Vampires Are Foreve(25)

Thomas was kind of glad about that. While the roller coaster her emotions were taking was forcing him to roller coaster with her, he was enjoying the ride. After decades of experiencing little in the way of emotional stimulation, he was eating up the highs and even the lows, enjoying each nuance. Although, the truth was, he was enjoying her passion more. Thomas’s interest in women had started to wane of late as he grew bored with even sex. It was the thing that had bothered him most over the last few decades.

“Thomas?”

Hearing the annoyance in her voice, he realized he was just staring at her, unspeaking as his thoughts crowded in his mind. Now, he cleared his throat and said, “Not here. We’ll be overheard.”

“You said we would be in public all the time so I would feel safe while you explained,” she pointed out grimly. “If you can’t explain in public, how—”

“All right,” Thomas said at once, ending her irritation. He glanced around again, relieved to see that everyone seemed to be paying attention to the men at the back of the plane, and then turned back to her. Thomas hesitated and then reached out and caught her cross in his hand. As she watched wide-eyed, he closed his fingers around it, holding it for a moment, and then opened his hand to reveal the golden pendant lying in his unharmed hand.

“The cross didn’t keep me from harming you, Inez. I did. You are safe with me,” he said quietly, then smiled wryly and added, “And the Caeser’s salad with extra garlic that you ordered at the airport restaurant was completely unnecessary. Garlic does not harm us either.”

She flushed at his words, but didn’t say anything.

Releasing the cross, Thomas continued, “We aren’t dead. We aren’t soulless. We aren’t cursed.”

Her eyes widened with each claim. “Well then, how—”

Thomas held up a hand and she immediately fell silent. Nodding approval, he said, “I’m going to tell you a story.”

Inez tsked with irritation. “I don’t want to hear a story. I want—”

“Work with me here, Inez,” he said with exasperation and gestured to the people around them.

She glanced around, noting that while no one appeared to be glancing their way, they were certainly close enough to hear. Biting her lip, she nodded in understanding. “Tell me the story.”

“I was reading this book about Atlantis,” he began, peering at her meaningfully.

Her eyes widened, but she remained silent.

“In this book, Atlantis was an isolated civilization that held a much more advanced society than the rest of the world at that time. More advanced than even we are now.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly.

“And in Atlantis, scientists discovered a way to combine bioengineering and nano technology to create little nanos that could be shot into a mortal’s blood stream and carried through the body where they repaired damage and killed off illness in the individual as well as regenerated new cells where necessary. These nanos were programmed to shut down and disintegrate once the repairs were made.”

Inez nodded her understanding, her expression fascinated.

“But what the scientists hadn’t taken into account was that the mortal body suffers constant damage from sunlight, the environment and even aging, so the nanos never shut down, but continue to repair and regenerate, even replicating themselves to continue the work they had been programmed to do.”

“So you—”

Thomas caught her hand, bringing her to silence so he could continue. “These nanos, however, use more blood than a mortal can produce. In Atlantis, this wasn’t a problem. They had blood banks and those mortals in Atlantis who were now immortals, because the nanos kept their bodies at the peak stage between about twenty-five and thirty-two years old, were simply given transfusions every morning.”

“Where did they get the blood?” Inez asked.

“From mortals,” Thomas answered, and then explained, “Not everyone in Atlantis had these nanos in them. I don’t know the exact sequence of events or how many it was tested on before they realized the nanos weren’t dying off as expected. All I know is that my father’s parents were among those who had the experimental treatment before it was stopped. It’s how they met. And then, of course, all their children were infected, the nanos passed into them through their mother.”

“I see,” Inez murmured. “And these nanos gave them fangs and—”

“No. They had no fangs in Atlantis. As I said, they had blood banks and got transfusions. The fangs weren’t necessary…but then the day came when Atlantis fell.”