The Lost Girls || Bbangsaz

VII

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Dani scooped up the papers and put them in a neat stack of our notes. "They're kind of messy, but now that we have everything we need, we can start a new log."

     "What do heirlooms have to do with it?" I asked.

     "Everything," Dani said.

     I hadn't thought about my heirloom in years. One, because I no longer had the locket in my possession, and two, because I didnt need it once I'd been transformed.

     Despite popular misconception, a vampire bite alone isn't enough to complete the transformation. I'd needed to store a single drop of my living blood inside an object of my choosing. Objects held memory, and the stronger the significance, the more powerful the memories associated with the object, with silver and gold being the better conduits. The act of making it a vessel for my living self created a physical holding place for my emotions, sentiments, and self-awareness: everything that made me human and allowed me to retain those characteristics in death.

     No one could survive the turning process without an heirloom.

     A vampire bite alone didn't do anything, since the vampire needed to redirect a piece of themselves into the one they were creating.

     And without the heirloom tethering them to life, the person would die. Which was why vampires generally required permission to turn anyone. Generally, anyway..

     I rubbed at the scar on my wrist. The bite marks where Elton had sunk his teeth into me and flooded my veins with the venom that ran in his. The moment our blood mixed, he became a part of me. I thought it had been metaphorical. I'd had no idea how wrong I was.

     "Elton found out about the power of heirlooms too late," Haerin said. "He'd already turned me and given away his power before he discovered what a huge mistake that had been."

     I swallowed. Hard. "You give away your power when you make a vampire?"

     That information would've been much more useful to me thirty-four years ago. Though I didn't feel any different after I turned Hyein—other than the process itself being horrific enough to put me off the idea of ever turning someone again. If I'd given something away, wouldn't I have felt it?

     "It's like a chain that links backward," Dani said. "The heirloom Haerin made preserves the memory of Elton at full power. The moment he turned us, we held the power. Destroy the heirloom, and you can destroy the vampire."

     "And we can't just take a sledgehammer to them or toss them off a bridge," Haerin said. "We need to kill the blood stored within the heirloom at the same time. It's a whole process."

     That was going to be a problem. "We need all our heirlooms?"

     "Yes. Which I suspected. Even though it's rare for a vampire to make more than one, he gave up his power three times over, which means it takes three times the sacrifice to balance. I've been researching this for thirty years," Dani said.

     I hadn't realized just how much time both Dani and Haerin had put into this. The time and the care it took to put all the pieces together, sorting through half-baked myths and near-forgotten legends in out-of-print books. While I'd been flitting across the country with Elton, they'd been making long-term plans. Not just for themselves, but for me as well.

     And I was going to be the one to ruin it.

     I should've taken more care with my locket. Hyein ripped it right off my neck, and I didn't do a thing to stop her, because she was angry and I felt bad. I was still human enough at the time to let my feelings dictate all of my actions. Maybe this was the other reason I didn't get close to anyone.