Wainwrights and Wrongs

[Cheezey]

Chapter 24

The Wainwrights got home relatively late that night.  Susan was exhausted, so she went straight to bed.  Blair took a bath first, but she was also tired and did not stay up long.  Only Boyd was too restless to sleep, even though he had to be up early to attend his parents’ burial rites.  At least that would be short and only the three of them would be going, which was a relief because he knew it would drain the last of his reserves, both emotional and physical, for a while.

It was probably for the best that he was keyed up, then, because he had an unexpected visitor.  There was a knock at the back door around eleven o’clock.  Lilith Vatore was there, looking almost as miserable as he felt.



A vampire visit?  He was not sure whether that was a hilariously dark coincidence, or the Watcher had a twisted sense of humor.  But at least it was one of the nice ones, and not Vladislaus.  That he absolutely could not deal with right now.  “Hi, Lilith.  Come on in.”  Hope I don’t regret that later, but whatever.  The whole they-can’t-come-in-without-being-invited thing was a llama load anyway.  Might as well be polite.  “What brings you here, and looking about as down as me?  Was it the garlic at the door?  Sorry.  That’s not personal to you, that’s for Vlad.”

She darted into the room, waving her hand by her face while wrinkling her nose.  “Well, it reeks, and I was hoping the back door plants weren’t as bad as the front, but that’s why I’ve been running at vampiric speed between knocks.  But no, it’s something else.  First, I want to say I’m sorry about all your recent losses.  Caleb sends his condolences to all of you, too.  That’s just awful to lose so much of your family at once.”

“Thank you.  We appreciate that.”  He gestured to the couch.  “Would you like to sit?  Or could I get you something?  I mean, other than…  Do you even still eat or drink anything else?  If that’s not too personal to ask?”



“It’s not too personal.  Most of it doesn’t make me sick or anything, but it doesn’t do much for me anymore, either.  It’s unfulfilling.  The magic is gone, so to speak.”  She sighed.  “There are things I miss.  The satisfaction of good chocolate, especially dark chocolate, and I used to be such a coffee connoisseur.  I even had my own little home espresso bar and would buy my own imported whole beans and grind them myself.  Steam my milk.  I could make all sorts of blends and special drinks, and I would try all the new trendy stuff in the shops.  Oh, I was so addicted to caffeine.”

“I can’t throw stones.  I live on the stuff, too, though a connoisseur probably wouldn’t be impressed at the stuff I drink.  Ours isn’t bad, but it’s not barista-level top of the line unless we’re in the coffee shop buying it there.  We’ve just got a regular old pot.  Not cheap, but not super high end, and the coffee we get is the same.  Decent, does the job, tastes pretty good, but doesn’t break the bank.”



“Nothing wrong with that.”  Her eyes focused intently on him, and her voice took on a sultry, almost flirtatious tone.  “If you’ll pardon my saying so, it’s one of the first things I noticed about you, that waft of caffeine.  Vlad says it like an insult, but believe me, that’s entirely a subjective matter of taste.  From me, it’s a high compliment.”

Boyd had no idea how to take that and chuckled nervously.  “Uh, thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t worry.  I’d never bite you without permission.  I’m just saying, if I did, I’ve got no doubt you’d be delicious.”  She winked.  “Anyway, like I said, no need to worry about me or Caleb.  If you’re ever curious about the whole thing or ever want to offer, that’s one thing, but we’d never go after you or Susan or Blair or your baby without permission.  Which brings me to why I’m here.”

“Vlad not having any such rule, you mean?  We got his creepy sympathy bouquet, or rather, Susan did.  She wasn’t impressed, to put it mildly.”

“He sent her flowers?  How charming.  Were they alive at least I hope?”

“They were, but the card implied she’d be a great permanent memorial to her mother if she joined the undead.”



“Seriously?”  She shook her head.  “The sad part is I think that is his version of heartfelt sentiment.  What’s most messed up about him is he’s not just making up llama loads to manipulate her.  He means the things he says.  He’s just an obsessive weirdo who doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.”

“Did he do this stuff to you and Caleb, too?”

She nodded.  “And my cousin Lily.  Way back when he turned me and Caleb, he went after her, too.  Out of desperation she hid in the old mountain mining tunnels.  A place she hoped even someone like Vlad wouldn’t look for her.  Suffice it to say that ruined her life.  That was a long time ago, and I’ve only seen her a few times since, especially since she’s with them now.”

“Them?”



“The Moonwood Mill crew.  Volkov’s pack.  They call themselves the Moonwood Collective.  Poor sweet Lily.  We used to be so close.  One of these moonless nights I should probably try to reach out to her again before it’s too late,” Lilith said on a wistful note before meeting Boyd’s eyes once more.

“But that’s getting off the topic of why I’m here, other than as an example of how relentless Vlad can be and the extremes it takes to put him off.  Speaking as a vampire, your live garlic plants are annoying, but they weren’t enough to keep me away, and they definitely won’t keep a vampire as powerful as him out.  As soon as your baby’s born, he’s going to come after Susan.  Count on it.  I like to think he’ll at least respect her decision to stay mortal.  For all his flaws, he does have an odd code of honor of sorts, so if he said he won’t turn her, he probably won’t.  At least not without her permission.  But he will drink from her, probably repeatedly, and even if he doesn’t transform her against her will, expect him to keep trying to talk to her into it and coerce her and befriend her in the hopes of changing her mind.  At the very least, he’ll continue to drink from her until he finds someone he likes better, or she changes her mind and joins him, or dies.  That’s how it always goes, and I don’t think it’ll change this time.  Vlad’s obsessive, he’s obnoxious, he’s ridiculously stubborn when he gets a notion into his head, and one thing he can’t stand is to be wrong or to be out-stubborned.  That’s why he doesn’t just write me and Caleb off as ‘problem children’ and let us live our lives in peace.  His ego won’t let him.  Instead, he has this need to convert us to his way of vampire living.  To his so-called ‘right’ way.  He wins when he changes our minds and makes us behave like he wants us to because he’s the master vampire.  That’s how he thinks of himself.  He’s an arrogant narcissist.”



“Never would’ve guessed,” Boyd quipped despite his growing anxiousness now that Lilith had confirmed his fears about Vladislaus.

“Heh.  I know, right?”  She offered him a sympathetic smile.  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news at such a terrible time.”

“It’s like you read my… oh yeah.  You guys can do that, can’t you?”

“Even without vampiric powers, you’d have to be a pretty insensitive llama to not know you’re having a rough time with losing both your parents, Susan’s mom, and about to have a baby any day now.  I like to think I was never a full-on Vlad even before I was turned.  I hated to even bother you so late and so soon, but I wanted to warn you as soon as possible.  Especially since I was in Brindleton Bay anyway and so was he.”



Boyd stood up immediately.  “He was here?”

“Not at your house.”  Lilith also stood.  “I saw him down at the boardwalk.  He claimed he was just there hunting.”

Boyd wondered what Lilith was doing there, too, if she was just enjoying a night out, or if she was “dining out” as well.  He supposed it was none of his business.  She claimed she only drank from the willing, but whatever arrangements she worked out with those she drank from were probably details he would rather not know, and besides, it bothered him more that Vladislaus was lurking around the neighborhood.  Even if he was not at their house, he was local, and as obsessed as he seemed to be with Susan, it probably meant he at least did a fly-by as a bat or something.  He hoped Susan drew the blinds in their and Blair’s rooms.  “But he was around.”

“Yes.  Which is why I thought I ought to warn you tonight.  In case he got it into his head to stop by and try to offer more heartfelt condolences or something.”

“I think he’d have to have a heart first.”

“Ooh.  Harsh, but knowing him as long as I have, I have to disagree.  He does have one in there somewhere.  It’s just very old, bitter, dark, and twisted.”

Boyd scoffed sarcastically.  “In that case, maybe like the Grinch, it’ll miraculously grow three sizes on Winterfest if someone fills him with enough cheer, and he’ll learn not to be a creepy llama and leave us alone.”

That time Lilith let out the sarcastic laugh.  “Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s enough holiday cheer in the world to fix him.”



She took a few steps closer.  “I’ve kept you up late enough.  Go get some sleep, hold Susan a little tighter if you need to, but even though I know it’ll be hard, try not to worry too much about Vlad.  He won’t come in while she’s still pregnant.  He hasn’t so far and that’s one rule he won’t break.”

“So far he hasn’t, but I don’t like him creeping around, so confirmation that he’s doing it isn’t going to help either me or Susan sleep better.  I’m not even going to mention it to Blair.”

“No.  I wouldn’t, either, if I had a daughter.”  Lilith glanced at the closed bedroom door.  “She’s such a sweet kid.  I hope she keeps that precious innocence she has.  There’s not enough of it in this world.”

“Yeah, and llamas like Vlad are good at sucking it out of it, literally.  But thanks for telling me.  I appreciate it.  It’s nice to have friends on your end of the situation.”

“No problem.  Take care, and again, I’m sorry for all your family’s recent losses.”



The Wainwrights managed to get a halfway decent night’s sleep, but only because Susan was so tired that she slept through Boyd coming to bed after Lilith left.  He told her about it the following morning, but she had no time to express just how infuriated, horrified, and disgusted she was by Vladislaus’ latest stalking antics because they had to attend Stuart and Myra’s burial.

Dressed in funeral attire once more, they headed to the cemetery and into the columbarium where Boyd’s parents’ urns were given final rites and laid to rest.  Flower arrangements from friends and loved ones expressing their condolences decorated the niche, but even those only brightened up the gloom of the dark stony underground vault so much.



Standing there in the vault, staring at the urns, drove home the reality to Boyd that his parents were truly gone forever.  Although he had been grieving for them both since the first call about his mother and his father since that first terrible call on Leisure Day night, now it felt like a cathartic culmination of events.  All of a sudden, his grief came in an outpouring of incoherent sobs now that there were no more guests, no other family, no priests, no one remaining that he had to keep that mask of formal necessity on for.  And it about doubled him over as he let it all out.

Susan, too, grieved at their urn-side.  Stuart and Myra may have only been in-laws, but she loved them as family, just as Boyd had loved her mother.  Although Susan had her personality quibbles with Myra in the past, they had not been hateful, more frustrating than anything else.  Certainly, she never wished her gone and was sad that she was.

Blair also cried a final goodbye to her grandparents, staring through tear-stained eyes at their urns and the flowers surrounding them.  “It’s so cold and dark down here.  It’s nothing like the islands.  Why do they want to be here forever?  At least I can understand why Grandma Maureen likes being under that pretty pink tree where her grave is.”



“Try to remember that this is just their bodies, or rather, what’s left of them,” Susan told her gently.  “They aren’t here, at least, their souls aren’t.  Their spirits aren’t.  According to what they believed, those have crossed over now, and your Grandma Myra especially was quite devout in her Jacoban beliefs at the end.”

Boyd took a steadying breath and stood back up.  “Dad must’ve still been a rather firm believer, too, if he was so insistent on splitting his ashes so half of them could come back and get the final rites for his soul to be properly released to the netherworld for eternal rest.  See, regardless of whatever faith you might follow, which we feel is something you should decide for yourself, the soul departs from the remains regardless.  But how you get to the netherworld, whether or not you get to meet the Watcher, how long it takes, and how long the spirit might wander is up for debate according to the various religions.  Your grandparents wanted their remains here because this is sanctified Jacoban-approved holy ground and a proper place for a priest to perform those rites.  They wanted to be in a vault rather than buried in the ground because, well, you saw how Mom kept house.  She wasn’t a fan of dirt and mud and grime in life.  I’m not surprised she’d rather what’s left of her physical body be inside away from all of that.”



“Still, I just wish it wasn’t so—so dark and cold and they weren’t… they weren’t gone!  All of them!”  Blair broke down sobbing hard, not unlike her father just had.

“Oh, Blair, sweetie.”  Susan’s heart broke for her.  She wished there was more she could say than that to comfort her, but what else was there?  The truth was that her grandparents were gone, and no number of hopeful-sounding empty platitudes would heal the hole their absence left in her heart right now.  Time would, eventually, but that was hard for a grieving adult to hear and process when it was raw, let alone a child her age.



“Me, too.”  Boyd bent down and held her, squeezing her shoulders reassuringly as she cried.  “It’s okay.  I know it’s been hard.  Just let it out.  You’ve been really tough through all of this, but you don’t have to hold it in.”

“He’s right,” Susan agreed.  “Your grandparents would all be very proud of how strong you’ve been.  It takes a lot to get through losing one person you love, let alone three.”

“I don’t want to be tough!  I just want everyone back again!”

“I know.  Life can be really cruel sometimes.”

Blair sniffled.  “If I met Grim, I’d tell him off!  I’d tell him to give Grandma Maureen and Grandma Myra and Grandpa Stuart all back, or I’d kick his butt!”

Susan could not help but crack a smile at that mental image, even if just for a moment.  “If you managed to, I’d say you go and give him a good whack from me, too.”

“Seconded.  I bet you could knock at least a few layers of dust out of those old robes.”  Boyd smiled down at Blair, glad to see her doing better.



Now that Blair was comforted, Susan pulled Boyd into a hug.  “I know how difficult this has been for you, too, and that you’ve been trying to hold back for our sakes until now.  You don’t need to do that.  I’m here for you.”

“I know.  I just hate adding to your stress when you’re already so overwhelmed.”

“I dare say you were getting fairly overwhelmed yourself there, so we might as well share it all and work on it as a package deal.”

“Yeah.  Group projects make things easier,” Blair said, and then frowned.  “Unless you get the kids that never do any work and try to use you to get an A.  They’re annoying.  But none of us are like that, so that’s okay.”

At that, Boyd and Susan both chuckled.  “Those jerks always got on my nerves, too,” said Boyd.  “Only time I ever got picked first for a team by popular kids.  Group project days.”

Susan rolled her eyes.  “I didn’t care if it was the popular kids or not, as long as they actually did their work and weren’t idiots.  But the lazy llamas, ooh, they always burned me.”



That brief lighthearted moment in their sorrow was quickly shattered when Susan’s phone beeped with a message.  She checked to see who it was, and while the number was unknown, from what it said, its sender was obvious, and he had gotten around her block—again.  Her expression soured like milk in the summer sun as she read it.

“Susan?”



Her stomach roiling with disgust, she wordlessly shoved the phone into Boyd’s hands to see for himself.

My dear, I’m sorry you’re mourning yet more loved ones that you’ve lost to the ravages of mortal aging, but I must say you’re stunningly beautiful in black.

Upon reading it, Boyd almost composed a response for Susan with a beautifully woven string of obscenities telling Vladislaus what he could do to himself and where he could go so all she would have to do would be hit “send” if she so desired, but he stopped himself knowing that it would do no good whatsoever other than feeling good for about five seconds.  Assuming she even sent such a thing, Vladislaus would only take such a fierce rejection as engagement and warp that into encouragement.  Instead, Boyd just took the liberty of blocking the number for Susan so she would not have to trouble herself with the extra step.  “I really wish Vlad would get a life or afterlife or whatever the hell it is technically that vampires have.”

“Are you supposed to say ‘hell’ on sanctified ground, Dad?”

“I’d like the think the Watcher would forgive a slip of the tongue in the case of someone like Vlad, but in case, not,” he looked up, “Sorry.”  He glanced at Blair and then Myra’s urn.  “I’m not sure if you’ve been influenced by your grandma or the priest that blessed her, but either way, I can feel Mom smiling from here.”

“Though I think Myra, and Stuart for that matter, would also agree that Vlad should get a life, afterlife, or what have you,” Susan pointed out.  “And that he’s a loser.”

“I don’t think anyone would disagree about that,” said Blair.

“We never told you about him while you were here because it wasn’t something we wanted you worrying about, but if you can see it all from the other side, I’m sure you get it now,” Boyd said as an aside to the urns while Blair looked at the door.

“Do you think he’s here?  I thought vampires couldn’t come out during the day.”

Susan wondered about that, too.  When exactly had he seen her dressed all in black so he could pay her that creepy compliment?  Was he there now, in the underground vaults with them?  She hoped not, and that he had just seen them coming home from Henford-on-Bagley the night before, when Lilith told Boyd he was lurking around Brindleton Bay, and he sent it now during her waking hours thinking he was being considerate.  But unfortunately, Vladislaus being there was not out of the realm of possibility. “They’re not supposed to be able to, but some can get a degree of sun immunity from potions.  We don’t know how if Vlad uses them, but thankfully we’ve only ever seen him at night.”



Boyd frowned, his thoughts along the same lines as Susan’s.  “We’re underground here, though, so maybe we ought to say goodbye to Mom and Dad for now and greet the summer sun once more.  I’m sure they understand.”  He gave his parents’ urns a long and final look.  While he had no doubt that he would visit them again at some point in the future, in a symbolic manner, for now this was saying goodbye in a different sense.  “I love you Mom, Dad.  I miss you.  I hope that wherever you are, you’re at peace, you’re resting, and if you can hear me, you know that we’re all okay and we love you.”

“We love you, we miss you, and we hope you’re happy and at peace on the other side with everyone,” Susan said.  “If you see my mom, tell her we all miss and love her, too, and that the baby’s still not here yet.”

“And I’ll be as good a big sister as I can to the baby,” Blair added.  “I promised all of you I’d be a good one and I’ll tell the baby about you since he or she never got to meet you.”  Her voice wavered with grief once more.  “I miss you, Grandma Myra and Grandpa Stuart, and you too, Grandma Maureen, even though you’re not buried here.  I bet you can hear me, too, and if not, I know Grandma Myra or Grandpa Stuart will tell you.  We have to go, though, in case that jerk Fangstalker is here trying to get to Mom since it’s dark down here, and he hates the sun.  I’m sorry.  We love and miss you.  Bye.”

[Cheezey]

Author's Note: This is image-heavy, so I split it into two posts. 

Chapter 25

Luckily, the Wainwrights did not see Vladislaus lurking around the underground halls of the columbarium, nor did they run into him anywhere else that day or night.  Now that the recently departed members of their family had all been laid to rest, they were able to start working through their grief and moving on with their lives, on to brighter things, like the upcoming birth of their second child.

Susan had now even stopped trying to work from home, as sitting at her computer for more than a short while was incredibly uncomfortable.  She was absolutely done with being pregnant at that point, even though she remembered full well how exhausting it was caring for an infant, and that it would mean Vladislaus would feel free to come back and try to drink from her again.  It was not like she was not already tired anyway, having to wake up constantly to pee or change position due to an aching back all the time.  As for Vladislaus, even if he had not broken in and bitten her, he had hardly stayed away.  While she was not looking forward to dealing with him more personally, she certainly had not gotten any real break from him, either.  Maybe I should keep a diaper pail by my bedside.  If I can’t keep the llama away, maybe I can at least splatter him in the face with a nuclear #2 before he gets me.

Boyd, meanwhile, worried every time he left for work or to run an errand that Susan might go into labor when he was not there to help get her to the hospital or call if there was some complication.  She always assured him that she would be fine, but he worried anyway.  It was just how he was wired.



Despite all those stresses, however, they were excited about the baby’s impending arrival.  Although they never managed to save enough money to put on an addition onto the house before the baby was born, they stood to inherit a modest sum from Stuart and Myra after once their final expenses were cleared and the property in Sulani was sold.  There had been a mortgage on it, and there was no way they could afford to keep it themselves, but they’d had some equity in it, so even after their life insurance and funerals were paid, Boyd and Susan would still inherit some assets.  In the meantime, the baby would room with Blair, and the nursery area was already set up.

They also had names picked out, James for a boy or Martha for a girl.  Both names served the double duty of belonging to a character in a series that both were fans of and were shared by one of their grandparents or great-grandparents.



Blair continued to journal often.  She had come to enjoy keeping it and writing down stuff going on and what was on her mind, not just when she was sad or upset, but fun things as well.  She wrote entries about things that happened at school, or when she would hear from her new friend Imran in Henford-on-Bagley.  They messaged each other after the funeral and would talk about what they discovered they had in common that day they met, and sometimes would chat on the phone as well.  She hoped he would be able to come and see her sometime, or that she could go and visit him on his farm and meet his rooster Skittles and his other animals.



But none of that stopped them from trying to take reasonable precautions against the inevitable return of Vladislaus.  Although the Vatores had been helpful, the Wainwrights continued their own research into vampires and vampirism.  As nice as Lilith and Caleb were, they knew they still had their own loyalties and biases.  The more Boyd and Susan learned about the intricacies of vampire families, as they were, and vampire-fledgling relationships, the more they realized they were as complicated as any mortal familial relationship.  As such, the Vatores and Vladislaus had one of those bonds whether they liked it or not, and that alone compromised their ability to be fully objective.  Although they believed Caleb and Lilith sincerely wanted to help, Boyd especially could not push aside the paranoid thought that depending on how things went, if they were not careful, they could end up inadvertently being used as pawns in a literal bloodthirsty power play between them and Vladislaus.  Besides, knowing more about vampires in general would never hurt.



Yet, it was not the undead that Boyd’s next grim experience would be with, so to speak.  Despite having had so many brushes with his handiwork lately, it was Grim himself that turned up again.  Not to take Patrick, thankfully, but at Future Sim Labs.  The next day when he was at work, while he was in the breakroom washing an annoying streak off his glasses, he heard Kalamainu’u scream from the lab.  “Eleanor!  Wake up!  She’s not breathing!  Shigeru, call 9-1-1 and get the—”

“We’re too late,” Supriya lamented.  She had rushed in along with Boyd just in time to see none other than Grim himself appear.



It was the first time Boyd ever saw Grim, that day that he came to claim the life of Eleanor Elderberry.  It was both a horrifying and fascinating sight, and he had a newfound respect for what profound love and strength his elderly mother must have had driving her when she barged up to him and demanded that he bring his father back.  He wondered if that encounter had pushed her closer to death, or if her time had already been near anyway.  Regardless, he doubted poor Eleanor had any idea hers was coming.  She had been her usual self all morning, cheerful as could be, chit-chatting about her grandson with everyone between assays.



After he took Eleanor’s soul, Grim turned and stared at everyone in the room in turn for a brief and chilling moment as if to dare them to challenge him or speak.  No one did, Boyd included.  While they all liked and cared for Eleanor, and they were sad to see her die so suddenly, none of them dared to presume it was not her time, for they did not know her intimately enough to know what her health or wishes were.

Some might have imagined that as scientists who tested the laws of nature, they might have tried anyway.  However, they were also educated enough to know the consequences of messing around and finding out when it came to natural and supernatural laws—especially when it came to extremely powerful supernatural beings such as Grim.  None of them were about to take that highly personal risk, at least not under those circumstances.

His task complete, Grim then disappeared wordlessly into a cloud of black mist, leaving only Eleanor’s lifeless remains behind.

“Emergency services are on their way, and they’ll notify her family,” Shigeru said from the doorway.  “The rest of you can go ahead and wrap up whatever’s vital, clean up, and go home.  I don’t think any of us will be able to focus much after this today.”



It seemed that Grim was going to spare Blair and the Wainwrights’ unborn child’s last surviving grandparent long enough to see him or her born.  Patrick kept going surprisingly well for a man of his age and with all he had going on and had been through.  He still missed Maureen deeply and visited her grave often, but the visits eased his grief as opposed to adding to it.  He felt a sense of peace after telling her the latest updates about their family and friends and imagining her smile as she heard it.



On one evening when he got there a bit later than usual, he was surprised to see it in more than his imagination.  While Patrick was not a hardcore skeptic, he was a down-to-earth type and trusted what he could verify with science and logic and his own senses.  He believed most things had a simple explanation and the supernatural or occult one was usually only the valid one when everything mundane had already been ruled out.  He believed spirits were real, since there was scientific verification of their existence, but that actual interactions with them and appearances of them in their world were rare.  As a doctor, he had seen too many instances of hallucinations, imagination gone wild, sleep deprivation, emotional distress, disease-induced psychosis, and other reasons for seeing things that weren’t there to believe that every odd thing that happened or that was seen was a ghost.

He did a double-take and sat down on the closest bench, smiling as she did not disappear as he rubbed his eyes.  “Oh, boy.  I think I need to listen to Susie and Jon.  I have been working too hard if I’m seeing this sight for sore eyes.”

“And why would you say that, sweetie?”

“I’m hearing you, too.”

“That’s because I’m here, and I still love you, silly.”



It started to sink in that maybe he wasn’t over-tired and just seeing her because he really wanted to.  His heart swelled with emotion as he saw that face he loved and missed so much.  “Oh, Watcher, Maureen, is it really you?”

“Sure is.”

“How?  Why?”

“It’s hard to explain, but sometimes I can feel the energy people leave at the connection spot here.  I wanted to try to catch you.  Tell you.  It’s okay.  I’m okay here.  I feel so much better.  It’s true, you know.  You don’t hurt or anything like that.”

“I’m glad.  I see you got your hair back, but you’re still the same age.”

She nodded.  “I appear the age everyone in that world last remembers me as.  But we don’t feel like that here.  It’s totally different.  You’d have to be here to understand.”  She paused and put a hand on his.  “But as much as I love you, I want you to enjoy what time you have left.  You’ve got life left there, and life there is good.  Enjoy it.  Nice as it is here, I wish I’d had more time there, too. With you, with the twins, with Blair, with—try and hang in there to meet them.”

“The baby, you mean?  I promised Susie I’d stay for that, and she’s due soon.  Any day now, but you know how babies can be.  Sure, yours came a little early, but twins often do.  Some like to take their sweet time, and inducing comes with its own risks, so some doctors like to be cautious about that.”

“I wanted to hold him so badly.”

“I know you did.  And ‘him?’  Do you know something I don’t?  Otherworldly knowledge, maybe?”

She just smiled.  “Welcome that baby to the family for me, Patrick.  I really wish I could’ve.”

“Aw.  I will.”  He looked at her.  “It’s a little unconventional, but I bet I could convince the kids to come here if I told them about this.  To bring the baby someday.  I’m sure they’d all like to see you.  Maybe… I mean, assuming you can…?”



She closed her eyes.  “I could, but it wouldn’t be the same.  Or right.  They should move on with their lives in this world, not dwell in the past.  I know you all love and remember me, and that’s enough.  You’re there for them, and someday, we’ll be back together.  In the meantime, you’ve got the rest of your life to live.  I want you to be happy in it.  Take care of yourself, Patrick.  Don’t you go working yourself to death or cooping yourself up in that apartment when you’re not working.  Spend some of that hard-earned doctor money you make and go out.  See our friends.  Have some fun.”

“I will.  I still miss you, though.  It’s going to be hard to leave this blasted uncomfortable bench that’s numbing my butt.”

“Unfortunately I’ll be fixing that.  I’m running out of my own energy to stay.  I can only do it for so long, but I’m glad I saw you.  As many wonderful friends as I have where I am now, I still miss you, too.  I’ll always love you.”  She smiled as she began to fade.  “Until we meet again, my dear.”



He went for a long jog in Willow Creek that night after he saw Maureen so he could gather his thoughts.  Ultimately, he never told anyone about what he experienced.  It was not that he thought Jonathan or Susan would disbelieve him, but he did think they might worry, especially after what happened to poor Myra Wainwright and how she talked about seeing and talking to Stuart’s ghost before she died.  Patrick did not think his own encounter with Maureen was comparable, but he did not want to worry them regardless.  They both had enough going on without having to add unnecessary concern about their elderly widowed father to the list.

[Cheezey]

He continued working, but he never felt like he was overworking himself.  He’d always been an ambitious man who was proud of his career and achievements as a doctor.  Keeping at it and healing others was another way he filled the void Maureen’s death left.  Medical science had not been able to heal her, but there were those out there he could help, so he intended to do so as long as he could.  Especially the ones who needed it most, like young Kenny Swartz, a boy close to Blair’s age, who came in with a serious infectious illness that needed immediate treatment.



Or Mortimer Goth, whose illness and subsequent diagnostic tests revealed that he also had an underlying heart condition that needed surgery before it worsened.  Patrick was able to not only treat the ailment, but perform the surgery that took care of that, too.  Those were the kind of cases that made the stress of working in medicine all worth it.  While the money was also nice, saving lives and helping others had always been important to him as well.



And the very urgent cases like poor Moira Fyres, who collapsed by the general admissions desk before even making it to triage.  Patrick was passing through on his way to deal with some insurance pre-authorizations, but when he saw her fall, he triaged her straight into surgery himself and ended up saving her life.



There were also the fascinating cases.  In his long years of practice, Patrick had only evaluated a handful of what the medical community called “occult” patients.  One Mr. Kristopher Volkov was the first of such that fell in the werewolf category, although thankfully he had not turned up at the hospital on a full moon.  He was only there for an x-ray scan to check for broken ribs after a fall.

He would never have known that Mr. Volkov was a werewolf had it not been for the notes in his chart.  There was surprisingly little evidence of the repeated transformations in his skeletal structure, although the man did have significant damage in some of his joints for his age in addition to the broken rib that was suspected.  Patrick advised him on how best to handle both of those issues, and to begin taking supplements to prevent arthritis pain down the road.  “You’re still young enough that it’s probably not bad yet, but be careful.  That werewolf half may not feel it much yet, but it will, too.  Dogs and wolves aren’t immune to joint issues, and it can be painful for them, too, so try to take it easy while you’re uh, well, feeling energetic.”

“Thank you.”  Kristopher nodded, clearly grateful that he had found another doctor that was understanding and not either condescending or ignorant.  Too many were.  Patrick could tell, and he was glad.  It was how he strived to be with his patients, regardless of their background.



Not to mention the exciting and rare cases.  While he had treated a number of high-profile patients during his career, especially in San Myshuno, it had been a tad surprising when he ended up as the infamous Lily Feng’s doctor.  She and her husband were well-known as ruthless business moguls and political movers and shakers in the city, and there were more than a few rumors about them being involved in some shady dealings.  That never affected how Patrick treated her, of course, because as a doctor he was sworn to treat a patient regardless of who they were or what personal issues were involved.  In fact, who Lily Feng was wasn’t even the most interesting aspect of her case.

It was what she had.

The notoriously ruthless CEO of San Myshuno had the Triple Threat, a rare and serious disease that could do long-term damage if not caught and treated early.  He determined that she had picked it up on a recent business trip overseas.  “I’m afraid I’ll have to have you and your family quarantine for a week after this, and anyone you’ve been in close contact with.  It’s not super-contagious, but anyone you’ve shared close contact with since you’ve been back, such as bathrooms and kitchens or hugs and kisses, should be notified and tested.”

“Fortunately I’m not much of a hugger, so that’d be Victor and the twins.  Anika and Kole.  They’re babies.”

Patrick smiled.  “Oh, congratulations!  I had twins myself back in the day.  A boy and a girl, also.  Susan and Jonathan.  Now they’re grown and I’m a grandfather and Susan’s about to have a second baby any day.”

Lily forced a smile through her itchiness, fever, achiness, and general misery.  “Thank you, and congratulations on your grandchildren, but Victor would probably appreciate that more than me.  The twins were a bonus, and having a baby was much more his desire than mine.  He wanted a child to carry on his family legacy and I obliged because I love him.  I never really wanted children, but we can afford a nanny.”

“I see.  Well, if the babies test positive, any caretakers they have should test.  Also, any maids that clean or touch your dirty dishes or bedding or wash your bathrooms, just to be on the safe side.  As of today, they should avoid your quarantine area for seven days.  If Victor or your babies test positive, they can be with you, but if not, isolate away from them in your bedroom and bathroom if that’s possible.  Have someone bring you food.  If you’re all positive, you’ll need to come here to be treated and we’ll send you home with care instructions afterward, and your entire apartment can be a quarantine area, and cleaned once you’re over it.”

It was clear she was not thrilled, but she nodded.  “All right.”

“Okay.  Now, let’s get you better.”



The treatment for the rare disease was very involved, but Patrick eagerly took on the challenge.  His surgical skills were still sharp in his old age, and he handled that part of the treatment himself.  The Triple Threat caused an internal infection that required surgical intervention.  Lily was admitted to the hospital right away and sent to surgery as soon as they could get a room for her.  The operation went well, and she recovered from it and her disease quickly and before any long-term internal damage occurred.  Fortunately, she also quarantined herself before her husband and infant children caught it from her.



When he was not working, Patrick spent more time than he wished he had to at his lawyer’s office.  Luckily, she was in a building across the block, and kept evening hours well into the night, which made it easy for him to stop in after odd shifts.  She handled estates, which was what he needed, although her name was a bit eyebrow-raising: Melissa Hell.  However, he had seen plenty in his years.  He figured it was a marketing ploy, anyway, since her advertisements said she would “give bill collectors hell for you!”  Not only had he needed general help with the estate paperwork, but bills were still coming in for Maureen’s treatments.  Even worse, their insurance company started retroactively denying some of the expensive claims on them that they had previously approved, so now bill collectors were calling constantly, and Patrick was both stressed and fed up with it.

“I’m at my wit’s end dealing with these clowns.  Every time I call their customer service, I get a different peon with no power telling me they can’t do anything, and ultimately, I get the runaround.  Either they say they paid it when they didn’t, or they say they never approved it all when I have the papers in front of me saying they did.  When I say that, they say they’ll get someone else, put me on hold for twenty minutes, and then I get someone who knows nothing about it, and I have to tell the whole dang story again.”  He sighed.  “It’s exhausting.  I thought they were bad on my end as a doctor, but experiencing what they put the patients through like this, especially ones who don’t know the system?  I think it’s criminal.”



“They really tow the line of it.  They’re hoping you’ll get so frustrated that you just give up and pay it yourself because it saves them money, and you’ll stop fighting for what’s legally their obligation to pay.  I’m sorry they’re doing this to you.  It’s shameful.  Leave the documentation with me and we’ll take care of it.  If the bill collectors call again, just say, ‘speak to my attorney’ and give them my number.  They tend to change their tune pretty quick once they hear they’re speaking to a legal representative.”

“Oh, I hope so.  Especially once they hear your name, I imagine.”  He looked at her nameplate.  “If it’s not too personal, I’m curious.  Is that your real name?”

“Imagine grade school if it was.  But no.  My birth name was Marybell Smith, but that hardly has the same effect,” she said wryly.  “I changed it ages ago.  It’s less confusing than a DBA, especially since I’ve embraced my whole Miss Hell persona.  And I do so love giving ‘em hell,” she finished with a grin.

“Ha!  Well, you’ve done a bang-up job so far, so no complaints.  Thanks again for all you’ve done.  I appreciate it.  I’d recommend you to anyone.”

“No problem, Patrick.  Thank you for the kind review.  I appreciate it.  I strive for the best for all my clients.  You take care and have a good night.”

“You, too.”



Patrick also tried to keep himself in good shape physically.  In addition to his jogs, he signed up for a yoga class.  It was something new, and as a doctor, he knew that keeping up flexibility in old age was important.  It was more challenging than he expected, but he found that he liked it anyway.



He also took the advice to make it a priority to do more fun things aside from work, errands, or exercise outside of the apartment.  He started grabbing a coffee at the local coffeehouse after his jogs sometimes.  They were a little expensive, true, but it wasn’t every day, and it was a nice treat.



On the nights he was off, Patrick also liked to stop in at the Stargazer Lounge for a drink or two.  It attracted a crowd that he was relatively comfortable in, although he was not much of a mingler.  Maureen had always been the more outgoing of the two of them, and he really felt her absence going out without her like that.  Still, she wanted him to try, so he did, in her honor.  It was strange the first time or two, but it got easier.  Sometimes he met up with friends there.  Others, he went alone and chatted with whoever struck up conversations with him.



The one thing he could not do while he was out, however, was flirt or try to date.  It was still far too close to losing Maureen to even think about that.  He even still wore his wedding ring.  Luckily, not all the women there were out looking for dates, either, so sometimes he was able to find a new friend without having to get into an awkward or depressing conversation about losing his wife to cancer.  On the occasions it did come up, though, he often found a friendly ear and would have a drink or two bought for him while they listened to his troubles on the nights he needed it.



Patrick enjoyed those outings.  The last night he went, he stayed out late with his friends, some old and some new.  Simeon Silversweater was in the latter category, but he was quite an interesting fellow.  Not only did he claim to be a spellcaster of high skill, but he low-key backed that up with a few subtle demonstrations of magical tricks in front of him and a few others.  That fascinated Patrick.  He had only met one spellcaster before, a patient at the hospital several years ago.  She was a teenager who burned herself casting fire spells.  It seemed that whoever taught her the spell had not taught her not to try it around flammable fumes, which taught Patrick that learning spells did not necessarily mean they learned common sense with them.  He was not allowed to divulge any of that due to privacy reasons, but he wondered if Simeon knew her and how she was doing now.  Patrick also looked forward to telling Susan and Boyd about him.  He knew they would get a kick out of hearing that he met a spellcaster, and that they would probably have lots of questions.



But it was far too late to call them by the time he got home, so that would have to wait for another time.  He was exhausted, and eager to settle in for a good night’s rest.



Little did he know how deep and final that rest would be.  Not long after he climbed into bed and closed his eyes, Patrick had one final visitor.  Silent as the grave itself, Grim floated into his apartment.



Right on schedule.  Ever meticulous, Grim double-checked his list.  Right mortal, right place, right time.  Good.  He was glad that Patrick was asleep.  It was a peaceful way to go.  They were not confused or frightened.  They did not argue or protest.  They simply went.  He remembered this one from when he took his wife, an ill woman who so desperately clung to the mortal realm despite her pain.  But her time in the world was done, whether she wanted it to be or not.  Now, so was his.

Tucking his tablet away, Grim drifted into the bedroom over Patrick’s bed.  Fixing his gaze upon him, he lowered his head and raised his scythe.  With a swift cut, Grim claimed Patrick’s soul in a brilliant flash of light, leaving only his lifeless body behind, and then he vanished into the ether. Over on the other side, Patrick and Maureen were together once more.

[Cheezey]

Author's Note: This one is split into two posts again, because it's long and image-heavy.

Chapter 26

For once, it was Susan who could not stop pacing anxiously.  She tried calling her father that morning since it was usually one of his days off, and she had not talked to him in a few days.  While he often reassured her and Jonathan that there was no need to worry about him, they did, because of his age and how he lived alone all the way over in San Myshuno.  With all that had happened recently, she felt better keeping in close touch with him.

The first time he didn’t answer, she thought maybe he was at one of those yoga classes he started taking.  She left him a message and figured he would call her back later.

Except he didn’t.



She tried again a few hours later and it still went to voicemail.  She wondered if maybe he took a shift at the hospital.  Boyd suggested she call his office number and leave a message for him with his staff.  At first, she thought that might be overkill, but then something told her to do it anyway.  When they told her that no, he was not in, she worried more.

Boyd suggested other possibilities to ease her fears, like she often did for him.  Perhaps he forgot to charge his phone.  Or maybe he misplaced it, left it on silent, or even lost it.

“I tried sending him messages online, too, but if he did lose his phone, he didn’t check his computer, either.  They’re unread.”  Susan frowned.  “And I know if I lost my phone, the computer is one of the first places I’d go to get in touch with people.”

“Yeah, but you’re a computer geek and you’re not old.  You know they don’t get tech the same way we do.  He might not default to that.”

“What, you think he’s wandering the city looking for a pay phone?” she said sarcastically.

“Heh.  You never know.”

“Do you know if Jonathan’s heard from him?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe I should check.”



She typed up a message since she had no idea if he was at work or not.  Have you heard from Dad today?  I tried calling but he hasn’t answered the phone or any online messages all day, and he’s not at work.

A moment later, a response came.  Nope.  Let me try.

“He says he’s trying.”

“Any luck so far?” asked Boyd.

They waited a couple of minutes.

Not answering for me either.  You’re sure he’s not at a doctor’s appointment or something?

Not that I know of, Susan replied.

Plum.  And you said all day?

Since a little after breakfast, yeah.

Great.  Now you got me all worried, too, Jonathan typed back. Let me call over to the local PD and have them do a welfare check and make sure he didn’t fall or something.  Bet he just forgot to charge his phone again.

“Sure hope that’s all it is,” Boyd said anxiously.

“Me too,” Susan said with forced optimism, and put a hand on her belly.  He promised he’d be here to meet you.



The news Jonathan received from his welfare check was far worse than anything he expected.  “Oh, plum.  No.  Dad.”  He could hardly believe it.  His father had passed peacefully in his sleep.  No indication of foul play or an accident, apparent natural causes.  “Thanks.  Yeah.  Me and my sister are the ones you’d notify, so you’re good there.  I’ll tell her, though.  Let me do that.  But if you need her name and address for records, sure.”  He gave them the information with a heavy heart.



Maaike was over and in the other room on the computer when Jonathan got the call back from the San Myshuno police.  “Is he really…?”

“Yeah.  He’s dead.”  He choked up.

“My Watcher.  Oh, babe.  I’m so sorry.”  She pulled him close to comfort him.  “Poor Patrick.  What happened?  Did they say?”

“Just old age, they think.  He went in his sleep.”  He blinked tears out of his eyes.  “I don’t get it.  He was doing fine.  He was happy.  He was healthy.  He was still working even, but not overdoing it.  I think he was even starting to get over the real rough part of losing Mom, and he was looking forward to spoiling Susan’s baby to pieces.”

“I know.  It sucks.”  She squeezed his shoulder sympathetically.  “You know if there’s anything I can do…”

He gave her a wan smile.  “I know.  I’m glad you’re here.  I’ll probably end up taking you up on that.  For now, though, I’ve got to call my sister and break this to her.”  He sighed wearily.  “Plum.  This sucks.  And poor Blair, now all four of her grandparents.  That Grim is a real llama with his timing.”



Susan answered the second Jonathan called her.  “Did you hear from them?  What did they say?”

“It’s bad news.”

Her heart froze as soon as she heard the words and the way he said them.  “Bad news?”



“They found him.  He died sometime last night, in his sleep.  In bed.  He never felt a thing.  Just went to sleep and never woke up.  Natural causes, they think.  Just old age.”

“I’m so sorry, Susan,” Maaike said in the background loudly enough so that she could hear.



“I can’t believe… Dad just…?”  Tears filled her eyes and she started to cry.  “He can’t be gone, too!”

“I know.”  Jonathan choked up on the other end.  “We were just talking to him.  He’s been working, jogging, doing yoga, going out with his old fogey friends doing old folk karaoke.  Yeah.  Dad doing karaoke, who’d have thought, right?”

Susan chortled despite herself.  “You can’t tell me Dad ever got on a karaoke machine.”

“I don’t know, he said he had friends that did it.  Maybe after a wine or two he belted out a tune with them.  They get a little wild in that bingo club, you know.”

“I can’t believe he’s… oh, Watcher.  Dad.”



“Hey, with the baby coming and all, I know travel’s hard on you now.  I’ll go ahead to San Myshuno and get a head start on everything I can with the paperwork and arrangements so you can stay put until we need you there.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate that.  Normally I’d want to be there with you, but—”

“No, I get it.  Dad wouldn’t want you traveling more than necessary anyway.  Might even come haunt us with a Dr. Dad lecture if you didn’t stay put.”

Susan sniffled on the other end of the line.  “I’d kind of welcome that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t do it anyway.  I don’t want you doing it, either.”

“For the record, I’d much rather hear it from him than you.”

“Heh.  Now that’s the sister I know and love,” he quipped back.  “Hey.  But I mean it.  Take it easy.  I’ll let you know when I need you.  In the meantime, take care of yourself and the family, and give Blair an extra hug from me, okay?”

“No problem.  Talk to you later.  Thanks.”  Her voice cracked with grief as she ended the call.



But it was when she put the phone back in her pocket that she utterly broke down, bawling out of control as her grief came pouring out of her.  “Dad’s gone,” she sobbed.  “He died in his sleep!”

“I gathered,” Boyd said softly, grief evident in his voice as well.  “Aw, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“Why?  Just… just why?!”  Her voice was ragged as the tears flowed and her chest heaved.

“By the Watcher, I wish I knew.”



“Now we’ve got to tell Blair, and we’ve got to plan yet another funeral.  All before our baby is born.”  She sniffled.  “Dad promised he’d be here for it.  He’s never broken a promise to me before.  I guess there really is a first time for everything.”

Boyd held her steady, letting her cry as much as she needed to.  “Oh, I’m sure he had every intention of keeping it, honey.  I know you’re not much of a believer in the spiritual side of things, but it’s said that the spirits watch over us from the other side.  Depending on what they’re capable of, maybe he still will, just in a different sense.  He might keep that promise after all.”

“Even if he did, how would I know?  Would I even see it?  Anyway, even if I did, it still doesn’t feel like much the same.”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Grim cares much about our promises.”

“It doesn’t look like I care much for Grim right about now,” Susan said sourly.

“No, me neither.  Come on.”  He rubbed her shoulders.  “Let’s get you off your feet.”



As soon as Blair got home from school, she could tell something bad had happened by the way her parents were acting.  “Mom?  Dad?  What’s wrong?  Is it Fangstalker again?”

“No.  It’s worse, I’m afraid,” said Susan.

What a miserable state of things when it ranks worse than something from that llama, Boyd mused, while Blair’s eyes grew wide with apprehension.

“Worse?”



Susan took a deep breath, bent down, and broke the news to Blair as gently as she could.  She explained that her Grandpa Patrick had died in his sleep, and that they found out when nobody had been able to reach him by phone and her Uncle Jonathan sent the police over to check on him.  She assured Blair that despite finding him having passed, that from what they were told, the medical examiners thought he hadn’t suffered or even known it was going to happen.  He had simply gone to bed and never woken up, so that while his death was very sad, if nothing else, they should know that he had not been in any pain or distress at all.



But while Blair understood all that, she was still gutted by losing him.  Patrick had been her last surviving grandparent and she adored him.  “It’s not fair!”  She cried so loud it was nearly a yell.  “Why is Grim so mean?  Why did he take them all at once?  Why does he hate me?”

“Oh, sweetie, he doesn’t hate you,” Susan tried to assure her, but Blair cut her off.

“He must!  Otherwise, why would he take all my grandparents so fast like this?  Was I bad or something?  Was it because I said I’d kick his butt?  Because it’s not fair!”



“You weren’t bad, Blair.  You didn’t do anything.  Life just isn’t fair.  It’s one of the hardest things we’ve all got to learn.  It should be, and we all wish it was, but it’s not,” Susan said softly.  “Grim took Grandpa Patrick because it was his time, I guess.  It must’ve been all their times.  It was just a terrible coincidence that it was so close together for all of them.  It hurts, and it’s awful, and it’s not fair.”

“Well, can’t Grim change his time?  Isn’t that what Grandma Myra tried to do for Grandpa Stuart?  I’ve heard of people pleading to Grim and getting him to change his mind.”

Boyd nodded.  “It’s been known to happen on rare occasions.  There’s also a legend that he’ll spare someone for some random amount of time for a death flower.  I’ve never personally witnessed it or known anyone who has, but then, the only time I ever saw him was the once at the lab.  Not sure if they’ve even documented him much there.”  He paused.  “Ironically, in his line of work, Patrick probably would’ve been the one of the family that’s seen him the most.  But from the lore I know about Grim specifically, he’s a soul reaper, meaning he collects souls and brings them from one realm to another when it’s their time to leave.  It’s clear he has some leeway or bargaining power over that time, but I don’t know if he’s the one who sets it to begin with.”



“Then who does?  The Watcher?  Maybe it’s the Watcher that hates me, then,” Blair said miserably.  “Maybe I should become a vampire like Fangstalker when I grow up so I can’t die, and the Watcher can’t get me.”

“Blair, I know you’re upset, but you’re nothing like that llama, and you never will be,” said Boyd.  “Living as an eternal creature of the night drinking the blood of the living is a creepy evil thing, and you’re anything but that.  Anyway, there’d be no need for you to do that, because I’m sure the Watcher doesn’t hate you, never has, and never will.”

“I could always be a nice vampire like Caleb or Lilith.”

Susan figured Blair was just being facetious out of anger, and she could not blame her for being upset, but she did not like hearing her talk like that anyway.  “You’d miss the sun too much, sweetie.  I can’t picture it.  Besides, like your dad said, the Watcher doesn’t hate you.  Grandpa Patrick dying, if you’ll pardon my language, sucks, and I want to scream, yell, and cry at the universe for taking him from us like this just after we lost Grandma Maureen and Grandma Myra and Grandpa Stuart, too, but it really is nothing more than coincidence.  A terrible, awful, coincidence, and horrible timing.  So go ahead and yell.  Cry.  Throw pillows,” she paused and quickly added, “but not at anything breakable, “or go off to your room and be by yourself, or call your friends, or write in your journal, whatever helps.  Just don’t think you ever did anything to cause this or to bring it on yourself.  Because you didn’t.”

“No.  You absolutely did not,” Boyd agreed.

Blair calmed down somewhat.  “Okay.”

[Cheezey]

Fortunately, Patrick’s affairs were well in order and his final wishes were simple to carry out.  He wanted to be buried next to Maureen.  It was hard to return there so soon and see two graves there now where so recently they had just placed hers.  Seeing the fresh seeded grass growing in on the dirt across her grave just drove it home more.  Even the earth had not yet had time to heal its wound, so no wonder their hearts were still raw with mourning.  Jonathan could hardly bear to even look at the headstones, although he placed fresh flowers at each, and the bushes Susan had ordered to be planted on opposite sides of them were now in and in full bloom.

“Dad.  Mom.  Oh, Watcher.  I miss you both so much.”



“You should both still be here.  It’s not fair!”  Blair broke down crying again.  She knew that life was not always, and everyone told her that, but it still felt like it should be.  At least it should be fairer than it was.

Susan stared at the dirt still not comprehending how her father could have died so suddenly.  The autopsy had only been minimal because the death was from natural causes.  The death certificate had some technical medical terms on it, but essentially, he had just died of old age.  Even though he had seemed otherwise healthy for his age and there were no indications it was coming, his body simply wore out.  Many would say it was the ideal way to go, living life to the fullest right up until the end and then going peacefully in his sleep.  According to those who had seen him last, Patrick had been out at the Stargazer Lounge the night before socializing with his friends and having a grand old time.  It could have been so much worse.  He could have been ill and lingered like her mother, fighting tooth and nail through pain and misery for just one more day, one more hour.  He was spared that.  Yet here she was, crying again, that she did not have more time with him anyway.  Perhaps there was never enough time.

Or maybe I just wanted him to meet you.  She patted her belly, so round now that it was painful to walk in the heels she wore.  She should have worn flats, but she did not have any that matched, and she was not about to go shoe shopping when she was already at term with her pregnancy.  The baby was due, but had not decided to come out yet, and the doctors did not consider it late enough to be concerned about for a few more days yet.



Susan pulled Blair into a comforting hug.  “I know it’s hard, but we’ll get through this, sweetie.”

Blair sniffled into her shoulder.  “I know Grandpa promised to meet the baby, but I’ll tell them all about him, too.  Just like the rest of them they didn’t get to meet.”

As if on cue, the baby kicked.  “I think the baby heard you and kicked to say he or she is looking forward to it.”  She closed her eyes as she thought of something bittersweet that might brighten Blair’s mood.  She had not mentioned it previously because she did not like mentioning her mother’s death as a reminder of what she had lost while she was also grieving the recent losses of first her other grandfather, and then her other grandmother as well.  Now, however, standing at the gravesite again, ironically, it seemed a good time to mention it.  “I can let you in on one little secret you can tell them when they’re a bit older, if you like.”

“What’s that?”



“Your Grandma Maureen told Grandpa Patrick before he died that she wanted the baby to take a trip to Mt. Komorebi like you did to go to a Festival of Youth, so he or she could experience the same magic and excitement at about the same age you did.  They agreed to set aside money specifically for that for us to take the whole family to go when the time came.  So, not only can you tell the baby about the time you got to go because your grandparents loved you so much, but that they loved them so much before he or she even came that they wanted the same for them.  Grandpa Patrick gave us that money a while ago and it’s in a savings account, so we don’t have to worry about not getting it now that he’s gone, either.  I thought you might like to know.”

“That’s so cool.  I had a lot of fun there, and I’m sure the baby will, too.”  Blair looked over at the headstones.  “I wish he or she could’ve met them.”  Her face clouded with sadness again.  “It’s really not fair.”

“No.  No, it’s not.”



While Susan and Blair were at the graveside, Boyd sat on a nearby bench chatting with Jonathan.  “Hey, how are you holding up?”

“Eh, getting by.  You get better than most how much it sucks losing both your parents close together.”

“Yeah.  I also get that you did most of the paperwork and phone calls with the arrangements for this one, and spared Susan a lot of trouble doing it yourself.  That was nice of you, but I also know what a pain in the plumbob it is.  So thanks, but for the record, if there’s anything I can do to help, even if you don’t want to bother her, I don’t mind.  I’ll do what I can.”

“I appreciate it, man, but I don’t want to stress you out, either.  You’ve got enough going on.  The baby coming, I’m sure Blair’s torn to pieces over this, and I know that undead loser’s still creeping around.”



At the mention of Vladislaus, Boyd glanced around anxiously just to make sure he was not lurking around the cemetery there, too, even though it was not dark yet.  “Unfortunately.  He sent her another creepy text at Mom’s inurnment.  Told her how sorry he was for her loss and how nice she looked in black.”

Jonathan was disgusted.  “Ugh!  That guy needs a serious plumbob-kicking.  Did he follow you there?  Did you see him?”

“No.  It was during the day, so we’re not sure if he was there in the underground part of the vault just lurking or if he saw her dressed up the night we came back from Henford-on-Bagley.  Lilith dropped by late that night to warn us he was in town.  He never showed up at the house, though.  Thank the Watcher for that at least.”

“Well, he better not show his face here or at Dad’s memorial, or immortal or not, he’s going to regret it.”



They were able to thank the Watcher for that, too, although perhaps that was because the memorial was hosted in a Peteran church.  Although Patrick had not been religious, his parents had been Peteran, and as a boy he had attended services there with them.  The cemetery he and Maureen were buried in was non-denominational, but his will had specified that he wanted his memorial done there for tradition’s sake, since many of his family members had done the same.

Both Jonathan and Susan said eulogies for their father, and it was difficult for both.  For all their personality differences, both had trouble putting their thoughts and feelings into eloquent words.  Once again, Maaike was a big help when it came to that.  Additionally, each of the twins felt incredibly uncomfortable in front of the crowd like that.  While Jonathan was an extrovert that loved socializing and goofing around, and he was used to stressful situations as a police officer, those were of a different nature than talking about deeply personal things relating to his late father to a crowd of people, some of whom were close while others he barely knew or did not know at all.  Susan, on the other hand, was not only far more introverted than her brother, but she tended to internalize her emotions to begin with, and only opened up around those she knew well.  Furthermore, she was as pregnant as could be and physically uncomfortable standing for more than a few minutes, especially in heels.  Having to do it while taking on such a task was grueling both physically and emotionally.

Still, both Susan and Jonathan gave warm and heartfelt tributes to Patrick, honoring his memory beautifully and in a way that would have made him proud.



“Dad would be happy to see how many of his friends from the city made it out here to Newcrest to say goodbye,” Jonathan said as he picked up his nectar glass.  He was having his father’s favorite vintage, Granite Falls Grappo Blanco, in his honor.  “And even more sent flowers.”

“He’d be pleased at how good the nectar is, too.  They didn’t go cheap,” Maaike noted approvingly.

“Shame I can’t have any,” said Susan.  “The sparkling juice isn’t bad, but it’s a tad sweet.”

Boyd set his roll back on his plate.  “No wonder Blair’s already downed two glasses of it.”



Jonathan set his glass down and turned around just in time to see Blair put her empty glass on the bar as well.  “Is that true, Blair-y Bear?  Are you setting yourself up for a sugar high tonight?”

“Not on purpose.  It just tastes better than the soda, and I get to feel like an adult drinking nectar without drinking nectar.”

“Well, just remember that sometimes us adults drink too much of that stuff, too, okay?” he teased.

“Okay, but I don’t think you or Mom or Dad or Maaike do.”

“You know, you’re getting bigger every time I see you.  Before we know it, you’re going to be a teenager.”  He shook his head.  “Bah.  Getting old.”

“No you’re not.  Your hair’s not even gray, and you’re not going bald like Grandpa Patrick kind of was.  Plus, I’m only in fifth grade.”

He looked at his niece.  It was true that Blair did have a couple of years before she would be a teenager, but it did not seem all that long ago that she had been small enough that he could carry her under an arm or put her on his back and fly her around the room pretending he was an airplane and listen to her giggle.  “Okay, but tempting as it sounds, don’t be too eager to grow up like us.  Too easy to get into trouble that way, and believe me, I know.  I’d say ask me how I know, but all I’ll say is experience, and not as much of it’s from on the job as it should’ve been,” he said with a smile.  “Also, you could probably ask your parents for a big long-winded science genetics explanation, but if I remember right, you inherit baldness from your mom’s side, not your dad’s.  Luckily, my grandpa on your Grandma Maureen’s side, your great-grandpa, had a full head of hair, so I believe I’ll keep my luxurious locks.”  He fluffed his head ostentatiously in a way that made Blair smirk.  “But, if your little sibling turns out to be a brother, he might lose some in his old age like Grandpa Patrick.”

“So that means my kids would have hair that does whatever my dad’s does when he gets old?”

“In theory.”  He chuckled.  “Assuming he doesn’t pull it all out after cursing out a computer one day, anyway.”

“Luckily, that doesn’t run in the family,” Blair joked back.



Susan, Maaike, and Boyd continued talking while Jonathan and Blair chatted.  “It’s so nice to hear Blair laughing again,” Boyd remarked, smiling despite the somber mood.  “Losing all her grandparents has been so hard on her.  I know it’ll take time, but it’s just nice to hear now, even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

Maaike was happy for her as well.  “Poor kid.  Hopefully now she can start to work through it if life quits throwing surprises at her.”

“We could all use that.”  Susan swirled the sparkling juice in her glass.  “If there are going to be any more surprises from here on out, they could at least have the decency to be nice ones.  Like, I don’t know, maybe you showing up?”  She patted her belly.  “But not now.  No, not right now.  But at the next convenient time would be very nice.”

“At this point, I’m not sure that qualifies as a surprise, being technically called ‘expecting’ and all,” Boyd quipped.

“As long as it’s taking, it feels like one, and if you quibble over another technicality with me over this while I’m this tired, this pregnant, and in heels, we can quibble over whether you sleep on the couch or not.”

Maaike tried hard not to laugh.  “That’s a ten-point flashing neon doghouse warning if I ever heard one.”

He was suitably shamed.  “Caught it.  Shutting it.  Sorry, honey.”  He patted Susan’s arm.  “I hope the baby comes soon, too.  I know you feel miserable.”



While the memorial continued and Susan and Jonathan mingled with guests that came to pay their respects to Patrick, Blair wandered off to plunk at the keys of the church’s organ.  When Boyd noticed, he went over to watch since he could not recall ever seeing her at one before.  “Is this the first time you ever tried one of these?”

“Yeah!  The chapel Grandma Myra and Grandpa Stuart’s memorial was at didn’t have one.”

“Nope.  Just that old piano in the basement for parties.  When it comes to services, they’re old school.  They just have the congregation and choir sing straight from the hymn books.”

“This music sounds different from piano.”

“These organs are constructed differently inside and have all that extra piping for the unique sound.”  He eyed it thoughtfully.  “Your Grandpa Stuart probably could’ve told you in detail how it worked, but I don’t know much about the physics of the internal workings of most musical instruments beyond the basics, like string instruments creating sound through vibration on those, woodwinds through forced air, stuff like that.  I’d have to open it and I’m pretty sure the staff would frown on that.”

Blair tickled some keys to get a goofy sound.  “Yeah, I’m sure you’d get into trouble for that.”

“Dad sure would’ve loved to see you playing an instrument, though.  Do you like playing?”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’m not very good at it.”

“Well, nobody is unless they practice.  Not even your Grandpa Stuart.  He would practice for hours.”

“I don’t know if I’d like doing that.  Messing around on it’s kind of fun, but I don’t know if it’s something I want to do a lot.”

“Fair enough.  But if you ever do want to take lessons on an instrument, even if it’s not a giant pipe organ, all you have to do is ask me or Mom.  We’ll be happy to sign you up.”



After a long chat with a crowd of her father’s friends from the city, Susan came back to the bar for another glass of sparkling cider.  Jonathan noticed how exhausted she was, and came over, concerned.  “Hey.  If you need to cut out early, I understand.  I can handle things from here if you want to go home and rest.”

“No,” she insisted, although there was a wince of effort on her face.  “I am tired, but I’ll manage.  This is important.”

“You know the last thing Dad would’ve wanted would be for you to overdo it on his account.  Just saying.  Since you don’t like hearing it if I say it,” he added on a tongue-in-cheek note.

“It’s important to me,” she emphasized.  “I won’t exert myself to the point of endangering myself or the baby, but I’m also not going to leave unless I absolutely have to.”

“All right, but at least sit down or something.  You’re making me tired shuffling around like that with that dead look on your face.”

She was too tired and sore to take proper umbrage to his remark and put him in his place for it.  “If I sit down, I’ll be too tired to get back up.  Guests are starting to leave anyway, so it won’t be that much longer.”  She closed her eyes.  “With any luck, I’ll wake up and go into an easy labor right after a good night’s sleep, some coffee, and a halfway decent breakfast.”



Jonathan leaned over and addressed Susan’s pregnant belly.  “Hey, you hear that?  Your mom’s got some orders for you.  Don’t know whether you’ll listen, but I guess that depends on whether you turn out as well-behaved as your big sister.”  He gestured to Blair, who had left the pipe organ in favor of grabbing another roll to munch on.

“I’ll be happy as long as he or she behaves better than you,” Susan remarked before looking over at Blair.  “I hope that’s not all you ate for dinner tonight.”

“I had a couple of pieces of the cheese, too, and some cookies.”

“That’s better than nothing, I guess.”  She suspected it was probably more cookies than cheese, but even if it was junk, at least she had eaten something.  Some days lately, Blair barely ate anything.  The stress of having one grandparent after another die before she even had a chance to mourn the previous one had taken her appetite away along with her happiness.  Susan hoped this last funeral would give her some closure and finally allow her to work through her grief and get back to being herself again.  At least now that all her grandparents had passed, she could not possibly lose any more of them, although that was such a dark upside to the situation that she was hard-pressed to call it such.



It was well into the evening by the time the last guest left, and they finished cleaning up.  “You guys really should’ve gone ahead home and gotten some rest,” Maaike chided gently as she gave her a parting hug.  “Jonathan and I didn’t mind tidying up.”

“I know, but again, Dad was always a stickler about responsibility, and I just wouldn’t feel like I honored him properly if I shirked that by leaving Jonathan to wash dishes, nice a thought as it is to think about making him do it.  You, not so much,” she added on a teasing note before turning toward her brother.  “Hmm.  Interesting.  I noticed there were no comments about how I shouldn’t be overdoing it when it came to giving you less of that to do.”

“Oh, far be it from me to question your ability to know your limits.  You made it clear I need to stay in my lane.  I’m just respecting your wishes.”  He turned to Blair.  “You doing all right?”

“I think so.  I still miss Grandpa Patrick, of course, and the rest of them.  It’s hard to believe they’re all gone now, when it wasn’t that long ago that they were all still here.  But I’m kind of used to funerals now.”  She shrugged.  “They’re not fun, but they’re a nice way to say goodbye and try to remember things about them and maybe learn things you might not have known from other people that knew them.”

Jonathan nodded.  “That’s a good way to look at it.”



“This might even sound weird, but if it hadn’t been for Grandpa Stuart and Grandma Myra’s memorial, I wouldn’t have met my friend Imran in Henford-on-Bagley.  He was playing in the garden at the chapel that day.  We had a lot of fun and still talk over messages online and stuff.”

“I don’t think that sounds weird at all.  It means something good came out of something bad, and they’d probably be glad to hear that.  I know if the same thing happened here or at your Grandma Maureen’s funeral, they’d have been thrilled for you.  They loved seeing you happy.  I’m sure your other grandparents were the same.”

Blair thought about what he said.  “When I visited them in Sulani, Grandpa Stuart thought I should try talking to more kids because he was surprised I didn’t have a lot of friends.  I think he’d be glad.”

“Then if you think about it, in his own way, he kind of introduced you to him.”

“Hey, you’re right,” Blair said with a smile, which Jonathan mirrored.

“And on that note, how about a hug for the road?”

“Sure!”  He knelt down, and she threw her arms around his neck while he squeezed her in a big bear hug.


Author’s Note:  In game, the grandparents all died within 36 game hours of each other right in Susan’s second to third trimester. Needless to say, it was quite a lot of stuff to cover, writing-wise, in a ridiculously short amount of gameplay time.  Three of them died in the same 24 hour time span and two were just a few hours apart.  It was nuts, and the sad moodlets were stacked high for a while, making for a rather miserable family to play during that time, too!  So many sadness hotline calls, crying under the covers, and blogging about feelings! But I wanted to write everyone out with proper send-offs, so that’s why Susan has seemingly been pregnant for so long and it seems like time has been at a near standstill for so many chapters.

[Cheezey]

Author's Note: This is another long one that I split in two for length and number of images.

Chapter 27

Unfortunately, despite her wishes, the baby did not decide to come after Susan got up the following morning, showered, and had a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast.  That was the most she was up to bothering with in the kitchen at that point, and since Boyd had to work, all he had time to make was a toaster pastry.  Before he left, he offered to make one for her, too, but she thought a sandwich would be better in case she went into labor later.  Which she didn’t, so she ate the toaster pastry cold for a snack about an hour and a half later when she got hungry again.  It seemed that this baby had whatever appetite Blair was lacking lately.

Though she had eaten some cereal this morning at least, Susan noticed when she mustered the energy to wash the few dishes in the sink.  She wished that either Boyd or Blair could have at least done that before leaving for work or school.  While she was home on maternity leave and knew that they were rushed on weekday mornings and weren’t intentionally being inconsiderate, she was pregnant, tired, and irritated about it anyway.  She did not want to have to clean.  Yes, it was only a couple of dishes, but… ugh.



Much to her dismay, nothing had changed by that evening, either.  Aside from a few false contractions, the only true pains she got were back aches.  “Boyd, I’m starting to feel like this baby has taken up permanent residence,” she groused.  “I know they’ll induce before it goes on too long to be dangerous, but I wish that point was sooner than being this ridiculously uncomfortable.  It sucks.”

“I know, honey.  I wish there was something I could do other than back rubs.”

“Which, no offense, you can hardly do anymore because I can’t get into a comfortable position for those anymore, either.  At least not in my lower back here where all this pressure is.”  She shoved on it.  “Come on, kid.  I love you, but take a hint.”



“Do you want me to call the lab and take a personal day tomorrow so I can stay here and help you with whatever?  If you’re feeling that bad, I hate to leave you here by yourself.”

“That’s sweet of you, but I’d rather you save those for after the baby’s born and we’re both even more exhausted.  I have a feeling we’ll need them then.”

He couldn’t argue with that logic.  “I could take it unpaid.”

“Unfortunately, we also need the money.”

Sadly, he couldn’t argue with that, either.  “I know.  I’d still be willing to do it, though.  I could probably find a way to scrounge up a few simoleons to make up for it.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “If you mean hacking, I’d rather you not.  Just because we can do it, doesn’t mean we should be doing it.”

“Yeah.  I know.  I figured.”



Susan pulled him into an embrace.  “It’s sweet that you want to stay with me, but I’ll be fine.  I’ll call if I need you.  And seriously, please don’t hack for extra cash.  I know you’re a pro at covering your tracks, but as I’ll remind your oh-so-paranoid brain, the government really does get better at finding new ways to find ways to catch people doing that all the time.  I don’t want my dear clever husband to get caught in such a trap.  Even if he thinks he’s super paranoid enough to dodge the alphabet agencies.”

“That was incredibly sneaky and evil of you, honey.  Now I definitely won’t, after you riled up that part of my brain.”  He smooched her on the lips.

“I only did it for your own good.  Sometimes those computers tempt you too much to dabble on the wild side and overcome those fears of yours that, at least about that, are a little more reasonable than most.”  She nuzzled against him.  “Besides, you’d look terrible in prison orange.”

“So is that what stops you from doing it?  Not wanting to go to jail?  Because you’re as good at that as I am.  Probably better now, with all the engineering experience you’ve logged since that Geek Con contest.”

“Yes.  Jail would be a real downer, as would having a criminal record for the rest of my life.  Then there’s whatever wonderful commentary I’d have to endure from Jonathan from here on out.  Oh ho, no thank you.  Not to mention, I’d prefer not to be a complete hypocrite when we teach our children not to be criminals.”

Boyd smirked.  “Heh.  In that case, we’d better stop downloading movies and episodes of shows on pay channels we don’t get, matey.”

“Mmm, let’s not go that far.  Those streaming services are expensive, and we are saving for an addition.  There’s nuance in such things.”  She brushed her lips against his, and they smooched again.

“Sounds good to me.”



Although Susan had an uncomfortable night, it did not seem in the morning that she was any closer to going into labor than she was the night before.  While she took a warm shower to try and ease the ache in her back, Blair sat with Boyd on the couch after breakfast before school.  “Dad, do you still have that old book that tells you what your dreams mean?”

She was referring to an old dream interpretation guide on their shelf that he had picked up on a whim as a teenager while browsing the occult section in a bookstore.  “Sure do.  Did you have an interesting dream last night that you want to look up?”



“Yeah.  I dreamt that Grandma Myra came by to visit and gave me a present.  She was a ghost when she visited, though, not still alive.  All by herself, not with Grandpa Stuart.  She knocked on the front door and I let her in.  You were standing outside in the rain watching through the door.  I don’t know why you didn’t just let her in, or why you didn’t come in from the rain.  It was weird.  It didn’t feel like it was my birthday or anything, either.”

“Huh.”  Boyd thumbed through the book, considering which aspect to look up first.  “Do you remember what the present was?”

Blair thought about it for a moment.  “No.  I guess I should’ve written it down when I first got up.  Sorry.  It’s kind of silly I’d get a present and not remember what it was now that I think about it.”

“Eh, dreams are like that.  Things that would be downright ridiculous in real life just seem normal as can be while you’re dreaming them.  Once I had a nightmare that I was being chased by an inflatable Snowflake Day dog in a Father Winter hat.  It wasn’t even scary looking or changed at all, but it scared the heck out of me in the dream.  When I woke up and thought about it, I was embarrassed.  Why on Earth would I be afraid of a three-foot lawn ornament full of air?  But I was terrified.  I ran from that thing screaming in terror.”

Blair giggled.  “I’m sorry you were scared, but that’s funny.  You could’ve just popped it!”

“I know, right?”  He chuckled with her.  “Okay.  I found something.  It says here that ‘to receive a gift in a dream is a symbol of extraordinary happiness that you will experience soon,’ and that, ‘if you are experiencing joy, then this is a symbol of a friendly attitude towards you.’” He looked at her.  “I know you don’t remember what it was, but did the gift make you happy?”

“Yeah.  I think so.”

“Then I’d say the dream probably meant that you were dreaming about how you miss your grandparents, and on some level, you know they want you to be happy.  They know you’ve been sad about them dying, and they hope that you’ll remember the good times with them and move on.  Maybe, for whatever reason, it was something about Grandma Myra that your subconscious recalled last, so it was her that manifested in your dream.”  He paused.  “Or if you want to get more spiritual, perhaps it’s possible that she came to you in your dream because she was watching over you last night, saw how sad you were, and wanted to cheer you up.”

“Maybe,” Blair said thoughtfully.

Boyd skimmed further down the page.  “There’s a bit more.  Here it says that in some cultures, ‘A gift from a deceased is a symbol of changes in all the spheres of your life.’  That’s interesting.”

Her eyes widened.  “Do you think that means the baby is coming today?”

“You never know, but that sure would make your mom happy.  She’s really uncomfortable.”  He glanced at the clock.  “Your bus will be here in five minutes.  Better get ready.”



Blair was excited by the thought that her dream might have been prophetic all day.  She kept hoping for a page at school that she would get to go home early because her mom went into labor.  That never happened, though.  When she got home, she found her there wearing sweats with the air conditioning cranked to the max, grumbling about how her legs cramped and she got a chill if she wore a t-shirt and shorts, but it was too humid to not have the air conditioning up that high.  “Hi, Blair.  I just made some grilled cheese for lunch, and I know you like them, so I made you one, too.”  She handed her a plate.

“Oh, thanks!  I ate at school, but grilled cheese is yummy!”  She sat down with her.  “Guess the baby still doesn’t want to come.”

“It’s restless and I’ve been having a lot of those fake contractions, and a few that feel like they could be the start of the real thing, but the timing’s not close enough to count as labor yet.”

“Maybe the baby’s just going to be one of those people that takes forever to get ready for things.  You know, the ones that take like an hour to do their hair or makeup or pick out an outfit.  One of the popular girls at school is like that.  She brags about it.”  Blair rolled her eyes.  “She’s nice enough, but I wouldn’t want to share a bathroom with her in my house.”

“Let’s hope not.  We only have one bathroom, and even when we get an addition, it’s not going to be swanky enough to swing a second one of those.”  She finished her sandwich and picked up her and Blair’s plates.  Blair had wolfed hers down and Susan was glad to see her appetite returning along with a brighter mood.

“I’m going to go get my homework over with.”

“Sounds good.  I’m going to lie down.  My back is killing me.”



She drifted in and out of a nap for a few hours until Boyd got home, although he only peeked in to say hello and check on her and then let her rest quietly.  Her discomfort only got worse over the course of the late afternoon and early evening, however.  Eventually, those false contractions picked up their pace to the point that Susan started wondering if they still were and she started timing them again.  When they reached a certain point, she realized with both relief and anxiousness that finally, they had turned into the real thing.  No wonder she had been so miserable all day.  “Oh, boy.  Maybe Blair was right, and you were doing the equivalent of getting ready all day.”



As if to drive the point home, she experienced another powerful contraction that made her realize that if she did not get to the hospital before long, she was going to be in enough pain that she’d wind up using those forbidden words she felt very uncouth spouting.  All things considered, she wanted proper medical intervention and pain relief before that.

“Boyd!  Boyd, can you come in here, please?”



Unfortunately, Boyd came in just as Susan started to get another contraction that made her wince with discomfort.  “Susan?  What’s wrong?  Is something happening to the baby?”

“Nothing but labor I think.  Finally.”

“Labor?  Oh, okay.  Wait.  Labor?!  Crap!  We’ve got to get you to the hospital!  Plum!  Are you okay?  I mean other than the obvious.  Do I need to call an ambulance?  Or should I take you?  Is there time?  What do you want me to do?”



“I should be fine for you to take me.  Get my hospital bag to the car and tell Blair we’re going.  I’ll call Jonathan and see if he can come over and keep an eye on her while we’re gone, or Maaike if he can’t.  I don’t want her stuck at the hospital however long we’ll be there, and I don’t like her being here by herself for more than a few hours.”

Especially not with Vlad creeping around, Boyd agreed.  While Blair was a responsible girl, and knew about the danger of strangers, she was also still a child, and at times her kind nature made her a bit naïve, even for her age.



Blair was in her room, so Boyd just knocked in a rush and shouted in.  “Hey, Blair!  Looks like your dream was spot on!  Mom went into labor!  I’m taking her to the hospital and she’s asking your Uncle Jonathan to come over to hang out with you until we get back.  Until he or Maaike get here, stay put and keep the doors locked, and don’t let anyone else in, okay?”

“Okay!”  She peeked her head out the door.  “I’m so glad Mom’s finally having the baby, and my dream was actually a premonition!  I never had one of those before!  Can Uncle Jonathan bring pizza?”

“You can text him and ask.  He probably will.”

“Yay!  Can I stay up late?”

“Not too late.  It’s a school day.  But we’ll call whenever she has the baby anyway, even if it’s in the middle of the night, unless you want us to wait until the morning.”

“Oh, no!  I want to know right away!”

He smiled.  “Kind of figured you did.  We’ll see you later.  Wish your mom luck.  Labor’s pretty rough.”

“I will!”



After her parents left and while she waited for Uncle Jonathan to arrive, Blair wrote all about what was going on in her journal.  First, she described her dream and how it had been an omen from the future and possibly even her grandmother visiting her from beyond to send the message that the baby was on the way.  Then she wrote about how the baby was late and how grouchy her mother had been because the baby had gotten so big that it made her really uncomfortable, and even though she wasn’t normally snippy, she was lately, so she was glad that she was finally having it.

She went on to write that she was excited that the baby was going to be there soon and looked forward to finding out if she would have a new little brother or sister, but at the same time, it was also going to be weird not being the only kid in the family anymore.  She vowed that she was going to be a good big sister, though, and teach them all sorts of cool things and what things were not cool to do.  Also, it would be nice to have someone to vent to about the not-cool and embarrassing things her parents sometimes did, she noted.  While sometimes she and Imran would talk about that kind of stuff, the little sibling would understand a lot better living with them, too.

She ended the entry just as Jonathan pulled up, pizza in one hand and soda in the other.  Luckily, he had the night off, so he was able to head right over when he got the call.  She slammed the journal shut and greeted him with an excited hug, ready for a night of pizza, movies, and goofing around while they waited for news from her parents at the hospital.

[Cheezey]

A summer thunderstorm had started by the time they got to the hospital.  It was raining hard when they arrived, so Boyd didn’t understand when Susan suddenly stopped right by the front doors to the emergency department, seemingly staring off into space.  “Susan!  What are you doing?  We’ve got to get inside!”

“I—I could’ve sworn I saw Dad out here.”  It sounded ridiculous when she said it, but it was true.  On their way in, she thought she saw him dressed in his doctor’s coat like he was heading in to work.  But that was preposterous!  Even if he wasn’t dead, he had never worked at this hospital.  He had been working in San Myshuno.  Despite that, she looked one more time as Boyd took her hand.  He had not seen anyone else, but admittedly, his focus was solely on Susan in labor.

“You probably just saw someone that looked like him, and your brain did some wishful thinking,” he reassured her as he led her inside and out of the rain.  “Not surprising, considering how much you miss him and how bummed you are about him not getting the chance to meet the baby, and we are at a hospital.  One of his usual,” Boyd almost slipped and said “haunts,” but caught himself in time and corrected himself, “places he’d be.”

“Yeah.  But it looked just like…”  Her voice trailed off as another contraction kicked in, and Boyd raced to the front desk.

“My wife’s in labor!” he shouted in a panic before they could even ask him what he was there for.

“We’ll have someone out as soon as possible.”



They gave her a quick evaluation, and Susan was admitted immediately.  After getting her changed into a hospital gown, she was escorted to labor and delivery by her doctor, Blanca Valadez.  “I feel like I’m getting the VIP treatment having the doctor take me.  Isn’t that usually something the nurse does?”

“You happened to get here just about the time I did to make rounds.  Fortuitous timing!”

“I’d say.”

“Boyd still hyper-ventilating back there?”

“He’ll be okay.  When you showed up, he was able to relax enough out of crisis mode to let him freak out as much as he would’ve if he hadn’t had to get me here safely.”  She winced through another contraction.

“Deep breath, dear.  We’re almost there.”

Susan nodded and steadied herself.  “Anyway, he’ll be here in a minute.  He’ll worry too much to stay away long.”  She held up the phone she’d been holding limp at her side.  “Let me try and finish getting this update to my brother.”

Dr. Valadez raised an eyebrow.  “Maybe that’s something Boyd could do for you.  You should be focusing on the baby right now.  Here.  I can give him the phone when he gets here.  It’s more important that you walk safely.  Besides, the sooner we get you to your room, the sooner we can get you pain relief.”

She let out a carefully exhaled breath as said pain grew more intense.  “Believe it or not, I think I’m in more coherent condition right now.”



Boyd made it in less than a minute later, as Susan was settling onto the delivery table.  “I’m here.  Sorry I freaked out.  I know you’re the one in labor and—”

“It’s fine.”  Normally, she understood about his anxiety, and in theory she even did now, but that did not mean she wanted to hear a ramble about it in the middle of labor pains.  “I texted Jonathan.”

“Okay.  Is there anything you want me to do?”

“Just be here.”

“Okay.”



“Susan, all your vitals and the baby’s look good.  The machine is going to start administering the anesthesia now, so you’ll just feel a pinch, and then it’s very important that you don’t move until I tell you to.  All right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay.  Here goes.  Just relax.”  A hush fell over the room and there was nothing but the sounds of the equipment and their breathing as Dr. Valadez worked, Susan underwent treatment, and Boyd watched anxiously.



The medicine was strong and worked quickly.  Susan was numb to the pain in less than two minutes.  “How are you feeling?” Dr. Valadez asked from behind the monitor.

“Fine.  It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Good.  Your readings look great, too.  I think we’re ready to proceed with the delivery.”

Boyd breathed a sigh of relief.  “I’m so glad.  You’re going to do just fine, honey.”  He reached over and stroked her head reassuringly.

As that was happening, Susan could have sworn she heard the delivery room doors open again behind them and her father’s voice say, “You and the baby will be fine, Susie.  I’ll make sure of it.”

She blinked her eyes groggily.  “Dad?”



“That was me.  Boyd.  I think the anesthesia might be confusing you a little,” Boyd said gently.  “There’s no one here but me and Dr. Valadez.”

Susan shook her head.  “No.  I heard him after you.  He’s here.  He’s making sure the baby’s fine.”

Boyd looked over at Dr. Valadez, who gave him a reassuring nod back to allay his concerns.  “The anesthesia can do that to some patients,” she mouthed silently so as not to upset Susan before addressing Susan herself.  “You’re doing very well, Susan.  The baby is progressing right on all cues.  Delivery is going smoothly.  Just keep on keeping on and follow my instructions, and you’ll be done and have that little bundle of joy in your arms before you know it.”



Susan only heard her in the background, however, and did not even see her at the helm of the machine.  It was her father she saw there.  A strangely transparent phantom of him, but still him, nonetheless.  Dad’s here watching over me, and he came to deliver my baby.  To make sure there are no complications, and the baby gets here safely.  It filled her with such a sense of ease and security that any lingering fears she might have had about the birth melted away.  Although she trusted Dr. Valadez, for she had been her doctor for many years, no medical procedure was without its risks.



In the delivery room that night, Susan and Boyd witnessed two different doctors delivering their second-born child into the world.  For Susan, it was her deceased father that proudly performed the procedure, fulfilling his final promise to her to meet the baby, and announcing to them jovially, “It’s a boy!”



Boyd never saw any sign of Patrick, although Susan kept murmuring about her father as if she saw him there.  He wondered if it was the anesthetic, or if perhaps Patrick’s spirit was there to comfort and encourage her, and only Susan could see him.  Ghosts and spirits manifested in odd ways sometimes, and Susan was certainly in an altered state between the stress of labor and the medication.

All he could see, however, was the earthly Dr. Valadez, working expertly to deliver their baby without a single complication.  “Congratulations,” she announced once it was all over, beaming happily as the baby was placed into the bassinet.  “You’re the proud parents of a healthy baby boy!”



Regardless of who delivered him and how strong the labor pains and anesthetic were, Susan was eager to hold the baby that had grown inside her for so long.  With some help from adrenaline and lingering numbness to pain, she hopped off the delivery table and scooped him up.  “Wow!  Look at you.  It’s so nice to finally meet and hold you.  I’m your mom.  The one who’s been carrying you around these last long nine months.”



Boyd leaned over her shoulder to meet his newborn son.  “Hey there, little guy.  It’s Dad.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you have a name for the birth certificate?  That way I can get started on all your paperwork and let you bond with the baby before I have to bother you again,” Dr. Valadez said.  “Which I will have to do before long, Susan, especially if you don’t sit down soon.  You need to be careful while you’re still under the effects of the anesthetic.”

“Okay.”  She looked at Boyd, who nodded.  “His name is James Wainwright.”

“Got it.  Thanks.”  The doctor went back to her paperwork while Boyd smiled at his new son in Susan’s arms.  “Do you want to do the honors of calling home and sharing the good news?  You’re the mom who did all the hard work.”

“All eight pounds six ounces and 18 inches of it.”  She bounced him.  “Worth every bit.”

“I’m sure.”

“I can call if you want to hold him.”

“All right.”  Boyd took baby James while Susan called home.  She told the abridged version of the news to both Blair and Jonathan, that James had been born, what time and how big he was, and approximately when Dr. Valadez said they would be able to come home.  Since Jonathan was able to stay with Blair, Boyd planned to stay at the hospital and keep Susan and James company until they were released.



Although Boyd loved holding his new son, he started to fuss, so once Susan ended the call, she took him back to see if he would naturally calm down in Mom’s more familiar arms.  “Shh, sweetie.  It’s okay.”

“I get it.  He’s not used to Dad yet, and besides, Mom’s a lot softer.”

“Oh, hush,” Susan teased back.

“I’m curious about something, if you don’t mind,” Boyd said quietly.  “I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not implying anything deeper by it.  I legitimately am just curious and not making judgments or saying anything rude.  But I noticed you didn’t tell Blair or Jonathan about seeing your dad here.  Why not?”

She closed her eyes as she bounced James.  “I—I believe it was his spirit.  That he was here watching over me and James, and that he, I know it sounds strange, but I feel like he,” she lowered her tone, “replaced Dr. Valadez in some way to deliver the baby.  I know you didn’t see that, but I did.  Maybe I dreamed it.  Maybe it was a hallucination.  But it felt real.  It didn’t feel like a dream or what I imagine a hallucination would be like if I had one.  Which I don’t believe I ever did, so I’m not sure I can legitimately compare it.”

She paused to gather her thoughts before continuing.  “That said, I know you didn’t.  Your remarks made that clear. I believe you don’t mean any judgment, and I appreciate that, so I hope you understand when I say that despite you not seeing anything, I still believe what I experienced was real.  However, I also realize that Blair is an impressionable girl at an impressionable age, and I don’t want to fill her head with fanciful notions, real or not, that can’t scientifically be proven at this point.  Maybe someday I’ll tell her.  Not now, though.  I don’t think the time is right.  As for Jonathan, I don’t want him to try and help, well-meaning or not, by suggesting I was stressed by being in labor and on a drug that could’ve had a psychological side effect.  I don’t want what was a good experience for me ruined by him poo-pooing it.  Especially since it feels like, if it’s what I believe it was, Dad keeping his promise to me that he’d be here to meet James, for both him and Mom.”  She held him a little tighter against her.  “That he’d keep his—his track record of never breaking a promise to me.”  Her voice cracked and her eyes filled with emotional tears as she finished her sentence.

Boyd gently circled an arm around Susan’s waist.  “I understand, and as for what you believe, hey.  I believe there are a hell of a lot of things in this universe that could be possible that our knowledge of science simply isn’t advanced enough to explain yet.  I believe you, and I also believe that if there’s any way in this life or any other that Patrick could keep a promise he made to you, he would.”  He kissed her on the cheek.  “I love you both.  Now, you probably ought to sit down with James there before Dr. Valadez comes back and gives you a lecture and extra time here as punishment.”



Susan and James were both given clean bills of health postpartum, so she was only kept a short while afterward just to rule out any last-minute complications.  She was allowed to change back into her regular clothes and was encouraged to get back onto her feet carefully to be certain she was okay for light activity before being discharged.  While she was taking a short walk down the hall and Boyd was back in the room snuggling James, she could have sworn she saw her father once more, and this time, she shuffled as quickly as she could to catch up.  As she approached, she realized it was definitely not some doctor on staff that bore a resemblance to her late father.  She could see right through this man.  She was staring at a ghost.

Normally, such a thing might have been frightening, but considering it was her father, it was at worst startling and mostly a comforting shock.  Her heart skipped a beat.  “Dad?  Is this real?”

The apparition turned around, a smile on his familiar face.  “Hi, Susie.  How are you feeling?”

“It is you.”

“You’re up already.”

He was really, truly there!  “You were there in the delivery room, weren’t you?  I knew I saw you.”

“I promised I’d be there to meet him.  I’m sorry my time came faster than I expected.  But he’s a wonderful little boy.  Oh, you’re going to have your hands full with that one.  So much energy!  He’s very healthy.”

“You saw him.”

“Indeed!  We love him.  Your mother and I are so proud and happy for you.  Don’t worry about a thing.  Dr. Valadez will take good care of him, and you.  You’re all going to be fine.”

Susan’s heart filled with both joy and sadness as she spoke with her father’s spirit.  She hoped against hope that it was real and not just some drug hallucination.  “I miss you both so much.”

“We miss you, too.  But we’ll see you again, one day, a long time from now.  In the meantime, you have a long and wonderful life ahead of you with your family.  You’ll live to see grandchildren of your own, and you’ll be every bit as proud and excited as we are.  Go rest now.  You’ve earned it, Mom.  Goodbye, Susie,” he finished, fading into the ether in a soft puff of blue-tinged swirls.

“Goodbye, Dad.”  She could not help but cry, but they were happy tears.  James would never remember his grandfather, but at least he had met him, in a way.  She would tell him that, one day, she promised herself as she made her way back to her room.


Author’s Note: Susan finally had her baby! I figured this would make a nice chapter to post on Mother’s Day here in the US. This chapter was also an interesting one to write up. In the actual save, it was Patrick’s ghost that delivered James, which I thought was really cool, except that Susan immediately spun into her engineer outfit afterward, which ruined all the screenshots of her holding him afterward! I didn’t know about the insta-change outfits feature on the MC Command mod then, so I thought I was stuck with it. But at the time I thought, okay, I’ll just re-stage some of that when I write it up since Boyd wasn’t positioned well for a lot of it and I always end up needing a shot or two more for storytelling. Of course, when that time came, I got a different doctor despite several reloads on the staging save. However, I had fun making it work anyway, as I enjoy the challenges Sims throws at me that make me flex my writer muscles.

Speaking of staging, now that infants are a thing, which they weren’t the entire time I played this family throughout that stage for James, I will be staging some of James’ infanthood for the story, just like I will Blair and James in high school, since High School Years also came out after I played them through that. (Yes, my gameplay for this save has been stalled for some time while I’ve played catch-up on the writing!) But the new content is fun, and my stories are based on the gameplay as opposed to super strictly gameplay only. Plus, who wants to miss the cute infant and childhood stuff and high school drama, right? 

Oh, and the family tree over on Plum Tree has been updated with baby James.  Unfortunately, the links between them seem to be down at the moment, so here's a link to Susan's family, too, where he's also listed.

[Cheezey]

Author's Note: Another long one! Split into two parts because it's image-heavy.

Chapter 28

Jonathan was already gone by the time they got home.  While he wished he could have stayed to meet his new nephew, he was needed at work and had already delayed going in as long as he reasonably could.  As soon as Susan and Boyd said they were on their way home and they knew Blair would only be on her own for a short while, he headed out with explicit instructions to Blair to give the baby a hug from him.

Blair herself was surprised at how different her baby brother looked than she expected in her mind.  While she had seen babies before, she had never been up close to many of them.  “He’s so big and squirmy and bald.  No wonder your back hurt.”

“Are you already picking on your little brother?” asked Susan.  “It sounds like you’ve been taking lessons on being a sibling from Uncle Jonathan.”

“I’m not picking!  I’m just saying.  Look!  He’s squirming right now.”

As if he heard them, James wiggled more and stuck out his tongue, excreting a large spit bubble as he did so.

“Eew.  They don’t make the baby dolls do that,” said Blair.

“Ha.  If you think that’s the grossest thing babies do, boy, are you in for some surprises,” Boyd quipped as he picked James up.



“Phew.  Luckily, that squirming wasn’t an introduction to another one of them.  One your mom and I used to call the nuclear number twos.”

“Eeew, that’s a poo.”  She emphasized the word the way only a pre-teen amused by it would, while James started crying.

Boyd bounced him.  “Hey, little guy.  What’s the matter?  You starting to get hungry?”

“I can warm a bottle,” Susan said, while Blair eyed him uncertainly.

“I don’t want to be mean, but is he always going to cry that loud?  It’s not a big deal out here, but we’re sharing a room and if he does that at night, I don’t know if I can sleep through it.”

Boyd and Susan had thought about that, and unfortunately, Blair’s room was the best solution.  There was simply no room for a bassinet in theirs.  Their bedroom was small and taken up almost entirely by their bed, nightstand and dressers, and they did not like the thought of the baby being out alone in the living room and kitchen area all night, even with the doors locked.  Especially not with creeps like Vladislaus around.  Perhaps a bedroom door was flimsy and pointless additional protection against a vampire like him, but if nothing else, it did make them feel safer if something like a fire happened to have him physically with someone who could help.  “If it gets to be a real problem, we’ll try something else.  Maybe bring him into the bed with us on a particularly bad night, or one of us will crash on the couch out here with him, but we don’t want him out here alone.  I’m sorry, sweetie,” Susan said sincerely.  “I know this is a big adjustment for you and we’re asking a lot.”

She nodded, resigned but clearly not thrilled about it.  “Well, I said I’d be a good big sister.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad at him or anything.  I’m just used to being able to have my room to myself and being able to sleep and stuff.”

“We know,” Boyd assured her.  “You’re being really understanding about this, and we appreciate it.”



Which she was, for the most part.  Although she griped and grumbled on occasion, she took most of it in stride and far better than some children would have.  She loved her little brother and enjoyed the novelty of having him around, even if it took some getting used to having her parents barging into her room to take care of him all the time.  Most of the time they were polite enough to knock, but sometimes in the middle of the night they didn’t.  They also just let themselves in when they knew she was not in there and he was crying, which irked her.  While they would still do things like grab her laundry or vacuum sometimes when she was not home, when she was around, they would either knock or at least tell her they were going in there out of courtesy.  That had fallen by the wayside somewhat now that the baby was in there, as if he was a built-in reason.  She supposed he was, and it was not like she was hiding anything from them specifically, but it still bothered her to lose that measure of privacy, enough that she started changing in the bathroom if James was in there.  That was not a bad habit to get into, either, she supposed, even though right now he was too little for it to matter.  She hoped they would get that addition and give him his own room by the time it did, though.

Still, he was cute and fun to play with.  She liked to talk to him, tickle him, and make funny faces at him that made him giggle and coo.  Sometimes she picked him up and carried him from here to there or helped change his outfits.  He had some cute ones that she really liked, including a dog sleeper complete with ears on the hood that Maaike had given him.



Unfortunately, a second bedroom for James was not in their budget yet.  Even though they had lost all four of their parents in a short time period, they had not received much in the way of inheritances from any of them yet.

Stuart and Myra’s estate money was still tied up in the sale of their house, which fell through right before closing with the first buyer.  They’d had life insurance, but Stuart’s had been paid to Myra as his spouse and she had used some to pay for his funeral and the rest to clear the mortgage on their house.  That was good, as it allowed her to live her final days debt-free, but it meant that almost all her money other than modest sums in her saving and checking accounts was in their home equity.  Then, when she died shortly after, her life insurance benefit was paid to Boyd.  It was a handy sum, but after the funeral, it was not enough to pay for an addition.  Everything else remained pending until the final sale of the house in Sulani.

Meanwhile, Maureen’s estate was still being hashed out between their lawyer, Melissa “Miss Hell” Hell, and the medical bill collectors when Patrick unexpectedly died.  Now, those companies were trying to come after whatever joint assets the couple shared.  Both Susan and Jonathan were enraged by that, and Jonathan was in frequent contact with Miss Hell’s office getting it straightened out.  Llama load claims aside, however, Maureen’s legitimate medical bills had still been steep.  Even after insurance paid what they owed, the remainder wiped out much of Patrick and Maureen’s hard-earned lifetime savings.  To add insult to injury, some of the bill collectors even tried going after assets solely in Patrick’s name, arguing that he was responsible for her debts as her husband.  All of that had to be cleared up in litigation before any inheritance from either could be granted to Susan and Jonathan.  Patrick and Maureen had also had life insurance policies, which normally were exempt from that, but Maureen’s death benefit had been paid to Patrick, and what had not been used for the funeral or given to Susan and Jonathan by him prior to his death was now a part of his estate.  He had a policy that paid a benefit that paid out to Jonathan and Susan jointly, which they used to pay for the funeral.  The little that was left over, they split.  Again, it was a small sum, but even combined with the bit they had gotten from Myra’s insurance, it was not enough to pay for an addition.

What it afforded, though, were some things they needed for the baby and a few much-needed new pieces of furniture that accommodated their larger family and better used the space they had.  Their old couch was only a loveseat, well-worn, stained, and too small to comfortably fit two adults and a pre-teen, let alone that plus a baby or toddler.  Susan picked out a nice new couch that just fit in the niche they had but was far roomier, much more comfortable, and in her opinion, a lot nicer looking than the old loveseat well past its prime.  Everything they didn’t spend went straight into savings, waiting for the day that they could use it for that addition, a day that could not come soon enough as far as all three of them were concerned.  That house was way too small, big yard or not.  Besides, while Blair liked playing outside, both Boyd and Susan were more indoorsy types that preferred climate control except in ideal weather where they could bring their tablets or whatever they were tinkering with outside.

In the meantime, Susan went back to working from home for at least a few hours almost right away.  The faster they earned that money, the faster they would have the things they needed and wanted, she figured.  She was grateful that working from home was an option, since it saved on day care fees when she could utilize it, plus it allowed her the flexibility to earn some cash while spending time with the baby.  Sometimes James kept her so busy that she did not get to do much more than answer some emails or review a report, but it was still something, and every little bit helped.



Boyd returned to work within a day of bringing James home, too.  He offered to take some extra time off while they adjusted to having the newborn around, but Susan insisted they needed the paychecks more.  Boyd would only bring home his base salary on family leave, but when he went to the lab, he often got unexpected perks in the form of electronic parts or samples or even rocks or gems worth a bit of cash that they could sell.  It was rarely more than pocket change, but it still added up.

On his days off, he tried to give Susan a break from feedings and changings as much as possible so she could rest.  While diaper duty was not exactly his idea of fun, a few minutes of holding the baby, relaxing, and giving him a bottle was.  He remembered when Blair was that little and thought about how long ago that was now, and how he and Susan had been living with his parents at the time.  Now they were gone, and that baby was now a pre-teen and could probably babysit her baby brother if push came to shove.

“Come on.  Let’s get you a bottle and sit on that cushy new couch and watch something.  It’s, uh, what?  4 AM?  I bet I can find us something interesting.  I remember one time I was up super early feeding your sister a bottle and I had on an episode of Forensic Mysteries, and Mom caught and lectured me,” Boyd rambled as he took James out to the kitchen.  “Saying that was not the educational material appropriate for a child, as if she was going to understand what it was and it was going to give her nightmares at your age.  I argued that the infomercials on the shopping channel had evil subliminal advertising messages and I didn’t want to program her to become a future victim to marketing.  So she then said that was over the top, but at least it wouldn’t be traumatizing and turned the channel anyway.”

He smirked as he grabbed the bottle with one hand out of the refrigerator while balancing James carefully in the other.  “There was an infomercial for an exercise machine on it with a model doing squats in a thong.  So, I said, ‘Oooh.  Maybe you’re right, Mom.  That doesn’t look so bad,’ and just stared at her butt while rocking your sister.  When you’re older, you’ll understand why that was picking on her.   Anyway, she just gave me this look and said, ‘You’ve made your point, wise llama,’ switched to the weather, and went to the kitchen to start the morning coffee.  And I know you didn’t get a word of that, but it was fun telling you the story anyway, and besides, it helped wake me up,” he finished with a chuckle as he settled onto the couch with the baby and picked up the remote.



As busy as James kept them, Boyd and Susan tried to make sure Blair did not feel like she mattered any less or that she was not as important.  Along with the new furniture they got, they bought her several new toys and video games, and planned a day trip for her soon to visit her friend Imran at his farm over in Old-New-Henford.  “I can’t wait to meet all his animals!  Do you think Skittles will let me hold him?”

“If you do, be careful.  That rooster might be tame for him, but they’ve got nasty spurs.  If he fights at all, you drop him before you get hurt!”

“I will!  But he said he’s nice, especially if you give him lettuce leaves.  I’m going to try feeding him those first.”

“That sounds like a smart idea.”



Susan also splurged on meals Blair liked more often, even when they were on the expensive side and ones she was not a fan of herself.  Like most kids, Blair liked junky convenience food like pizza, chicken nuggets, and macaroni and cheese, but she had also developed a taste for the foods she tried on her trip to Mt. Komorebi and other unique and island ones she tried in San Myshuno and Sulani while visiting her grandparents.  Neither Susan nor Boyd had the time nor inclination to cook much beyond the basics, and if they found frozen food versions of them, they were often subpar and expensive for what they were.  Zoomers delivery was even more expensive, though, and going out to a restaurant for it took both time and money.

However, indulging Blair made her happy, and now that she was getting past her grief for her grandparents and adjusting to the addition of James to the household, they felt the least they could do was splurge on Zoomers more often to help her feel more special and appreciated.  Even when it was for something like that nigiri that still unfortunately reminded Susan of how sick she felt on the plane after returning from Mt. Komorebi.  But Blair liked it, and she was getting rather adept with those chopsticks, Susan noticed as she tried not to think about the miserable morning sickness that had not even been the poor fish’s fault after all.

[Cheezey]

But while the Wainwrights welcomed little James to the family, there was someone else who was thrilled about the good news as well.  Though he certainly had not been included in any birth announcements, Vladislaus Straud was well aware that James had been born and that Susan was no longer pregnant.  After he gave her what he felt a was reasonable amount of time to rest after coming home from the hospital, she was back at the top of his dining list.  Now, he was looking forward to that delectable gourmet plasma of hers once more.

It was late, but he decided that he would at least try the civilized approach first.  Perhaps Susan’s feisty attitude had quieted down some in the past weeks.  Though she and her husband had been rather rude when he last saw them, the recent deaths in her family might have given her a new perspective on mortality.  He had also sent her those kind sympathy flowers, and he had heard of the recent passing of her father as well.  Certainly, that second reminder of the fragility of life had to give her a newfound respect for what immortality had to offer.  Even if she was not willing to join him, the simple fact that she had remained friendly with the Vatores was a good sign.  Not that he expected them to do him any favors as far as talking him up, but if they made her and her family less hostile toward the vampire community in general, that was a positive.  Perhaps she could at least be convinced to allow him a willing drink and then be on his way.  It was not what he ultimately wanted, but an acceptable compromise for now.  It saved him the annoyance of oafish mad scientist threats of freeze rays from her husband and potential brutish posturing from her policeman brother, or worst of all, self-righteous whiny lectures from Caleb or Lilith.

The reeking stench of their garlic plant at the front door did not bode well for that, however.  Not if they left it there despite their friendship with the Vatores.  Surely, they did not still think that could stop him?  No matter.  Garlic and locked doors meant little to an ancient vampire that could teleport as mist.



Moments later, a black cloud appeared in the bedroom that Blair and James shared, and Vladislaus emerged.  He chose that room specifically instead of Susan and Boyd’s for a reason.



Now that Susan had her baby, he could not help but be curious about him.  While he normally cared little about mortals, as a vampire, he had a natural curiosity and a vested interest in those born into families of interest to him.  Did little James carry his mother’s delectable plasma genes?  He certainly hoped so.  If she produced two robust children with them, he would dine well for a long time to come.  “Hello there, child,” he whispered softly enough to not wake either him or Blair as he leaned over the bassinet.  He was a strong and healthy boy, he could tell.  Although he still had that generic baby look most newborns did while so young, looking closely, it appeared that his features might favor his mother more so than his father, although his hair was wisps of blond like his father’s.  His plasma scent, too, was more reminiscent of Boyd’s than Susan’s, minus the caffeine, of course.  A shame, Vladislaus thought.  Not a bad flavor, but not Susan’s incredible flavor profile, either.  Ah, well.  At least her daughter had it, and in a handful of years she would soon be old enough to drink from, too.



He turned from the bassinet and strode silently across the room to her bedside and watched her sleep.  She was a sweet young girl.  Pretty, too, although in a different way than her mother.  Still, he had no doubt that when she was grown, she would have her pick of suitors.  He hoped that if Susan had no more children that had their plasma, that this one would marry and have some.  It would be a shame if that tap ran dry, so to speak.  He planned to be around a long, long time to enjoy it, after all.

And on that note… did he hear someone up in the room outside?  He raised an eyebrow.  Well, then.  Best go and find out which of the adult Wainwrights that was and find out if it was time to dine or knock out.  As much as Boyd got on his nerves, harming Susan’s husband would only turn her more against him.  Therefore, his plan for handling Boyd was to just put him into a deep slumber to keep him quiet and out of the way while he got what he wanted from Susan with no interference.  If she gave it willingly, no harm done.  If she didn’t, well, that was unfortunate, but he was going to have that plasma one way or another, whether she liked it or not, and he was going to enjoy that meal without interference.



In another cloud of mist, he teleported silently into the living room, and when he reappeared, he was pleased to see that it was Susan in the kitchen.  She had thought that she heard something, but when the baby was quiet after opening her bedroom door, she supposed it was just a dream.  However, now that she was awake, her stomach was rumbling, so she decided to run to the fridge to grab a piece of cheese before heading back to bed.

Imagine her surprise when she closed the refrigerator door only to see Vladislaus Straud standing there, leering at her.  “Hello, Susan.  Long time no see.”

It was a good thing she had already swallowed her cheese, because she surely would have choked on it otherwise.  “Oh, my Watcher!  Vlad!”

“It’s good to see you again.”

“No, it’s not,” she whispered, terrified.  “What are you doing here?”  As if she didn’t know.  Panic welled up inside her and she hoped against hope that he had come straight for her and had not harmed Blair or the baby.  “Get out.”



“So, we’re still at this?  Even after all my gestures of goodwill?  My sincerest condolences on the loss of your father, by the way.”

“If you mean the flowers and the creepy texts, those were unwanted because I don’t want or need your sympathy.  I want you to respect my wishes to leave me and my family alone!  You can start by not breaking into my house in the middle of the night,” she snapped angrily.  “That’ll breed a hell of a lot more goodwill than you saying you’re sorry about Dad.”

“I’m not just saying that.  I mean it.  I know how painful it is to lose a loved one,” he argued, ignoring her point about breaking and entering entirely.  “After all this time, I hoped that you might be willing to at least talk with me.”



Susan groaned angrily.  “I don’t know how to say it any clearer.  I don’t want anything to do with you.  I never have.  Not when you first approached me, certainly not after you broke into my home and bit me, and not ever!  There’s nothing you can say or do that will change that.  Not now, and not ever!  Get that through your thick vampire skull already!”

“I see.  That’s unfortunate you feel that way, because for the months you’ve been carrying that little bundle of joy in the bedroom over there, I’ve been very much looking forward to enjoying that delicious plasma of yours.  That’s why I came here tonight.  The whole reason we’re having this conversation right now was that I hoped you would let me have it willingly.”



She turned around, seething.  “Oh, I’ll let you have it, all right, but not my plasma!  To use a phrase my dear late mother was fond of, I’d sooner sit on a pack of porcupines than let you have one single drop of my plasma, now or ever.  Now, get the hell out of my house and stay away from me and my family!”



That was all the rebellion and disrespect Vladislaus was willing to take, and he leered menacingly over her.  “You had your chance to do this civilly, but my patience has limits, even for the ones I like.  Now quiet yourself, and this will go easier for you.  You wouldn’t want to wake Boyd or Blair, would you?  Then I’d have to put them under, and no one would be able to get up and care for your baby should he need one of you.  I’m afraid you won’t be in much condition to do so once I’m done with you.”

Susan froze with dread.  Everything she knew about self-defense said to fight back loudly against a psycho attacking, because when they got you alone was when they did their worst, but Vladislaus was not the run-of-the-mill serial killer.  If what he wanted was her plasma, he would leave her alive to come back for more another time.  But it felt wrong, and it was both frightening and humiliating to be cowed by that creepy fanged lunatic.



Screw him!  I’m not going to let this llama scare me into submission!  Since he had already admitted in his warning that he had not put Boyd or Blair under, maybe a cry for help would get Boyd up and he could freeze him with that ray before he drank his fill.  “Help!  Boyd, help!”  She forced herself forward as far as she could toward their bedroom in a panic.  “Vlad’s here and he’s after me!”



“You stubborn, insolent woman!”  Vladislaus focused his powers on Susan and forced her into just enough of a groggy mesmerized state that she could not struggle.  She tried to resist, but she was tired enough that she fell under in less than a second, and he grabbed her stunned body and sank his fangs deep into her neck.  That first rush of her plasma tasted like an exquisite nectar would have to a mortal, and Vladislaus wished he could have savored it longer under less stressful conditions, but alas, he could hear Boyd stumbling around in the bedroom calling Susan’s name saying he was coming, and the baby crying in the other bedroom.



Blair had slept through her mother’s panicked shouting in the kitchen and Vladislaus creeping in her bedroom earlier, but she woke up immediately when James started crying.  He heard the commotion and woke up with an empty belly.  “Aw, what’s the matter?” Blair groaned with a tired yawn as she went over to the bassinet to check.  It was then that she heard something going on out in the main room and something just felt off.  “Maybe I better get Mom or Dad.”



Meanwhile, after waking up to Susan’s distress, Boyd managed to knock his glasses off his nightstand in his rush to find them and the freeze ray before remembering that he had shoved that under the couch the last time he tinkered with it, so he darted out of the bedroom to grab it hoping he would be able to aim well enough without his glasses on.  There was no time to find them.

Vladislaus heard both him and Blair emerge from their bedrooms and released Susan.  He’d had to drink more quickly than he wanted, but she had still been delicious and satisfying after such a long break.  Besides, not drinking for as long as he would have liked meant more for him to enjoy on the next drink, and a shorter recovery time from this one.  “You were delectable as always, my dear.  I look forward to having you again, and believe me, I will.”  He smugly licked his fangs and wiped the last traces of her plasma off his lips as she staggered back half-conscious, struggling to remain standing through the dizziness and plasma loss.



The freeze ray was under the far end of the couch, and Boyd had to shove Blair aside and out of the way and danger to run into the kitchen, but he awkwardly ran so fast that he overstrode all the way across to the counter.  As he straightened to aim, Susan was right between him and Vladislaus.  “You’re an iceberg, llama!  Duck, Susan,” he warned as he took aim.

“Put away your toy, fool,” Vladislaus hissed back contemptuously as he dis-apparated into mist form and teleported out of the house.



It was a good thing that the Wainwrights did not have any close neighbors.  One might already think them a bit eccentric with their odd collection of plants like the Sixam mosquito traps and the pots of garlic at the doors, not to mention the advanced engineering equipment where most people had little more than a handyman’s bench or gardening tools.  But that night, Boyd looked absolutely unhinged as he ran out of the house into the rain in the middle of the night in his underwear brandishing the freeze ray looking for and shouting at Vladislaus.  The eeriest part was that his expression looked almost pleased, as if a part of him was excited, even thrilled at a chance to give that vampire a taste of cold vengeance.  “Show your miserable fanged hide here again and I’ll put you on ice for good!  They’ll never find you!  You’re not the only one who knows a bunch of weirdos with connections, you son of a llama!”



Inside, Blair bawled with fright and her cries were enough to keep the groggy Susan conscious despite her bite.  Instead of passing out in the kitchen or on the couch, she was able to stumble to her room with a very upset Blair in tow.  “Vlad came back!  He came in and bit you again!  We can’t stop him!  The garlic didn’t work, and Dad couldn’t stop him with the freeze ray!”  It was apparent that she had pinned her hopes on those measures, and she had believed they were safe from him.  “What’re we going to do?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.”  Susan was exhausted and stumbled towards her bed.  “We’ll—we’ll figure something out.”

“But what?”  She looked around wildly.  “Where’s Dad?  He went after Vlad!  Did he get him too?”

“I think he’s making sure he’s gone.  Or trying to freeze him.  He’s… oh.  Oh, sweetie.  I’m so tired.”  Her knees buckled, and Blair looked up at her, worried.

“Lie down, Mom.  He took your plasma.  Don’t die.  Please don’t die.”  She cried.  “Should I call an ambulance?”

“No.  I’ll be okay.  It’s not even as bad as last time.”  She closed her eyes and sat on the edge of the bed.  “Go and… go and stay with James.  Make sure he’s okay.  Vlad and other vampires leave kids alone, but I’d feel better if you were with him.  Give him a bottle or change his diaper if he needs it.”

She nodded.  She could do that.  She was a good big sister and a good Sim Scout.  She helped in a time of need.

“And if you see Dad, send him in.”

“Okay.”



Boyd came in a few moments later, so Susan never went to sleep and got up again after hearing him come inside.  Despite his protest that she should rest, she followed him to the other bedroom.  James was fussy due to a wet diaper, which Blair had just started to get a clean one for changing, but Susan told her to go ahead to bed while Boyd finished changing the baby.  “Sorry that creep interrupted everyone’s sleep, including yours,” he told him gently.  “But at least we got this little mess taken care of.”  He patted the onesie back into place and tossed the dirty diaper into the pail.



Meanwhile, Susan tucked Blair into bed the same comforting way she used to when she was much younger after she had nightmares.  “You try to get some sleep if you can, too.  I know it’s hard after what happened, but you need to try.  It’s important.”  She kissed her.  “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom.  I don’t want him to get you or Dad or James or anyone else.”

“I know.  I don’t, either.  We’re going to do our best to find a way to stop him.  I can promise you that.”



Boyd pulled Susan close after she finished tucking Blair in.  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t get there in time to freeze Vlad.  I let you down and failed you.”

“It’s not your fault.  I don’t even know how he got in.  He crept up on me in the freaking kitchen.  I just woke up because I thought I heard something.  I thought maybe the baby was up, but then when he was quiet, I didn’t come in here, so I just went to get a snack and there he was.  Obviously, what I heard was him creeping around the house.”  She sighed in disgust and rubbed her sore neck.  “If he can just poof in and out as smoke like that, those garlic plants are useless.  Which Lilith showed us anyway when she ran past them.”

“Yeah, but they still annoy him, so we might as well leave them.  I’m for anything that lets him know he’s not welcome and gets on his nerves.”  He frowned.  “Still wish I could’ve frozen the llama.”

“Think we should call Jonathan and ask what he thinks?  I know a restraining order’s rather pointless, but ignoring him hasn’t helped, either.”

“We could tell him, but I’m not sure what advice he’d have that he hasn’t already given us.  We should probably let Caleb and Lilith know what happened, although I doubt they’ll be surprised.  She warned us.”

Susan bit her lip and tried not to cry.  “I just didn’t expect him to be so brazen.  Before you came out, he had the nerve to ask me to let him willingly bite me, like we could be all friendly about it.  As if I should just offer up my neck and let him have at me while we did some friendly chit-chat, because he was going to take it anyway.  Make it easy on myself.  When I told him what he could do with that offer, he dropped the niceties, and told me he’d have my plasma whether I liked it or not.  That’s when I shouted for you, and you saw what happened then.”

“He’s… well, I don’t need to use all those forbidden words yet again, especially not in front of all the tender ears in here.”  He hugged her again.  “I’m so sorry, honey.  But whatever it takes, we’ll figure out something.”


Author’s Note: Sorry about the month between updates! This was the last full chapter of NaNoWriMo material, but I’ve been super busy with my offline life gardening projects and friends visiting from out of town, plus a new laptop that I love now that I’m used to it!  I hope you enjoyed the return of creepy old Vlad! He may be a jerk, but I love writing him. I’m super excited about the Horse Ranch release, but it’s not content that applies to this save much, sadly. That said… I’m very inspired for a new one. Yes, it means more Wainwrights. I love them! Specifically, an AU to both this and my TS3 Brilliant Minds. But no worries, I will not abandon my current stories! If anything, all of this has re-ignited my Sims passions. Thanks for reading, those of you who are still here!

[Cheezey]

Chapter 29

When Jonathan came over to discuss what happened, they were surprised that he was in a worse mood than Susan or anyone else.  “Hi, Uncle Jonathan!  Mom’s been reading about bats and sound waves to see if there’s something that can be engineered as a dog-whistle like alarm to annoy Fangstalker away, and Dad has James out on the back patio and… are you okay?”

Susan looked up from her book.  “Yeah.  You look more miserable than I do, and I’m the one who got chomped.  You must’ve had a hell of a day.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to make it all about me after your undead stalker came back for a midnight snack, but… yeah, today bit the big one.”

She shot him a look.  “Really?”

He rolled his eyes.  “Oh, don’t you start, too.  I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Okay.  But that phrasing…”

He gave her the same look back.  “Going to say ‘sucked’?”

“Now that was on purpose.”

“Yeah, okay.  Sorry.  Like I said, it’s been one of those days.  Between my last shift being nothing but llama loads from beginning to end, finding a fresh stack of bills in the mailbox from the living bloodsuckers going after Mom and Dad’s estate that I’ve got to forward to Miss Hell’s office, and Maaike giving me a bunch of crap over stupid plum this morning,” he rolled his eyes and made a face, “only to find out you’ve been attacked again by Mr. Creepy Fangstalker, I’m about on my last nerve.”  He sighed.  “So, how are you?  Are you all right?”

“I’m tired, my neck’s sore, and I feel like I donated a pint too many at the plasma drive, but otherwise, I’m fine.  Physically, anyway.  Psychologically, I’m absolutely infuriated.  Not to mention incredibly creeped out that he got in and attacked me again.  It seems he’s powerful enough that he can turn into mist and teleport through walls, so apparently garlic and any talismans and wards that are supposed to work are all utterly useless against him.”  She set her book on the couch and followed him outside with Blair.  “I am curious about whatever you did that set Maaike off, though.”



“Nice.  You automatically assume it was my fault?” he retorted as Susan went over to the bassinet and picked up James while Blair sat down with Boyd at the chess table.

“Hi, Jonathan,” he greeted him.  “How’s it going?”

“Ugh.  Don’t ask.”

“Ah.  One of those days.  Sorry to hear it.”

“It’s all right.  Not your fault.”

“No.  He said it was Maaike’s,” Blair added.

Jonathan pointed a finger in her direction.  “Hey, don’t tell Maaike I said that, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“But it’s what you implied,” Susan said.  “So, what happened?  Just a lover’s spat?”

“I thought you were staying neutral in this kind of thing.”

“I’m just offering a friendly ear as someone that knows you and how easily you put your foot in your mouth.  If you were to leave the details ambiguous enough for me to maintain neutrality, I might still be able to nudge you in the direction of the apology you probably owe to help smooth things over between you two, that’s all.”

“Mmm-hmm.  Well, in the spirit of fairness, I hope you’d nudge her the same way, because it was my plum that got jumped out of nowhere this morning because she was in a mood.  Just saying.  Now keep that to yourself, and I’ll say no more about it.”

“Fine, if that’s what you want.”

“It is.  Besides, I came here to help you deal with Fangstalker, not talk about my drama.”  He waved his hand dismissively.  “So, why don’t you hand me my nephew and let me see how dorky you and Boyd have made the poor kid so far, and you tell me in detail what happened.”



They also invited the Vatores over so they could brainstorm together, but they arrived much closer to dusk, as one would expect.  To everyone’s surprise, they brought another friend with them, Markus Crow.  Although no one, including him, explicitly stated such, it was an easy assumption from his demeanor and familiarity with Caleb and Lilith that he was also a vampire.  He was a rough-looking man with piercing red eyes—contacts, one would presume, if they did not know otherwise.  He was styled as a rocker and appeared to be about the same age as the Vatores, although if he was a vampire like them, their true ages were anyone’s guess.  He was friendly, however, and had a surprisingly upbeat and playful attitude for someone with red eyes and dressed all in black leather.  Boyd chatted with him for quite a while.

Inside, Lilith sat on the couch and talked with Jonathan and Blair.  “Nice to meet you, Lilith.  Sorry I missed my chance the first time when I got called in to work from the Humor and Hijinks festival.  They told me about you and your brother and how you’ve been helping them deal with Vlad.”

“Yes.  I’m sorry he went after Susan again.  I knew he would.”  She sighed.  “I tried to talk him into leaving her alone, but when it comes to his pet favorites, he’s downright obsessive.”

“You mean stalkerish and psychotic.”

“That’s another way to put it, yes.”

“He did you that way, too, huh?”

“Boyd told you?”

“He mentioned it in passing, but it’s in your body language, too.”  He gave her a sympathetic look.  “I’ve got a psych degree.  I use that stuff on the job a lot, so I notice that kind of thing.  Sorry you went through that.”

“It was a long time ago.  I’m past it now, and I’ve made my peace with it.  It just rubs me the wrong way when I see it happening to someone else.”

Blair looked from Jonathan to Lilith.  “How come you still talk to him?  You’re a vampire now, too, and you have the same powers he does.  He can’t bite you anymore.”

She gave her a wan smile.  “I wish it was that simple to be done with him, but it’s not.  Old vampires like Vlad are very powerful, and they have a sort of sway over the vampires that they make.  Not like complete control, but an influence to an extent.  It’s almost like being your parent, but as a vampire.  There’s always a connection there, whether you want it or not.  Vlad created me, so I’ll never fully be rid of him.  Even if I ran off to the wilds of the Selvadorada jungle swearing I’d never see or speak to him again, he could track me down if he wanted, which he probably would, because what Vlad hates more than anything is being told ‘no.’  His ego is the size of Mt. Komorebi, and he can’t stand anyone not giving him or doing what he wants.  After so many years, I’ve come to realize that the best way to handle him is to try and talk some sense into him when I can.”  She sighed again.  “But he rarely listens.  To me or anyone else.”



Caleb asked Susan to chat in private to discuss questions he had about the attack.  “All right, but I’m not sure what you need to ask me that my family can’t hear.”

“It’s nothing personal about you exactly.  There are just some things I wanted to talk to you about that I thought might be too sensitive for Blair given her age, and I wanted to leave it up to you to decide if she was ready to hear them or not.”

“All right.  She’s used to us talking as scientists, so she can take some bodily fluid discussion without a freak-out, but she was pretty upset the night of the attack, so I appreciate you considering her feelings.”

“No problem.  Vlad didn’t try biting her, did he?”

“No, not as far as I know, thankfully.”

“Good.  I don’t think he will, not yet anyway, since she’s still way too young for the vast majority of our community to consider, but I just wanted to make sure.  She has your plasma profile, though.  You know that, right?”

Susan nodded, a pit of dread in her stomach at the reminder.

“That means you’ll have to have that ‘talk’ with her at some point along with all the other ‘growing up’ talks.  The ‘Vlad’s going to think you’re fine dining’ talk.”

She knew that already on some level, but having Caleb spell it out just made it that much worse.  Vladislaus stalking her was bad enough, but knowing that he would eventually stalk Blair when she matured was absolutely gut-wrenching.  “I know.  Poor Blair.”

“I wish I could tell you Vlad wouldn’t do that, but unfortunately, I know him.  For what it’s worth, he’ll probably leave your son alone.  James inherited Boyd’s plasma profile.”

“There’s that at least.”  Susan eyed Caleb curiously.  “I know it’s weird, but I can’t help but ask.  Does my and Blair’s type really taste that much better?”

“To Vlad it does.  Be honored, you meet the esteemed high requirements of Count Vladislaus Straud’s personal plasma snobbery,” he intoned on a faux snooty note.  “It’s funny to me because I consider myself a foodie even after this many years as a vampire, but I’m not as obnoxious as him.  Yes, I still eat and enjoy mortal food on occasion, believe it or not.  I never let my stomach wither.  But as far as plasma goes, different flavors appeal to different vampires.  Just like with mortals, tastes are subjective, and Vlad is a stuffy old plasma snob the same way old money rich types with nectar caves and bottles worth thousands of simoleons get haughty about their nectar.  He’ll drink anything if he’s thirsty enough, but given the choice, he wants the good stuff and keeps a list.  Kind of like Father Winter’s naughty and nice, except it’s more like ‘exquisite,’ ‘excellent,’ ‘acceptable,’ ‘reasonable,’ ‘passable,’ and as long as he’s been around, he’s well-traveled with it.  Guess where you are in Brindleton Bay?”

Susan sighed.  “I always was an overachiever.  What about Boyd and James?”

“Somewhere between acceptable and reasonable, I think, depending on how caffeinated Boyd is.  Vlad hates getting the jitters.  Speaking of that, though, Lilith would disagree.  She’d take Boyd’s over yours, hands down.  She enjoys his particular base profile, and she used to be a coffee snob and was addicted to caffeine.  He would be like fine nectar to her.  And Markus?  He could give two plumbobs about the base profile, as long as it’s a heavy thick plasma full of triglycerides. Let him catch your brother on a stakeout amped up with takeout and donuts and he’d be salivating.  You’ll usually find him looking for his prospects late at night around food stands or bars.  It’s hilarious when he gets tricked by someone who ordered some huge deep fried whatever as a treat only to find out they eat healthy most of the time and he gets what he calls ‘skim plasma.’  You should hear him rant about the waste of time.”

“And you?  As a foodie, did that change to being a plasma snob yourself?”

“When I have it, I enjoy a variety of flavors.  I’m not like Vlad, though.  I appreciate any friend who lets me drink willingly.  But I don’t like hurting mortals and I don’t hunt them or drink from the unwilling.  A lot of the time I just buy plasma packs of donated plasma or create my own with plasma fruit or the old-fashioned fish and frog recipe.  Vlad calls that subsistence living, but they have an interesting taste and there are some creative recipes online if you know where to look.”



The Vatores, Markus, and Jonathan visited well into the evening, and after moonrise, Boyd spoke with Caleb out back while everyone else was in the living room.  “From everything we’ve talked about, there’s nothing to stop Vlad from coming back, is there?  There never was.”

“Other than his own sense of decency, no.  We hoped we might be able to appeal to whatever’s left of that, but once again, we overestimated what’s there.  There are times Lilith says she doesn’t think he’s as far gone as I do, but I half-wonder if that’s because she’s, you know, his.”

“It really affects you that much, huh?”

“More than you like sometimes.  I think she forgets what it was like when we were first turned.  What it did to her and Lily, hell, all three of us.  Maybe that makes it easier for her.  Or maybe it’s Vlad’s influence that does it, blurs the memories.  I don’t know.  I admit I don’t really like thinking much about those days, either.  Neither of us are who we were then anymore.”

“And you’re not his, right?”

“No.  My creator’s Missy.  She’s one of Vlad’s, which technically makes him my grand-creator.  But as far as vampire bonds go, that’s very weak.  Not that it stops him from trying to tell me how to live my life and butt into my business all the time.  So don’t let him try and wear Susan down with that line, that if she joins him, it’ll be over.  Because no, it’ll just be a different eternal llama load.  She’ll endure what Lilith does, forever.”

Boyd frowned.  “Susan’s not considering it.”

“I didn’t say she was.  I was just saying that Vlad might try that line of reasoning.  He did on Lilith.”

“And Missy, too, I imagine.”

Caleb chortled.  “Doubt he had to.  Missy was into that.  You don’t know her.  She’s not Vlad, but… there’s a reason I brought Markus into this and not her.”

“Which brings me back to why we’re here tonight.  What can we do about Vlad at this point?  He can’t just keep coming in and biting Susan!  We can’t live like this!”



“He can, and will,” Caleb emphasized.  “Realistically, you’ve only got a couple of options.  You can try and make yourselves as inaccessible and unappealing as possible, and hope Vlad loses interest and moves on.  It’s… possible, but it’ll completely disrupt, uproot, and make your lives miserable, more so than now.  Think witness protection, but from someone harder to evade than organized crime.  My cousin Lily pulled it off, but it was a hell of a price to pay, ending up a werewolf.  Arguably worse than what I am, and the Watcher knows I’ve got my own issues with my vampirism, and I doubt you or Susan or Blair want to go there, either.”

“And our other options are, what?  Just give Vlad what he wants?  Rip out the garlic and have Susan and Blair, when she’s old enough, just extend their necks and tell Vlad to have at them and please just don’t hurt them too bad and be gentle like a nice abusive llama?”  Boyd wanted to vomit with disgust as he said it.  “I rarely presume to speak for Susan, but I think I can safely say it’d be over both our dead bodies that we’d be all right with handing Blair or James over to that.  I will say it’d be over my dead body, and yeah, I know Vlad would oblige.  As for Susan, if she ever did have to give herself over to that, I can almost guarantee you that it’d be as a last resort and probably only be to protect Blair or James, and living like that would wreck her!  In case you haven’t noticed, she’s a proud and very independent soul.  Being forced to be Vlad’s pet slave snack…”

“I get it.  I do.  And Lilith and I will do what we can to help, but as you can see, I can’t promise we can stop Vlad.  He’s very old, he’s very powerful, and he’s the single most stubborn and arrogant llama I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.  We can warn you when he’s around, we can give him plum, we can try to change his mind, we can give you inside information and tricks and tips and try to run interference where we can, but…”

“But there’s nothing you can do to make him make him stop barging in and biting her if he’s determined to do it.”

“Unless you want me to turn you two into vampires yourselves so you’re my fledglings and only his ‘great-grand-disappointments,’ that’s about it.”  He gestured for them to sit at the Wainwrights’ patio chess table for a game while they continued their conversation.



“Is that what he calls you?  A grand-disappointment?”

“I consider it a badge of honor.”

“Well, I appreciate your nuclear option offer, but no.  You vampires are fascinating, but I don’t want to be one.  Or a werewolf for that matter.”  He paused.  “Though it’s interesting that both times you and Lilith brought it up, you mentioned how it caused a rift with your cousin when it sounds like she only did it to avoid Vlad.  If you don’t mind my asking, why is that?  I know there’s rivalry between vampires and werewolves, but I would’ve thought that was more of a cultural thing, and it wouldn’t apply to someone you already knew and cared about.”



Caleb closed his eyes.  “It’s a long story and more complicated than that, but it runs deeper than cultural, as you put it.  Vampires and werewolves have a long history of detesting each other.  It’s not so much personal with us and Lily, but the clannishness of all the others, the influence of Vlad, of her pack… We’ve kept our distance because we care, not because we don’t.  At least on our end.  I’d like to think it’s the same for her.”

Boyd found that interesting.  Insight into both Caleb and Lilith on a personal level, and insight into the greater vampire and werewolf communities as well, the latter of which they knew very little about comparatively.  He made a mental note to browse the archives on that at work when he had the time, and cross-reference what werewolves might know about their weaknesses.  He had never met a werewolf that he knew of.  None worked at lab, at least none who were open about being such.

“Be careful if you go poking around Moonwood Mill,” Caleb warned, picking up on his thoughts.  “Even in broad daylight, when it’s not the full moon, the wolves react unpredictably to nosy outsiders.  Some might be nice and welcoming to humans.  They might even seem civilized and normal.  Lily’s pack claims to be like that.  Others?  They might just be kind because they think you’re prey or a plaything.  Someone to hunt or add to their pack, whether you like it or not.”  He moved his pawn.  “Sound familiar?”



He tried not to let the mind-reading get to him, but it was one of those things about vampires that certainly did.  “Heh.  Feral Vlads?”

“Yes, and at least Vlad makes a pretense of having some civility first.  And he bathes.  May not change his wardrobe more than every century or two, but he knows what a shower is and doesn’t have fleas.  Some of those Wildfangs…” Caleb wrinkled his nose in distaste before resuming his usual charming demeanor.  “Anyway, just be careful.  Vampires like Lilith and I aren’t welcome in those parts any more than the wolves are welcome in Forgotten Hollow.  We can’t protect you there.  If you do go for some ‘scientific research’ like you did in my town,” he stared at him intently, “keep your wits about you and bring that freeze ray if you go anywhere but a very public place.  They’re stronger than they look, with keener senses, even in human form.  And whatever anyone else tells you, no matter how interesting it sounds, don’t go anywhere near anyone or anything related to someone named Greg.  Just don’t.”

“Okay, but now I’ve got to ask.  Who’s Greg?”



Caleb locked eyes with him, the moonlight reflecting across his pale features in an ethereal way that sent chills down Boyd’s spine, a subtle reminder of what he truly was, and was capable of, as he spoke in a low and serious tone.  “I’ll put it this way.  He’s someone even Vlad would rather not deal with, and before you wonder if the enemy of your enemy might be your friend, don’t.  He’s not.”



Although Caleb’s warning about Greg only intrigued Boyd more, it did sufficiently rattle him enough to heed his advice about poking around in Moonwood Mill for now.  However, he did search the occult archives at the lab during downtime.  His workload was such that he could not spend hours going through it, and he was not able to find anything on anyone named “Greg” specifically in the werewolf research, although he did find two references to a man named Greggorius Lunvik and mentions of other members of an ancestral werewolf family line bearing that surname.  He had no idea if that was who the mysterious Greg was or not, though.

The rest of what he came across he mostly knew already, aside from some specifics about the effects of the lunar cycle and the deeper history the werewolves had with the spellcasters.  Boyd did not know they had originated amongst them, and that vampires had been the same, both essentially experiments gone horribly wrong.  “Now there’s some proof that you can screw up with magic as catastrophically as you can with science,” Boyd mused darkly.  He wondered if any spellcasters had ever worked at the lab.  They might have been able to have some real fun bending the laws of physics, he imagined, before an alarm signaled it was time to get back to work and check the results of an experiment.



After taking off his glasses briefly to give his eyes a break from staring at a microscope too long, he asked his colleagues what they knew about werewolves and the vampire-werewolf rivalry.  “Werewolves?” Supriya asked, surprised.  “Is that what you were poking around in the archives looking up?  What do you need to know about them for?”

“I was just curious because I know vampires don’t like them, and—”



Kalamainu’u laughed.  “Sure!  I think I know the real reason.  After all, you’ve been casually asking vampire questions for a while and I wondered, knowing how geeky you are, but this cinches it.  I never would’ve pegged you for a Dusk Glow fan, Boyd.  How adorable!”  She cackled again.  “What other preteen romance series are you secretly a fan of, huh?”



“Oh, you’re hilarious,” Boyd groused, even as Supriya also started laughing over at the chemistry station where she’d returned to check on her serum.

“You did make a comparison to one of the characters last week,” she pointed out, much to Kalamainu’u’s amusement, but not his.  While sometimes Kalamainu’u’s pointed remarks could be funny, there were times he found them grating and obnoxious, and clearly meant to troll and needle.  This was one of them.

“My daughter reads it and talks about it, and we took her to see the movies.  Of course, I know what it is, and how accurate it may or may not be, although no, that is not the reason I’m curious, thank you very much.”

“Okay, Mr. Touchy.”  Kalamainu’u hand-waved away his irate reaction.  “I get it.  You want to find out for Blair.”

Boyd let out an aggravated sigh and lowered his voice.  “If you must know, and please keep this in this room if you don’t mind,” he gave both her and Supriya pointed looks before continuing, “I have a little ongoing vampire issue.  Meaning I’ve had some run-ins, without saying more, out of respect to the identity of occult statuses involved, which I imagine is something someone like you might appreciate, Kalamainu’u.  I’d like to know what all said vampires might be capable of, how to stop them in an emergency, and I’m curious about how werewolves might factor into such a situation.”



That brought Supriya back over.  “Wait.  Do these vampires live in Brindleton Bay with us?  Do any werewolves?  Should I start growing garlic and wolfsbane in my herb garden or being extra careful letting my pets out on full moons?”

“No.  Not as far as I know.  This has been going on a while, so if they haven’t bothered you yet, they probably won’t.  Like I said, I don’t want to get into it too much, but one of them has been a real pain in the plumbob.”

“Not the neck?”

“Really?” Boyd shot Kalamainu’u another look.

“Okay, sorry.  I’ll be serious.”

“Anyway, like I was saying, and please keep this between the three of us, this seems to be a thing with my family.  You should be fine.  It’s just that one of them I’m on better terms with mentioned something about werewolves and it got me curious.  That’s all.  So, I thought I’d see what we know about them here.”

Supriya was relieved, but also concerned.  “Well, I’m no expert, but one thing I do know is that vampires and werewolves are both dangerous.  You’re lucky you haven’t gotten bitten… or have you?”  She gave him a double take.  “They didn’t bite or try to turn you, did they?”

“No.  I haven’t as of yet.  Fear not, I have no valid work excuse to dodge that annoying collection work in the desert sun and stick one of you with it.”  He figured it was better to just not mention the part about Susan since it would just worry her needlessly, as he doubted Vladislaus or any of the others were interested in Supriya or her family at present.  “But I don’t suppose either of you know anything about them you could tell me…?”



“Hah.  Seriously, I don’t know much about vampires or werewolves,” Kalamainu’u admitted.  “My people know about as much about occult land-dwellers as you regular humans do.  Like I’ve said before, I took this job to learn about the mysteries of the world beyond the sea myself.  So, I can’t help you with any insider information there.”

“Our archives said they both came from spellcasters way back when, as experiments gone wrong.”

“If that’s the case, then I doubt the spellcaster community wants to talk about them, either,” Supriya mused.  “I know I’m not particularly proud of my screw-ups.  But maybe you could try going to Glimmerbrook and asking.  Might be safer than Forgotten Hollow or Moonwood Mill, since we don’t have any spellcasters, vampires, or werewolves here that I know of.”

Kalamainu’u raised an eyebrow.  “Unless you get a cranky one that doesn’t like nosy outsiders asking questions, and they turn you into a frog for asking.  Besides, their highest sages that would be the ones most likely to be experts on that kind of thing reside in another realm.  That much I do know.  That’s also where their knowledge is kept.  You might find some spellcasters out and about here sometimes, like you can occasionally find my people on land, but their power lies there, like ours does in the sea.”

“I’ve heard that, too.  I wouldn’t know how to get there, anyway.”  Boyd sighed and glanced at the clock.  “But I’ve got an experiment I’ve got to get back to before it goes kablooie, so I’ll have to think on it.  Thanks for the brainstorm session, though.”

“No problem,” Supriya replied.  “Stay safe.  Remember, they’re dangerous.”

Kalamainu’u nodded with her.  “Yeah.  Watch your neck, no pun intended.  Or if you’re dealing with wolves, anything they could chew on.  I hear they’re not very discriminating.”

“Not if they’re anything like Blue.”  Supriya wrinkled her nose as she went back to her workstation.  “Silly dog came in with the nastiest rotting dead crab in her mouth the other day.  Stank up the whole kitchen.”



The conversation with his co-workers left Boyd with some food for thought as he finished his experiment and moved onto another project, upgrading the lab’s sim ray prototype with a transform feature.  That was something he was especially excited about, being able to transform matter from one state of being to another in such a way.  As he applied the upgrade, he could not help but wonder.  If it was a success, and it worked, would such a thing work on, say, an ancient vampire who wouldn’t leave his wife and potentially, in the future, his daughter alone?  True, the ethics of such a thing were highly questionable, but a dark part of him could not help but think ethics never troubled Vladislaus Straud.  Would it really be so wrong to just transform him into a fence post if he came around and tried to bite Susan again?  It was not like they had not warned him repeatedly to buzz off…



Of course, such a scenario was pure fantasy, twisted or not, if the ray did not even work.  Boyd had to test it, regardless, and it was company property.  Most likely he would never even do such a thing if it came down to it.  Technically, it would be a crime if turning someone into an inanimate object was murder.  But was it?  Because vampires were already dead, or undead, which was not quite alive, and could you really kill something wasn’t technically alive?  True, vampires had consciousness, but by some spiritual beliefs, they had no soul, and that was as good as dead by some belief systems.  Though Boyd was not sure how courts, or even his own conscience, ultimately, would rule on that.   He did usually not relish hurting others, even llamas.  He liked to think of himself as a decent guy.  But he did genuinely despise Vladislaus, so it was tempting to make an exception in his case, with an acceptable amount of guilt afterward.  Provided it happened in self-defense, or in defense of Susan, Blair, or James, anyway.

He pondered this as he went out onto the patio to test the sim ray upgrade on a folding chair.  He left his glasses inside in case the experiment blew up.  Insurance would not cover a new pair for three more months if they got damaged, and his prescription was pricey.



When the folding chair morphed into an infant’s mobile, Boyd was both thrilled and intrigued.  It worked!  The randomness was unexpected, though.  While they were not entirely sure how the molecular destabilization would pan out, they had expected a tad more predictability to it.  At least, a similar type of chair, or other piece of furniture.  He supposed that a mobile was furniture, technically, although not in the sense that he imagined.  “Hmm.  That’s an interesting development.”  He noted it in his observation data and looked around, his previous train of thought chugging through his mind once more.  What would a vampire turn into?  An object?  A bat?  Or perhaps just a human?  Or maybe a spellcaster?  What if he turned into something unexpected like a mermaid?  Wouldn’t Kalamainu’u love Vlad for a swim buddy? he thought with a dark smirk as he imagined him in that dusty old coat sporting a fish tail. That gave him another idea.  Was there a way to change a vampire to something else like a mermaid, a werewolf, or even a regular spellcaster?  Or were they too far gone for such a thing?  Perhaps that was something he and Susan could look into as well.  It was food for thought, at any rate.  He made a mental note to follow up on that as he picked up the mobile and headed back inside to finish his work for the day.

[Cheezey]

Chapter 30

Intriguing as those theories at the lab were, following up on them ended up taking a back burner to the everyday to-do list at home.  James was growing more by the day, and it had been some time since Blair was that little.  Both Boyd and Susan could have sworn that she had not been nearly as energetic, either, but Blair “helpfully” pointed out that they were older now, so maybe that was why he seemed like so much more of a handful.



“We’re not that old,” Susan huffed, irked to be called such when her mid-life birthday was still a good way off.  While Blair played outside, she vented to Boyd while he added a safety strap upgrade to the changing table.  “She makes it sound like we’re halfway to our pensions.”

“It stings.  But try not to take it personally.  Kids that age sometimes don’t have a filter, and you remember what it was like at her age.  All adults seem old and stodgy, especially your parents.”

“Hmph.  Your mother always was old and stodgy.  At least in spirit.”

Boyd snorted.  “Say that too many times and she might cross back over and haunt you.”

“Oh, you know I loved Myra, but come on.”

“Be that at as it may, my point is that a kid like Blair is always going to look at someone our age and see a grown-up, an authority figure, and think of them as older.  Then she adds her age, which from her perspective is forever, to that, and the brain goes, wow, they were always that old, how old must they be now?  Kid logic.”  He shrugged.

Susan leaned against the doorjamb.  “Maybe.  Though she doesn’t call Jonathan old.”

“That’s because he gives her junk food and sugar, tells endless fart jokes with her, and lets her get away with everything he possibly can get away with.”

“So, because he’s a childish troll,” she said with a wry smirk.

“I’d have said the proverbial ‘cool uncle,’ but yes.  Same mental wavelength as the pre-teen.”



Childish pre-teen moments aside, Blair was becoming more independent and doing her own thing more often.  Boyd and Susan got her a bike, which she took to learning to ride fairly quickly, and soon she was scooting all around their neighborhood of Brindleton Bay on her own adventures.  She often went to the pond, the creek, or the beach to fish or look for nature things for scouts or would sometimes ride around on flights of fancy imagining she was the heroine of some epic tale, saving the world.  At first, they worried about her, but before long, they realized she was a cautious enough rider to not try the sorts of stunts that landed kids in the hospital, and she was always home before dark.  With Vladislaus lurking, that was a hard and fast rule, but she always heeded it.

Still, both Boyd and Susan wished that she had a friend to ride with more often.  While she talked about kids from school, she very rarely had any over or went to their homes, and it was clear that they were for the most part friendly acquaintances rather than good friends.  She was still quite introverted and seemed content being by herself most of the time.  If they suggested something more social, she did not protest.  When she was with kids her age, she seemed to get along fine with them, so they were not concerned, and had just come to accept that she was a bit of a loner by nature.



One exception was her friend Imran from Henford-on-Bagley.  She had grown quite fond of her long-distance friend that she met at her grandfather’s funeral, and they spoke via text quite often.  Blair was very excited when she finally got the chance to go and visit him on his farm.

“Your house is so big!  You’ve got so much room to do stuff here, even inside!  My whole house would probably fit in half of your downstairs.”

“It’s an old farmhouse that’s supposed to fit a lot of people.  My family’s lived here for generations.  It’s not a mansion or like we’re rich Landgraabs or anything, though.  Cool as that would be.”

“Well, you’ve already got your own room, so you’re ahead of me, having to share with my baby brother.”

“Still, it’d be nice to be able to pay someone else to shovel the manure when it’s my turn.”  He showed her down the hall to his room.



“And your room is so big.  It’s bigger than the one I have to share.  My house is so small.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it and all, but you just have so much… space!  I’m always stacking stuff and tripping over things, and it’s even worse now that James is in there.”

“What happened to the room you told me they were going to put in?”

Blair sighed.  “They say there’s never enough money.  Bills keep going up.  They keep complaining about the taxes in Brindleton Bay and the cost of Dad’s commute to Oasis Springs and stuff.  And they’re always tired and grouchy, probably because of James, but you know, he’s in my room keeping me up, too.  It’s not like I sleep through it all the time.”

“That’s another thing I’d do if I was Landgraab rich.  I’d give you money for your own room!” Imran declared, and Blair grinned.

“You were already my best friend, but now you definitely are!”



“Well, that ought to make somebody very happy,” Imran’s older sister Maira quipped as she invited herself into the room, giving her brother a knowing look before turning to Blair.

Imran rolled his eyes.  “Sure.  Come right in.  Don’t knock or anything.”

“Hi, Maira.”  Blair noticed she looked different than the last time she saw her, but she remembered she had a birthday recently.  “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.  See, Blair didn’t mind me saying hello,” she remarked to Imran.

“Yeah, well, you still could’ve knocked and not been rude.”

“Okay, sorry, Mr. Touchy.  I just figured when you’d been so excited to see your—”

Imran shot her a look that could have frozen over Oasis Springs in the heat of summer.

“Friend, that I would say hi.  I only met her the once.”  Maira turned to Blair.  “He talks about you a lot, and how you guys talk about how different Brindleton Bay is from here and stuff.  I’ve never been there.  The beach sounds amazing.  He also said your parents are scientists that invent cool things and grow weird plants, not like our everyday crops.”

“Oh, you mean like the Sixam mosquito traps?  That’s crazy stuff Dad brings home.  But you have fun animals you can play with like the chickens and llamas and cows!  I don’t even get to have a dog or a cat.  I tried to take a turtle once from Sulani and my mom made me put it back.”

Maira sighed dreamily.  “I’d love to go to Sulani someday.  You’re so lucky you got to go there.”

“That’s where my grandma and grandpa lived.  The ones whose funeral I met Imran and you at.  My grandpa was from Henford as a kid.”

Imran stood up.  “I still bet some of my family probably knew some of your family like a hundred years ago or something.”

“Probably,” agreed Maira.  “Our family was like all over the place in Old New Henford.  Dad has the genealogy somewhere if you’re ever bored enough to go through it all.”

“I dunno.  I heard a story from a kid at school where if you do too much of that research, you can cause a fae trickster changeling to appear that comes and tries to take over your life.”

Blair laughed.  “What?”

“I’m serious,” Imran insisted.  “It sounds nuts, but people claim it’s true.  I even looked it up online and there’s an urban legend about it.”

“Isn’t fae like fairies?  I didn’t even think they were real.”  She paused.  “But I guess if vampires and werewolves and spellcasters and mermaids are, they could be.”

Imran gave her a curious look.  “You know for sure that they are?  I mean other than the vampire?”

“You saw a vampire?” Maira asked.

“Yeah, he was really creepy.  I saw him in San Myshuno.”  Blair frowned and hand-waved it away, and Imran took the cue that was all she wanted to say about it.  She had told him some about Vladislaus, but not all the details, and he was happy to not talk to his sister with Blair there more than he had to.

“Hey, want to go meet Skittles?  It looks like it wants to rain soon.  We should probably get out there before it starts.”

“Okay.”



Once outside, Imran showed Blair to the chicken pen and let her in.  “You can go in.  They won’t hurt you.  They’re all real tame.  That one there’s Skittles.  The brown rooster.”

“I recognize him from the pictures you texted me.”  She bent down.  “Hi, Skittles!”  Another hen came over to investigate.  “Which one’s this?”

“She’s Coco.  One of our laying hens.  You could pet her, too, if you want.  She’d let you.  I’ve got treats you could give them.”

“Is she one of the ones that lays special eggs?”

“She has when we’ve given her special treats, but we don’t have any of those right now.  Just the friendly ones.  Here.  You can try giving these to them.”  He handed them to her.



“It’s nice to meet you, Skittles!  Imran told me you’re very protective of the flock and a very good rooster.  So, you definitely deserve a treat.”  She gently handed him one, and while he nibbled it up happily, she petted him on the back.  He made a soft little cluck-cluck as she did so, which seemed to Blair that he liked it.

Imran agreed.  “He likes you.  I bet you could pick him up if you wanted.”

“Maybe when he’s done eating.  I don’t want to interrupt his snack.  Besides, the girls are getting jealous.”  She noticed Coco and a black hen eyeing her expectantly.  “Here you go.  I won’t leave you out!”  She petted them as well.

When they were done eating, she stood in front of Skittles.  “What do you say?  Will you let me hold you like Imran does?”

It seemed like Skittles was about to give her an answer when the skies answered for her with a resounding no as they opened up and rain began to pour down.



“Come on!  We’ve got to get inside before this pen turns to mud!  It always does when it rains,” Imran warned.  “You go first, and I’ll lock it up behind you!”

“Okay!  See you inside!  And sorry I didn’t get to meet you, cute cow!” she shouted as she ran past the Watsons’ dairy barn.



After Blair’s visit to Henford-on-Bagley, time seemed to fly.  Before they knew it, James had outgrown all his newborn clothes and was in the infant sizes.  The more he grew, the more they could see how he resembled each of them.  Unlike Blair, who looked far more like her father than her mother, James appeared to be a blend of the two.  He had Boyd’s paler skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and plasma profile, according to Caleb, but his cheekbones and facial structure were clearly from Susan.  They were proud, though, and happy even though he kept them so busy with everything else they had going on.



James had also outgrown his bassinet and needed a bigger crib that took up even more space in the small bedroom.  Now there was barely enough room in there to get into the dresser, toybox, or bookshelf, and clutter was stacked everywhere.  There was barely enough room for both Blair and James’ clothes, and they aggressively donated or tossed anything that was too small or unused as soon as they possibly could to save space, and there still was not enough room.

Unfortunately, there was still not enough money for the addition, either.  Things just kept coming up.  Bills were getting higher every day, and even when they did get some inheritance money from Boyd’s parents, it ended up eaten up by necessary repairs to the house as opposed to the improvements they wanted.  Susan was still waiting for her inheritance money, what little there would be of it once the estate was settled.  Miss Hell was hashing that out in litigation with the medical bill collectors and, true to her name, putting up a hell of a fight, but they refused to go down easy, so it was taking time.

At least Vladislaus had not attacked Susan again.  He had sent more creepy messages, but that was all.  They did not know whether she simply dodged him by not being around when he was, or if the other vampires had managed to somehow block him.  Regardless, it was a welcome relief.  There was enough going on without having to deal with him.

It felt like a challenge to squeeze in time for anything fun.  Boyd felt like there was always something that had to get done around the house whenever he didn’t have to be at work, and it rained so often in Brindleton Bay that he wanted to take his lawn mower and throw it off the nearest cliff with the way it made the grass and weeds grow.  Susan was home more often since she had the option to work from home, but that was hardly leisure time since she was doing that to save money on day care and watching James while trying to also get her job done, so while she did that, things like the dishes and anything but the most urgent housework would pile up.



But there was still some time for play.  While Susan had more time to spend with James working from home, Boyd still did some tummy time with him on the infant mat or held him for at least a few minutes a day.



Blair also liked to play with him and try to teach him to hold or grasp things.  It excited her as much as it did Boyd and Susan when she saw him do something new.  Even though his moving into her room was a big stress, she truly did adore her new little brother despite that.

But she was also old enough for the responsibility of some more household chores now, and Boyd and Susan were overwhelmed enough to freely assign some to her.  They tried not to go overboard, tempting as it was and tired as they were, though, because she was already being such a good sport about the massive imposition of having James in her small bedroom.  They knew she resented it on some level, and it was only natural, so they could not blame her.  So, they kept her chores to doing the dishes and light cleaning for allowance money and giving her some extra simoleons for doing anything beyond that she was asked or volunteered to do.  They did not want her feeling like a slave or her grades suffering because she was too busy.  She was an A student and an eager participant in scouts, and they did not want her to lose focus on those things.  They were very proud of her and wanted her to keep succeeding.



That was one of the reasons they signed her up for the extracurricular art class her scouts program offered over in San Sequoia.  It was a bit of a drive on a weekend day, but neither Boyd nor Susan had to work, and the community center had activities for the whole family, so they made a day of it while Blair worked on art projects with the others in her scout troop that signed up.  Not only did it count toward a merit badge, but it also was extra time spent among kids her own age, which they felt was a good thing.  Although Blair was content as a loner, Boyd and Susan worried that her natural introversion might make her a tad too sheltered going into her teen years and young adulthood.  They wanted her to be happy, but also well-rounded with her social experiences and not regret having missed out on such opportunities later on.

Blair was thrilled to go to the art class, though, because she had fun trying and doing new things, especially crafts that involved glitter.  She loved glitter.  Something about sparkling pretty things like that just made her eyes light up like the stars themselves.



Boyd peeked in on her while the class was going on and smiled, happy to see her having such a good time.  It was nice to see her so bright and bubbly, like she had been most of the time back before life’s stresses had hit ultra level.  Hopefully we’ll be able to keep it like this, he mused, and headed back to the game table where he and Susan were playing.



“How’s the class going?” Susan asked as he sat back down with her.  “It’s your turn, by the way.”

He surveyed his tray of letters.  “Pretty well.  Looks like she’s having a blast in there, creating a masterpiece.”

“Sculpture, or something to hang on the wall?”

“Looked flat, so I presume it’s wall art.”  He smirked.  “And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but she had jars of glitter.”

Susan sighed.  “Of course, she did.”

“It’s a Blair original.  They all have glitter.”

“Tell me about it.  Blair’s artwork will thwart any robot vacuum that crosses its path.”

“That’s why we have the Dirt Herder as a backup.”

She gave him a sharp look.  “You laugh because you’re not the one that ever bothers to get out the Dirt Herder to clean it.”

“That’s because the glitter bothers you more than me,” he replied, ending his turn.

Susan sighed again and looked over her letters.  “I still don’t know how you can be your mother’s child and be such a slob.”

“Because she always cleaned up after me.  But if it makes you feel better, you know she always nagged me about it.”  He looked over at the infant and toddler room.  “James still asleep in there I take it?”

“Out like a light when I looked while you were upstairs checking on Blair.”



After their game was over, Susan went to check on James, who was now awake.  “Oh, you’re up!  Well, I guess Daddy and I are done with Simbles for now.  How about you and I work on some Tummy Time while we wait for Blair to finish her class?  You’ve been doing so well, and I know you’re about to hit a milestone any time now,” she encouraged.

James looked up at her, bright-eyed and well-rested, and cooed happily.  She took that as a yes.



Boyd watched Susan and James for a few minutes, then went and got a snack before Blair’s class ended.  When that was done, Susan and James were still working hard at Tummy Time, so they took Blair’s glittery art creation, a true masterpiece of her personal style, to the car, and sat down to play a game of Simbles.

“Where do you think we should hang it?”

“Well, it’s a little big for the fridge, but there’s not a whole lot of space we can reach easily on the walls in your room,” Boyd mused.  He considered the glitter droppings and the carpeting in her room as well, and shuddered.  It was shedding profusely already, and he knew Susan was going to complain about what it did to the inside of the car as soon as Blair was out of earshot.  He had tried in vain to find a bag to contain it, but alas, fortune had not smiled upon him.  The kitchen’s floor was tile, probably the best bet.  “I’m thinking the wall opposite the fridge.  Sound good?”

She nodded happily.  “Sure!”



Another fun outing they managed to squeeze in was a visit with Jonathan and Maaike at the boardwalk in Copperdale.  Blair’s scouting troop was holding a bake sale there that day, so when Susan mentioned it to Maaike, she suggested that Susan and Boyd bring baby James and meet up with her and Jonathan there to catch up.  Maaike couldn’t believe how much James had grown just since the last time she had seen him.  “Wow.  He is getting so big.  And solid, too!  Like a squishy little muscle man.”  She pinched him affectionately.

“That’s because he eats like a champ.  Always hungry.  And always moving.”  Susan shook her head.  “I work from home to save money, but it’s killing my productivity keeping an eye on him without locking him in a crib, and before long, I swear he’s going to figure out how to get out of that.  I could tear my hair out.  He cries if I leave him cooped up too long, too.  So much energy.  Blair was never like that.  She was way more low key.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  She had her hyper phases, usually if she got sugared up,” she glanced over at the bake sale, “not that part’s really changed much, but most of the time she was inquisitive.  What my mom used to like to call ‘pokey.’  Always poking her nose into things, curious about them,” she finished with a fond smile as she thought of her departed mother.

“And James isn’t like that?”

“He is, but it’s more wild. It’s up and down and into this or onto that.  Can I get onto that couch?  No, but I can pull on the cushion or scare Mommy trying.  Or I can get halfway off the infant mat while I just walk into the kitchen thinking he’s entertained only to find he’s squirming his way to the bathroom door.  Watcher help me when he becomes a toddler.  I probably will have to put him in day care to get anything done, and there goes a ton of money we could use for his own room.”



She sighed and leaned over him.  “Won’t Blair be thrilled to still have you keeping her up at all hours for that much longer while you share a room?  Oh yeah, we’ll hear all about that!  Because one thing sweet little Blair does do is still manage to complain so nicely.  Preteens think they’re subtle, but noooo,” she continued with a playful coo, tickling him and enjoying how he smiled back at her with his bright blue eyes.  “They’re not.  They’re very not.”

Maaike was amused.  “I know how you’re hoping to be a doting aunt to Jonathan’s kids one day, but as much as I adore this little scamp and Blair, this really isn’t selling me on the idea of it 24/7 in my own home anytime soon.  I need peace and quiet to write my novels.”

Susan raised an eyebrow.  “Oooh.  Am I to take that as a hint that you two are thinking about settling into something more serious?”

She smiled.  “We’ve… talked a bit.  Nothing official,” she said before growing serious again.  “Between you and me, he’s in that mental place where he’s worried about what happens to some cops on the job and how it hurts their families when it does.  He sees enough emotional scars on people day to day and doesn’t want to be responsible for leaving any himself, even indirectly.  On me or any kids we might have.  And because he knows I probably do want kids someday, just maybe not yet,” she looked down at James, “he’s hesitant to tie me down to something he’s worried I’ll regret or resent later.  I’ve told him I’m willing to make my own decisions on that, but you know how stubborn he is.”  She paused and met Susan’s eyes.  “And like I said, that is strictly between you and me, as my best friend.  Not a word to him.”

“Understood.  I know how he is.  Mr. Know-It-All Psych Degree has never been one to take his own advice.  But good luck.  For what it’s worth, I know he does love you.  He wouldn’t tear himself apart like that if he didn’t.  Hopefully he’ll pull his head out of his plumbob sooner rather than later.  The regular stress of his job on top of dealing with those llamas handling Mom and Dad’s estate isn’t helping matters either, I’m sure.  Maybe once that’s finally settled, he’ll be in a better place.”



Boyd and Jonathan came back from one of the rides, and Susan and Maaike passed James to them so they could walk around and see what else was on the boardwalk without the encumbrance of the infant.  “Heh.  My sister needs to work out more.  He’s gotten big, but he’s not that heavy.”  Jonathan bounced his nephew affectionately.

“Say that after you’ve carried him for an hour.”

“Maybe you ought to hit the gym with her.  When was the last time either of you picked up a dumbbell?”

“At my age, I’d throw my back out lifting you,” Boyd quipped back.

Jonathan couldn’t help but laugh.  “Okay, I walked into that one.  Anyway, it’s nice to see you guys.  Blair’s troop sure had a nice spread.  What in that did she bake?  I couldn’t get a word in past that chatty kid up front doing the hard sell on the brownies.”

“Peanut butter cookies.  With extra peanut butter candy pieces.”

“They good?”

“I don’t know.  She baked them at scouts and didn’t bring any home. That’s just what she told us.  I have to buy them to try them.”

He chuckled.  “Wow.  Those scouts are all about the profits!  They’ll make good business managers someday.”

“Speaking of business, if you don’t mind me asking, how are things going with the estate?”

“Miss Hell’s been living up to her name.  Got a bunch of the llama load claims tossed out.  There are still a couple of bogus issues in the courts, but we’re almost through it.  She really sank her teeth into them.  Said she was up all night a few times killing it for us, and I believe her.  She’s been getting results.”



“That’s great!  I’m glad to hear some good news.”

“How about you?  You and Susan seem pretty beat for a nice relaxing weekend.  This guy here keeping you that busy?”

“Him, Blair, work, the never-ending to-do list of home ownership.  For such a small house, you wouldn’t think it’d be so expensive.”

“Taxes everywhere are nuts.  Even the run-down parts of Evergreen Harbor are ridiculous these days.  One of the reasons I just rent.  I don’t have time for that plum.  Something structural breaks?  That’s on the landlord, not me.  Bad enough when the stove or toilet or something acts up.  I can fix that.  But piping or the roof or the lawn?  No thank you.”

Boyd groaned.  “Don’t get me started on the lawn.  I don’t know what the plum I was thinking when we bought a house with such a big yard, especially since Susan hates yardwork more than I do.”

“That your kids would have room to play and you and Susan could blow plum up in your weird experiments?”

“I guess.  But we don’t actually detonate explosives in our backyard as a regular thing, either on purpose or by accident, and Blair likes to go past the yard exploring on her bike now anyway.  Besides, with the chance that Vladislaus is still lurking around, the yard and that isolated house feel more like a target zone.”

“Has that creep come back?”

“Not yet, knock on wood.”  Boyd then bent down and knocked on the boardwalk.  Superstition or not, when it came to Vladislaus, he would rather not take chances.  “But he still sends Susan creepy messages from time to time.  So, I don’t know if we’ve just gotten lucky and missed him, or he’s found someone else he’s chasing too, or what.  But at least he hasn’t come after her again.”

“Well, don’t let your guard down.  That’s probably what he’s waiting for.  These psychos like to play games.  Something about her fear and resistance probably tastes better or something.”  Jonathan made a disgusted face.  “Ugh.  Come on.  Let’s go find one of those carnival games where I can hit or break something.  Thinking about that loser makes me want to blow off some steam.”

“Sounds good.”



After a few more hours of fun, the bake sale ended, and they had to wind their outing to a close.  James was starting to get fussy, and even strapped into the carrier on Susan’s back, he was not napping well, and was fidgeting up a storm.  “He’s fighting sleep that he desperately needs and will only get in his bed or a car seat, I’m afraid.”

“Can’t blame him for not wanting to sleep through all the lights and sights around here, I guess,” Maaike said.  “Lots of interesting people-watching at a place like this, and it’s all new to him.”

“No, but once he gets like this, he and the rest of us will regret it until he finally crashes, so the sooner he falls asleep, the better,” Susan replied wryly.



“I wish we didn’t have to go already,” Blair lamented while Susan was talking to Maaike.  “I only got to go on a few rides because of the bake sale.”

“But your troop made big bucks, right?  And those peanut butter cookies?”  Jonathan gave her a thumbs up.  “It was hard to eat just the one.  If there wasn’t all this other fair food here, I’d have eaten the whole pack you sold me.”

“Thanks for buying them!”

“They’ll keep me going on a stakeout for sure.”

“I just wish we could’ve gone on more rides.  Mom and Dad don’t like to go on them like you do.”

He laughed.  “That’s because they’re wimps.”

Boyd frowned.  “If I want to feel like I’m spinning around in circles repeatedly, I’ll go and down a few of those craft brews from the drink stand.  I don’t need to ascend to a ridiculous height on a giant wheel over and over again to do it.”

“Like I said.  Wuss!” Jonathan fired back, much to Blair’s amusement and Boyd’s irritation.


Author's Note: Sorry for the several month delay between chapter posting! On the bright side, I spent all of November completing another marathon of NaNoWriMo on this story, so that was another 50k words of draft chapters and screenshots completed, so there's that! This was the first I got edited, polished up, and posted. Happy New Year, everyone!

[deedee_828]

I finished catching up on your story and it's fantastic! Can't wait to see what happens next with Vlad still creeping after Susan! It may not have been what you first envisioned for the story line, but it's provided a wonderful outlet for your creative abilities. I just love all the occult lore you've been adding to it and can't wait to see how you tie it all in together. But wow, all four of Blair's grandparents meeting Grim in such a short span of time! Poor Blair, poor Wainwrights and poor you! My only disappointment is that you didn't name their son Patrick Stuart!!! I felt sure you would!!! LOL

[Cheezey]

I finished catching up on your story and it's fantastic! Can't wait to see what happens next with Vlad still creeping after Susan! It may not have been what you first envisioned for the story line, but it's provided a wonderful outlet for your creative abilities. I just love all the occult lore you've been adding to it and can't wait to see how you tie it all in together. But wow, all four of Blair's grandparents meeting Grim in such a short span of time! Poor Blair, poor Wainwrights and poor you! My only disappointment is that you didn't name their son Patrick Stuart!!! I felt sure you would!!! LOL

Thank you! I'm glad you've been enjoying the story so far. You'll be seeing more of Vlad in this chapter.
As for their son, I went with James because it's a different universe and I wanted the characters generated in game to be different than ones I had a direct role creating in CAS, especially since I had no control over the genetics of pregnancy. I had no idea how James would turn out when he was conceived, if he would be a redhead with green eyes like Patrick or if he would look totally different. (Which obviously will be discovered once he's out of nooboo stage.) Now whether or not his middle name is secretly Kirk... hahaha they're probably not saying! At least not to Jonathan.

Chapter 31

The Wainwrights’ busy schedule did not let up much as the summer wore on.  Fairly late one evening, they realized they had exactly one diaper left for James and were dangerously low on a few other household staples.  Obviously, that could not wait until morning or for a delivery.  Boyd volunteered to go, but Susan took the keys before he could get out the door.  “No offense, sweetie, but you never do the shopping.  I’m the one working from home and always doing it, you’ve still got to update the rewards app, and I know where everything is.  It’ll be a hundred times faster.”

He bit his lip, but did not stop her, refraining from saying out loud what they were both thinking.  What about Vlad?  But other than a couple of creepy texts, and even the most recent of those had only been a week ago and nothing specific about him being in the neighborhood, there had been no sign of him nearby.  “Okay.  Just be safe.”

“Of course.”  She smooched him and hurried out, leaving him to watch the kids.

Now she was in the brightly lit Brindleton Bay supermarket, nearly empty at that time of night aside from a couple of night shift workers, feeling silly for worrying about it at all.  She loaded up the shopping app on her phone and set about her task.



It was unfortunate that she had not been more cautious.  Vladislaus Straud was not only in Brindleton Bay that night, but he had been waiting for just such an opportunity where Susan might let her guard down.  While he was powerful enough that he could invade her home anytime he wanted, it did create a frustrating amount of drama and a potential for feeding interruption.  If he was going to have Susan and her delicious plasma, he wanted time to savor it and to not have to deal with her screaming children or husband’s oafish and annoying threats.



Susan picked up what she needed, checked out, and was on her way back to the parking lot when Vladislaus apparated behind her from a cloud of mist.  “Hello, my dear.  It’s nice to see you again.”

Startled at the sound of him behind her all of a sudden, she dropped her groceries on the sidewalk.



She whirled around, defensive, furious, and frightened.  “I told you to leave me alone!  Didn’t you get the hint last time?”

Vladislaus was surprised at her vehemence in a public establishment, as Susan was usually more collected than that, but he regained his composure quickly.  “My.  Such a fiery response to a simple greeting in a public place.”

“Purely by chance, I’m sure,” she seethed sarcastically.  “Stop stalking me.  I mean it.”

“Or you’ll what?” He scoffed.  “Don’t tell me you really believe that silly freeze ray is effective, even if your husband could hit the broad side of a llama?  The only reason I haven’t been back to your home is because I haven’t chosen to.  Don’t delude yourself otherwise.”  He eyed her hungrily.  “But my hunger and my patience both have limits.”

She stiffened and tried to quell the fear inside her.  They were still in a public place.  He couldn’t attack her here, right?  Not somewhere that there were employees and cameras around the clock that could see what was going on… “That better have not been a threat.”



His leer intensified.  “Not a threat.  A fact.”

“That’s it.  I’m calling the cops.  They can deal with you.”

“Your brother?  Isn’t Evergreen Harbor a bit far from his jurisdiction?”

“I think the locals can handle this.”  She opened her phone, which was still on the message screen from telling Boyd she was checking out.  She shot him a quick text.

Vlad here

Then she closed it and opened the phone app.

“Don’t bother,” Vladislaus warned her, his voice taking on a low and sinister hiss.  “They won’t get here in time, either.”

At that, Susan tried to back away.  There are people here.  He can’t hurt me.



She did not get far before she realized that she felt like she was walking through jello, and then, to her horror, that she was not actually moving at all.  She was just standing still.  It’s just like my dreams that he woke me up from.  I’m paralyzed. Or rather, she was mostly paralyzed.  She could turn her head ever so slightly, enough to see Vladislaus staring at her smugly, his eyes fixed on her like a predator.  He could use his powers on her silently, right there in the open, and no one was the wiser.  No one in the supermarket seemed to notice, and it was so late that there was little enough foot traffic that the sight did not seem that out of the ordinary.  Just a woman standing on the sidewalk with a guy staring at her.



Vladislaus strode up to her.  “Take a walk with me now, my dear.  It won’t do for us to do something so… intimate right out here in front of the supermarket.  Can’t have the locals getting the wrong idea.  We wouldn’t want your neighbors to see you with a strange man all over your neck right in front of your shop and telling tales to your husband or little girl, now would we?  Think of the embarrassment.”

He tsk-ed under his breath as he put a hand on her shoulder and led her around to the back of the supermarket by the docks, where it was dark, and no one was there to see a thing.  “You could’ve saved yourself the risk of that, and the shame of having to be fed off of here like some back alley fast food instead of somewhere nice like your own home or mine by being cooperative, but no.  You had to be obstinate.  Remember, Susan.  You brought this on yourself.  I tried to be reasonable.”  He changed into his dark form.



Susan could only stand there helplessly as Vladislaus gloated and berated her, resenting her fate as he once again sank his fangs into her neck and drank heartily from her.  She felt the sharp bite, and then the rush of plasma through her veins up and out of her as she became even more dizzy and woozy.  He took his time, his cold hands holding and caressing her shoulders as he drank.  He released her only long enough to take the occasional breath or to savor the experience.

For Susan, this time the attack was a new level of awful.  Before, he had only ever attacked her in her home.  She had never been foolish enough to think that anywhere else was automatically safe, but she thought places like this might be safer than others.  Now, she knew how wrong she was.  Nowhere was safe after dark.

He heard her thoughts and chuckled.  “Now you understand.”



When he was finished, he released Susan, transformed back into his human form, and straightened, wiping the last traces of her plasma from his mouth.  “Now that was a meal worth waiting for, even if this part of the docks isn’t what I’d call ambiance despite the lovely moonlit night.”  He stroked the side of her face as she struggled to retain consciousness.  “But perhaps you’ll think about what you learned this evening and be more accommodating when I call in the future.  Contrary to what the Vatores may tell you, I’m not an unkind or unreasonable man.  Let me have what I want from you, and I’ll be gentle, even gracious about it.  You may even find I can be a valuable friend or ally.”

He let that sink in for a moment before continuing.  “In your short-sightedness, did you think about how you and your husband might benefit from the knowledge and experience of a vampire my age?  Or what I could tell you about the werewolves you’ve become curious about?  Oh, yes, I know quite a bit about those beasts, and I’m well aware of Boyd’s interest in them.  The stories I could tell you about the Lunviks… but I do hope he’s not foolish enough to chase down Lily Zhu or her flea-ridden friends for help keeping me away.  Greggorious Lunvik wouldn’t think twice about ripping him in half and chewing him up as an overcaffeinated steak if it strikes him.  Remember that when you think of me as a monster, that I merely dine on your plasma and treat you with consideration.  That even though you repeatedly insult me, plot against me, and threaten me, that I even warned you and your annoying husband against such danger, because I’d rather not see your lovely little heart broken by his unfortunate demise.”



He rose up into the air as Susan staggered forward and slumped down to her knees.  “Despite your attitude, I still believe you’d be an incredible creature of the night, but I know you’re still dead set against that, if you’ll pardon the expression.  No matter.  Perhaps one day you’ll change your mind, and if not, your plasma will be there for me to enjoy until you wither away from old age.  So, I hope that next time, you’ll make this a little less awkward for both of us.”

Susan only had the energy to glare back at him until she slumped over on the sidewalk, while Vladislaus disappeared in a cloud of mist.



Boyd showed up right after Susan regained consciousness and managed to stagger back to the front of the store.  He ran up to her and hugged her tightly.  “Oh, Susan.  Oh, my Watcher.”

“He got me,” she croaked weakly.

“I’m sorry,” Boyd lamented into her shoulder, upset as he held her even more tightly.  “I’m so sorry.  I should’ve come out tonight.  I should’ve insisted.”

“No, it’s… it’s not your fault.”

“I love you so much.  How are you?”  He looked at her neck, wincing at the fang marks.  “How bad…?”



“It hurts.  Like it always does.”  She closed her eyes, still exhausted.  “I—I never imagined he’d come after me here, where there are people.  He didn’t at the festival.”

No, he just taunted us all like a llama, Boyd remembered.  “Did anyone see it?  Did they call the police?”

“I tried but… he paralyzed me.  Used that mind control thing he does where he takes over you.  How he gets me to stand still.  This time he used it on the sidewalk and made me follow him behind the store where no one could see.  It was awful.”

“He took you somewhere dark where he could do what he wanted.”  Boyd said quietly, overwhelmed with concern, outrage, and fear all at once, while Susan nodded and continued.

“He bit me and gloated.  The usual.  Said a bunch of stuff that… that it’s hard to remember it all.  Oh, I’m so tired.  But he made it clear how much he’s been following me.  Watching us.”



“That he did this here, at the supermarket right in… well it’s not broad daylight, but broad moonlight, not even that late, where there are cameras.  That he could just lure you away!”  Boyd looked around at the shadows in panic.  “Nobody saw anything from inside on camera?  Nice flipping security!  I guess they aren’t too worried about crime in the back on the docks there!  Yikes.  I’d heard that some questionable stuff happened at the docks at night in this town, and now I guess I know why!  If no one’s looking anyway!”



Susan blinked as some memories came back to her.  “I remember something he said now.  He told me that if I cooperated, he’d be nicer.  That he wouldn’t stalk me like this, let me be comfortable when he does it.  He said to remember that he could be nice and be our friend if I stopped being ‘stubborn,’ stuff like that.”  She met Boyd’s eyes.  “He also warned me about the werewolves.  He knows you’ve been looking for information about them.  He said,” she struggled to remember the name in her wooziness, “Greg… Greggo…”

“Greggorious?  Greggorious Lunvik?” Boyd asked, wide-eyed and more than a little unsettled knowing that Vladislaus knew that much about what he had been doing at work.

“Yes.  That was it.  Greggorious Lunvik was dangerous and would rip you in half and eat you like a caffeinated steak if it suited him, and we’d be foolish to look to any of them for help.  And that I should remember how nice he was warning me about that even after how we’ve treated him,” she finished with a note of disgust.



“How nice he is?” Boyd repeated incredulously.  “He’s sure got an interesting definition of that word.  Oh, Susan.  We’ve got to do something about him.  We can’t go on like this, with him able to attack you any night, anywhere, like tonight.  Maybe I should bite the silver bullet and go to Moonwood Mill.”

Susan blinked past her grogginess, wide-eyed with fear.  “After what I just told you?  No!  That’s a terrible idea.  I don’t want you hurt, or worse!  Vlad said—”

“Vlad might well have said that because we’re onto something that might work, and he doesn’t want to deal with a werewolf.  Caleb and Lilith both said there’s a fierce rivalry there.”

“They also said they’re dangerous, and not to go poking around Moonwood Mill.  That their cousin and her clan might be okay, but not the others!  And Caleb warned you about that Greg guy, too.  Why would both Caleb and Vlad warn us about him if it wasn’t something you should take seriously?  No, Boyd!  Please.  We’ll do something else.  I don’t want you bitten and turned into a werewolf, or mauled, or killed!”  She grabbed his arm.  “I mean it.”

He closed his eyes.  “I could still go there.  Not on a full moon, and during the day.  Find their cousin Lily.  Talk to her.  She dealt with Vlad.”

“Years ago.  That might be a can of worms best left unopened.  Looking stuff up at work in the archives is one thing, but going to Moonwood Mill is another.  Don’t do this.  Don’t do like you did in Forgotten Hollow when this whole thing started.”

“Okay, what do you propose we do, then?  We’ve got to come up with something.”



Resigned and miserable, Susan started for the car.  “Maybe… maybe I should just do what he says.”  Her voice was heavy as the words came out.

“Susan.  No.  No, you don’t have to—”

“I’d rather he just show up and bite me and leave, and for me to know it’s coming, than live in fear and be stalked.  To be able to just go to bed or take a bath and rest than wake up on a dirty boardwalk somewhere I might’ve been robbed while unconscious.”

He’s breaking her spirit, Boyd realized, horrified.  “That’s Vlad talking.”

“No,” she countered.  “That’s me.  I’m tired.”

“This is what he wants.  Don’t let him do this.  Don’t let him win.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” she argued with a sob.  “You’re not the one getting bitten.  I’d rather just have it over with and get on with my life between his—his awful feedings than live like this trying to fight it anymore when it’s clear I can’t!  When there’s nothing you or I can do!  Especially when you’re willing to risk going and getting yourself killed over it.”

“Because I love you.”

“And I love you.  And I’d rather let that llama have a drink of my plasma every so often than let you go and kill yourself in Moonwood Mill trying to find a werewolf to fend him off.”

“What about Blair?  Do you want that for her, too?  Because he’ll go after her eventually.”

“No, of course not!”  She cried.  “But maybe if I let him just have me, he’ll leave her alone when she’s old enough.”

He took her hand and looked her in the eyes.  “Yeah, right. If you think so, you’re a lot more trusting than I am, then. No, Susan.  Please!  I know you’re tired and sore and this is terrible, but there’s got to be some other way.  If you don’t want me to go to Moonwood Mill, we can talk about something else, but don’t give up and give yourself over to Vlad as some snack.  It’s what he wants.  What he’s been wearing you down for.”  He met her eyes.  “Don’t let him do that to you.”

She cried harder.  “I’m just so tired of it.”

“I know.”  He held her and stroked her back.  “I know.”

[Cheezey]

Chapter 32

In the days after Susan recovered from Vladislaus’ latest attack, those who loved her echoed Boyd’s sentiments on the notion of her simply letting him feed in the future.  Blair did not want to see her mother bitten all the time, either, and she was still optimistic that they could find a way to ward him off.  “But Mom, you and Dad are geniuses!  I know you’ll invent or figure out something that works eventually.  Especially if Caleb and Lilith keep helping.  You’ve just got to keep trying!  That’s what you always tell me.”

But she doesn’t realize she’s next, especially if I don’t, Susan thought regretfully.  Although she had not made up her mind yet, she was still considering it.  She would not have told Blair at all, except that she had overheard her and Boyd discussing the matter and asked them about it point blank, and Susan did not want to lie to her.  “We’ve tried, sweetie, and it’s taken its toll on all of us.  It’s important to keep trying, yes, but sometimes,” she sighed, “sometimes we have to consider whether we’ve reached a point where we’re expending effort on something that would be better placed somewhere else.  Whether what we’re doing is truly for the best.”

“But I love you!  I don’t want Vlad to just be able to bite you whenever he feels like it.  He’s a horrible monster and he shouldn’t be allowed to win!  Evil isn’t supposed to win over good!  You don’t let the bad guys win!”

Oh, Blair, if only life was as simple as your superhero cartoons, Susan thought, although she had to admit her daughter’s obstinate optimism was a credit to her character. “I know.”  She closed her eyes.  “I don’t want to, either.  But I love you, and James and your dad, and I don’t want your lives ruined by having to run or hide from him all the time, either.  You deserve better than that.”



Jonathan and Maaike did not like it any better.

“Don’t be an idiot, sis!” Jonathan berated her, upset.

“Don’t talk to me that way!”

“I will when you act like one.  You know better than this!  Psychos like him never stop when you give them an inch.  They just take, take, take, and you know that.  If you give him what he wants, the Watcher only knows what plum he’ll do.  This is classic abuser manipulation.  Don’t fall for it.”

“He’ll take, take, take anyway.  He already has,” Susan argued back.  “What do you want me to do, then?”

“For one, stay away from the llama like you have been and don’t give him any reason to think he’s welcome in your life!  That should be freaking obvious.  Unless you want him sinking more than his fangs into you.”

Susan grimaced.  “Don’t be disgusting.”

“I meant it figuratively, though he might mean that too, if he can still do that sort of thing.  I don’t know.  That’d be a personal question for your other vampire friends.  But unless you want to eventually wind up like Lilith, don’t go down this road.  Don’t let that creep ruin your life any more than he already has.”

Maaike nodded with him.  “I second that.  You’re one of the smartest people I know, Susan, but I think Jonathan’s right.  Vlad’s messing with your head and using your fears against you.  If you give him an opening, he’ll only try to manipulate you more.”

“I don’t want to be friends with him.  I just don’t want to be cornered and bitten anymore.  I was just thinking that maybe it would be easier if when he texts me that he wants a drink or whatever, and I can physically manage it, I just say fine.  Meet me and get it over with.  No break-ins that upset my family and disrupt my sleep.  No attacks in the supermarket.  No more stalking me all over creation because he’s obsessed just because I told him no.”



Jonathan eyed her pointedly.  “Do you really think that’s how that’ll go?”

“It could.  I never agreed to that before.  Maybe if I just said sure and let him do it, he’d get his fill and move on with whatever it is he does with his horrid existence the rest of the time.”

“Or he might think you like him now and be open to becoming a vampire like him, and be receptive to even more pushing,” said Maaike.

“Or worse strongarm tactics.”

“He may like the idea, but he’d lose me as his delicious source of plasma if he did that.  It wouldn’t be logical.”

“He’ll have Blair.  He won’t need you.”

She frowned.  The thought that Vladislaus would continue to go after Blair for plasma even if he did convert her to a vampire had not occurred to her.  “But she’s my daughter.  If I… not that I would, but theoretically, if I took him up on his offer to become a vampire, do you think I’d let him feed on Blair?  He claims to respect me.  Surely he wouldn’t?”

Jonathan groaned and tried not to laugh out loud.  “Surely?  Oh, wow.  Are you really that naïve or full of yourself?  Come on!  Vlad doesn’t give a plum about your feelings or anyone else’s.  You think he gave one flying plumbob about Lilith’s or Caleb’s when he chased their cousin all over the map into Moonwood Mill?  And you really think you have a snowball’s chance in hell at stopping him from going after Blair?  Do you even hear yourself right now?  The fact that you’re even letting yourself think this way is scaring the plum out of me.”

“Same,” agreed Maaike.  “Listen to us, Susan.  Vlad’s in your head.  Get him out.  Whatever it takes.”



That was what Boyd had said, too, although not as bluntly as her brother.  Hearing it from them and the same urgings from everyone else made Susan wonder.  Was she that wrong?  Was Vladislaus in her head?  Had he somehow created an unwanted connection feeding on her like that, or had he simply just worn her down from the repeated attacks?  She knew they loved her and meant well, but they also were not his direct stalking victims.  Boyd was a brilliant man, but he could also be paranoid and prone to imagining worst case scenarios.  Blair was young and idealistic, so of course she had faith that things would work out.  She did not know that one of the reasons she was doing this was to protect her.  As for Jonathan, while he might have studied psychology in university, he also saw the worst of the worst on the job every day. It was only natural that he would be jaded from experience and naturally assume the worst, and with all the time she spent with him, of course Maaike would agree with what he said.

It seemed reasonable to her, though, that perhaps if she let Vladislaus have access to her plasma, he would agree to leave Blair alone when she was old enough.  Susan would rather be bitten a thousand times if it meant sparing her daughter that misery.  Boyd understood why she was making that choice, even if he did not like that was making it.  That was, after all, why he was willing to risk himself by taking a foolish trip to Moonwood Mill.  But just like she did not want Blair bitten by Vladislaus if she could prevent it, she would also not have Boyd run afoul of werewolves and harmed for her sake, either.  She would rather take her own lumps, or bites.  Was that truly Vladislaus in her head, or was she just making the best of a bad situation?



Regardless, no decision had to be made until Vladislaus showed his fanged face again, and at least he usually had the decency to allow her time to recover after an attack like that.  After all, it took time to heal and regenerate plasma, if nothing else.  So, Susan threw herself into her work to try and move past what happened.  Though that was a little easier when she did not bonk herself in the head with engineering equipment on a hot summer day.  Sometimes the effects of the plasma loss taxed her concentration a little longer than she realized…



Some days, Blair would play amateur scientist out there on the patio with her, too.  She never lacked for help on her science projects from her or Boyd, either.  Not even when Susan was a bit dazed from a vampire bite.



Boyd did discover a way that Vladislaus had eyes on him at work, however.  He had wondered if any of his co-workers were spying on him for him, but Susan told him that was just his paranoia talking.  “Why would they spy on you for Vlad?  Are they vampires?”

“Well, no,” he had admitted.  “Or at least if they are, they’ve hidden it better than any vampires we know.  They can stand in the desert sun or in the greenhouse for hours.”

“Then why would they?  I doubt it’s because of his charm and sparkling personality.”

“I don’t know.  Money?  It’s not like they pay us the big bucks, and Vlad’s rich.”

Susan scoffed.  “I think Vlad would have to fork over a hefty wad of cash to get anyone to put up with him for more than a little while.  Besides, Boyd, no offense, and I say this as someone who loves you dearly, but you’re too boring to spend that kind of money spying on.  Especially if he finds us as non-threatening as he claims.”



He was not sure if he should have been offended or comforted by that, but he tried to take it as the latter.  Unfortunately, a casual conversation with his co-worker Knox Greenburg one afternoon while they were working on the rocket together proved that his initial suspicions were correct.  “Boyd, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You’ve been researching vampires, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been being bitten by one.”

He set his wrench aside and walked around to the side of the rocket to talk to him.



“Really?”

“I’m serious.  It’s been awful.  A real creepy experience. I haven’t told anyone, and I wondered if this was normal.”

“I’m listening.  Tell me what happened.”

Knox eyed him seriously.  “You’ve got to promise not to laugh.”

“I won’t.”



“Okay.  It was the middle of the night the first time.  Strange as plum, but I just woke up.  I don’t know why, but I just felt like I should get up, and there’s this guy outside my front door.  Weird dude.  He’s not only pale as hell, but in this long black trenchcoat.  I get sometimes there’s a chill at night even in the summer by the harbor there, but it’s not that cold, you know, like he’s dressed for the dead of winter.  He had gray hair and looked, I dunno, fifty, sixty?  But it wasn’t normal.  He was dressed like he stepped out of a century ago or something.  It was almost like I saw a ghost, but solid.”

Boyd felt an uneasy chill of dread.  It was a spot-on description of Vlad.  “That does sound creepy.”

“I can’t remember if he knocked or not, but for whatever reason I opened the door and asked if he was lost or needed help.  You know, I don’t live in the greatest part of Evergreen Harbor, a guy like him might get mugged, and he did kind of look old and frail and like he had money even if he was weird.  Anyway.  He said he was just looking for a safe place to fix his phone, it wasn’t working right.  So, I was like, ah, okay, creepy old rich guy’s creeped out by the bad neighborhood.  Whatever, sure, I invited him in and a moment later he messes with his phone and suddenly he’s like, oh it’s working now.  Then he dead stares me in the eyes and says, ‘Thank you ever so much.  I’ll remember your hospitality, Mr. Greenburg,’ and heads out.  And after he leaves, I’m thinking, I didn’t even get his name or remember telling him mine, but then I think maybe he got it off the mailbox or saw it on my mail lying around or I just forgot.  I’m still exhausted, so whatever, I go back to bed.”



Even though Boyd was now sure it was Vladislaus, he pretended otherwise.  “And that made you think he was a vampire?”

“No, that was just the first time I saw him.  I just thought he was a weird old guy then, and we get a lot of weirdos in my part of town anyway.  Didn’t think much more of it at the time.  What made me think he was a vampire was what happened the night after.”

“What happened?”

“I was asleep, way up in my room.  I know you haven’t been to my place, but it’s an eco refurb build where my room’s way up on a tower.  Not the type of place anyone could break in and casually wander into, and definitely not stare into a window from without a crane.  I’m having a hell of an uneasy sleep, and I wake up and swear I see the creepy old dude staring at me from outside my window.  Like, that’s flipping impossible, man.  Unless he can fly.  Scares the plum out of me and wakes me up for real.  Turns out that’s a dream.  I blink and gasp, and then I turn around and it’s worse.  He’s standing in my room, grinning down at me from the other end of my bed.”

“You’re sure you weren’t—”

“Oh, no.  I was awake.  I was screaming bloody murder, or at least trying to.  But I couldn’t freaking move or talk.  He comes over to me, licking his lips, and next thing I know he transforms into this bald pale thing with sharp teeth and bites me hard on the neck.”  Knox then turned his head and turned down his shirt collar to show the bite mark.  “Right there.  Strange thing is, it doesn’t hurt as bad as you’d think, but it did still hurt.  Left me pretty weak.  I thought he was going to kill me.  But he didn’t.  He left me there slumped on my bed telling me that my plasma was tasty in that ‘granola’ sort of way, and he knew some vampires that would truly appreciate that flavor, but he promised not to tell them provided I did him a few favors.  And after that, he’d let me be.”



Boyd had a terrible feeling where that was going.  “And you agreed.”

He nodded.  “Depending on what the favors were, yeah.  I asked him what.”

“He said nothing ‘odious’ or ‘illegal,’ just to let him know if I happened to see Officer Bronte on duty or in town at night, but not to worry because he meant him no harm, and nothing would happen to one of Evergreen Harbor’s finest for that information.  He just wanted to avoid him in other areas because they had a personal conflict.  He also said I could rest assured that he wasn’t dodging any legal warrants, so I wasn’t breaking any laws or helping him hide from the police.  That didn’t sound so bad compared to being bitten again, so I agreed to that.”

So, Vlad used Evergreen Harbor’s Eco Master to spy on Jonathan to make sure he’s not in Brindleton Bay. “I see.  What else did he ask you to do?”



Knox averted his eyes, ashamed.  “I’m sorry, man.  I was afraid and… and he promised he wasn’t going to hurt you.  You hadn’t said anything about getting bitten, so…”

“Vlad asked you spy on me, didn’t he?”

“You know his name?”

“So do you, apparently.”

“Vladislaus Straud,” Knox admitted sheepishly.

“Count Vladislaus Straud IV, or rather the first through fourth, all the same pretending to be different generations.”

“I’m sorry.”



“You owe Susan more of an apology than me,” Boyd said tartly.  “She’s the one he’s been biting.  Officer Bronte is her brother, by the way.  Vlad wanted to know where he was because Jonathan’s wanted to kick his undead plumbob from here back to his coffin ever since he started feeding on her.”



Knox let out a regretful breath of profanity.  “I’m so sorry.  I had no idea.  I won’t help him anymore.  I swear.”

Boyd wanted to be furious at him, but it was clear his contrition was genuine, as was the throbbing pain in his bite.  He realized how hard it must have been for him to confess what was going on when he was the one he was spying on.  Vladislaus had put Knox in a nasty position where he was afraid for his life from further targeting from him and other vampires, and now, by telling him, he was opening himself up to it bigtime.  Boyd supposed that was punishment enough, although he realized he could no longer trust any of his co-workers beyond very casual conversation about the Vladislaus situation going forward.  There was no telling who else might be compromised like Knox had been.  “Apology accepted, but I’d like to know exactly what you told him and what he asked.”  It also occurred to him that this might only be a half-true confession, or a game Knox was playing to get more information on Vladislaus’ behalf, so he certainly was not going to trust him now, either.  If Boyd was paranoid before, now he was doubly so that there was proof he should be.

“He told me you’d made a ‘nuisance’ of yourself poking into his private affairs and not to worry about the details, but to be assured that he wouldn’t harm you.  He only wanted to know if you were doing anything that might harm him or his people, and what you were researching or found out about them.  Or if any vampires were at or showed up at the lab.  But there haven’t been, and there wasn’t all that much to tell him about you, either.  Just what I heard around the lab or what you told me yourself.  Some stuff about the freeze ray and that time you were in the break room talking about how you looked up werewolves and their history with spellcasters and some of that.  That’s all.  I swear.”



Now I know where he found out about the werewolves, Boyd mused.  It seemed like Knox was telling the truth, but he was still unnerved by the whole situation.  “All right.  I appreciate you being honest with me.”  He paused.  “Your bite wound looked fresh when you showed it to me.  I presume it’s not the original?  You said earlier that you were being bitten by a vampire, so I take it it’s happened more than once?  Was that Vlad, or another vampire?”

“It was Vlad.  He’s the only one that’s bitten me so far.”

“So, Vlad still feeds on you despite doing his dirty work?”



“Every so often.  To make sure I remember to keep up my end of the bargain, as he puts it.  Last night’s excuse was that I hadn’t reported on your brother-in-law for a while because I hadn’t seen him, and he didn’t like it.”

“Wow.  All the charm and honor of a vampire mob boss, huh?”



“Yeah, pretty much.”  He shifted.  “I don’t know what’ll happen to me now that I’ve told you this.  I hope he or the ‘granola’ vampires don’t kill me.”

Boyd decided in that paranoid moment where no one at the lab was to be trusted to play it like he was trusting Knox was completely coming clean, even though he had his suspicions.  He would let him think his trust had been earned and leave it at that.  It was the easiest way he saw to keep Knox safe.  Boyd was not thrilled with the notion of him spying, but the poor guy had been conscripted, and he did not want his death or grievous injury on his conscience if he was indeed an innocent pawn forced into the situation.  “Let Vlad keep thinking I don’t know, so he doesn’t have a reason to mind-read you and find out about this conversation, because if he does…” His voice trailed off meaningfully to let the gravity of his situation sink in.  “Tell him I’m researching vampires if you want.  He already knows that.  I don’t care if you tell him I’m researching werewolves or throw him some random tidbits here and there.  I’m sure you can scrape up enough harmless scraps of information around here to save your neck.  Just don’t say anything that will directly hurt me or my family, or tell him where we are.”  Not that I’ll give you the chance, he added silently.  “And Jonathan?  If he’s on duty and you happen to see him, you see him.  It’s not like it’s a secret that he lives and works in Evergreen Harbor.”

“Knowing what Vlad’s doing, though… I’m still sorry.  I hate to have to do this.”  Knox shook his head.  “Poor Susan.”

“Look, let’s just put this llama load behind us, and add one more of us to the numerous ranks of those who despise Vladislaus Straud.  And if you find out anything useful about Vlad that I’d like to know, pass it along.”

“Of course,” he said, relieved.  “So, how does Susan handle this?  The biting?  The stalking?  How do you guys avoid him?”



Boyd wondered if that was a spy question or a genuine inquiry on how to ward Vladislaus off, but the answer he had to give him was, depressingly, the same.  “That’s the bad news.  We don’t.  But if you ever figure out a way, by all means, let us know.”  He then picked up his hammer and resumed working on the rocket.

[Cheezey]

Author's Note: This is another text and image-heavy chapter, so I split it into two parts.

Chapter 33

The frustration of dealing with Vladislaus was eclipsed by the joy of the happy events in their lives, like James growing and achieving his milestones.  He had been quite the energetic wiggle wart from the beginning, but it was exciting to see him gaining motor skills so quickly, rolling over and sitting up all on his own with such giggly glee.  Boyd cheered him on as he worked his baby muscles hard into a new achievement.  “You got it, champ!  Good job!”  He tickled his tummy.  “You might be the first athlete in the Wainwright family in… I don’t know how many generations.  Certainly not mine, and Mom and Dad weren’t that sporty, either.”



Susan also clapped and cheered.  “Way to go, James!  Mommy’s so proud of you!”

Blair was less impressed.  “Actually, Dad, Uncle Jonathan’s kind of an athlete.  Cops have to pass tough physical fitness tests.  And I pass all my gym classes.  Doesn’t that count?”

“I think he means, like, sports teams, sweetie.  You’re not on any of those.  And Uncle Jonathan, well, I don’t know if I’d call him ‘sporty.’  I’d call him a lot of other things.”

Boyd snorted.  “You have.”

“Still, all James did was roll over and sit up when Dad asked.  You can train a dog to do that.  Big deal.”  She rolled her eyes.

It was then that Susan realized that Blair might be getting jealous of all the attention her little brother was getting.  “Oh, sweetie.  We’re just proud that he’s learning, that’s all.  It’s a big deal.  Just like it is when you learn something important.”

“Oh, yeah,” Boyd chimed in from over by James.  “We were just as proud when it was you, way back when.”

“Really?”  She sounded dubious the way only a moody pre-teen could.

“I know you don’t remember, because you were too little, but it’s true.  We were living with your Grandma Myra and Grandpa Stuart at the time, and you should’ve seen how they fawned when you did that for the first time.  Their first grandchild, showing off her stuff.”

The little trip down memory lane worked, and Blair’s sour mood turned golden once more.  “I still miss them.  It’s too bad James never got to meet them, and Grandma Maureen and Grandpa Patrick.”

“I know,” Susan said softly.  “That’s why James is lucky to have you to tell him all about them.”



Before long, it was time for a very big milestone for James: his toddler birthday. Blair was happy for her little brother and all, but she wished one of his presents had been his own room.  Her parents still could not afford that.  Prices of contractors being what they were, taxes going up along with property values, and the cost of living skyrocketing everywhere meant that even with some of the inheritance money now in the bank, it was prudent to not blow it all on an addition with no leeway for emergencies.  So, they did the best they could, by getting some new furniture for both Blair and James.  She got a new bunk bed, which was fun to climb into, while he got a new toddler bed that fit snugly underneath it.  It returned a good amount of floor space to the little bedroom, allowing Blair to put more of her toys out and giving James more room to run around.  Plus, now they could even get into the dresser without twisting into a pseudo-yoga routine around a crib, which was a relief for everyone.



They had a small get-together to celebrate.  Nothing fancy, just family and a few friends.  “Hard to believe your little brother’s so big already,” Maaike remarked as she and Jonathan came in.  “And you.  Gosh, you’re taller every time I see you.  I can’t believe you’re starting high school next year.”

“Yup.  Maybe James will finally have his own room by then.”  She stuck out her tongue at her little brother over on the playmat, who didn’t quite get that she was teasing and giggled back at her.

“Yeah, that’s rough.  But your parents are trying, I promise.  Your mom tells me she wishes she could do more about that a lot, believe me,” Maaike sympathized.

“I know.  But she’s not the one who has to smell his stinky baby farts and poops until they come and change them.  And when I complain, I get told I’m big enough to do it myself if they bug me so much!”

Jonathan laughed.  “And what do you say to that?”

“I say nah, I already earned my babysitting merit badge a long time ago, and he’s your baby.  He’s just my little brother.”

Both Jonathan and Maaike were amused by that.  “I bet your mom takes that with all her usual grace.”

“They usually just roll their eyes and say they’re shocked or that figures or something like that.  Oh, and one time Dad said I could go get a clamp off the workbench for my nose in that case.  He was grumpy ‘cause James woke him up.”



Boyd’s friend Jaron was also invited, as were two of Blair’s friends.  She still did not have any close local friends, but since she and Imran were still close, they told her to go ahead and invite him.  She had been eager to have him over to visit at some point, anyway.  The other friend was a girl in summer scouts that she had become chummy with, Olive Tinker.  Baby and toddler parties were rarely exciting for kids her age beyond having a slice of cake anyway, so Boyd and Susan were happy to let her have someone to play with while the other stuff was going on.

“So, you don’t mind if after cake I go and show Imran and Olive the waterfall and pond?  And maybe the boardwalk?”

“Of course not,” said Susan.  “Just keep an eye on the time and stay together.”

“And be careful on the rocks near that waterfall,” Boyd warned.  “It makes me nervous how you climb in there, but at least you know it.  They don’t.  I don’t want any of you kids getting hurt out there.”

Blair sighed.  “We’ll be fine, Dad.  You worry too much.”

“Only until I’m proven right.”  Boyd paused after the words passed his lips.  Had he really just said something his father used to say to him as a kid?  Ugh.  That was a kick with the you’re-getting-old stick, and he wasn’t even middle aged yet.

Meanwhile, Maaike complimented Susan.  “That cake you made looks great.  And you were worried about it.”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to lie to me about how amateur it looks,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.  “I know how much of a mess I made of that frosting.  But I appreciate you trying to make me feel better.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, Susan,” Jaron said.  “It’s chocolate with sprinkles.  It’s homemade.  Who doesn’t appreciate a good homemade cake?  They always taste good.”

“Besides, toddlers and kids aren’t picky about what goes into their pie holes,” Jonathan chimed in.  “And that looks pretty darned good for your cooking.”

Susan shot him a look that all but said he was lucky not to be wearing said cake.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

He snorted.  “I’m just saying, I remember the time you burned canned ravioli.”

“And I remember when you caught our grill on fire and turned the burgers into secondary charcoal briquettes, so I wouldn’t talk!”



Boyd diplomatically shifted between the pair of arguing siblings.  “And on that note, how about we pick up the birthday boy and blow out the candles before we have a blow up?”

Now that he was a toddler, James was not only as full of energy as ever, but he was a bit needier, for lack of a better word, than they remembered Blair being at his age.  Even when he was busy getting into everything, James still wanted attention, and they wondered if that was why when he wasn’t being played with, he would crawl off and get into things rather than play with his toys quietly much of the time.  Especially because of the way he would fuss and cry if they simply put him back in the playpen or in his room away from them.  They hoped such behavior did not mean that he was spoiled, which naturally, they had tried not to do.  If not, they wondered if he was simply on the opposite end of the spectrum of Blair’s introversion.  Where she was one who did not necessarily need a lot of social interaction and enjoyed being alone, if James was the type of kid that craved a bit more than average.  Regardless, at the party, he seemed to be in his element with everyone lavishing attention on him as the birthday boy.  He was exuberant, giggly, and excited about it.



“All right!  Cake’s served.  Come and get it!” Susan announced.

“I’ve got the birthday boy’s slice.  I’ll escort him to the high chair and the easy-clean linoleum, per Mom’s request,” said Boyd.

“Yes.  Especially since I know you won’t be doing the cleaning, easy or not.”

Jaron chuckled.  “Wow, Boyd.  Making her cook and clean?  I’d be in a heap of trouble with my wife if I pulled that.”

“Pfft.  I’d do it if she asked.”

“He’d do the world’s fastest job, probably leave spots that I’d have to get anyway, and complain so much I’d rather do it myself,” Susan corrected.

Boyd fastened James into the highchair.  “Uh-huh.  What she’s not telling you is all the other stuff I do around here while making me look like a llama.”

“Fair enough.  Boyd does do a lot.  He’s good about running the laundry for me, though I do wish he’d fold it better sometimes.  He also takes out the trash and fixes the pipes or anything dirty or uncomfortable so I don’t have to deal with it.  And, truth be told, I haven’t ever touched that lawn mower he curses out every week.”

“Don’t worry.  Soon it’ll be leaf blower season instead, and then snowblower season.  You’ll get to hate all different yard maintenance equipment.”

“Thanks, Jonathan.  You’re a real comfort.”



Although Caleb and Lilith Vatore were both invited, both because the Wainwrights considered them friends and because it felt just a little better having friendly vampires there on the off chance Vladislaus downed a sun potion and decided to crash the festivities, they were still somewhat surprised when Caleb showed up at the afternoon party.  “Caleb.  Glad you made it.  Kind of surprised you were able to swing it.”

“Night shift worker?” Jaron guessed, looking him over and noticing how pale he was.

“Up all night.  But I didn’t want to miss this guy’s birthday.”  He ruffled James’ hair.  “Happy birthday, James!  Looks like you enjoyed that cake!”

“It’s good!” Olive declared.  “Mrs. Wainwright made it herself.”

“In your face, Jonathan,” Susan gloated quietly.

“Never said you couldn’t improve.  In fact, you had nowhere to go but up.”

She just rolled her eyes.



While Blair and Imran waited for Olive to finish her cake, James toddled over to the couch where Imran was sitting.  “You’re lucky you’ve got a cool older sister,” Imran told him.  “I’ve got two, and neither of them are very cool.”

Jonathan was passing by and smirked.  “I get you, my friend.  I have a twin sister, and she’s not very cool, either.”

Susan didn’t hear that, but Blair did.  “Hey!  That’s Mom.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like her.  I just said she wasn’t very cool.  Are you going to argue with me there?”

Blair snickered.  “Not really.”

“It’s okay.  My mom and dad aren’t cool, either,” Imran said.  “My sisters are worse, though.  All Rashidah does is go on and on about her boyfriend now that he lives over in Oasis Springs.  I don’t care.  Shut up!  And Maira’s always barging into my room nosing into my business.”

“I wish I could not barge into James’ room, but unfortunately, it’s also my room.  Ugh.”  Blair flopped on the couch.  “Uncle Jonathan, do you think Father Winter could magically attach a new room to the house for Winterfest?  Because I swear, if I don’t get that for my birthday first, I want that more than anything.”  She looked over at James.  “No offense, James.  You know I love you.”

He just babbled back at her happily.

“See?  You’re a cool sister.”

“I’ve got to agree with Imran there,” said Jonathan.



After they opened presents, and Blair and her friends went outside to play and explore, James started to show those telltale toddler signs of an impending crash.  Although he still acted like he had energy and wanted to play, his movements were getting clumsy and his noises had a distinct cranky undertone.  “Okey-dokey.”  Boyd picked him up.  “I know you’re fighting sleep, but it’s time.  Let’s tell everyone night-night.”

He wiggled in protest, wide-eyed as if he thought he could fool his way out of it.  “Nice performance, but neither of us wants you to get that full on birthday cake crash outside the crib.  Let’s go.”



Shortly after James’ birthday, it was time for San Myshuno’s Spice Festival.  Both Boyd and Susan decided to go and made arrangements in advance for the kids to be babysat so they could attend.  A while back, Boyd had been in the city on a business trip and embarrassed himself in front of his co-workers practicing eating spicy city curry for it, but since then, he had developed a love of, and a bit of an adversarial relationship with, the spicy food of the city.  He was determined to conquer it and “beat” the spice festival someday with an iron tongue and stomach.

Susan, on the other hand, found that being in the city reminded her of her parents, and tasting the foreign food and attending the festivals, especially, reminded her of her mother.  She still missed them both dearly.  They had been gone long enough now, though, that the grief was no longer raw, and it was not hard to be in the city.  Rather, going to the festival sparked fond memories and made her think that it was the sort of thing her mother always loved.  It was still a little hard to look over at the Jasmine Suites building and know that they were no longer there, but it was what it was.  The closure she had with her father after James was born had helped a lot with that, as did knowing that the lawyer, Miss Hell, was living up to her name in getting the bloodthirsty insurance companies to suck wind instead.  Her office was in that district, too, but she had never been there herself or met her in person.  Jonathan was still handling all of that.

“This stuff isn’t too hot,” Susan remarked.  “Well seasoned, but hardly what I’d call super spicy.”

“You haven’t tried the challenge curry yet.”

“I’m not planning to.  Unlike you, I don’t like numbing my tastebuds beyond reason for bragging rights.”

“But if I finish the plate, I get a cool t-shirt!”

“We already got cool spice festival t-shirts.  We’re wearing them.”

“But it’s not the special red flame cool I-beat-the-spice-challenge t-shirt.”

“Well, you try what you want here first, give it your best shot, and I’ll cheer you on.  I hope you get it since it means so much to you.  Though I think you half want it just so you can wave it in Kalamainu’u’s face.”

“Not half.  A significantly smaller percentage.”

Susan chortled.  “But not insignificant.”



After trying several of the spicier dishes, and faring well enough, Boyd felt up to the famous curry challenge.  “Are you sure about this?”  Susan eyed it dubiously.  “I haven’t seen too many flaming red t-shirts around here.  Just saying.  And there are a lot of people here that think they’re hot plum, pardon the pun.”

“I tried it once and didn’t die.”

“I remember you telling me you thought you were going to.”

“I was younger and more foolish then.  I lived through it.  Surely my experience has paid off.  And I’ve practiced.”

She eyed the curry, and then him, again.  “Enough?  Remember the pho at the Humor and Hijinks festival?”

He held up a hand.  “That was a completely different type of dish.  I wasn’t ready for it.  I’m mentally prepared this time.”

“I’m just saying, I ate a sausage at that same festival, and I thought my tongue was going to peel off.  A sausage Maaike said was ‘kind of hot.’”

“But Susan, I use more hot sauce than you do.  I’ve been practicing.”

She leaned closer and sniffed one of the challenge plates.  “Are you sure bottled ‘Plum-Kickin’ Pete’ is really the same caliber as freshly prepared and ground by a chef out to launch a full-on assault on your senses?”

Boyd was mildly indignant.  “Are you calling my hot sauce wimpy?”

“Not wimpy.  Grocery store quality versus authentic.  There’s a difference.”

“Well, in flavor, certainly, but in Scoville units?”

“Did you measure it?”

“No,” he admitted.  “But…”

She shrugged.  “It’s your mouth.  And that is literally on fire.  Just saying.”

“That’s just part of the show.”  He said it as much to convince himself as her.  “A dramatic flair and a psych out.”  He took a deep breath.  “I’m going to do it.”

Susan patted him on the back.  “I’m going to go get some drinkable coolant.  I think you’re going to need it.  One of those coconut drinks should work.  Do me a favor and at least wait for me.”



When Susan returned, Boyd had his plate and was ready to go.  “Standing by,” she said.

“All right.  Here goes.”  He dug his fork in, sniffed, and took a bite.  It wasn’t too bad at first.  Spicy, yes, like he remembered.  Very spicy.  But not as bad as he expected.  “It’s hot.”  He swallowed.  “So, bite two.”  He took another.  Bigger.  Probably best to get it done fast.  He would most likely regret that tomorrow, but the t-shirt and bragging rights would be worth it.

“You okay?”

“It’s hot.”  It felt like it was getting hotter.  He wished the plate was not quite so big, but he was determined.  He could do it.  He would make himself do it.  If he could use Plum-Kickin’ Pete to clear his sinuses, surely he could eat a plate of curry?

But it was starting to burn going down, now.

“Boyd?”

“I’m okay.”  The wince on his face and waver in his voice indicated that perhaps he was not okay, but trying very hard to be.

He lifted his fork.  Plum.  How was there still half a plate left?  He dug in and shoved it into his mouth, gulping the curry and letting as little of it touch his tongue as possible.

Whoo!  That cleared the sinuses and his ear canals.  And he hadn’t realized there was anything in either of them…

Susan winced on his behalf.  “Do you want a drink?  You really don’t look good.  Are you sure you should finish that?”

“Can’t break the rules,” he huffed out, shoving in another bite.  “Gotta get it down.”

“Don’t kill yourself over a stupid plate of food!”

He could hear her berating him in the background, and the worst part was, she was right.  There would be no living with her on the ride home, he thought as…



“GAH HOLY HEARTBURN LLAMA MAN!”

That was all he could take.  Boyd doubled over as the spices in the challenge curry claimed their victory.  He doubled over coughing, feeling like he was breathing literal fire and acid as bits of food he did not manage to swallow came spewing back out of his mouth, onto the sidewalk, with their noxious fiery vapors filling his nostrils with bonus pain and misery.

“Oh, Boyd.”  Susan rushed to his side and helped ease him back up after he finished coughing, defeated, and gently picked up the discarded plate.  She handed him the coconut drink to ease his suffering, which he guzzled like a man dying of thirst in a desert, and she patted him sympathetically.  “Sweetie, why’d you have to go and do that to yourself?  You should’ve stopped after the first couple of bites.”

“I didn’t want to give up,” he moaned miserably.

“Well, for what it’s worth, you made a decent showing.  I tasted one sample bite and that was enough for me.”  She smooched him on the cheek.  “Maybe next festival.  And maybe try flexing your tastebuds on some authentic curry from a place like this in the meantime.”

He winced.  “I don’t think I’m going to want any curry for a while.”



“Another curry victim, eh?” Mortimer Goth offered the Wainwrights his sympathy.  “I learned my lesson earlier.  I thought, I’m a worldly man.  I’ve tried my share of spicy food.  Surely it won’t defeat me.  But, oh, was I mistaken!  Sorely mistaken.”

“Nice to know I’m not alone, although I’m a little embarrassed it’s defeated me twice now,” Boyd admitted.  “I tried some once before to practice when I was in town, and it got me good.  So, this time, I thought I was prepared, but no.  I was not.  I forgot just how hot it was.  I won’t make that mistake again.”

“The third time shall be the charm, then!”  He extended his hand.  “Mortimer Goth.  Nice to meet you.”

“Boyd Wainwright.”  He shook his hand, and then Susan did the same.

“Susan Wainwright.”

“A pleasure to meet you both.  I hope other than the flaming curry of death, you’ve been enjoying yourselves?”

“Oh, yes,” Susan said.  “We don’t get much time to cook, so good food is always a treat.  Speaking of which, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to check out those free herb samples over here.  It was nice meeting you!”

“Likewise.”  Mortimer waved as Susan ran off, while Boyd and Mortimer continued their conversation.



“Like she was saying, we don’t cook much, so for us, anything fancy involves a lot of time and a cookbook and usually a big mess in the kitchen and some forbidden words that our kids probably don’t need to hear.  And since we both work and have two kids, there’s not a whole lot of time for that, especially with a house to keep up.”

“I know how that is.  My wife and I have busy jobs and two kids ourselves.  A teenage girl soon to go off to university and a boy starting high school.”

“Oh yeah?  We’ve got a girl who’s almost a teenager and a boy just about to start nursery school.  Sounds like ours are just a bit behind yours.”

“I’d ask if they knew each other, but I’m from all the way out in Willow Creek, not here in the city, so I’d guess not.”

“We’re not from the city, either,” said Boyd.  “Just visiting.  Brindleton Bay area.”

“The shore.  Nice.”

“Would be if we had time to enjoy the beach, I guess.  Mostly our daughter gets to.  I feel like my only time outside is mowing the lawn or weeding the plants.  Whenever it’s not raining, that is.”  He looked over at the apartment buildings.  “I’m not going to lie.  Lately, I’m envious of these people who have no yard work or coastal thunderstorms knocking out their internet service.”

Mortimer nodded.  “The city does have its perks.  The culture and ambiance.  But I’m a traditionalist and inherited a family home, and don’t believe I could ever sell it.  My father’s ghost, and my grandparents’, would probably cross the street from the cemetery in Willow Creek if I did.”

Boyd blinked as he realized where Mortimer must live, and that he was talking to a man of some status.  Goth was an old money name, like Landgraab, but not everyone named that was part of that family, so he had not made that assumption.  “Best not to incur the wrath of the ancestors, then,” he said wryly.  “My wife and I both have family buried in that cemetery, too.  Neat coincidence.”

“Well, then, perhaps if you’re ever in town visiting, stop by and say hello.  My wife and I love visitors, and Bella’s a spectacular hostess, if I do say so myself.  I’m sure she and your wife would get along fabulously.”

Before Boyd could answer, another man, Maverick MacDonald, stepped up to try the curry challenge.  “Best of luck to you, my friend,” Mortimer warned him in a friendly tone.  “No one yet has conquered that feisty dish.”

“I saw, but… I like to think I maybe I can handle it.”

“That’s what I said, too.  Twice,” Boyd said with a self-deprecating chuckle.  “But if you can defeat it, I’ll buy you a drink.  Because now it’s personal and I want to see someone take it down.”

“You’re on, man.  Thanks!”  With that encouragement, Maverick dug into his plate hoping to prove his mettle into a free libation.  At first, it looked like he might succeed.  Unfortunately, much like Boyd, he soon learned the dish only got hotter as it went, and a few bites in, his face flushed as hot as his dish and he spat it back out, coughing hellfire and spitting curses so loud that Boyd was certain that the Jacoban priests in the cathedral two blocks away were tsk-tsking him from there.

“Oh, dear.  Another victim.  But it was a good try.  Plenty don’t make it even that far.”



Although Boyd was the one who was more of an expert in botany of the pair, given his work at the lab, both of them tended the garden at home, and it was Susan who did most of the cooking.  Her ability to work from home had her home more often, so it was simply more practical for her to cook whatever they did eat, so she was the better cook of the pair.  “Nice,” Susan murmured as she helped herself to the samples that were clearly marked as free for the taking.  The bushes were hearty and healthy and had plenty for everyone.  “Fresh parsley and sage.”  She clipped some.  “Fruit, too!  Blackberries and… oh, my Watcher!  Is this Dragon fruit?”  That was ultra rare and expensive, a grafted plant that was a pain to start and grow unless you had the seeds.  She looked around.  Was that really free for the taking?  The sign said so, so… “Okay, then.”  She pocketed it.  After eating that, they were going to save the seeds and grow it.  I bet Mom would’ve been super impressed with that, she thought on a wistful note.