“What do you mean, created?” Simon looked at me in confusion, but I could see dawning understanding-and horror-on Gene’s. Those looks were quickly followed by pity.
So much for thinking I’d be accepted and find answers to who I was. Even among the freaks, I was an outcast. Angry at the pill Fate force fed me, I decided to wipe the pity off their face. “You want to know who I am? What made me into a monster?” I smiled at Simon, and in a nonchalant tone that bordered on sarcastic to hide my anger and bitterness, I told them my tale.
“I was born human, and by the age of seven, I was sick, really sick with leukemia. The doctors, as soon as they diagnosed me, didn’t give me long to live. They hadn’t counted on my mom and dad though. My mom ended up being a close marrow donor match, and she donated to the point she jeopardized her health. Not that she cared. She just wanted me to survive.” I blinked back the tears that always brimmed when I thought of the woman who’d birthed and loved me. I missed her so freaking much even though she’d died years ago-killed because of her love for me. “My parents also turned to religion and prayed almost constantly. They stayed abreast of all the latest research, but leukemia is a killer and by the time I hit sixteen, bald as the day I was born, I’d just about given up the fight to live. And that was when my parents got the offer.”
Oh, how I remembered their excitement. “A chance,” they’d crowed gleefully even if that chance was experimental. And free of cost, a golden egg to loving parents who’d given everything they had to pay for my survival.
Gene and Simon watched me with rapt expressions, not interrupting me. Lana, at my side, gripped my hand tight, already knowing my story. I gave them what they wanted to hear even as I knew my story would make them turn from me in disgust-/the demon was right. I am an abomination/.
“They flew us and other families in the same situation like we were celebrities-first class. Everyone was still so happy at that point. We were taken to a top secret facility, government owned and operated.” I jumped up and stood, pacing in front of the couch as I waved my arms. “Welcome one, welcome all, to building nine where children are mutated as you wait. Hey mom and dad, have some coffee and cookies while you talk with the other parents. Be blinded by our façade while we inject your precious darlings with a toxic cocktail.” I mocked the start of my torture, my mechanism for fighting the tears that threatened to choke me. “But as it turns out, while we were receiving our first doses of the vaccine that would change our life, our parents went through their own life changing episode. The institution laced their food with cyanide and killed them all. Not that many of us had time to notice or care, we were too busy dying.” I spoke stonily, fighting the screaming despair that remembering brought.
Simon’s face registered shock and I stopped him before he could voice his query. “How could they, you say?” I laughed bitterly. “They thought they were doing something for the greater good. After all, we were sick children and our parents, unfortunate victims in their narrow sighted struggle for greatness. They told the public they died in a plane crash to avoid scrutiny and as far as the world knew, we died with them.” What I still didn’t understand was why us? Why sick youngsters? Why weren’t our parents experimented on as well? What made us so special? Years later, I still hadn’t found the answer.
Simon bounded off the couch, his body tense and he let out a roar that no human throat could have uttered. I gaped at him, once again wondering just what he was. The demon had called him something, but English was my one and only language.
“What did they inject you with?” Gene asked in a soft voice drawing my attention away from the pacing Simon and setting me back on track.
“Ooh, all kinds of good stuff.” At Gene’s stern look, I sobered up. “The government managed to capture a demon and an angel.”
I heard a thump and a crack and turned to see Simon pulling his fist out of the wall-a solid brick wall which now had a hole of crumbled dust. If they were still talking to me after discovering my dirty secret-and I was beginning to think they would by their reaction-I’d have to find out once and for all just what Simon was. “According to the doctors, who liked to brag, they performed all kinds of tests on their captured prizes. They were fascinated by their ability to heal and regenerate damage. They tried to inseminate human women with their sperm, but it didn’t work.”
Gene shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t have. Special conditions need to be met for their seed to take in a human receptacle, and even then, the pregnancies rarely come to fruition.”
I made a mental note to ask him more about angels and demons later. It was sure to be an interesting conversation. But first, I needed to finish my tale. “They decided to up the ante and inject humans directly with the genes. They couldn’t just start picking people up willy-nilly, so they came up with a fabulous plan to use sick children, to have their own parents volunteer them. Thus did the drug trials start with us as the guinea pigs. There were three groups. Those injected with demonic blood. Those with angelic. And then the ones who got both. Most of their test subjects went into seizures and died. They were the lucky ones.”
“Don’t say that,” Lana cried. “You survived and you’re a great person.”
I looked at her stricken face, framed by hair that always had a green tinge despite all the peroxide we poured on it. “It’s true though. Those of us that survived became monsters, ones that need to prey on humans to live. I can be the most awesome person in the world, but it doesn’t make what I do for survival right.” I turned from her and resumed my retelling of a story that never fully left my thoughts. “In the first group, only some of the boys survived, but the demon gene turned them into vampires.”
Gene shook his head sadly. “Humans can be so foolish. They have sowed the seeds of their own destruction. This is not good news. I must ask, what powers did your vampires inherit? I wonder if the splicing of the DNA might have made them weaker than those born to the curse.”
I looked at him sharply? Born as vampires? There was so much I needed to learn. Especially if I was to survive, for despite the loss of my humanity, I longed to live. I answered Gene’s question. “Keep in mind, my knowledge is from years ago when we were no better than caged animals. The boys might have expanded their powers since. Not your classic Count Dracula’s, my brothers in the institution became a highly intelligent, extremely powerful, psychically gifted bunch with an unfortunate penchant for human blood.”
“That’s a species wide trait,” Gene said nodding his head while Simon just stood facing the wall, his forehead touching the brick. “Go on.”
“I’ll start with the tests the scientists did following the legends. The idiots brought crosses and holy water to work. Forget the Catholic drama, vampires, or at least the lab created ones, don’t care about that shit. They do drink blood, and tests revealed that their special diet is what makes them sensitive to the sun, so they go out only at night. The scientists, fascinated with what they created, ran them through live simulations to see what a vampire was truly capable of, and how to best kill them.”
Gene dropped his head in his hands and shook. “Oh, that must have made the fledglings happy. Let me guess what worked? A stake in the heart which, I might add, kills pretty much everything along with decapitation, chopping the body to pieces and fire.”
I nodded my head as he itemized the tortures inflicted upon my departed brothers. “They killed quite a few before they stopped. What fascinated them though was their healing rate-most wounds mortal for a human healed quickly. And they could even regenerate limbs after a time. The scientists wanted to harness that ability for humanity.”