The Accidental Vampire(45)

their meal, leaving Elvi to consider what she'd learned before she fainted. The ages

these men claimed to be were rather staggering. She wouldn't have been so upset if

they'd all been two or three hundred years old like Alessandro and DJ, but the ages of

the other men…

Elvi peered from one face to the other now, looking for any sign of their advanced age,

but really none of them looked their age. Hell, none of them even looked as old as her

own age of sixty‐two. But then, neither did she, she acknowledged.

Her gaze focused on Victor as she recalled that he was the oldest, born in 230… B.C.

Before Christ. She pondered that briefly, realizing it meant he'd been around when

Jesus had walked the earth, and almost asked if he'd met him, but then thought better

of it. They were soulless after all, thanks to their curse, and soulless beings would

hardly go seeking the son of God. Would they? She frowned as she recalled Mabel

saying that Victor had touched her cross at the restaurant without an undo reaction.

She'd meant to ask him about that, but had forgotten when they were in the sunroom

last night.

"What are you thinking?" Victor asked suddenly.

Elvi bit her lip, then admitted, "About our being soulless and cursed and yet you

touched Mabel's cross and she said nothing happened. I—"

"We aren't soulless," Victor interrupted.

Elvi stilled, her fork held aloft in one hand. "What?"

"We aren't immortals because of some curse that has left us soulless," he said.

Her gaze slid to the other men in question. Each one nodded reassuringly.

"Then how—?"

"Bugs," Alessandro announced eagerly. When Elvi turned to him with disbelief, he

nodded excitedly, " Si. Truly, is the little bugs. They are in our blood, eating up all the

sickness and—"

"They aren't bugs, idiot," Edward interrupted dryly, and then told Elvi, "they are nanos.

Our forefathers came from Atlantis. I presume you've heard of it?"

Elvi nodded slowly. Man from Atlantis used to be a popular show when she was

younger.

"Well, that is where our kind and these nanos originate," Edward informed her.

"Really, we're a superior people. Our scientists were well‐advanced. They used

technology beyond even today's abilities to combine bioengineering and nano

technology to create specialized medical nanos that could be introduced to the blood

stream of a person with… say… internal injuries or cancer. These nanos use blood for

fuel as they repair whatever damage is present or surround any germs or cancerous

cells and kill them. They were created as a way to avoid invasive surgery. Once

finished, they would disintegrate and leave the body as all waste does."

"Nanos?" Elvi dropped her fork to her plate and sat back in her seat, her mind racing to

take this all in. "So, the nanos… they're what made me young again?"

"They see the effects of aging as damage that needs repairing," Victor said quietly.

Edward nodded. "The effects of aging, sunlight…" He shrugged. "Anything that affects

the body's balance is seen as something they should tend to, and the body is under

constant attack from the environment and even just time."

"So the nanos are always busy and never disintegrate and leave the body," Harper

explained. "Instead they stay and keep us forever at optimal levels of health, strength,

and age."

"But it means the nanos are constantly reproducing, constantly repairing," Victor

added. "They use a lot of blood, more than a body can produce and so they evolve our

bodies to get what they need to keep us in optimal health."

"The fangs." Elvi ran her tongue over her teeth.

"And the increased strength, speed, hearing, sight, mind control…" Victor nodded.

"Anything that will improve our ability to get the extra blood."

Nanos, she thought. Not soulless, just nanos. Somehow these nanos had been

" introduced to her blood stream" as Edward had put it. But how, she wondered. Had

she got infected blood after the accident? All she recalled was the accident, then

waking up in their hotel room covered in blood, her teeth sunk deep in Mabel's throat.

Elvi shuddered at the memory she most often tried to forget. That episode with the

raging, mindless, and uncontrollable hunger that had made her do something she

normally never would have done, had assured her she was cursed and soulless.

Although, Elvi thought now, she'd suffered horrible guilt ever since and perhaps that

alone should have reassured her she still had a soul. Surely soulless demons didn't feel

guilty for their crimes?

Wow. She'd had it all wrong. She wasn't soulless. She could eat. What else could she