Safeword: Storm Clouds(26)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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