Vampire Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

sustenance—it’s
more like a supplement. And we don’t need to drain a body of
blood—that’s just gluttony. We can drink the blood of animals but
that’s like eating a McDonald’s Big Mac. Or we can drink blood from
a blood bank but that’s like eating frozen pizza—it’s OK until you
taste a freshly made one—heaven!”
    “One can drink blood from a woman but most
of us find that distasteful. Though there are those who do, for a
variety of reasons, including money.”
    “But you   do   need to
drink human blood?”
    “No, not really. Many Vampires opt to only
drink the blood of other Vampires.”
    Barnabas looked up from his sketchpad in
surprise.
    “That has the added advantage of increasing
the number of copies of the virus in one’s system which makes one
stronger and increases longevity, while also limiting contact with
humans and the risk of infecting one—to say nothing of the violence
inherent in most human-Vampire interactions.”
    While he talked, Barnabas’ fingers, holding
the fine-pointed Sharpie, flew across the page. He quickly finished
the drawing. When he turned it to show Gatsby, he was disappointed
that Gatsby had already succumbed to sleep.
    Barnabas didn’t often watch Gatsby sleep for
it frightened him; in sleep, Gatsby was so pale, and still, so
utterly   gone . Now though, he
looked at his lover locked in sleep’s embrace, and watched his eyes
dance beneath their closed blue-veined lids. He wondered what he
was dreaming of. There was so much he didn’t understand about
Gatsby, about Vampires. He turned for a moment to the window, whose
closed shutters and blackout shades imprisoned the sunlight,
without hope of parole. Despite not being visible, the sun’s
seductive lure remained undimmed for Barnabas. He was a child of
light, always had been. He and Gatsby still hadn’t managed to synch
their sleep cycles. Gatsby had to sleep at sunrise in a darkened
room; Barnabas slept at midnight leaving the blinds open so the
rising sun could kiss him awake. Turning from the window, he
switched on the tablet, and when it blinked to life he typed a
single word into the search bar: Vampire.
    An hour later, he shut off the tablet, and
tried to process everything he had learned.
    Vampirism was caused by a virus. Discovered
in 1984, simultaneously by two scientists, one American, the other
French, each of whom claimed to discover it first, the Human
Vampire Virus, was transmitted through the exchange of infected
bodily fluids such as saliva and blood. Unlike most viruses,
though, which target specific cells in the body, HVV infected and
altered every cell in the body, resulting in many alterations to
their biological makeup, chief among them were enhanced muscle tone
and definition, and physical strength, an adverse, sometimes fatal,
allergic reaction to silver, bright light and ultraviolet rays, and
immortality. The virus was further peculiar in that it could only
infect the cells of gay men. When introduced into heterosexual men
or women—either heterosexual or lesbian—it died without
replication. It was widely believed that the virus attached itself
to the genetic directors in DNA specific to sexual orientation.
    As he’d continued reading, Barnabas had
quickly realized Gatsby hadn’t been exaggerating; a Vampire’s lot
wasn’t easy.
    Because Vampires were considered undead,
they had no rights under the law, not the right to vote, nor the
right to public accommodation, nor the right to sue for wrongful
death, or personal injury. If discovered, their property could be
seized, their assets frozen and transferred to the state. For most
Vampires, this was merely inconvenience as their holdings were vast
and their investments scattered around the globe. Even someone
earning a modest schoolteacher’s income could amass a fortune if he
lived for centuries.
    Most outrageously, a human accused of
killing a Vampire could not be charged with murder thanks to a 1996
decision in which a judge