Over the years Mentor had studied the writings of scientists and biologists hoping to understand how the body could be overtaken and killed, yet made to live again as something altogether new. All other diseases ravaged the body, consuming and defeating it until the soul fled from it forever. In contrast, the mutated disease of porphyria deformed the body and took it to the brink of death, but at the last moment the cells revived, becoming new cells that were neither human nor animal. However, the human soul was left to struggle on, the mind remaining, the memories intact. And on that brink of death was where the soul determined what path it would follow. Closed off from heaven and blocked from the gates of hell, the soul had but three choices. It could embrace evil fully and become a Predator vampire, seeking to take down humans in order to survive. It could fall back to the weakest link of vampiric existence and hide from man as a Craven. Or it could muster the strength to live on in human society, learning to hide away its supernatural powers in order to go forward into history as if truly human still.
This last path was the hardest. A Predator lived by night, slept by day, and had no use for a conscience. A Craven merely passed as a diseased human, handicapped by sunlight, sick all the time, lost forever in the despair of loneliness behind drawn shades, dependent on the charity of Predators to supply them with life-sustaining blood. But a Natural! He chose to walk in the day, converse and interact with humans as one of them, keeping secret the stillness of his heart and the cruelty of immortality. Naturals worked hard to earn enough money not only to live as humans lived, but to pay the Predators for the blood they needed. They were not killers like the Predators. They hoped never to take life.
Dell's parents worked very hard, harder perhaps than most humans. Her mother was a payroll accountant at a car dealership in Dallas. She often worked Saturdays, needing the overtime pay. Dell's father was a software engineer, fighting for pay grade updates, and cost of living allowances. Everyone in Dell's family worked long hours, some of them working two jobs, and never complaining about it for they wanted, most of all, to live in the world naturally.
At various times some of the Naturals thought about setting up their own blood banks, cutting the Predators out of the loop, but the supply chain had been set up this way from the beginning and the Predators were not eager to give up the power and profit they enjoyed. Rather than go to war with them to win control of the blood banks, the Naturals bowed to tradition and continued buying from the Predators. Working and working and buying.
It was not true that the blood went into their stomachs as had the food they'd eaten as human beings. The digestive system never worked in the same way again after the moment of death. All vampires took blood through their fangs, which sped that warm blood, alive with living cells, throughout their blood system, reviving them, keeping their skin supple, brains functioning, and their muscles hard. Though they never aged again, they were able to keep the body functioning for a normal human lifespan of seventy to a hundred years. Then they had to migrate to another body, preferably a youthful one.
The body, though supplied with living blood, was still no more than a physical specimen. As the years moved past, the wear and tear on that physical form eventually caused the inner organs to fail, one by one, just as they did in humans.
Mentor had lived in so many bodies he hardly recognized his own face when he saw it reflected from a mirror. In fact, the body he possessed now was elderly. He would have to migrate in the next few years.
He mused on the first time he had had to change bodies. There were but hundreds of his kind then, a new race, and not many of them had realized they had to or could change from one human shell to another. Mentor was one of the first, sitting alone one night in a cold, drafty castle high up in the Swiss mountains. He had hidden himself away from the world. His wife, a human, had died in Scotland, a country he'd fled. Like his wife's, his own body was aged and decrepit. He just wanted to be alone and forgotten, if possible. He had reverted to his predatory ways once his wife had passed. He swept down from the mountain retreat into nearby villages, taking humans at will, leaving behind drained corpses. He had no more care for humans and their world. They were frail and they died so easily, just as his wife had.
Misery and grief tore at him, robbing him of the humanity he'd been able to forge as a beloved husband.
Then one night he'd been on the prowl, sweeping in with a blizzard into a village, moving swiftly toward fresh blood. He smelled it on the icy wind. He following the scent, his hunger like a siren call in his veins.
He found the human, a young man trudging through hip-deep snowdrifts toward a lighted pub. Mentor appeared before him out of nowhere, halting his progress.
The human, frightened out of his wits, began to stutter and tried to run away. Mentor caught him by the coat collar and hauled him down to the ground. Just as he was ripping into his victim's neck, something began to happen. The blood suffusing Mentor's body seemed to stop along the way and coagulate in dry, dead veins. The heart inside his chest would not revive to life, the veins, arteries, and capillaries began to break and splatter the new warm infusion of blood throughout the old body. He was hemorrhaging all inside from hundreds of tiny spigots of broken vessels.
Mentor's human form was so worn out the veins and arteries had lost all elasticity. They were shutting down or bursting all along the pathways from neck to limbs.
Mentor fell back from the young dying man in the snowdrift and gasped, blood dripping from his fangs to spot the pristine snow. He knew what was the matter. He had intimate knowledge of the inner workings of his human body. He could feel the old arterial system failing. He looked about wildly, the light from the pub a yellow beacon. But he could not go there. He could not be saved by medicine or a surgeon, no more than an ancient human could be saved. He fell onto his back next to the young man and stared up into the frenzy of the white blowing blizzard.
Where will I go, he wondered. What will happen to me now? Will I be allowed to die and meet with my beloved?
Even as he asked himself these questions, he knew the answers. He would not die, but the body he inhabited was going to. If he stayed in it much longer he would be trapped, a living spirit inside a body that no longer functioned in any way. He'd be a prisoner in the flesh. They would come from the pub and find him, pronounce him dead, and bury him.
He felt like shouting out his grief and horror at the snowy sky. He had to get out of the old, decayed body with the burst veins and the hemorrhaging system. He turned on his side to the young man who lay in the snow, his arms thrown out at his sides. The young man was already dying. Mentor reached over and slipped his old hand beneath the other man's thick wool coat. He slipped it beneath the rough shirt and to the man's chest. He felt for the heart. It beat erratically and the breathing was shallow.
Mentor lay that way, his hand on the man's chest, waiting. He dosed his eyes and began to will himself away from his own dying form. The young man's veins were strong and they would carry blood, even after his spirit left the body. The young man would be a perfect vehicle.
All Mentor had to do was wait for the moment of death for them both and find a way to make the switch.
How? How was he to do it? Why had it come to this, what manner of supreme being would have devised such a terrible plot for his kind?
He forced his whole being into an introspective trance where he seemed to pull and tug at his spirit that was attached so steadfastly to the old body. He did not know if it would work or how it worked. He only had faith that it would. He could not imagine lying in the dead old body in a casket for the rest of eternity, trapped by earth, brother to the darkness.
Beneath his hand he felt the other man's heart cease, the breathing end. Now was the time.
He tugged harder, blasting with all his might against the structure of the inner body, pushing against the still heart, the deflated lungs, willing with all his might and soul to be set free.
The chaotic fury of his will sent out a message
that reached a vampire older yet than Mentor. This being used the name Balatan, and he, too, had come to the mountains of Switzerland to hide away and live a quiet life for his own personal reasons. Mentor had known of him, but they'd never met, both preferring their self-enforced solitude. They frequented different villages, careful not to compete for territory.
Within minutes, the Predator was at Mentor's side in the swirling snow. Mentor could no longer open his eyes or move his limbs. He sensed the being nearby and called to him frantically. What do I do? Save me!
Balatan seemed to enter Mentor's destroyed body in order to help him release himself from the boundaries of the flesh. Mentor felt him like a shawl over the shoulders. His spirit was cold as an ice floe and dark as the bottom of a mine. He screamed at him, "Let go! Step into the void, and I will guide you to the other body!"
Mentor did as he was told, insane with fear and the thought of the grave's entrapment. He pushed harder and harder, willing himself loose from the tendons, muscles, and flabby flesh, tearing himself from the dead meat that had been his body since the day he was born.
He screamed mentally, crying out in horror and despair, beating against the material body with every ounce of his consciousness. Suddenly he found himself free, light as the air, and Balatan had hold of him, jerking him up and away from the snow. Once loose from the old man he had become, Mentor could see the body below him, and he almost rushed back to it, longing for the familiarity of that flesh and bone.
Balatan shouted, "No!" and pushed him this time, sending his spirit flying down toward the young man's form on the snow.
Mentor flung out his invisible self, making it as wide as a blanket, and it hit the dead young man's body like a wave crashing from high. He fell for what seemed like ages through darkness, and then he opened eyes on a new world.
Balatan hovered over him in the air, dressed all in black wool. "Welcome to your new body."
Mentor blinked. He moved one hand, crushing a fistful of snow, and feeling how cold it was. He managed to sit up and look down at his hands. They were young hands, unmarried by life, the knuckles smooth and the skin tight. He looked up at Balatan and realized he had disappeared.
So this is how it is done, Mentor thought, rejoicing. We do not have to lie in old bodies trapped in a graveyard. We move into another body and use it instead. He doubted he could have done it without Balatan's help, but he wasn't sure. He expected he would have struggled for as long as it look in order to wrench himself free. Balatan had surely shortcutted the process, however, and one day he would thank him.
The switch left him momentarily confused, so that it took him some time to get to his feet and stumble away into the night. He was hungry and deprived of blood. His old body had taken most of what made the new body function.
Before the night was over, Mentor had taken a second victim, a drunk from the pub who had wandered out to relieve himself in the snow. The killing revived Mentor's youthful body and he was able then to get back to his empty castle where he could sit by a fire and think over what it all meant. A vampire had supernatural powers, some he realized he hadn't yet discovered. One of them was the ability to take a new home.
~*~
Mentor tried to explain things to Dell. Dell's aunt, Celia Widen, sat nearby. Celia held onto Dell's hand and now and again patted it. Mentor said, "The Cravens and Naturals, just like the Predators, also need fresh blood, but their fangs only go into blood bags, not into the flesh of humankind. Without new blood with living cells, a vampire perishes. His veins collapse, the arteries shrink, the heart shrivels. Finally, the muscles atrophy, the brain softens in the skull, and the skin dries to crusty leather. I know this is graphic, but you have to understand everything." He paused to see how she was taking the information. She did not look as horrified as he expected. Probably because she knew some of this already.
He continued, "It's a horrible thing to see a vampire die of starvation. It's a torturously slow process. Only lack of blood or fire can end a vampire's life. If he loses a limb, his cells grew a new one. If he's injured, the cells renew the flesh. As for crosses and holy water and the silly ropes of garlic necklaces—well, that's merely myth and superstition. There are far worse obstacles to contend with than Stoker could have ever imagined for his infamous Count Dracula."
Dell smiled.
"Deprive a vampire of new blood and he'll eventually dry to dust and be gone. Burn him in an inferno and his cells have no chance to renew and will turn to cinder. Otherwise, our kind, or at least our minds and souls, are impervious to the effects of aging, death, and destruction."
As Mentor sat at Dell's bedside, he knew she struggled to come back into the world as a new being. That struggle was almost as difficult as facing her death or choosing which path her soul should follow. He imparted his strength to her, pulsing waves out from his own strong body to surround her, in the same way a supernatural human healer cured the ill by radiating energy through his hands. Soon he would have to leave. Already he had telepathically received pleas for his assistance from others going through the same process as Dell, and he must be there to guide them. The cries were piteous and urgent. Save me. Help me. Find me and take me from the arms of destruction.
Mentor turned his attention fully back to Dell and saw she was trying to tell him something. He opened the channel and listened to her thoughts. You can go, she told him. I'll be all right. Aunt Celia will see about me.
"Yes," he told her, "you will. You will be fine now. You'll find a way to rise and walk again. Your parents and your brother love you and want you with them. This is the dawning of your new life."
One single tear fell from her eyes. Mentor reached out and plucked it from her cheek with his finger. It was her blood. He tasted it to discover if she could make the journey without a transfusion. He found it metallic and cold, but with enough red cells to keep her going until she was strong enough to drink on her own.
"I have to go away for a while," he said aloud. "You know why. There are always others who need me. But I'll be back. We'll set up sessions once you're on your feet. You'll go back to school and resume your life. For a while, you will come to me every day and I'll teach you what you need to know to survive."
Thank you, she said, and he could feel her struggling to lift her hand to him. He patted her shoulder and stood.
"I'm happy to be of service," he said, smiling warmly. "Good-bye, Celia." She nodded her head at him.
He was about to turn away and leave when he heard Dell's thoughts scrambling after him, seeking an answer to a question. He leaned down and stared into her open eyes. "What is it? What do you need to know so desperately?"
What are you? What are you, Mentor?
He knew she meant what sort of vampire was he. He glanced at Celia. She knew almost everything of the vampire life though she was not one. He looked back down at his charge.
"I am not a god," he said. "I know that's what you're thinking. That I must be a god to know so much and to have the ability to enter death's arms with you. But, my dear, I am merely old and experienced. It's been my duty to do this for hundreds of years. And I am. . . technically. . . a Predator." He could see the surprise and fear mingling in her eyes. Again he patted her shoulder and said, "Reformed. A reformed Predator. I've lived so many thousands of years that I've gone beyond evil and crossed over into understanding. I can kill—easily—and decide not to. At least most of the time." He knew guilt had crept into his eyes and he turned away so she wouldn't see. "I take my blood as you will, artificially, not from the living flesh. Most of the time." He was incapable of telling a lie.
He knew her mind was eased, though she could not possibly understand how many hundreds of years he had fought to free himself from the thirst to kill. She could not imagine the pain he had endured and the willpower he had exerted in order to change himself from one of the greatest and most powerful leaders of the Predators into a creature who had sworn to help others along the passage. Nor could she ever fathom why, ev
en now, he would kill when it meant preserving the secret of their clan or when a Predator could not be restrained and threatened to give them all away by his wanton acts of murder.
Like shifting shadow, he moved from the room.
He would say good-bye to her family, assure them she was coming along, and exhort them to help her until his return.
The calls for help thrummed through his brain from the dying. Dozens of voices called to him. He must hurry. He must save some of them from choosing the wrong path.
It was his duty. His job. His reason to exist.
5
Dell watched Mentor leave and immediately fell into a panic. Her throat closed as if it were a sock being twisted and wrung by strong hands. Her mind would not behave or obey, falling first into despair at her predicament then leaping toward joy at the mere thought of living forever with her family at her side. She must get control of her seesawing emotions. They swayed through her—swinging pendulums of fear, hope, disgust, and loathing, self-pity, and sudden elation. She was in danger of losing her mind.
She had heard of that happening before during the change. The result was permanent madness. An insanity that never relented. Predators hunted those who went mad and put them down. They were caught out in the open, away from anyone who might help them, and set on fire. While they burned in agony, a ring of Predators watched, showing no mercy, laughing, swearing at the dying one and condemning him to utter darkness.
She must not let go of her mind. She must not let this defeat her. More than anything she wanted to live. She was too young to go mad and find herself hunted and killed. She had hardly even begun her life yet. Even if she had to live as a vampire, she meant to do it.
She felt Aunt Celia squeeze her hand. She tried to squeeze it back but couldn't. From the corner of her eyes she saw someone enter the room. It was Eddie. He was fourteen now, though he had stopped growing at twelve. He was a big boy who had nearly reached his adult height when the change had happened. Soon, of course, he would have to leave the family and go away. The school authorities, teachers, neighbors, and his friends would finally realize he had not changed over the years, had not grown, had not physically aged in any way.
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