Page 41 of Hunting My Vampire

But for now, the board was satisfied that he had fixed the error and was able to make up for his lapse in attention.

“One of the other board members had a go at me, saying that I had missed a few things at work, hinting at me being distracted.”

“Bastard,” I said, as the dig was aimed at me too.

Jack laughed. “I think Natania was hiding other things from me too. I thought it had been quiet! Meanwhile, there was a scandal at one of our Italian branches that was lighting up on social media.”

“We have to be more careful,” I said, and Jack told me not to worry. He was going to appoint a new daytime CEO as well. He felt Max should’ve taken care of the problems.

“I’m going to spend another day or so out here, then we are going away for the weekend, what do you think?”

“Away?” I wasn’t sure about that.

“Can Princess stay with Tina for one night? I want to take you to a restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard. We’ll fly in for the weekend.”

“Fly in for the weekend?” It sounded a bit much to me. “You don’t even eat in restaurants.”

“I like to go places with you, see you happy,” he said. “Besides, they have a delicious clam linguini at a place I’d love to have you try.”

I didn’t feel like going away but the town was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic to me. I kept jumping at the smallest sound and movements from the corners of my eye. I used to have nerves of steel when I was still in the business of hunting downcriminals. I was never like this. I didn’t like the change that had come over me.

Then again, I’d never had an uber vampire like Simon threatening me.

I took out my weapons one night, inspected them and cleaned them. I strapped on my knives because they made me feel better. Safer.

I went by Tina’s house to ask if she could look after Princess so that we could go away for the weekend.

“You’re going with him?” she asked me, raising an eyebrow.

There was no mistaking who she meant.

“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes.

“I don’t like him,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“He’s nice, grandma!” Princess chimed up. “He helps me with my homework and everything!”

“Uh-huh,” she said, clearly not impressed.

To change the topic, I asked her about the War and what she remembered about it.

“That was bad,” she said, shaking her head. “We were all living in our basements, never coming out. The men were off to war, most of them dying,” she shook her head. “Bad, bad, bad.”

She said it had lasted for many years and human beings had been suffering the most casualties. The supernaturals were gaining the upper hand and humans had started building tunnels and bunkers underground, preparing for a life away from the outside world. Then they heard the news that a bomb had been dropped on a vampire stronghold near the far northern lands. It destroyed an entire mountain range and caused huge landslides and tsunamis, which rained damage across Northern Europe. There was fall-out from radiation as well as well secondary damage that almost meant an end to all life on earth.It had permanently damaged the earth and many ecosystems but it had turned the balance in favor of the humans.

“Most of us were living underground anyway at the time so it didn’t matter that the air was toxic. We had our masks and we could sit it out.”

Eventually, the poisonous clouds lifted and the air was clear to breathe again. Most of the survivors were human. The vampire population had suffered the biggest losses, as did the shifters and some of the other creatures not able to seek shelter fast enough.

As victors, the humans were able to set the terms of the peace treaty, according to which human beings would occupy positions of power and authority in the Free World and killing creatures, human or otherwise, was unlawful.

“We all came out of our bunkers,” remembered Tina. “Many of us had never seen mountains or trees or rivers. We couldn’t believe the threat was over.”

Some never did, I thought.

“For many years, we had all kinds of natural disasters, related to that bomb. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, whole islands flooded by tsunamis.”

She shook her head.

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