"Do you know why you're here this afternoon, Mister Kellerman?" The man sitting across the table from Neil had a bland, professional expression under his curly blond beard, and his tone sounded ostentatiously friendly and polite. He looked like he was taking care of a rote formality, just ticking off the little box that said he'd interviewed Neil before getting on to his real work for the day. But Neil knew better. He understood from the moment he saw the ID badge exactly why FBI Agent Magnus Lokeson wanted to talk to him, even before they went into the cramped little room with the tape recorder and the video cameras. And even if the tall, Nordic bear of a man looked hotter than hell in his immaculately tailored suit, Neil wasn't going to give him anything.
So he replied, "I'm afraid I don't, sir," and waited in calm silence while his mind drifted deeper into the memory of his Master's wine-dark hypnotic gaze. It had been nine months since he'd looked into the eyes of vampire Antony Voronin for the first time, discovering a secret and supernatural truth that few in this world knew, and Neil could still see those slitted pupils as clearly as he did during the moment when they first shredded his weak and pathetic will and left him a thrall to the inhuman power of the undead majesty he served. Compared to that godlike potency, the authority of governments seemed trivial and insignificant; if Agent Lokeson expected him to sweat under the silent treatment, they were both going to be here a long while.
Sure enough, the man on the other side of the table lost his patience long before Neil lost his nerve. He took a long drink from his water bottle--Neil couldn't help noticing that he hadn't been offered anything--and reached into his briefcase, pulling out a photo and sliding it across the polished wood. "Does this help?" he asked, still sounding just as bored and disinterested as before. Neil didn't really believe it was anything more than just an act; as much as Agent Lokeson tried to pretend that this was strictly tedium, there was a subtle tension to the set of his broad, muscular shoulders that told the vampire's thrall that this was more than just routine.
Not that it surprised Neil. Apart from his compelled obedience to a nearly six hundred year old vampire, he lived a normal life--and yes, even through the fog of his Master's control, Neil understood the irony of that sentence--and for the FBI to bring him downtown to a field office they'd set up less than two blocks from the headquarters of Antony Voronin's shipping company told him that this was intimately related to his Master's affairs. And since Voronin was also the head of the New York Mafia, Agent Lokeson was probably very excited for this little conversation whatever he might pretend.
Not that Neil was going to let any of that slip. His loyalties were pure and perfect and absolute. They couldn't be anything else, not when he was a human with a human's weak and feeble will and his Master was a powerful, ancient creature of the night. "I recognize the picture, if that's what you mean," he said mildly, staring down at the photo with a flat, neutral gaze. "It's the front of my apartment building." He didn't bother telling them that the man walking into the front lobby was Antony Voronin. They already knew, and he had no intention of giving them any information they couldn't prove. It was how Neil kept his Master's secrets... and the memory of those burning eyes made that more important than anything.
Agent Lokeson's mouth twitched at the corner in a tiny, rueful smile. "The man in that picture has been to your apartment over a hundred times in the last nine months," he said, his voice aching with weary patience. "I have some very interesting pictures from those encounters, I won't trouble you with those. But I want to make it clear from the outset that there's really no way you're going to convince me that Antony Voronin is some kind of casual acquaintance, or a stranger who just happens to be in your neighborhood a lot. So with that said, Mister Kellerman... why do you think I brought you here this afternoon?"
Neil's smile hardened. "Well, I'd imagine that... on top of being a voyeur and a Peeping Tom... you're one of those deeply unpleasant people who believes the rumors about Mister Voronin's connections to organized crime. If you've come here to ask me questions about him, I assure you--we don't talk much during our social engagements. It's a more, um, physical companionship." Neil's body remained perfectly still, even as his mind drifted back to night after night of shuddering arousal as the Master took him and his boyfriend Forrest again and again until their cocks couldn't even so much as twitch anymore. "As I'm sure you and your photographers have noticed." He slid his chair back, putting his hands on the table to signal his intention to rise. "Now if that's all, I'd really like to get home sometime before midnight. Or to speak with a lawyer. Either will do."
He wasn't expecting Agent Lokeson's response. "Oh, please, Mister Kellerman," the tall man chuckled, his outburst more amusement than the anger Neil anticipated. "We both know you don't know a damn thing about Voronin's operations. You've never been to his social club, you've never met any of his lieutenants, you've never made any deliveries for him... if I wanted to talk to someone about his connections to the Mafia, I'd speak to your boyfriend and we both know it." That stung just a little. Not enough to get under his skin, not enough to break through the inhuman grip that the Master had on Neil's feeble human will, but it stung.
