As it was, they didn’t get their swim. They’d only just reached the changing rooms when Captain Pullman phoned and asked them to join him in his office. After they’d redressed in non-PT kit, they headed to the Medical Suite where they were shown into the doctor’s room. Pullman greeted them with a welcoming smile despite their perplexed scrutiny. It didn’t last.
“Please, have a seat,” Pullman offered as his expression faltered, looking nervous.
His anxiety set Kalyna’s nerves on edge too, and her hand slid into Dunstan’s, automatically seeking reassurance. She hated the doctor’s office. She remembered all too clearly what it was like to be examined after Wren Walton’s assault, having her injuries photographed, and she didn’t want to add to the negative recollections she had of the hospital wing.
“What is this about?” Dunstan asked, looking as confused as Kalyna felt.
“When I realised that your shared common ancestor might be responsible for your immunity to Kalyna’s blood, I requested our research teams conduct a more thorough analysis of your genomes. Now, I want to reassure you both that what I said before is true; there are many, many degrees of separation between you; likely as many generations as there are between me and Charlemagne. You are not ‘related’ in any sense that we would understand. As I said before, there are a finite number of ancestors available and we all share some degree of common ancestry, we’re only interested in yours because it seems relevant to an ongoing case.
“That said, a more detailed comparison of your DNA shows that you share more than one common ancestor. There are genes mutated by transitioning into a vampire that you both share. Those genes are related to fang development and immunity to the psychic push vampires use to wipe themselves from the minds of those they hunt, which would explain why you have retractable eye teeth, Kalyna, and potentially underdeveloped venom ducts over them, although I would need to take scans on your head to be sure. While you aren’t vampire enough to have fully developed fangs, you appear to have inherited something that Dunstan also has.
“What’s strange is that Marcellus Nerva does not share those genes. I mean, he has genes that do the same thing, but they don’t come from the same source. If your genes came directly from Laelia initiating the transition, then I would’ve expected him to have the same genetic makeup. Dunstan, you and Marcellus Nerva are so closely related in a vampire sense, that I would have expected any gene modified by the transition to be replicated in both of you.
“In fact, you have other vampire genes which are replicated in both of you, but not the two I’m highlighting. That almost suggests that those genes may have already been part of your genetic makeup before Laelia turned you, and so her blood didn’t overwrite yours because it didn’t need to. It’s something you already had before she made you fully vampire, and which was only ‘fully activated’ by your transition. We don’t fully understand how the transition works, or the affects of specific genes on each other. But it could be that one of your common ancestors might not be Laelia at all, but someone before her. I suspect that you had dhampir blood in you all along, Dunstan, just like Kalyna has.
“Now, I’ve always suspected that Kalyna had an older strain of vampire DNA which was then supplemented by a more recent addition to her family tree, and that might be why she has other vampire genes which are not related to yours or Marcellus Nerva’s. You both share a strain of dhampir blood, but you’ve both had other vampire blood added too, either by the transition or by a second dhampir ancestor. You're both flukes of nature. The chances of either of you existing is infinitesimally small based on our current understanding of supernatural procreation, yet here you are.
“But it doesn’t end there, you both also have genes related to...” The doctor blushed a little. “Well... related to libido. Related to sex drive, pleasure seeking, risk taking, and seduction but also... the conversion of sexual energy into a sort of... psychic food source. The thing is, they're genes specific to incubi and succubae. That means you both have a second common ancestor who isn’t homo sapiens or homo mordax at all, but cubo nocte instead.”
YOU ARE READING
Where Lost Things Dwell: Night Creatures Book Two
ParanormalAfter five years hunting down the vampires who had killed her family, living alone, outside society, Kalyna had finally found a home. She had signed up as a trainee with the Occult Task Force, a cross-species military branch where supernaturals and...
