Over
the past five years, our family has grown considerably. Chloe gave birth to our
beautiful daughter, Katherine in March of 2014. Two months later Josh and Ilsa
brought forth the dashing, blond haired, blue eyed, Jordan Nelson.
Josh
very quickly informed me, “Just don’t be getting any ideas old man. My son is
as off limits as I am … more so. Got it?”
“Now
Josh,” I told him. “I would never touch your child in that way. Not as long as
you remain so tempting.”
Oh,
I must remember to tell you that Katharine’s last name isn’t Baron, nor is
mine. It seems that my sweet brother, Kord, could not accept my last name being
Baron.
“Baron,”
Kord insisted, “was not our father’s name. It was his title. His name was
Veldaksarten. You name should be the same; just as mine is.”
“Veldaksarten
it is then,” I said to him and I had the name on all my papers changed to
reflect that.
Two
years after the birth of Josh’s child, Kord and Gretchen gave birth to two
children. Twin sons, Joshua Ryan and Jason O’Dell, now three years old,
terrorize the halls of both castles. Of course they are constantly aided by not
only their own brothers, Oskar and Garon, but five year old Jordan, as well. We
have chosen to call the twins Ryan and Dell.
Because
Kord and Gretchen now have plenty of staff to assist them and they have both
proven themselves to be well in control of their affairs, Ilsa has come home so
that she and her son can be with Josh all the time. They have taken an
apartment in the west wing of the castle. Anja’s apartment in the east wing was
remodeled for when Kord and his family come to spend time with us. Kord often
says that he thinks his mother still lives there with them, watching over them
and keeping them safe from intruders.
There
is one other family addition that I am compelled to tell you about. This
happened about a year ago. Kord, Josh and I decided to take our ladies out to
dinner in Munich one Saturday evening and to stay at our private suite, plus
one, in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski Munchen so that they could spend
the weekend shopping.
We
have found an excellent restaurant in Munich where we are able to relax in
total and private comfort. The staff here accepts the explanation that Kord has
a birth defect that has caused his talons and fangs. They have provided us with
a privately concealed booth where we may escape prying eyes and they make the
time spent with them well worthwhile.
This
particular evening we had made reservations at our special restaurant for a
quiet dinner. We had taken one of the largest limos in our garage and Ulrich
and Timothy came along to drive and share the weekend with us. After parking in
the hotel garage, we had decided to walk to the restaurant. It was a beautiful
evening and the air was fresh and crisp. We were having a wonderful time when
Josh noticed an American Indian boy on the other side of the street. He
appeared to be about fourteen or fifteen years old and seemed quite agitated or
frightened. When Josh pointed him out to me, we stopped to watch him.
“Hey
Jason,” Josh said to me. “You know who that kid looks like?”
“Yes,
Josh,” I responded. “I know exactly who he looks like.”
The
boy saw us watching him about the same time a group of young men came around
the corner. They pointed at him and yelled, “There he is!” This sort of young
men and women had become common in Munich over the past several years. It
seemed to start when Chloe and I came to the hotel to interview a group of
‘vampires’ I had flown from the states to help guard my castle. We quickly
recognized that these were not vampires at all; only faux vampires … wannabes.
It became necessary to dispatch these, but we failed to warn them to say
nothing about our existence. Now it seemed that the city was full of them and
they were constantly making problems for both locals and tourists.
Now
the boy ran toward the only protection he saw available. I held out my arms and
he ran he ran to me. I quickly spun him around for my group to close in around
him. The imitation vampires who were pursuing him stopped in front of me.
“Give
him up, old man,” the supposed leader of the group said to me. “If you don’t
give him up you’re going to get hurt.” He hissed and growled, assuming that his
aggression and long fangs would frighten me as they had the boy.
Of
course, Chloe reached out and grabbed the young man’s face, yanking his fangs
from his mouth and slinging them to the ground. His friends who had been
standing close behind him stepped back in startled amazement.
“Now,
young man,” I growled, facing him and bearing my fangs. “What makes you think
that I would ever be frightened of you in the least?”
He
jumped back in fear as he was met, not only with my vampire snarl, but with
those of the other men in my group. Gretchen and Ilsa continued shielding the
boy, who clung to my back, as they attempted to keep him from seeing all that
was transpiring.
“It’s
you!” The young man said with his friends standing in awe behind him. “You’re
the reason we’re all here!” He held out his arms in an expression of triumph.
“Wait till I spread the news that I’ve found you!”
It
was my turn to grab him by the face now; only my hand was much fiercer that
Chloe’s. “If you plan to tell anyone a thing, let it be this,” I growled. By
now a police officer had come on the scene and was simply standing by watching
our exchange. “My people and I are about to start cleaning this city up. Warn
your fellow faux vampires that by the end of this coming week, if we find even
one of your kind left in Munich, we will dispatch you ourselves. The good
people of this city should not be harassed with the likes of you.” I shoved him
back into his friends. “Now be off and let me never see you again. Warn the
others. Their lives depend on it.”
The
faux vampires ran as we stood watching. The officer stepped up and offered his
hand. “It will be nice to be through with all of them,” he said.
“I
do apologize, sir,” I said, taking his hand. “I should have done something to
dispatch them sooner.”
We
turned to continue on our way, taking the boy along with us. I took his pack
from his back and handed it to Josh. “Would you be so good and run this back to
the hotel, Josh?” I asked him. “We’ll wait up here at the sweet shop. The girls
can go ahead and get their purchases done while we’re there.”
Josh
ran the pack to the hotel while we went into the shop. The boy seemed nervous
and he kept staring at me. I placed my hands on either side of this face and
examined him. His eyes were the darkest of black, his jet black hair hung to
the middle of his back. There was a feather braided into a section of hair on
one side. I recognized its markings from my studies of American Indian history.
It was Chickasaw. The boy only stood about five foot four or five; I know that
at that age I had been at least five seven or eight. Perhaps my height came
from my Irish ancestry. Still, if I didn’t know better, I would say that this
boy was the very same as the boy in the portrait hanging above the fireplace in
my study; the one that I painted so very long ago; the one of the Baron and
myself.
“What’s
your name, boy,” I asked, smiling at him.
“Minko,”
he said.
“Were
you by any chance named for KatoMinko of the Chickasaw nation? He lived around
1860 or so.”
“Yes,”
Minko smiled. “He was my great … not sure how many greats, grandfather,” he
said with a laugh.
I
laughed as well and smiled wider at him. “I suppose, then,” I said to him. “I
am your uncle. Truthfully it would be your great grand uncle; and I’m not sure
how many greats that is either; four or five, I guess.”
“Really,”
he said. “How?”
“I’ll
explain it all to you later,” I promised him. I think he just couldn’t argue
the fact that I was indeed his uncle. Even he could see that he looked just
like me.
About
this time, Josh returned and the girls were almost finished with their
shopping. In only a few minutes more we were on our way to the restaurant where
we had a delicious dinner.
The
restaurant staff was waiting for us and had our booth ready. I had Chloe slide
in with Minko between her and I. Josh slid in next with Ilsa next to him. The
rest of our party slid in on the other side of the table with Kord directly
across from Minko. When Kord removed the hood of his cloak I thought Minko
might climb over me to get away, but I held him firmly in place until I could
calm him down a bit.
“Take
it easy, boy,” I said. “He won’t bite. We got him trained now.”
“Well,”
Kord teased. “I do still bite sometimes. But, only dumb Indian boys who try to
climb over people to get away from me.”
Minko,
recognizing Kord’s attempt to joke with him, settled down and took a deep breath.
“I wasn’t trying to get away,” he said. “I just forgot I didn’t have my bow
with me. I was going to get it ‘cause I thought you were one of them wild Texas
boars that I hunt sometimes.”
“You
think I look like a wild boar?” Kord asked.
“Those
fangs do resemble the tusks of a wild boar,” I said and winked at my brother.
“Yeah,”
Minko agreed. “I got a lot of them tusks at home. We make necklaces out of them
and sell them to tourists that come through the reservation.”
“You
live on a reservation in Texas?” Kord asked.
“No,”
Minko answered. “I live on the Chickasaw reservation in southern Oklahoma. I
got family all over Texas though. One of my uncles has a place down in Coryell
County and we go there to shoot hogs every year. I’d offer to take you
sometime, but I don’t think that would be such a good idea. They take one look
at them hog tusks of yours and you’d be sure to get shot.”
“Ah,”
Kord said. “Perhaps I can take you hunting around my castle sometime. I’m sure
my people would love to hunt a little Chickasaw boy. You would probably be
quite tasty.”
Minko
sank deep into his seat and almost melted into my arms. “I’m good right here,”
Minko said. “I might just hang with my uncle for a bit.”
“Yes,”
Kord said. “Hopefully he will be able to restrain himself around you. Actually,
when he has a hunger his fangs are longer than mine.”
Minko
looked up into my face and I smiled enough for him to see my fangs. He again
tried to get free from the booth where he was literally pinned in but I held
him firmly and laughed.
“That
will be quite enough, gentlemen,” Chloe said. “You are scaring him to death.”
She then looked at Minko and stroked his face. “Dear child, you do know that
they are just joking with you, don’t you?”
“Yes
ma’am,” he said. “But you got to admit that it’s a little scary sitting with a
couple of vampires.”
“A
couple?” I said. “Did you really say that?”
“Yeah,”
Minko answered. “How many of you are vampires?”
“We
are all vampires, at one stage or another,” Chloe informed him. “But you don’t
need to worry. No one is interested in hurting you. We just don’t do that.”
“Thank
you ma’am,” he said; his hand was shaking as he took a drink from his soda.
“It’s good to know.”
When
our food arrived we all enjoyed a wonderful meal. The girls had their favorite
veal dish and the men enjoyed plates full of mettbrotchen, with lots of
sauerkraut on the side and good German beer. Because I didn’t believe Minko
would enjoy the mettbrotchen I ordered him a dish that the management had added
to their menu especially for Josh and me. I ordered him a Texas burger with
seasoned fries.
Although
Minko was quite pleased with his burger, he was curious about my sandwich.
“What is that?” He asked.
“Mettbrotchen,”
I replied. “It’s a raw meat sandwich. Very popular in Germany.”
“Seriously?”
He asked. “How can you eat raw meat?”
“I
thought you understood,” I said and I leaned in very close to his face. “We’re
all vampires. For us raw meat is delicious.” I allowed my fangs to show fully
and my eyes to blacken completely.
Minko
leaned away from me and as close to Chloe as he felt acceptable. “Aunt Chloe,”
he said. “He’s scaring me.”
Chloe
slapped me on the arm and I exaggerated pain. “Behave yourself!” She snapped at
me.
Minko
laughed. “Behave yourself,” he said. “It’s easy to see who the boss is around
here.”
“It’s
true,” I said. “She lets me pretend to be in charge until she gets really
pissed at me.” I leaned close to his ear and whispered. “Then all hell breaks
loose.”
Minko
stayed the night with us at the hotel and we talked for most of the evening. He
told us about his tribe and that his parents had both died in a car crash
several years ago. He had lived with his grandfather after their death until he
graduated. After graduation he decided he wanted to see the world. He had
already seen most of the U.S. on vacations with his parents, so he went to the Gulf
coast and got on a ship from Galveston to Europe. When he got off the ship in
Spain he began working his way across each country and backpacking as he
traveled. Things had gone smoothly until he arrived in Munich and became a
target for the faux vampires.
“Wait,”
Ilsa stopped his dialog to question him. “Did you say graduated high school?
You must be so smart to have graduated at such a young age.”
Minko
smiled at her and said, “No ma’am. I’ll be twenty this Christmas.”
Even
though he appeared nervous about his decision, Minko decided to return to the
castle with us at the close of the weekend, saying that he would stay only a
few days. A few days turned into a few weeks, then months and eventually a
year. We still have no reason to believe that he will be leaving any time soon.
Minko
and Oscar really hit it off well. Even though Oskar is only thirteen he looks
older than Minko, so I believe they claim Oscar is a bit older. I really don’t
want to know exactly where they go that they need him to be older, but I have
no intentions of discussing this with my brother. When it comes to those kids,
I have learned to be afraid of him.
Since
Minko has a drivers license the two of them often go out together to have fun.
I think they always tell Kord that they are going hunting, but I’ve personally
dragged them out of some places that made me wonder what it was they were
hunting. They often laugh about using Minko’s license as ID for both of them.
People around our castles see that Minko is of legal age and don’t even ask to
see Oskar’s. I know; it’s scary and I’m a terrible uncle to keep it to myself.
Minko
also gets along well with Garon. He often let’s Garon go along with he and
Oskar when they are really doing what they say they are doing. I do believe
Minko when he says he won’t take Garon places he shouldn’t be. I think I
believe him because Garon is still at an age where he will snitch … especially
on his brother. As far as the younger children go … well, Minko doesn’t like
them much.
“They
bite,” he told me one day.
“Bite?”
I asked with a nervous laugh. “I hope you mean that in a figurative way.”
“No
uncle. They really bite. They are vampires and hell, little kids bite anyway. I
just don’t want them to bite me.”
He
assured me that he has been able to avoid their attempts at biting him so far
and I have scolded them and forbidden them to bite anyone. Now every time the
kids are around humans I always watch closely for fear someone will be bitten.
