“I don’t believe you, Clayton. What are you really up to?”
“Careful of your accusations, Maryl.”
“Why? Are you going to kill me? Will one of your tribe members happen to find me in some ditch on an A or B territory to make me look guilty by trespassing upon your boundaries?”
Clayton’s face grew tense. “Careful where you’re treading! Let’s not forget the great yeomen purge, Maryl Rosser! Sol, before he lost to Ray in combat, and you were chiefly responsible for my family's death!”
Maryl lowered her eyes to the table. She played with her youthful hands for a moment.
She looked up. “I am sorry about that mishap, Clayton. It has weighed on my mind for over three hundred years.”
“I don’t believe you. And you still possess the treaty we all signed in blood! Because of that, we all had to comply with the boundaries!” Clayton said with ferociousness.
“At first, I was against it, but when I went into your home and found it, I knew I would need it someday. However, I find it interesting you seek to threaten the peace by not abiding by it any longer.”
Clayton’s face grew cold as the memories resurfaced. The murder of his family forever changed him. He trembled for a minute before regaining some measure of calmness. “Nothing you can do or say will bring them back, Maryl. Are we done here?” he said with a touch of building anger.
Maryl rose with dignity. “Clayton Cole, you’re hiding something, and I will make it my job to find out what it is.”
Clayton got up in one smooth motion and stood before Maryl. “I am not hiding anything. I want the serum destroyed. If the antigens on the surface of the A and B blood type were stripped away, and every human was an O blood type, it would weaken my blood type. I will not allow that.” He stood even closer to her. “And I don’t care if you don’t like my sweet smell. I am not particularly fond of your sour smell either. Just remember something, Maryl. I can suck your blood while you can’t take mine!”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Maryl said with apprehension.
“Try me, Maryl Rosser! And let’s not forget your exceptionally potent gray mist that rendered and killed my blood families by vomiting up their blood and bleeding from their orifices!”
Maryl looked at Clayton with pity. “So I have a weapon against you? Big deal. Your tribes are far stronger than ours, and because of that, we will not be pushed around any longer. That is my failsafe deterrent. And if the serum can produce just O type blood, poor Clayton and the rest of the A and B tribes will only be as strong as the O’s. I am weeping for your blood types.”
“I hope you don’t have anything to do with the disappearance of the enzyme Maryl, or the consequences might be war!”
“Are those your parting words, Clayton? If so, I am disappointed.”
“You seem awfully confident, Maryl. What are you hiding?”
“I am withholding nothing from you, but I can’t say the same thing about you.”
Clayton’s eyes squeezed to the point of closing. He contemplated draining her blood right there in the conference room. He barely made room for her to pass through as he watched her leave and head down the long corridor.
“She’s up to something. I can feel it,” Clayton said out loud as he left the conference room.
Chapter Six
Doctor Stephen Ward
One week prior
The bus station in downtown Indianapolis was packed with wall to wall commuter traffic. People lined up as far as the eye could see.
Stephen chose neutral color clothing to make him blend in, in case the police or the dreaded A and B vampires were looking for him.
While he waited for the bus to arrive, Stephen daydreamed and rejoiced in the fact that soon the mass population of humanity will go through a genetic metamorphosis, unlike any other within the last ten thousand years, and Stephen could not wait. And if the government refused the enhanced serum, the O types had a contingency plan for that as well!
The bus stopped a couple of feet in front of Stephen. He rushed on as the door opened. He grabbed a seat in the front while looking in all directions as he adjusted his sunglasses. He pretended to look at his phone despite taking out the battery. His tote bag that carried the future of humankind was on his lap with his coat covering it. Every once in a while, Stephen would glance around to see if anyone had followed him.
He lifted his shirt sleeve and snuck a glance at his left wrist. He traced the small tattoo of two fangs a half-inch apart from one another with four tiny droplets of red blood just underneath one of the pearly white fangs. Despite being the grandson of the founder, he still had to go through the challenging rituals to take over one day.
“The fellowship of the fangs,” he whispered with reverence. No five words ever sounded so beautiful and horrific at the same time. Stephen’s induction, and the subsequent tattoo of the secret society, were worth every breach of moral injustices he had committed, including the permanent removal of Doctor Shelly Leadstone.
The fellowship provided Stephen a way to work alongside Shelly, but it was up to him to study up on the work she was involved with at the institute. Stephen smiled. It had not been that difficult with his vast medical background in immunology. Enzymology was an emerging field, and all the sub-disciplines were in their infancy. Shelly had been instrumental in propelling her field of study forward by a decade. That much he admired about her. The other parts, Stephen discarded mentally. He had to look at the bigger picture. The fellowship had to make sure the serum was placed in the right hands.
The bus’s air brakes
