THE MISFITS

Chapter 7

Angry at the pill Fate had force fed me, I decided to wipe the pity off their face. "You want to know who I am? What made me into a monster?" I smiled at Simon, and in a nonchalant tone that bordered on sarcastic to hide my anger and bitterness, I told them my tale. "I was born human, and by the age of seven, I was sick, really sick with leukemia. The doctors, as soon as they diagnosed me, didn't give me long to live. They hadn't counted on my mom and dad, though. My mom ended up being a close marrow donor match, and she donated to the point she jeopardized her health. Not that she cared. She just wanted me to survive." I blinked back the tears that always brimmed when I thought of the woman who'd birthed and loved me. I missed her so freaking much, even though she'd died years ago - killed because of her love for me. I continued. "My parents, when science kept failing, turned to religion and prayed almost constantly. But God didn't listen to them. God didn't care. So they went back to science. They stayed abreast of all the latest research, but leukemia is a killer, and by the time I hit sixteen, bald as the day I was born, I'd just about given up the fight to live. And that was when my parents got the offer."

Oh, how I remembered their excitement. "A chance," they'd crowed gleefully, even if that chance was experimental. And free of cost, a golden egg to loving parents who'd given everything they had to pay for my survival.

Gene and Simon watched me with rapt expressions, not interrupting me. Lana, at my side, gripped my hand tightly, already knowing my story. I gave them what they wanted to hear, even as I knew my story would make them turn from me in disgust. The demon had been right. I am an abomination.

"They flew us and other families in the same situation in like we were celebrities - first class. Everyone was still so happy at that point. We were taken to a top-secret facility, government owned and operated." I jumped up and stood, pacing in front of the couch as I waved my arms. "Welcome one, welcome all, to building nine, where children are mutated as you wait. Hey, Mom and Dad, have some coffee and cookies while you talk with the other parents. Be blinded by our faade while we inject your precious darlings with a toxic cocktail." I mocked the start of my torture, my mechanism for fighting the tears that threatened to choke me. "But as it turns out, while we were receiving our first doses of the vaccine that would change our lives, our parents went through their own life-changing episode. The institution laced their food with cyanide and killed them all. Not that many of us had time to notice or care. We were too busy dying." I spoke stonily, fighting the screaming despair that remembering brought.

Simon's face registered shock, and I stopped him before he could voice his query. "How could they, you say?" I laughed bitterly. "They thought they were doing something for the greater good. After all, we were sick children, and our parents, unfortunate victims in their narrow-sighted struggle for greatness. They told the public they died in a plane crash to avoid scrutiny, and as far as the world knew, we died with them." What I still didn't understand was, why us? Why sick youngsters? Why weren't our parents experimented on as well? What made us so special? Years later, I still hadn't found the answer.

Frame tense with violent energy, Simon bounded off the couch, and he let out a roar that no human throat could have uttered. I gaped at him, once again wondering just what he was. The demon had called him something, but English was my one and only language.

"What did they inject you with?" Gene asked in a soft voice, drawing my attention away from the pacing Simon and setting me back on track.

"Ooh, all kinds of good stuff." At Gene's stern look, I sobered up. "The government managed to capture a demon and an angel."

I heard a thump and a crack and turned to see Simon pulling his fist out of the wall - a solid brick wall, which now had a hole of crumbled dust. If they were still talking to me after discovering my dirty secret - and I was beginning to think they would by their reaction - I'd have to find out once and for all just what Simon was.

"According to the doctors, who liked to brag, they performed all kinds of tests on their captured prizes. They were fascinated by their ability to heal and regenerate damage. They tried to inseminate human women with their sperm, but it didn't work."

Gene shook his head. "No, it wouldn't have. Special conditions need to be met for their seed to take root in a human receptacle, and even then, the pregnancies rarely come to fruition."

I made a mental note to ask him more about angels and demons later. It was sure to be an interesting conversation. But first, I needed to finish my tale. "They decided to up the ante and inject humans directly with the genes. They couldn't just start picking people up willy-nilly, so they came up with a fabulous plan to use sick children, to have their own parents volunteer them. Thus did the drug trials start with us as the guinea pigs. There were three groups. Those injected with demonic blood. Those with angelic. And then the ones who got both. Most of their test subjects went into seizures and died. They were the lucky ones."

"Don't say that," Lana cried. "You survived, and you're a great person."

I looked at her stricken face, framed by hair that always had a green tinge, despite all the peroxide we poured on it. "It's true, though. Those of us that survived became monsters, ones that need to prey on humans to live. I can be the most awesome person in the world, but it doesn't make what I do for survival right." I turned from her and resumed my retelling of a story that never fully left my thoughts. "In the first group, only some of the boys survived, but the demon gene turned them into vampires."

Gene shook his head sadly. "Humans can be so foolish. They have sown the seeds of their own destruction. This is not good news. I must ask, what powers did your vampires inherit? I wonder if the splicing of the DNA might have made them weaker than those born to the curse."

I looked at him sharply. Born as vampires? There was so much I needed to learn. Especially if I was to survive, for despite the loss of my humanity, I longed to live. I answered Gene's question. "Keep in mind, my knowledge is from years ago when we were no better than caged animals. The boys might have expanded their powers since. Not your classic Count Draculas, my brothers in the institution became a highly intelligent, extremely powerful, psychically gifted bunch with an unfortunate penchant for human blood."

"That's a species-wide trait," Gene said, nodding while Simon just stood facing the wall, his forehead touching the brick. "Go on."

"I'll start with the tests the scientists did following the legends. The idiots brought crosses and holy water to work. Forget the Catholic drama, vampires, or at least the lab-created ones, don't care about that s**t. They do drink blood, and tests revealed that their special diet is what makes them sensitive to the sun, so they go out only at night. The scientists, fascinated with what they'd created, ran them through live simulations to see what a vampire was truly capable of, and how to best kill them."

Gene dropped his head in his hands and shook. "Oh, that must have made the fledglings happy. Let me guess what worked. A stake in the heart, which I might add, kills pretty much everything, along with decapitation, chopping the body to pieces, and fire."

I nodded as he itemized the tortures inflicted upon my departed brothers. "They killed quite a few before they stopped. What fascinated them, though, was their healing rate. Most wounds that would have proved mortal for a human healed quickly. And they could even regenerate limbs after a time. The scientists wanted to harness that ability for humanity."

"And as a vampire ages, his healing abilities increase, as does his imperviousness," said Simon, finally adding to the discussion, his face a stoic mask. But his eyes blazed, and when they looked at me, I felt comforted by the warmth still evident in them.

"That I didn't know. Keep in mind, the ones I knew were only a couple of years old. One interesting thing was the fact that they didn't like to drink the blood of people who imbibed large amounts of garlic or hot spice. Apparently, they taste bad."

"Curry is famous for repelling blood suckers as well. Did they have the power to mesmerize with their gaze?"

"I don't know. They might have, but I never heard of it." I tried to recall if the vamps who'd attacked me outside the club had tried, but in all honestly, I couldn't remember.

Simon moved back to rejoin us, but instead of sitting across from me, he slid onto the couch beside me and, with some titillating manhandling, placed me in his lap. I snuggled into his embrace, a huge relief off my chest as I realized, whether I was an abomination or not, he still liked me.

"Tell us of the second group. The ones injected with the angels' blood," Gene urged.

"Group two, injected with the angel blood, died more than they survived, and in even greater proportion than those who got the demonic stuff. Those that lived through the convulsions became incubi and succubi. They fed off people's emotions and auras. Like the vamps, they were hard to kill, but healed more slowly and could walk in daylight."

"Sexuality is increased in them as the pleasure and intensity of s*x allows them to connect with their partner, thus making the feeding more enjoyable and powerful. You said there were fewer of these creations?"

"Maybe a half-dozen if they all escaped when I did."

"And now we come to you, one with both sides, light and dark. How many like you did they create?"

"Ah, yes, the third group, if you count one member as still making a group. Lucky me, I got dosed with both strains of the DNA. As you both guessed, I've got a vampire side, but I am not affected by sunlight. I heal quickly, and I'm strong. There might be more powers, but I'm not crazy about the blood-lust thing so I don't encourage it."

"You don't need to feed regularly?" Gene asked, leaning forward.

"Maybe once a week or so I've got to pop out the fangs and feed the blood hunger. A few ounces and I'm good." I didn't mention that my victims never even knew what bit them, for I tended to take my blood from an intimate area while feeding my succubus side. Overcome with lust, they never even noticed.

"That's amazing. Natural-born vamps, especially young ones, must feed daily and more than once."

"My brothers could usually go a few days at a time," I said with a shrug. It felt so odd to be talking about this and with people who had answers to some of the things the scientists had wondered.

"What about your succubus needs?"

"Again, I give that part of me a good feed about once a week, but the club makes it easy to supplement in between. The s****l energy is so thick it's like I'm bathing in it, and it keeps me from going all nympho." Lap dances worked especially well because of the light skin-to-skin contact.

"Amazing," Gene said.

Simon's response was to tighten his arms around me. His hug reassured me, but even more awesome - to me at least - was the fact that my science experiment existence hadn't made him run. On the contrary, evidence of his interest poked at my backside insistently.

"I don't know if I'd call it amazing. I mean, I'm thankful that they wiped my leukemia out, but I can never forgive them for taking my parents away and taking my humanity." Although, had they given me the choice, I admit I would have taken life at any cost. And honestly, once I'd escaped, life had ended up not sucking too bad, even if I sucked people.

"So how did you escape?"

"They underestimated us." At the remembrance, I grinned, a feral smile that didn't make Gene flinch. "My brothers destroyed our creators and set the place on fire." The compound was a leveled wasteland of debris, which I was thankful for. I hoped the records of the experiments and our existence were wiped in the conflagration. It was enough I had the Legion of Hell possibly after me. I didn't need the government, too. "In the confusion, I escaped and ran. Eventually, I stopped running and found work that appealed to my succubus needs."

"And met other freaks who let her know she wasn't alone," Lana piped in, squeezing my hand.

I smiled at her. "You're not a freak. You're just different, like me."

Lana grinned back and gave a happy trill. "So knowing she's an experiment, does it make her more or less in danger from the demons?"

A frown creased Gene's brow as he spread his hands and shrugged. "Yes and no. And it's not just the demons who might come after her. Heaven's angels may very well decide to eliminate her, too."

"I thought God's rule was thou shall not kill," I grumbled.

"Humans," Gene corrected. "Anything else is fair game. And keep in mind that the position of God and Devil are elected ones. The rules change depending on who's in power. But don't lose hope. Not everyone believes the etching means an end of everything. There is a group who believes the words signal a new beginning, one where the division between Heaven and Hell is removed and the lines drawn between good and evil scuffed."

I frowned. "Um, is it me or does opening Hell up sound like a bad idea?"

Gene grinned. "Maybe, but we won't know until it happens, will we?"

I wanted to growl at him for being so nonchalant, but I couldn't maintain my scowl. How could I when I'd divulged my dirty secret and not scared them away?

Gene stood. "You've given us much to ponder on. I need to report what you've told me to those who would see you live. You should be safe. Demons, like vampires, are bound to public places or locations they've been invited to. So be sure to not allow anyone to enter whom you don't already know."

"What about angels?"

Simon rumbled behind me. "By killing the demon, we have hopefully eliminated the threat of your discovery. And even if the demons do know, they're not exactly on talking terms with the Army of Light."

"And might I add," said Gene with his characteristic mischievous smile, "that the angels never do anything fast. Too many committees and votes compared to Hell's method, which is do it now or die."

Stupid me, even with this reassurance, I didn't want them to leave. Simon, as if sensing my sadness, squeezed me and whispered in my ear - the loud purr of a lion. "Wear something pretty and be ready for dinner at eight tomorrow. If you need me before that, call. I will come to you if you need me."

I warmed at his words, a reassurance Gene reinforced. "If you're frightened, or need me, make a wish, and I'll come. Fear not, sweet one, we shall keep you safe, even against the Legion. Oh, and wear heels for dinner tomorrow. I have a fetish for sexy feet." He winked at me, and I couldn't help a warm shiver because I read his unspoken intention in his eyes. Me, nude, on my back, my heeled feet up around his neck as he slammed into me.

Sounded like fun. Lots and lots of fun.

Heat and moisture pooled between my thighs, a pleasurable sensation that increased when first Simon then Gene kissed me thoroughly goodbye. Then, like a whirlwind, they left, and with them gone, the silence was deafening.

"Looks like someone is going to get her clock cleaned." Lana cackled.

More than once if I'm lucky, I thought with a smile.