“Yeah, but we’re still bloodsucking neck biters,” Dante told Nicole. “And that’s what everyone thinks of when they think vampire so you might as well just call us vampires.”
“We are not bloodsucking neck biters!” Jake snapped, eyeing Nicole with alarm, afraid they were going to scare her off. Smiling reassuringly, he said, “I have never, ever bitten anyone. And these guys only did it before blood banks, because they had to, to survive. We consume bagged blood from blood banks, like transfusions, like hemophiliacs do. I have never ever bitten anyone,” he repeated.
“You tried to bite her,” Tomasso reminded him.
“Like some Stoker monster,” Dante added.
Jake jerked his head to the man and nearly snarled with frustration. “I was sick and in agony and out of my head with blood loss. I’m not a monster.”
“Neither are we,” Dante said quietly.
Jake sat back as if he’d been slapped. Ever since finding out about what his mother had become and what the Notte family were, Jake had thought of them as monsters. The kind who acted all friendly and lured you in with candy and cookies like you were Hansel or Gretel. Only once they got you back to their little cottage in the woods, instead of revealing themselves to be a witch, they sprouted fangs and swept you up in a dark embrace so they could suck your blood.
He’d been afraid of them, Jake acknowledged. He’d seen all those horror movies as a boy, labeled these people he’d known all his life as vampires, and had been terrified of them. And then, once he was turned, he’d feared that now that he was one of them, he too was a monster. But while he’d tried to bite Nicole the night he was so sick, he had been out of his head, and he’d felt guilty as hell ever since waking up to the recollection. Monsters did not feel guilty.
Being turned had not changed who he was, Jake realized. He was still the same man inside, with the same values and beliefs. He was just healthier, looked younger, was a hell of a lot stronger, and was likely to enjoy a much longer life.
Jake glanced from Dante to Tomasso. These two men had been nothing but kind to him since he’d first met them as a boy. Even when he’d found out what they, and all the others were, they’d remained kind, responding to his attempt to shun them and shut them out of his life with patience and kindness. They’d just been waiting for him to get over his fears and realize that carrying the nanos that made them immortals did not make him, or them, less than human. That he was still a real boy.
“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly and it was all he had to say. Dante and Tomasso had been sitting still and expectant, waiting for the breakthrough they hoped had come, but no doubt fearing disappointment. Now they both relaxed back in their seats and grinned.
“No problem,” Tomasso rumbled.
“Took you long enough to come around though,” Dante said dryly. “But then you always were a stubborn cuss, kiddo.”
Jake didn’t miss the fact that the annoying “Pinocchio” he’d been plagued with since being turned had reverted back to the “kiddo” they’d called him before that. And he liked it, which was kind of strange since he’d hated it before this. He’d been in his early fifties when he was turned, and being fifty-one and called “kiddo” by two guys who looked twenty-five had irritated him no end. Now he took the nickname as a sign that he was forgiven for being such an ass . . . and he was grateful for it.
“I—” Jake began, intent on telling them how much he appreciated it, but Tomasso interrupted him.
“Don’t go getting all sappy on us, kiddo. You’re forgiven. You’re family. Enough said.”
“Besides, there are other issues now,” Dante added, nodding his head toward Nicole.
Jake glanced to her quickly, noting that she was eyeballing them all with trepidation. But at least she wasn’t running. Her trust in Marguerite was keeping her there, willing to listen to them. That or Dante or Tomasso, or both, were keeping her there.
Swallowing, Jake smiled at her reassuringly. “Right, I suppose you’d like to know about this vampire deal first?”
Nicole nodded silently.
Jake nodded as well and briefly debated how to do it. In the end he decided that— like ripping off a bandage—it was best to just get it done quickly. “Okay, here’s the deal, while we do have some things in common with vampires, we are not vampires,” he assured her quietly. “We are humans who have been infused with bio-engineered nanos that have been programmed to repair wounds and fight illness and infections. The nanos are kind of like supercharged robotic white blood cells.”
“Nanos that heal wounds and fight illness,” Nicole said slowly, relaxing a little. It was only then that he realized while her trust in Marguerite had made her willing to listen, she’d still been pretty anxious about it all.
“Exactly,” Jake said with a nod and then added, “Scientifically designed nanos, and they’re great.” He paused briefly to offer an apologetic smile to Dante and Tomasso, silently acknowledging that he’d changed his tune and this was the first time he’d ever said anything good about the nanos now traveling through his blood. He then glanced back to Nicole and added, “They’ve saved my life twice now. They are good. But while there are a lot of benefits to the nanos, they use more blood to carry out their work than any human body can create, and so we have to get that extra blood from an outside source. Our kind evolved and gained fangs, and at one time did have to bite people to get the blood they needed. But now that there are blood banks we have laws that don’t allow us to bite necks and suck blood, as Dante put it. We use blood from blood banks to get the blood we need.”
“Your kind bit people before blood banks?” Nicole asked with a frown. “How long ago were these nanos developed?”
“Quite a while,” he admitted with a grimace. “They were developed in Atlantis before the fall. Atlantis was quite isolated from the rest of the world by its geography and it advanced both socially and technologically much more swiftly than the rest of the world.”
“It must have been advances if they were creating nanos there while the rest of the world was sitting around fires with spears,” Nicole said dryly.
“Yes,” Jake agreed quietly. “And that world with fire and spears was the world the Atlanteans with nanos found themselves in after their homeland fell. They’d received blood transfusions to get the extra blood in Atlantis, but suddenly had no access to such things. They might have died, but the nanos had been programmed to ensure their hosts’ survival, so the nanos forced an evolution on their carriers: the fangs, increased night vision, even mind reading and mind control,” he listed off. “All of it meant to aid in their getting the blood they needed to survive.”
“I see,” Nicole murmured.
Jake hesitated, she seemed to be handling it okay so far, but this was a lot to accept. Deciding to hope for the best, he skipped on to the present. He could explain the rest of their special skills and such later. “Those nanos are the only reason I survived my dip in the poisoned hot tub the other night.”
“You’re sure it was poisoned?” Nicole asked with a frown.