The Immortal Hunter(33)

"That's true," Decker acknowledged. "Our blood is different. It has nanos in it. At least that's as good a description as any." When Dani simply stared at him, he explained, "You see, our scientists were trying to develop a way to repair or remove things like cancer, infection, and serious injuries without resorting to surgery and inflicting further trauma on the body. What they came up with were nanos, little bio-engineered gizmos that were programmed to travel through the bloodstream. They used the blood both to fuel and regenerate themselves, as well as to make repairs in the body, regenerate tissue, or surround and kill off any infection or illness that may be present."

Dani nodded to encourage him to continue. So far what he'd told her wasn't anywhere near crazy. She had read about recent experiments using just such technology for a similar purpose.

"They succeeded beyond their expectations," Decker continued. "The nanos did go in and perform repairs and kill off infections and cancer, and anything else that attacked the body. It was hailed as a medical breakthrough. The sick and injured lined up in droves to receive it. My mother's parents were among those first infected with them."

"Whoa, back up," Dani interrupted at once, "Your mother's parents? Your grandparents!"

Decker nodded. "My grandmother, Alexandria, had what is now called cancer and my grandfather, Ramses, was seriously injured in an accident. Both were terminal. They were subject one and two, both treated at the same time. It's how they met. They were married three months later, and my uncle Lucian and his twin brother Jean Claude were born a little less than nine months after that. They were the first born infected."

"Oh, see now." Dani sat back, shaking her head. "You were doing really well right up until the grandparents bit. Before that you had me suckered, but there is no way they had this kind of technology fifty years ago."

"Fifty?" Justin snorted, meeting her gaze in the rearview mirror when she turned his way. "Try several thousand."

Decker took a moment to toss a glare in his direction and then turned back to Dani. "This is the part that's hard to believe." He paused and took a breath and then said, "Our ancestors came from Atlantis."

"Atlantis," she said with open disbelief. "Atlantis, Atlantis? The legendary lost land?"

"Yes. As the legends claim, Atlantis was highly advanced technologically. Unfortunately, it was also terribly insular and didn't share that technology with anyone. They didn't share anything with anyone. They lived surrounded by sea on three sides, with mountains between them and the rest of the world, and it was how they liked it. So when Atlantis fell, those who survived crossed the mountains to find themselves in a much more primitive world. They had no way to store blood or perform transfusions."

"Wait a minute" Dani interrupted. "You skipped from a miracle cure to no blood and transfusions. Why the need for bl-?"

"The nanos used a lot of blood to support themselves and make repairs. More than the human body can create. Transfusions had to be given to those who had been treated with the nanos. That was fine in Atlantis, but when Atlantis fell..."

"No more transfusions," she said, struggling now with whether to believe him or not. Some of it actually made a mad sort of sense.

"Right, and that's when the nanos began to change our people. They had been programmed to repair and regenerate and basically keep their host alive and at their peak condition physically. Without blood, our ancestors would have died, so the nanos changed them in ways that would help them stay alive and at their peak health-wise. It made them fast and strong so that they could get the blood the nanos needed."

"The eyes," she murmured with realization. "Your eyes reflect light like a cat or raccoon."

"Because we are nocturnal hunters like them," Decker said quietly.

"You said this Sam is a mortal so she can canvass during the day while Mortimer slept. You can't go out in sunlight?"

"We can," he admitted. "But as a doctor you know that the sun causes damage, which means the nanos have more work, which means a need for even more blood. We feed on bagged blood now, but before blood banks and bagged blood, we were forced to feed off our neighbors and friends. And we did our best to minimize how much feeding we needed to do."

"And the nanos brought on the fangs too?" she asked.

He nodded. "They gave us all the physical attributes needed to make us better hunters."

"I see," Dani murmured, glancing down to her hands and trying to take it all in. It was a lot to swallow, almost as hard to believe as the old legend about dead, soulless creatures cursed to walk the earth for some past sin. The science was one thing, but Atlantis? Thousands of years ago? True, she'd come across legends about the fabled Atlantis over the years, but those were just myth. Weren't they?

"Would it be easier for you to believe if I claimed we were the cursed undead?" Decker asked wryly. As if reading her mind, she thought, and that reminded her about Nicholas and Lucian's claim that they could read and even control her.

"You say they gave you the physical attributes needed to make you better hunters. Is that all?" she asked, eyes narrowing on him.

He hesitated and then admitted, "No. They also developed our ability to read thoughts and control minds too. It helps us to-"