My Vampire Assistant - Chapter 212
The map did give me a better guess, but it was a difference between “he could be anywhere” and “he could be anywhere in this general vicinity that spanned square kilometres of empty wilderness”.
“North and sea.” I drew a line with my finger on an old paper map Ghost brought me. I’d used one on my phone, if the tiny screen wasn’t so inconvenient for something like this. “That’s what, Murmansk? If we are talking the closest place. It’s almost directly north. But if the sea was the point, then there are closer places. The entire Baltic Sea! Only most of it is within Finland borders. Not that it would be a problem for JJ to cross them. Then, there’s Arkhangelsk, which is North-East, but that’s also North if you ask me, and it’s also near the sea. But… if solitude is his goal, then he’d probably avoid cities entirely, and that means he could be, again, basically anywhere.”
“He can’t be too far from settlements,” Ghost pointed out with his incessant optimism. “He still needs to drink blood.”
I hummed with a lot of uncertainty in the sound. “He told me he normally takes a sip daily—or, well, nightly more like—but can go without for a few days before starting to starve, especially if he drank a lot beforehand. I don’t know. I suppose you are right, but that’s not a guarantee.”
I sighed. A doubt wormed into my heart. Was it right at all to search for JJ? Wouldn’t it be better to follow his wishes? Especially since I had to use divining to find him, and this sort of magic went even into his thoughts!
I found he was alive and well. Maybe that was enough. “Maybe… we should check on him from time to time,” I continued my thought aloud. “Just in case. Without looking deep into his thoughts.”
“I believe that Jean-Jacques will be alright, but if this eases your worries for him, I’d be glad to help. It’s not like I have anything better to do in this place, anyway.” Ghost chuckled. “Our coven is at peace, no one gets wounded, and I’m only needed to straighten up pages in the old books.”
I huffed, but a slight smile graced my lips. “That’s your deserved retirement.” If only for a moment. Then, sober again, I returned my eyes to the map. “Say, if I asked someone who’s better at divining for help, what could they do?”
“That depends on the method. There are more than one, of course, to find out something like that. They could pull out information from the bigger area and look for landmarks, sift through Jean-Jacques thoughts and memories to find the information directly, or… hum, I think there was a third method, but I can’t seem to remember… Did my memory fail me that much now? This is…” Ghost, with his face devoid of emotion, scratched his chin. “Bad. I should refresh it. Either way, Diana, the biggest and the hardest part of divining, is not finding the information, but sorting through it and making pieces a picture. Skilled diviners can put them together like a puzzle, the same way we do with people and items.”
I nodded. “Thank you for the help again, Ghost. With what you told me, I guess I will have to ask someone better if I really want to find JJ, but… he didn’t even stop yet. I suppose I will wait for now… But I will come to check on him again, alright? And we still have a training session scheduled.”
“Of course! I remember that, and I also have it written somewhere… I always seem to forget where I put my notes.” Ghost clicked his tongue, but smiled at me once again.
⠀⠀
I told Panda about what happened. She would cover JJ’s shifts (for additional pay, of course), but that was least of my problems when it came to running the shop without him. I grew used to have him around—and to deal with my numbers—and the thought of crunching them myself was torturous. Still, I was a strong, independent woman! I could do that! That what I told myself.
It was awfully unfair that vampires didn’t need to sleep every night. For the rest of my day off, I iterated between worrying, wondering and distracting myself. I would’ve gone to ask Ghost for a divination again in the evening if I didn’t manage to reason with myself that I won’t be travelling far during the night, anyway.
But the next morning, I went right to my teacher. He already had the setup for divination prepared; all I had to do was to add some fresh blood.
“I wonder,” Ghost said when we made a circle of hands, “how long would you watch Jean-Jacques from afar, Diana, before going after him?”
The sudden question made me pause. It was spoken in the same light-hearted tone that was default for Ghost, but there was an undertone of something deeper in it this time, more serious. Or maybe I imagined that, or was projecting. I, myself, was in a serious mood today.
“Well, I don’t know. If nothing alarming happens, then until the time he promised to return, I suppose.” I shrugged.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. Or not all of it, I suppose.” Ghost shook his head, making his long white hair fly around until the entire mane turned into a crow’s nest. “Maybe. What I meant, Diana, well. It all brings memories to me. People often run from things they hadn’t seen before. Everything unfamiliar is scary to them. But say, you are a brave person as far as I’ve seen. And Jean-Jacques—he’s been around a long time… One would think there’s nothing new to him in the world.”
Me, brave? Well, brave wasn’t fearless. But… “What are you getting at, Ghost?”
“This all just looks like running for me,” Ghost shrugged. “But if Jean-Jacques is afraid deep inside, won’t you want to soothe him?”