Chapter Five: Explanations, Confrontations and Plans
Lincoln sighed as he got back to his home, heading into the common area. It was going to be a beautiful day. He would really need to get used to sleeping during the day and working at night. It was going to be an adjustment. Jordan came downstairs, smiling at him.
"Hey, Linc. How'd your trip to Detroit go?" The brunette asked. Lincoln shrugged, sitting down.
"It went well. I actually made contact with Vampires much sooner than I thought I would.
"Apparently, Nicodemus knows Nearra. They were apparently siblings of a sort. Sired by the same Vampire over 700 years ago. I guess they're not very close as blood siblings. Either way, Nicodemus told me about a process that could make you and Lucy immortal without turning you into Vampires." Lincoln said. Jordan nodded, sitting with him as he described the process of Culling. How he gave them each some of his blood at the same time each night for five days and then renewed the process once a month. Jordan nodded.
"What are the side effects of this procedure, of our new condition?" Jordan asked.
"Well, Nicodemus said that Culled may start to prefer their meat on the rare side. Even vegetarians start to crave meat. It's a matter of gaining a Vampire's predatory aesthetic. But physically, you're not going to get sick or anything. You'll gain enhanced physical abilities, enhanced healing and immortality, so long as you renew the process once a month. So after the initial five-day process, you'll need to drink my Blood once a month." Lincoln said.
"I don't intend to give it to Lucy just yet. She's still quite young and ideally, had I wanted to be a Vampire, I would have waited until I was at least 25, maybe even 30. But here we are. There's no going back. So I'll give you the process if you want it." Lincoln said. Jordan hesitated.
"What if you find a way to age yourself in the future? What about me? Will I be able to age as well?" Jordan asked. Lincoln thought for a moment.
"I'll ask Nicodemus tomorrow. He's agreed to train me. He says that his physical abilities aren't equal to Nearra's, but he can still train me, and that his sensory abilities are far superior to Nearra's. Well, either way, I'm going to go to bed for the day." Lincoln said, kissing Jordan gently on the lips, heading down to the basement, where he was impressed and grateful to see that she'd set up a cot for him until they could set up a room that was completely light proof.
"Vampirism isn't like an STD or anything, is it? Like I'm not gonna catch it by sleeping with you, am I?" Jordan asked. That was a good question. One Lincoln definitely didn't know the answer to. In a way, he was scared of what the answer might be. Unfortunately, there was little time to talk, since there was a knock at their door. The sun was starting to peek over the horizon, so Lincoln didn't have much time. Jordan answered the door while Lincoln put on Loud Labs Sunblock. Lisa made it for people who were extremely photosensitive. But it worked almost as well for Vampires, she figured.
"Oh… Um… Hi, do I know you?" Jordan asked politely, an average height, dark skinned woman with black hair and dark eyes standing there.
"Ah, of course. How rude of me. My name is Nearra. I'm here to see Lincoln." She said, a wide smirk crossing her face as Jordan paled, realizing who she was.
"May I come in?" Nearra asked.
"What happens if I refuse to let you in?" Jordan asked cautiously, backing up so she was on the opposite side of the entry to Nearra, hoping that Vampires really did need to be invited in.
"Pretty much the same thing as if you say yes. I've heard the legends. They're… Amusing. Some of them are true. Most of them aren't. Vampires don't need to be invited in. We won't start bleeding copiously if we enter without permission. We don't keel over if we break into someone's home.
"I'm asking as a courtesy. You can call the police if you want and get them over here. But then you'll have the deaths of the officers who respond on your conscience. You can let Lincoln try to fight me. But I could rip his head off in an instant if I wanted to, and trust me when I say that decapitation will even kill a Vampire." Nearra said calmly.
"So I ask again, may I come in?" She asked.
"I-y-y-yes… You're not going to drink my blood, r-r-right?" Jordan stammered, her legs trembling under her. Nearra's grin widened as she walked in the house, looking around.
"I admire Lincoln's taste. Or perhaps it's your taste in furniture and decorations. Regardless, no. I don't seek to make an enemy of Lincoln. I merely wish to offer a warning to him. If he's hiding, bring him out. If he's lying in wait to ambush me, tell him it won't work. I've dealt with guerilla soldiers better than him in the past and as gifted as he seems to be, he's hardly the best I've seen." Nearra said.
Lincoln came out of the back, smelling strongly of suntan lotion. He gasped as he saw Nearra, running as soon as he did. Nearra sighed, shaking her head.
"Do you have a room that doesn't have any direct sun into it?" Nearra asked. Jordan, her mouth now dry, nodded. She'd rarely heard anyone speak so coldly about killing. Never heard anyone behave so callously. She brought Nearra to a back room. It faced the back yard and had a window, but no direct sun into it. Nearra smiled and sat down on a comfortable chair in it.
"Thank you. Don't bother offering me tea or food. I have no ability to eat or drink human consumables." Nearra said. Jordan sighed. Nearra was really making herself at home. Soon, Lincoln came out with a gun, cocking it. She looked at the gun.
"A good choice of weapons. A bit small, but I suppose if you were dealing with humans, it would work just fine. As it stands, unless you plan to shoot me in the head, that will do little but annoy me." Nearra said. Lincoln sighed.
"Get out of my house. I don't care if the sun is out. You should have thought of that before you intruded on my property." Lincoln said angrily. Jordan gasped. She could tell that Lincoln really would fire if Nearra didn't either explain herself satisfactorily or leave.
"Wait… I simply wished to correspond with you, understand your situation a bit better." Nearra said.
"How did you come back? I drained you completely. You were dead when I had you left in that dumpster." Nearra said, still confused. Lincoln shrugged.
"I don't know. I bit you a few times when we were fighting and I tasted blood. Maybe that's what caused it. Maybe you drained me, but because I drank your blood, I was turned into a Vampire rather than being killed. By the way, Nicodemus says hi." Lincoln said, smirking as Nearra's smile faded.
"I see. Well, either way, I never intended to create you. A town this relatively small won't do well if it's overrun by Vampires. I really must insist that you not create any fledglings of your own. At least not in this town. I notice that you have this brown haired girl here as your lover.
"And I noticed a black haired girl come into the house earlier. I assume she's your lover as well. I'm certain that you wish to turn them at some point. But if and when you do, I need you to be somewhere else. I'll be burdened enough trying to develop a new routine in hunting, potentially finding new grounds to hunt on and seek out ways short of hunting to obtain blood. I will kill you if I have to, but it's an inconvenience that I would rather avoid. So you have two choices. You can refrain from Embracing any other Vampires, or you can move… Or you can prepare to fight me to the death.
"Because as cliché as it sounds, this city is not big enough for both of us." Nearra said.
"And remember that your secret should be kept close to you. Anyone that you don't plan to Embrace, Culled or killed needs to be kept in the dark about your condition. You see in those ridiculous shows about a Vampire creating a breeding program to provide them with a longer-term source of blood. That doesn't work in real life. It just lets too many people know about who and what you are." Nearra said
"So you came here to lecture me?" Lincoln asked.
"You beat, rape and kill me and turn me into an undead and now you want to lecture me on proper behavior? Get out of my house. Now." Lincoln said, firing his gun into Nearra's chest. She gasped as she staggered backwards.
"Wow! How about a warning shot next time?" Nearra asked.
"That was the warning shot. The next one will go into your head. As good as I'm sure your regeneration is, I doubt you can regenerate memories and brain function." Lincoln said, cocking the gun again, preparing a second shot.
"Wait! Wait! You mentioned Nicodemus. Where did you meet him?" Nearra asked.
"None of your business." Lincoln said coolly, pointing the gun at her head.
"Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six…"
"Wait! I can't leave right now! The sun is up." Nearra said.
"You should have thought of that before you came here in the morning." Lincoln said.
"Three… Two…"
"Okay." Nearra said, snatching the sunblock out of Lincoln's hand, taking her clothes off right in front of them and starting to apply the sunblock, not seeming bothered that they were both right there.
She finally finished, getting dressed again and heading out, covering her eyes as she got out into the sun, feeling an uncomfortable burning sensation. Her skin was blistering, but not to the same level as it would have if she was not wearing sunblock. Lincoln stood there and watched as she left the property and walked away from it.
-0-
Soon, Lucy came downstairs, kissing Lincoln lovingly. Lucy and Jordan had both been dating Lincoln for years now. They'd somehow managed to keep his relationship with Lucy a secret from his and Lucy's parents and Jordan's parents. In all that time, Lucy had slept with Jordan a total of one time. Lucy was straight. She liked Jordan as a person and respected her as Lincoln's other partner and the woman that Lincoln would probably end up marrying. But she wasn't really attracted to Jordan and sex with her had been something she'd done because Jordan wanted it, not because she did.
Sex with Jordan hadn't been that bad. It was nothing special though like it was with Lincoln.
"What was that sound just now?" Lucy asked.
"I had to use my gun." Lincoln said. Lucy raised an eyebrow. She didn't even know Lincoln had a gun. There wasn't really much crime in Royal Woods. Even now that it was starting to urbanize more, crime was still relatively low. Still, if he felt better having one, Lucy wouldn't judge him. Since she hadn't even known he had one, it clearly wasn't something that he did much with.
"Nearra came to 'talk to us'. Though it started sounding more like threats after a while." Lincoln said. Lucy nodded, kissing Lincoln lovingly. She knew that he must have been shaken seeing Nearra again. She knew what Nearra had done to him, and having her track them down and come into their house must have been upsetting for him after what he went through. Clearly, he handled himself well. Lincoln sighed, going downstairs and getting a few hours of sleep. His bionic organs and nanomachines allowed him to need less sleep. Sleep rejuvenated him much faster, so he needed maybe 4-5 hours of sleep a night.
The problem would be making at least one room in the house lightproof so that he could be in the room during the day. It was likely they would make a downstairs room lightproof so that he could get there as quickly as possible if he needed to make a quick retreat into a safe location. He had put on sunblock, so he could be out for a while longer. But he wanted to get some rest. He was tired. A lot had happened very quickly for him. And now he had to think about moving with Jordan and Lucy. They would need to find a city that would have enough people in it that they wouldn't notice three Vampires.
Lucy had voted for Salem, Massachusetts. But Salem was a small city. Only 50,000 people approximately. Maybe they could move to Boston. With a population of about 4.5 million, they could live there and it would only be about an hour trip between Boston and Salem, so Lucy could do her thing in Salem and still live in a sufficiently populous city to support three Vampires. But Lincoln was very insistent that Lucy finish college first. Lucy was still only in her second year of college. She had at least two more years to go for her Bachelors' Degree.
Then she wanted to get a Masters' Degree. She was hoping to have moved by then. But she knew that wasn't likely to happen. Lincoln needed time to train with his powers, and under Nicodemus, she was sure that he could get the training that he needed. So the four years she still had of school would at least give him some time to train his abilities while they considered what they should do.
Jordan knew that Lincoln was also working with Lisa, sending her frequent reports of his newly enhanced abilities with his bionic organs. Lisa was working on treatments that would allow Lucy to bear Lincoln's children without worrying about the problems that procreating with members of his immediate family might otherwise cause. Jordan knew that if anyone could do that, it would be Lisa. But then, if Lincoln turned Lucy before he tried to impregnate her, could they still have children? Are Vampire children viable? Or would he need to impregnate her, let her have the children and then turn her?
What about their children? Would the children be Half-Vampire? How fast would Half-Vampires age? Would they have difficulty fitting in, either because they were sensitive to sunlight or because of how slowly they aged? Would they cause a problem for them as a threat to the secrecy of Vampires? Jordan didn't like having to think about this. But she was anxious about the difficult times they might have ahead of them. Lincoln yawned, falling asleep quickly, turning over on the bed that the girls had put down there.