The Guardian's Keeper (The Guardian Trilogy, Book 1) Read Free Page B

points out far past Nikoli’s other teeth. His eyes glinted red.
    Claire gasped. “How….how did you do that?” s he asked in amazement, her shock pushing her grief aside momentarily.
    “ I told you before, I’m a vampire.” Nikoli let his fangs recede and gave Claire a shy smile. His eyes went back to their usual rich brown.
    “Speaking of which, Nikoli,” Joyce interrupted. “ Dawn’s coming soon, I’m sure you haven’t done your treatment. We might as well do a little show and tell for Claire here, seems to me it’s the first time she’s heard of vampires being real and not the stuff of scary movies.”
    Nikoli grinned from ear to ear. “Alright, then, let’s get on with it. Time for Claire to see a little more to sway her mind.” He gave her a playful look. Was he trying to cheer her up, reassure her? Claire could only muster a weak smile back as the news of her family came crashing back to her.
    A few minutes later Claire found herself out in the old barn behind the house. While walking across the yard from the house to the barn Claire only quickly considered trying to make a break for it. She was too intrigued by the whole possible-real-vampire business now and too exhausted to put up any more of a fight.
    Inside , the barn was lined with cages containing all kind of animals- raccoons, foxes, opossums, even a few skunks and a badger. There were cabinets in between the cages. The space and the animals were pristinely kept despite the neglected exterior of the barn.
    “What is all of this?” Claire asked Joyce.
    “ Well, Claire, while many parts of vampire folklore are untruthful, some are very, very, true. I assume you have heard vampires cannot be in sunlight, to do so would be their death- that part is true. My late husband found a way around that.” with that Joyce directed Nikoli “Raccoon #7 tonight, for the draw, #8 for the injection.”
    Nikoli walked over to the cabinet between the cages an d removed 2 syringes. One he stuck into his right forearm and began drawing up his own blood.
    “What are you doing?” gasped Claire in surprise.
    “ What I need to do to survive in the sun,” Nikoli explained flatly, his eyes never leaving the syringe filling with his blood as he turned his back to her.
    “ You see Claire, my husband was a scientist, a good one at that,” Joyce explained as she took the blood filled syringe from Nikoli and walked over to raccoon #8. “He discovered that by injecting nocturnal mammals with vampire blood, the co-mingled blood could be harvested and injected into a vampire, giving the vampire a limited ability to withstand sunlight. It only works with nocturnal animals, though, natural night dwellers like the vampire.”
    She slid on a long thick leather glove, inserted it into the cage and caught ahold of the raccoon, which fought and snarled as Claire had done earlier against Nikoli. Ignoring the animal’s protests, Joyce plunged the blood-filled syringe into the animal’s shoulder and depressed it, forcing Nikoli’s blood into it.
    “ Does the animal turn into a vampire?” Claire asked cautiously.
    “ No, oddly enough. My husband discovered the only mammals to turn into blood drinkers when exposed to vampire blood are us humans. Turns out we’re the only species who are truly bloodthirsty and will kill just for the sake of killing,” Joyce mused wryly. “Okay, Nikoli, let’s get this done.” She removed her gloved arm from the cage and made some notes on a clipboard hanging from the front of it.
    Joyce next stuck her gloved hand into #7’s cage. She held the animal down with one hand and used her other to stick the syringe into the animal’s thigh, drawing up its blood from there. Claire’s disgust must have shown on her face.
    “ You don’t need to watch if you don’t want to,” Nikoli said gently, right up beside her. Claire blanched in surprise.
    “ How are you so fast? You were just at the cabinet.”
    “ We vampires are fast, agile and