The Alien Agenda by Ronald Wintrick Page B

species.  No race which was completely sane could do what was being done here.  There was something missing.  Sanity was not a trait I could attribute to the Others.
    “I really just cannot face the prospect of losing you.”  I said.  “I truly do not think that I could go on if I did.”
    Sonafi softened, seeing that I was serious.  “Why do you think that I must insist that I participate?  You blind old fool.”
    Maybe I was a blind old fool, after all.
     
    CHAPTER 7
     
    Sonafi and I were no different than any other Vampires in our need for Human retainers to aid us in those things we could not do for ourselves.  We had possessed, as servants, a family now prosperous and numerous for their fealty, service and loyalty to us.  Humans with such loyalty were not as easy to find as one might think, and money alone could not purchase such devotion.  The head of that present day household, James Ray Burns (an Americanized name, to be sure) now stood in front of me, patiently and confidently listening to what I had to say, full of the awareness that he would never have anything to fear from me.  That was the trust we held.
    Though he was right that he would never have anything to fear from me, we needed our Human retainers more than they needed us, and yet, Humans were remarkably short on the kind of awareness that makes a Juvenile Vampire so afraid of an Elder.  Something that might even be equated as common sense, I thought, and yet, was I absolutely correct in my own analysis?  Weren't Vampires even now learning the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit?  In either case, James Ray Burns stood before us now, in our parlor, a room they called the 'living room' here, unflinching, unafraid, though it was the full of night and neither Sonafi nor I had yet fed this evening.  He was simply not afraid.
    His family had served us for so many generations that my face must by now be recorded in his racial memories.  I supposed that it was possible that far from bringing him fear, I brought him the feeling of instinctual security, comfort and assurance.  It was a mutually beneficent arrangement.  A price tag could not be effectively affixed upon the services the Burns have performed for us.  We have always compensated them accordingly.   They are, in effect, our life-line, and without them, in these times, we would not be as comfortably secure as we were.
    I handed James Ray, as he preferred to be called, the keys to our new home and a slip of paper with the address written down upon it.  I normally used the Burns to locate such new residences.  That was one of the big things Human retainers could do that a Vampire normally could not do for himself, but Brid had made this purchase electronically, the home purchased through a mortgage lender who had foreclosed upon it and who had been, apparently, only too happy to resell it in this manner.  It was right here in the city.  I was even familiar with the neighborhood.
    James Ray took the keys and the address, towering over me as he did so, a huge man, green eyed, lightly skinned, his face neutral and unemotional.  I felt the slightest tickle of fear run through him at our nearness.  Then I smelled it as it came out in his sweat.  James Ray was not a Human who feared easily, either, and he had no reason to fear me, but it was not something that could be controlled at these closest moments of contact.  He stepped back quickly and looked away.
    “I always get just the slightest bit of nerves when I am close to you.”  James Ray said, as if reading my mind.  “I don't know why I can never entirely get used to you.  It simply seems beyond me.”  He exhibited just the slightest nervous give away by twirling the key ring on his finger, for something to do other than think about his fear.             
    “Only the slightest bit.”   Sonafi complimented him.  “Few Humans can control themselves so well.”
    “Due only to long a