by T. S. Ryder
Sebastien sat at the foot of the bed. “Alex used more force on you than he normally would have because he wanted to make sure you didn’t wake up on the flight over.”
“Ah... so that’s how we went from Florida to Louisiana so fast,” she mused, mulling his words over in her head. If Sebastien was surprised she knew where they were (sort of), he didn’t show it. “So it doesn’t work the same way on everyone?” she asked, the inquisitive mind of the research scientist kicking in, seeking information as a form of coping mechanism because, for her, it was always easier to deal with things, no matter how difficult they were, if she understood what was going on.
“It depends,” he told her, playing along, “If you’re trying to give someone that final nudge to do something they already wanted to do, then it works like a charm... the less the human is likely to do what you want them to on their own, the more you have to push into their mind. It’s... not recommended to push too hard, though. Human psyche doesn’t take tampering well.” As evidenced by her sudden but steadily growing fatigue.
She yawned, hiding her head under the cover because she felt too weak to cover her mouth with her hand. “I’ll let you rest now,” Sebastien said, rising off the bed, “I’ll put Stefan at your door again, but I think you and Alex need to be kept apart until you learn how to play together,” he joked, and it sounded so odd coming from him... but, then again, she didn’t exactly know the man, just what he seemed like to her.
“Why is he so...” she began, but couldn’t find the words. “He’s not angry, but it does seem like I annoy him more than I should, considering we’ve only just met.”
Sebastien smiled, and Kendra couldn’t help but think how it lit up his face, lifting some of that gravity he seemed to always carry around. “He’s a little peeved you didn’t fall at his feet when he tried to talk you into taking the job with us,” he told her. “And... he lost someone to the disease. Someone he loved. I know, deep inside, he understands you need time to adjust to this, but he can’t help resent you for not taking this as seriously as he wants you to.” It made sense, Kendra supposed, but that didn’t make Beauchamp any less of an ass.
She yawned again, and Sebastien approached her, lowering his head to lay a kiss on her brow. “Sleep,” he whispered, but she had a feeling this was not... what did he call it? A mind-spell? Yeah, a mind-spell. No, it sounded like ordinary words, like a farewell for the evening... or the night, she supposed. He was a vampire, she thought as she drifted off to sleep. His day had just begun.
She woke up the next day, confused when she realized there was a black panel where the window had been the night before. She took a moment to let herself fully come to her senses before she got off the bed and went to inspect what turned out to be a thick metallic pane, like a window blind, that completely blocked the outside light from coming in. It seemed logical, she decided. In most of the stories, vampires burned in the sun, so it stood to reason that they’d want to protect themselves during the day.
She realized then that everyone in the house was probably asleep now, which made her wonder what she should do, presuming that she was probably the only person awake at this moment. Figuring that she might as well use the opportunity to snoop a bit, she used the bathroom and changed into clean clothes before stepping out into the hallway... only to be met by two new faces, both male. “You’re not Alex and Stefan,” she noted, remembering the names Sebastien had given her last night.
“No, ma’am. Daylight guard,” the one to the left replied as if that was supposed to mean something to her. “I’m Edward. My partner here is Jake. We were assigned to take care of you today. Do you want to head downstairs for breakfast? Or would you like to see the Doc right away?”
Kendra presumed he meant Dr. Roche-Duquesne and nodded. “I’d like that,” she said, and followed the two guards down the same path Beauchamp and Stefan had taken her the night before.
Dr. Roche-Duquesne was already in the laboratory, bent over a microscope. Now that Kendra was a little more focused, she took a moment to observe the woman. Sebastien introduced her as his sister, but she looked at least twenty years older than he was, with graying hair cut in a pixie bob and lines creased across her face. She supposed that meant that real vampires, as opposed to the fictional ones, did age... and then her mind did another double take when she realized she was already accepting the premise of vampires as a part of reality.
But it was either that or go completely insane, and she rather enjoyed being in full control of her mental faculties.
“Good day,” she said, both in greeting and to announce herself, since Dr. Roche-Duquesne hadn’t seem to notice anyone had arrived.
The woman lifted her head up just enough to see who it was and smiled when she saw Kendra. “Dr. Allenby!” she greeted her merrily and waved for her to come over. “Take a look at this sample,” she told Kendra, and she did as she was bid after adjusting the lens a little.
The slide was mounted with a stained blood film, and Kendra deduced it was a fairly fresh sample. Now that she could observe for herself this (for her) strange new substance, she was amazed by all the similarities and the differences between human and vampire blood. Not all of them could be seen through simple observation, but to her as a scientist, what she could see now was a source of what she felt could become an endless fascination.
“You know, when Dr. Duquesne first introduced me to this,” she told his widow, “I wanted to know everything about it, but the way he kept me at arm’s length turned me off it almost completely.”
Anais Roche-Duquesne chuckled. “I gather that was exactly why he was doing it,” she told Kendra. “He was trying to keep you safe while using you as a fresh set of eyes. The idiot.” Kendra lifted her eyes off the microscope and gave the good doctor a quizzical look. “Oh, what? Am I supposed to think him infallible just because he was my husband?” the older woman asked teasingly. “He did wrong by you. The fact that it got him the results he wanted don’t change that.” Somehow, hearing that made Kendra feel a little better about the whole situation. She was pushed into this through no fault of her own, and it was good to know others understood it as well, especially after what Sebastien had told her about Beauchamp last night.
“Whose blood is this?” she asked.
“Stefan Beauchamp’s,” Dr. Roche-Duquesne replied, and chuckled at the stunned look on Kendra’s face. “I know, they don’t seem like brothers at all,” she said.
“I’ll say,” Kendra murmured, and took another peek through the microscope. “It doesn’t appear that he’s infected,” she noted.
“He’s not,” Dr. Roche-Duquesne confirmed. “We haven’t managed to find a cure yet, but our research wasn’t completely in vain. We devised a test that locates the disease with 97% accuracy, and we’ve found some ways of alleviating the symptoms. The method of transmission kept us baffled, though, until Keith decided to come to you.”
Kendra rose from the telescope again and took a seat on one of the nearby stools. “But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said, but Dr. Roche-Duquesne waved her head.
“You have to understand, for all the similarities, vampire physiology differs rather drastically from human in a number of ways that made figuring anything about this disease extremely difficult,” she tried to explain. “Their metabolisms are much faster and their cells repair any damage they sustain so quickly and so completely that viral and bacterial diseases barely presented a problem before.” Knowing next to nothing about the vampire race, Kendra took the doctor’s word for it, instead addressing a new source of confusion.
“Their?” she asked, “I thought you and Sebastien were siblings?”
“We are,” Dr. Roche-Duquesne nodded, smiling again. “I’m his baby sister.” If she were not sitting already, Kendra was sure she would’ve felt her legs wobble at that little piece of information. “Shocking, I know,” the older woman said, apparently amused by Kendra’s reaction. “It doesn’t happen often, but vampires and humans have
been known to Bond and produce offspring.” Something about the way the doctor said the word ‘bond’ made Kendra practically hear the capital B.
“And a Bond would be...?”
Dr. Roche-Duquesne took a seat as well. “We do not know yet what truly causes it,” she told Kendra. “But basically, it is a very strong pheromone reaction between a man and a woman of breeding age. It’s purely physical – a way for their bodies to proclaim they found the right person to make babies with – but it isn’t a prerequisite for successful conception, not between vampires. There has never been a dhampir born without a Bonding, though.”
Kendra frowned. “Dhampir? Like Alucard?” she asked, finally finding a use for all the hours she’d spent playing Castlevania as a kid.
Dr. Roche-Duquesne laughed. “Something like that, although unlike him, the only difference between us and pure humans is that we tend to live a little longer and have better health.”
“Dr. Duquesne...” Kendra began, but his widow replied before she could finish the question.
“He was human, but my father found him trustworthy and we were allowed to remain with the Clan. We were a rare pairing, though. Dhampir usually wed amongst themselves, or with other vampires – unlike the vampires, we can go about in daylight without any ill effect, so we’re very useful to have around, which is why most vampires tend to treat us very well.”
This time, it was Kendra’s turn to laugh. “You know, the more you tell me about your culture, the more questions I have,” she said jokingly, but it was true. The genetics, the social composition of a Clan, the hierarchy... new topics of interests revealed themselves to her with each new answer she received.
“I can imagine,” Dr. Roche-Duquesne said, smiling sympathetically, “Vampires have a history just as long and a culture just as intricate as humans do, and you are, above all, a scientist. Your heightened curiosity is perfectly normal... just as it’s normal that I can’t give you all the answers at once.”
She stood up and walked over to one of the desks in the laboratory, her own, Kendra suspected, from the photos of her and Dr. Duquesne that stood on it encased in silver frames, and brought back a large, heavy book, handing it to Kendra as she sat back down. “This is one of the histories vampire children are taught when they first start school,” she told Kendra. “It’s oversimplified, but it covers the basics, and I thought you’d find it useful.” She smiled. “Plus, this way, you and I could concentrate on the medical aspects without getting distracted. We have very little time to make as much progress as we can, and we have to make the most of it.”
“Thank you,” Kendra nodded, honestly grateful for the thought – and she agreed, it would be better for their work if they could focus only on those parts of the vampire world that had a direct influence on what they were dealing with.
She put the book down on the table next to her, making a mental note to take it with her when she left, and turned back to the older woman. “Dr. Roche-Duquesne...” she began, but the doctor interrupted her with a laugh.
“Oh, god, child, no!” she chuckled, “That is too big of a mouthful and much too formal. Anais will do just fine.”
Kendra lifted an eyebrow. “You call me Dr. Allenby,” she noted, but Dr. Roche-Duquesne would not be dissuaded.
“So I’ll call you Kendra from now on,” she said, and Kendra had a feeling she was being made fun of a little. “Would that make us even?”
Deciding that this was not an important enough matter to be fought over, Kendra just nodded before she continued with her original query. “You were telling me earlier how difficult it was for you to realize that what you were dealing with an actual disease.”
“Oh, yes,” Anais confirmed it, her expression once again growing grave, and Kendra could see now the similarities in the bone structure she shared with her brother. “As I was saying, vampire physiology is such that it tends to kill most disease carriers before they get a chance to do any real damage, though in the years before modern medicine they presented a much bigger problem than they do now. And, as Alex said last night, vampires don’t really get cancer. There are, we presume, instances of abnormal cell growth that grows into cancer in humans, but we’d always thought that the vampires’ natural healing factor nipped those in the bud... until now, that is.”
Kendra nodded. “When did you first notice something was wrong?” she asked.
“Roughly a year ago, a few weeks after the Great Gathering. You’ll find out about those in the book I gave you as well, and the next one is the reason why we’re in such a hurry – we’re the hosts of this year’s Gathering, and it’s ten days away. Anyway, after we returned from the last Great Gathering, one of my nurses asked me to pay her sister a visit. The girl seemed to be suffering from uncharacteristically strong fatigue and a fever that just wouldn’t break, which for a vampire is unusual, to say the least. I tried to administer some tried treatments for similar symptoms, but none of it worked and the girl died several weeks later. She spent the last ten days in a deep coma, probably because of the fever-induced brain damage.” God, how sad! And what a shock it must’ve been for a species so used to being practically invincible.
“We didn’t suspect any foul play at the time, and the girl was cremated,” Anais continued. “But new cases began to appear over time, and we’ve lost twenty-three people since the first case. The first definite findings we uncovered came from autopsies we performed on the poor souls who died, and once we realized what it was that we needed to be looking for, it became easier to diagnose the disease in living patients and find treatments that worked for them. But I’m afraid that, for all our effort, we couldn’t find a way to fully eradicate it, or to prevent further infection.”
“But how was it that a virus never crossed your mind?” Kendra couldn’t help but ask. She understood now how a vampire or a dhampir doctor could’ve automatically dismissed that possibility, but Dr. Duquesne was human.
“As you noted yourself, the diseased cells showed more in common with human cancer cells than with virus-infected ones,” Anais noted. “And, also, the investigations Sebastien launched at our father’s order to find out the common traits between the victims showed very few straight lines. We suspected at first it might be transferred through blood, as feeding is an essential part of proper vampire sustenance, but not everyone who fed on an infected person contracted the disease. And if it were airborne it would’ve spread much faster.” Indeed, Kendra thought to herself, mulling over theories in her head as to what could cause such a sporadic network of infection.
One of the more controversial theories about the most controversial disease in human history came to her mind almost instantly. “Have you ever heard about the multifactorial model of AIDS contraction?” she asked Anais, and the older woman shook her head in negation. “Basically, back in the early days, one of the theories about AIDS was that it took a set of multiple factors to come together for a body to become vulnerable to the disease, which would explain why some people could be infected with HIV for a long time before they develop AIDS. It’s generally considered an outdated theory, and has been for decades, but the way you describe the pattern of this infection... it may very well be the reason why some people who come into contact with infected blood do contract the disease while others don’t.” And AIDS itself had originally been considered a new form of cancer, another parallel that Kendra thought worth looking into.
Anais sat silently for a while, thinking about Kendra’s theory. “It does make a certain amount of sense,” she said finally, her expression very somber. “And it’s a direction we haven’t considered before. We’ll need to delve into some preparations at first, mostly obtaining new samples, but other than that, I think we have all the tools we need to put that theory to the test.”
Kendra wanted to say something, but her stomach decided to take the moment she opened her mouth to protest its state of emptiness, and Anais gave her a quizzical look. “You came down here as soon as you woke up, didn’t y
ou?” she asked, and an embarrassed Kendra just nodded. “Well, come on, then,” Anais said, standing up. “Let’s get you fed and caffeinated so we can get to work.”
Figuring it’d be easier to focus if she wasn’t hungry, Kendra followed Anais out of the laboratory, looking forward to something for the first time since she was brought into the house.
Chapter Six
It had been a difficult night for Sebastien, not only because he had to deal with the fact that he’d nearly torn his best friend to shreds but also because he’d had to bite the bullet and admit why he’d been behaving so irrationally in the past twelve hours.
Ironically, the person who brought this fact to his attention was none other than Alex himself.
“You’re Bonding with her!” he exclaimed, as he stormed into Sebastien’s office, slamming the door behind him.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He dismissed the accusation right away, but Alex knew him too well to just let things slide.
“You pretty much snatched her out of my arms the second we came out of the plane, you sat by her bed like a dog until she woke up, your canines protracted for her without any provocation as if you were a horny teen and you nearly killed me last night for calling her a bitch... which she completely deserved after cold-cocking me – twice!”
Sebastien’s brow shot up. “Twice?”
Alex groaned. “She punched me when she saw me at the door before we took her to the lab,” he explained, and Sebastien couldn’t help but laugh. Oh, yeah. She was a real wildcat, his Kendra.
He instantly felt his face grow cold.
“Aw, hell,” he cursed. “I’m Bonding with her.”
Noticeable possessiveness without a valid reason behind it was one of the first and most obvious early signs of Bonding, and he freaking missed it until now.
“Damn it,” he grumbled, “As if this situation wasn’t complicated enough.”