“But how is that good for you?” he asked.
“Because I want to be the good in someone else’s life,” Rose stated.
Kallias stared at her, stunned by her answer. He didn’t know what to think of this unusual human. Suffering had changed him, hardened him, but it hadn’t done that to her. His chest felt tight with an unfamiliar emotion, an emotion he refused to acknowledge. He moved closer to her, and without thinking about it, he reached up to push her wet hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears. His hands lingered on her face. Her skin felt so soft against his. He stared into her bright blue eyes and sighed, “Are you sure that you’re ready to accept this truth? Are you ready to accept that you’re not an ordinary human?”
Her brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”
He stepped back and exhaled slowly as he tried to decide how to explain it. “Theron said that you are not an ordinary human because…you’re not, Rose.”
“Oh,” she said, her lips twitching. She tried to suppress it. She did. But she couldn’t. She started giggling uncontrollably. “What am I then? Half-alien? I guess I could be half-alien. I don’t know who my father was, after all. Maybe he was this weird green guy from another galaxy. But I think he must have been a weird green guy with red hair because my mother had this beautiful blonde hair, and I wound up a freaking ginger. I knew my alien father was to blame for this.”
Kallias scowled at her. “You’re not half-alien.”
“Oh! I know! Maybe I’m half-Bigfoot!” she continued. “No, I doubt that, actually. If my father was Bigfoot, I would be much hairier, don’t you think?”
He suppressed a smile. “Can you shut your mouth for just a minute?”
“Well, I would, but my allergies are acting up tonight. So, I’m kind of breathing through my mouth at the moment,” she said, shrugging apologetically.
“Do you want me to explain this to you or not?” he asked.
“Fine. Just don’t be surprised when you have to give me CPR,” she said.
Kallias laughed. “Okay. So, when you did all of that reading about vampires, did you ever happen to find an explanation of why we crave blood?”
Rose didn’t answer. She just stood there, staring at him.
He sighed, “Rose, I asked you a question.”
“I thought you wanted me to shut my mouth,” she said defensively.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
She smiled and held up her hands. “Okay. Okay. Yes. Of course I found an explanation. But then I found another. And another. And another. There was never anything conclusive. Every culture had their own theories about it.”
He crossed his arms. “Okay. What were some of the theories?”
She stared at a painting on the wall that depicted a bubbling creek in the mountains, as she tried to remember everything she’d read about vampires. As she thought about it, she wiggled her toes, feeling the soft carpet beneath her bare feet. “Well,” she said after a few moments, “many cultures believed that vampires needed blood because they were soulless creatures, and they somehow extracted the human’s soul by drinking their blood. Personally, I think that theory is nonsense because even if a soul could be taken through blood consumption, it’s obvious that vampires aren’t soulless. The soul is the personality and the emotions, and you clearly have personality and emotions. You’re not zombies.”
Kallias nodded. “Okay. What else?”
“Many cultures believed that vampires were cursed,” she answered. “The hunger and the need to consume blood was the punishment for cheating death.”
“Possible,” he commented. “What else?”
“Some cultures believed that vampires obtained immortality through blood magic,” she suggested, “which would require blood, of course.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know whether I believe in magic or not.”
“Okay. Well, there was also this one theory that was proposed by some scientists,” she told him. “They suggested that vampires might have a rare anemic disease and that vampires crave blood because of blood’s high iron content.”
He stepped toward her. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and turned her hand so that her palm faced upward. “It’s not the iron,” he said as he traced the blue vein of her wrist with his thumb. “I smell the iron in your blood, of course, just as I smell the water, the salt, the sugar, the plasma…but those are all just details.” His dark gaze shifted to meet hers. “It’s not what I crave.”
She swallowed. “Dang. I kind of liked that one. It’s less fantastical.”
“Were there any others?” he asked, still tracing her veins with his thumb.
Rose found it extremely difficult to think with him rubbing her wrist like that. “I did find one more. Many ancient religions—including Judaism and Christianity, actually—believed that blood symbolized life. So, many cultures believed that vampires obtained the power of life by consuming blood, and they craved that power because they were dead…or…were supposed to be dead.”
“I like that one,” he commented softly, still staring at her wrist. “I doubt that is what it is, but I do prefer that theory over the others. It is…closer.”
“Closer?” she repeated. “Closer to the truth? So, what is the truth?”
“The truth is that I’m not exactly sure what it is that we crave,” he admitted. “What I do know is that there is some type of power in blood. When we awake as vampires, it is something that we instinctually know. We can smell the power in blood. I don’t know for sure what kind of power it is—the power of life, as you suggested, or something else entirely—but what I do know is that we crave it. It nourishes and empowers us. It heals our injuries and soothes our hunger. But not all blood contains the same amount of power. For example, vampire blood usually smells much more powerful than human blood. And one human may smell more or less powerful than another human, just as one vampire can smell more or less powerful than another vampire. An older vampire usually smells more powerful than a younger vampire, and vampires with psychic abilities smell much more powerful than vampires with no abilities.” He looked at her as he added, “And some humans are born with more powerful blood than others.”
She swallowed uneasily. “How does this…power…smell to vampires?”
“Sweet. Appealing,” he murmured, staring intensely at her. “Like you.”
“Like me?” she sputtered in surprise. “What do you mean by that?”
His intense, unwavering gaze bore into hers. “I mean that I’ve never smelled blood as powerful as yours. No one, human or vampire, smells like you.”
“That can’t be right,” she said, blinking in shock. “I mean, you just said that vampire blood smells more powerful than human blood, right? So…”
“Ordinary human blood,” he interrupted. “Yours isn’t ordinary.”
“Well, what is it, if it’s not ordinary?” she asked worriedly.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” he admitted. He sounded as if he were apologizing for that. “What I do know is that there is something different about your blood. It smells human, but it also smells…more than human.”
Her face paled. “So, what am I? Just…some kind of freak?”
His gaze softened, and with his hand still on her wrist, he pulled her closer to him. His free hand reached up to touch her face, his thumb rubbing slow circles on the soft skin of her cheek. “No. No, Rose. Look at me,” he said softly as she started to look down. Her bright blue eyes shifted up to meet his. “Don’t think like that. There is nothing wrong with you. You are different from most humans, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You’re different. Not wrong.”
His touch comforted her, but not enough to dissolve the sinking ball of dread that had begun to weigh down her chest. “I’m just like everyone else.”
“No, you’re not,” he sighed. “You know that you’re not. Think about it. People that grow up the way you did don’t usually wind up becoming successful adults like you. If they survive,
they wind up like your brother. That is ordinary. But you…you’re different. You broke out of that kind of lifestyle completely.”
She frowned at him. “I chose to be different. I chose to break the cycle.”
“Exactly,” he said. “You chose. That is what makes you different. Most people don’t choose. Their lives are one long equation of cause-and-effect. They become what life makes them. Most people don’t have the willpower to choose.”
“What does that have to do with my blood?” Rose asked, confused.
“Don’t you see the common factor?” Kallias asked. “You are too strong-willed to be controlled by the events of your life. You are too strong-willed to be controlled by telepathic control. You are too strong-willed to be controlled by a vampire’s seductive power. The common factor is almost always your willpower.”
She scowled. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that my blood smells different, more powerful than anyone else’s, because I’m…stubborn?”
“I’m saying that your blood smells powerful because your willpower is so powerful that it can’t be controlled, not even by the laws of nature,” he corrected.
She stared blankly at him, as if he were crazy. “The laws of nature?”
He sighed, “Rose, how did you get Theron off of you that day?”
“We’ve already been over this,” she reminded him. “I didn’t.”
“Then, who did?” he prompted. “There was no one else in the room.”
“Why are you assuming that I did it?” she asked. “You know that’s not possible. You even said that humans aren’t strong enough to fight vampires.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “You’re not physically stronger than Theron.”
She nodded slowly, frowning at him. “Then, it’s settled. I didn’t…”
“But you are mentally stronger than him,” he added.
“What did I do? Throw him with my brain?” she scoffed.
He raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t you ever heard of telekinesis?”
Her smile faded. “You can’t be serious. Telekinesis is not possible.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re a broken record, Rose. First, you thought the existence of vampires was impossible. Then, you were attacked by one. Then, you thought telepathy was impossible. Now, you’re standing in front of a telepathic vampire. When will you stop assuming that you know what is possible?”
“Those are all more possible than telekinesis,” she insisted.
“An ancient, telepathic, immortal being is more possible?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said stubbornly. “I mean, there are possible explanations for how vampires could exist, even if we don’t understand them yet. And concerning telepathy, well, anything can happen in the mind. But telekinesis is different. It deals with the physical world, and there are laws that govern the physical world.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “but you cannot be controlled by those laws.”
She laughed in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Fine. Then, tell me,” he challenged. “Who threw Theron off of you?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, “but it had to have been someone else.”
“I saw the memory. There was no one else,” Kallias insisted.
She shrugged. “I can’t have a psychic ability. I’m not a vampire.”
“Rose, I never said that vampires were the only ones with psychic abilities,” he reminded her. “You even know a human who has a psychic ability.”
She frowned at that. “Audrey. You know about Audrey’s dreams?”
“Of course I know,” Kallias said. “I met her. I smelled the power in her blood. It was nothing like yours but still more powerful than most human blood. And even if I hadn’t, you two mentioned one of the dreams right in front of me.”
“We never mentioned what it was about,” she muttered.
“I’m a telepath, remember?” he said, smiling. “I read your minds.”
She scowled at him. “So…were you telepathic when you were human?”
“Technically, yes,” Kallias confirmed hesitantly. “But I had no idea.”
She frowned in confusion. “How is that possible?”
“The transformation into a vampire doesn’t create the psychic abilities. It just awakens them,” he explained. “Most humans never know whether or not they have psychic abilities. Their abilities remain latent until death. I am not certain as to why that happens, but I suspect that it’s for your own protection. Humans cannot heal themselves the way vampires can. Any damage you do to your brain could be permanent. I suspect that human brains suppress the psychic abilities to prevent that from happening. But when you awaken as a vampire, you have more power and the ability to heal yourself, so your abilities awaken.”
“Is there no way of knowing whether or not you have them?” she asked.
He shrugged. “There are signs. The abilities exist in certain parts of the brain, of course. So, naturally, people who have special abilities usually demonstrate exceptional strength in those areas of the mind. For example, I was intelligent. I enjoyed learning, and I exceled in mental skills. No one understood why I always won when I sparred with my brothers, even though my brothers were older than me and spent more hours training than I did. It drove my father insane. But I won because they were brutes, and I was strategic. I studied my opponents, predicted their moves, and learned how to manipulate them. My mental skills, observation skills, and ability to influence others were all signs that my mind could do something that most minds couldn’t. There were signs with Erik, too. He is an empath, which means he can feel, control, and manipulate emotions with his mind. When Erik was human, he wasn’t like most of the other men of his time. In a time when rape and slave trade were accepted as normal, Erik refused to take part in it because he empathized with the victims. He tended to be overly emotional and sensitive. He was rash, and despite his obsession with sex, he was and still is a romantic. Those are all signs of his empathic abilities.”
She nodded. “And do you think there are signs in my case?”
“Oh, yes,” Kallias assured her, smiling. “There are definitely signs in your case. Your IQ is off the charts, which already suggests that your mind is capable of more than most people’s minds. And as I mentioned before, your determination and willpower are definitely signs of telekinetic abilities.”
“But if you’re right—which I don’t think you are, by the way—about me having telekinetic abilities, then why did they not remain latent until death like yours did? How could I have used them on Theron?” she challenged.
He scowled at her continuous denial. “For the same reason that a human mother might suddenly be able to lift a car if her child is trapped beneath it, despite the fact that the human body is usually not capable of that,” he said.
“Adrenaline? Fight-or-flight?” she guessed.
“Because it’s necessary,” Kallias provided. “The mind and body are far stronger than we realize, but in most ordinary situations, the human is unable to access that strength because the body is protecting itself. Sure, the human may technically be capable of lifting the car, but to protect the muscles, the human body doesn’t usually allow it. But as you said, in times of an adrenaline overload, the body realizes that there is real danger, and sometimes, it allows you to access it.”
Rose considered that. “You think that is what happened with Theron?”
“I think that when Theron attacked you, your life was in danger, and you also were in danger of being raped, which is something that I think you perceive as an even worse threat than death. Your mind does what is necessary to protect you, whether that be suppressing the abilities or awakening them,” he explained.
“And you think I used these abilities without realizing it?” she asked.
“Telekinesis is the manipulation of the physical world to your will, to your choice,” he reminded her. “You decided that you wouldn’t let it happen, so it didn’t. You decided that you wanted h
im off of you, so he was thrown off of you.”
Rose suddenly started laughing. “I’m sorry,” she giggled, clasping her hand over her mouth in an effort to stifle the laughter. “I just can’t believe that you actually think that I can move things with my mind. That’s absolutely insane.”
He scowled at her. “I knew you weren’t ready to accept it.”
She stopped laughing as she noticed him turn and begin to walk away from her, heading toward the sofa. She followed him. “Oh, come on. I’m trying.”
He turned back toward her. “Look, you asked for the truth, and I gave it to you. If you’re not ready to accept it, then don’t. But I am not going to stay up all day, convincing you. The sun is up, and I need sleep. Goodnight, Rose.”
“Wait,” Rose pleaded. “Just one more question.”
He raised an eyebrow. “One more or one billion more?”
She smiled. “One,” she assured him. “I promise.”
“Mm,” he grunted sleepily. “Fine. Ask your question.”
“I still don’t understand what is so different about my blood. If there are other humans with psychic abilities, then shouldn’t they smell just as powerful as I do? Like Audrey? You said she didn’t smell as powerful as me,” Rose said.
“No one smells as powerful as you,” Kallias reminded her tiredly. “You’re not an ordinary human. I don’t know what else to tell you because I honestly don’t know what you are. And besides, there is a difference in precognition and telekinesis. Precognition is not necessarily common, but it’s not uncommon either. Empathy is uncommon. Telepathy is considered the rarest and most powerful ability that exists…but only by people who don’t know about telekinesis. If telepathy is rare, then telekinesis is practically unheard of.”
She frowned. “What do other people with telekinetic abilities smell like?”
Kallias was silent for a moment. “Rose, there is no one else.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “How do you even know it exists, then?”
“There is no one else alive with telekinetic abilities,” he amended. “But even the vampires that possessed telekinetic abilities in the past weren’t capable of doing anything like what you did. You threw a vampire across the room with your mind. Your mind carried more force than your body. In the past, vampires with telekinetic abilities could barely knock over a candle with their minds.”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 45