“Why pregnant women?” Desiree asked in bafflement.
“Because your great grandmother told me the spell was so strong the initial alteration needed brewing time to change the human, roughly five to six months. Why not infect pregnant women? It was the perfect opportunity. What’re a thousand years compared to nine months?” Esme finally noticed the blood dripping from her nose. After several futile attempts at stopping it, she let it slowly trickle down. She looked up at everyone. “Once the child was born, he or she was able to reproduce when old enough, have invulnerable skin, and all the other attributes that were needed to defeat my father and his ilk!”
“Except for the A’s and B’s, who needed thirteen years,” Clayton offered.
“Yes, that came as a surprise. I wasn’t certain of the effects the enchantment would have on anyone.”
“Okay, what about the eight different blood types of vampires you created?”
Esme took a minute to catch her breath. She knew she wouldn’t last much longer. “I thought if I created just one blood type vampire, I wouldn’t be able to see much evolution or variation.”
“You wanted a difference? Why?” asked Desiree.
Esme smiled with sadness. “You were my creation, my experiment. I wanted to see how far I could take it. And believe me, you took it to an extreme! All the different blood types far exceeded my expectations. You utterly defeated the Nephilims and the Eliouds, which thrilled me to no end.”
“We didn’t, but the vampires you created, later on, battled them with help from an unknown source. Even today, no one knows who helped us. That part is not in the history books of our species,” Clayton said grudgingly.
“Why did you continue creating us, when your goal was to get rid of your father and the rest of his clan was completed?” Maryl asked in bewilderment.
Esme coughed, and the blood dripped from her nose at a faster pace. She absently wiped her nose with her hand and continued. “Because the division among the eight leaders, who forced their subordinates to their way of thinking, was astounding to watch! And another benefit to watch was how some vampires became stronger right away, and some couldn’t ascend until puberty, which surprised even me! Still, others leveled the playing field with science, and others remained unchanged.”
Silence followed. Everyone was lost in their thoughts.
Clayton thought of something. “So… if you only bit a pregnant woman every hundred years, you only produced one child of each blood type. And my bloodline had difficulty producing children. I would imagine you needed an army to defeat your father and his trained warriors pretty fast.”
Esme was barely able to mutter, “You assume I only created vampires? You assume in my last thousand years I only went to one witch?”
“What? What do you mean by that?” Clayton demanded as he looked at Esme.
He noticed Esme was slumped to one side. Her hands were limp. He could hear her shallow breath. “Esme! Answer my question!” demanded Clayton.
It wouldn’t be long until she was gone, and Clayton’s answer would be forever lost!
Desiree noticed Esme slumped too as she stood up. “Esme! Are you all alright? Is there anything we can do for you?”
Esme coughed a few times. She did not have the energy to move. In a herculean effort, she managed to speak. “Know this, my time has come, and that means…,” Esme couldn’t finish her sentence. Gradually resolve came upon her face. “And with my death comes great suffering…”
“Yes, yes, you told us that already,” Maryl said with irritation.
“Esme, what did you mean by your statement? Tell me!”
Esme smiled but did not answer him.
“What do you mean, Esme?” Clayton demanded. He refused to stop asking the question.
Esme coughed up more blood. Sweat dripped from her forehead down into her blouse. “I.. I must tell you something before I perish.”
“How about the truth?” Clayton said.
“Enough, Clayton! She’s not going to tell us. Let her finish what she has to say!” Desiree said in frustration.
Esme coughed several times. With each cough, blood gushed out from her nose and mouth. “With my dying breath, I must… tell you something. I… I made you with a binding spell. When I die, so does … the spell,” she said weakly.
“What do you mean?” Desiree said in shock.
“The… spell was bound… attached to me. When I die… the spell dies too. That was part of the deal set forth two thousand years ago…”
“Will all of the vampires around the globe become human again?” Maryl asked in terror.
“Will we all die?” Desiree asked with dread.
“Yes,” Esme whispered as she fell to the floor.
The first sign Clayton had turned human was the vampires that were the furthest away became blurry to him. Then the talking started, but it was difficult to hear what anyone was saying. It had been over a thousand years since he was human. He’d forgotten the frailties and shortcomings of being mortal.
A few seconds later, Maryl yelled, “What’s happening to me?” She looked at her disappearing form and let out a blood-curdling scream.
Clayton saw that he was dematerializing too. He looked around the room. They were all slowly fading away.
Desiree looked at Clayton in utter terror as her lower body slowly vanished in front of their eyes.
Clayton looked at his fading form.
“Clayton! Help me! Do something!” she cried.
“Stay calm, Desiree. Stay calm,” he said to try to reassure her that their end would be painless.
“I’m too young of a vampire to die! I have much more I want to accomplish!” Desiree said through tears.
Little by little, their forms became less and less visible.
“Goodbye, Desiree…” Clayton said with profound sadness.
“Goodbye, Clayton.”
“I. I loved you.”
“I know. I…”
Bibliography
*This part is only partially correct. You can extract stem cells from blood using a peripheral blood stem cell collection technique. The article below elaborates:
http://leukemiabmtprogram.org/patients_and_family/treatment/blood_and_marrow_transplant/transplant_basics/how_are_stem_cells_collected.html
**The Elioud were the children of the Nephilim. There are several references in various theological faiths. However, I have given them a creative license, and in my book, they in no way
