We walked under the massive overhang in front of the solid looking front doors, and I grinned at the merrily twinkling lights strung up under the eaves of the huge timbers. That was a feminine touch. Alanna's hand probably; she had exquisite taste. We reached the doors just as they swung open. Alanna embraced her son at human speed, her arms wrapping around him and her head resting on his shoulder. Teren was not surprised in the slightest at her perfect timing, and he wouldn't be, what with that quaint blood connection that they shared. He would have known exactly where in the house she'd been waiting, where all of them were waiting.
I watched mother and son with a soft smile on my lips that eventually shifted into shock. Alanna's face was turned towards me and her pale eyes were shut, as she enjoyed having her son near her again. But what had me startled, was the small river of blood escaping the corner of her inner eye. It wasn't like the blood that had run down my leg when my knee had been sliced open. It was thinner, pinker, like it was diluted with water or some other substance. It didn't look like she was injured. It looked like she was crying-tears of blood. I supposed that worked with the whole vampire thing, but it was still pretty shocking to see. Teren didn't cry a whole lot, but I wondered if that would happen to him, once he changed.
Alanna pulled back to gaze at him. "We've missed you, son."
Teren sighed and ran a thumb over her tear, wiping it away. "Don't cry, Mom. Everything's fine."
Alanna nodded and detached from him. Straightening herself, she brushed away the bloody tears and turned to face me. With a beaming smile, she embraced me just as tightly as she had Teren. "Thank you for getting him here," she whispered. I knew Teren had heard her comment, but the whispering clearly conveyed her emotion, and I warmly returned her squeeze.
Jack was behind Alanna and greeted us congenially after she stepped away. He clapped Teren on the back as they went over to get our bags from the car. While the boys grabbed our things, I could hear Teren going into the excitement of the game with his father. Here was the only male he could really boast with, without changing one single thing about the story. By the look on his face, and the tone of his voice, I could tell it was a relief for him to talk about it without having to hold anything back. I again wondered why we didn't visit more often.
Alanna herded me into the house. As we walked past the sun portrait that had so moved me the last time I'd been here, I pointed it out to her. "That sunrise painting sure is beautiful."
Alanna paused and looked at it, almost as if my saying something had reminded her that it was there. She took her fingers and lightly trailed them down the canvas. A heavy sigh escaped her. "It's a sunset." Her voice was low and soft and filled with sympathy. "Halina painted this. It was the last sunset she ever saw. The last beautiful thing she ever saw...right before she was changed."
I stared at it again, in awe. The meticulous brush strokes, the layer upon layer of color, the perfect recapturing of the glorious beauty of light. It could have been painted by any of the Renaissance masters, but it was painted by a forever nineteen vampire. A vampire, who as Teren once told me, longed for the sun daily. I tried to imagine what she had been like as a young, pregnant human wife, watching her final sunset, committing it to memory, not even realizing at the time that it would be the last one she ever saw. The picture was so vastly different from the sultry, laughing hunter that I'd met before, that I almost couldn't envision it. But that human woman was in Halina somewhere, and it had painted this masterpiece, and the longing in it tore my heart.
"It's all right, dear." Alanna placed a cool arm around my shoulder and stroked it. I realized I'd started to cry and, embarrassed, brushed aside the few tears. Alanna only smiled at me and led me into the kitchen, where she said her mom was just finishing up dinner, so she hoped I was hungry. I smiled-she'd said almost the exact same thing the last time I'd been here.
Imogen greeted me the moment my feet touched the stone tiles of the kitchen floor. She swept me into a cool embrace and I forcefully blocked the knowledge that I now had of her past hunting experience from my head. She was still the sweet, grandmotherly figure that I remembered from my first encounter, and I just couldn't see her any other way. She pulled back from her embrace to look at me and regret marked her youthful features.
"I'm so sorry about the last time you were here, dear. That was so unconscionably rude of me. I should never have meddled in your private affairs." Her pale eyes flicked over to Alanna's and I wondered if she'd been coached on what to say to me.
I genuinely smiled back at her, knowing it didn't matter anymore. Teren and I were trying to give them what they, and me, wanted, and soon, they would all know that. "Thank you, Imogen."
"Gran, dear...we are all still family, hopefully."
I hugged her again. "Of course." She stepped back and ran her cool hands up and down my arms before squeezing them.
"Quite the love fest going on up here."
I startled from Imogen's embrace as Halina soundlessly breezed into the room; it suddenly felt half its size. The sun must have completely set while I'd been reuniting with Alanna and her mother. Halina cocked her youthful head at me, her thick, black hair following her movement. I couldn't stop flicking my eyes over her body; she was wearing a skintight, blood red dress with black thigh-high boots. She looked vastly out of place at a ranch, more like she should be dancing atop some table at a London hotspot. She was so different in style from Imogen's skirts and loosely swept up hair, and Alanna's jeans and button-up work shirts that I began wondering if her being one hundred percent vampire had altered her behavior, or if she had just been a repressed wild child in her human youth. It was still so hard to believe that this creature before me had painted that great beauty behind me.
"I see the human came back." She leaned back against the counter, grinning at me with a crooked smile. She looked over at me with such a calm look of self-assurance that a chill went through me. I might be off-limits to Halina, but she apparently was not on an all-animal diet and that sickened me a bit. I would need to double-check with Teren that my friends and family were also taken off of Halina's menu. In fact, if she could leave all of San Francisco alone, I would sleep much better at night.
"Good evening, Halina," I said, as respectfully as I could. Halina was the only one who never tried to alter what I called her. I don't think the words "Great-Gran" could have escaped my lips in her presence anyway.
Suddenly, all of the women smiled and turned as one to the doorway. I frowned, wondering what they were doing, until a second later, when Teren entered the kitchen with his father. He warmly gave his grandmother and great-grandmother a hug while Jack, twirling the baseball in his fingers and grinning broadly at his son, relayed the story to his wife. Alanna slung her arms around her husband and listened, engrossed in his story, along with the other women in the room. I watched the multiple sets of pale eyes as Jack was talking, and wondered if they had heard Teren telling this story to him outside, and they were listening purely out of respect. I wasn't quite sure how incredible their hearing was, but from all I had seen so far, it was very impressive.
Jack finished his story and they all turned to Teren with soft eyes and light chuckles. All except Halina, who still had her arms slung around his waist. She looked up at Teren with clear disapproval on her face. "You could have been exposed." Her frown deepened as she glanced at me. "Nothing is worth you being shown to the world." She looked back at his face and, for the first time, I saw true fear in her eyes. It startled me and a tiny flow of compassion for her trickled into me. Halina searched his face as she continued in a near whisper, "Think of what they'd do to you."
Teren smiled down at her and kissed her head. "I'm okay...everything is fine." He rested his head on hers, while she closed her eyes and clutched him tight, looking for all the world like she was scared that those villagers with pitchforks would burst through the front doors at any moment. Teren laid his eyes on mine and smiled widely. "Everything is just fine."
After a few more moments of catching up, Alanna ushered everyone into the massive area that they quaintly called a dining room, and we all took our respective seats. Jack took his traditional place at the head of the table with Teren and me on one side and Halina and Imogen on the other. Again, Halina sat directly across from me and eyed me with that half-grin that was so disconcerting. The foot of the table was left open for Alanna, who was busy flitting back and forth between the kitchen and the table, bringing in trays of food.
I struggled with wanting to help her, but I knew she viewed me as a guest and would only forcefully push me back under the table if I even tried to stand. She was very strong...I wasn't even going to bother trying.
She brought out steaks and my mouth watered at the smell. I noticed that one of the larger steaks was extremely rare and very bloody. I almost expected it to moo at any moment. I smiled at how well Alanna and Imogen understood Teren. I hadn't heard him tell either woman, but they had known that he now liked his steaks much rarer than he had the last time we were here. I supposed that made sense, since they had both already gone through exactly what Teren was going through now. I grabbed his hand under the table as he hungrily eyed that bloody steak.
Alanna swished out the rest of the food: roasted red potatoes, sauteed mushrooms and freshly baked dinner rolls, still steaming with just-from-the-oven goodness. She brought out wine and water and loaded up plates for all the humans. Then the carafe came out, and I felt Teren drop my hand. I looked over at him and watched his fangs extend before he had even tasted a drop of the blood we both knew was in there. His mouth opened a touch wider, and with the steak virtually forgotten, his eyes followed the carafe, like suddenly he was a man dying of thirst and that container held his salvation.
Without a word or a look at him, Alanna poured his goblet first and immediately gave it to him, once again knowing her son's needs. He took it from her hand and drank half of it before stopping. Once he had some in his system, he seemed to come back to who he was and where he was, and turned to look at me. I grabbed his hand under the table again and smiled. He needed this. It was just a part of who he was now, and I could deal with that. He grinned at me with his fangs still extended and finished the rest of his drink. His mother poured him another one before setting the carafe in front of Halina. I could see that Alanna had poured glasses for everyone else while I had been busy watching Teren. Grabbing the one she had poured for herself, she sat at the foot of the table.
After Teren's second glass, he seemed to relax into his chair. Slowly, he began to dig into his food. It didn't seem to hold the appeal to him that the blood had, and I noted that for future reflection. Imogen asked Teren about work. Alanna asked me about my job. Halina seemed to agree with me that Teren should...well, her words were "remove" my boss, but I felt like we were sort of on the same wave length. Jack asked about my family, which led to a lengthy conversation involving my childhood tragedy. I studied Halina's eyes while I relayed the seriousness of my sister's wounds to the room. Much to my dismay, Halina, while engrossed in the story, didn't seem touched enough to offer any vampiric help. The thought didn't even seem to cross her mind as I discreetly watched her. Maybe Teren was right about her refusal to change someone, deserving or not.