Chapter 52 The Biology Lesson

As Rassa had expected, Victor had made an appearance an hour or so after Arita had turned in for the night.

'I can sense your apprehension, what's wrong?' Victor asked nearly straight away.

'...How did you do it?' asked Rassa, conjuring up the thought of Victor feeding on the two knights yet making their experiences pleasurable.

'Manipulate their emotions you mean?' confirmed Victor, 'Every Vampire is capable of that. If they're not in pain it makes influencing their memories far easier. It's a skill every vampire learns early'.

'Manipulating emotions and memories?' asked Rassa in disbelief, 'Why was I not informed sooner?'

'Memory manipulation is something that you won't have access to until you're unsealed,' Victor stated, 'As for emotions...you spent most of your time feeding on animals, there is no reason to manipulate their memories when they cannot speak'.

Rassa didn't want to admit it, but that was a decent reason.

'Can I learn now?' asked Rassa.

Victor sighed, 'I suppose, though like I said, there is little point using it on animals. Perhaps I shall take this opportunity to teach you Vampire biology. It will make many things much easier to comprehend in future'.

With that Rassa felt himself drawn into a memory.

***

It turned out to be a series of memories of different times in Victor's life when he was tutored on the topic of biology. Most of it occurred before the events of the last memory Rassa had been drawn into.

The great thing about memories though, was that he was not only told about Vampire biology, he also had the opportunity to experience it through Victor.

The basis of all Vampiric abilities and differences lay in their origin. There were 2 ways to become a Vampire, the first was to be turned, which the memory only touched on as a process that involved a sacred ritual. The second was to be born a Vampire.

Vampires as a whole lived a very long time, it wasn't unusual for one to live more than five millennia, and as such their birth rate was rather low. It was incredibly difficult for a Vampire to become pregnant, and even then the gestation period was quite long, almost five years. No matter how one began as a vampire, whether turned or born, their body needed time to acclimatise to its potential abilities, and hence they were considered 'sealed' Vampires until such a time as they were ready. Another term for this was Fledgling. The period they were sealed usually lasted until their body was matured for a born Vampire, but for a turned Vampire it could be shorter depending on the age they were turned and how quickly they adjusted.

Still, as with Rassa, Fledglings were not exactly defenseless.

They contained the superior strength and speed of a Vampire, but were unable to enhance it further using their Life Lines. They had the ability to feed, and thereby influence the emotions of their prey, and enact the paralysing venom, but they could not use the blood they fed from to fuel their Life Line abilities. Essentially, any ability given by the Life Lines was unaccessible to a Feldgling.

After Rassa understood these basic principals, the information started to become more specific.

Vampires were unable to see as clearly during the day because they had evolved to have night vision, this was also when Rassa received a short explanation about the giant glowing crystal he'd seen in the first memory. Vampires had created a sheilding spell over their Coven sites so that they and their land were in eternal darkness. Of course, Covens did not consist solely of Vampires, so the Sun Stones were used as an alternative to the actual sun. Their light was far less peircing, and they also emitted heat in small amounts. As such, they surrounded the inner walls of the sheild and alternated between bright and dim rotations so that day and night could be replicated inside the night barrier. Rassa was astounded by such high grade technology, and made a note to ask Victor about it for future lessons.

Finally, Rassa managed to learn about how a Vampire controlled the emotions of an individual whilst they were feeding. It had to do with these biological chemicals called hormones. Certain hormones caused an individual to feel certain emotions, hence, by influencing which hormones were contained in the blood, one could influence the emotion and individual felt.

Victor feeding on one of his Sanguine was a much better experience of it. Rassa could feel it as Victor drew on the hormones that caused fear in his Sanguine, and then his venom acted as a stimulant for those hormones that caused pleasure.

It sounded a lot more complicated than the process itself. Victor did it almost instinctively, but Rassa could feel the understanding of the concept click inside him. He couldn't wait to try it out.

After a few more explanations, Rassa was pushed out of the memories and back into his own body. Only to find himself feeling far more uncomfortable than he should be lying on a bed. There was something hard digging into this stomach, and he jolted up and down constantly. Worst of all, the skin around his mouth, nose and cheeks felt incredibly irritated.

Like he was wearing the mask again. Rassa's eyes opened and he glimpsed down at the hard earth almost a metre beneath him.

What was going on? Rassa went to move, only to be stopped immediately.

"He's waking up!" hissed a deep voice that was certainly not Arita.

Rassa shifted again, more panicked now as he tried to take stock of his situation.

"Quick! Grab him!" snapped another voice.

Rassa felt his arms and legs grabbed as he was heaved off the shoulder of the stranger, and dragged quickly across the hard earth by the chain on his neck. He coughed at the sudden choking, but managed to see the dark clothed individuals around him of various shapes and sizes, the only part of their bodies visible were their eyes beneath dark hoods.

He growled, "What in the gods' name are you doing. Let me go!"

His angry shouts were muffled by the masked, and he shouted again in outrage, struggling against his captors.

Damn these chains! They'd sapped too much of his physcial strength for him to be any sort of threat to these men.

Despite his fighting, Rassa was easily dumped into a metal carriage, a prison carriage by the looks of it, and locked inside with his chains attached to the ring on the floor. He glared through the bars at the individuals who had captured him, meeting the eyes of a boy who looked only about his own age. The boy looked curious, but after a moment, simply climbed on top of the carriage as it set off.

Rassa looked back at the city of Toulle which stood dark in the late hours.

No one was coming after him, that was for sure. Gods almighty, when was he going to catch a break?