Page 85 of Her Dark Salvation

She craned her neck, straining for a kiss. I obliged, planting one firmly on her lips.

“Charmer,” she said and laid back down, nestling into my shoulder. “I googled you, you know.”

“Oh yeah? What did you find?” I already knew the answer. My cybersecurity was rock solid courtesy of Cambridge Management Group.

“A couple of pictures. Only one where I could see your face.”

I knew the picture. I approved every picture I wanted to remain on the internet.

“I suppose that’s important in your position,” she continued.

I trailed my fingers down her arm, and she shivered. “And what’s my position?”

“An immortal with connections that…” She scrunched her face the way she did when she was searching for the right words. “That have a tendency to make the news.”

I chuckled and shook my head. The way she put things.

She laid her head back down and resumed stroking my chest. “I did find more pictures. At the library.”

“Hmm.” Running my fingertips up and down her arm soothed me. I could do it for eternity.

“Microfiche.”

Clever woman. In all my years covering up my immortality, no one else had managed to piece together the trail of evidence I couldn’t eliminate.

“How do you do it? People must recognize you. I can’t be the only one who’s figured it out.”

“My little researcher,” I said with a smile and kissed her hair. “So brilliant. I should have known you’d figure it out.” I bent my arm behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. “You’d think more people would figure it out, but I—we—have been doing this for a long time, and the reality is people don’t want to believe.”

“I get that. I didn’t. I made up every excuse I could. Until I couldn’t.”

“It became harder with the internet.”

We’d scrambled in those early years figuring out how to maintain our anonymity. The technology and personnel and skills we needed were all so new and changed so rapidly.

“I started spending a small fortune on cybersecurity. More than I ever spent paying off reporters and newspapers. They scrub the internet, news outlets, and paparazzi channels for pictures and information. I’ll never be able to get rid of those old print articles, but”—I shrugged—“these days if it’s not online, the chances of someone making the effort to find anything is pretty slim.”

“What about your employees? Acquaintances?”

“We move. My parents live in Italy right now for that very reason. Local memory is short. Every thirty years or so, I change my primary residence. The locals don’t recognize me, and if anyone does, they think I’m my own son. I can run my business from anywhere. Especially now. Like I said, it’s not as difficult as you’d think.”

“Aren’t you scared I’ll say something?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you tell someone I’m a century-old blood demon…”

“They’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Exactly.”

“There have to be downsides.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Like being burned by holy water or not being able to see yourself in the mirror or?—”

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