Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 83

“What else is there?” he finally asked.

They headed across the hall, again, and behind the next door, was a similar sight, with several beds lined up, and people were laying, asleep on them. The first thing he noticed though, was that they were all women. That was when something became obvious to him, that he probably should have notice a long time ago. All of the Slavers and werewolves he had ever encountered, had all been male. Not once had he ever seen a female werewolf or Slaver.

“In this room, I have subjects for a side experiment, that the elders do not know about. I have worked on this every since the first virus was released. Each of these women have been ɨmprėġnȧtėd with fetus’ that have been genetically modified. It has been my hope that a child would be born, who was immune to the first virus, but I have not been successful yet.”

His words seemed to hang in the air, as Xun’s eyes roamed over the faces of the women. Could one of them be his mother? His dad had seemed to think so. But there were only a few women here. What happened to all the others that had been taken from the compounds raided by the Slavers? Willow had mentioned cages full of hundreds of people.

“What…” he wasn’t sure what to ask. Too many questions were piling up in his mind. The horror of what was going on here, was too much for him.

“I know what you are thinking, are the women in pain? No, they are basically in a coma, doomed to never wake up. There is no brain activity on any of them. And for the children, you need not fear for them, if they are not able to survive the genetic modifications, they often die before they are ever born. It is no different than a mother not wishing to have a child, and killing it with medicine.” He turned to check on some of the monitors, while Xun tried to comprehend his words.

How could anyone willingly want to kill a child? There were so few people in the world, it seemed incomprehensible to him. Before he could manage to recover long enough to actually come up with something to say, Dr. Achak, led him out of the room, to the next room. Xun followed, almost in a daze.

This room was a lab. There were numerous experiments running, between gene editing and tissue testing, there must have been hundreds of things going on all at once. Only a single person, a young looking male vampire, was in the room, and he was very busy, flitting from one thing to another, almost too fast for Xun’s eyes to keep up. After a few comments about the experiments they were running, all of which was over Xun’s head, they were off to the next room.

It looked like a lunch room, with a table and chairs.

“Have a seat, I can see that you are overwhelmed. I will make you a nice tea to calm your nerves while you try to process everything I’ve told you so far.”

Xun sat down in one of the chairs, and watched as the vampire moved from the sink to the stove, carrying a tea kettle. He placed a cup on the counter next to him, and measured out some tea leaves into a small square cloth. Then he tied it shut with a string, and poured the hot water over it. Placing the tea in front of Xun, he returned to the refrigerator, and took out a plastic bag that seemed to be full of blood. As Xun watched, the vampire bit the bag, and began suċkɨnġ the blood out of it. Experience had to be the only way he pulled it off without getting a drop of blood on the white coat he wore. Two neat holes from his fangs were the only mark on the bag as he threw it in a trash can.

“The tea should be cool enough to drink. I believe it may be strong enough for you as well.” Dr. Achak met his eyes, and Xun quickly picked up his tea cup to avoid seeing that red stare.

Without thinking that he may have slipped something into the tea, he took a gulp. There were flavors he had never had before, dancing over his tongue. None of them were bad, and he could feel a tension in his shoulders relaxing. He was left looking at the empty cup after only a few moments, marveling at how much more relaxed he felt.

“How could anyone kill a baby?” The question slipped out, before he was even aware of its existence.

“Hmm, perhaps not now, but there was a time when it was done.”

“Why are there no girl werewolves?”

“It was discovered that they were even more aggressive then the men when turned. The idea to change them was quickly scrapped when they could not be contained. The first few were willing to kill themselves trying to escape.”

“What about Slavers?”

“Slavers were an interesting side effect when a group of vampires took it upon themselves to **** the human women they had in captivity. I was in no way involved with that. Apparently, the virus that changed human blood to make it unsuitable for us, gave us the ability to breed with humans. Every one of the women became pregnant, died in childbirth when the offspring were too strong during labor, and grew to ȧduŀthood within a year. The offspring was always a male, never a female, was sterile, though that didn’t stop urges, and craved blood regardless of the nutritional content. They also had a remarkably short life span, only living for at most ten years.

“The elders discovered that they were very docile towards full vampires, and made excellent slaves, thus the name. I abhor the creatures, as I see them as unnecessary drains. The elder council has differing views, requiring women in the hundreds to feed their dėsɨrės for such creatures.”

“Why are you being so nice to me? What have you done with Mary, and what kind of deal were you wanting to do?” The questions tumbled out without order or conscious thought. He was bȧrėly able to focus on the answers before he had another question.

“The woman, Mary, is being observed by me. I noticed something in her scent last night that had me curious about a number of things. I figured since you were so willing to kill her, that if I took her, you wouldn’t mind. As for the deal I want, that will have to wait until the potion I fed you wears off. I was tired of your anxiety causing your tongue to become tied, so to speak, so I gave you a concoction I perfected years ago that allowed you to speak your mind.”

“Well, I hate your guts because you’re a vampire, and I just want my mom back.”