Page 1 of Valley of the Shadow
Chapter One
Baojia lived his immortal life from sundown to midnight. He and Natalie had decided as a family that midnight was as late as two small children could be allowed to stay awake, even if they had a nontraditional school schedule and slept until noon. Though his security work sometimes interrupted, the primary focus of his life from sundown to midnight was his children and his wife.
He carried his squirming daughter under one arm and nudged his son with the other. “Bed.”
Jake yawned loudly. “I’m not ti-ired.”
“Clearly.” He mussed the boy’s dark brown hair. “We can finish the game tomorrow.”
“But not until you wake up,” Jake whined. “I don’t want to wait that long.”
His daughter, Sarah, did her best impression of a boiled spaghetti noodle and flipped backward in his arms.
“It’s good to want things.” Baojia wrangled Sarah upright. “It teaches you patience. Don’t play dead, Monkey. You’re going to hit your head.”
Sarah’s lively brown eyes were not tired in the least. “I’m not playing dead. I’m playing vampire!” She patted her father’s cheek. “Let me see, let me see.”
He forced himself to snarl and allowed his fangs to fall. “Rawr.”
Sarah squealed in delight and nearly twisted out of his arms again. “Rawr, rawr, rawr!”
Jake looked up with adoration. “I’m gonna have really big fangs when I grow up.”
“That”—Baojia nudged him into his room—“is a very mature decision that you cannot make until you are very old.”
“How old?” Jake hopped into his bed.
Baojia slung Sarah over his shoulder to keep her from crawling out of his arms. She truly was their monkey. She crawled and climbed on everything in sight. “Hmm… let me think.”
Jake wasn’t budging. He crossed his arms over his skinny seven-year-old chest. It was a gesture he’d recently begun copying from Baojia. “When can I decide I want to be a vampire?”
Baojia went with his gut. “When you’re forty-seven.”
Jake’s mouth dropped. “What? No way, Dad. I don’t want to be an old man.”
“Forty-seven isn’t old.”
“It’sreallyold.” Sarah grabbed Baojia’s head and pulled herself up to sit on his shoulder. “That’s almost a hundred, Dad.”
He laughed low and long. Nothing made him laugh more than his children. They were the light and life of his eternity, and words could not express how grateful for them he was.
Even when they were being restless.
“Bedtime, Jake.”
He swung Sarah onto his back and sat on the edge of Jake’s bed while they said good-night prayers. It was a habit Natalie had begun with both the children, and while Baojia wasn’t religious, he appreciated the habit of gratitude it engendered.
“And thank you for our house,” Jake said. “And thank you for my bike.”
“And my bike too,” Sarah whispered.
“Thank you for Sarah’s baby bike.”
“Jake.” Baojia’s voice was a warning.
“And thank you for fishing. And thank you for Ariel and Miss Olivia.”
Baojia murmured, “Wrap it up.”
