Naked Came the Vampire (Hypernaturals 1)

Nova

Nova looked up the cliff at the ruins of 'her' people and could not help but be sad. This place has been empty for at least five hundred years, her people spreading out and away from these dwellings. They could not stay. Not being able to stay is a very old story for her people. Nova had not been of her people even back then, but they are her people still, in her heart.

As an Archaeologist specializing in early American cultures doing post-Doc work, Nova had free rein, all across this city. She knew, to some degree, almost everyone working on not only this site, but several others. She certainly knew where and who the unattached men are, in case the compulsion arose.

Some on the projects commented on her deep knowledge of the subject given her age. Nova is considered an Archaeologists Archaeologist: A person only others in the field would ever know about and respect.

Nova made sure it is that way. She could not do her work if she did not have some respect in the field, but she wanted no attention outside it. She never wanted to be on late night television, in the slot the pet or animal wrangler people often filled, talking about her controversial theories regarding the ancient Pueblo people.

For one thing, they are not theories. She could not afford to stand out too far and gain too much attention. She did not want anyone getting deeply interested in her or her life.

Nova was here, in her homeland after years of not being able to be here, and she wanted to stay. Continue her dangerous work. Work she started so very long ago. She is using her original first name in this iteration of herself. For most of her kind that is normal: to keep the first name and only change all the other parts as life slipped into the next life. That used to be a lot easier than it is today. She needed to be very careful and spend a great deal of time rebuilding and re-establishing that which she knew so well. It required her to use words like "Anasazi" which, at one point in her life, was poison on her tongue to use. She adapted. The work means being part of the modern community no matter how offensive some current assumptions might be.

Nova knew her time to solve this current problem to be limited. Sooner or later someone would stumble onto her find. That could not happen. The humans can never find the site as it really was. She admitted to herself that as wrong-headed as modern thought is about her people sometimes, she is responsible for some of the false trails. When the sites are found and Nova's historic tinkering is not detected it is assumed that the grave has been this way since it's original interment. The more centuries that have passed since she changed things at the site, the better. She only changed something when it is required to hide the bigger truth. As a scientist, she valued truth above everything but the necessity of keeping the Secret.

It is getting harder to remain undetected. Modern science is going to be able to detect her early efforts someday. See how something was disturbed that does not add up. What has been discovered so far is considered to be grave robbing.

She had to be very careful, but that is Nova. She never took any risks she did not have to. She double and triple checked everything. She learned and educated herself constantly to be sure she is always one step ahead.

Ultimately she is going to be required to work with others. Groups like the Cleanup Crew. She is never going to be able to know all she needs to know anymore. She could not be Anthropologist, Archeologist, Forger, and have every skill of a Forensic scientist too. Even her footprints left behind things that she needed to erase for fear of creating a noticeable disruption...

Nova has professional respect for the women on the Cleaning Crew. They are one of the few in their world that are supported by the Council. The women of the Crew could spend all their time learning and doing, without having to spend a great deal of time building credibility with the outside world. They are a sort of secret society inside the secret society.