Second Genesis

by Eric Williams

Xairin remembered looking up at his dad. The man was angry. By that time his mother had regained her green eyes and was wiping the blood off her face. “Sorry Draven, I thought you were keeping an eye on the kids!” She yelled back.

  Xairin remembered whimpering the question. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH MOMMY!?”

  Cecillia scoffed. Xairin remembered that. She put her hand on her hip demanding his father to do something. “Well Draven, do something? I’M just a dhampir remember? I can’t wipe his memory! You’re a sensitive for god's sake!”

  Xairin opened his eyes and said the word out loud. “DHAMPIR!” He knew in his soul this was no dream. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the night terror he suffered from time to time, was running from his mother! His father must have suppressed his memory of the event.

  Xairin got up off the bed. He was shaky with this revelation. He walked into his kitchen, got a bottle of blood and sipped it, hoping it would settle his nerves. He returned his bed room and sat his bottle of blood on the desk by his computer. He turned the machine on and began searching on the web. He logged into the Society of Night’s website and clicked on a search bar and typed the word Dhampir. Out of curiosity. Surly not. He thought...

  The word brought up a resource on Dhampirs and dhamplings. The information he looked over was detailed. He noticed several other links to half breed immortals, none of which could become a full Immortium. That part was clear. They either had some resistance to silver, or none at all, but none could infect a human. They could only pass their condition on through having children only.

  He scanned this section a few times until he saw something that stuck out. Dhampir often were able to eat human foods, but usually preferred raw meat and did crave blood from time to time. He instantly recalled the sight of seeing his mother eat a rare steak and that dream again. Ok, i gotta stop this.

  His thoughts continued racing. I can’t be a dhampling, i got turned into a full-fledged vampire, it says right there they can’t be converted. Then another thought dawned on him. No vampire can turn a dhampir or dhampling, but what if a vampire bat could? He raised up as that thought sent a chill down his spine. He instantly started feeling his shoulder blade with his left hand.

  Xairin stood up and paced in his room. His mother never once mentioned his grandmother. The only thing he had ever heard about her, was that she wasn’t ever going to be in their lives. Xairin never gave it any thought before. He remembered that his father said his mother looked like her mom at one time. He even recalled a photo that was vague. Even in that photo, he remembered himself thinking his mom favored her mother, so it had to be his grandmother that was a vampire.

  He left his bed room and walked into the bathroom where he turned just enough to see his shoulder blade. He looked at the crescent moon on his shoulder and exhaled slowly. Lillian thinks there’s something special about you. He remembered Alex saying that. He recalled how Lillian looked at him and how he felt in the registration room.

  Xairin shook his head. He walked out of the bathroom while recalling the tale about the one with the crescent moon shaped birthmark being immune to silver. Xairin had a silver necklace in his bedroom in the night stand beside his bed. He knew that silver would hurt any immortal that even touched it. Now he had to know. The problem was, touching silver could cause poisoning in the blood, so testing this theory really required some gumption.

  He pulled the drawer open and knelt down. He saw his bill bottle, a tablet, and some rings and other miscellaneous items. The necklace was a silver-plated chain. He saw it looking up at him.

  He used an ink pen to pick it up, sticking the pointed end into one of the links.

  “Ok, I’m not seriously thinking about doing this, am i?” He said out loud, trying to talk himself out of it.

  He reached his left hand out, as his right hand tried to steady the pen. His hand was in position, but his right hand was shaking. “Xairin what the fuck are doing? This is silver...” He said under his breath.

  He was changing his mind when his unsteady hand caused the pen to lose the necklace. It fell in his left hand. He didn’t feel anything but dropped the necklace quickly. He looked at his hand. It didn’t steam, it didn’t burn, nothing. “OH shit, oh shit, oh shit, shit shit shit shit!”

  Sitting there he just glared at the chain lying there. “This isn't happening. This can't be fucking happening. I’ve got enough to goddamn deal with, I can’t take another goddamn thing blindsiding me right now!”

  A few moments passed until he finally got the courage to poke it with his finger. Again, nothing happened. He poked it again, a third time to make sure, and lastly just pressed his hand right down on it. Nothing happened.

  He picked it up and held it. He knew it was silver plated. He bought this necklace himself. He loved silver and white gold,

  He tilted his head back while looking up at his ceiling. “FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!”

  “Mistaken identity my ass!” He cried out.

  All he could think about then was his mother. That dream he had, wasn’t a dream. She was a dhampir and he was a dhampling now made full-fledged vampire thanks to that vampire bat, and somehow, related to that vampire Alex spoke about. To make Xairin feel even more unpleasant about his past, he knew that first dream was real too. His mother died trying to save his life. He knew that now. She died protecting him, and if it wasn’t for that truck that plowed into her, she’d be around now. He had more questions than ever. More importantly, he had to keep this to himself.

  There was one place he could go to for answers. He had to go to city hall and go into the archive rooms and access his civ file. Only his unique handprint would unlock his records from before he went into foster care. He got dressed, wearing one of his new outfits, a grey short sleeved hoodie, and dark jeans to match and left after putting on some plain black sneakers. Outside in the hall, he tapped the doorknob a few times for further confirmation, not once did his hand burn or hurt.

  _____

  Bastion City Hall.

  The largest most extravagant building in all of Bastion City was of course City Hall. It was built like a state capital building, with golden plating on the exterior to set it apart from the rest of its onyx solatex surroundings.

  The building was open 24/7, at least the archives were. Xairin walked into a large room filled with touch screen computers as far as his green eyes could behold. He did his best to appear incognito.

  He kept his hood up. He was paranoid now. Knowing silver didn’t hurt him, and that his parents had kept a vital secret as to what he was, he had to know about his mother. Only the records here could possibly give any hint.

  He found an unused cubical furthest away from anyone else and sat down. He brought up his civ file on the touch screen there and remembered to will his fingerprints to emerge. He pressed the module beside him without hesitation. It prompted a command for him to privately unlock it, he had to know…

  Xairin looked over several files, scanning them faster than a human could with his brain hard at work. He pulled up the accident, noticed the death certificates, and also noticed a reference to an eye witness reporting seeing some guy melt after he had his head ripped off. The witness in question was a known drug addict, at least that's what the report said. This solidified his knowledge in that the dream was more than that, it actually happened.

  A few files down, he found his mother’s file. She was 18 when she gave birth to Xairin and had married his father that same year before his arrival. The next part got weirder. She had a birth father listed, Isac Jordan, but no mentioning of her birth mother, the file was marked as lost due to world catastrophic events. Possibly either world war three or four, he thought. Such incomplete records were common thanks in part to both wars. That was too convenient he figured. He remembered Alex saying they did what they could to stay hidden.

  The next part caught Xairin completely off guard. He clicked on Isac Jordan’s file. After reading a few lines, Xairin realized something… His mother’s father was
still alive and not only that, he was notified of Xairin surviving the crash and being the next of kin. His human grandfather had signed Xairin over to the government for foster care placement. From where Isac was the sole living family member listed, he governed over the Thunder burial plans. He even paid for the plots and the funeral expenses. Xairin had never visited them, his PTSD kept him from it. The address to the site recorded in his brain like a computer locking down data. What was curious to Xairin was his mother never mentioning either one of her parents much at all. Why did this man bother paying for anything if she had nothing to do with him?

  Leaning forward, he began rubbing his eyes with both hands. He couldn’t believe this. He was in foster care because his grandfather sighted health reasons being the excuse for not taking Xairin in. He couldn’t raise a child with his current health the way it was and felt it better that Xairin go into the system. Xairin immediately looked up Isac Jordan and found a picture from his civ file.

  Isac Jordan was listed as being 71 years old and living in Maui Hawaii. He was tall, Xairin’s height, and had once been blonde headed, now he was clearly silver headed but for being early 70s, looked pretty good for his age. The man hadn’t married a second time and was living as a bachelor. He had a mustache that reminded Xairin of some western movie and was dressed in a business suit in the picture. The old man owned a shop on the island, Jordan’s antiques. Apparently, he was an antique dealer and a historian of some sort. Xairin read through a few files and found pictures that had been saved to the old man’s civ file. A wedding picture dating back to 2070, the picture was on the license. Sara Tyler, and Isac Jordan. Sara was almost a dead ringer for his mother, except she was a foot shorter. Xairin could tell that easily based on how tall Isac was in the picture compared to Sara. The man was listed at six foot, Xairin’s mother was tall, six feet even. This woman had to be five feet four or less.

  Fearing any of this getting out, Xairin locked his childhood civ file by pressing the scanner again which prompted the option to reseal it. He committed to memory the old man’s address in Maui. The man had to know something. Xairin figured.

  Xairin got up and left as casually has he could muster. Keeping his hood up to hide his face.

  Once outside in the night time air, Xairin took a deep breath, which ended up causing him to puke due to his nerves being rattled. What came up on the solatex fashioned gray sidewalk was black tar colored blood. It had a putrid odor.

  Xairin wiped his mouth off in disgust and ran.

  He entered an alley that was free of anyone nearby. He found a dumpster and leaned against the wall and slid down to hide. He crossed his arms around his knees and pulled them in. My grandfather is alive, my mother was a half vamp, and now I’m immune to silver and have this fucking target practice birthmark on my shoulder marking me for death. Why did they keep this from me?

  He sat there wallowing in his mental tournaments.

  Sitting there he closed his eyes. The mental blocks his father had put were bursting one by one. Xairin recalled two more incidences where he caught his mother drinking the blood from a meat package, and another where his parents were sparing. He walked in right as they were dressed in workout attire, and his mother kicked a punching bag that his father was holding steady for her. The chain broke, and his father went flying with it.

  He then remembered being little again. His mother was sitting beside him reading him a bedtime story. He couldn’t remember which one it was, only that the book didn’t have a face, nor pictures, just an old brown book. He remembered her whispering into his ear as she told him good night. “Xairin, listen to your blood, listen to it.” She whispered.

  While he sat there on the cold alley floor, he strangely felt like he knew what she meant by that. He closed his eyes tighter. This time he didn’t dream of her, but something else. He could see through the eyes of another woman. He could tell she was a vampire, a strong one. She was fighting in a cavern. There were two Indian vampires there, fighting her, dressed in white loose clothing. Like monks of some kind. He looked to her side and saw a body. He could see the head of a dark-haired vampire laying there, melting into the dirt, along with his body slowly disintegrating. He could feel the rage of the vampire whose memory he was experiencing go from panic, too grief. Her name began to come to him also. Her last memory was the dark headed vamp calling her by name, telling her how much he loved her. Xairin then realized her name… Sara, his mother’s mother…

  In that memory he experienced, he felt her muscles move in ways he didn’t know were possible. He could feel her fighting the two vampires, seeing through her eyes, feeling and knowing her combat knowledge. He had inherited it, and he knew that now. He watched through her eyes as she performed hand to hand combat, and acrobatic flips into the air, until she had beheaded the two vampires. He then heard a noise, a woman, screaming. He felt his grandmother’s body move quickly. The next thing he knew, he was holding a giant boulder from crushing a redheaded human looking up with fearful tear-filled eyes.

  Xairin slowly opened his eyes. They were red.

  The memory he was experiencing was cut short. The link between him and the bat that bit him regained its hold. This caused his red eyes to flicker with a hint of light. He panted like a dog that had been without water in the sun for too long. He could see all around him in the dark construction around him. He noticed metal beams, floors that had given way, and hundreds of regular bats. He could feel the albino was using some sort of animal-based mind control to draw them in. Other giant batish monstrosities were surrounding her doing the same thing. He could feel her licking her white fur. She was forcing her assimilation glands to secrete into her saliva. They all were. Xairin knew out of instinct that bats were communal groomers. The normal sized bats were being willed to lick the infected giants fur. In doing so, they were absorbing the assimilation cells. Since it was the same zoological order, each would become Betas or Alphas. He knew that a new genesis of vampire bats would now be underway.

  He saw hundreds of brown bats in the decrepit structure. They were nesting in ruins of one of the skyscrapers in New York City. Now, there would be hundreds of more mouths to feed. Each brown bat would become a vampiric monster within the next few days or less. More people would be becoming vampires when these new ones went out hunting. He knew, he had to do something. He remembered the vampire bat killing the child, he couldn’t let this happen again.

  To his horror, he could feel the albino moving as if he was a passenger in her mind and had no way of taking control of the wheel. She was watching some of the bats that had licked her fur begin to succumb to the effects of the strain she carried. But that wasn’t what horrified him. She had the scent of a human nearby. He could experience her biosonar reaching out. In the degenerate structure she was roosting in, humans had barricaded themselves on one of the floors. There were children there, several children. The roost must have been new. He could feel the bat’s mind and knew they had chosen this new roost for a reason, food was close by, and soon new bats would need a meal. Finding his grandfather for questioning was now secondary.

  Chapter 13

  Good intentions.

  It had been only an hour since Xairin’s revelations had ended. He was now home trying to figure out what to do. He wanted to tell his new werewolf friend, but something in his blood warned him. He could feel his blood speaking to him in ways he hadn’t before. It was almost like a symbiotic relationship, though Xairin was in control, his blood just gave him knowledge at this point. Though Xairin figured there was more to his blood which would later on come to fruition.

  The question at hand now, was what was he even going to do about any of this? He knew he couldn’t say a damn word to anyone about his birthmark, or his mother being a dhampir. He also somehow knew that telling anyone that a dhampir or dhampling could become a full vampire was something better left unsaid as well. But he had to warn about the vampire bats and not only that, those people that had barricaded themselves in. Xairin k
new there was at least twenty or more kids residing in that scav camp in the sky scraper. Those people were in danger. Sure, they were scavengers, but there were children involved.

  Aside from kids being on the lunch menu, he knew that those bats would continue to spread, and if they weren’t stopped now, the vampire race would eventually become far too many mouths to feed. Sure, cloned blood was a big help, and this synthetic blood would help too, but if the entire City of Bastion City were to become vampires, starvation would be an issue.

  The biggest thing however to Xairin, was the kids. One thing Xairin could never stand by on, was kids being hurt, even if they were scavs, no one deserved to die especially kids. He had to do something.

  He looked at his left wrist, and used his watch. Once the hologram appeared, he entered in a few codes until a holographic screen gave him the option to review contacts. He saw the contact he was looking for, Alex Fifer.

  The hologram took six seconds of being a blank screen before Alex responded. Xairin could make out the young man’s face easily, though his protective helmet hid his hair. “Xairin? Everything ok bud?”

  Xairin was panting a little. “Listen, I had a link with the bat that bit me. I need your help.”