“Could you repeat the last thing you said? I don’t think I quite got what you were saying.” My mind was racing to catch up.

“I think you heard me perfectly fine.” Anya replied and leant against the wall behind her. “But just in case you didn’t…” She sighed. “I know you are a vampire, and I know that because I’m a vampire hunter.”

I had to put in considerable effort not to let my jaw drop to the floor. “You are not joking, are you?”

“I’m not. Though it is a bit more nuanced than what it sounds like.”

“So you don’t want to kill me?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I would be able to anyway.”

“Then what exactly do you mean by being a vampire hunter if you are not planning to stake me?”

“I’ll explain, but maybe we should do that while sitting down and maybe having a coffee… or two.”

“Right… I might need a drink myself…”

And so we quickly yet silently cleaned up our cleaning supplies, after which I set a coffee for Anya and poured myself a glass. Now that I knew she knew who I was, I didn’t really need to hide it anymore.

We then made our way up to the living room and sat down. Incidentally, Shima was there too, just relaxing on the sofa.

Anya drank from her coffee and nodded. “Okay, let me start by saying that when I said that I was a vampire hunter, it is more accurate to say that I’m the offspring from a long family line of vampire hunters. My family has been in ‘the business’ since the Ottoman invasion of Wallachia. But said business has been currently ‘on hold’ since the end of the second world war.”

“So your family isn’t really hunting vampires anymore?”

Anya nodded. “According to my great-grandmother, there was a noticeable shift after the war when it came to vampire activity, and the family didn’t really deem it necessary anymore to actively hunt. It’s a very dangerous profession, after all, a foolish undertaking if it doesn’t prove to be in the wellbeing of anyone.”

A couple of memories flashed in front of my eyes about the evening in the park and the slaughter at Christmas. For normal humans to stand face to face with a vampire like me or Aileen, it generally didn’t end well.

“From the look on your face, I take it you know what I’m talking about.” Anya commented as she took another sip from her coffee.

“Ah… Was it obvious?”

“Your facial muscles started twitching a little. My apologies if I made you remember something unpleasant.”

“Yeah… don’t worry about it… It’s not your fault.” I drank from my glass too and then looked back up at Anya as another question sprung to mind. “Then, if you aren’t hunting anymore, why do you know so much about the business?”

“Because the family decided it was prudent to still educate their children about it.” She answered swiftly, already having anticipated the question, no doubt. “While vampires look peaceful now, that doesn’t mean they will be peaceful in the future. It’s a contingency plan.” She shrugged.

“I can understand that point of view. You don’t want to be caught unprepared, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Anya agreed with my repetition of her statement. “And the knowledge my family shared with me allowed me to deduce that you were a vampire. Or, at least, that you were turned into one not that long ago.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Was it my loss of appetite that tipped you off?”

“I got suspicious because of that together with your very sudden gain of muscle mass, yes.”

“Claire isn’t going to like you looking at other women like that, you know?”

Anya rolled her eyes.

“Sorry, bad joke.” I blushed and quickly took another sip from my glass to shut myself up.

“I can see why you and Claire are such close friends. The same stupid jokes.” Anya tried to stay serious, but I saw her start smiling when she put her coffee back to her lips as well. “Anyway, that’s what got me suspicious to say the least, and I started to observe you a lot closer after that. But I got confirmation not that soon after.”

I tilted my head. “How exactly?”

“I was seated by the window when you were having your running test around the field. Normally I don’t sit by the window, so it was more by accident than something else. But as you and Emma were talking, I caught a glimpse of the color of your eyes. And that glimpse was all I needed to know for sure.”

That explanation had left me floored, that meant that Anya had known for quite some time already. “Wow, you knew before Ria did.” I put my hand on my cheek and stared at the table between us. “Weren’t you scared at all?”

Anya shrugged once more. “Not really. But I have to admit, that’s because I knew you before you turned. If it had been someone from another class or just out and about on the streets, then I might have felt a bit different.”

I hummed and let myself drop back into the soft backing of the sofa. “Wow.” And gave myself a couple of seconds to look at the ceiling. “I’m sorry for all the wows, but this is quite the revelation.”

“I can imagine." Anya replied. “The coincidence of a vampire hunter and a newborn vampire to be in the same social group is astronomically small.”

“Hmm.” I chuckled. “It seems that I have a tendency of attracting astronomically small chances.”

After a couple more seconds of staring at the ceiling, I sighed and sat upright yet again. “Why did you tell me about this, by the way? You could easily have kept quiet about it if you weren’t planning on doing anything anyway.”

Anya smiled and gave me a nod. “That’s true, but I had the feeling that the four of you were building up the courage to be able to tell me.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any spy gear in my living room, right?”

Anya chuckled. “No I don’t. But if I were in your shoes, this snowy inconvenience would provide the best setting to confess something like that. I think we have grown a lot closer the last couple of days.”

“You are not wrong.” I nodded. “It was kind of the plan to tell you once I knew you a bit better. It would be hard to keep it quiet in the long term if I kept being good friends with Claire. Which I don’t plan to change.”

“And because of that feeling, I wanted to reciprocate that trust. Even though my great-grandmother would chastise me greatly for telling this kind of secret. But I very much prefer getting chastised by her rather than getting found out without being able to ‘come out’ by myself. Plus, I think the circumstances also warrant telling this kind of secret.”

“I understand, that’s how I feel as well. However, I do have one more question before I tell you a couple of things that you probably don’t know.”

Anya nodded, she looked a bit surprised. “Go ahead.”

“Are you aware there is a conclave of vampires? That sounds a bit ominous, but it’s practically just a kind of association.”

“I do, actually. Why?”

“Because I’m a bit surprised that I’ve not heard about the vampire hunters from them. That would be something that I had at least expected them to share with me.”

Anya drank the last of her coffee before answering me. “It might have something to do with the end of the war. That’s something I don’t really know the details of, but there might have been some kind of contract made to solidify the proverbial truce. It could be that that stipulated a non-interference accord of some sort.”

“Well, it’s true that the conclave does like their contracts…” I nodded. “But I’m still curious about it though, I might have to contact them about this to get some answers.”

Anya nodded for one last time. “I wouldn’t mind digging around myself, either. It might be somewhere in the family archives, too.” Shima had temporarily woken up to go and get some pets from Anya, who was currently closest to her. “Anyway, you said you wanted to tell me a couple of things as well that I didn’t know?”

I made a mental note to ask Alessia later on about the vampire hunters. “Mhmm. Let me get through that real quick before our girlfriends get back.” And I continued to tell Anya about some details that she might find interesting, including the apparent immortality of my girlfriends and the identity of my adoptive mother. While both big secrets, it was by far the first secret that baffled her the most.