Page 69 of Hunting My Vampire

One evening as I woke up from a slumber, I heard one of the doctors talking to Jack and it was his voice that caught my attention.

“No! I will hear no more on this! I will not talk to her about it! That is the last time we’ll talk of this!”

I asked him about it later.

“What don’t you want to talk to me about?”

He tried to laugh it off and I saw the desperation in his face.

“I’m not getting better, is that it?”

He couldn’t lie to me.

“The doctors worry because your infection count keeps rising. We bring it under control but then it goes up again.”

It was a kind of blood infection and the blood infusions I was getting were only bringing temporary relief.

“What did the doctor suggest?” I asked

Jack didn’t want to tell me.

“It’s a procedure but it’s too dangerous.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head.

“Jack!”

“If you… turned into a vampire…” he turned away unable to finish his sentence.

“Then… I’d live?”

He nodded.

“But you would no longer be human. Do you understand? That part of your life would be over.”

“But we would be together until the end?”

He nodded and I could see it in his eyes, his secret wish for us never to be parted.

Since coming back, he’d been by my side every day.

He’d resigned as CEO of the company, handing over control to Max who knew the business inside out anyway. He was still a shareholder but he had lost interest in the running of the company. He told me he could not think of anything else. That he wanted to be with me as much as possible, for as long as possible.

He didn’t say it but he meant until the end. It seemed that wasn’t far off at this point. I could feel the life draining away from me and I didn’t like it.

I had liked feeling strong and powerful. The kind of woman who could take down a monster like Da Salle. After his death, a special inquiry had found that there were several like him in positions of power, not only here, but in the rest of the world. The new president had asked Jack to help in identifying and monitoring individual behaviors to ensure nobody, vampire or otherwise, was able to rise to such power again.

I could see Jack wanted to become more involved at this political level of government. The new president had talked about a special seat, perhaps a cabinet role for him. This was what Jack was born to do, to be a part of the new world order and I wanted to be by his side.

I had seen myself there in visions that had taken over my dreams at night, in which we had children, our own offspring. I wanted to continue my mother’s line and I had a dream of a little girl, very much like myself, who had the sho’qa’i blood. Because even though Da Salle had been defeated, we didn’t know if there were any others like him. It seemed likely, even probable.

One day, when Jack was out, I went looking for the one doctor I liked best. I said I wanted to speak to him and told him of my wish to become pregnant.

He shook his head.

“I don’t know if I’d recommend that at this time. Your body is very weak and a pregnancy could be life threatening.”

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