Have I mentioned before, that vampires are a uniquely human parasite? That is, while other sentient beings may have their own demonic blood suckers, vampires mostly survive off of human blood. We don’t typically do demon slurpees. And that’s a big no for werewolf slurpees. And another nope for morel slurpees.

Until now.

One of the reasons, I guess why we stick to our own kind (humans) is boringly biological. Our bodies can no longer be considered human (being undead and all), but deep down, there’s still some genetic need for human blood. So what happens then, when you take a formerly human body, mutated into a vampire, and then flood it with a hybrid mix of human/morel blood?

I wish I knew. It’s been weeks since theTransformation. No, I’m not talking about Mona. I’m talking about me. Mona’s a mess, plain and simple.  More on that later. But let’s get back to talking about ME shall we? In order to turn Mona, I had to drain her dry and then fill her back up. I should have just said no, but I didn’t.  Eight or so pints later (and I don’t care what your other vamp buddies tell ya, we really don’t need that much blood in one night.  Talk about a gorge-fest), and my body is ready to burst. I cut my own wrist and made Mona drink.

And drink.

And drink.

To be honest, I don’t know when she stopped drinking from me. It’s all a blur now. About half way through, the morel blood started taking over. I’m not sure where reality ended and hallucinations began. I remember (or think I remember) feeling rather amorous toward both Mona and Jackie. I did mention that morel blood is an aphrodesiac and hallucinogen, yes?

I think I had sex with someone. I think it was Jackie.

I remember it being Jackie. She smelled like Jackie.  She tasted like Jackie. And since Jackie hasn’t spoken more than two words to me since that night, I think I’m guessing right. How to screw up a budding friendship in one moment of bad judgement.  Yeesh.

But that’s just back story. I’m alive (in my own undead way). Mona? Well, she’s alive in her own sort of way. I can’t claim she’s undead, because she still has a pulse. What she IS is unconscious, and slowly, spookily, healing herself. And Jackie is still Jackie.  She never made it to the hospital. Sometime or other, and I don’t know how or when, she must have dragged us back to the not-so-safe safe house. That’s where I finally regained consciousness.

From there, I brought them both to my apartment. I didn’t know what else to do. A cosy little one-bedroom flat for three. The undead, the sullen, and the comatose. Think that could be on this fall’s TV lineup?  Probably not. Fox is too prudish these days, and the WB just hasn’t got the balls.

But I digress. We haven’t had any other unexpected visitors. I even started going back to work again.

Let’s face it, someone has to pay the bills, and Miss Comatose isn’t getting any more free handouts from Daddy. But somethin’ ain’t right. Something inside me has changed, or is changing. So, after sitting around, festering for a week, I finally decided to do something about it.

And that something involved visiting an old aquaintance.  Okay, not quite an aquaintance. More like an evil, mean son-of-abitch warlock with a bad case of halitosis. I used to date his mother, back in the day. Man, she was a looker. Long legs, natural blond (and ya know I verified that). Anyway, Lucifer (yeah, he’s got an ego too, did I mention that?) not only has extreme skills in the supernatural, but he also works for Genentech. In fact, he’s one of their top geneticists. So much for their pre-employment background checks, eh?

Lucifer, have you ever been arrested? No

Done illegal drugs? No

Ripped through the gullet of a chicken and prophesied based on its death throes? Well, only on Tuesday nights.

I didn’t go into full details on my predicament, but I did explain that I’d managed to O.D. on morel juice.  Lucifer assumed I’d been to some orgy. Given my lack of memory, how could I refute that?  It took him until tonight to get back the test results from both the human lab and a demon facility he uses now and again in Maine.  The results aren’t good.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our little vampire again,” he said when I met him at his place in Newton.

“You have my test results?” I asked. His sickly grin told me nothing really. He’s led a twisted life.

He tossed over a manilla envelope. There were two documents inside. One was the computer printout from the Genentech facility. The other was yellow vellum that looked like a painted frog had reenacted Riverdance on top of it.  Both meant nothing to me.

“You gonna explain all this?” I asked. If I sound testy, it’s because I am. I haven’t been the same since that night, and I want to know why.

“I wish I could, Jade.” His sickly smile faded. “Your body chemistry is changing at the molecular level.”

Just what I wanted to hear. “Changing into what?” 350 years as a vampire. I wasn’t in the mood to suddenly be something else.

“Don’t know. You’ve got genetic traces of human, vampire, morel, and even werewolf in your system right now.”

Werewolf? Freakin’ werewolf? “If you’re going to tell me that I’m becoming a werewolf, I swear I’ll rip your still beating heart out, Lucifer.” And I would. I was just that pissed off.

He held up his hands, his pockmarked face turning pale. “No, no. I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think so?”

“It’s, it’s too hard to say, but there is so little of that in your DNA that I doubt it’s enough to force a lunar transformation.”

Great. But I won’t know until the next full moon.  Goodie goodie. I do love a surprise. “What about the traces of morel in me?”

“That’s the interesting part,” he said, warming to the topic once again. “You’re system is flooded with morel genetic changes. Dammit, if humanity would only embrace the demons among us, I could get a hell of alot of grant money to study you right now, Jade.”

I showed him my still-sharp fangs and that seemed to dampen his visions of glory some. “So, I’m not morel.  I’m not a werewolf. Am I still a vampire?”

If I had a pulse, it would have been beating in my ears as i waited for his answer.

“For now.”

For now. What the hell is that supposed to mean? For now. So I get to sit around for a few more weeks and see if I keep changing, or if I stablize as some vampire/morel halfbreed.  And what would that make Mona? Are we too peas in a pod, in a breathing/not breathing kind of way? If I didn’t need this bloody warlock, I’d have gutted him just for the sheer theraputic joy of it.  But I didn’t. I went back home to Sullen and Comatose. It’s nearly dawn and I need rest.

Tomorrow night, I go on a Hunt. Maybe high doses of human blood will kick this crap out of my system.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

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