Chapter 9: Points Review

The Points Review hearing took place on Wednesday at nine at night, in the big gray room on the fifth floor.

It was the only hour a vampire could attend, and the only room in the building with no windows.

Alan Abercrombie had called it himself.

Sixty-four points, he said, was a threshold, and a threshold was a duty.

There was a long table, a panel of three, and Brenda in the middle chair with her glasses pushed up.

Cyrus sat alone in the first row, in his charcoal coat, with his hands folded.

I sat in the third row, in a gray blazer I'd borrowed from Kyle, because I was a witness now, and not staff.

The East District caseworker sat next to me, asleep with his chin on his tie.

"Deputy Director," said Brenda. "Make your case."

Abercrombie stood.

He gave a very good speech.

He said that Morvath had gone from thirty-eight points to sixty-four in ten days, which he called a trajectory.

He said the Biter of Lakewood had two assaults on file.

He said that the county could not wait for a third.

He did not say that the assaults were against men who had been beating someone, because the file did, and Brenda would.

"We have a safe place," Abercrombie finished. "It's in Lorain."

"He would have a bed, a room, meals, a nurse. He would not have the opportunity to harm anyone."

"He'd also not have a window," Brenda said.

"He has none now."

"He has film on them."

Someone in the second row laughed, and Abercrombie did not.

"The panel calls Molly Novak," said Brenda.

I stood up, and my knees locked.

I walked to the small chair beside the table and sat, and put my hands on my knees.

"You were Mr. Morvath's caseworker until Friday," said the man on the left.

"Yes, sir."

"For ten days."

"Eleven."

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