We spent the afternoon that way, Gramps filling me in on the news from home, Okwari curled up next to us. It was oddly satisfying to hear such vanilla happenings as tractor breakdowns, who was caught sleeping with whose wife and so on. A little after four, my cell buzzed with a text.
T: How's it going?
C: Great! I just introduced Gramps to the big, clear furry dude. We're at the park but heading back soon. Want to come over and meet him?
T: Is it safe?
C: Haha! He can't wait to meet you and Lydia.
T: Okay. See you in say twenty...thirty?
C: Thirty it is.
“Hey, now I'm nervous. What if your girl doesn't like me?”
“Plleeease! Like that could happen.”
Okwari woke up from his nap and after snuffling both Gramps and myself, slipped away in a column of air. We headed home, arriving back in only fifteen minutes. I was amused to see my grandfather sprucing up to meet Tanya.
Forty-two minutes after our text session, I felt Tanya's presence in the building. I looked at my grandfather and said softly. “They're here.” He gave me a look that said 'how do you know' and I said.”I got a Tanya sense. Hers for me is even stronger.” He looked a little wide eyed at that and then shrugged. What was one more piece of strange among so many others.
I answered the door before they could knock and ushered them in.
It took Tanya about four milliseconds to win my grandfather over. She entered wearing a blue sweater-dress over black tights, with a smile on her beautiful face, but also a hint of vulnerability. Game, set and match.
“Grandfather, may I introduce Tatiana Demidova and Lydia Chapman. Ladies, this is my grandfather, Alex Gordon.”
Lydia was wearing a green sweater and black slacks. She stepped forward to shake Gramps hand as Tanya gave her room. He looked stricken for just a moment, then collected himself and welcomed them.
“Miss Demidova, Miss Chapman, it's a pleasure to meet you both.”
“Please, Mr. Gordon, call me Tanya.”
“Yes and call me Lydia, although Chris calls me Pain in the Ass.”
“Christian!” he rounded on me, instantly won to their side.
I held up both hands. “Give her some time, Gramps, you'll see what I mean.”
“Oh please, Northern, like anyone of his obvious class will believe you.” Lydia snorted.
I gave up, realizing I couldn't win this one. There was a moment of awkward silence, then I spoke up.
“Ladies, I was thinking of taking my grandfather out for dinner. We could do that or order in, whatever you want.”
Tanya smiled, which had the immediate effect of causing my grandfather to have an erratic heartbeat.
“So, ladies, how goes the first day on the job?” I asked.
Lydia laughed and Tanya gave her a look then answered.
“It's going well. Arkady is doing a great job and no one has raised any problems.”
“That's because they're all too scared to blink. Everytime our girl here says jump, we gotta talk them down off the ceiling. And when the regular hangers-on heard we were coming to meet you, they evaporated.”
Gramps had recovered enough to look puzzled, so Lydia answered his unasked question.
“Your grandson is fast acquiring a reputation in the supernatural world. It seems like all manner of bad things can happen to bad monsters when he's around.”
He asked why, and the Lydia started to tell much more detailed versions of the events of the last week. Tanya and I picked a restaurant after only a little haggling. While they would only drink wine or water, the girls had definite ideas on the kind of ambiance they wanted. I offered to call a cab, but Lydia said it wouldn't be necessary and Tanya looked chagrined.
“Why not?” I asked.
“You don't think Arkady would let the 'Young Queen' as she is now known, to travel unescorted would you? The limo is waiting out front.”
So we took the big Mercedes limo to a trendy restaurant, one that I couldn't have got into without a SWAT team, but that magically had a prime table available at the mention of the Demidova name. Dinner was amazing, actually, dinners, because I ate three by myself, which provided great cover for the girls, who only sipped wine. But it was watching my grandfather talk with Lydia that suddenly sunk home the reality of vampire lifespans. Lydia is only about sixty in vampire years, a mere child. But she was close to twenty when she was Turned and the combined total made her a few years older than Gramps. They had a ton in common and could talk about events and experiences that left Tanya and I out. Which was fine by us it gave us more time to be together. Finally, about nine o'clock, my grandfather who had been up for over eighteen hours started yawning.
“Ladies, my grandson's apartment is smaller than a shoebox. Do you think you could keep him overnight, so I can have the place to myself. He's really kind of a pain.”
Lydia laughed. “That's funny. I always compared his place to a litterbox.”
So, we dropped him off and I got to spend the night with Tanya. And oddly enough, when we walked in the door of the brownstone, the three vampires waiting to talk to Tanya took one look at me and decided their problems could wait.
“Cool, Tanya. Now we know how to get a night off whenever we want to,” Lydia said, just before she disappeared into her own suite.
Chapter 22
When I woke the next morning, it was with a contented sigh and not a pain or bruise anywhere on my body. So this was what it was like to wake up happy. I rolled over and snuggled close the warm female form, savoring the novelty of her presence. Tanya was deep asleep, as thoroughly sated as I, and tranquilized by daybreak. I lay there until nature called then padded to her bathroom, which was about the size of my apartment. After a quick shower, I dressed, kissed my snoozing vampire goodbye, left her a little love note and headed out. Mr. Deckert was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, a travel mug that smelled of coffee in one hand and aluminum foil wrapped bundle in the other.
“Morning, Officer Gordon,” he rumbled.
“Morning, Mr. Deckert,” I replied, my eyebrow arched in question as I looked at the coffee mug.
“Sensors indicated someone awake in the Young Queen's suite. Figured it had to be you. Thought you might like some coffee, and the morning cook made you an egg sandwich. The limo is waiting out front to take you wherever you need to go.”
He paused for a moment, as I had frozen on the stairs two steps from the bottom, stunned by his speech. He waited for me to make a response, obviously enjoying my surprise.
“Young Queen?” I asked.
“That's what they're all calling her now,” he shrugged.
“Limo?” I asked.
“Both Arkady and Lydia were very clear about your status in this household.”
Great, now if someone would just let me know what my status was.
There didn't seem to be anything to do but to accept the breakfast and free ride with as much good grace as I could muster.
The giant behind the wheel seemed vaguely familiar, then I realized he had been the guard in the garden, when I had been wrestling the Hellbourne on the patio. We didn't speak, other than me giving him my address.
Heading into my building, I no sooner hit the stairwell, than I could hear familiar voices on the second floor. I found Gramps chatting with Paige in the hallway outside my apartment, him with a paper under his arm and a Styrofoam cup of coffee, Paige in her running clothes.
“Hi Chris, I just met your grandfather,” she said with a smile.
The old man turned and arched one bushy gray eyebrow at me before adding, “Your delightful young neighbor was telling me all about the show you put on at that vampire club...what was it called?”