Bad Choices (Hypernaturals 8)

The Dumbass Plan

With Angel relaxed, and all the way down into the Jacuzzi, Jessica started in on Morgan and I.

"So: You two renegades from Galveston. I talked to Sally about Morgan's conversion ideas. We both agree that they are probably a good approach, and damn stupid, all that the same time."

Angel raised a hand out of the water. "I am sorry: new girl in the hot tub. I have no idea what you are talking about."

Rachel got up from the lounge and joined us in the tub. Water sloshed out. "I am not aware of this plan either."

Jessica explained. "In a nutshell, here is the problem. As you know, Marvin has something wrong with him. It seems to be some kind of blood cancer. We have not run the standard tests for that because neither Sally or I are oncologists, and we don't have anything we need for that. I can fix broken Vampires, usually Adrian, lately Morgan a fair amount. Deliver babies. Great swaths of standard medical things. We are not M.D. Anderson Hospital in our cute little medical suite. That something is wrong we know because Morgan and Adrian can smell it. You can take that to the bank, as it is well documented that animals can detect various illnesses such as cancer via scent, and those two are the equal of any bloodhound. Marvin's illness had been fairly stable for a while, but it is now getting worse."

Angel looked horrified. "I knew he was ill: Why he moved here and got the big Vampire reveal. What are you going to do?"

"Morgan and Adrian talked to Marvin before they left for Galveston. With Skye a Vampire, and grandchildren, he wants to try to come over." Jessica said.

"You can do that? Wait a minute: Skye bit him a ton. All the time. Wouldn't he have already come over if he was going to?" Angel asked a very good question for just learning about the whole thing.

"Sally and I have been talking about a theory. A possible way. Well. Two ways. This is where Morgan inserted her ideas, so I will summarize. First, we work on suppressing the human immune system. That is easy. There are many drugs available to do that, and while some are specific, we can use a combination of them to try and stop the human immune system from stopping infection by the Phage. That is what we are calling it for lack of a better term these days. The vampirophage. Technically inaccurate, but as we are not aware of the actual organisms, we use that term as shorthand. It is my theory that it is at least three things symbiotically working in concert, all tiny. An HIV like factor, a virus that re-writes DNA, another that rewrites mitochondrial DNA, and perhaps another part that directly influences genetic expression. That is why it is so rare: It has so many things that need to work together to work at all. That is not important right now. The main thing is that the human immune system normally fights off the viral colonization."

Angel nodded. "Got it. So, you are going to make Marvin a bubble boy."

"Yes. Sterile room. Sterile everything. Damn, you catch on to this stuff fast." Jessica complimented.

"Why dad and I have relied on Angel for years." Morgan touched her friend's shoulder, barely up out of the water.

"I completely understand. Always been impressed. Now, even more so. In any case, that is step one. Step two is to flush that immunosuppression drug cocktail to the degree that we can. We'll do a full blood swap with human blood, plasma, and saline. The dilution is to allow for a larger quantity of flushing fluid to run through Marvin. He will not be active so we can get by with less than 100% pure blood. Then we wait a short while before we swap it out again. This time with type compatible Vampire blood. Skye, Helen, myself, Adrian, Morgan: All have banked blood for this. Rachel is not type compatible. Fun fact: Adrian and Morgan's blood is almost impossible to tell apart. We let the human blood be a cleanser, but the Vampire blood is meant to be the initial infection: how we establish the Vampire making machinery in his body. That used to be the end of the plan, but Morgan added a third phase."