Safeword: Storm Clouds (10 page)

She looked up at them and said, "He tasted better than you can imagine. I would love to have him for a human companion and with Abbot's blessing I will attempt to groom him in that direction. But, right now his business is with Abbot, and when Abbot wants you to know about whatever arrangement the two of them have then Abbot will tell you."

"You're no fun."

She grinned at them. “Oh, I think I'm a lot of fun. Just not for you, Byron."

They all heard voices and footsteps coming back up the stairs together then and everyone went back to what they were doing. When Abbot brought Eric back up he walked him into the great room and said, "Hello to all. Eric will be giving me some proposals for ways we can use technology to improve our security. He has some good ideas and I look forward to seeing his proposal. Also, we have too many vampires who have not kept up with technology. I want all vampires living in my territory to be available via email. Eric will be teaching a class to familiarize everyone with how to get around the computer, how to send and receive email, and how to look things up on the internet. Everyone not currently available to me via email will be required to attend. Anyone else who would like to attend because you would like to be more comfortable with a computer is welcome to attend, but please let me know of your intentions as soon as possible. Eric will be purchasing computers to use in the classroom, and then I'll be distributing the computers to people who take the class who either do not already have one or who have an older one that can't handle the current software. And finally, he will teach another class to help people who need help figuring out their cellphones. Those currently not available to me through text messaging will be required to attend. Again, others may attend if they feel the class will be of benefit to them. Eric is in my employ and is under my protection. Anyone who has a problem learning from a human needs to get over it unless they think they know more than he does, in which case they won't need to go to the class and can still get over it. I will be sending this information out via email, and I will get a list of those not available by email to Josef, who will have his people contact them to let them know they'll be required to attend the class. Once we have an idea of the number of people taking the class Eric will order computers and we will set a time and date for the class."

Josef spoke up. “What happens if we get some fancy electronic security system and the power goes out?"

Abbot turned to Eric. “Eric, this is Josef, my head of security. You will be working closely with him for this as well. I'll let you tell Josef what you told me."

"Hello Josef, it's nice to meet you. If we put an electronic system in then there will be a number of failsafe backups put in place for a variety of circumstances. In the case of a power outage each unit will have a battery backup that will last for an hour or two. When the battery fails there will be a master battery somewhere in the house that will pick up on items as their individual batteries run out. The idea is to give a minimum of sixteen hours of automatic backup in case the power goes out just as you all go down for the night. If the power is still out when you arise, or if it is out before you go down for the night, then you'll have a generator on site that you can crank up. Diesel is not dangerous to store, so we'll bury a tank in the yard somewhere and fill it with diesel. And, if worse comes to worse and it is a long term power outage, say, a couple of weeks, and you run out of diesel then we will create the system so you can still use your old fashioned methods as well."

Josef nodded. “Okay, I have more questions but we'll arrange a time to sit down and talk about them once you have your proposal ready for us."

Eric turned to Abbot. “If you have nothing else for me then I'll be going now."

"Of course, thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing your ideas."

Kendra closed her laptop and stood as they were finishing up. She walked to him and put her arm around him and walked outside with him.

She gave him a peck on the cheek. "I'll follow you in my car if that's okay, that way I can drive home when you get ready to go to sleep for the night."

"Yeah, sure. I'll see you there."

When they arrived at the marina Kendra could feel that he was trying to put some distance between them. Physical and emotional distance, and she wasn't sure where it was coming from. She tried to talk about what had happened with Abbot to see if that was it.

"I assume Abbot let you see how the mind link worked? So the two of you could talk without speaking?"

"Yes, he did. And when he bound me, it was different than what you did. More, businesslike, I guess. Which is what you said, but it was just different."

"If I bind you so we can talk like that, it won't feel like it did with Abbot. He bound you for a business arrangement, that is why it was businesslike."

He ran his hand through his hair and said, "Kendra, I don't… I don’t want you to do anything else, magical... metaphysical... to me. I think I need some space to figure out how I feel about all of this. I will go ahead with the agreement with Abbot because if you and I do go ahead with a relationship we will need that in place. I know I have strong feelings for you and I don’t want to completely shut the door on that possibility. But, I'm just not sure how I feel about all of this other stuff."

Kendra’s heart was in her stomach. "You need some space as in you want me to go and you'll call me when you figure it out... or you need some space as in you want us to keep seeing each other but just not go so fast until you figure it out."

"It's only been in the last year that I decided I someday wanted to have kids. I want to teach them to rappel and hang glide and kayak. I want to watch my son play ball and my daughter dance. Or, if they are so inclined, my daughter play ball and my son dance. I don't care, I just want to watch them do whatever makes them happy, whatever makes them feel alive. If I go into a serious relationship with you then I'm giving that up. I'm also giving up any hopes of a normal relationship. You'd never see me in a hang gliding competition as it happened. You'd never kayak with me down the Ocoee with my buddies from the raft companies. There is so much in life I want to share with someone, and I won't be able to share it with you."

She was
not
going to be emotional about this. She took a breath to settle her nerves so her voice would be steady, and then said, "You didn't answer my question, Eric. Do you want me to walk out of your life until you figure it out, or do you want to keep seeing each other some and just not take things so fast?"

"I didn't answer your question because I don't know."

She fought to keep her voice steady, to not show any emotions. "Okay then. Let me talk for a few minutes. Some of what you say is true and there is just no way around it. But other parts of it there may be a way around. First off, I can travel with you. Abbot has a private plane with a fully darkened bedroom in it and I can travel anywhere in the world on that plane as long as I clear it with him ahead of time and make sure it's not being used during the time I need it. So while I may not be able to be there for the actual competitions, I can be there that night. Most large cities have vampire houses that I can stay at while I'm in the city. Abbot is on good relations with most of the other territory masters and I am welcome to come into their territory as long as we do the proper polite vampire politics stuff ahead of time. As far as children are concerned, I have raised two children since I became a vampire. One of them was cast out as a baby because of a deformity to her left hand, the fingers were webbed together. This was back in the dark ages and her parents believed she was possessed by the devil or something. I took the baby back to our vampire lair and raised her as my daughter. I taught her to read and write and do math as well as lessons about the various governments in the world and a lot of geography and language lessons. She eventually married what today would be known as a Duke and the two of them took excellent care of the people under their reign, in spite of her hand. I was so proud of her."

Kendra took a breath and kept going. "And then, after that, in the days of Vikings and Crusades, there was a village that was quite literally raped and pillaged. Our vampire lair was a good ways outside of town and when we awoke we could smell the smoke and death. We went to the village to investigate and I found a boy of about four or five who was crying beside the body of his mother. I finally got him to talk, and he said his mother and father and grandparents and sister and aunt had all been killed. There weren't many people left alive in the village, and no one was interested in taking the boy in. I was married at the time, to a vampire, and my husband and I raised him until he was an adult and then we gave him the funds to set up shop and make a living. We taught him everything he would need to know to be a blacksmith, and we moved to a new town and he moved into the town and set up shop and we lived outside of town, as we had to do back then to survive."

Kendra let that sink in. Eric didn't speak so she kept going. "So, it is possible for a vampire to raise a child. I needed help when they were little since I'm down during the day, so I arranged for human help during the day. If you and I go forward with a long term relationship I would be very open to adoption. Or, if you wanted the child to have your DNA then we could arrange for a surrogate. But of course none of that helps with the fact that any daytime activities you participate in, I can't share them with you. There is no way around that."

Eric finally spoke. "Why does this have to be so hard? I finally find someone that I think I could spend my life with, and she's not even fucking human. So spending my life with her doesn't mean growing old together, it means her watching me grow old and die." He paused, "You said you were married to a vampire? What happened? Did he get killed? Or do vampires divorce?"

"Vampire marriages are not 'till death do us part'. When vampires marry they do so for a set amount of years. All assets are listed when they marry, and when something is purchased during the marriage it is agreed at the time of purchase who will get it when the marriage ends. Some marry for twenty years, some marry for fifty years, and some marry for the maximum time allowed, one hundred years. When the marriage contract ends a couple can either let it dissolve or they can form a new contract. If both parties want out of a contract before it is up then there is no problem. However, if only one party wants out of the contract then it goes to mediation and frequently the contract is enforced until the agreed upon end date. But most marriages end amicably with no hard feelings. That marriage lasted seventy years, we married for fifty years and then another twenty years before we agreed that we'd each grown and evolved in different ways and we were better off going our separate ways. I haven't seen him in a few centuries, but if I did we'd see each other as friends from long ago and not much more at this point."

"So, even if I decided to be a vampire so you and I could be together forever, it's not likely we'd be together forever?"

"I'm not aware of a vampire marriage that has lasted longer than about five hundred or so years. And even that is rare. And Eric, it is way too soon for you to be thinking about losing your humanity. We might date for a year or two and decide it's not going to work. I won't even consider turning you for two or three years, maybe longer." Kendra paused and then decided he needed more information about the human companion relationships. "If you want to have some kind of relationship with me but are afraid of throwing away your other options then we can formalize the human companion relationship Abbot spoke of the other night. That would mean you would be free to date other people. That's kind of the purpose of the way the human companion relationship is set up, it creates a bond between vampire and human without creating a situation where all of the long term issues between human and vampire cause problems. I have one more thing to tell you and then I will leave. I won't contact you, if you want to see me or talk to me you'll need to call me. "

Kendra took another deep breath, as much to steady herself as for the air needed to talk. "I have had relationships with many humans over the past couple thousand years. Some of those relationships lasted a few years and we went our separate ways as human and vampire. Two times I have stayed with someone until he died, took care of him in his old age, and eventually buried him when his body gave out. And, of course, several times I have turned them and we had many decades together, sometimes centuries, before we grew apart and it was time to go our separate ways. It is unusual for a human man to be thinking this far ahead so soon into the relationship. It's like you aren't going to let it get started until you can see a way for it to happen. Love doesn't always work out that way, Eric. Sometimes you have to take the plunge and just see where you end up. There are a variety of ways a relationship could be fulfilling for both of us, but only you can decide if it's something you want to do or not. I can tell you that I can't remember anyone ever making me feel this alive. I want to spend time with you, want to see where we can take this. But I will respect whatever decision you come up with."

And then she left. Not the slowly walk out the door kind of leave... but the super fast thing that vampires do so it looks like they disappear. If she had to kiss him and say goodbye she was going to cry, and she didn't want to do that, so she just went.

Once she was in her car and driving she realized she didn't want to go to the house and see anyone. She was bawling her eyes out, and she just couldn't handle questions from her housemates right now. Not to mention they didn’t need to see her getting emotional over a human.

Abbot?

Yes Kendra. What's wrong? Are you crying?

Yes, dammit. Stupid mortal men.

What happened?

He wants kids. Wants someone who can watch him in hang gliding competitions.