Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 16:53:26 -0400
From: reapersharvest@mac.com
Subject: Underworld 1 (Revised)

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.