by Zoë Fox
“Oh, I don’t know. Some sick pervert whose mother didn’t hug him enough? People are capable of a lot of horrible things.” She paused. “Besides, the heads were gone, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, why would a vampire take the head?” She gave him a pointed look. “Explain that.”
“Maybe he just likes violence. You saw him tonight! He’s capable of it!”
Alex laughed at that. “Lucas? That violent? And I’m going to win the Ms. America pageant.”
“But what about the way he went after me? He would’ve killed me if you hadn’t been there.” Sean struggled to keep up with her.
“He had no idea who was coming down stairs! How many people go into a mausoleum at night, grave robbers and necrophiliacs aside?”
He didn’t understand why she insisted on defending that…that thing!
“Fine,” he said, stopping. She wasn’t going to be logical and he was having trouble breathing. “Just think about what I said…And Alex?” He called after.
“Yeah?” She didn’t turn around.
“Please be careful.”
Chapter Ten
“Hey, you got a letter today,” Alex said as she walked down the stairs into Lucas’ study. Several days after having her send the first document for him, he’d asked her to mail a second. Seeing as how a mailbox sitting outside of a mausoleum would have looked conspicuous, she’d told him he could use her address to receive mail. She was the only one who ever checked it anyway, so it wasn’t like her mom would stumble upon a letter for him and start asking questions.
“Ah, good! I’ve been expecting this.” He took it from her. Extracting a silver letter opener from his desk, he cut into the thick, cream colored envelope. Aside from a few pieces of paper, two cards fell out on the flat surface in front of him. After reading the document, he retrieved these. The first, a laminated ID, he put to the side. He turned the other one, a green piece of plastic, over several times in his hand. A few moments passed before he looked at Alex.
“Please explain.”
She’d taken a seat on the couch, just glad he wasn’t still upset about the scene Sean had caused the night before.
“Hand it here,” she said, taking it from him. “Oh, it’s an ATM card.” She handed it back to him.
He just stared at it.
“Sorry. You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” She was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to properly describe it for him. “This is how you access your money. There are machines that you stick this card into. You put in your personal code and you can extract money from it—”
“Money from machines?” He asked, interrupting her.
“Yeah, you’ve probably seen them when you went out and didn’t even notice them. So, you can take out money from the machine, the amount depending on the ATM and how much you have in your account. You can also swipe it at stores and they’ll take the money directly from your account when you buy things. Got it?”
He nodded. “I believe so, but what was wrong with simple money?”
“Well, say you can’t go by the bank, ‘cause…oh, I don’t know…you sleep all day and it’s closed when you’re awake. Instead of not being able to get cash, you can get money from the machines at any time.” She smiled at him. “It’s great for the sunlight challenged.”
“But how does the machine know how much money I am entitled to?” Lucas thought the whole system sounded extremely complicated.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s hooked into the computers at the bank.”
He sat there for a moment. “Alex, what are computers?”
She took a deep breath. This one was going to take a while to explain.
Alex spent the better part of the next fifteen minutes going over, to the best of her ability, what a computer was and its various uses.
“So, who was the letter from?” She asked when she had finished.
Lucas was silent for a minute or two, debating whether or not to tell her. On one hand the information was both deeply personal and closely guarded secret to the outside world. On the other, he was beginning to feel as if he could truly confide in her. Like him, she was filled with questions. She had shown a genuine interest in his studies and was a great asset in acclimating him to the changes that had taken place in the world during his absence. What could it hurt to share with her?
“Alex, if I tell you these things, you must understand they are to stay between the two of us. It is not something that anyone else can be privy to.” He leaned in towards her as he talked.
“My lips are sealed.” She said, pantomiming locking her mouth with a key and then throwing it away.
“I’m serious.”
She nodded. “So am I.”
He sighed. “The first letter that I had you send on my behalf was to alert the Council to which I belong that I had awakened and would soon be returning to work.” He ran a hand through his hair, which he had decided to leave loose. “I am a member of a secret order of academics devoted to studying the world through the lenses of a variety of disciplines. The Council is the order’s governing body, responsible for assisting, in an auxiliary fashion, our individual endeavors. It ensues ethical standards, decides if one of our studies is something that can be made available to the general academic public, and, in times when one has out stepped the boundaries of proper behavior, it deals out disciplinary measures.”
“A secret society?” She was more than a little surprised. The only experience she had with anything similar was the fact that her mother’s brother, her uncle, Dan, was a member of the local Masonic lodge. He was always rambling on about secret knowledge and rites, but from what she could tell, all the members of his group did was get rip roaring drunk together.
“Yes.”
“Are all of the members vampires?”
He nodded. “Although there are a few humans who assist with certain administrative details, I doubt they are aware of what their employers truly are, nor could they be referred to as members.”
A dozen questions circled through her head. Deciding which one to ask first was difficult. “If it’s so hush-hush, then why are you telling me about it?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
He was aware of the fact that he had begun to trust her, despite the relatively short time he’d known her. ‘You make me feel…what?’ He thought. ‘Less alone?’ Had he truly been that lonely before his slumber? There was something comforting in having her there to talk to, as reluctant as he had been, at first, to allow her into his personal space. But was that it? Was feeling that alone enough to cause him to share secrets he had never discussed with anyone outside of the order? The very nature of his work required that he keep at a distance from the world, in order to impartially study it, so he had never chosen to have a human confidant. And members of the order tended to leave each other alone, unless serving on the council, simply because there was a certain competitiveness when it came to making discoveries. He knew of a few who had chosen to collaborate on various projects, yet it wasn’t the normal modus operandi. When you had an eternity to figure out a problem there was little need to share the prestige that came with a break through.
“So,” she said, breaking the train of his thoughts. “Do all vampires belong to the order?”
“Heavens no!” He looked as if the very idea offended him. “Not all are suited for it. We’re very selective.”
“How many members are there?”
“I’m unaware of the exact number at this time, but before I took to my prolonged rest, I believe we were around a thousand strong.”
“A thousand? And you guys call yourselves selective?” A thought occurred to her. “Wait, how many vampires are there in the world?”
He shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t rightfully know, but as there are multiple ways to become as I am, or something similar, the exact figure would probably shock even me.”
“Explain. I thought it was all sharing blood and then liv
ing forever.”
“Hardly!” He actually laughed at that. “Nothing is that simple. You do realize that ‘vampire’ is a generic term, do you not?”
She shook her head.
“It refers to a variety of different beings of various origins.”
She was intrigued. “Okay, you’ve got to tell me more.”
“Well,” he said, sitting back in his chair. He enjoyed the level of enthusiasm she showed towards learning new things. It was another thing they had in common. “There is one breed whose Latin name roughly translates to ‘bloodsucking fiend’. Although they have a mind, it is corrupted and almost completely lent to destructive pursuits. For the most part, they claim, depending on which one you ask, that they are descendants of either Lilith or Judas Iscariot. Personally, I believe they’re being rather pretentious to do so,” he said, rolling his eyes.
She giggled at his last comment. “So, if I see one of these guys, cross the street, right?”
“Correct or start praying out loud. They tend to be a fanatical lot, believe that crosses, the Lord’s prayer, and holy water can hurt them, although I’ve yet to see proof of such.” He paused, thinking. “Then are those who don’t drink blood at all.”
Her brow crinkled. “Wait, how can you call it a vampire if it doesn’t suck blood?”
“They feed off humans, but they draw out energy. Some argue they actually devour the souls of their prey, either a piece of it or the whole thing. Their victims often end up in a catatonic state, but alive, usually never recovering.”
“That is seriously not cool.”
“I agree. As are those capable of astral projection. These individuals have no control over their physical bodies and are usually mistaken for dead. Once buried, the corpse doesn’t properly decay. Some essence of the creature remains inside, except for when it sends itself outward to feed. This essence finds someone to drink from and they draw out the blood, leaving behind only tiny pin pricks easily confused for simple mosquito bites. They have a horrible habit of liking to slowly, over a prolonged period of time, drain an individual to their eventual death.”
“For the most part, these guys seem pretty icky.” Alex was glad it had been Lucas she’d awakened and not something from the grab bag of nastiness he described.
“I myself,” he continued, “am part of a group of vampires not marked by so much unpleasantness. We drink blood, but can decide whether or not to hurt those from which we feed. The mutual sharing of blood is required to pass on the viral agent that causes our condition.”
“Viral as in virus?” She asked. “So, it’s like a sickness?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. When one contracts a virus, the micro biotic organism uses the body’s own cells to reproduce, changing their make up into something more akin to their own.” He stopped for a moment, checking to make sure that he had not lost her, before continuing. “In the case of those like me, it causes a genetic mutation that makes our skin susceptible to extreme damage from UV rays. Prolonged exposure—”
“Turns you into a crispy critter?” She interrupted.
He smiled at her way of describing things. “Exactly. A small price to pay to live forever, I would think. Our condition also allows us to keep our own personalities, meaning that we run the same gambit of characteristics as human beings do. But there is a small exception to this.”
“What’s that?” Alex asked. If she leaned forward any more she was going to fall off the couch.
“If the individual trying to pass on the agent, or turn another if you will, misjudges and takes too much blood before offering their own, they’ll create an abomination.” He shuddered at the thought of the creatures, having had the personal misfortune to encounter several. “At first, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between them and those like me. But after a few days they begin to lose sense of who they were, some going as far as to enter various states of physical decay. They forget everything they knew and degenerate to pure instinct, becoming feral, nightmarish things. Only the viral agent keeps the body animated.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said. The thought of those things made her shudder.
“I am quite serious.” He insisted. “I would not joke at such a pitiful being’s expense.”
Lucas was glad that she didn’t seem to have recoiled from him in any way. He hadn’t realized he’d been afraid of such until the moment had already passed and he had explained his own existence. Many people would have been disgusted at the words ‘viral agent’.
“So, are there any other types of vampires?” She perched her chin on her open palm, curling her fingers toward her ear. She made no effort to hide her interest.
He thought for a moment. “Well, I have seen a few cases of demonic possession resulting in a vampiric being?”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. They’re the worst of all, but not as obnoxious as the fiendish ones I described to begin with.”
“And why’s that?” She asked.
“They don’t talk as much, nor brag about their supposed origin like it’s something to be proud of. Who would want to claim Christ’s betrayer as an ancestor? Not I.” He turned to straighten a few papers on his desk.
“Yeah. And I thought having chicken thieves in my family was bad.”
Glancing over his shoulder, he smiled at her.
“Okay, what I want to know is where do all of you guys come from? I mean really come from.”
“No one knows. There are theories, but nothing definitive.” He placed the pile of pages at the top of his desk.
“Are you serious? But you guys have had—like what? Forever? —to figure it out.”
“As have humans, madam,” He said, smiling at her again. “And yet no one seems to be able to agree as to whether the whole species descended from monkeys or if an omnipotent being is responsible.”
Chapter Eleven
“How many times do I have to tell you, Sean? Lucas isn’t a serial killer.” Alex said, pulling down the frosted flakes from the top pantry shelf. She was trying to make sure Toad had something to eat before she went out.
“Yeah, he’s just a blood sucking monster, right?” Sean was tired of her refusal to look at the situation logically. “I mean, he needs blood to live and the bodies the cops have found so far have been missing all of theirs. But that’s just a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Toad, who was in the process of perfecting his dinner by the addition of his favorite condiment, glared at Sean, but didn’t say anything. The two of them had been arguing for about an hour and it was giving him a headache.
“Look, ok, I get it. The drinking blood aspect creeps you out, but considering the long list of people that give you the heebie-jeebies, I’m surprised you haven’t accused everyone from our mailman to your pastor.” She loaded the dishwasher as she talked. The night before Kirk had given her a list of things he expected her to do around the house from then on before she was allowed to go anywhere or do anything fun. It didn’t seem to make any difference to him that he still didn’t technically live with them. He’d taken it on himself to create a new chores list anyway, one that included more items than her mother had ever asked of her. Thankfully, the dishes were the last item she had to take care of.
“That’s not even fair!” Sean took a seat at the table next to Toad. “I’m not running around like Chicken Little, screaming the sky is falling. I’m drawing a logical conclusion here!”
“Which I will be more than willing to examine,” Alex said as she organized the plates in their rack, “as soon as you bring me some actual evidence.”
“And what do you call the fact that he’s a vampire? Or, oh, I don’t know, the murders didn’t start till you fell into his crypt and woke him up?”
“Circumstantial?” Toad offered, taking a large bite of the ketchup covered concoction. Since he’d been forbidden to watch the news, he’d taken to filling his time with legal dramas and had picked up a few new vocabulary words along the way.
What he didn’t understand was how the news was any more violent than the TV shows Kirk seemed to have no problem with him watching.
“Eat your dinner and be quiet,” Sean told Toad before turning his attention back to Alex. This proved to be a bad idea.
SPLAT!
“EW! Gross!” Sean yelped, jumping out of the chair.
Toad, using his spoon as a catapult, had covered Sean’s right ear with a big lump of moist sugary flakes and red sauce.
“Alex, did you see what he just did?”
“Serves you right! I’d have done the same thing if you’d talked to me like that.”
“You shouldn’t act like that,” Sean told Toad, who now grinned at the older boy.
“No. You shouldn’t be like that,” Toad responded.
“Like what?” Sean wiped at the ketchup with a napkin.
“Like…” Toad thought for a moment. “Like you’ve got a head full of pudding and this,” he reached around his own back to gesture to his spinal column, “is made of Jell-O.”
Alex burst out laughing. “I believe you just got called stupid and spineless. By a six-year-old.”
Toad nodded.
“Fine! Don’t take me seriously, either of you. I can live with that.” He looked dangerously close to pouting.
“Okay,” Alex and Toad said in unison.
Sean threw his hands up in disgust.
“Relax,” Alex told him. “If, on the ridiculously slim chance that you end up being right, and Lucas kills me, I promise to leave you half my stuff.”
“I don’t want your stuff! I want my friend!”
Alex, who had been in the process of putting on her jacket, paused and looked at him. The last part had actually been sweet. She didn’t know whether to punch him in the shoulder and tell him to quit being sappy or hug him. Instead, she did neither. “Sean, I get it. You’re concerned. You care. And I appreciate it. I really do, but I make my own decisions and I live with the consequences, okay?”
He shook his head. “That’s what I’m afraid of. This decision could have consequences you can’t live with. I’m sorry, Alex, but even your insanely high level of stubbornness won’t keep you alive if someone takes an ax to your head.”