Chapter 258 - Anon -> Vanon?

JJ liked the apartment as much as I did, especially the balcony. In our city, there were many days where an old vampire like him could step out and just enjoy the fresh air without fear of catching fire.

Moving in, though, was a lengthy and hard process. I lived in the apartment on top of my shop for my entire life—so many memories were tied to that place. It was heart-wrenching to let go of some of them, but I knew I couldn't cling to them forever.

I had to grow and expand, hire more workers for the store, give Panda more responsibility—I hoped that in the future she could manage the store fully on her own. Unless she found a better job offer, which I cynically doubted, because getting a decent job as a certified historian wasn't simple at all.

Plus, while Avarice did a lot to fix the place, there were some things I had to do on my own. Specifically soundproofing. It was good enough for me, but not for JJ and his vampire hearing. Thankfully, there was magic for this—a seal that my skills were good enough to copy and paste into the walls.

And just after I and JJ finished moving to our own apartment and began to arrange and plan for the store's renovation, Anon returned to the town. Avarice didn't lie—I really barely recognised him when I first saw him.

The utterly unremarkable middle-aged man with a pudgy stomach became someone who would turn eyes if he came out on a sunny day in a T-shirt and shorts. Anon certainly didn't spend the time in whichever tropics Avarice sent him at doing nothing—his improved physique was visible even through the turtleneck he wore under his winter jacket. He must've been doing nothing but working out while he was away.

He also had a deep tan now, one that he must've been out in the sun all the time to get. His hair was longer and fell down to his jaw in a rugged look of someone who didn't cut for almost half a year. Even Anon's face wasn't as average as before, thanks to the curly beard that covered half of it.

He would change even more when JJ turned him, but for now, we all had to talk about it. I found myself feeling an unfamiliar domestic glee from sitting with a guest not in a kitchen, but in a living room.

"I almost didn't recognise you, Anon. Until you spoke, I thought you were a total stranger!" I told him.

"And you still call me by that nickname, Diana," Anon sighed and made a slow sip of his tea. He was acting as if it was going to be his last… and wasn't entirely wrong. "I've heard you and Jean-Jacques got into plenty of misadventures while I was away. Aunt was sending me the latest news—well, ones she thought important. Sometimes I wondered if there would be anyone to turn me when I return." Anon eyed JJ with a mix of wariness and hope. "You will do it now, right? I followed every instruction you sent."

"Your aspiration and determination are admirable, Denis, and I am a man of my word. I will admit that I'm not that keen on increasing the amount of my kinfolk in this world, but," JJ rolled his shoulder in a half-shrug, "this is not because you are an unsuitable candidate. I can turn you as soon as you move your things to the apartment Avarice prepared for you."

"Why not sooner?"

"Because it would be much more problematic to do then. And I have some things to prepare, too…"

To be fair, Avarice did the most of it already. She even found someone to be Anon's first donor—a burly man who reminded me of her collectors, and who had plenty of blood in him to spare. Add to that the fact that Anon had few things to move, and soon it was the night of initiation, turning, Embrace or any other way to call making a man into a vampire.

By JJ's request, I wasn't there physically when that happened, but I peeked at the process with aura-vision. Observed through the lenses of a witch, the process was both educational and scary thing, despite being fairly short and simple. At times, I wanted to jump in with healing magic at the ready.

First, JJ drained Anon from most of his blood, and with it, life. But he was extremely careful in that and left one last spark that didn't let Anon just die on the spot. Then, he pushed his aura out and into Anon, using it to fill the voids left where his blood should've been. It was like watching someone trying to fit too much luggage in a suitcase, in a way.

But eventually, it settled in, and I saw the moment where all that grave chill became Anon's own, and the last spark of his own life died. Instead, there was only un-life—and that un-life made him move again. Now both he and JJ were temporarily lacking in something—Anon in blood, and JJ in power.

I understood why only powerful vampires could create other vampires, then. The amount of power JJ extruded was most of what he had, but there was still some left to keep HIM alive. Someone like Avarice couldn't have gathered that much of it without killing herself.

The undead paleness was almost unnoticeable on Anon's tanned face, but it was impossible to miss his new fangs and vertical pupils. Anon himself, though, appeared to be much more weirded out by them than I was.

This wasn't the only thing he had to adjust to. In the following weeks I watched Anon learn how to use and control his new powers, and learn to remember not going out during the day—he got a nasty burn once when he just opened a window by habit, and it was a great thing that vampires healed so quickly.

More importantly, I watched him become a less sad and purposeless exemplar of a man—now he had a goal and strove to reach it. The goal was becoming a vampire his aunt could rely on… Well, whatever worked.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses—or should it be moonlight and roses? For JJ, and for me. JJ had his own doubts. He admitted to me he himself found them irrational, but that did little to put them at rest. He feared that despite their good relationship in the current time, eventually Anon will grow disappointed in his new way of existence and learn to hate JJ. I did my best to encourage him, but I had no magic words to offer that could heal any trauma in an instant.

I had much simpler problems that came with an inconvenience of living with another vampire in a hearing distance of said vampire. It was fine to have Anon over as a guest, and most of his study things with JJ they did at nights, when I was asleep anyway, but sometimes things were just awkward. Sometimes, I wished I had a honeymoon to enjoy with JJ alone—but then again, I also had my store to run.

In the future, I promised myself, I will.

In the now, I was too busy for it. Renovations for the store were running, and while it did, I made my own deals, face-to-face. Even though Cornellio's auction was a failure in some ways, I got plenty of connections from it, and not just with the people with whom I fought against Staghead.

Many, it turned out, noticed my efforts in helping people at the auction. Others just noticed me for my past public stunts or actually for my profession. Either way, they were inviting me over, wishing to ask for my opinions or one thing or the other, buy and sell relics.

Not often. Not much. But before, almost all my deals were done in my store. Now I had to travel, and it was… profitable. It also became amazing when Anon became self-sufficient enough that JJ could travel with me.

In the summer, Rita graduated from the college with the lowest passable grade. She didn't even try to look for a job—just said that it would be like chasing a tit in a sky while having a crane in your hand1. By that time, she was mostly managing my store on her own, with the help of a few other people I hired to help, so it's not like I had anyone to replace her with.

And when it was her vacation time, she did something I didn't expect, and left for Siberia for a week. I didn't know what she did there, but when she returned, she had a look of grim satisfaction on her face and told me that now her relatives won't pester her with any of that vampire hunting nonsense again.

I hoped she didn't kill them or anything…