"Jubal and I have been friends of the Carpathians for some time now. We work with them and for them and count ourselves lucky for the privilege. They are really remarkable beings."
Riley couldn't stop herself from glancing down at Gary's wrist where Dax had taken his blood. If he'd lived with the Carpathians for a long time, was he a friend or more like a pet cow they milked whenever they needed to feed?
Noticing the direction of her gaze, Gary smiled. "I'm fine. Sometimes you can get a little dizzy from blood loss, but Dax was careful not to take too much. They need blood to survive, and the way I see it, giving to them isn't much different than donating to the Red Cross or the local blood drive."
"Except the Red Cross doesn't drink what they take."
"No, but they do use it to save lives. Humans need blood to survive, and so do Carpathians. The only real difference is how they get it. Besides, most people never know they have had their blood taken. It's really quite unobtrusive and painless. Carpathians use their abilities to put a person into a dream state."
"So they enthrall people. Like vampires do in novels and movies."
"Yes, there's nothing malicious about it. Most usually flood the person with happy thoughts, take what they need and leave pleasant memories behind when they leave."
Gary rubbed his wrist as if he could still feel the teeth breaking through the skin. Maybe he could. He hadn't looked like he was in a trance state when Dax was drinking from him.
"Why aren't there any marks?" Riley asked. "I watched him take your blood, but I don't see any sign of a cut or even a scratch on your wrist."
"That's because a Carpathian's saliva has rapid healing agents in it that seem to work on just about anything organic. Wounds close almost instantly. It's really something. They have other gifts, too. Abilities that would seem to fall more in the realm of magic than science. But all those gifts come at a price."
"What price?"
"A pretty steep one. The way it was explained to me, each Carpathian male is born with a seed of darkness in him. At first it's nothing-less than nothing. Like a grain of sand in the ocean. But as the males age, the darkness in them grows."
"By 'darkness,' what do you mean, exactly?"
"I guess you'd call it evil-or, rather, the capacity for evil. Sort of like all the aggressive emotions-hate, violence, selfishness. Once a Carpathian male reaches adulthood, that darkness starts pushing, trying to dominate him. Like I said, Carpathians live a very long time. The longer the male lives, the stronger the darkness inside him becomes."
Gary paused to take a sip of his water, but whether he did so from thirst or nerves, Riley couldn't say. He looked a little uncomfortable.
"The Carpathian males lose the ability to see in color, then the ability to feel emotion. I don't have a clear understanding of how that works exactly. I think it's a little different from person to person. For some, I gather it's a clean cut, like the lights just went out and every emotion they ever had is simply taken away. Love, sadness, joy, regret, all of it's gone, and what is left is just emptiness. For others, it's apparently not such a drastic change, and their emotions just fade. There are some who use their memories to recall what emotion used to feel like, but I'm told it's like hearing under water. It's not the same, but they cling to it, because it's all they have. But even that doesn't last. The darkness eventually corrupts everything, and the Carpathians know it. That leaves them only two choices: either meet the sun and die-and yes, that part works just like it does in all vampires-or embrace the evil and become a vampire, as Mitro did."
Riley looked down at her hands, inexplicably sad. "How terrible for them. So they are vampires, after all."
"No, they aren't. But they can become vampires if they embrace the darkness inside them. That's what we tried to tell you before. The vampires aren't just evil; they've chosen to be evil. They choose to give up their souls because they feel a rush when they kill while feeding. They relish the hate, the destruction, the corruption. There's no worse monster on this earth than the vampire. And the Carpathians like Dax hunt them. And Riley, something you need to understand is that some of the vampires they hunt were once their friends. Maybe even family members. It takes a very strong person to bear a burden like that."
Riley struggled to wrap her head around the information Gary was sharing. Rationally, she had a hard time believing in vampires and shape-shifters, but she'd seen them herself. She couldn't deny they existed. But then, she knew magic existed-the sort of magic that defied rational thought. She possessed it herself, as had her mother before her. The hardest part to come to grips with was the idea that Dax wasn't yet a vampire but might become one. Seeing the image of Dax, standing before her as red and gold flecks fell down all around him, his eyes so focused and yet so lost.
Riley pushed her hand under the corner of her sleeping pad she was sitting on. Her fingertips touched the tent floor. The vinyl felt cool against her hand. Her fingertips began to tingle as her connection to the earth grew stronger. She pushed into the plastic, gaining comfort the closer she got to the packed dirt underneath the tent. To her surprise, the thin plastic material seemed to dissolve beneath her hand, giving her access to the earth, which parted easily, as if welcoming her exploration.
"So Dax hunts these vampires, the ones like this Mitro who escaped from the volcano," Riley summarized. "But Dax is Carpathian, which means he has this same evil growing inside of him as Mitro. And if he doesn't suicide in the sun, he'll eventually become a vampire as well."
The image of Dax's broken body, his wounds open to the night sky, flooded through her. But even though he'd surely been in agony, he'd regarded her with such warmth and such wonder, his eyes filled with emotion. Hadn't he? Her heart seemed to stutter at the idea of him turning vampire. He was noble. Filled with courage. He'd touched her with such gentleness. She couldn't believe that there was evil in him. He was capable of violence, but evil? The idea was so devastating she could barely breathe.
Seeking solace, she used her fingertips to move through the earth. It was odd they moved through the packed soil with almost no resistance, as if she were running her hand through still water. The earth seemed to be singing under her hands.
With her fingers in the soil, if she didn't think about the why, and the how, instead focused on the song that was all around her, she could sense all the others in the camp. She knew where they were, what they were doing. Then, abruptly, she froze, her body turning cold from fear at the thought that Dax was gone.