Cursed Blood | Chaelisa

Chapter 19.

After the little mishap that had led me to find the last diary, Lisa seemed to be strolling on a memory lane whenever she held the book. Sometimes she read to me back in the garden. Sometimes she pulled out her flute and played a sad song that could break every creature's heart. That must be how she mourns her grief.

"My mom taught me how to play this song," she had told me one evening and couldn't continue her words further. I put my arms around her and she rested her head on mine. I just knew how it felt to come home to only one parent for all those years. The least I could do was to be there for Lisa as she was there for me.

After school, I decided to borrow a few vampire-related books from the library. Maybe I should do my independent research without my vampire guru this time.

I tossed the books on my bed when I reached home. Mom was going to be real late tonight for she had a night shift at the hospital. I would read about vampires for once and for all.

Then I snatched one of the nearest books and began skimming it on my bed. One book was about the history, origins and other general information about vampires, and also another was all about the folkloric tales and legends of various cultures and places. Only a few pages mentioned about the children of vampires and humans. And of course, they were exactly what Joy had told me. I slammed the book shut.

Needless to say, these were all nonsense myths.

I picked up the last one which seemed more promising than the rest. The book showed different names of vampires.

Nosferatu, they were less common ones, and their vampiric change was difficult to achieve, their immune system had fought the virus and the virus was forced to mutate in order to survive, this result in deformed and disfigured vampires.

Yuck.

Suaria, they are often known as the reptile or the lizard vampires. They have the teeth that are all sharply pointed like those large lizards and their bodies are chameleon-like, they could change the color of their skin to match with their surroundings.

Well, that sounded like a cartoon from Monster.Inc to me.

Chiroptera, they are the rarest kind of vampires because they could change into bats. They also appear to be very human, except a slightly pointy pair of ears. Sometimes their ability in shape-shifting is so great that they could change into other creatures.

No kidding?

Homo Wampyrus, aka, immortal vampire. They only existed in the myth, I guess. But I liked the homo part though.

Draco, this is the most well-known kind of vampires. They are extremely human in appearance apart from their retractable canine teeth in their upper jaws which are hardly noticeable. They have medium tolerance to sunlight. They often gain the blood through willing donors who worship them. Some of them take pleasure in feeding by force.

This one got my attention. Could our parents be the Draco type of vampires?

I read on to another chapter of the book, there was a long description of another kind known as the Psychic Vampire. I stopped dead at this point. How many kinds of vampires in the world did we have exactly? Good grief, as if we didn't get enough bloodsuckers living among humans, and now we had another freaky one.

Psychic Vampires are sometimes referred to as 'Soul-Sucker'or 'Succubus'. They possess great mental abilities and even mastered the art of dark magic or the psychic phenomena. They used their supernatural abilities to draw the life force from other living beings, especially humans. These vampires seek out victims whom they could interact with in order to create strong relationships. Some might attack by force or when the victims sleep or during sex.

Usually, the feeding causes the victims to be tired, drained out of energy and memory impaired. It could result in great mental damages as a coma or even death.

Holy cow!

After I finished reading this passage, I sat up so fast, my blood pumped high into my brain. Then my subconscious mind started racing back and forth, sorting out things and collecting junk data that was once discarded or ignored. After a while, the light bulb above my head finally burst into light.

The mysterious collapses of the students in the Ultara Academy wasn't just a coincidence or mere health problem. And as the puzzle pieces began to match together, there was no way I could understand why the first person who fit into my suspicious picture was... Jennie.

Several Ultara students had been hospitalized within a single week; this had broken the school record. Is there really a psychic vampire in our school? Ever since Jennie set foot in the Ultara Academy, students started losing consciousness for no reason. Could she be the cause?

But something came to disagree with my hypothesis. If Jennie was a vampire, then I could have recognized her, but she smelled and looked human like everyone else. How could she be some kind of devil spawn? Maybe jealousy had clouded my mind. Maybe I should rest with the belief that I was just insane.

Then I lay back on the bed, concentrating on breathing to relax my paranoia. I was about to fall asleep when another thought popped into my head. If Jennie was nothing but ordinary, then why did I always tense up whenever I saw her? Unless I was preparing myself to confront with danger. Oh, my god, I had overlooked my basic instinct of a human being! Of course, my vampire side couldn't recognize Jennie, but my human side had been giving me warnings all along!

A horrible feeling started bubbling inside me. Whatever Jennie was, she wasn't normal. Something about the girl spelled trouble.

I quickly left a note for Mom and changed into my school uniform. The sky had already gone dark, but I had to go back to the Ultara Academy.

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