The Vampire's Special Child (The Vampire Babies Book 2)

by Amira Rain

  “What’d you say, Jen?”

  She gave her eyes the faintest of rolls. “Wow, between you and Carol today…doesn’t anyone care that me, Bucky, and Phyllis are having a ‘marathon paintball day’ today? We’re going to play paintball for at least two hours or so before going out to lunch, and then we’re gonna come back and play for at least another two hours or so. Bucky says I really need all the practice I can get to improve my aim. Then, maybe someday, I can be like him. He hardly ever misses a shot. Phyllis is pretty good, too.”

  I developed an amusing mental picture of two senior citizens playing paintball, and I asked Jen if Bucky and Phyllis really got that into playing with her, or if they more just watched. Jen insisted that they “really got into it.”

  “See, it’s been their thing for years and years and years. In fact, Bucky’s been playing paintball for, like…over five decades now, I think he said, because he started when he was, like, fourteen years old or something.”

  Feeding Chrissy a spoonful of peaches, I glanced over at Jen, asking how that could really be possible. “Would they even have had paintball back then, when Bucky was a teenager?”

  Jen nodded. “Oh, yeah. Paintball’s been around for a really long time.”

  “Well, just make sure that Bucky and Phyllis don’t go too hard at it, just because you enjoy it, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they might be physically taxing themselves at their age by spending hours and hours playing paintball, just because they want to keep up with you. Just make sure you all take frequent breaks and everything, and call it a day if they start to seem tired, even if you’re still having fun.”

  “Oh, I get what you mean. I don’t think Bucky and Phyllis getting tired will ever be a problem, though. They’re like, the biggest paintball enthusiasts I’ve ever met in my life.”

  Just then, Trevor got home from running patrol, asking Jen if she was ready for her “surveillance detail” to follow her into Sweetwater in about an hour, adding that he just needed to take a quick “vampire nap” and then take a shower before he’d be ready to go.

  Rolling her eyes at Trevor a little, Jen said she’d be ready to leave in an hour. “If you insist, I guess, even though that’ll be cutting it a little close for paintball.”

  Trevor rolled his eyes back. “I won’t make you late for paintball. Wouldn’t want to make you mad by doing that, because I wouldn’t want you to grab your paintball gun and shoot me.”

  Jen said she never would. “Although there is one person in this family that I’d like to do that to, and I won’t name any names, but…well, that person is Mel.”

  By the time Hayden returned home, the house had cleared out except for me and Chrissy, who I’d just put down for a nap. Greeting Hayden in the kitchen, I gave him a tight hug and a kiss, which he returned with tenderness and then passion, seeming reluctant when he finally broke it. The look in his eyes was one of complete seriousness, too, and when he spoke, it was in a low, husky sort of voice.

  “I want to tell you something, Syd.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t want you to feel helpless anymore. I don’t want you to feel powerless. I want you to feel just as involved in the effort to defeat the Warrens as the rest of us are.”

  Thinking that he was going to suggest that he turn me into a vampire without us even having a second child, I asked him what he meant.

  Seeming to be reading my mind, he said that he didn’t want to turn me into a vampire before I was ready for that, and before we were ready for that as a couple, and as a family. “There are other things you can do to help, though.”

  “Well, like what?”

  “Like helping to keep the farm secure. Or, at least secure until it’s time for us to fight.”

  Again, I asked him what he meant, and he took a deep breath, still holding me in his arms, before responding. “We know that the Warrens are going to attack us sometime soon. With the intel we’ve received, and as cocky as they’re getting, that’s a certainty. We don’t want them all just streaming into the farm, though. Given our limited numbers, that just wouldn’t go very well for us, I don’t think. So, we need to find a way to have the Warrens enter the farm in small groups, so that we can handle them, and I think strategically-placed fences are the solution.”

  “So…you mean, to kind of ‘funnel’ them in single-file sort of?”

  “Sort of. We’ll use the fences to get the Warrens to go where we want them…and where we’ll be ready for them.”

  “Well, if we can use fences like that, then why don’t we just wall off the entire property to keep them out so that there’s no battle in the first place?”

  “Lots of reasons, the first being that I don’t think we have that kind of time, to wall off a massive property that includes so many acres of farmland, woodland, and dozens of homes. I think construction like that could take a year, and maybe even several. Not to mention that the construction would almost have to consist of actual walls, and not fences. Which might get people in Sweetwater a little suspicious of us, and what we’re doing here at the farm.

  The other reason I don’t think walling off the entire property is something I want to do is because I actually want the Warrens to attack us. I want them to do that because I want to decimate their numbers, but on our turf, where it’ll be easiest for us. So, I actually want this battle to happen. I just want strategically-placed fences to be part of our preparations, though, so that we can force the Warrens to attack us in a way so that we can be prepared.”

  “Well, where do I come into play in all this?”

  “I want you to coordinate our defense. Fences, mounds of earth to use as barriers to slow the Warrens entering the farm…I want you to coordinate all of this.”

  “‘Coordinate’ or ‘construct?’ Because, Hayden, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this before, but I have zero experience in construction work. Like, none.”

  Hayden cracked a smile. “I know that. But you’re smart, and shrewd, and analytical in your thinking. Which makes me think that you’re the perfect person to coordinate the efforts, and plan everything out. Your first step will be to draw up a rough ‘blueprint’ of the farm and all the surrounding property. Then, keeping in mind that the Warrens will probably be attacking from the west, you can plan where we’ll place the fences and the earthworks. Then, once construction is underway, which will be done by a team of my vampires, you’ll be in charge of overseeing it all, making sure that everything goes according to plan.”

  I had to admit that I really liked the idea of this, and I told Hayden that.

  “But do you really think I’m the right person for this, though?”

  He didn’t even hesitate in his response. “Yes. I do. In fact, I don’t think there’s anyone better for the job.”

  After thinking about things for a moment or two, I smiled. “Well, then, when can I start?”

  Hayden smiled in return. “The moment you’re ready.”

  I smiled even harder. “I think I’ve got about an hour before Chrissy wakes up from her nap.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  It turned out that coordinating the fortifications around the farm not only gave me a sense of purpose, but gave me a sense of power as well. Finally, I was actually doing something to help against the Warrens. I no longer felt helpless, and I no longer wanted to flee. In fact, I now felt silly and cowardly for ever having wanted to. Also, the further along I got with the fortifications, the more certain I became that the Warrens would never defeat us Watchers. That was another thing, too. I could now finally say us Watchers without feeling like something of a fraud because I wasn’t a vampire. It felt good and only added to my increasing sense of power.

  Coordinating the fortifications around the farm wasn’t an easy task, though. For one thing, it took anywhere from eight to fourteen hours of my time daily, which required Mel and Carol to give me significant help with childcare. Mark also helped with Chrissy, even t
hough he was incredibly busy at his legal practice.

  As far as Hayden, he tried to share in childcare duties as much as he possibly could, although that wasn’t much. He was not only leading spying missions daily to try to keep an eye on the Warrens and figure out their plans, he was also leading numerous guard patrols around the farm property day and night.

  There was also the matter of keeping an eye on the Warrens whenever any of them went into Sweetwater or other neighboring towns. And when he wasn’t doing all these things, he was thinking about them and making further plans, determined to never let the Warrens surprise us with an attack and hurt anyone on the farm.

  Not only were Hayden and I both incredibly busy, we were both very physically taxed, too. My new job maybe shouldn’t have been physically taxing, because I was simply supposed to be coordinating fence-building and defense efforts, but it was anyway because I often couldn’t help myself from joining in the actual construction of the fortifications as well. I certainly didn’t know much about construction of fences, but I soon learned, often digging holes for posts, pouring cement, and helping to install braces that would help fortify the fencing from being overturned.

  My new job also required a fair amount of thinking and strategy, requiring me to use my brain in much different ways than I usually did at the creamery. Before overseeing installation of a new length of fencing, I had to first work with Hayden to determine exactly where we wanted the break in the fencing to be, because this would of course determine where the Warrens would enter the farm when they attacked.

  However, after a time, I stopped consulting Hayden, confident that I was getting the hang of determining where fence breaks should be myself. This seemed just fine with him and even seemed to be something of a relief to him, because it was just one less thing he had to think about every day.

  We’d both been working morning, noon, and night for about two weeks when late one evening in the kitchen, while Hayden and I fed Chrissy, Mark reminded Hayden that he had to “eat,” too.

  Looking almost dazed with exhaustion, Hayden looked from Chrissy to Mark. “What?”

  Shuffling through a tall stack of legal paperwork across the island, Mark said that he really should have said the word drink. “As in, Hayden, you’re a vampire, and you need to drink so that you don’t become so weakened that you collapse.”

  With understanding clear in his expression, Hayden said that he wasn’t anywhere near collapse yet. “You’re right that I do need to drink, though…although instead of a hunting trip up north, I think I’ll stick a little closer to home. I’ll go hunt in the deep forestland east of Sweetwater tomorrow…if I ever get a spare two hours.”

  Mark said he’d better make it a priority. “You don’t want to be weak when the Warrens attack.”

  Hayden said that that was a good point. “I don’t want to be weak any time before they attack, either. Lately, even some of their scouts have proven to be incredibly strong…and they take all my strength to deal with.”

  I’d heard this from other vampires too, that even the vampires that the Warrens were sending to spy for them were incredibly strong. This made people start to wonder just how strong their “A-team” fighters were. I wondered about this, too, and felt troubled by the Warrens’ growing strength and power, but only slightly troubled. This was because I’d heard from Watcher vampires that when it came to strength, Hayden was really coming into his own as a vampire, despite the fact that he was exhausted and hadn’t really been “eating” well as of late.

  “He killed two spies yesterday and then singlehandedly took on another not a minute later,” Sam had told me earlier that day. “Then, when he’d killed that one, he took off to chase the fourth one. Sometimes, I think Hayden’s even stronger than he himself realizes.”

  I believed this was true, too, and it comforted me to know.

  As for Jen, she helped with childcare sometimes, and helped with building fortifications around the farm other times, but she continued to spend most of her time with Bucky and Phyllis in Sweetwater, playing paintball like it was her full-time job or something. I asked her one day if she wasn’t getting a little sick of it, and she said no way.

  “See, I’m maybe not super good or talented at a lot of things in life, like reading, or writing, or any of the other dumb stuff they tried to teach me in school. But, paintball…I’m really good at paintball, just like how I’m really good at being a careful driver. Bucky even says that I’m a ‘natural’ at paintball. He says my aim is even ‘deadly,’ and that it’s getting better and better every single day. So, because I’m so good at paintball, it just keeps making me want to practice it more and more. Especially when even all the people at the paintball place are starting to notice how good I am, too.

  Like, yesterday, there was this one guy who asked Bucky how long I’ve been playing paintball, and when Bucky told him just this summer, the guy was like, ‘Well, your granddaughter has some serious talent. She could maybe even enter competitions someday.’ And Bucky’s chest, like, swelled out, and I could tell he was super proud of me…which made me super proud of me.”

  I smiled, then asked Jen if there was actually such a thing as paintball “competitions.”

  She hesitated in responding for a moment, but then said that there sure was. “People can even win medals and stuff. Some people even win medals in the Olympics for paintball.”

  I wasn’t sure about that, but paintball was keeping Jen so happily occupied and non-anxious about the impending Warren attack that it definitely got my stamp of approval as being a very positive thing for her.

  It was the first day of July when Jen shared another summer accomplishment with me, although this “accomplishment” was a little more dubious than becoming proficient at playing paintball. This “accomplishment” was of the social media variety.

  While we ate breakfast at the island, Jen showed me her phone screen and asked me to take a look. I did, and saw a selfie of her and Wanted in the bathtub with their plate of bacon the day of Jen’s crazy morning a few weeks earlier. Wearing her canary-yellow bathing suit, and with a piece of bacon in hand held up to her mouth, Jen was grinning in the picture, and Wanted even appeared to be wearing some sort of happy expression as well, with the sides of his mouth curved upward as if he was smiling. The picture was captioned Bacon in the bathtub? You could, if you weren’t so busy learning how to basic. #Royalty #MyLevel #HumanAndPetBathing #BreakfastInTheTub.

  I just looked at the picture for a few moments. “Oh…wow. That’s quite a caption, Jen. Not to mention, well, how did you…how did you spell all these words correctly?”

  “Oh, I just asked Carol. She spelled the words out for me, and I typed them all perfectly. I told her I was doing a creative writing exercise, which wasn’t even remotely a lie, was it? I mean, social media stuff is supposed to be creative.”

  “Well, your post definitely is creative.”

  “Well, thanks, but that’s not even the most important part of it that I want you to see.” Jen paused for a moment, turning the phone screen back toward herself, and then tapped the screen a few times before turning it to face me again. “See what is the most important part? See all the stars, and hearts, and laughing faces my post got? Over two hundred thousand stars so far, over eighty thousand hearts, and over fifty thousand laughing faces. And all those numbers are still just getting bigger and bigger every single hour.

  I even got over seventy thousand comments on my picture, too. Most of them even say pretty nice things, too, like that me and Wanted are real trendsetters, and fun, and cool…and all the comments that aren’t so nice are just people who are jealous. I knew going into this that there’d be a lot of those kind of comments. It’s just a jealous kind of world, you know what I mean? Especially for people who are breakfast-in-the-bathtub royalty kind of people.”

  Just then, Mel entered the kitchen and Jen quickly pocketed her phone, mumbling something about how Mel would “never understand” about “breakfast-in-the-bath
tub royalty kind of people.”

  This was probably a good idea that Jen did this, because Mel seemed to be in a bit of a crabby mood, soon complaining that all her patrol work recently had left her no time to paint. “And now I just realized that I missed the deadline to enter a painting in a competition in Ann Arbor. The prize was one year of free tuition at any accredited art school or college in the state, plus the honor of having the painting featured in some prestigious gallery exhibition at a museum in Washington, D.C.”

  Glancing up from feeding Chrissy, I told Mel I was sorry she’d missed the deadline, then began to ask if there were any other competitions coming up. However, Jen cut me off, speaking to Mel.

  “I’m not sorry you missed the deadline, because I’m still mad you called me an ‘illiterate moron with cotton candy for brains’ last night. I’m actually glad you missed the deadline, even, because you really ticked me off with how rude and just plain mean you were to me. I hope you miss all painting competitions in the whole future of the universe, even.”

  A little dubious, I asked Mel if she’d really called Jen what Jen was accusing her of having called her, but Mel didn’t even try to deny it.

  “I’ll even say it to her face again, because anyone who can’t read simple instructions clearly written on the back of a bottle of bathroom tile cleaner is an illiterate moron with cotton candy for brains.”

  Jen sputtered, clearly outraged. “I thought it was air freshener! I was trying to make the hallway smell better after I accidentally spilled my nail polish remover all over!”

  Mel snorted. “Well, you failed.” Coming to stand with a hip against the island, Mel shifted her gaze to me. “She sprayed so much tile cleaner all around the hallway that by the time I got upstairs to take a shower and take a nap before heading back out on patrol last night, I basically had to wade through a thick chemical fog to do it.