So early one morning I found myself looking at Kabul awaking with a jolt, when I should have been returning to base. If an alarm had not gone out already one would. I ditched the stolen jeep outside the city in a cluster of burned out frames on the roadside and joined the people entering the city in the cool of the morning. I made my way through many check points, but few then were aware of our existence, and fewer still were able to discern the subtle differences between man and vampire. I wonder if you would have had the ability.
My face scowled with offense, and though he offered no retraction, he said, “I think you assume everyone to be a vampire until proven otherwise,” I grunted, “A wise course of action on your part to be sure.
“One of our own waved me through the final checkpoint and I slipped into the General’s quarters and waited for him slouched in one dark corner.
As soon as the door clicked closed behind him one of my hands closed over his mouth and pulled his head back while my teeth ripped into his throat and his blood welled into my mouth as if it longed to be there. I shook with the exhilaration of his blood and the fear that he would not turn. Though he struggled, jerking forward so that my lips slipped along his neck, stomping my feet with his black boots, and attempting to hit me with his free hand, that strength was not enough surety in and of itself that he would turn. Some die before they can turn and others are caught in the thrall sickness their minds stripped in a flash of heat as the pathogen courses through their veins, even as their bodies gain strength.
But the General came to more quickly than any vampire I’ve ever turned. No sooner than I’d turned from his fallen body to smoke a fretful cigarette he was standing again, weakly rubbing his neck and staring at the blood that stained his hands. The skin around the raw wound, the wound that becomes the scar that all Naturals bear, never mind that we the Mades made the Naturals, that skin was sallow and loose. A thin sheet of sweat left behind from his exertion lay across his wrinkled forehead and his silver hair was in disarray.
“What is this?” he asked rubbing his hands together as if cleaning them, but instead just smearing the blood further. He seemed to be talking to himself, so I didn’t answer. When he looked up he saw the blood on my face, put a hand to his neck and gasped, then flew across the room, his uniform rustling faintly between his legs as he moved and pinned me to the wall with one stumpy hand clenched around my neck. “What have you done to me?” he flexed squeezing his hand. “Why?
I pushed him back firmly and he let me down. “I have changed you; you are a dagger now.” He had trembled rubbing his hands together again and staring at me.
“I was not informed of this.”
“They did not know.”
“I’m hungry.”
“That’s typical,” I told him.
“A dagger, the assassins.” He moved in front of a mirror and scrutinized himself warily while I watched him, wonder what he saw as he rubbed his chin and gingerly traced his bite mark. I saw the same stodgy man I’d seen before, only a trifle paler. I stepped into the bathroom, washed my face, and then returned with the wet washcloth. He was pushing one fist into his other palm and gritting his teeth. I handed him the cloth.
“Do I have all of your abilities?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “You are very young. You are like a man given a weapon for the first time. You must train with it before you can aim it properly.”
“I’m hungry.”
“We had been the Delta Squadron, Night Asps, when we’d first left training and that is how we’d referred to ourselves, our little group of vampires, when we’d brought the general into the fold. We’d turned him so that he could use his influence to allow us more freedom, which he did when it served him, but more he used that influence coupled with his natural tendency to rise to the forefront, first killing the vampire who’d had the idea to turn him in the first place. That was the first vampire that I’d seen killed by a vampire, but not the last. At the time we were all insane, overpowered by our wanton desire for blood, we shrugged aside the death, and ignored the General as he turned other vampires to assist him as ambition took root in the withered remains of his bitter heart. He was certain he’d never be rejoined with his beloved wife even in death, once he’d become a vampire, and to stem the pain he’d set his sights on becoming the President.
So, the General returned to the United States with me in tow, never letting me venture far from him, the bond of his turning was very strong, and I didn’t care as sated as I was with blood. The Mades among our group were all as dulled by the blood as I and the General was overcome by his newfound power, convinced of his immortality he maneuvered toward his goal. Once stateside we infiltrated the compound that contained the laboratory where I’d been created and the compound where I’d grown up. Then it had only been a small group of us that
