Ordained by Devon Ashley Page A

dying out?”
    “No. We’ve always been few in numbers, by choice. Although the vampires you seek today originated from our line, they’re nothing like us.”
    “What happened to them?”
    “Mutation. Today’s vampirism was caused by one single vampire that happened to have lived a mortal life as a cannibal. Unfortunately, immortality did nothing to curb his appetite for bloody meat. His urge led him to bite people in the fatty areas of the body. Those that didn’t bleed to death turned. His thirst was transferred to those he infected, and so on, and so on. With time, they craved the blood more than the meat. More and more people were recklessly infected until their numbers were as great as those today.”
    Emily’s body tensed, her eyes became glassy. Abby was distracted by a white blur in the corner of her eye. She turned to see a flower softly unfolding before her. Its stem began moving toward the moonlight. Several more flowers followed suit. A sweet perfume filled the air around her.
    “So the line of vampires existing today originally came from someone like you?” It wasn’t really a question, more a thought spoken out loud.
    “They don’t know that. My kind wiped out their elders a long time ago, including the cannibal. With their deaths died the truth about their beginnings. They have no idea pure vampires exist and that we actually hunt their kind.”
    “And here I thought you hunted cause you were a huntress,” huffed Emily.
    “No. I get away with it because I was once a huntress.” Abby rose and slowly paced before Emily, her arms crossed. “A hunter is all they see. They have no idea what I truly am.”
    “So what exactly do you and Noel do?”
    “Once upon a time, we would infiltrate a nest, befriend the vampires and determine the best way to wipe them out. These days, we hunt bigger game and leave the vamps to you guys. We’d have to be pretty bored or come across a really large nest to even bother.”
    “Oh,” said Emily, as if her mind was far away. Her face looked ready to pass out, tired and blank.
    “Are you okay?” Abby asked. She did ask for this…
    “Yeah,” she replied, unchanged. “It’s just – a lot of information to process. I had always considered this a possibility, but honestly, I never thought for one second there’d be any truth to it.”
    Abby looked up and out through the glass dome. The night was still young, too early for her to turn in. Noel was already out for the night getting a feel for their new surroundings. She too wanted to go but he was insistent she speak with Emily first. She hadn’t had any fresh air in several nights. She yearned to be outside in the crisp, cool air.
    Emily’s unexpected question pulled her back to the warm atmosphere of the conservatory. “So how did your kind originally become infected?”
    “Same as legend says, bitten by a rare type of vampire bat. Most were accidental, like the cannibal, but a few were intentional.”
    “Like you?” she pursued.
    Abby answered with a quick lift of her eyebrows. “It wasn’t until the cannibal began turning people that we even realized we could infect others. Originally, for the mutated, it was a simple case of gingivitis that allowed the blood to transfer to the victims. After several mutations, they developed fangs.”
    Emily’s face puckered as if she bit into a sour lemon. “Do you have the fangs?”
    Abby chuckled. “No, none of the pure do.”
    “Were you bitten by bats?” asked Emily, slightly disgusted at the newer thought.
    “I wasn’t, but there’s an elder or two still alive that transformed that way.”
    “And people think rabies are the worst thing you can get from an animal bite.”
    Abby’s lips softened upward. “Don’t worry. After what happened with the cannibal, my kind hunted down and destroyed the bats. Noel and I were both infected by introducing the blood of a pure vampire into our bloodstream.”
    “I don’t understand how that makes you