Page 51 of Hunting My Vampire

“Bro…” she teased me. “That is so uncool, man.”

We laughed and she agreed to meet me the next day.

I was glad to get out of the Golden State, which had held very little shine for me. Even though there were definitely less vampires, I still could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. I had booked rooms in a cheap motel and even though I stayed in most nights, I would occasionally slip out for pizzaand a beer. One evening, I’d gone to a bar where I felt someone watching me all night long.

I looked over my shoulder constantly, jumping every time someone touched my shoulder. I’d thought maybe to hook up with someone to get the thought of Jack out of my mind but nobody came close to him.

These surfer boys looked like pretty toys compared to him. They didn’t have his intensity, his presence. I hoped this didn’t mean that I now had a taste for vampires. As an experiment, I let my eyes wander over the bar, checking out the men, so to speak. I caught someone’s eye, a tall, bearded fellow who was my type, macho, rugged, all testosterone. He didn’t have the pale vamp look but I knew by now that this could be deceptive too. He saw me looking and nodded in my direction. I lifted my beer to acknowledge him.

Minutes later, he came over, introduced himself and asked to buy me a beer.

I said yes and regretted it in the space of ten minutes.

He started telling me about his new fake fish product that tasted JUST LIKE fish but was really compressed lentil and onion. It sounded disgusting. He was all about saving the fish and the oceans, the pollution and the blah-blah. I stopped listening when he got into the details of drying the lentils and pressing them into fish shapes. Seriously.

I finished my beer and got up to go.

“Where are you going?” he asked me, clearly thinking we were onto something here.

“We’re done here,” I said and walked out of the bar.

The whole way back to the motel, I felt someone was behind me but even though I turned around a few times to check, I couldn’t see anyone. I knew there was a chance that I was imagining it. That is why I went to bed that evening, put out the light and lay there for a while until it was really quiet, thenslipped out of bed, crawling along the floor and sidling up to the window to carefully peek outside.

It took me a while and it wasn’t what I expected but, finally, I found the shape on the other side of the street. I could make out the red eyes in the dark. Something was definitely watching the motel but was it threatening me or guarding me?

I got out my knife and quickly opened the door but as soon as I was out in the parking lot, the animal was gone. I crossed the street to where I’d seen it but there was nothing there.

The next day, I checked out early and made my way to the airport to get to Washington. I’d arranged to meet Josie for lunch at a place near the office. We knew each other back from when she’d worked at the agency, giving me assignments and processing my pay cheques. She was wheelchair-bound but that didn’t stop her from getting around and she refused anyone’s pity.

I liked her no-nonsense approach to life. She knew that life was unfair and shit. And so what.

I felt the same way.

When I arrived at the café, she was already there, looking just like she did last time I’d seen her five years ago. She had spiky hair, rings through her nose and lips, and a twinkle in both her eyes.

“What’s up, bitch?” she asked me.

I got right to it.

“I need to get my hands on occillite. Do you know what it is?”

“Woah, girl? Seriously?”

Of course she knew what occillite was but it was very scarce these days and most sources had dried up. People who had it tended to hide it in safe places.

I told her about the explosion and Simon and the time with Jack, and all she wanted to know was what the sex was like.

“Bloody good,” I said, and she slapped the table, laughing at my pun.

“But seriously, I need some big guns to help me in my next fight. Because there will be one and I’m not the girl I used to be.”

Josie said she would try to find the stuff for me.

“Another angle could be to track down this guy. Only name I have for him is Big G. That might be Greg. He is a Native American from Wak’aha’a. He came to Hawston and said he was going to try and disappear. The Wak’aha’a mined the stuff. The entire tribe was wiped out about the same time as my family was. I’m not sure if anyone else has found a way of making this stuff.”

“It would be worth a fortune,” said Josie thoughtfully. “Let me make some calls. I’ll get back to you.”

That evening, I got a call from Tina, asking me to come back. Princess was ill and asking for me. I got the next plane back, going straight to Tina’s house. I found Princess with a raging fever and mumbling incoherently. I took her to the hospital, where they admitted her and gave her something to break the fever.

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