Master of Vampirism (Part #2) ✔️

Chapter 27: Tasty erythrocytes

Silence hung over my life for the next few days. Thomas did not allow me to see the caught cult vampire, so I threw a tantrum and refused to talk to him.

Sheila wasn't feeling quite alright. When the tensions from her rendezvous with death dropped, she fell into a human version of vampression, which was just regular depression. And she refused to talk to me, because I reminded her of trauma. So, she went home for a couple of days, unwilling to see any vampires.

Both Ian and Greta were gone, which did not make me particularly happy, but I decided to be the bigger person and let it slide.

William was the messenger, he collected information from each of us and delivered to the rest. We existed in the limbo of not talking to each other, refusing to resolve any of the issues we might have.

It felt like everybody decided to take a page out of Chloe playbook.

Usually, I'd be all smug about it, but I felt weirdly empty. Puzzle pieces were off and I had no idea what to ascribe it to. Was it the trauma? Ian's departure? My breakup with Caiden?

My troubled mind led me straight to the laboratory under the campus.

During my kiss with Ian, I sucked out a bit of poison out of his blood. William said it left the system in 24 hours which provided enough time to acquire a sample. And I had enough of the plant samples because we took the stakes from the club.

This entire vampire thing made me forget I was actually a damn scientist, or trying to be one.

And what I figured out surprised me enough to lift the shun off Thomas and invite him to the lab.

The neon lighting began to hurt my eyes after spending almost ten straight hours inside. My trusty bloody latte rested next to the lab equipment. The phone next to it patiently waited for a text, or a phone call, but no one wanted to talk to me.

Thomas entered the lab, "What do you want?"

"Nice to see you, too."

He rolled his eyes so far back I thought they would permanently remain that way.

"Are you playing with the lab equipment again?"

"For your information, I'm making my way to a Nobel Prize." I put both my hands on my hips.

"I suppose you are persistent enough." Thomas sighed. "You said you figured something out?"

"Oh, yes." I jumped to the microscope. "I've been looking into salvia divinorum, that asshole plant."

"Is that an official name?"

I nodded, "Anyway, I took the samples from the stakes and some of my clean blood, and watched what happened. Turns out, it's behaving like a virus."

Thomas squinted, "How so?"

"Well, it's entering the vampire cells and multiplying like crazy. The vampire body eventually defends itself against it and develops an immunity, but the process takes 24 hours. When I injected more salvia divinorum, nothing happened. It means Ian might currently be immune to it." I explained and watched Thomas's frown deepen with each word.

"So, we should inject some of it and develop immunity?" He asked.

I let out a sigh, "Well, no. I took some of my blood right after Ian infected me. The amount was apparently too small to develop immunity. My blood sort of kicked the poison out momentarily."

Thomas raised his eyebrow, "Ian infected you?"

I kept my eyes on the microscope, "Uh-huh. Anyway, it might be worth finding out how much of the stuff actually makes you go crazy and what amount is needed to develop immunity. We might need it. We can't afford going crazy in the middle of the battle."