Blood Vivicanti (9780989878579) (4 page)

Wyn once went three weeks
without eating or drinking anything but blood. He wasn’t worried
about Theo. “Let’s see if he can beat my record.”

I observed them both. Wyn
was the Alpha. Theo was the Beta.
Beta
mimics Alpha
, I thought.
Alpha challenges Beta
.

Blood Vivicanti can often
be more human than supernatural.

Wyn stood at the computer
terminal beneath my hologram. My image was over twelve feet tall.
It was as diaphanous as a ghost. My eyes were open. Staring
straight ahead.

Words typed around my head.
My image was being analyzed. You could see my tongue, from the tip,
all the way down my throat.

A word appeared beside my
tongue.
Probiscus
. Wyn had thought of that word too.

He turned to me and
explained its meaning. “The Probiscus injects our victims with a
chemical compound like dopamine. This chemical compound shoots
electric messages to the nucleus accumbens. The brain then
interprets this information as the sexual response cycle’s climax.
In effect, the brain misinterprets the message. Blood Vivicanti
venom disguises itself as a natural human neurochemical. The
chemical compound is actually a neurotonin. It stimulates the
pleasure centers of the brain. It triggers a heightened orgasm.
Prolonged too.”

Theo called this effect:
“OMG: Orgasm Maxing Gift.”

Ms. Crystobal went to a
dumbwaiter in the cave wall. She brought from it a silver tea tray
with teapot and teacups. She poured me a cup of Earl Gray tea. It
was the best cup I’d ever had.

Wyn had my Blood Memories.
They told him everything about me. He had handcrafted that whole
night to perfectly please my new senses. He’d had my clothes
tailored. He’d gathered that tea.

That whole night was a
gift. Wyn can be very thoughtful. He’s a good thinker.

Wyn explained that Blood
Memories are temporary. For most Blood Vivicanti, Blood Memories
last for about four to five days. Then they fade away.

Wyn and Theo can only
remember having the Blood Memories of their victims. They can’t
remember the fine details of those memories. They can’t remember
the new skills that Blood Memories give them.

Yes: Blood Memories give us
new skills.

If Wyn drank the blood of
the modern Dickens, he’d become an era-defining author.

If Theo drank the blood of
today’s Casanova, he’d become a historic lover.

If I drank the blood of
Bill Watterson, I could bring back
Calvin
and Hobbes
.

Wouldn’t that be
grand?

Wyn theorized that I would
be a different kind of Blood Vivicanti.

“
Your photographic memory
might change things. You might be able to keep Blood Memories
inside you for much longer.”

That was the first time I
understood a difficult truth: Now I had to drink blood. I had new
powers, increased strength, and superhuman speed. Yet the thought
of drinking blood was not appealing. I was still very human
then.

“
What happens if I don’t
drink blood?” I asked.

Wyn had to think about his
response. “We probably won’t die if we never drank blood again. Yet
we would most likely grow incredibly weak.”

“
How weak would we
get?”

Wyn mulled this over. He
shrugged. “An infant field mouse comes to mind.”

Blood Vivicanti can drink
as much blood as we like. We can be bottomless pits of blood and
memories. But Wyn wants us to drink only a pint of blood a week
from one person. He worries for the health of our victims. Drinking
any more of their blood might be too much trauma for them. Wyn
doesn’t want us to be murderers.

I reminded him of the two
men who’d chased me to the cliff’s edge. I didn’t know yet that
they were Sleeper Devils made by Lowen the Dark Man. They had
seemed so human, especially when Wyn snapped their necks and tossed
them away like ragdolls.

“
Wasn’t that murder?” I
asked.

His tone was objective.
“No.”

“
Why not?”

“
Those two men weren’t
human.”

Ms. Crystobal raised her
eyebrow. Rarely have I seen her look so curious.

The metabolism of a Blood
Vivicanti burns blood cells like calories. The more we work, the
more we drink.

Lately I’ve gotten into the
bad habit of drinking more than a pint of blood a week. One week,
not too long ago, I all but breathed the blood I drank. I almost
killed a whole family. The more blood I drink, the more memories I
have of other people’s lives. The more memories I have of other
people’s lives, the less I have to think about my own
life.

For me, it’s easy to escape
inside your head. It’s a pleasant way to escape the madness of my
mind.

I returned to my room in
the upper floors of the mansion.

I had been around too many
new people. I needed some time and space. Being with too many new
people was too tiring. Being alone with myself was
rewarding.

I loved my new room. It was
like an enchanted chamber.

As I lay on the bed with
its multitude of soft pillows, I didn’t think too much about my
peers or my parents.

When you’ve been living
alone inside your head for so long, the strange things that happen
in life really aren’t all that strange.

My parents used to punish
me for not socializing enough. They thought I was being antisocial.
They punished me the way their parents had punished them: I had to
go to my room. They punished me for being an introvert. For me it
was a win-win. An extrovert’s punishment for an introvert is to be
more introverted.

Go figure that
one.

They never learned. I liked
going to the solitude of my room. It was the one place a platypus
feels safe. Punishment would have been making me participate in
team sports.

I didn’t sleep that night.
I wasn’t tired. I had much to think about.

The noises of the
nighttime world surrounded the mansion. I heard so much – cricket
song blaring – mountain lions prowling – worms slinking through the
moist earth.

Inside the mansion was
mysteriously silent. Everyone seemed to be walking on
eggshells.

I walked around my new
room and opened my curtains. I piled my pillows up and sat back. I
planned to watch the sunrise. It was a good view.

While I waited I walked
deep into the library of my mind. I perused the stacks of my
photographic memory. I pulled from one shelf a favorite old book
–
Through the Looking Glass, and What
Alice Found There.

I remembered every word
from every page. I reread it in minutes. Then I reread it again. I
love that story.

Perhaps it was my love for
that story that helped prepare me for becoming a Blood Vivicanti.
It was as if I had stepped through my own looking glass and entered
my own Looking Glass Kingdom.

Like Alice, I would soon
discover the fullness of my queendom.

There were so many changes
in my life. I was now a Blood Vivicanti. I now had silence and
space. My room in Wyn’s mansion was mine and I could stay there as
long as I liked.

But reality did start to
set in and questions started to pester me.

What would I tell mom and
dad?

What would I tell my
friends at the Academy? And should even I go back to
school?

I’d never before
considered leaving school unfinished, even though I could have
graduated with a few PhDs by then and become a successful
entrepreneur. I could have developed big rocket ships that might
sail me home, wherever that might be in the thick soup of the Milky
Way.

I imagined what life might
be like if I never went back to the Academy. I could picture
MISSING signs of me beside Theo’s.

Cute couple, I
thought.

And think of the devil –
Theo knocked on my door.

Theo entered and strode
toward me. His supple movement made no sound.

I wanted to hide in my
shell. I slid lower beneath the duvet.

He sat at the foot of the
bed.

I hugged my knees to my
chest.

How come he never went back
to school?

His mom and dad had died
long ago. He had been an orphan. He had won a scholarship to the
Academy. He had no one in his life. Wyn had become Theo’s big
brother.

“
I was a dance student,”
Theo said. He had wanted to be a dancer his whole life. His Blood
Vivicanti power made him more graceful than ever.

“
If I went back to the
Academy, I’d have to tone down my skill for the other students. And
I just don’t want to do that. I like how I’ve grown. Returning to
that place would make me as old as a crab going
backwards.”

I think he just referenced
Hamlet
, I thought. I was
smitten.

Theo was beautiful. He had
a dancer’s body. He moved like water. I used to love watching him
dance. It was like watching the tide.

Theo wouldn’t return to the
Academy. So I wouldn’t return either. My personality was so weak
then. I needed Theo’s stronger personality to tell me what to do. I
thought it would make me happy. I hoped it would help me feel
safe.

We talked for a while. It
seemed like hours.

Theo had come to my room
for one reason. And he explained his reason by leaning toward
me.

I backed into my
pillows.

He drew his face very close
to mine.

I counted all his freckles
in an instant.

He smiled. He had a perfect
smile. Then he leaned a little closer and tapped me on the
shoulder.

I admit: I hadn’t expected
that.

The motherboard of my
photographic memory searched its vast database for the cause of his
strange behavior. And I drew a blank. I could recall no precedent
for a teenage boy tapping a teenage girl on the shoulder. I blinked
at him stupidly.

Theo laughed. Then he moved
as fast as wind and in the next second he was standing in my
doorway. His grin widened.

“
Tag,” he said. “You’re
it.”

Then he was
gone.

I could hear his voice
coming from down the hallway.

“
Can’t catch me!” He
sounded like Peter Pan.

Somehow he knew I’d never
played tag before. No one had ever invited me. Somehow he knew I
needed to get out of the house. Theo was such a boy at heart. He
was a good man too.

I chased him. I never knew
I could move so fast. Maybe I never had a reason to. Not until
then.

My legs were strong. They
rocketed me through the house. I was happy and awkward. More than
once I tripped over my feet and careered into couches and clocks
and cupboards.

I felt bad about breaking
Wyn’s $20,000 Russian table.

He laughed it off. He could
afford to.

Ms. Crystobal would clean
up the mess. That was her work.

My work was being a kid for
a moment. I hadn’t had many chances to do so. I wouldn’t have many
more later.

The forest surrounding
Idyllville was vaster than I’d imagined. Tens of thousands of
acres. It wrapped throughout the San Jacinto Mountains.

Theo and I sped past the
thick pine trees. We rushed through open fields. We were a blur to
the herds of cattle and deer. Coyotes and rabbits weren’t fast
enough to scurry off. We leaped over them. We ran around Lake
Hemet, scarcely scaring the fish. Our step was so
silent.

Sometimes it’s good to run
to avoid escaping. Problems fade when you’re panting like a
racehorse. But before that moment, I had not begun to doubt my
theory: I was a platypus begotten by a platypus.

That night, however,
sparked a slight revision: I was a platypus who just hadn’t hatched
yet.

Oysters live in their
shells. They’ve been content closed up in the mud for millions of
years. Some creatures were never meant to evolve.

For years I thought I was
never meant to grow beyond the limits of my suffering. I’d thought
my shell was my life.