My Most Precious Human

I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned in bed, hearing the overwhelming beating of my own heart. I kept thinking about why my words made Sariel so angry, and more importantly, was he still angry at me for asking that stupid question? I hoped not. The relationship between him and me was fragile even without any additional conflicts. Thankfully, Gabriel seemed to be less prejudiced against me. It would only make my job much harder...

I got up as if I hadn't slept at all. I splashed cold water on my face over a hundred times before I started to resemble a human being, and not that I resembled any attractive inhuman before doing it. I was only a beginner when it came to cosmetics and make-up. In my twenty-five years of living, I didn't really have time to care about my looks. I was a fast learner. I had the full theory, but experience and skills were completely different stories. I stood in front of the mirror trying to fix my lashes so they wouldn't resemble insect feet. Fortunately, Martha came in just in time to give me a hand.

"You should be thankful that your skin doesn't require much make-up. You are lovely as you are." She smiled as she gently tapped a bit of loose powder on my cheeks.

"Not today... I got up looking like I had escaped from the remake of the Night of the Living Dead," I scoffed at myself.

"Tough night? What happened?" Martha seemed deeply concerned.

"Well, the Duke got angry with me yesterday. Maybe I shouldn't even mention that I've found out about the human he loved and how it all ended. I made foolish assumptions and apparently said a little too much." I smiled awkwardly.

"Maybe it's because you resemble her..." Martha muttered under her breath, but I heard her quite well.

"What did you say?" I asked, gazing into her eyes.

"Nothing..." She tried to dissuade me from the topic.

"Oh, come on! Who do I resemble?" I was going to make her talk no matter what.

Martha sighed and raised her hands in surrender, "Laura, you resemble Laura, the human whom the Duke loved," she claimed, cautiously looking me up and down.

I gasped. All the scenes with Sariel ran through my mind. I smiled bitterly.

"That would explain a lot. I foolishly believed that there was something within me that he found attractive, but I guess I am merely a poor reflection of his tragic love."

"Please don't say that!" Martha consoled me, "The Duke wouldn't keep you in the castle because of sentiment. He is too cruel for that..." She realized she overdid it with honesty and quickly covered her mouth I chuckled. I had to admit that the last argument was something I decided to hold on to. As stupid as it was, I could feel more at ease if it turned out that he didn't treat me as a walking-talking image of his dead fiancé.

I shook off the thoughts about Sariel and decided to focus on work. I put on a stylish overcoat, grabbed my purse, and walked out into the corridor. Then a sudden thought crossed my mind...

"The Duke... Is he at the castle?" The last thing I wanted was to run into him before work.

"No," Martha replied at once, "He left before dawn today. He took Mr. Gotha with him, and they both left in a hurry."

I wondered what was so urgent to make them leave... for a second. Then I made a quick resolution in my mind not to dwell on anything else except for my job. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to find out firsthand if Sariel was still mad at me. It was enough that I knew that I would meet him later, after work, when I would testify in front of the Great Council.

Mike drove me to Argent Investment Bank headquarters and my daily routine began. I brought another four boxes of documents from the archives. This time I chose to deliberately ignore my fellow human employees and pretended I was a ghost that glided through their corridors. Certainly, it didn't stop them from proclaiming their spiteful remarks loud enough to make sure I would hear them. This time I was called a "useless slut" and a "vampires' toy". Well, I wouldn't give them points for creativity, even though I found those names quite amusing. What concerned me more was the fact that the tones of their voices became slightly more aggressive, as if there was someone who fueled their disdain towards me. I clenched my teeth and walked back to my office without saying a word. There was no point in arguing with people who decided to hate you just because.

I hated to admit it, but those little mistakes I marked in my previous report were appearing again and again. It looked like those employees who made them had never corrected their ways of working. I decided to check if those people were still working for the company. I seriously hoped they weren't. The last thing I wanted was to be the reason why someone would get fired. Of course, it must have happened several times before with my previous assignments for other companies, but this would be the first time when I might actually face the people getting fired because of me.

I sat in front of my laptop and took a deep breath. I had unlimited access to human resources files, so I could easily check the current position of those who landed on my black list. It was truly fortunate. I couldn't even begin to imagine what could happen if I had to ask Monique for assistance in that matter...

After another thirty minutes, I knew the situation looked bad. There were ten people on my list, and nine of them were still working at the company. Two of them were even promoted last year. I sighed heavily. I really wanted to prove to Gabriel that there was no reason to terminate the contracts of those employees from my first report, but I was about to give him proof of something completely opposite. The worst part of it was that I didn't even finish checking the whole year 2010.

The abnormalities kept appearing in increasing numbers the further I went with my investigation. The sums of money the bank had lost because of them grew in my report. The list of the potential people to fire was also getting longer, and my anxieties rose with every name I wrote down.

"This is some kind of nightmare!" I cried out, enraged by another incorrection I found.

By the end of my working hours, I had already found over forty incompetent people who should never have been working at a bank. I checked their files, and it turned out that only two of those employees were vampires...

"They are going to kill me when they find out..." I mumbled, staring at my black list.

I knew there was no point in trying to convince the CFO not to fire those people. If I were him, I would terminate those contracts as soon as I looked at the report. I also knew that people wouldn't blame the CFO or CEO; they would blame the one who wrote the damn report! The proportions between humans and vampires that were on the list also looked as if I was biased. I also knew that if I were to stand in fron of all the employees and state my arguments, they wouldn't listen, and things could only get worse.

"Lilith, what the hell have you got yourself into?!" My restlessness kept growing within me.

I should have predicted that something like this might have happened, but when I begged Sariel to hire me, survival was my priority. All I could do now was prove that I was doing my job well, sentiments aside. I finished the report, emailed it to the CEO, and then brought a printed copy of it to Gabriel Foubert.

"What's this?" Gabriel pointed at the page with the list of names.

"These are the employees that made several mistakes that resulted in monetary losses for the bank. I additionally marked the last three names. These are the people that proved a serious level of incompetence that made their clients go bankrupt. The bank could not be aware of the problem since someone deliberately tried to wipe all the transaction details," I explained nervously.

"I see," Gabriel commented, his face unphased.

Then he pulled out his phone, picked some kind of number, and gave a short command to the one who answered the phone, "Come here." He ended the call.

I was sitting in his office while nervously tapping the chair armrest with my fingers. Gabriel put my report back inside the paper folder and sent me a wicked smirk. "What are you going to do with that list?" I asked, my heart pounding.

He chuckled, nonchalantly leaning on his desk.

"Isn't it obvious? Those last three will suffer the legal consequences of their actions, and the rest will be fired, effective immediately." He grinned.

I gulped, thinking that I still had another nine years of documents to go...