Nikola paced the floor with his infant son. Danny was teething, and Magnus had an important financial meeting in the morning, so it was his job to take care of the baby overnight and tomorrow morning so she could sleep and be sharp when she talked to the bankers and accountants. The fact that that meant he got no sleep wasn't critical; he could manage on little or no sleep for a couple of days easily enough.
Although Henry had gotten hold of an alloy with unusual properties and Nikola had looked forward to experimenting with it together with Heinrich first thing tomorrow. Wolf Boy wouldn't wait for him either. He'd carry on by himself if Nikola didn't show. Ever since the kid had started inventing things on his own he'd assumed he could do anything Nikola Tesla could do. Not true, of course, just hubris, but he did have a little talent and so far the vampire had restrained himself from squashing the kid's pride in his abilities. But sometimes it was hard standing back and letting someone else take control when Nikola knew exactly how an experiment should be done and the other person wasn't doing it the right way.
Face it; as much as he loved his son, babies were boring. Eat, poop, sleep, cry- that was about Danny's total range of activities. Oh, but now add slobber to the list.
Nikola carefully extended one claw and let Danny mouth the side. It was the right size and trying to keep track of actual teething rings was beyond even him. There had to be a half dozen in their suite somewhere, but the vampire could only seem to find them when he had no use for them.
Then he smelled Danny's newest contribution to the evening; time for a diaper change. Nikola sighed and took the baby into the bathroom to change him. How had he ended up spending so much of his time doing Helen's job? His father had never changed diapers. Fathers were for conceiving the child, and later inspecting, directing the education of, and occasionally disciplining said offspring, not actually doing the messy stuff.
He reminded himself again to never, never say aloud that raising Danny was Helen's job. Intellectually, Nikola knew he had as much responsibility for his son as Helen, but he'd grown up in a different era with different expectations. Sometimes he regretted the passing of that highly sexist time, when men could dump onerous thankless tasks like housework and child raising on women, but he knew better than to express that opinion. He currently was in high favor with Helen Magnus and did not want to go back to being glared at and excluded from her bedroom. There, all clean and sweet smelling again.
Things changed as time passed, Nikola knew that, but it didn't seem as if they ever changed in his favor. Being a vampire meant he was nearly or even possibly immortal, which resulted in everyone assuming they could waste as much of his time as they wanted with no harm done since he had an unlimited supply of it, right? Except he would likely miss the initial exploration of the alloy's properties tomorrow as he'd missed other fascinating scientific discoveries to do mundane chores. He was Nikola Tesla, dammit, he shouldn't have to babysit instead of exploring the limits of science.
Danny started fussing and Nikola gave the child in his arms a claw again, walking slowly and steadily back and forth across the sitting room. He loved his son, he really did, and he looked forward to Danny being older, someone he could teach and guide, a real person with an actual personality. But right now—boring.
The infant's eyes gradually closed, and his father gently laid him in the bassinet next to the couch. There, now if the baby would only sleep for a few hours, Nikola could at least get in some reading. There was so much being written these days, so many scientists making progress in so many fields, it was hard to find enough time to skim everything and read the interesting publications.
He'd been reading for no more than twenty minutes when the alarm went off. Nikola sprang to the computer, checked the cause, and shut it down in their suite within seconds. But Danny was starting to say, "Eh, eh" and Nikola knew it was a matter of seconds before he would start crying, or maybe screaming. From beyond the closed bedroom door Helen said, "Nikola?"
The vampire scooped up his child and started shushing and rocking him while heading for the bedroom. Nikola cracked the door and softly said, "Perimeter alarm, identification is another one of those big bats. Go back to sleep."
"Is someone . . ."
"Yes, the computer showed three responses so security is on it."
"We really need a better solution. We can't have everyone awakened each time a bat comes into the cave chasing one of the giant fireflies."
"I know, but it will wait until morning. Go back to sleep."
He heard the rustle of linens as Helen settled herself back in their bed, and Nikola quietly closed the door. Danny had decided not to scream, probably because he'd heard both of his parents' voices speaking calmly and quietly.
But getting him back to sleep wasn't simple. The vampire started walking again. Then he stiffened. He'd heard something that sounded like . . .
Nikola sped to the window without jiggling his son. He moved a drape aside just in time to see a long sinuous shape with bat-like wings hit something small and white in the air, an explosion of feathers . . .
His pigeons! Whatever it was, it wasn't a bat and it was chasing his flock. He'd heard the sound of their wings when they'd taken off and scattered, and now the whatever-it-was was trying to kill them!
Nikola vamped and growled without disturbing Danny, who seemed to be drifting off again. The vampire wanted nothing else than to hand his son to someone else to take care of and go protect his bird friends. But he couldn't. There wasn't anyone else around except Helen, and she needed her rest.
The security crew on the ground was running around trying to stop the flying thing, but they had come prepared to net and remove a bat. It flashed past the window and Nikola finally got a good look at it. The alarm system got the bat wings right, but it was bigger than the largest bat, reptilian, clawed, fanged—might as well call it a dragon because it sure looked like one.
It was swooping around the cave, dwarfing the little white birds that were flying every-which-way. Nikola tensed as it homed in on one, but the bird dipped and turned sharply and managed to just lose a couple of feathers rather than its life. All he could do was watch.
No, that wasn't all he could do. Nikola quickly put Danny in his bassinet and the bassinet in the bathroom, closed the door, and ran back to the window. He opened it and whistled.
His birds started coming. He'd never let them into the suite before, Helen didn't approve, but they were used to coming to the cote on the roof and it wasn't that far away. Some of them did fly to the cote, but several came directly to him in the sitting room.
The dragon saw them converging into one area and changed its course too. Nikola opened the window wide, took a pigeon in hand, and waved it out the window. "Here, dragon, a nice juicy pigeon, come and get it," the vampire said softly, and then reassured the pigeon, "Don't worry, I won't let it get you."
The creature saw it, and saw the other birds in the lit room, just fluttering or walking around. As it headed directly at him, Nikola opened the window fully, pulled the drape wide and backed up.
The dragon closed its wings as it passed through the opening, snapped them open and braked. Nikola dropped the pigeon behind him and picked up a heavy floor lamp. He swung it before the creature had fully stopped, hitting it in the head with a "bong" as the metal shaft bent and the glass top and bulbs shattered. The dragon's tail lashed sideways, taking out three bottles of wine that had been on the side board.
"Nikola?" came Helen's sleepy voice from the bedroom.
The dragon struck at the vampire with its claws. He dodged and struck back with his own smaller claws, but they slid off the dragon's scaled hide. Nikola called, "No problem, just a little accident, Danny's fine. Go back to sleep, Helen."
Great, he not only needed to kill a dragon in their suite, he had to do it quietly. Nikola picked up a stuffed chair and used it as a shield as the creature tried to bite him again. It got a mouthful of cushion instead. He used the chair to push the dragon back, trying to pin it against a wall. The pigeons fluttered around the room.
But the chair wasn't quite large enough and the dragon got set of claws around it and started raking him with it, shredding his suit and drawing blood. Nikola pushed the chair into it and let go, backing up and grabbing the couch instead.
The dragon shoved the chair aside and lunged for him again, getting a face full of couch this time. It methodically started destroying the stuffing with both fangs and claws, trying to dig its way through to the vampire. As Nikola pushed it back, its lashing tail caught and pulled down the drapes. Fortunately, the drape rod fell on top of the material without much noise.
Nikola needed something offensive to use on the creature. He held the couch with one hand and broke a heavy leg off of the coffee table with the other. He momentarily lowered the couch and hit the dragon in the nose with his makeshift club as hard as he could. Blood spurted out and the creature shook his head and opened his mouth to bellow. The vampire shoved another couch cushion into it, muffling the cry.
The dragon shook his head again, spattering the room with its blood. Nikola looked wildly around for a weapon to end the battle. He was down to his last cushion; after that it would get noisy.
But there wasn't anything deadly in the sitting room, and the vampire refused to bite the reptilian thing. Nikola hated to do it, but he was going to have to leave Danny alone for a few minutes. The vampire augmented his speed, leapt past the couch and grabbed the dragon by its skinny neck and one wing. It started clawing him again, but he dragged it over to the window and pulled them both out.
They fell, the dragon trying to fly with one wing while Nikola did his best to keep it from using the other. The result was a rapid spiral to the ground where an augmented security crew was waiting with the bat nets.
They started wrapping it up, getting a net around the jaws with a cushion still inside its mouth. But the dragon clawed at the nets being wrapped around its legs and wings, and ripped them, nearly freeing itself. Nikola hung on, holding the net on its jaws and lying on a wing to keep the dragon down on the ground.
The knot of men and dragon struggled in a seething mass until finally Henry and Biggie arrived with heavier nets and a lot of duct tape. It didn't take long to pin the creature and wrap it up.
Nikola stood up and backed off, tired and bloody, then remembered he was supposed to be babysitting. He turned and jumped directly at the fourth floor open window, nearly missed from exhaustion, but managed to hook a few claws on the sill and clamber inside.
He headed straight for the bathroom, and sighed with relief when he found Danny asleep in his bassinet. Only then did Nikola survey the damage.
What was left of the furniture was lying scattered amid puffs of stuffing, broken glass, bits of fabric and feathers, and topped with splatters of wine and blood. The drapes were shredded across the floor, and there were various undefined lumps of what had once been décor in their suite. There were even gouges and holes in the wall to go along with the splatters that reached and spread across the ceiling. Helen was going to kill him.
Nikola checked his watch and was pleased to see it was still running. He had about five hours before Magnus's alarm would go off. He wasn't dead yet.
Helen got up at six, showered and dressed, walked out into her sitting room and froze. She looked back- yes, that was her bedroom, but this wasn't exactly the way she remembered her sitting room.
The furniture had been changed. The color was close to what she remembered, but the style was different. The drapes were garish and didn't match anything else in the room, and there were faint odors of wine and paint in the air. As she stood staring at the changes, a small white feather drifted down past her face and landed gently on the floor. Helen bent down and picked it up.
Nikola was relaxing on the couch, holding Danny and looking much too casual. She held up the feather with an inquiring look. He gave her an unsure smile and shrugged.
Helen went over and took Danny. "Nikola, I'm going to feed Danny and have breakfast. Then I am returning him to your care while I go to my meeting. Afterwards, you and I are going to have a long chat."
She turned to leave and Nikola stood up and said, "Okay, but check out habitat seventy-one first, our chat will get a lot shorter."
Helen turned back. Nikola continued, "And remember, Danny is fine, and nobody got hurt except for two of my pigeons." He looked so sad at his last statement that she walked back and gave him a peck on the cheek. Whatever had happened, he'd managed it without her and had tried very hard to replace what had been damaged, which apparently was everything in the room. And he'd done it without waking her up, except that once.
"I'm sorry about your pigeons, whatever happened, and thank you for doing whatever it was quietly. What did you . . . no, we'll discuss it this afternoon while we redecorate. Really, Nikola, I thought you had better taste in drapes."
Nikola just shrugged sheepishly as Helen left the suite. He hadn't had much choice in refurnishing the room in the short time he'd had. But the important thing was Helen wasn't angry, Danny was fine, and after wrestling the dragon and seeing it settled Heinrich would be too tired to start work on the alloy until later when Nikola had finished babysitting Danny. And the night hadn't been at all boring. All in all, quite satisfactory.