The knowledge of vampire

When I stopped needing the bag to breathe right I uncurled and rolled over to face Hans. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I flopped over. I was exhausted, and worn, and burned out. In the absence of panic or adrenaline, I felt slow. Everything seemed to be dulled out. But Hans was still sitting there, watching me worriedly, just like Megan had been on the night of the wingman-fail incident all those years ago.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I panic sometimes. It's not your fault." The excuse sounded paltry and stupid in my ears, but since that pretty much summed up what was left of me it seemed appropriate.

Hans frowned. "I just turned your world inside out and sideways without warning," he said gently. "You have nothing to apologize for. I did this poorly... and believe me, I've seen people handle it worse even with a lot more forewarning."

I just nodded. I wasn't sure that I really believed him, but I definitely didn't have the energy to argue. I pulled myself up to the head of my bed and dug one of the pillows out from under the covers so I'd have something to hug. Then I sat with my back to the wall and my knees up and looked at Hans over the top of my pillow while I squeezed the bejesus out of it and tried to sort out my thoughts while I was still too deep in shock to be in a crazy panic.

"Okay," I said at last. "So, you bit me. On the hand in the restaurant, and on the lip just now. I'm not going to develop an irresistible urge to howl at the moon and attend furry conventions now, am I?"

For a second Hans looked back at me blankly. Maybe he didn't know what furries were. Well, I wasn't going to explain. That's what the internet was for.

Then he seemed to get what I was asking. "No," he said firmly. "No, I would never be that irresponsible with the curse." He held up a hand and started ticking off fingers. "I wasn't in my wolf form," he said for one. "And it isn't a full moon," he added on another. "And I didn't break your skin." He held up his fingers. "It takes all three for lycanthropy to spread."

"Oh," I said. "Okay." That was one worry down, at least. "What about Mr. Salvatore? He hasn't been turning my coworkers into his undead harem, has he?" That would certainly explain the large number of women in the office. The only men were Jimmy and Carl, and they were pretty much exiled to the basement.

Hans shook his head with a chuckle. "No," he said, but this time he didn't elaborate.

I frowned. "How can you be sure? He still needs blood, right? And that means people get infected." At least I knew Megan was okay. I'd seen her in the daylight enough to... to not really be sure of anything. Dammit. I'd seen Mr. Salvatore around in the daytime, too. I didn't actually know anything about vampires, or werewolves, that didn't come from movies, TV or manga, and even that didn't always agree. Who knew what was actually real?

"Look," I said. "I get that he's your friend or whatever. And that it's always awkward to talk about other people's issues when you aren't hanging around a clothesline with the other gossipy midwives. And I should be really concerned with you, and asking lots of questions about werewolves. But I've been working for Mr. Salvatore for two years, which means I've been freaked out by him for seven hundred and twenty eight days more than I've been freaked out by you, so I kind of think that now that I know he really is a vampire, I need to know how that works."

Hans blinked at me, then shook his head. "Alright," he conceded with a sigh. "I'm much more versed in explaining about werewolves," he added, and then he frowned while he put his thoughts together. "Well, first of all, Vampirism isn't a disease. It's a curse. People don't get 'infected' with it, not the way you're thinking of, no matter how many times they provide blood. It isn't even the blood that provides a vampire with sustenance. Blood is just the medium of transference. What a vampire takes from his donor is life."

"Life?" I asked.

Hans nodded. "People think of the undead as walking corpses. I suppose the surge of zombies in popular fiction is to blame, but a zombie isn't 'undead.' It is reanimated; a marionette of a corpse, driven by hunger and nefarious magic. The true undead, like vampires, are not corpses because they are not dead. Neither are they alive. They have passed through the state of death and come back to something that could be called 'unlife' as easily as 'undeath.' A place between alive and dead."

Hans pursed his lips and picked his words carefully as he explained. "The undead are balanced between life and death. When they feed on life, they become more alive: they can eat real food, their hearts beat again, their emotions return, their injuries will heal and the weaknesses that come with their curse fade away. A well and recently fed vampire can even withstand the sun, for a time. But when a vampire hungers, he tips more toward death. He loses the ability to feel pain or emotion, his heart and breathing stops, his wounds will not close and the other weaknesses inherited with the curse become more pronounced, the sun burns. A vampire that is starving is a terrible predator: merciless, inhumanly strong, relentless."

I swallowed. Mr. Salvatore had always creeped me out. This wasn't helping. "Okay," I said. "What does that have to do with his unholy harem, or lack thereof?"

"It has to do with how the curse is transmitted," Hans said. "If it could pass with just a bite, the world would run out of mortals and all the vampires would starve, especially if the vampires spent as much time in the daylight as Salvatore does. No, when a vampire feeds on a mortal, he's feeding on that mortal's life force. And in order for the curse to be passed, the donor must take that tainted life force back. The vampire and the mortal share blood, and then... Then the mortal has to die in order for the curse to take root. But even then, they don't always come back."

"Oh," I said weakly.