by Virgil Moore
She let him up.
He thought about his situation, “considering everything you’ve said, what does that make me?”
“You’re a vampeal Zack, just like me.” She stared at his deep brown eyes. She knew he was far more than just another vampeal.
“Just without the strength and agility,” he added.
“Eventually it will come. You’ve already begun to heal.” It was hard for her to think as she continued to stare into his eyes. Her mind wanted to be with him. There was something about him that drew her in.
She still wore his glasses. She pointed to them and tapped on the edge of the frames. It was a clear reminder that his vision was now perfect. He had been revitalized to a better state of being. He had energy, boundless energy. He felt as if he could run a marathon without breathing. There was a sensation of strength that he had never known before. He decided to test it a little and have some fun while doing it.
“Kyli,” he said in a devilish manner. He leaned into her.
“Yes?” she inquired. She was receptive to his forward advance. She welcomed it. She looked into his eyes and became farther lost in them, thinking of how nice it would be to let things continue as they were, to let them simply have a few years together alone before the contract was up. She indulged in the fantasy for a moment.
She was distracted for a second. In a quick motion he used all his might to lift her up and try to throw her over the couch to display his newfound power.
She saw it coming but was still flung up into the air about a foot above him. She spun with a twist into another handstand on the couch as she came down. Her knee knocked the nearly empty cup out of his other hand. It spilled on the hardwood floor. The other leg kicked him flat on his back. She never fell. She merely pivoted and gymnastically took advantage of the situation. To her, it was effortless as she spun around.
“Is that all you wanted to ask me? That’s so disappointing.” She dismounted from the couch and sat down on the edge of the coffee table. Her legs crossed as a further sign of her exacting abilities.
He had been owned in his small effort to impress her. “I shouldn’t have done that,” He understood his mistake clearly. He wanted to flex his surge of power but he didn’t think she would be able to react so quickly and precisely. He was unsure of why he did it. He thought it was because he needed to test what he could do. That he needed to do it. But he wasn’t sure.
“No. But you’re about to make it even between us.” She was hiding something. She was smiling too big not to be.
“How?” he faintly tilted his head and raised one eyebrow.
“Look at the cup,” she pointed with one outstretched finger.
He examined the splash from the spilled cup that had spread across the floor and next to the rear leg of the table. It was dark and red.
She smiled as she placed both hands under her chin. Her eyes grinning with glee and satisfaction, “It wasn’t cranberry juice.”
“I know,” he stated.
She was confused a little. When the same trick was played on her, she hadn’t noticed the substitution at all. He was quicker than he realized. “Do you feel better knowing for sure?”
“Not because of that. I feel better in general,” he felt his muscles were tighter even as he thought about it.
“Almost superhuman, right?” she proposed.
“Yeah, does that mean I’m invincible?” he dared to ask the question. He wasn’t sure how she might demonstrate her point.
“I can always throw you out the window you if you’d like to find out.” She waited for his answer, “we are seven floors up.”
“Could I really live through that?” he thought about what it meant to survive something like that.
“Yes and no. It depends on your definition of living. You’re far from invincible compared to an actual vampire. However, as a vampeal, you can take a lot more punishment than a normal person. You can die but it takes a lot more to kill you.” She got up and handed him the phone.
“What’s this for?” he took the phone in hand.
“Call your father and let him know you won’t be home for a few days,” she instructed. “Tell him you met a girl and will be staying over at her place.”
“He’s not going to let me do that.” He dialed and held the phone to his ear.
“Make sure you tell him my dad is next door. Tell your dad he’ll keep a good watch on us the whole time.” She put her right hand on his leg and smiled.
He smiled back. He liked the way she thought.
“Are you sure you have time to be thinking about that right now?” She pointed her ear and gestured to the phone in his hand.
The phone rang once and immediately answered. He exhaled. He had never done anything like this before. He wondered what his dad was going to say.
The voice mail kicked in. He clicked the off button and set the phone down. “He’s already on the line talking to someone else.”
“That’s good. It means that he isn’t as worried as you thought,” she was optimistic. She planted the phone back in his hand and walked off to make them some breakfast at the cook-top in the kitchen island.
“So I tell him to relax? That I’m staying with a gorgeous night club singer for a little while?” he wasn’t convinced.
“Hit redial until you get through. This is not as bad as you think it is. Tell him you’re okay and we’ll go from there.” She set a skillet on the stove.
“I say I’m fine and that I’m not human?” he reiterated.
“Don’t think of it that way. You are different and as long as you control your diet, no one will ever find out. Think of it like diabetes.” She set some eggs out on the counter with milk, orange juice, and bacon.
“So you’re telling me that I should treat this like diabetes? As far as I can remember diabetics don’t bite people when their blood sugar is off,” he watched her prepare breakfast.
“It’s like any other blood imbalance. You have to control it to remain normal,” she smiled.
“This isn’t anything like other blood imbalances,” he added.
“Are you sure? How many blood imbalances do you know about?” she affirmed her opinion by gesturing to herself with the spatula. “Now you’re starting to regain your old self. You’re thinking more about being right than about the actual condition you’re in,” she smiled again.
“My old self? You just met me. How do you know what I was like?” he held off redialing his dad.
She turned up the heat and got back to cooking. “I’m not telling you how I know,” she refused to make eye contact with him. “Are you going to make that call?”
He was silent. He got up and sat at the bar side of the kitchen island.
“How do you like your eggs? Sunny, over easy, or runny?” she completely ignored his silence.
He brought it back to the point that bothered him, “how do you seem to know everything about me?” The answer danced in the back of his mind. Something wasn’t right but he didn’t want to accept it.
“It’s part of my gift,” she cracked two eggs into the pan. “Now call your dad back.”
“What gift?” he pressed the redial button and held the phone to his ear again.
“My vampire gift.” she cracked another two eggs.
The phone rang once and went directly to voice mail again. He hung up and placed it on the counter. “I thought you expressively said that we weren’t vampires, that we were vampeals?”
“We are vampeals but vampires aren’t the only ones to receive dark gifts from the virus that affects us.” She smiled at him, “at least that’s what my dad has told me over the years.” She added a splash of milk to the eggs in the pan.
“What can you do exactly?” he calmly asked. He wasn’t worried about talking to his father anymore. He was still curious.
“I can cook damn good eggs,” she smirked and kept cooking.
“You know what I mean. What can you really do?” he was more curious by the minute to find out what she was capable of.
With a straight face she replied, “Stop the world from turning.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
Finding The Path
“Really?” Zack thought Kyli was kidding. He laughed.
“No, really. Or at least a few of the gifts have the potential to. There are some very powerful gifts that can do everything from kill people to take over their minds. It’s a very different world we live in Zack. As a vampire or vampeal, alteration gifts are the most powerful. They are the types that are physically dangerous to nearly everyone.” She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” he saw she had lost her cheerful spirit. “You don’t have one of those gifts do you?”
“It would have been much easier if I did. Sadly, I have a psychic type gift,” she seemed depressed about the nature of it.
“That sounds intriguing. I’m sure your gift is amazing. It’s how come some random vampire hasn’t attacked you already, isn’t it?” he wondered. He thought about what she might have actually been sad about. It had something to do with her gift. It disappointed her, or at least someone close to her.
She perked back up. “Who’s to say they haven’t?” she tasted a piece of egg and added a little orange juice. “It’s all about remaining hidden, not what you can do. If no one knows you’re a vampeal, no one will want to kill you.” She broke eye contact, “directly.”
“Who would want to kill us exactly?” he needed to know what else was going to come for him. “Directly?”
“Just about everyone, directly.” she reached for a teaspoon of sugar. “We’re not exactly considered an upstanding genetic pillar of our race you know.” She added the sugar to the eggs. “We’re half-vampires Zack. That means that one of our parents was a vampire that chose to mate with a human. To a human, there may not be anything wrong with that. But to a vampire, it’s taboo. It means that one of our parents didn’t think the vampires in their life were good enough for them and decided to resort to a human for companionship.”
“So that means my dad already knows about vampires?” he didn’t think his dad would withhold something like that from him.
“No, probably not. Most vampires that mate with a human do so under the guise that they’re also human.” She flipped the eggs.
“But wouldn’t he know?” he asked the obvious question.
“And how would he know? If she didn’t tell him, what exactly would tip him off?” she tilted her head to the side. “Did you think I wasn’t human when you first met me?
“I thought you were an angel,” he said automatically.
“Only half,” she thought about the decisions in her life. The things that removed her from celestial status.
“Then that’s at least half a reason to pursue you,” he stared into her blue eyes. She was worth pursuing.
“That’s sweet but you wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t told you. That’s what probably happened with your mother and father, a few years of fun, a lie that she worked nights, and then you came along,” she pointed to him. “Enough about that. Besides, we don’t get the kind of gifts that vampires will kill you over, at least not without good reason.” She flipped the eggs again.
“Such as?” he pondered the possibilities.
“Trespassing, back talk to someone older than you, and the obvious spilled blood in public.” She chuckled, “but you have to be an idiot to do any of that.”
He was silent.
“All vampeals get are simple gifts or the occasional focus strength enhancement, nothing that would ever make us a legitimate threat to a full vampire. We just have to keep in line, or at least upwind of them, and we’re okay.” She took two glasses out of the cabinet. She seemed nervous about the subject. There was a lie somewhere. As she stood there, he could tell she wasn’t completely comfortable with it.
He played along, “upwind? You mean we have a unique scent?”
“We smell different to them, not human, but not quite right as a vampire either. It’s the pheromones we let off. To each other, we smell sweet, with an undeniable scent that attracts us. It has to do with the virus wanting to complete itself. To a vampire, we smell like bruised fruit, like something that went wrong with the virus. Their sense of smell is shocking. Compared to a blood hound, they are just about half as capable, meaning their noses can be fooled with certain perfumes. But not many.” She looked at him. She surveyed his face and added another dab of orange juice to the eggs. She wasn’t sure if he believed her.
“Is that why you smell like cherry and lavender to me?” he asked her.
She blushed, “you’ve been paying attention.” Her lips curled at the end as she tended to the eggs. She refused to look him in the eye. She was embarrassed.
“So it’s a virus?” his stomach growled as he smelled the sweet eggs cooking. His mouth watered.
“Yeah. That’s what my dad’s found out over his lifetime. He has friends that test that sort of thing and pass on the knowledge to other vampires. There are entire vampire science divisions dedicated to researching what our limits are. In truth, he tells me mostly for safety. Not for peace of mind,” she set down a plate for each of them with a sad expression. She dashed bacon into the eggs.
“So what do you know about vampeals? What happened with the virus to make a person into one?” He salivated over the eggs. They smelled amazing. He didn’t care about the doubt anymore. She had relaxed, she was telling the truth now.
“Xx Xy, Zack,” she said confidently.
“You’re talking about genetics aren’t you?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Bingo. When a vampire conceives with a human, the virus mutates the embryo, almost always the same way. Each and every instance is nearly identical, changing the virus to eliminate the deficiencies and take the best of both aspects of each parent to produce a vampeal. At the price of an increased blood requirement, vampeals have none of the downsides of being a vampire.” She turned to get out a bottle of soda from the fridge.
“You mean sunlight,” he said as he watched her move. Her hair flowed like she was dancing in the kitchen. It was entrancing.“Exactly,” she smiled.
“Okay. Then are we the better version?” he wanted to know. “Are there any other types of half-vampires?”
“No and no. The process happens the same way each time, but no one knows why. If we were better, we’d be able to contest them. So far, that hasn’t happened. A vampeal will never be any real threat to a vampire.” She stirred the edge of the eggs and flipped it in to an omelet.
“Then wouldn’t there be many kinds of vampeals? Since it’s a mutation, it’s random. What prevents any other changes? I thought the same freak occurrence can’t happen twice in nature.” He thought about his headaches, the thirst he felt when he was around her. He had doubts about himself that he wanted resolved.
“I’m impressed. I didn’t think you knew that much on the subject,” she smiled again. “Unfortunately, the virus is very predictable. So no, it’s pretty uniform. The exemptions are the gifts. For some reason, they can appear in anyone with the virus. Vampire or vampeal, it doesn’t matter.” She turned away like she knew something he didn’t. She thought about why she was talking to him if it all didn’t matter in the end. She saddened slightly.
“But I thought vampeals always got the same types of lesser gifts?” he touched on a sore spot in the conversation.
She finished the omelet. She cut it into two and served it. “Yes, but normal vampire gifts can be passed down through vampire families, like inheriting a trait from your parents. These gifts usually grow and are passed from generation to generation. Except the difference is that your great, great grandpa is standing there when you announce what your gift is.”
“Does that work with vampeals?” he dug into the omelet with a fork. It was soft from the milk, sweet from the juice, and mea
ty from the bacon. It was, “amazing.”
She sighed and grinned, “thank you.” She returned to the subject with a slight grimace, “because most of us don’t live past fifty.” She stared at her plate. She hesitated to take the first bite of the omelet.
He swallowed, “fifty? You’re telling me that I only have five decades to live?”
“No. I’m telling you that most vampeals are either dead or no longer vampeals by then,” she finally began to eat.
“What is there besides being dead?” he asked.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Alternatives To Death
“Those that don’t end up making bad mistakes in their lives choose to take the right of Redgold.” Kyli could see Zack didn’t follow. “Redgold can turn a vampeal into a full vampire.”
“Is it another form of the virus?” he relaxed slightly and took another bite. “And why do these taste so good to me?”
“I’m damn good, that’s why,” she boldly declared.
“You know what I mean. This hits the spot, why?” he devoured another bite.
“It’s the protein. Your body’s craving it now. Over the next few days, you’ll need gallons of blood and lots of protein. That’s why I told you to tell your dad it will be a while before you’re back.” She poured root beer into each glass.
“That’s right. I still need to get a hold of him,” he said as he finishing the eggs. “Now about that Redgold.”
The phone rang. The caller ID said John Giver. He answered the phone next to him.
“Dad? Is that you?” he asked.
“So he did call back.” She put down her food. She placed her hands under her chin and put her elbows on the counter, “this should be good.”
“Zack? Where are you? I saw this number on missed call list and I was hoping it was you. Zack, why are you at a hotel?” John sounded upset.
“There’s a good reason for that-” he wasn’t sure what to say. He looked to her for an answer.
She reached over the counter and put her hand on his. It was warm, comforting. That spark was there again, intimate as it was when then had first touched. “Put him on speaker,” she suggested.
