Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Lay of the Land

New Jersey is an interesting state. Near New York and Newark Airports, it is very industrial, at least in the area we are in now. There is also the shipping seaport nearby. More industry. Container ships out the ears. Massive cranes to load and unload them. There is also some up and down to the geography, not counting things like overpasses, and that allowed us to pause, get up a little higher, and have a look around.

"It feels like east Texas, but it doesn't. The Houston ship channel area. The port of Galveston. The ports that service the chemical plants to the east of Houston in places like Orange." I said to Morgan.

I waved around as I mentioned it. Morgan considered. She is from Houston, so she knows what I am talking about. "I am loath to use such a term, but it 'feels' different. There is something distinctly East Coast and older about it. More of a rust belt feeling. There is a mix of old brick buildings. There is nothing this old anywhere in east Texas. There are modern glass buildings. One can see those anywhere." Morgan pointed West. "Then there is the New York skyline. That is quite distinctive and nothing like Beaumont or Port Arthur."

I agreed and added: "Plus the trees. Whatever that kind is that grows up north here, not the piney things down south. It's the same, and it's different." I said.

Morgan looked back at the New York skyline thoughtfully. "We need to come up here sometime for a visit. Not only the museums and the city but I have a young friend up here somewhere I have lost track of and I would like to know how she is doing. From an old case." Morgan grinned to herself. "You'd like Darla. I know she'd like you... maybe that isn't a great idea. Perhaps I should come here alone..."

"Whatever. If it's another part of your past in Houston you are ready to reveal, I am ready to hear about it." I said.

I know this case, but Morgan does not know I know. I researched her past when it was obvious she did not like to talk about it, and I wondered why. Darla is a preacher's kid that was a suspect in a case. A suspect for everyone but Morgan, who as usual saw more and deeper. She was high school age back then, so now she would be a young woman in the big city. In her late twenties or early thirties. Hmm. A little older than Morgan was when she ran that case. I wonder if that is what made her think of it. That and the skyline.

This was not the time to talk about that so I went back to where we are now. "In the meantime, this mix of buildings is weird to me. All the shipping and industry of this area, and then there are offices dropped into the middle of it. Some are regular multi-story office building style structures. Not New York tall, but not spread out, one and two-story buildings either. Not the winged two stories with central lobby type office space like what the Sirens attacked me in. Lego office buildings like Laura builds with her many construction sets, although hers inevitably have helicopters on top."

"Laura is in her 'flying office building' phase. Well-known child developmental phase, I am sure." Jessica contributed.

"Normal for Casa de Gato, if Nakoma is any measure." Denise said.

"You worried what your kids are going to turn out like?" Jessica asked.

"Not in the slightest. Living there has convinced me even further I made the right choice." Denise said.

"Good thing we are going to choose you too then." Helen said.

Denise gave Helen one of those smiles that promises more. "You will think that in much more concrete terms when I am done with you."

Oh boy. The clash of the nearly 600-year-old Titans just got set.

I continued pointing out the weirdness to my eyes. "Back to around here, not hundreds of years from now when Denise is setting Helen free: There are buildings stirred into the area that are offices attached to warehouses. Others are offices built near warehouses. Perhaps even the same companies? Hard to know. So many businesses hide all their tentacles by having different business names for different aspects. Helen had a zillion of them."

Helen looked around the area. "I am pretty sure some of these are mine. Ours, now. You married a fair amount of real estate."

"That is not why I married you." I said.

"Oh. I am aware." Helen said. "You are a goat. I am a field in which you like to graze."

"Thank you. I needed that in my head right now." Denise complained.

"Pffft. It was already in your head." Helen shot back.

"Not up front!" Denise said. "I had it safely contained. Now I want to be grazed on."

"Some of these buildings are ancient, at least in US terms." Morgan diverted us back to the here and now.

"When I joined Crew, none of this was even here. All woods." Denise said.

As if the clash of the titans did not do it, Denise reminded me that this country is not that old. Even though she has been Crew almost this country's entire existence, she has a larger quantity of years as a sexual service professional BEFORE that. In three different countries! Nothing is permanent, and a weird thing about Vampire life span I am coming to understand is being around to see the slow changes. The ebb and flow of human lunacy. The giving into people that only want power, then having to take it back. Over and over. The great American experiment falling prey to the same things every other form of government has. Greed over good. We Vampires ride it out in the shadows. We have always watched, waited, and co-opted whatever the latest human travesty is, trying to influence it from the inside.

Everything Helen has ever done to help Vampiredom shifted around for me as I thought about these things. I wonder if humans would have already wiped out the species if Vampires had not been working behind the scenes to stabilize things. How many wars has Helen stopped because she took some powerful guy to bed and distracted and guided him onto a different path? How many wars are going to come because she is married and does not do that anymore? Will some other Vampire step into that breach?

Would I? If Victoria came to me and said she needed me to pop off for 30 years to save the world by seducing some woman someplace (and with my pheromones, I can...) and be to this human woman what Helen has been to many men down the centuries... would I do it?

I know I would not while I have kids at home. But: if I am to be honest with myself, I can't see me doing it. Leaving my family to go do the 'right thing' for the world does not seem like something I could agree to. Here is a way that Helen is a much bigger person than I am. She sucked it up and took one for the team.