Missing Vampire: Reward Available (Hypernaturals 6)

The Great Gates of Claremont Estates

My not-so-great tour of Europe is at long last at an end. I am looking at the gates to Helen's Claremont Estate. I looked at this on a satellite map before I came on this trip, and it seemed to go on forever. I suppose you need lots of lands to grow grapes. 

I am glad I did that because that is how I knew things about my required path. I was not a geography major. Just curious about where I was going. I looked at Mumbai and Turkey, scrolled through to the Alps, pausing to realize I forget a lot of my high school and college geography. Either that or we never talked about the Adriatic and the Black Sea. 

Morgan sat with me as I was doing it, and we scrolled up to Norway to see part of her ancestorial home. Half Amerind on her mothers' side, half Norweigian on her fathers, she said someday she'd like to visit Norway, although being an 'Olsen' there meant nothing about who you might be related to, any more than being a 'Smith' did in England.

Since my family tree as so many branches, we are more of a family bush, so we ran around from the satellite view looking at all sorts of places. I made up stuff about an ancestor seducing another one 'there on the side of that lake'. We have always been water people. Morgan did not believe me of course, especially after I said in a different location 'Here is where my many greats grandma Ashanti seduced my many greats grandpa Oles. Right here in this little outcropping, it is said.'

Morgan just said "Sure."

I may have been being goofy, but I pointed out "It COULD be true, because my family works that way, and we always have."

To which Morgan told me "And that is how legends are born. Will you tell Diana this story of her progenitors?"

"About how Grandma Ashanti taught Grandpa Oles the wonders of sexual love? Probably not." I replied.

Thank all the gods and Morgan Olsen (she is kind of a Goddess to me, but I think that about all the Vampire women I love) for an evening of pure intellectual curiosity with my occasional goofiness. Would I have still made it across Europe without that night? Absolutely. Would I have been able to stay as deep undercover? Probably not. I cringe at the idea of having to look for bookstores and break into them to get to atlases of the world. Or need to find English, Spanish, or French-speaking locals and fanging them into helping me.

At one point, I was down in a ravine, looking up the hill at a restaurant at the edge of a city and with views of the mountains beyond. The food smelled amazing. I was thinking as I looked at the outside porch full of people dingin 'What if I had to scoop off someone from there and fang them?'. No way to streal someone out of a crowd unnoticed. Especially as that place had two HPA vans in the parking lot and I could see tables full of people in uniforms. Laughing. Harassing the waitstaff. Generally being assholes.

After all the stress and staying hidden and stealing things I am having a little trouble believing this is over. I am also nervous because I look like I did exactly what I did, walk or run across part of Europe and I smell like it too. My most recent bath in the river wore off long ago. I look and smell like something even Snowball would not play with, and she likes really stinky food.

Helen SHOULD be here. Jessica and Morgan and Diana? Probably not. Helen should be. She knows this is where I headed toward, assuming she got my voice message via Jessica so long and so many countries ago.

I listened: No cars or more importantly, vans, coming up the road. Nothing in range of any sense.

I broke cover, crossed the road, walked up to the gate, and gave it a look over. I could clear it easily. It is massive, but not electrified. No reason to do that however because there is a free-standing buzzer box set up for cars to ring up to the house for admittance. It has a built-in camera so they can see me from inside the gated walls. I do not look like me with the beard, unwashed hair, and generally decrepit hobo-like appearance. I assume Helen will still recognize me if the camera is at all good. Or the microphone hi-fidelity enough to make it obvious that it is my voice. That did not change in all of this.