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I lay Rebecca on my new sofa, wondering what to do next. She was deathly pale, even

her lips and tongue were white. I knew she needed iron, preferably in the form of fresh

blood. Blood was really the best source of iron for us – it was rapidly absorbed from our

stomachs, seeping into our systems within seconds. Images of Marcus’ experiments on us

flashed across my vision, and I was grateful for the unending thirst for knowledge that drove

my brother. I could help Rebecca, but iron tablets would take too long. I dug a breadknife

out of one of the kitchen drawers, and carried it into the sitting room, where Mark stood

against one of the walls, gazing in horror at his sister.

“Mark.”

“Yes?”

“Trust me.”

He nodded slowly, and stroked the kitten’s head. His eyes widened involuntarily when I

lifted the breadknife, but he said nothing, and remained leaning against the wall.

I used the tip of the knife to slice longitudinally through the skin of my left wrist and the

artery pulsing beneath it, and swiftly held my wrist to her mouth.

“Drink, Rebecca!” I barked at her, and her eyes fluttered open as the salty fluid flowed

into her mouth, she swallowed once convulsively, and then again. Her eyes closed.

“Rebecca!” I was almost shouting now. I felt rather than saw Mark flinch, but Rebecca

opened her eyes, and started swallowing again. I watched as a trickle of blood travelled

slowly from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Then she started sucking thirstily at my

wrist, and I sighed in relief. She was going to be OK.

I let her drink for a minute, and then I withdrew my wrist. Rebecca sighed, and closed

her eyes again, but her skin had lost that chalky pallor, and her breathing had slowed. I

stood with my wrist over the sink as I tied a compression bandage around it. It would stop

bleeding within another minute or so, and by tomorrow you wouldn’t be able to see a scar.

We heal fast.

I looked over to where Mark stood. His eyes were still wide, but he didn’t look

frightened anymore. He looked fascinated, and intrigued.

“Well,” he said levelly, “that was freaky.”

I chuckled. A bit of an understatement.

“Want some tea?” I asked him.

He looked up at me. “Real tea? With boiled water and milk and stuff? No blood?”

“Yes.” I smiled at his resilience.

“Yes, please.” He went back to gazing at his sister. She looked almost normal now, and

appeared to be waking up.

Rebecca

Mark was standing against an unfamiliar wall when I woke up. He was staring at me as

if I’d grown an extra eye or something. I was lying on a comfortable leather couch. It smelled new.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“Angus’ house.”

“Why are we here? What happened?”

He glanced towards what must have been the kitchen, and said wryly, “I think you’d

better let Angus tell you.” He grinned at me. “Well, you look a lot better.”

I frowned. He wasn’t making sense. I tried to sit up, but the world spun sickeningly, so I

lay back down again. Angus came into the room and handed Mark a mug. He looked over at

me and then came and stood next to the sofa. I could almost feel the heat of his body near

mine. It was oddly comforting and perturbing at the same time.

“I can see I’ve got some explaining to do,” he said with a smile. “But first you need to

drink something.” He turned away before I could say anything and went back into the

kitchen, reappearing after a few seconds with a glass of water and five unremarkable brown

tablets.

“Drink these,” he commanded. I looked up at Mark, and he nodded. I took them from

Angus’ warm hand, and swallowed them one at a time. Angus smiled at me, and sat down

on a nearby armchair, stretching out his long body as he leaned back.

“It’s a long story,” he said, sighing. “I’d better start at the beginning.”

Angus

I knew that I’d have to explain everything eventually; I just hadn’t expected it to be so

soon. I’d thought about how to do it for a couple of days, about how to start.
Well, see,

you’re a vampire, same as me
didn’t quite cut it. And I hadn’t expected to be factoring a normal fourteen year old teenager into the equation. I decided to use Marcus’ terminology

for now, and let the historical references drift through the conversation a bit later.

“Rebecca and I have something in common. We both use iron differently to other

people. I have two brothers, Fergus and Marcus, who have the same, er, ability. Marcus has

studied the basic physiological mechanics of how we use iron for a few years now, and he

says that people like us are able to incorporate it into our tissues in different ways to normal people. The most important difference is a change in metabolic activity when we eat foods

containing iron.” Like blood, I thought.

“When we eat normal food, our bodies function like normal human bodies, using the

usual metabolic pathways to extract energy from normal food types, mostly glucose, fats

and proteins. But when we eat enough iron, our bodies switch over to a different metabolic

pathway that has adapted to utilise molecular iron to increase the efficiency of many body

functions.” I looked at Rebecca. She was frowning, concentrating.

“Muscles work better, nerves conduct their messages faster, our bodies even heal

faster, and are better at fighting off infections. And our skins are harder, because iron

becomes incorporated into our cells, in the walls, so we don’t exactly deflect bullets, but it’s harder to hurt us.” I paused, wondering how to continue.

“Our parents were also like us, and Marcus assumed that that would be the only mode

of inheritance. But it looks like Rebecca here inherited it differently, recessively. That means that both your parents had to have the genes in their DNA, even though they weren’t able

to use iron themselves. Their DNA combined could generate an iron metaboliser. There’s

apparently a one in four chance. That’s why you got the genes,” I looked pointedly at

Rebecca, “and your brothers didn’t.” I paused, expecting questions. I didn’t have to wait

long.

“So what happened today with Rebecca? It looked like she was going to die.” Mark

grimaced at the memory.

“She
was
dying. I’m not sure why exactly. I think something must have triggered her

body to switch to the iron pathways, and she was using up all her red blood cells to feed

those pathways. I had to give her a big dose of iron to stop that process, or it would have

killed her.” I wondered what could have precipitated the switch.

“Blood contains a lot of iron, in its most bioavailable form. That means it’s easily

absorbed an utilised by our bodies. And those tablets I just gave you are high dose iron

tablets.”

Rebecca was frowning again. “Blood?” she whispered.

“Yeah, you drank his blood. And then you stopped looking like a corpse.” Mark looked

like he was enjoying himself. He’d slid down the wall, and sat on a thick rug with his legs

stretched out and the kitten curled up in his lap.

“I don’t understand,” Rebecca looked uneasy.

“You’re a vampire, Sis,” said Mark gleefully, unknowingly hitting the nail on the head.

Rebecca

A vampire? What a ridiculous idea. I didn’t even eat meat, let alone drink peoples’

blood! But here Mark, my own brother, was telling me that I’d drank Angus’ blood. The

thought of that level of intimacy thrilled me, somehow, even as I knew I should feel

repulsed by the concept. I pushed it away impatiently, trying to make sense of what he was

telling us. I didn’t want to believe it all, but I looked searchingly at Angus’ face, and read the truth in his eyes, and heard the calm authority in his deep velvety voice.

I sat for a few minutes, running over everything in my head. Intellectually it made a

kind of bizarre sense, but I knew I would need some proof. As if he had read the question in

my mind, Angus started unwrapping the bloodstained bandage that encircled his wrist.

Mark leaned forward slightly, anticipation written all over his face. The bandages fell away,

and Angus held his wrist out to us, palm facing up. There was an angry pink scar running

along one side of it. I heard Mark’s sudden intake of breath, and looked up into his shocked

face, and watched as it changed slowly to a kind of awed wonder.

“What?” I asked impatiently. Mark spoke without taking his eyes off that scar.

“That’s where you drank his blood, Rebecca. He cut his own wrist less than twenty

minutes ago, and I watched the blood pouring out of it. And now it’s almost healed.”

I glanced up at Angus’ face. He nodded once. I felt the blood rush to my face.

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes. We feel pain, same as everyone else. We just regenerate a lot faster.”

“I’m sorry that you had to hurt yourself like that for me.”

“I’m not.” His eyes were smiling at me again. I closed my eyes and imagined touching

that beautiful face, running my fingers over his smooth skin. I shuddered as my body

reacted to the thought, and opened my eyes again, trying to escape from where my mind

was headed. I looked at Mark, but he was playing with the kitten again, wiggling his index

finger as it pounced. I risked another glance at Angus. His eyes had darkened until they were

almost black, and he was staring at me with such hunger and intensity that I felt

momentarily afraid. And then he blinked, and that expression was gone, and he was smiling

again.

“Coffee?”

“Yes, please,” said my graceless brother, still sipping his tea. Something occurred to me,

a piece of the puzzle that was missing.

“Yes, but how do we know that I am an iron…metaboliser?” I hoped I’d pronounced the

term correctly. I also hoped that they weren’t going to ask me to cut myself to prove it. I

wasn’t keen on that idea at all.

Angus tilted his head to one side, and eyed me speculatively.

“You can probably remove that cast now. I’ll bet your fracture has healed already.”

“But it’s only been, what, six days since I broke it! It’s supposed to take at least six

weeks to heal.”

“I know. And I’m sure you haven’t noticed yet, but it doesn’t hurt anymore, does it.” It

wasn’t a question.

“No, it stopped hurting the day after it happened…” My voice trailed off.

“Let’s take it off!” Mark sounded eager. I pulled a face at him.

“I don’t see any plaster saws hanging around here, do you?” I was strangely reluctant to

have any definitive proof that I was indeed different from other people.

Angus grinned suddenly and stood up. He walked over to where I still lay on the large

sofa, leaned over, grasped the lower edge of my cast with both hands, and simply tore it

apart, right down the centre. I lay dead still, mesmerised by the strength of this man, and

slightly concerned that he could rip my leg off by accident if I moved. I glanced down at my

exposed knee and gasped. It looked completely normal. The abrasions that had been

splattered over the outer surface of my knee had disappeared. There was no bruising, and

no swelling. I flexed my knee. No pain, either. Angus lifted the mutilated cast off the sofa

and I swung my leg over the side, and stood up in one easy movement.

“Cool!” said Mark.

“Yeah, cool,” I agreed.

Angus

She took it better than I thought she would. They both did. I was really starting to like

Mark with his bizarre sense of humour, and his unconventional thinking. And my cat was

clearly infatuated with him. I was grateful to him too, for helping Rebecca come to terms

with her new life so smoothly. His easy acceptance of the situation had been of enormous

benefit to her. I would have to thank him properly someday soon.

“Rebecca. Mark.” They looked at me expectantly, waiting for the next revelation. They

were still only children, and I suddenly felt guilty for involving them in this complicated

situation. And then I remembered how Rebecca had looked when she was dying and all my

remorse vanished. I hadn’t involved them. Genetics had.

“You can’t tell anyone about this. Ever. Not your mother or your brother or your best

friends. Nobody. Ever.” I paused, letting it sink in.

“Because if you tell anyone about this, one of two things will happen. The first option is

the likeliest – they will laugh at you, and think you are either making it up, or they will dose you up on antipsychotics. The second scenario, where someone actually believes you, will

be far worse. You will be tested and experimented on, the media will get involved, and you

will be labelled a freak, and held up for public scrutiny and derision. And I will be gone then, and you will be alone.” I saw Rebecca flinch slightly, and I understood how she felt. The

existence of my brothers had made it so much easier for me, to accept what I was, because I

was not alone. Rebecca would fear being left alone. Good. I wanted her to fear it. It might

help protect her.

Mark was nodding seriously. I reached out and gently touched his mind, felt the

determination, and the love for his sister, and I knew he would never reveal our secret. I

shied away from touching Rebecca’s mind. There was too much at risk. I didn’t want to lose

control with her, and if I detected the slightest hint of that same desire I had felt the night before on the surface of her thoughts, I might surrender to that raw, overpowering craving.