had not moved at all; a few times she had looked over at Mikhail interrogating her agent, but she had shown no sign of tension the whole time since the clutch of vampires had entered.
Sam however was worried; Callen had always put himself in the firing line, believing himself to be not as important as Sam.
However to him that was not true.
Callen was an integral part of his life and his family's life. He was his partner and brother and he could not live with himself if these things decided to kill him just because he was born half vampire and half human.
Callen could no more have decided that, than Sam could have decided on being born a man.
It was so unfair.
Sam took a step toward the old man who had not taken his eyes off Callen during their whole conversation.
"You do not need to worry Agent Sam Hanna. I wish no harm to come to the young one." Mikhail said without turning his head.
"You said you were his clan?" Sam asked, "So where were you? Why has he spent all his life alone?"
Mikhail smirked slightly and for an instant, Sam was taken aback at how much Mikhail looked like an ancient version of Callen.
"He has not spent all his life alone." Mikhail said, turning his head to look at Sam, "The overseer was there to protect, guide and nurture him."
Both Callen and Sam looked confused, "Overseer?" Sam asked.
Hetty stood and took a few steps towards Sam.
"Me." She admitted.
"You're The Overseer?" Both Callen and Sam asked in unison causing a small smile to appear on Hetty's face.
She nodded, "Myself, Duke and a few others are tasked with finding hybrids and helping them to come to terms with what they are and find them a place in society where they can be productive and useful."
"Sullivan? Stevens? Hunter?" Callen asked.
Hetty nodded, "All hybrids." She admitted, "That was why you didn't trust Hunter or Steven's when you met them. Hybrids have problems in the presence of another of their kind. It can be as small as a mutual distrust to all out hatred, your emotions are hard to keep in check with there is another of your kind around."
For a moment Callen thought back, remembering how he had instantly disliked Lauren Hunter and how he had been off his game and temperamental when Grace Stevens had been involved with the team.
"That's why there were no others around when you came to live with me and begin your training." She told him.
"I thought..." Callen was reluctant to say that, having heard she had fostered other children but he had been kept away from them that he had thought that she thought he was truly a monster.
Hetty cocked her head slightly to one side, "Not at all Mr. Callen, I have never thought of you as a monster. I have told you before, the monsters are the men you deal with and put in jail on a day to day basis, they are the true monsters. You are someone with a few extra chromosomes and some extraordinary abilities. That is all."
He looked surprised for a second, as if she had been reading his thoughts, but ducked his head as he shook it slightly. There was no way she could do that, was there?
Hetty stepped past Sam as one of Mikhail's bodyguards moved Hetty's chair closer for her to sit on and giving her a small bow of respect moved away so she could sit back down.
There was one question that had been running through Callen's mind ever since the clan showed up, and it wasn't the one that Sam had asked and as yet had remained unanswered.
"Sire?" Callen started and waited till Mikhail nodded, "I don't know all of the clan rules, but the one rule I do know is that if humans know about us, we are to kill them. Please, is there anything I can do to save my team…my…family?" He begged.
Mikhail looked angry, as did Hetty, and Callen got instantly worried.
"I will die before I let you harm them." he snarled with a bravado he didn't exactly feel at that moment.
"Who taught you that humans must die if they know about us?" Mikhail growled. At the tone of his voice, all the other vampires in the room bristled and the humans grew nervous.
"I…my…Garrison, he told me. It was in the training he gave me while I was living with him." Callen replied his eyes not leaving the bare floor by his feet.
Mikhail glared at Garrison, "I know of your subversive activities; because of your relationship to me, I have turned a blind eye. You have been mostly an annoyance at most Garrison Romanov. But this is you going too far. You pulled Gregori Callen into this, using the feud between his family and the Comescu's to your advantage and then years later seduced his great great niece so that you could carry on your plan to subvert me. You knew how special the Callen bloodline was when you noted that Gregori Callen was able to walk in the daylight without damage."
Callen looked shocked at that, just exactly how old was his father?
"We tried to dissuade Clara Callen from meeting you, but she was a very strong willed human. She had no idea about her relative's conversion at your hand, only that she was in Romania to track down a lead with the assistance of the CIA to investigate the deaths of American citizens by organized crime gangs. You were the one who showed the Comescu's the target, you kept Clara Callen off their radar until she no longer had a purpose, you waited until your children were born and then you told her didn't you? You told her what you were and what your children were and she ran to protect them. You were the one who told the Comescu's that she was on the beach that day weren't you!" Mikhail's voice had got louder and louder until he was shouting, Callen looked at his father distraught.
He did not like his father, that was no secret and he certainly did not trust him, but to find out how and why he had been conceived and how his father had burned his mother to the Comescu's leaving himself and his sister to the mercy of strangers cut him to the core.
"It wasn't my fault she called for help." Garrison grumbled, "She was going to die anyway, I had planned to kill her as soon as she had finished nursing my son. But she caught me killing for food and watched and learned what I was. She was nothing more than a vessel to bare me children."
Callen curled his hands into fists and shook, wanting nothing more than to pummel the man who had sired him.
"You broke our laws, you abused your position in this clan and your relationship to me, brother." Mikhail snarled, " Now, you kidnap federal agents, people of note, thinking I can let this go? I cannot let this go unpunished. To compound your crimes you took The Overseer, presumably to kill her as well?"
"That was not my intention." Garrison argued. "I needed to get the boy to come to me, and want to stay of his own free will."
"I would never have joined you." Callen snapped.
"To save them?" Garrison asked.
Callen had to admit, to save them he would have joined Garrison for a while, but he would never have fought the clan.
"I would have died to save them but I would have never fought The Clan. You are wrong Garrison, the old ways are wrong. It is good that some people are kind enough to donate for us, but they are not food and they should not be killed like animals." Callen said sadly, "The Clans are looking into artificial blood which…"
"Artificial blood!" Garrison yelled, "That is unacceptable, we were cursed by God to be who we are. We are superior and those humans are nothing more than food."
"ENOUGH!" Mikhail snapped, "Garrison Romanov, you are hereby charged with treason against the clans. Your sentence is DEATH. You are to be taken to the execution grounds, staked and left till the sun bleaches the marrow of your bones. May Hell have mercy on your soul."
Garrison howled in outrage, this was not how it was meant to be; he should have been the one giving orders, how could the clan be so blind?
Callen stood silently as Garrison was dragged struggling from the room, screaming obscenities and blaming his son for not fighting for his cause.
Sam moved to stand beside his partner and laid a hand on his shoulder, "G, don't listen to him. You are not responsible for all of this. We are here for you, we are your family."
Callen's head lowered as he listened to Sam's words and prayed they were true.