Braced to Bite (Book 1: Half-blood vampire series)

Chapter Seven

“Excuse me? Then why do I drink blood?”

     “Colby, you’re Undead, but not a vampire.”

     “Is this because I don’t have a license yet? Because I can’t officially call myself a vampire without it?”

     “No—you aren’t fully Blooded, that’s why you can’t call yourself a vampire. You are too many generations removed from the original vampires to actually be one.”

     “I don’t understand.”

     “Your attacker, Charles Winthrop, is a fully Blooded vampire, but we estimate he is twelfth or thirteenth generation. We aren’t entirely sure, but we do know his offspring are not fully Blooded. Mongrels, if you will.”

     I’m not a vampire?! I’m a half-blooded mongrel?! Oh, I don’t think so.

     “So even though you have vampire characteristics, you are not a true vampire,” Thomas finished.

     “I see. Tell me what characteristics a true vampire has.”

     “Well, we can’t go in the sunlight; are burned by holy water; must feed daily; have superhuman strength, speed and hearing. Also, we have a finely tuned sense of smell, and we are immortal.”

     “That’s it in a nutshell then?”

     He smiled at my comment.

     “Do half-bloods tend to have some of the characteristics?” I asked.

     “Yes, they can have any combination but never at the same capacity of a Blooded vampire.”

     “Probably gives you Blooded guys a feeling of real superiority over us poseurs, huh?” I said it teasingly, but he nodded as though I was serious.

     “We are superior—and there are no other half-bloods. The license process ensures that no genetic mutants are created.”

     Genetic mutants?! No one calls me a genetic mutant, no matter how hot they look in jeans!

     “Seems like your vampire license process just doesn’t work,” replied the resentful genetic mutant half-blood.

     He nodded in agreement.

     “Occasionally a vampire goes rogue. They can’t handle the new system; it’s too much for them. They become unstable and want to start their own clan.”

     “How new is this system?” I envisioned a process that was still so young, a lot of the vampires weren’t ready to adapt.

     “Only about two hundred years old.”

     Wow!

     “How long have you been a vampire?”

     “I was turned during the war.”

     I didn’t want to sound stupid but if the law was considered young at 200 years old, then Thomas could be referring to any number of wars. Human history was jam-packed with them.

     “Which war?”

     “World War Two.”

     So he was around a hundred years old, give or take a few. It wasn’t fair that gramps here still looked like a college boy and now that I knew his real age, I was still infatuated with him. Was I creepy or what?

     I looked down at his hands. Sure enough, he was wearing a ring similar to Chuck’s but not nearly as old. I played dumb. “What’s that?”