DISCLAIMER: This contains sexually explicit scenes; so if that offends you don't read it. The author and/or Nifty are not responsible for those under eighteen (18) years of age reading this. UNDERWORLD is property of the author and should not be used without the author's permission.
"And now?" Kyle whispered to himself as he stroked the hair on Damien's peaceful face, "The third and final bite." He took in one final look at the boy he'd discovered only two weeks before. He was so peaceful, deep in his coma. His skin like porcelain, obstructed only by a few stray strands of his shaggy dark hair. Gazing upon the boy's face brought back memories of how they first came to encounter one another...
"Well," Bryce looked at him excitedly, unable to keep his voice steady from the emotion of it all, "Are you ready?" Bryce is one of Kyle's best friends. He's usually energetic and playful, but this was an especially exciting time for Kyle.
"I don't think it's all even sunk in yet" Kyle responded just as anxiously. Just then Miranda returned from speaking with one of the hospital administrators. The people in charge knew not to ask too many questions about these sorts of visits. All they knew about Kyle's kind of people was that whenever they visited they were going to have one less patient.
"We'll have a couple of hours where they store the comatose, hopefully we'll find a good candidate." She spoke with control and calm in her usual matter-of-fact tone. Miranda was a striking young black woman who appeared to be in her early twenties. When she saw how nervous Kyle was she held his hand as she led him past the double doors into the wing of the hospital the nurses have so sensitively dubbed "The Warehouse". This was an unexpected gesture of intimacy for Miranda, but Kyle's always been special to her, he's been there since the beginning.
On any other night, the hallway would have been the most depressing place you could imagine. Dim florescent lights, a couple flickering ominously, stained ceiling tiles, and peeling paint on the walls that were lined with dormant equipment. There was no point in maintaining this part of the hospital. The whole hallway had an eerie pale greenish glow cast over it all, the color of sickness. The people in here were close to dying if they're lucky, but most were trapped inside their own bodies. It was purgatory, the space between life and death. In it now stood the inhabitants of that place before the afterlife, where time loses it's grip on you. Tonight however, the dim hallway was a treasure trove of possibility. What Kyle was here for was one of the most important times of a vampire's life, his first turn.
"So," Kyle began when he realized that they were just standing in the hallway. His legs were weak and his heart was fluttering, "where do we begin?" He was grateful to have Bryce and Miranda, his two best friends with him.
"Well, that administrator told me we should look towards the end of the hallway," Miranda signaled in that direction, and paused before continuing, "It's where they keep the ones that don't get too many visitors." She added in a whisper, disturbed by her own words.
So down they went, passed the doors of the rooms, which were full and empty at the same time. They were what you'd expect, three beds per room, each with bodies lying motionless hooked up to great machines through various tubes. They reached the very end of the hallway and turned to the door on their right to begin their search for the right candidate. After looking through about seven rooms, Kyle began to get anxious.
"Miranda, none of these are right. What if we don't find anybody?" Miranda knew he was just overreacting, she was emotional too when she did this first about 115 years ago. She acted as a mother figure for Kyle and knew how to calm him down.
"Kyle, we will find somebody," She reassured him in a soothing voice, "If not here than in the next city. You'll know when you've found the right one, I promise. I knew when I saw you."
They continued from room to room, looking at more and more candidates. Kyle could sense all their dormant minds, they were different than the ones of live humans that he was used to reading. They seemed to just loll about as opposed to swirl around in their heads. He could "hear" their stories. Most were memories of the accidents that paralyzed them, but a few were images of loved ones. It saddened him, but so far none seemed to be right. A few were physically or emotionally capable of sustaining the crossover, but none had the right wavelength. The one he knew he could connect with on that higher plane. That connection was something vital to the relationship between a biter and his sire.
Finally, they reached door number 743. They entered with the same anxiety and eagerness with which they'd entered all the others, except this time, Kyle sensed something. He sensed it, among all the slowly rippling minds that were undulating in the room, filling the atmosphere like some unseen ethereal ocean. Among them all one particular movement stood out, it was the one he was looking for. He immediately "plugged in" to it, and saw a few snapshots of memories. A pair of headlights speeding towards him, nothing new there. Then, the filthy stench of an alley filled his nostrils, and he reached out his hand to the cold roughness of an invisible wall. Just a random scenario in the boy's life. Boy, yes, he saw him clearly now, his thoughts formed a mental portrait that showed his true colors. Upon opening his eyes, Kyle looked down and noticed that he was standing right over him, the boy who would be his first turn, the only one he'd have for a long time. He turned his head and grinned at Bryce and Miranda, both of whom smiled back at his excitement. They knew he'd found the right one. Miranda strode over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Whenever you're ready, just remember what we practiced. Find the right spot and know when to pull out, this isn't a feeding." She patted him reassuringly and returned to her previous spot next to Bryce. All this time, Kyle never tore his eyes away from the boy's sleeping face. To him though, the tranquility was deceiving. The boy's head was a flurry of thought. He couldn't read them, few vampires can, he could only sense moods and mental state. Aside from the occasional images sent out by particularly active minds like the one he'd just had, which were not uncommon. He sensed his mind flow and felt it course through his body, through his veins. most neglect just how much of a person's 'essence' is in their blood. It accounts for the connection a vampire forms with those they bite. The difference here is that unlike most, this one will survive.
As Kyle slowly leans his head towards the boy's neck, he inhales his scent and it's as if he can hear his blood rushing through the boy like a raging river. The noise grows as he takes in more of the boy's mind flow, his feel, his scent. He concentrates and it's as if he can see and sense every part of the boy's body at once. Miranda has now stepped back and signaled for Bryce to do the same, they didn't want their essences interrupting the process.
Kyle knew just where to bite, it was the same spot he always went to whenever he fed. His fangs automatically released and dropped down in front of his canines. He was salivating immensely and he gently licked the boy's soft neck. Every skin cell and all of the boy's pheromones were a burst of flavor to him and he could resist no longer. His body was automatically reacting to the situation and sensed a turning. Meaning the special hormones had been released in his brain and he could no longer wait. He threw his head back and plunged his razor sharp teeth deep into the boy's soft flesh. The flow of blood was instant and full. He was no longer aware of his body. Just their two minds linked together, now swirling as one.
Because Kyle's body sensed this was a turn and not a feed, he was not in hunting mode. If he meant to kill, his fangs would have released a neurotoxin to place his victim in an almost sexual state of euphoria while he fed. Not in this case. In order to prevent the boy from losing too much blood and dying, his fangs released a coagulant to heal the bite faster. For a turn, Kyle's mind strengthened the mental link between the two. Vampires always had visions of a victim's life while they fed, but for a turn that bond was greater. Images of the boy's life were flashing before his eyes, scents in his nostrils, sounds in his ears, also his mind was a flurry of the boy's strongest emotions. It's an ordeal no human could survive. Only vampire's minds could sustain such an experience. As the boy's blood gushed through Kyle, so did the visions. Finally, the flow weakened, then stopped. the coagulant had done its job and the wound had been sealed until the next bite a few days later. Kyle slowly pried himself off the boy. The intensity of the moment made his hands grip to the bed so strongly that it was difficult for him to dig them out. he stood up slowly, blood still dripping from his lips. He licked off most and gave his mouth a final wipe of his hand. Turning back to face his friends, who'd never left the corner of the room and watched this process with amazement and pride. Kyle's face was an equally complex group of emotions. It was shock, fear, pride, and curiosity all in one. Miranda approached him first. She spoke to him efficiently, her hands folded neatly in front of her. "We'll have the hospital people replace his IV with a synthetic blood by-product. It's a chemical from Sangeo enriched with nutrients. This will go on during the turn to sustain it and prevent him from having to bite immediately after the crossover. It makes it a smoother transition." Kyle understood, when he'd been turned he didn't have that luxury. As soon as he woke up he had to feed his insatiable appetite before even knowing what he'd bec
That was the first bite. Vampirism is transmitted through the saliva of predators and for enough of the disease to spread to a victim, the change must be prolonged over three separate bites every week. For the second, they were more prepared when entering the boy's room. This time only Miranda came along, Bryce had to feed. He noticed a rust colored liquid in his IV and guessed that to be the synthetic blood. Leaning down to the boy's neck, he noticed two small scars where he'd bitten him before. He reopened the wound for another bite and this time learned the boy's name as the visions got more in depth, Damien. He thought it was beautiful. The stronger the bond between them got, the more he came to care for the boy. He now knew what it was to have a sire. His love was fraternal in a way, he felt proud and humbled at the same time. It's a common myth among vampires that the relationship between a vampire and his sire is similar to one of master and servant, or father and son at best. But it's different, the dynamic was more equal. As difficult as it must be to comprehend an "equal" relationship between Kyle and a comatose, but the bond was mutual. The boy was also having similar flashes about Kyle's life. It was almost sexual in a way, the exchange of thoughts and emotions for vampires was like the exchange of fluids for humans. The mental significance of sucking blood is probably the root of that perception. The second time, Kyle looked at the curves of Damien's face and the rich waviness of his hair in a new light, as if he were radiating his own light.
And now, in his third visit to Damien's bedside in three weeks, Kyle noticed that nearly all of his tubes were gone. When he had first found Damien he had what seemed like dozens of tubes al through his body, including his shunt, his respirator, and his IV. Now that his healing capabilities were evolving so close to his re-awaking, the IV was all that remained. There it stood, containing that synthetic blood that had hung over Damien's bed as a rust colored beacon in the midst of the dirty vanilla and sterilized white of the hospital room. He was flagged, it seemed, as a patient who would son be checking out after three years in a coma. All this reminded Kyle that there was no turning back, all he could do was hope for the best. Kyle's view on the whole thing was changing. Damien was so close to a complete crossover and a new life after so much time without his old one. Kyle couldn't help but wonder, how will Damien respond to vampirism? Will he become another one of the sad suicide cases, running into the sunrise, tears of anguish streaming down their cheeks at the abomination they had become. Kyle could see that happening to Damien. Hell, he almost did it to himself. It pained him to think that after such an emotional investment, he could lose Damien before ever getting to know him.
The dreams were back. Only they were more than dreams, they were visions, realities, entire worlds created by my own mind. They've been getting sharper. I don't know when they started or how they've intensified, I had lost all sense of time. In the beginning, there was darkness, then it swirled before my eyes. Well, I shouldn't say eyes, this was with a sense sharper than any my body was capable of, it was as if my mind had eyes of its own. And they've been focusing more and more. First I saw, then I felt, and smelled, and finally, I felt. My mind had finally finished building this reality for me to experience. But it was not my own. These things were from somebody else's life, a life that now was flowing inside me. My mind used to be so dormant, trapped in my own body. But now, it was struggling for freedom. When I was once confined to a small space, my mind was exploring my body, old territory that had been abandoned. Slowly, it was regaining control. I could feel it when I sensed the memories around me, they were getting more real.
I was in a dark room, cold, just one flickering candle, and I was surrounded by crates. No, not crates, coffins. They were all around me, standing like tall, dark soldiers. But I was not afraid, I was used to this. This was home. Yes, I was an apprentice here, working for a mortician. The candle flickered out and the room dissolved in the swirling darkness and was washed away. It was replaced by another image, though. This was with the mortician. A tall, thin austere man bowing over his work table, upon which was a body. This was the body of a young girl. I could tell she was black, but deathly pale. She'd bled to death. She looked like nothing more than a workhouse girl, I wondered who'd give her a funeral. Well, that thought may have been a little premature because all of a sudden she sat up. The mortician was so shocked he didn't have a chance to escape before she grabbed his chest and bit into his throat. There was blood everywhere. I realized what was going on and ran to hide. I should have left altogether, but I had no place else to go. I hid in one of the coffins, a cheap one so I could breathe. I felt the rough walls around me, I heart my breath, I felt my heart race. Then I heard her approach. She found me with no effort at all, but when she threw open the lid and stared me in the eyes, I did not receive the imminent death I'd expected. Instead she held out her hand and said...
"Don't be afraid."
The words echoed in my mind as a bright white light overtook the room, I could just barely make out her face. Only it was not her face. It was another face, the face of a boy. Slowly, his features burned through the blankness and he came into focus. The rest of the world followed and I oriented myself. I realized that I was laying down and he was looking down on me. He was beautiful, he must be an angel, I must be in heaven. I saw him smile and that just pulled me faster out of my state. Soon it was all clear to me, clearer than ever before. I could feel the air in my nostrils and breathed deep. Power was coursing through every inch of my being. I forced myself upright in my bed, with great effort and soreness. I looked over at the boy. I would have asked him who he was, but I knew him. I don't know how, but I could feel a connection between us. As if there were some unseen ocean filling the room and the currents originated form between us. I was this boy, or at least I was him in the visions. My dry throat croaked as I uttered my first words.
"I know you."
The boy smiled and took my hand, "Yes you do. I am the one who brought you back." I didn't know what else to say.
"How?"
"Damien," Damien, yes that is my name, "I am a vampire, and now you are as well. I changed you." A what? What the hell is a... Oh God, I remember vampires now.
"But that's impossible." My voice was still hazy from so many years of slumber. The boy leaned in closer and continued.
"No it's not. I am a vampire, I bit you while you were in a coma, now you are a vampire too. Yes we do exist, in fact there are many of us. We are nocturnal, drink blood, and live for hundreds of years, but we can be killed by sunlight and garlic." I'd heard this all before, those were the stories after all, but could this be true? I don't see how else I could be awake short of a miracle. He could tell I was still skeptical. He turned and showed me something, a pouch full of liquid hanging on a pole. I noticed that I was hooked up through my arm to its strange rust-colored liquid. He unhooked the back and the tube in the process.
"You won't be needing this anymore." he turned and showed me the label. It had a fancy logo on it and the name of a company, Sangeo. I didn't recognize the liquid inside, though.
"What is this stuff?"
"It's a vitamin enriched blood substitute to sustain the change. Otherwise, you would need to feed right after waking up. You've lost most of your own blood in the change."
"And Sangeo?"
"They're the vampire-owned company that produces our blood products and by-products. They've actually revolutionized feeding for us. It used to be that the only way to maintain our healing capabilities and, therefore, longevity, was through direct biting. Now, thanks to their new preservation technologies and chemicals, we can drink blood out of a glass the way you used to drink milk. Not to mention we can get more nutrition out of it." He hesitated before continuing, "Some, however still prefer occasionally the taste of a fresh kill." The concept of killing people for food horrified Damien, of course, but it didn't sound so bad as long as he didn't have to do it with his own hands. After all when he used to eat steak he wouldn't have been capable of shooting the cow himself. Besides, his sympathy towards society had weakened ever since he discovered just what it was capable of.
"So, being a... vampire, as you say. What does that mean exactly?" Damien was beginning to accept the news and was curious as to how his life would change.
"Well, first of all, you are nocturnal. UV rays are deadly for vampires and sunlight will fry you if it were to come into contact with your skin. Garlic is also poisonous to us, but crosses and bibles are nothing you have to worry about." Damien thought this boy was being brusque about the whole thing, but at the same time felt linked to him in some strange way. Every word and motion of his just... made sense. It was as if Damien could truly understand this boy without ever having met him before.
Damien could feel the energy returning to his muscles as each of his extremities slowly linked together. Slowly he turned himself in his bed until he was sitting upright on the side with his legs hanging over the edge like limp noodles. His bones creaked like old floorboards, and his muscles were almost liquid. Kyle recognized his pain and immediately stood to help Damien. Supporting his upper body with his arm, Kyle attempted to lift Damien off the bed and help him stand on his own two feet.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just weak."
"Tell me when you can stand, alright?" Kyle had developed a brotherly concern for his charge already. His warmth was unexpected for Damien, who'd begun to view the boy as cold and distant. He was grateful for his help, though, and was glad to have his support during this experience. Slowly, as the blood (mostly artificial now) rushed through his legs, it was like a wave of life itself. Soon, not only could Damien stand on his own, but he began to stagger away from Kyle, enraptured in his own ability to move for the first time in years. He stopped and turned around to face Kyle with a look of joy and wonder on his face.
"Wow. I'm walking again." Years in a coma had allowed his mind to be so detached form his physical being that he found it a strange sensation to suddenly be joined with it again. Kyle couldn't help but smile, maybe this would go well after all. He walked over to Damien and took his hand.
"Come on, let's get you some clothes." Damien looked down and noticed with embarrassment that he was still only wearing the hospital gown. More than that, the blood rushing through his body must have been doing so very quickly because he had become hard. Blushing, he allowed Kyle to lead him out of the hospital room and down the hall. As they were walking, Damien looked into all the hospital rooms full of comatose patients. It was like a morgue, but worse. The reaper was at the door, but nobody would let him in. Damien and Kyle exited the Warehouse and passed by a nurse, who gave them a strange look, but didn't say anything. This was another one of those visits. Kyle led him into a store room full of bins. Walking down each row of shelves, they passed by more and more bins with names and other information on them. The room was disturbing to them both. Everything looked gray here, the fluorescent lights provided the hum of a hellish choir. These boxes contained people's lives that had been cut short. Now they lay here gathering dust with so many others. It seemed like such a waste of life, knowing that these souls would probably never explore the world and get to expand, instead they're doomed to remain on these shelves, the reaper's crop just waiting to be harvested. All except damien's box that is. When they reached a certain shelf, both of them stopped and turned around to face a box labeled in black marker, PARKER, DAMIEN. There it was, Damien's old life, sitting here. His was probably the first box to ever leave the room with the owner still alive. Well, alive in the broadest sense of the word. Kyle pulled the box off the shelf and set it on the floor. they knelt down side by side on the moldy tiles under the flickering light and looked inside. There were all the belongings he had on him when he was admitted. His clothes, sneakers, everything. Damien looked over at Kyle and pulled everything out and began to dress himself. Initially Damien was self-conscious being naked in front of Kyle, but that quickly ev
the world that made things like modesty seem silly. They were beyond having to hide things from each other. As he pulled on his pants and shirt, more and more memories flooded his mind of his life before the accident. The images rushing through Damien's mind also invaded Kyle's. Kyle already knew most of Damien's story from the feedings, but now he understood it all as he strained his mind to see all the memories. Damien grew up in Queens, the only child of a poor family. His father was abusive and his mother was a victim as well. One night when he was eight years old she took him away from that house to try and save him. They went to Manhattan and found a tenement. School was torture, but at least they were away form him. But one day when he got home he found the house was a mess. He walked around, his heart racing, trying to find his mother. Finally he found her in the bedroom, a beaten bloody pulp. He thought she was dead until her eyes twitched and she whispered to him, "run." He then heard somebody come out of the bathroom and saw it was his father, he had found them. Damien turned and ran with his father close behind.
Managing to stay just a few steps ahead of his father, Damien ran out of the building and into the street, somehow managing to escape him. After that he decided to live "off the grid," so to speak. Without any other means of survival, Damien sustained himself as a rent boy by the pier for about eighteen months. Until one day when one of his tricks got a little to rough and tried to rape him. Damien suddenly found himself powerless once again the same way he was to his father. This time, however, when he escaped the man's grip and ran into the street he was hit by a car.
Kyle was disgusted by the savagery of humans as he considered the torture this boy was put through. This same beautiful specimen who was dressing before him now. Damien felt Kyle's pity and looked up at him as he was putting his shoes on. Kyle returned his look sympathetically to which Damien cast his eyes down in shame and put his shirt on. Kyle stood up and approached Damien. He stood a bit taller than him and gently lifted Damien's chin up, forcing him to look him in they eye. When Damien first opened his eyes when he woke up, Kyle was surprised to see that they were a startling ice blue. They were undoubtedly his best feature, they complemented his dark hair and thin face perfectly. At this moment they were brimming with emotion. Kyle just smoothed the boy's hair back and whispered to him, "You're home now."
Home. It was a word who's meaning had been lost on Damien since he was forced from it. To all of a sudden become part of a home again was more jarring to Damien than even vampirism was. Damien's comatose state had slowed down his development tremendously and his clothes fit him relatively well. Once finished, he stepped back from Kyle and looked down at himself and then turned his up towards Kyle's once again, "So? What do you think?" Damien smirked and Kyle grinned back at him.
"Perfect." And he meant it. Kyle took Damien's hand once again and lead him out of the room, down the hall and to the elevator. Once out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk, the cool night air hit Damien like a wall. The world had become such a foreign place and Damien inhaled deeply, almost swooning. It wasn't even just form the air. Damien was suddenly aware of what felt like great waves crashing down on his mind from all sides, he felt as if his brain was trapped in an angry river. The waves were ripples crashing into one another. The ripples were in the thousands, originating from what seemed like random points in space. When they collided, his whole mind shook. Damien grabbed his head and fell to his knees, trying to keep out the waves. This was different than the hospital, there the waves were calmer, more docile. Kyle was instantly kneeling at his side, grasping his shoulders and whispering into his ear.
"I know what you're feeling, you have to stop fighting them. Just let them pass through and they'll begin to flow freely."
"How!?" Damien muttered through gritted teeth, he was hysterical. He could hear the waves too, it was a bizarre whistling screaming noise.
"Just... open up." Damien knew what he meant by that and did so by releasing his mental barriers. It was literally like opening floodgates and at first he felt as if his mind would being swept away. Soon the sea calmed, though and began to flow freely through his mind. As he felt the currents rippling through, the noise softened as well, and he recognized them as thousands of voices as one. Slowly, he released his vice grip on his head and stood up. Damien's heart was still racing and he turned to Kyle, who'd gotten up with him.
"What was that?"
"Those," Kyle responded, "were the voices of every living human within roughly a 100 meter radius," Damien just gave him a bewildered stare, so he continued, "Human's minds are more complex than we think. Their entire subconscious is part of an ethereal current that flows through the whole world, linking everyone of them under a common aura. We vampires have superior mentalities and can sense this 'ocean' of sorts. We cannot control it, or see a lot of it at a time. We can, however, sometimes listen to it."
"That's what those noises were."
"Yes, those were the collective inner voices of those people. If your training progresses well we'll soon be able to teach you to 'read' from it." Kyle patted him on the back.
"Who is 'we', exactly?" At this point the two had begun walking. Kyle was leading, Damien followed closely.
"Vampires live in clans that move in cells around a specific area. In this case, the United States. Clans have a 'migration' pattern that keeps the various cells moving between the different headquarters in a specific rotation schedule. Our cell leader is Miranda, we'll be leaving Seattle in about a week."
"Whoa, leaving Seattle?" Of course Damien had other questions, but at the moment he was more concerned with leaving his home city so soon.
"Yes. We've been here a few months now, staying at our local shelter a few blocks away. After us, another cell will be staying here. It's a complex system with a complex hierarchy of power. Above us is the cell leader, Miranda, and above her is the regional supervisor for our area. The regional supervisors report to the Chief Advisor, assistant to the Clan Leader. Miranda is reporting to the regional supervisor for the Eastern Region. There we have locations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Miami, DC, basically all the major cities as far west as Nashville. We keep our stations for the most part in urban areas because it's easier to blend in. In order to keep an eye on the various locations, they gather reports from the cell leaders who's cells are occupying the areas. For example, right now the cell in Boston is sending updates to one, whereas those in, say, New Orleans, send reports to the supervisor for the Central Region. It can be a bureaucratic nightmare sometimes."
"What are headquarters usually like?"
"Usually a large industrial or financial building that appears condemned but we've converted. If you ever see an old building with boarded up windows, they're usually to keep the sunlight out during the day. Facilities include a main hall, one large public room for gatherings, sometimes used as a nightclub. Other clans come over to party and it promotes communication. That's the nightlife for you. There are also dorms, kitchen, showers, training rooms, all that sort of thing. Vampires have gained a lot of power in the human's system through real estate."
"Vampires are actually part of our economy?"
"It's one of the only reasons the government agrees to hide our existence from the public. The federal powers of many countries conceal the vampire community. They keep detailed records of our movements and population growth. I had to go through hoops just to get permission to change you. In the United States they even have a government agency for 'supernatural affairs.'"
"Why do they keep it secret?"
"That's the way it's always been, first of all. I mean, vampires have existed for thousands of years, there are some alive today who are older than this country. Besides, can you imagine the war if our existence were revealed to the public? Now don't get me wrong, some countries are less hospitable. In Latin America, Italy, and other predominantly Catholic countries, they conceal the existence of our kind, but have federally funded 'slayers' who are essentially hunters who kill vampires. Then there are the countries where we hold a lot of influence. You see, in the eyes of vampires, the US and pretty much all of the 'New World' are still quite new. Vampires are traditionally very conservative and prefer to remain where civilized vampirism was born, in Europe. It began in Eastern Europe, you know, the old Ottoman Empire, and spread to the West. There, vampirism is the way it was born, ruled by tradition, ritual, and brutal classism. There it is much more feudal. The ones in power are only of the ancient noble bloodlines, and only natural born vampires. Those who've been bitten are second class citizens. The Triad has a vice grip on Europe and the EU."
"Wow. So what is the Triad, exactly?"
"The Triad is made up of the leaders of the three most influential vampire clans, Sangreal, Drakulia, and Vieszcy. They are hundreds of years old and rest often to maintain their longevity. Vampires are not immortal, but just age much slower. Theirs is a rotation system much like that of our cells. One rules and the other two sleep until another one awakens to take the reins. Their advisors are the members of the Council, the other clan leaders. Vieszcy is a relatively new addition to the Triad, his bloodline married into one of the original monarchs and eventually diluted it. He's a welcome addition there, though, he's expanded their Russian stronghold."
"If they have so much control over there, then why are they not here in the US?"
"Like I said before, the US is a relatively new country to the Old World Vampire society, a society that is notoriously conservative. The Americas and any of the 'New World' are seen as Rogue nations to them, which in a way they are. You see, when America was first developing, many vampires who felt smothered in the Triad's vampiric society decided to emigrate along with many humans. At the time of Ellis Island, the US was a land of opportunity to us as well. The Americas were gaining power fast and it drew the best and the worst of our civilization. Those who wanted to rebuild vampire society for a better quality of living, and those who wanted to manipulate the environment for their own personal gain. When the Triad saw the type of people that were leaving, thieves, revolutionaries, those who were bitten, they thought it was good riddance to bad rubbish and cut us off. Here we did develop a new society, based largely on the mold cast by the Old World. We too have a Triad, only it is not made up of clan leaders based on bloodline, but rather those who have gotten ahead enough to make it to the Big Three. Weapons traffickers, clan leaders with nightclubs all over the nation, prostitution, gambling, blood farming and research. That last one is the case with Sangeo, the company owned by Hellion Sanger. He harvests and distributes pretty much all of the blood supply in the US. He does so in cooperation with other clans through their Houses. He made such an agreement with ours as well."
Damien was taking this all in, but could tell that Kyle was hiding something from him. He looked at him quizzically and Kyle recognized the look. He sighed and looked off into the distance for a bit before continuing, "I knew I wouldn't be able to dodge the subject much longer," he turned to Damien, "There's a big part of our history and culture you need to know about, that I've been omitting this whole time. Damien," Kyle stopped and looked him straight in the eye, "I need to tell you about werewolves."
Hunter just felt so miserable that he was even too lethargic to will himself to die. It had been this way forever. Packs usually have a strong sense of community and attachment to one another, but Hunter had always separated himself from the other werewolves in the Reapers, his pack. While the others wandered the city together, having all sorts of fun, Hunter would sit in his usual spot, in some great gazebo-like structure in New York's Riverside Park. He liked it, it was difficult to access and almost always empty, save for the occasional homeless. It was a large stone building with great arches and a great view of the sunset and the bustling West Side highway. He would sit in one of the arches, leaning against a column with his feet dangling, looking down the littered hill sloping down to meet the highway below. Right now he was enjoying a view of the sunset and the cars zooming past. It always helped him think. About what, well that varied. Sometimes it was comforting, at other times, devastating. All Hunter knew for sure was that his life was missing something. Even though that when he became a werewolf a built-in family came with it, but those connections felt incomplete to him. He needed a deeper connection, he needed love. More accurately, he craved it. With each fiber of his being, he yearned for someone to love. He missed what he used to have...
Hunter had a boyfriend in his old life, Gary. They had the typical hidden romance, the only exception being, obviously, they were boys. It was one night upstate on a camping trip with him under the full moon that he was bitten. A huge creature meant to kill Hunter, but he somehow fended it off until he grabbed a tree branch and swung it against the creature's head. He'd escaped, but his arm was a bloody mess. After a trip to the hospital and a couple of months of rabies injections, it was just a troubling memory. Until Hunter noticed how he'd been getting better and better at football, like he was getting stronger, more durable, every day. When he and Gary made love, he became more forceful and passionate. Everything was just... enhanced. The first full moon after the bite, Hunter changed. He morphed into a six foot tall, humanoid wolf. His upper body had a tapered V-shape of a muscular human, but his lower body had become quite wolf-like, including a tail. He had dark brown fur, and the head of a dog, sort of pitbull-like. He was in hunting mode and had no control over his instincts as, with surprising agility and stealth considering his girth, he hunted down some random homeless man and thoroughly ate him. That same night, in wolf form, he was initiated into the Reapers.
Werewolves live in packs with their own designated hunting grounds that they claim as their own. Hunter had to get out of there, but soon he was surrounded by six or seven creatures much like himself. One approached him, looked at him, sniffed around him a bit, and then made a welcoming gesture that must have meant that Hunter was one of them now. Wherever a newly turned wolf made his first kill, he automatically became a member of that pack. So he ran off with them when the sun approached. So now he and his pack occupied the subway tunnels beneath their grounds for the most part, as most urban packs do. That is, except during the night when they come out and enjoy life the way most children of darkness do.