North American Vampire Council & Past Calling (Hypernaturals 12 & 13)

The Goodbye Girl

The 'Wave Goodbye' thing that Cert wrote in her note was real, part of the plan, and it happened.

Rachel and Helen are home. Rachel, Helen, and I had recently arrived in the bed from the shower, hair, and beard protocols observed, along with 'welcome home' loving in the shower. Rachel pushed the limits a little by washing my front, and when the time came, helped me with Helen. Helen enjoyed being doubled up on by the two of us.

I have been working on Rachel to get her to stay home more, so I am happy to have that wall crumble a little. I am not trying to have sex with her, but I do not want her to think she is not welcome or part of the family either. If Rachel can go far enough to treat me and my homegrown attachments as if I am a sex toy for her true love, mission accomplished. We both loved on Helen, and Rachel and I have a new comfort zone.

Since Jessica made Denise start sleeping with us, she is often where Morgan used to be, on the outside, though we have not really settled on a sleeping order. Depends on the squirming around and who is in the mood for what.

I am near the center, cuddled between Helen and Jessica this evening. I enjoyed that. Not only the cuddle but being between those two. Where it all started. The three of us.

All of us were in various forms of repose and cuddling when the ping came in.

Denise got the ping, unwrapped herself from Morgan, and looked at her phone on the side table, annoyed. She sat up abruptly, pulled out a computer.

Being on the outside lane of the bed tonight, it was within easy reach. That might be part of why she ends up there. As a Crew Lead, she tends to get more late-night calls.

"I'll. Be. Damned." Denise verbally punctuated.

Now we all sat up and waited for an explanation. The verbal punctuation sounded as if this might be a leap from the bed and go into action type of thing. When a Crew Lead sounds like that, it is often not good.

I immediately assumed Alexander tried to seduce a guard and that the guard pulled his face through the bars to have a talk with him. I wondered what they were wearing this evening that provoked that. Not that Alexander needs much provocation. Cert may have drained him repeatedly for days, but a day in the jail with sleep and food and he should be ready to lose control.

Denise looked around the bed at the expectant faces. "She waved goodbye. Cert fucking waved goodbye."

She scrolled a video to the start, flipped the screen around so we could see it.

On the screen is a video from a security camera. Obviously from the background, it is from an airport. The high definition security camera this video came from is focused on where passengers stop, scan their boarding pass, and then proceed up the jetway. The video was slightly distorted because it was taken with a slightly wide-angle lens. I presume they used a wider angle so they could see the background behind the gate attendant better, in case someone tried to slide around behind the desk or something.

The figure on the screen that scanned their ticket was nondescript in a lumpy, formless sweatshirt. Loose sweat pants. Dark and shapeless, the clothing hiding the length of her legs versus her torso. The hood of the sweatshirt was flipped forward. From the back, it is a little difficult to be sure it is in fact a 'her'. The walk indicated it probably is, but some guys have a self-confident hip swivel, not to mention they could be non-binary so that hip rotation is not a certain diagnostic. There are no logos on anything the figure is wearing. Department store generic stuff. The kind of thing one wears when you fly a great deal, do not care what you look like and want to be comfortable on the flight.

The figure turned, faced the camera, knowing exactly where it is and waved. The hood hid her hair, and she wore glasses with huge lenses to obscure part of her cheeks. It is Cert, though. She grinned, showing her teeth. It was a very superior, shit-eating, 'I am laughing at you' expression. Cert waved once, then proceeded up the ramp.

I looked at the time stamp on the video. "Crap. Twenty-four hours ago."

"Where?" Morgan asked. She did not need to ask more than with that one word.

"San Francisco. Flight to Singapore. She disappeared from there. She must have changed on the plane because nothing we could steal from the Singapore security cameras showed anyone dressed like that. No faces to scan that were her." Denise told Morgan. "A few suspects: A few women in scarfs. An assortment of Muslim women in burkas. A fair number of women wearing N95 face masks. Common there."

"Great. Cert is now in the most male Vampire hating Geo that there is." Helen said.

"We'll never get them to help us pry her out either. Nothing she has done is a crime in the AsiaPac Geo." Rachel said.

"She may have asylum, but that also means she is there for a while. Coming anywhere in the other Geos the 'Kill on Sight' is in effect. AsiaPac a big Geo, and she'll have things there to entertain her for a while, but I think this underlines her statement about leaving Adrian alone for now, while he has children. She is planning on going to ground for a while." Morgan opined.

"She will have a lot of time to plan her revenge." Denise said.

"Given how well she had this escape laid out, and how well she avoided us locally, having extra time to plan is not good." I said.

"Cert will be debriefed. The Guardians will be interested in her take on things like Boot Camp. Catalysts. She will share all she knows. I wonder how this will inflame the AsiaPac anti-male Vampire passions. They have never been on board with the changes. Now they will know about them firsthand." Rachel pointed out.

"Her most recent example of some of that having been Alexander." Jessica said.

"Lovely." I groused. "They are coming after us for sure."