Page 16 of Last Hope
“They do lab research on vampires,” Teddy said gruffly. “All about their race, I believe. Aren’t they the one’s that helped Santiago Enterprises create those blood pill things?”
Savvy nodded. “And sun and garlic creams. But that’s not all they do. See, Jefferson sent me the documents that he was able to hack and I read them over. These guys like to put up the front they’re ‘helping’ vampires everywhere, but they’re into some freaky stuff. They experiment on their patients!”
“Okay, they experiment on vampires, how exactly?” Teddy asked.
“There were a whole bunch of photos of the scientists experimentingon the vampires like lab rats. They cut their bodies open and dissect their immune systems. They find volunteers, offer them a handsome amount in pay and then they kill them just to experiment on them.”
“And you’re just telling me about thisnow?” Teddy sounded angry and Victoria didn’t blame him. She slapped Savvy upside the back of his orange head.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Savvy?” she demanded. “Why did you keep it a secret?”
He rubbed the spot where she had hit him and glowered at her. “Because hacking computers is illegal, if you recall correctly. If you’re going to bring these guys down you need solid evidence and I don’t wanna get in trouble.”
“You wouldn’t get in trouble, stupid,” Victoria spat. “Your friend Jefferson would probably get, like, a fine or something but no one would be really bothered by the fact that he’s a hacker if he helped discover a whole cult of murdering scientists!”
“Well, anyway, he found some files on their latest experiments.” He clicked away at his computer again and files popped up. “What do you make of this?”
On screen there were pictures of different vampire mouths. They were up close pictures of their fangs and molars, and they looked creepy to Victoria. Gloved hands were touching the tips of the fangs and in other pictures there were fingers squeezing the part where the tooth and the gums were connected and a yellowish green liquid was squirting out of it.
“Vampire venom,” Victoria whispered.
Savvy nodded. “Their latest experiments were an attempt to safeguard vampire venom in freezers and find a way to inject it into any willing human that wanted to become a vampire.”
“But that never would have worked, would it?” Victoria asked. “To become a vampire first the victim needs to getbitten,have the blood drained, thenbitethe one changing them and then venom is injected into the victim’s system, right? You can’t just create a vampire using only vampire venom? The venom is a strong enough potent to kill you, which is why the victim needs to exchange blood with the vampire. Vampire blood has properties in it that can protect against the venom, keeping the victim alive just long enough for the change, right?”
“That’s the basic concept,” Savvy said.
“I talked to some of the victims,” Terrance began, and the way he said the wordtalkedleft no room for interpretation. It was his way of saying that he had used his special ability on the victims to get the truth out of them. “The ones that were changed involuntarily. They said he bit them, stabbed them, gave them his blood and then injected them with the venom.”
“See?” Victoria said. “They still need a vampire bite otherwise the vampire venom won’t work. The virus inside of the venom is too strong to function alone. It needs a stabilizer, ergo, the blood of a vampire.”
“So V.S.L. hasn’t perfected the project yet,” Terrance said.
“But my question is why was Caesareon using vampire venom in syringes?” Savvy said. “Is he a part of this V.S.L. group and wanted to try the experiment? Did his fangs run out of venom, or what?”
“Canvampire fangs run out of venom?” Victoria turned to Terrance and Teddy, who both shrugged, indicating that they had no idea, considering neither of them were vampires.
“Okay, let’s suppose his fangs did run out of venom,” Teddy said. “He’d need to get venom in order to create his armies, right? Well, why didn’t he just have his little slaves do it?”
“Maybe he didn’t want them to think of him as a weakling,” Savvy suggested. “Because a vampire without vampire venom is hardly a vampire at all.”
“And he needed their undying loyalty, and if they would have figured out he had bad venom then they would have realized he wasn’t as strong as he claimed to be…” Victoria added.
“And he would have lost followers, so he probably kept that information on the down low.” Teddy concluded.
“So that would mean he probably stole vials of venom to create his army, right?” Victoria scratched her head.
Savvy shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense, though.”
“I concur with Burns,” Terrance said coolly. Victoria stared at him incredulously. “He changed those humans into vampires in front of his minions. If he didn’t want them to know he was out of venom then why would he have injected them in front of everyone?”
“Exactly!” Savvy shot Terrance a look of almost gratitude over his shoulder but masked that expression quickly when he noticed Victoria was staring at him. “My guess is he’s involved with this group. He may even be the one who runs it!”
“But if Caesareon was the one running V.S.L. then why did he help create blood tablets? He was the type to spout the whole ‘supernatural power’ shit, so why create something that goes against a vampires true nature?” Teddy argued.
“V.S.L. didn’t create the blood tablets, though. That was Marco Santiago from Santiago Enterprises.” Savvy clicked away at his computer, researching on Wikipedia, most likely, Victoria thought. “It says right here that the creator was Marco Santiago and his scientists, who left their jobs with him and went on to become V.S.L.”
“Okay, yeah whatever.” Victoria was starting to grow annoyed. She felt as though all they had done for the past few weeks was travel in circles, like a dog chasing its own tail and achieving absolutely nothing. As a cop, it was frustrating. “The scientists ditched Santiago for something else, that’s all very well, but what would Caesareon need syringes with vampire venom for?”
