Page 21 of Hunting My Vampire

“He knows someone, a medicine man, from one of the tribes down South. He may be able to help me with some of the things that have happened to me.”

I didn’t want to tell Princess too much. She knew that I didn’t have parents and that I’d been in an accident but she didn’t know the nature of my childhood or about the close shaves I’d had with death. I wasn’t exactly going around sharing those stories with people. However, she did know about the bad dreams I sometimes had at night. She had often come to wake me up, worried about my screaming.

“You should be careful,” Granny Tina warned me when I told her about my plan. “You may not like the answers you are seeking.”

I looked at her. “Well, I sure don’t like having all these questions either. Strange things have been happening all my life to me. Weird dreams that feel like they mean something, but I don’t know what.”

Pearl’s mother shook her head and muttered to herself.

“I see white crows sometimes,” I suddenly said, just to see her reaction. “Do you think that means something?”

Tina sighed and muttered more but wouldn’t say anything else.

“What if you don’t come back?” Princess whined.

“I will come back, I promise,” I said.

I gave her a hug and felt her arms tighten around my back.

I realized that I felt hopeful, that I was looking forward to this trip with anticipation.

Jack came to pick me up at my place soon after dark. He drove us to a private air strip where we took his company plane and flew across the desert to a remote location I had never heard of. I had never seen such luxury as on the plane, it made me uncomfortable. There was a hostess offering me drinks and food, but I kept saying no. I couldn’t think of food at this time. I was feeling nauseous, surrounded by all this wealth and then flying away somewhere strange with someone I didn’t really know.

Jack was watching me intently but said little.

I could tell he was intrigued by the fact that I had been tracking him before, planning on killing him. I bet he was thinking about how I would have confronted him and what would’ve happened then. I had to admit, it felt like too much of a coincidence. There was something between us, but I didn’t yet know what.

At least, he was giving me my space for now.

I was grateful that he wasn’t much of a talker. I’d never been one for small talk.

I wanted to get into the mental framework for what lay ahead. I knew I had some Native American blood in me and I wondered if that would help me, if a part of me would recognize the ritual or ceremony or something. I knew so little about it though.

My mother had been Native American but had left that part of her behind when she married my father. For some reason, he had decided to move the family into the wilderness, where we lived like survivalists. He trapped and poached, and my mother made clothes for us from animal skins. My brother Danny was three years younger than me and I remember loving him dearly.

Then it all came to an end. One night of unimaginable violence, screaming and blood. It was all mixed up in my head, a horrible nightmare of which I had relived parts many times in my life. But as far as I could say anything about that night, it was one attacker and he’d seemed intent on killing all of us. I was found a few days after the attack by the sheriff out looking for suspects in another crime. I was curled up around my little brother, covered in blood. He thought I was dead too, until he saw me moving. He took me back to his home, looked after me and once he saw how wild I was, decided it would be better to keep me away from the town. I ran from people and seemed overly sensitive to noise. A few unfortunate incidents in town had led him to believe I would not fit in easily in society. He was right. Even though I learned to be better, I never liked people much. Eventually I trained as an assassin, a job I was ideally suited for. I had no fear of blood and no problem with inflicting violence. I wouldn’t have admitted to it, but I enjoyed it. I had a lot of fury to vent.

The plane landed in the middle of the night. I had fallen asleep and was a bit disorientated. A car was waiting for us on the tarmac but the driver got out and Jack told me he would be driving. I was relieved that it was just the two of us again. All these extra people waiting on us was odd. Jack punched the co-ordinates into a sat-nav and we drove off into the night.

Anticipation was beginning to build in me. I didn’t know what to expect but this felt right, like what I should be doing in my life. For years, I had told myself that I didn’t need answers, that things had happened to me that were beyond my control and that I should learn to accept it. But things kept happening and I was beginning to think there might be a reason for it.

After about two hours, there was a turn-off into the mountains and the road became rocky. He slowed down to navigate the terrain better.

We didn’t talk much but I was grateful when the car came to a halt.

“Let’s wait for some light,” he said. “So we can see where we’re going.”

This was for my benefit, I realized. He could see well enough in the dark.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up, he was standing outside the car, talking to an old man wrapped in blankets.

I got out of the car, and he introduced us.

“This is Kaya. Kaya, this is A’rr’a.”

He held out a hand and smiled a toothless grin. I took his hand and was surprised at the firm grip.

“Come, come,” he said, taking us to a small shack at the bottom of the mountain. There was a fire and some rocks to sit on.

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