The Iron in Blood

Mark was nodding slowly, like it all made sense. "Cool."

Angus said nothing.

"Number three. Are there any others out there?"

"Hmmm. Good question. I don't know. The likelihood is, yes, there probably are more of us out there somewhere. We haven't found them yet, but they could be camouflaging themselves as normal people, same as us. There are a few possibilities, really. Firstly, there could be a family or two of fairly civilised vampires, like us, who know what they are and how to control it. They would also know how to avoid detection, so it's unlikely we'd ever find them. The second possibility is that there is a group of old style vampires, but that's a long shot. They would have to be pretty organised, and live somewhere that was very isolated, because they'd look wrong. They'd also need some human go-betweens. That kind of group would have had to have existed for a long time. We haven't bothered to look for groups like that. Marcus doesn't think that they could exist, and there would be no point in finding them anyway. They'd be too freaky, even for us." He grinned.

"The third possibility is that there are more like Rebecca out there, with two human parents. Both your parents carried different parts of the genes you needed to metabolise iron, and the combination of the two was like fitting two pieces of a puzzle together."

"How did you find me?" It was my turn for a question.

"You had a blood test when you were hit by that car. Marcus isolated a specific blood subtype in the three of us that wasn't present in the rest of the population. Fergus hacked into most of the blood banks in the world, including those in the NHS. Your name was flagged by one of Fergus' systems. I was in the vicinity, so I was sent to check you out."

He smiled at me. I felt that now familiar fluttering rush in my abdomen again.

"Marcus somehow got them to send him a sample of your blood. He confirmed the presence of those three genes in your DNA."

"Have you found any others like me?"

"Not yet, no. We weren't even expecting to find you. It was quite a surprise." He was smiling with his eyes again. Flutter, flutter. It was becoming almost painful to be in the same room as him, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I was starting to dread having to go home tonight. I tried diversionary tactics.

"So where do Marcus and Fergus live?"

"Russia. We were born in Aberdeenshire, but we moved to Russia shortly before the cold war ended. I haven't lived there for years, though. Marcus and Fergus stayed behind when I left."