Chapter 56: Summer in Tartosa

"Why do you so often do what the Count tell you to?" Helena asks him one day after they've made love.
"What do you mean?" Valentine asks.
"Well, you return home, for one. Every single morning, never staying the night, sometimes even at the risk of the sun."
"You mean you want me to stay?"
"Maybe."
"You've never asked me to."
"Why do I have to? If you want to stay, you stay, if you want to return, you return. You're a free agent and can do what you want."
"And if I don't want to be a free agent?"
"Are you asking me what I think you are?"
"What if I did?"



That morning, Valentine doesn't come home as usual, but instead tries to sneak through the door as the sun is descending, hoping the Count is not up from his slumber yet. Unfortunately, he has no such luck, the Count materialises in the hallway the moment he steps through the door.
"I had expected you this morning."
"I didn't know I had a curfew," Valentine retorts, annoyed at being caught, but also at the Count's obvious displeasure. His own parents were less strict than this.



His retort does nothing to please the count. "And here I was under the impression that we had an understanding," the Count retort. "That in order for your to benefit from my training you follow the rules I, for good reasons, have set up for this house."
"That I'll be home before sunrise?"
"That this house is securely locked at daytime to prevent intrusions when we are at most vulnerable! Do you have any idea of how many vampires have been slain because they did not take these precautions? And here you were not, meaning the door could not be sealed as it was supposed to be!"
"You could have just given me a key."
"A key?" The Count snorts. "Something which can be stolen from your person?"
"Aren't you being a bit paranoid, right now." Stolen keys? Intrusions into the night? Surely they weren't living in the dark ages.



The Count approached him further, his voice low though his expression spoke of fury. "Paranoid? You believe my caution to be irrational? A fear of the unseen? Oh, but I have seen. When you have walked this earth as long as I have, there is nothing left unseen. I do not fear, I remember, and I take heed of those memories. I learn from the mistakes of others. Do you believe we are the only creatures that mortals pretend not to know about? Are you so weak of mind that you fashion mere mortals the threat to me? I have met the creatures that hunt us and seek to enslave us. I have seen the young ones they've slain in their beds because caution did not tell them to bolt it shut in the day when they sleep. I have seen all that and more, I have survived. What you call paranoia, I call intelligence, foresight and precaution and if you are late again, I will let you burn in the sun rather than risk my own safety. Is that clear?"



"Yes. Yes! Okay! I won't leave you hanging like that again," Valentine answers, making damn sure he doesn't promise too much. He'll just stick a note to the door. That will keep him out of confrontation. He hopes.
"Then we have an understanding. Now we should be focusing on your training, you have been neglecting it of late."
"I haven't fed yet."
"Then you will go without fresh blood tonight, as a consequence of your choices. There are plasma packs to be had if you are in dire need." Valentine frowns, but dare not argue. Instead he does what the Count asks, and follow his training for the remainder of the night. Summer is approaching and with it his promise to his mother. He knows the count will not approve of him seeing his parents, or leaving for days on end, but he has already made up his mind. Come summer, he'll be going to Tartosa to see his parents. With or without the Count's good will.



Less than a week later, Valentine is off. He leaves a letter for the Count, telling him that he'll be away for a few days, and that he can safely lock the door without considering him. He has a feeling that was not what the Count thought he had agreed to, but for now his parents seem of greater importance. It helps that Helena, unlike other vampires he's met, urges him on.
"My parents were long gone by the time I was turned," she's told him one night. "If the'd been alive, I would never have given them up, not in a million years! If they can accept what you are, then you should be with them when you can."

And so late on what should have been his father's birthday, Valentine meet his parents at the step of the house they've rented in Tartosa. He hugs his father hard, then his mother.




Inside, his mother starts with food that they all know he cannot eat, but Valentine says nothing, as he has already eaten. He can pretend with them for a while.



They take a seat outside at the garden where Carolyn and Sunny eat and Valentine keeps the company. At first the conversation is awkward, as so much has happened in their lives without them having any contact. Carolyn gives him and update on everything. Amity's coming of age, Link's new girlfriend and the vet clinic, Harmony trying to become a writer of children's books. She also shares that her sister and her husband has both died, that now no one is running the shadier side of the Landgraab business.
"It's a bit sad," she says. "But I will not have the main company involved in things like that. I just always assumed my sister would have children of her own one day." She doesn't mention that with him being what he is, she no longer holds hope for him to take over the Landgraab business either. It will be a sad day when it's all divided and sold, but she's starting to make peace with that.
For Sunny, however, a new idea has formed. Ever since he's been turned he's been relying on the inheritence from his grandmother, and the hospitality of his hosts. But what if he took over the shadier parts of business? Most of that would take place at night anyway and a lot these days would be on the internet, so he wouldn't even have to leave Forgotten Hollow.



They speak for most of the night, but as the sun rises Valentine has to sleep. He takes to the same room he used to sleep in when they came here when he was a child, but keeps the curtains firmly shut. As a second thought he keeps the door locked. Not because he's paranoid, or worried that the count is right about the enemies of vampires, but just in case he might be.

While Valentine sleeps, Carolyn and Sunny tries to do the things they normally do on holidays. They dig for bottles in the sand, go swimming, rest in loungers on the beach and eat those delicious Tartosan fruit tarts from the local café.



But what is this? Back at the lodging Sunny is seen reading, but not any book. With him on the holiday he has brought Valentines old vampire tomes. "I thought you didn't want to know?" Carolyn asks him.
"Maybe it's time I start to understand more?" he tells his wife.



He finds a glimmer of hope when he finds out about plasma packs. So his son isn't bound to feed of people! There are options that work!



During dinner the next night he tries to bring this up, but while Valentine is happy that his father wants to learn more he's a bit annoyed at what he focuses on.
"It's not nearly the same," he tells his father bluntly. "They do not give the same nutrition, they make you lose your humanity faster and frankly they taste bad. You're not a vegetarian either, are you? And before you say it's not the same, you're right, it's not. The people I feed on usually survive."
Sunny, afraid of another argument, holds back that he doesn't eat humans when he eats meat. Instead he nods, and hopes his son will be wiser with age.



As his parents head to bed for the night, Valentine ventures out. First to the nightclub for some feeding. Inspired by Helena, he actually makes the effort to get someone to agree. It takes longer than he likes, but he does manage.




He then heads to the Tartosan museum, where he takes the time to watch the statues in the garden. In the moonlight they look suggestive, romantic, and cloaked in mystery. He thinks Helena would appreciate it, but sort of wishes he could see them in daylight.



At least the fountain is more beautiful at night. The lights can never be fully appreciated during the day.

He then heads upstairs to the library section, remembering what Vatore, Caleb, told him. He probably should have been here sooner, but lately he has been too preoccupied with Helena to remember things like books and finding out secrets about the count. But now that he's here, well it seems the perfect opportunity.



It's a single sentence that catches his attention:



Was this what the Count was referring to when he spoke of people slain in their beds? And there are more information, if vague, about the things the count mentioned. The book mentions a curse - but where would that curse come from? He remembers his grandmother's tales of plantsims, of the magic that temporarily turned her into more plant than human. Is this a version of that magic? Or something entirely different? Not for the first time he wishes he could find his way back to that glade his grandmother showed him, but that is something he has explored. The glade is shut against him, while it was open to her. Ultimately, however, he sees nothing in these records that contradict the information the count gave him. Could it be that Vatore is simply wrong and the Count's rough demeanor comes from real threats and horrible experiences?



The next day Valentine sleeps deep, and wake up only as the sun goes down. His parents has rested during the day, so that they can have the energy to stay up longer. Tonight, they go with him to the nightclub, not to see their son hunt, but to meet the woman he has been talking about nonstop for two nights.

They meet outside the nightclub, Helena a bit more nervous than someone who's lived for almost 80 years should be, but Carolyn greets her with friendliness and Sunny with cheerfulness, so she is quickly put at ease.

The four find a table inside, and spend a good portion of the evening getting to know one another. Sunny in particular is curious about Helena's life. What was it like growing up in the midst of the civil rights movement? Had she really met Martin Luther King?
"Met and met," Helena laughs. "I heard him speak a few times. Got to shake hands with him once, but I can't say that I actually met him."

As the night goes on, his parents return to their lodgings, and Helena and Valentine is alone again. They dance, then find food quickly before heading down to the beach where they go swimming in the warm water, watching the algae light the bay up.
"So when do you return?"
"Tomorrow," Valentine says. "But I need to go home before I can come to your place. The Count is going to be angry, and I might owe him an apology."
"For seeing your family?"
"No, for believing Vatore - Caleb. The things I read, they seem to indicate that the Count has been right, that there actually was a hunt for vampires and his fears and caution might be well founded."
"That might be," Helena says. "But that doesn't mean he is right about everything. He might have had horrible experiences that made him lose faith in humanity, but that might also cloud his judgement."
"So what do you think I should do?"
"Make your own mind up. Go see Caleb and Lilith, hear their story, then keep digging until you are sure you know what you need to know. And if he does kick you out, just knock on my door."
"Helena?"
"Yes?"
"I think I might just love you."
"Let me know when you know for sure."