Morals Of Vampire {#3}

Part 14

[Part 14]

"Amazing." The awed voice rang through the silence of the moderately-large room. Kay leaned forwards with the hope of being in the information loop of what exactly was 'amazing', but instead was met with the dew-eyes of a centuries-old vampire. For an instant, Kay felt as if he were stared down by a hormonal teenage girl in front of her idol, rather than the scientist of the NA Council.

The brains behind the Blood Pills stood before him, and Kay blinked, leaning back as Jack's glittering eyes looked him up and down in disbelief.

"Laz, you might want to look at this. He is a living specimen. This guy is a walking body of experiments that we never succeeded." Jack absently waved to his mousy assistant, who scurried quickly over, hunching over the microscope that was now focused on a drop of blood that Kay had donated. The Laz that Kay was never truly introduced to squeaked a high-pitched sound at the same discovery, and Jack began laughing at that sound, as if the squeak was any affirmation of the 'amazing' discovery.

"I want you to find out what's wrong with Cian, not about me." Kay frowned, crossing his arms to show that he was serious. But Jack seemed to be more interested in assessing from top to toe, stepping forwards into Kay's personal space without care for manners. Kay distantly remembered Roger-Luc saying something about Jack being as ill-mannered as a baby whenever the man was caught up in new scientific discoveries.

"This... has strains of what we put in the Stay-Awake Drug!" Laz's tiny voice was loud in the shocked silence of the laboratory as Jack nodded absently in acknowledgement. "And he has a mutated strain of that Food Pill that we gave to Dante when he met Lexi!"

"You guys tried to make Food Pills?" Kay asked, surprised. He had heard from Vanda that Jack and Laz had been experimenting on how to make vampires able to taste and eat human food again without reaping any repercussions before the war started. Kay guessed that the men were close before the war turned their experiments towards slightly more lethal ways.

"We tried a few times. There weren't any human research available for us vampires, so Laz and I created our own strains for Food Pills. Strain 1 made Zanetta sick for days. Strain 2 made Jean-Jacques dizzy as hell. Strain 3 made Dante faint after drinking coffee. Strain 4 made Jean-Jacques's emotional faculties' drop straight down to hell, and that was before he ate anything at all." Jack answered Kay absently, taking hold of Kay's hand and studying intently as if his hand was suddenly the greatest specimen ever.

"Hold on to your geek pants." Kay stepped back again, pulling his hand out of Jack's. "I know I'm special and all, but I want to focus on Cian this time. I'll give you samples for your own geeky experiments afterwards, but that's only if you find out about what's wrong with Cian."

"There's nothing wrong with Cian." Jack answered quickly, stepping forward eagerly and reaching for the hand again, as he were a hypnotized kid reaching for candy. "If something is wrong, Jean-Jacques would be crazy pressed for some cure by now. Besides, we saw him today before we came out, and Cian's still the same."

Kay stepped back again, ignoring the fact that Laz was already scribbling furiously on a notepad, and taking glimpses into the microscope ever so often.

"You don't understand. Vampires aren't supposed to grow old. When I left Cian centuries ago, he was young and fresh-faced. His hair was black and he was young. Now Cian's all old and wrinkled, and it isn't supposed to happen. What if he's aging like a human over time? What if his bodily functions stop like a human when he gets even older? He might be the first-ever vampire to die of old age, and I'm not going to let that happen." Kay explained his worries, still backtracking to counter Jack's advancement, until his back hit a table, and he found himself cornered.