Read Online Object of My Affection by Tracey H. Kitts - Free Book Online Page B

long, straight, and sharp as a razor.
    “That’s incredible,” he breathed.
    I could see that he wanted to touch them. He reached out, but then pulled his hand back. Another professor he knew was a werewolf, so I assumed he was afraid of infection.
    “It’s alright. I’m not contagious.”
    “That’s right. I remember you saying that you weren’t actually a carrier of the disease.”
    As Richard turned my hand back and forth, examining the claws I repeated for him what Alfred had said about my body mutating the virus.
    “And this has never happened to anyone else?” he asked.
    “It’s completely unprecedented. Besides, they gave up on the cure years ago. Nearly everyone who was vaccinated turned. No one had the reaction I did. It could have been the fact that the vaccine was injected into my system so soon after my attack. I guess it was just too late.”
    “Wait a minute.”
    Richard’s eyes lit up. I loved to watch him work. He was a scientist to the core, always coming up with fascinating theories about complicated or obscure things that most people just overlooked.
    “If almost everyone who was vaccinated changed, that means two things. First, the ones who didn’t turn had a natural immunity. That’s not that weird.”
    “What’s the second thing?”
    “Well, most people did change because of the vaccination.
    You had that shit injected directly into your blood stream less than thirty minutes after being brutally attacked. From the way you described the attack to me, I’d say a fair amount of werewolf DNA was already coursing through your veins.”
    “What are you trying to say?”
    “You were infected twice.”
    His face said clearly that he understood the significance of this, but I did not.
    “Some times people are attacked by multiple werewolves.
    Wouldn’t that count as being infected with each individual bite? That doesn’t make sense, Richard.”
    “Yes, it does, and no that doesn’t count as a multiple infection. See, you were infected first by a werewolf, the animal itself. Then you were injected with a synthetic version of almost the same virus, meant to fight off the disease. You were infected separately with two different versions of the same poison, so to speak.”
    “So what does that make me?”
    “I don’t really know ... a mutant of some sort?”
    “Gee thanks, Richard. You really know how to boost a girl’s self confidence.”
    “It’s not an insult,” he insisted. “It’s a miracle. What happened to you should have killed you.”
    “That might be true, but would it have killed a wizard?”
    I then explained to Richard about my great, great, grandfather.
    “When did you find this out?” he asked at the end of my story.
    “A few months ago.”
    He sat back and ran a hand through his prematurely gray hair and finished his drink.
    “I don’t know what to tell you, Lilith. My knowledge of wizards is very limited. I didn’t even know of their existence until I met you.”
    “Yeah, and I’m no expert.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that you don’t know that much about them either, and I only know as much as you know. I’m really not sure if their actual genetic makeup is different enough to cause a mutation like that, or....”
    “Or what?”
    “Or, if it’s magic.”
    “I love good fiction, Richard. But I just don’t know....”
    “You don’t believe in things that you can’t see and touch? I know better than that. You believe in God, and love. What else would you call love but magic of some sort?”
    “True enough, but you can feel both of those things.”
    “You can feel God?”
    “Of course. What else would you call a comforting touch when you’re in need but the hand of God?”
    “I should never argue religion with a poet. You’re right, though. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.”
    I poured Richard another coke and rum, got myself a beer out of the fridge, and located a bag of pretzels.
    “So what will you do?” I