Shades of Red

by T L Christianson

  "Well, much of vampire physiology is unknown and strange."

  I raised an eyebrow. "Unknown? Strange?"

  He shook his head. "As a scientist, I dig into things and figure out how they work. But with this stuff… there isn't an explanation." He shook his head again. "Well, there is, but I just haven't been able to explain why or how a lot of it works."

  I leaned back in my chair as I watched Owen sit down in the matching one. "Hmmm… so it's not really dark or troubling, it's just a puzzle that you haven't been able to solve."

  "Exactly! When Moroi die, their body basically turns to ash, so there's no corpse to examine or tissue to test." He threw his hands into the air. "A big part of what has delayed my research into the vaccine is that we need a comprehensive Moroi/ human study."

  I looked sideways at him. "I'll help you a little if you want."

  "Sure, if you want to help. My lab assistant, Gabe, is Moroi also." His face was lit by the light coming out of the grate. "If you haven't been around vampires before, we can answer most questions you might have.”

  I stared into the fireplace at the log Owen had just added. "I'm not sure what I'd ask."

  Sitting there in silence, Owen poked the fire as the bottom log began to collapse. "Well, you should have a video-graphic memory."

  The corner of my mouth twitched in amusement. "Yeah. I can recall every moment of my life in minute detail since I became a vampire."

  He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "Do you think you're smarter as a Moroi?"

  "Maybe. I'm more patient and compassionate than I was as a human, but that's just me."

  "Do you think Moroi, in general, become more patient or is that just you?"

  "I don't know. I'm over a hundred years old. I think with age, I've become more patient."

  "What about your maker? You've never seen him again?"

  "No." I licked my lips. "I don't really remember him." The fire crackled, and I watched the flames as they devoured the wood, turning it into black coal. "I'm not even sure if I would recognize him again if I saw him. I think it was an accident. I don't think he meant to turn me."

  This caught Owen by surprise, and I felt his gaze on me. I looked up at him and felt overwhelmed by his beauty. His dark hair was in wild disarray and contrasted with his amber eyes that reflected the flames from the fire.

  "Can you do the mind-control thing?"

  Hesitating, I tilted my head to the side. "Yeah."

  His nostrils flared, and his jaw ticked. "Do you do it?"

  I sighed heavily again and rolled my shoulders. "Well… sometimes. I've never done it to anyone in this house…" Shit… I actually had done it with the kids when they were acting up. “Let me explain… it's more of suggesting to people. People who are on drugs or tired are easily susceptible…"

  "I'm familiar with what it is." He reached over and took my hand. "Have you done it to me?"

  I stared back into his unblinking eyes. "No. Never."

  "Who have you done it to?"

  I tried to pull my hand back, but Owen's grip remained firm. I shook my head. "Homeless people, the receptionist at the surgical hospital." I held my finger up. "Only a few times. I don't know…"

  "You do know… you have a perfect memory."

  Now he was pissing me off. I tugged my hand free and crossed my arms. "I'm not some monster! I wish you'd have some faith in me."

  "Have you drunk blood from anyone in the house? The kids? Me?"

  "Are you kidding? No way!" I stood, recalling the time I'd drank from him and cringed inwardly. "This is ridiculous! I thought you trusted me." I closed my eyes and allowed my emotion to slide away, my voice icy calm. "I was a fool. I thought we could do this, but we'll never be the same as before, will we?"

  His eyes were on the frayed hole in his jeans as he shook his head. "I thought so. I want to be with you."

  "You don't trust me." For good reason.

  This time, his eyes met mine, and he shook his head, "I'm sorry. I want to understand you, to understand how you're different as a Moroi. Until I do that, how can I trust you?"

  "You seem to trust me with the kids." A coldness settled over me.

  "I do, I have." He was holding something back.

  I felt tempted to compel him to tell me what he didn't want to say, but my gut told me. He’d been hurt, broken before. Had it been his wife? Had he lied about her death? Had his wife really been murdered by a vampire? Instinct told me I was close.

  Whatever it was had left its mark on Owen, as visible as scars across his skin.

  Why hadn’t I seen it before?

  Chapter Eighteen

  I’d stopped closing the door during school with the kids, and I’d been avoiding them after school hours. The conversation with Owen hurt. I could understand it, but it still hurt.

  He’d been gone for almost a week and was due back tomorrow.

  I wasn't happy though. It felt like our relationship was an ever-expanding balloon. It was going to pop, and when it did, I didn’t know what the fallout would be.

  My fear and guilt had me buying bovine blood from the butcher now. I was too afraid of the mysterious illness to bother with human blood, even though I did take sandwiches and soda down to the homeless people again.

  I stopped to talk to Perry, a regular. He gave me his usual toothless smile and approached me as I neared with the ice chest.

  “You’re just the strongest little thing, ya know that?” He grabbed the other end of the handle.

  I laughed. “Perry, you know I’m not as fragile as I look.”

  His eyes twinkled at me, and we set the ice chest on my usual picnic table. “Awe, pshaw! You know I worry ‘bout you comin’ down here.”

  I handed him two sandwiches and a Dr. Pepper. “I can hold my own.”

  “I know you’re tougher than you look.” He began to eat the egg salad sandwich I'd made just for him.

  After a moment, while we were still alone, I asked, “Did you know a man named Evan Tucker?”

  Perry squinted and scratched his beard. I tried not to notice how dirty it was. “Yeah, army vet?”

  My eyebrows lifted. “Yeah, I haven’t seen him around, and I was wondering what happened to him.”

  “I seen him… up at the soup kitchen.” I began to set out the sandwiches and chips in a basket. “He’s got himself all cleaned up, and he’s workin’ for the man.”

  “That’s great.” Mike, another regular, approached and I handed him a soda. “Did he seem happy?”

  Perry belched and thumped himself on his chest with his fist. “Sure, sure. Got his self cleaned up, off dope. But like I says, it’s been a while since I seen him.”

  I smiled. “Well, good for him.”

  “Whatever floats his boat.” The old man mumbled and began to wander off.

  “Who you talking about?” asked Mike.

  “Military vet, the Tucker kid. Got his self cleaned up.” answered Perry.

  The younger man grabbed the two roast beef sandwiches, and I stopped him with some compulsion in my voice. “Leave one for Mary. Roast beef is her favorite.”

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t beyond Mike to cross the line with me. He was a meth addict, and I wasn’t sure which Mike I was going to get, the good, the bad, or the ugly.

  When I’d handed out all the food, I walked back up to my Tesla. Evan Tucker had been easy to help. I could probably help Mike, but I wondered if Mike would even want my help? Would Perry and Mary want to change if the opportunity arose? They were of sound mind. They chose to live like this. I turned these kinds of thoughts over in my mind as I drove home.

  Owen knocked on my door and asked if he could test me and add my data to the Chronos collection.

  I agreed and followed him warily, ready to put my foot down at any moment.

  In the lab, he pulled up a chair next to one of the workstations. We both sat, and he opened his laptop. We’d both been silent since leaving the third floor, and his typing ech
oed against the backdrop of the mice running around in their cages.

  “I’m going to take some baseline readings and go from there.” He picked up his stethoscope and held it to my chest. Even though his manner was professional, the proximity to him had my senses heightened.

  His soap contained patchouli. I usually didn't like the scent but combined with Owen’s natural perfume, the mix intoxicated me. I swallowed and tried to clear my mind.

  I wondered if he’d been battling arousal also when his heartbeat picked up, and his breathing quickened.

  “Deep breath.” His exhale feathered across my neck and made goosebumps run down my arms.

  My mouth formed an O, and I took a breath as Owen moved the stethoscope across the silky material on the back of my blouse. “You have normal breath sounds… for a Moroi.”

  He hesitantly moved away to make notations in the computer, and I watched his strong hands deftly tap the keys.

  “Everything seems normal, very human-like… almost… Your heart rate is sixty beats per minute…” He scratched his eye under his frameless glasses. “It would be amazing if you were human, but considering we just walked down two flights of stairs, it’s too slow.”

  “How is it that I breathe and have a pulse? Am I a real vampire?”

  Owen studied me, “The short answer is yes, you are a vampire, but the politically correct term is Moroi. You aren’t some mythical creature. You aren’t dead, you’ve been altered. When you were changed, your DNA was basically unzipped and recoded. Vampire blood carries in it a bacterial defense mechanism that edits your genes… under the right circumstances.”

  “Like CRISPR? The gene editing technology?”

  He pierced me with his amber eyes, “Exactly like CRISPR.”

  “Is that where gene editing came from? Vampires?”

  Saying nothing, his expression spoke volumes.

  “So, why do you need my blood? What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “I have data on several thousand other Moroi, and I figured you would want to know how you compare to others like you.” I realized at that moment what all those sheets of numbers were on his desk. The printouts were statistics and test results… for thousands of Moroi.

  I sighed. “So, you don’t really need me for this.”

  He looked up. “No, but I figured that since you’ve been on your own for so long, you might like to know how you compare to others like you.” He smiled wryly. “If you don’t want to do it, that’s okay, too.”

  “No, I’m interested.”

  “Okay, then can I take some blood?”

  “How much?” I raised an eyebrow and watched as a corner of his mouth quirked up.

  “About a pint.”

  “What? That seems like a lot.” I frowned with a snort.

  “You won’t even miss it.”

  My mouth twisted. “Mmm….”

  “It’s different for you because you’re not human. I promise.”

  I hesitated. “Okay, go ahead, but only a pint.”

  Owen pulled out a packaged needle and syringe similar to what I used on my own blood donors.

  “Sit.” He wrapped a band around the top of my arm and gave me a squishy blood drop stress ball to squeeze. “Make a fist. I’ve gotten better at this.” He laughed and awkwardly attempted to stick me. After the second attempt, I realized that he wasn’t very good at finding a vein.

  I sighed. “When was the last time you did this?”

  “Usually, my lab assistant or a nurse draws the blood.” He looked embarrassed.

  I held my hand out for the needle. “Here, give it to me.”

  I found the vein on the first try and allowed him to take over the procedure.

  “How are you so good at that?”

  I laughed. “Do you really want to know?”

  He shook his head. “No, probably not.”

  We both watched as the bag began to fill.

  “So, would you ever want to be changed?” I asked.

  I could tell the question caught him off guard.

  “No, I don’t want to be a Moroi.” He shook his head. “I mean, I know there are upsides, like long life and health and everything, but I’ve seen how evil and dangerous they can be. I think it changes a person into something else.”

  It was my turn to be taken off guard. “Oh, wow… No wonder you’re so freaked out by me.” I sniffed.

  “I didn’t mean you…”

  “What do you mean then?”

  “You’re not like other Moroi.”

  “Well, how do you know what you would be like as a vampire?”

  “I don’t, but I also think they hide a lot. They’re manipulative and sneaky. Everything about them is designed to deceive and exploit humans. They’re intelligent predators, and the crazy thing is that most people don’t know that they’re out there.”

  “Wow.” I blinked at him. “Do you really think that I’m like that?”

  “No, but…” he stumbled on his tongue, “you’re not like that. You’re different. You became a Moroi without being around others. You just never really learned what you can do and how to be a true vampire.”

  I was not mollified. “You’re digging your own grave now.”

  “I mean that in a good way.”

  “Stop, you’re just making it worse.” I rolled my eyes at him. “So, basically your answer is no, you don’t want to become a vampire, because we’re all evil and you wouldn’t be you anymore. Did I miss anything? Oh, and I’m different… somehow…”

  He smiled. “Yeah, I think you’ve nailed it.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be different, like me?”

  “I don’t want to take the chance.”

  “Fine. Fair enough.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  We sat there in silence. I couldn’t believe the man I loved thought all vampires were evil. Did he think I was evil?

  Out of the blue, he asked, “I can tell you about the biology of the Moroi if you want. Do you want to know how you were made? How it’s done?”

  Still mad, I nodded.

  “Okay, so first of all, the victim needs to be in hypovolemic shock. This is where they’ve lost so much blood that the strain on the circulatory system is too much, and the organs begin to fail. In humans, this happens when a patient loses about forty percent of their blood volume. This is a lot for an adult male, around three liters, but you have a lot less blood. You’re maybe ninety to one hundred pounds, and what? Five foot tall?”

  “Five-two.” I cocked my head to the side.

  “Five-one.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’d say that you have about thirteen cups of total blood volume.”

  I flashed back to the night I was changed. “It’s no wonder I became a vampire.”

  Owen nodded. “Yeah, he only had to drink four or five cups of your blood for you to be in trouble.”

  “Wait a minute! You can’t take a pint from me. That’s two cups of blood!”

  He waved his hands in the air. “It’s completely different for you as a Moroi. Here’s a strange and dark fact; you could lose all your blood and still be alive.” His eyebrows were raised, and lips pressed together.

  “Wait, why is that dark?”

  “It’s just illogical. Moroi must have stores of glycogen and oxygen in their bodies.” He threw his hands up. “That’s my guess, since I’ve never dissected a Moroi or been able to study tissue, I don’t really know.”

  “I thought you were like an expert on vampire physiology?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I am, but until we figure out how to stop the swift deterioration that occurs at death, I’ll have to rely on the examination of living vampires.”

  I refocused. “Okay, so after a person loses forty percent of their blood, what happens next?”

  “Well, it’s actually not easy to turn someone, and most of the time, the person will just die from organ failure. This is because the victim needs to drink and actually start to metabolize the Moroi blood before they die.”r />
  “So, why not just give the victim vampire blood ahead of time?”

  “They would just heal from the blood loss and stay human.”

  I thought about this. "What is the mechanism to promote healing?"

  “This is another one of those dark things we don’t really understand.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “I believe Moroi blood somehow speeds up the metabolism and alters how DNA is expressed.”

  I shook my head. I wanted to understand all this, but I lacked the scientific background. “So, how much blood does the person have to drink to change?”

  “That’s not the tipping point. It’s about the organs. There’s something about all the organs shutting down, almost dying, that makes the reaction happen because it doesn’t take more than a small amount to change someone. You or I… actually just I… could drink gallons of Moroi blood and not change, but an extremely sick person, organs failing, any Moroi blood would just as easily turn them as heal them.”

  Owen had given me a lot to think about. We sat in silence as he finished collecting my blood. His hands were warm on my arm as he removed the needle. We watched as the puncture healed.

  “It's silver coated,” he told me, but I wasn’t sure what he meant, and I gave him a questioning look. “The needle, it keeps you from healing around it so I can take blood.”

  I frowned and looked down at my smooth skin where the needle had been.

  “So, Owen,” I’d been thinking about the disease, “what kind of treatment do you give the Moroi who are infected with the plague?”

  He looked down and sighed. “Anti-virals slow it down, but really, there’s not much we can do to stop it. Once someone becomes infected, then it’s pretty much over.”

  I widened my eyes. “Okay… that’s…. That’s really bad. What about cancer? Will vampire blood cure cancer?”

  If they could cure cancer, why didn’t they do it? If he knew of a way to cure cancer, the world would know about it.

  His mouth turned down into a frown, and he shook his head. “We were working on some things before this plague… but, no. Cancer looks like the body’s own cells, Moroi blood can make it worse.”

  “Oh… huh.” Looking up at the ceiling, I laughed. “Please talk about something else, something upbeat.”