Monday: 10:00 p.m.
In the house, there was a long brittle silence.
"Well if there's nothing more," said Paavo breaking the silence. "I will be leaving; I will see you all tomorrow," he said, bowing elegantly to the group. Paavo Petrov was old world charm. Originally from Russia, he had immigrated to the United States in 1985. With all of his family dead, Paavo at age thirty-five hadn't seen any reason to live. He tried to drown his sorrows in alcohol, but he wasn't successful. During one of his binges, a Kindred Ventrue introduced him to a brand new life, and for the next ten years, Paavo and his Primogen Katrina had traveled the world as lovers. But all good things must end. During one of their travels, they met a young man, whom Katrina fell in love with. Because Katrina was focused on this young man, Paavo opted to leave. It has been several years since Paavo had seen Katrina.
"Can you give me a ride home?" Charity asked eagerly, seeing a chance to finally be alone with Paavo. "I took a cab here this morning."
Paavo paused on his way out the door, looking at Charity's eager face. He sighed heavily. "Sure. Go get your things; I will be waiting in the car," he said turning to walk out the door. He knew of her crush on him of course and he didn't want to encourage her. It's not as if he didn't find her attractive. He did. But he didn't believe he and a mortal could have a long-lasting relationship. Still, he knew of plenty of Kindred who would take advantage of a situation like this.
Charity grabbed her purse and several folders off of a desk and hurriedly followed Paavo to the door. "Bye, see you all tomorrow," she yelled over her shoulder.
"What was that?" Dudley finally burst out. He couldn't hold it in any longer. "Did you know that she had that kind of power?"
"No," said Connor softly, his eyes narrowed in thought. "No, I didn't."
"She could hurt someone," Dudley said with a tinge of wonder in his voice.
"She almost did," said Jocelyn, her voice rough with anxiety. "Me."
"Do you know anything about Buffy Summers?" asked Dudley curiously of Connor.
"No. When I received this appointment from the President, I was told I was being sent to a boot camp run by Summers. Until then, I'd never heard of her. As far as I know, she doesn't have any political or financial reason for being here. But I'll give her credit, she's a good strategist. I even think she was in the military at one point. I tried to find out more about her by running her prints through AFIS. Nada. It's like she doesn't exist," Connor said in a dull and troubled voice. "How about you?" Connor asked Burke. "She recruited you. How well did you know her?"
"I'd never heard of her," said Burke, his tone apologetic. "My parents knew her. When I first joined the group, I did a background check on everyone and I found info on everyone here, but not her."
"Even the vampire," said Connor with resignation in his voice.
"Kindred," said Burke with quiet emphasis.
"I don't care what they call themselves," Connor retorted in cold sarcasm. "A vampire is a vampire. I wish I'd never seen the day I had to work with vampires."
"Yes, well," said Burke, with a vague hint of disapproval. "I had found some information on the web about our Mr. Petrov. He was born in Russia and now he lives in the U.S., paying taxes and he also gives to charity."
"Yeah, Charity would love for him to give it to her," said Dudley snickering.
"That is so disgusting," said Burke, looking at the other man in repulsion.
Jocelyn, in the act of taking a sip of water, choked.
Connor walked over to the woman and gave several hard pats on her back to alleviate her choking, hiding his own amusement behind his averted face.
Jocelyn turned to Connor, her face red and flushed. "Wait a minute," she said an eager excitement in her voice. "I remember something. I heard Paavo call Buffy 'my queen'."
"What!" Connor said taken aback. "Queen?" he mouthed. "Why would he say that?"
"I don't know," she said shrugging negligibly.
"Look," said Burke, coming to an internal decision. First, the Summers woman had turned scary, but he had his own power, so who was he to judge her. Second, the other team members seemed to have some type of agenda going on. He didn't have to be psychic to figure that one out. He didn't want to get caught in the middle. "I don't know what kind of an agenda you have going," he said, eying them suspiciously. "But leave me out of it. The President created this group for a reason. He appointed Buffy Summers as tactical leader. She has been doing a good job so far. So, leave it at that," he said walking out.
"He has to go," said Connor, his voice cold and exact.
Jocelyn's mouth dropped open.
"Do you have any problem with that?" he asked dryly, noting her reaction.
She swallowed hard, trying to manage a feeble answer. "No," she said, in a tiny voice. She liked Burke; he was the only one who took time to notice her by asking how her day had been. Now, they were talking about killing the one person who seemed to care for her.
Rubbing his hands in a gleeful manner, Connor said, "Let's find out about Buffy Summers."
Not wanting to call attention to herself for the first time since forever, Jocelyn had to asked, "What about the vampire killings?" There was a sourness in the pit of her stomach as she thought about killing Burke. It wasn't the killing she minded, she could see herself actually pulling the trigger if she had to, but not Burke.
Connor walked over to the sideboard at the corner of the room, and opened a cabinet noisily searching for something. "Let Summers do the hard work," he said, picking up a bottle of vodka and pouring it into a glass with ice. "We can get rid of her after she finds the vampire," he said, downing a mouthful before saluting both Dudley and Jocelyn.
"We don't have any idea how powerful she is," Dudley protested. He didn't seem to have any qualms talking about killing two people. But it was not as if he didn't care, of course he did. He wouldn't have become a doctor if he didn't care; nevermind that being a doctor wasn't his first career choice.
"Then let's conduct our own little test, shall we," Connor said with a maniacal gleam in his eye.