Page 32 of Hunting My Vampire

Afterwards, he took me through the castle and gave me a quick history tour. At the large portraits of his family, he stopped and explained.

“That is my father.” A clever-looking man, with piercing blue eyes and a regal manner.

“He was the Duke of Saxonbury. He came here from Ireland in the 18th century. He made a fortune on the railroad and met my mother, a society lady in Boston. They got married and he brought her out here. He built the castle and I grew up here with my sister, Flora, and… Simon.”

The portrait of a Flora depicted a pretty young woman with lively eyes and a quick smile.

“I was very fond of her,” Jack said in a softer tone. I could hear the affection in his voice.

“This was my mother, Lady Anne,” he said, and we moved on to another portrait of a very attractive woman with large eyes, a generous mouth and a straight nose.

“Good looking family,” I said.

Jack probably left out a few details along the way in his family history. I understood that. We were getting to know each other, and he probably didn’t want to share stories of blood slaves and vicious killings right off the bat. He told me that when he became a vampire, he chose to live off animal blood, not liking the idea of killing humans to survive. It was the way back then until synthetic blood was created in the 19th century. He had to hunt down his food.

“You never drank human blood?”

He hesitated. “You come across it sometimes, it is available in many circles.”

I knew that was true. Not all of it was illegally come by, even though killing for blood had been outlawed. Some people donated their blood and sold it at high prices on the black market. There were stories of chemists who added drugs to the synthetic blood, to increase potency and its effect.

“You can taste the difference?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack smiled, a bit sadly. “It’s almost like a drug for someone used to other sources. The pure blood vampires are stronger, they are more tolerant of the light and they can be more aggressive.”

He told me how his father had been at odds with the older vampire families because he liked humans and wanted to have good relationships with their communities.

“Many of our kind keep to themselves, seek others like us and look down on anyone else. Not my father. I grew up like that. In the 20th century, he wanted our business to be legitimate. This meant having a good reputation and winning people’s trust. We have always employed people to manage our affairs during the day, when we are unable to travel and interact freely.”

There were stories about dishonesty as well, as Jack admitted that when his father first came to the country, “things had happened”. He didn’t want to talk about it and said his father had mended his ways afterwards. Whatever that meant.

I had noticed that Jack did not go outside when the sun was high. But I’d known of vampires who were able to do so.

Jack nodded. “There are blood cloaking products available. After the War, many hid their true nature as hatred and distrust was high. There are still many hunters out there, people like yourself, I might add.”

I knew he was right, but it wasn’t easy to hear. I had thought badly of vampires for a long time. I had never had anounce of sympathy for them. But I was beginning to see that Jack might be different.

We went back to the room and I lay in his arms, enjoying the warmth of the fire and simply being with him.

“Our lives are very different,” I said to him. “In so many ways.”

“None that matter,” he said, kissing the top of my head.

I wondered if he was right. I could tell that he believed this, that he had given this plenty of thought. But I wondered how we could be together, someone like me who was not cultured and classy, and him, who had bells for servants and feasts prepared for dinner.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be fun to try?”

I sat up in the bed suddenly, as I realized something for the first time.

“I’ve never had a relationship before!”

He laughed. “What? Never?”

I laughed too. “Not a real one!”

It was true.

There had been a few men scattered rather thinly in my life. I had not encouraged it either. During training, there was another recruit that I’d occasionally hooked up with. Jason was attractive, quiet and the best sniper of our group. He wasn’t intimidated by me, didn’t want to arm wrestle me the whole time. He was also not interested in date nights and family outings so it suited me. But he’d then gone off on assignment and I hadn’t seen him again.

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