“No,” I said, frowning as I cast my mind over the events of the last couple of months. “They don’t have fourteen people, though. They only caught a couple of them: Mattias and Kristjana, and those two people who Frederic brought.”

“Then it would seem that we aren’t the only ones who can be accused of falling victim to blind faith,” Janice retorted. “You don’t know that the vampires are treating the Brotherhood, your own people, well at all. You only assume they are, but you don’t know for a fact what has happened to them. For all you know, they could be dead.”

I wanted to protest that point, but I had an uncomfortable feeling that any explanation I made would sound just as feeble as their mindless attacks. “You’re right. I don’t know for certain that they’re not dead, but I highly doubt that it’s so.”

“They didn’t hesitate to kill others,” Janice said, her eyes calculating. “Why should they stop at doing so to those captives?”

“I’ve told you several times now, they’re not that way. They seek justice for the deaths of their fellow vampires, yes, but they did not start this war, nor do they want to continue it. Can you say as much about the Brotherhood?”

“If you truly mean what you say,” Janice said after she and her husband traded silent glances, “then you will not mind proving it.”

“How so?” I asked, wary about falling into any verbal traps.

Janice lifted her chin. “The director of the board of governors sent us to negotiate with you. Yes, that’s right, negotiate.”

“What, specifically?” I asked, leaning against the desk.

Magda moved to my side in a blatant show of support.

“The director told us that you would refuse to do your duty.”

“I’d have thought that was made clear by my replies to the letters and e-mails I’ve been pelted with from you guys demanding I go help out with one cleansing or another.”