The Survivors

Chapter Twelve: Blank Slate, pt. 2

"They say we can drown in fresh water but not in saltwater. We have never tried, obviously," she said. I was disappointed. I knew I could not drown.

"Do you feel pain?" I asked.

"Only where I once had a soul," she said. "We are not like others either. We aren't fast, and we aren't strong. But the rest are."

"The rest of who?" I asked.

"The others you'd call vampires. They are always fast and strong. I bet you are like that," she said.

"I'm not a vampire, though," I said.

"Then what are you?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. "If you're not a witch and not a vampire? A shape-shifter?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I'm something in between, I guess. I don't know what you'd call me."

"Do you have a family?" she asked.

"I do," I said.

"And you were born this way or you were turned?" she asked.

"Born," I said.

"Maybe you're a vieczy," she said. I raised an eyebrow. "You haven't heard of them?" she asked. She made the same throaty sound. "Vieczy is the child of a witch and a shape-shifter. They say women shape-shifters can't bear children, but the men can impregnate. And everyone knows witches can have children," she explained. I reached for my pack, pulled out my notebook, and started scribbling furiously. "They are born, not turned like us. I think they may be the only vampires who are. Sometimes they grow old, but usually they stop around your age," she said.

"But they are immortal?" I asked.

"Of course," she scoffed.

"Can they die?" I asked. She looked at me strangely.

  What kind of trouble are you in, pretty girl? She asked in her mind. "I suppose," she said. "But I don't know how. Some say cutting out the cold, still heart will do it, but vieczy I've met have skin too hard to penetrate. It's colder than a witch's or a shape-shifter's, and it's hard like stone," she said.

  "That's not me, then," I said. I pulled up my sleeves a little ways to show some of the scars around my wrists.

  She was taken aback. "You are sure you aren't a witch?" she asked. "They're the only ones who bleed like humans. They have heartbeats, too."

  "But I don't have a heartbeat, and I don't bleed either," I said. "You can open the skin, and there is blood inside, but it doesn't pump, and it's thick like molasses."

  "Are you sure?" she said. She looked at me with a new curiosity in her eyes, appraising my movements. "Witches can die, you know. You can drown them or burn them or break their necks. And we can take blood from them. We don't like it like human blood, but it will do if we need it to, when we can catch them."