Anything For Rachel

Chapter Twenty Seven.

"Someone please explain to me what the hell is going on now?" I groaned. I could tell by the looks on their faces that this was a real impending doom, not just the doom that always felt impending. This is obviously the real deal. Never have I ever seen such fear on Calvin's perfect features. "What's happened?"

Calvin dropped down to his knees and Octavia walked clumsily to the couch and sat down, her face expressionless as she stared forward at the black TV screen ahead of her.

"Rachel." Calvin whispered. "I don't know what to do." His voice broke and I felt like I was seeing that break in his spirit as well. All of the pressures, all of the pain, it was crushing him now. I dropped down beside him and pulled his face over to my chest and he clung to me as he breathed heavily. "What do I do?" He said weakly. "Our people..."

I stroked his hair and Cromley came in closing the door behind him and leaned against the wall, putting his hands on his knees. "I need to understand what's happened first before I can help you." I told him and he sighed, unable to speak.

I glanced up at Cromley and he shook his head to me. "Majesty...It's very bad." He said. "The Lamia Mortem," He whispered it, like even speaking it out loud could have catastrophic repercussions. "It's a sickness that spreads very quickly through vampires."

"A sickness?" I said confused. I'd never given any thought to there being anyway to weaken a vampire other than the juniper and killing them.

"It's practically the plague, or even mad cow disease." Cromley explained. "Years ago, during the witch trials, there were hunters looking for us as well, we just weren't as publically known because so few humans ever lived to tell the tale if they met our kind." He muttered in a monotone. "Somehow, a doctor who was obsessed with proving our existence came up with a new virus. When we're bitten, we are basically infected with the chemical that merges with our blood, and destroys it, replacing it with the vampire blood virus."

"So being a vampire is a virus?" I asked and Calvin nodded against me and leaned back to look at me, his eyes distant.

"In a lot of ways." He sighed. "The bite, plus the release of our saliva into the wound, is what passes the infection from one to another." He explained.

"Right." Cromley nodded. "So since our very existence is in fact a type of viral change, this doctor/hunter, was able to manufacture a new virus that is able to infect even our blood." He said. "In a human, it would go unnoticed, which is why the doctor infected residents of his town with the virus without them knowing, and then all he had to do was wait to test out his theory. There was a small coven traveling the area at the time, and when they fed on the residents of this doctor's town, they fell ill, and the doctor was able to prove our existence."

"Unlucky for him, the king had the entire town, plus the surrounding ones massacred, including the doctor, and eventually the virus worked its way out and there hasn't been a case in so many years." Octavia chimed in from the couch.

I shivered at the thought of a sickness that could weaken, and even kill Calvin. I could also picture the little old town, and the people all being murdered to protect his kind. "So how has it come back now?" I asked.

Calvin put his hands up into his hair and fisted it between his fingers. "The rebels." He muttered. "They are obviously dead set in putting my reign in complete and utter disarray. They are making me look weak and unprepared, and honestly, I am. I never saw something of this scale coming, especially not from such a small group. These rebels are obviously much more together and ready than we ever gave them credit for." Calvin stared passed me at the wall across the room that was still smeared in his dried blood. "Someone recreated the virus, and now they've let it loose in the capitol."