The discussion amongst the Chocolatiers and Materyllis regarding Affie’s fate was a bitter one. You see, it is a general principle across all metro Boston vamp clans that the penalty for any crime that endangers vampires as a whole is death. There are several categories of activity that merit the death penalty:

1. Harming a mortal under the age of consent merits death.

2. Killing other vampires for no reason [see below for explanation] merits death.

3. Any activity that threatens the safety and security of vampires as a whole merits death. For example, if a vampire turned informant for a Harvard professor of folklore and began telling the professor about actual vamp clans and culture, the vampire would be quickly found out and put to death.

The vampire code of laws, such as they exist, also has no tolerance for second chances. A criminal offense means death. Vampires do not want to risk the chance that a criminal will live forever and commit crimes forever, so they immediately eliminate criminals. Vampire ethics arise basically from strong survival instincts.

Vampire clans mostly police themselves or their jurisdictions; they don’t encroach on each other’s territory. Clans don’t aggressively pursue vamp criminals, though, instead waiting until they make themselves known, which explains how sickos like Joe Coldstone can abide for centuries. Frankly, if someone is getting away with offensive acts, vampires are less concerned with the discreet criminal because the discreet criminal is not threatening the integrity of the community as a whole.

At the same time, it is perfectly acceptable for a victim of a discreet criminal to take matters into his or her own hands and kill the discreet criminal, as Materyllis did to Joe. Vampires view this as acceptable vigilante justice that preserves the integrity of the vampire community in general.

How does this relate to Materyllis and Affie? Well clearly Affie had broken 2 of vampire culture’s major prohibitions: she had harmed a child and endangered vampire security in general. Strictly speaking, she merited death for these facts alone. At the same time, Materyllis and the Chocolatiers agreed that Affie was not willfully malicious, but rather insane. They debated whether they should suspend punishment because of her mental state.

The Chocolatiers, seeing how much Materyllis loved Affie, argued that they could create some sort of indefinite house arrest for Affie. Materyllis was the one who pointed out that house arrest hadn’t worked. She pointed out that, beyond questions of responsibility and mental capacity, the especially horrific nature of Affie’s baby killings put the community in great jeopardy. Affie’s unintentional endangerment of the community was the biggest concern. No matter how much she herself cared for Affie, Materyllis said, she had to die.