Missing Vampire: Reward Available (Hypernaturals 6)

Out of Country

I don't get out of the USA very much.

When I first turned I did not travel because while I was on parole to the North American Vampire Council, I could not leave North America. Canada or Mexico being both IN NorthAM are fine, but traveling outside NorthAm while on Parole (because I am a boy...) would have been a good way to get myself hunted and killed. Jessica, as my parole officer, would never let me do something that stupid.

Once off parole, Vampire SOP is to start getting ready to hide your assets and prepare for your next human life. I do not yet possess a great deal of personally generated assets, but my spouses over the centuries metric tons of of them, and I am adding a few things here and there. Helen manages most of that: the advantage of five centuries of experience.

Jessica started a few new ID's for me in North America. I have one in Mexico, and one in the USA and another that spans the USA and Canada. My main ID is still my old human one. That is the 'me' generating money writing computer code.

Getting off Parole came with duties. I am the one and only Siren Liaison (Yippee Skippee!: It sucks), and that is Austin based, so I have a lot of work to do there.

Then, Jessica unexpectedly became pregnant, and we hid out at our Austin house and Diana was born there. That was a great night: My entire family there for the birth of our glorious little girl: Diana Prince Sagan is a joy. Delivered by my Mom and our human friend, Lori, she made Morgan Olsen cry.

Morgan is a former Cop, a PI, and now a hypersensitive Vampire PI. She is not a hard ass like my wife Helen. Morgan IS all about being in control, and seeing her cry over our daughter is still a singular event.

Helen comes by her badassery honestly because she is over five hundred years old and the youngest ever member of the NorthAm Vampire Council. She sent a fair number of male Vampire to their deaths over the years when they failed Parole, and would have liked to condemn me except that her love, Jessica, would not have that.

Also, I am told I turned out a bit better than most male Vamps. Personally, both Morgan and I think that the male Vampire parole system is deeply flawed. Neither of us has the political stroke to fix it.

Either way, Helen married Jessica and I. Vampires do NOT play things by human rules. No one really knows how long a Vampire might live if left to just run the clock out. The current wild ass guess is about ten thousand years, but who knows? No Vampire dies of natural causes. The most common cause of death is boredom.

Diana is the happiest, most bubbly little girl I ever met. I am surprised she learned to walk because between Morgan, Helen, Jessica, myself, Danny, Lori, and my parents, she never really needed to.

Diana loves her adult transport as much as any kid, but she also has a mind of her own and she walked early, talked early, and learned to swim early. All this is according to my mother: Diana is my first child, so I have no idea when kids learn things. I have nothing to compare it to, and she did not come with a manual.

Diana loves picture books, and once I read the story to her, she memorizes it and pretends to read it to me. To say she is verbally advanced would be an understatement. Most parents think she is an undersized four or five-year-old.

Diana is the first child of two Vampires that we know of in eight millennia, so maybe this is all normal for Vampire kids?

I am thinking about all this because I am very far away: the actual, real, other side of the planet and recently in India at a computer conference, sent there by a company I do contract work for. They sent a lot of contract programmers there, and they wanted me to meet them. Put faces to names. It was super fun and an interesting week. Indian's might be some of the most friendly, most social, and perhaps some of the happiest people I ever met. Family is everything, and baby pictures welcome. They also drive like hell and cut in lines. I am glad I went to the conference and met everyone and their families. The food in India is fabulous, and I have a lot of new ideas for dishes once I am home in Austin. Vampires love their protein and I am about to try Paneer in EVERYTHING.

I miss my family. Morgan sent me pictures of her and Diana doing things, and we video conferenced, and Diana is always so happy to see and hear me.

Diana and I have never been apart. 'Daddy' was her first word, much to the chagrin of Jessica, Helen, and Morgan.

Diana and Morgan forged a special and immediate bond. The first person she called 'Mommy' is Morgan, which got up Helen and Jessica's noses but Morgan lives in the same house and co-raised Angel's little girl, Nakoma. Morgan understands what to do. I am sure being raised by her dad as a single parent has something to do with that as well. Helen raised many more children than that down the centuries, but it has been a century or two.

Diana called Jessica 'Mommy' a couple days later, so all was well. It took another week and a lot of encouragement before Helen finally got her to call her 'Mommy'.

I think Ice Cream may have been involved. Diana can be bribed.

Helen is a hard ass except where Diana is concerned and then she is a soft touch. Morgan is the disciplinarian. Oddly, that seems to get her the most respect.

None of that is to mention Helen's girlfriend, Rachel, Danny, and Lori, or my mom and dad. Diana is surrounded by family and by love.

It is funny. Indian culture is very traditional in some ways, so my Vampire lifestyle would not be well respected there, however, once one gets past the surface, it's the same. It's all about family.

The conference is over and I am on the road, but not to home. I am currently at a massive airport in Istanbul, Turkey, on my way to Paris. Helen is going to meet me in Paris and she has a 'Surprise' waiting for me there. I can get no more than that out of her, and neither Jessica nor Morgan are talking if they even know what the surprise is.

I call this facility an airport. It is more like a massive, International shopping mall, with some plane terminals attached. From where I landed from Mumbai to where I am to take off to Paris is a major hike, and it wends its way through clothing shops, car dealers, duty-free everything, luggage, and you name it. If one did not need to go through security to get inside, it would be a major shopping destination. Any doubts I may have had about how westernized Turkey is are laid to rest in this behemoth. My airport in Austin would not even be a terminal here. On the other hand, there are no huge models of Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitar here either.

I finally reached the terminal after a kilometer hike, and now I only have a couple more hours to wait. There is a tiny little pub / bar thing right by the gate, so I decided to try a local beer. Efes Pilsner. It has the coolest tap of any beer I have ever seen. Somehow they caused frost to permanently adhere to the stem and the top of the tap, but not to interfere with the mechanism.

I am sipping on my properly sized beer (in the US, too many places think sixteen ounces is a beer pint). Looking around. The bartender could be any woman in Austin. Long wavy brown hair. Lots of tattoos. That friendly but reserved way an attractive young woman tending bar can be when there and many potentially drunk men around her.

It all went to shit.

A guy sat on the next barstool when there are plenty of other open stools. He looked at me intently, and compared my face to a picture. He is wearing a uniform, so I started to be concerned. I have never been to the country, but my India Business Visa is brand new, and I have not left the airport or anything.

I know there is another guy behind me because I am a hypersensitive Vampire. I sensed his body heat, and scented 'male human'. I did not turn to look at him, and that was a mistake. I felt a needle suddenly and rudely poked into my neck, right as his scent spiked to tell me he was about to do something. I stood up, spun, looked him over. "What the hell?" I asked, and then I got dizzy. I saw the barstool pass by my eyes on the way to the floor.