Chapter 13
The class was over quickly, almost feeling like it hadn’t really even begun. Jayde was fascinated with everything she learned and honestly couldn’t wait to learn more. She didn't like history, but she figured that was changing very rapidly.
“Alright, I’ll meet you in the lunchroom after this next class. Hopefully our crazy science teacher doesn’t keep us after like he usually does.” Pheli stood, voice sour when she talked about her teacher. “You’ll like the food though! I think today is spaghetti.”
Jayde grinned. “I freaking love spaghetti.”
The girls giggled and then Pheli was off, waving before she rushed out of the room. The other students had mostly left, but the stragglers were also quickly gone, leaving Jayde alone with Mr. Crea. He erased what had been written or drawn on the chalkboard then sat at his desk, looking over at her.
She slowly got up, taking her things with her, as she moved to a spot up closer to the desk and chalkboard. “So… what’s in the lesson plan today?”
He stood and walked to her, hovering a hand over her head. He frowned. “Well, I was hoping the spell would wear off enough that I could snap the strings and get you used to dealing with your natural instincts, but that spell is holding strong. It may hold out longer than we thought it would. I may have to send you to the nurse to take a guess at how long it will hold, but we can do that another time I suppose.” He dropped his hand to his side, looking at her. “You seemed to enjoy the history lesson today, so let’s talk about the history of vampires. How much do you know of Greek mythology?”
He turned and walked to his desk, sitting in the chair then turning to the bookshelf against the wall on his right. Jayde frowned, thinking about the question. “I know about Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, and all of them, I guess. From stories my mom told me. I know there’s a jail or something called Tartar or something like that, and that Zeus overthrew his father, a Titan, to rule.”
Mr. Crea nodded, pulling a book off the shelf and setting it before him. It was made of leather, worn from age and use, but didn’t have a title on the cover anywhere she could see. “Something like that, yes. Tartarus is a great pit in the Underworld, closely guarded by Hades and Cereberus. It holds Titans such as Kronos, and Typhon. Chaos, the god who filled the gap between Heaven and Earth, created Gaia, Tartarus, Uranus, Nyx, and Erebos,” he opened the book, reading from it now. “As others created beings to live on Earth, Erebos, God of Darkness, stood in the shadows and watched. Eventually, after Orion’s additions to the Fae, Erebos decided he wanted to create a species as well. Something that would live in the dark, be stronger and faster. He tested first on the bats, dwellers of caves, to see what the tiniest bit of his essence would do to it. The bat, though small, could use its fangs to cut open the veins of its prey and lapped up the blood. It wasn’t killing the animals it preyed on, just had a meal of blood. Erebos actually enjoyed that the bat didn’t kill its prey, happy that it chose to satisfy its needs without unnecessary killing. With his experiment a success, he decided to try it with a human.”
Jayde jumped in when he paused, flipping a page of the book. “Wait, wait. You’re telling me that vampires are descended directly from a god? That vampires are literally related to a bat?”
He laughed, nodding. “Distantly, very distantly, but yes. There has been enough blood dilution through the centuries that the African vampire bat is mostly bat, just with a small taste for blood. Vampires are more human, more able to create a world of destruction with their willpower and ability to make our own choices. None of us have enough of Erebos in us to even count as a demi-god, so we’re not anything special. Erebos made sure that his power would stay consistent through the generations though, and we have the same amount as the first human.
The human chosen by Erebos was said to be of a lower class, though we have never found a record of his birth name or birthplace. He went exclusively by Vladimir Joseph Dracula when he started being asked what his name was. He asked friends to call him Dracula or Vlad for short. Vlad surprised Erebos, in that he would drink the blood from his prey until they were totally dead, an unnecessary thing, but something he did nonetheless for centuries after his re-birth. Erebos was mad about it at first but decided that it would be a good balance to the magic of the fairies. He allowed Vlad to go about on his own, and eventually Vlad turned dozens of others. He didn’t turn more than fifty, thinking to keep the gift of immortality and bloodlust to only those he saw fit. Erebos is the one who made sure that vampires were worldwide, going from continent to continent to change at least one person so that there would be a full species of vampire on Earth. Some that were turned instantly became insane, killing without cause, and the vampires who weren’t insane gathered to make sure that they weren’t discovered by erasing the killer from existence.”
Thinking, turning the information around in her mind, she stared blankly at the book. She figured that Vlad had passed on, either to a vampire hunter or decided living eternally was nonsensical. But that didn’t change the fact for her that they were basically like one sixteenth of a god. It was weird to know that, but she didn’t figure it did much other than made her a vampire.
“The ways to create a vampire are through the normal means of procreation, or the exchange of blood, multiple times, between a vampire and another. That’s something I prefer not to get into as it’s very dangerous, for both vampire and victim,” Mr. Crea read. “However, though garlic and crosses do nothing to us, the sunlight is our ultimate kryptonite. Over the years, some vampires have been able to build up a resistance to the sun, enough to be out for small periods of time, but without magic and sunblock, vampires will burst into flames as soon as a direct ray hits them.”