Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

My Husband is a Lawyer

When Helen and Jessica bought up land near our house, it was everything that was for sale, or that people accepted offers on. In some cases, for a particular property that Helen or Jessica wanted because of its proximity to us, well above market offers were made. The idea was originally to create as a buffer zone to our housing complex. We wanted to be sure that no one was near us because of our history with the Siren's and being worried about being observed. We are Vampires, after all. Helen was planning on tearing down all the houses and creating a vast estate not unlike Claremont over in France but without all the grapevines.

Technically, we could put in grapevines. This is the Texas wine region, after all. There are a ton of wineries in Llano, Fredericksburg, and thereabouts.

It is an excellent thing that the teardown part of the plan never happened, as now it is the core of New Ninovan. It never happened because Helen did not want to create wide-open spaces for the humans that did not sell to her. She felt that if the people that remained around us were to find their homes solitary and separated from all the others, it would be harder to eventually buy them out. On the other hand, if today's plan goes as Helen hoped, we might pick up a few more properties.

These formerly empty houses are the core of the issue we discussed a few days ago over at the New Ninovan community pavilion. Helen and Jessica bought all the houses, so they are all technically ours. The Ninovan's are in them because we had to put them someplace. It was a ready-made solution to the problem of being discovered, and it made our buffer zone full of people that are used to being isolated and keeping secrets.

These are the same houses that some are treating well, and others are not.

For the humans that did not sell and are not in the know about Ninovan or our hidden world, they found themselves surrounded by people who they do not know, do not interact except with each other, and behave according to their own rules.

A 'neighborhood meeting' was called by the woman whose house Helen and I are in now. The expressly noted purpose of this gathering is forming an HOA or homeowners' association. The letter with the invitation came with pictures of some of the garbage some of the Ninovan's are doing. Cars parked on lawns. Uncut grass. A disassembled lawnmower in the front yard. Visible chicken coops, and free-ranging animals of various types. Sheep. Goats.

The woman that organized this meeting is Gemma De Santos. She is as Caucasian a person as has ever had that last name that I have ever seen. Her stick-thin arms are heavily veined: Gemma is a gym rat. Her body fat probably borders on 10%.

In various pictures, I saw pictures of her with a clean-shaven, dark-haired man wearing stylish glasses. Looking at his apparent ethnicity, I think there is exactly enough Hispanic ancestry to have that last name, and not a gene more. In Central Texas, that is not unusual. I found it admirable in fact that they kept the surname, as there is frequently a bit of a white southerner attitude when it comes to anyone of Mexican or technically any Latino descent. White boys came and took this state from Mexico, and there is a segment of them that does not like to be reminded that this was not their land originally.

In the living room are gold trophies, and various other artifacts to show that Mr. De Santos is an upstanding member of the community.

Gemma saw me looking at one picture and said "That's my Bobby. He is a lawyer. Full partner, up in town. Sampson and Smith. Heard of them?"

"I have actually. My brother went up against them in a court case last year. They had a bench full of people over there in the opposing counsel. Sampson even. Your husband was not on the team. Sampson and Smith were suing Don's client for Breach of Contract. Don doesn't normally do Civil casework, but he will when the case is right. In this case, he wanted to stuff Samson and Smith's client into a legal incinerator. And he did."