Page 55 of Immortal By Morning
“We are immortals,” he insisted. “Vampires are something that was made up based on a loose description of immortals, but have nothing to do with us. We are not predators so much as—Think of us as hemophiliacs,” he interrupted himself to say. “We occasionally need to take in extra blood to survive because of a sudden loss of blood in our bodies. The only difference is that we are not bleeding out. The nanos are taking and using it.”
“Other than the nanos, I’m pretty sure that’s trueof vampires too,” she argued gently and pointed out, “They need blood to survive too.”
“But vampires are dead and soulless,” he repeated insistently. “We are not dead and we do have souls. Also, garlic does not affect us. Nor do crosses—our skin does not burn if we touch them. We do not sleep in coffins. We do not run with wolves or turn into a cloud of bats. We cannot crawl up walls or across ceilings. Wecanwalk into churches and not burst into flames. We can go out in the sun without bursting into flames, too.” He paused and then acknowledged, “Though we do tend to avoid going out in the sun without protection to avoid using up more blood than absolutely necessary.” He shook his head. “We are not vampires.”
Abril didn’t argue the point, mostly because she couldn’t. Vampiresweredead and soulless, and from what he had described his people were not. “Okay, so you prefer the nameimmortals.” She raised her eyebrows. “But you aren’t really immortal, are you? You said fire and decapitation will kill your kind.”
Crispin gave a slight nod and told her, “Fire is the more efficient method to kill us. For some reason the nanos make us highly flammable. We go up like a roman candle.”
“Yeah, but it’s messy and probably stinky,” she pointed out. “I would think that would make decapitation more efficient.”
“But decapitation only works if the head is kept away from the body long enough.”
“You don’t sound too sure,” she noted.
“Mostly because I am not,” he admitted. “I have heard that cutting off the head and keeping it awayfrom the body can kill us, but I also know that if you reattach the head within a certain timeframe, the nanos will heal it all the way around and reattach whatever needs reattaching and the victim will survive.”
“No way!” she said, her eyes growing wide.
“It is true,” he assured her.
“Well, how the hell do you know it’s true? Did someone lose their head and then...” She paused because she couldn’t even imagine what might have happened next. It was hard to believe anyone would then place the head up against the neck to see if it would reattach. She supposed they might have put the body and head together for burial, only to then have the healing happen as a complete surprise. Or maybe the whole head reattaching itself was an urban myth for immortals.
“It is not an urban myth,” Lucian barked from the kitchen and Crispin’s mouth tightened at his interference and then smiled at her sympathetically.
“I used to think it might be just a story made up from the past, but recently it was proven true when a scientist started doing things like that to our people in an effort to see what they could survive,” Crispin said, his voice tight. “He was cutting off the head and trying to see how far away you could have it from the body before the nanos would not be able to fix it, or for how long it could be held away from the body before the nanos shut down and could no longer reattach and repair it. He was also performing other rather horrible experiments on immortals; cutting off limbs, cutting them in half, etcetera.”
“He sounds like a fun guy,” Abril said dryly. “Hopefully, he was stopped?”
“Yes.” It was one word, heavy and grim.
“So, if I cut off your head and bury it in a box away from your body, you would eventually die. But not right away,” she said slowly.
“Yes,” he admitted, eyeing her a little leerily.
“Alternately, I could douse you in gasoline and set you on fire and that would kill you.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze now narrowed on her. She seemed awfully interested in how to kill him.
“So, the only ways for your kind to die are both horrible,” she said, “I mean, burning alive has to be excruciatingly painful physically. But having your head cut off... If you don’t die right away, you must be aware that your head has been removed from your body and—Good Lord! How long does it take for the brain to die after decapitation? How long would you be just alive, but not attached to your body and aware of everything including that you were indeed dying?”
“I have no idea,” Crispin admitted. “I am sure the scientist found out, and that someone else knows from his notes, but I am not that someone.”
“Hmm,” Abril muttered with dissatisfaction, then gave her head a small shake, and said, “Okay, so your ancestors were Atlanteans who developed an incredible cure using bioengineered nanos that basically make you stronger, faster, able to see in the dark, and almost indestructible.”
Crispin gave a slow nod, but his expression was dissatisfied, and he reluctantly said, “They also gave us the ability to read the minds of mortals and any immortals younger than us, as well as to control the minds of mortals and any immortal younger than us. But it is believed that was purely to make it easier forus to feed without everybody knowing about us,” he rushed out.
“You can read my mind and control me?” she asked her voice rising with each word.
“No,” he quickly assured her.
“You just said—”
“I should have explained,” Crispin interrupted. “Lucian, Bricker, Decker, Cassius, Roberts, and Anders can all read your mind, know what you are thinking, and can control you if they wish,” he admitted and then added swiftly, “But I would never allow them do that. At least not if I realized they were doing it.”
“But you supposedly can’t?” she asked with obvious disbelief.
“That is the truth,” he said firmly. “I cannot read or control you.”
