Free Blood and Stone by C. E. Martin Page B

and in some instances death.”
    “But you aren’t wearing any glasses,” Victor said, surprised.
    “Contacts,” Laura replied, smiling.
    “What about blood?” Victor asked. “Do you really drink it?”
    “Not if I can avoid it. I don’t like the taste of it and I have to drink an awful lot to get any benefit.”
    Victor didn’t understand that either. “What was that blue light you... pulled from the Colonel?” He had struggled with finding an alternative to sucked.
    “Lifeforce, pure lifeforce,” Laura said, looking over at Mark and licking her lips. He was ignoring her—or at least pretending to. “It’s what vampires crave. We can’t generate our own, so we have to take it from others.”
    “What if you don’t?”
    Laura considered. She didn’t like to expose her weaknesses, but then again, if Mark knew, this stone soldier of his would eventually, “I’d die. A slow, horrible, agonizing death.”
    “Don’t let her fool you,” Kenslir said, finally speaking up. “She’d never let it get that far. When she got hungry enough, she’d eat someone.”
    Laura made her fake pout again. “Oh, Mark, don’t be so dramatic. I don’t actually eat people.”
    “No, you just suck the life out of them—killing them. If they’re lucky.”
    “How do you become a vampire?” Victor asked. It was all fascinating to him, learning that another being he had thought to be mythical actually existed.
    “Well,” Laura said, leaning forward, and whispering. “I’d draw all the energy from you, then give you some back, reviving you. Being reanimated, you’d no longer be able to generate your own lifeforce and you’d die if you didn’t begin feeding yourself.”
    “So you can choose whether or not to turn someone?”
    “Victor,” Colonel Kenslir said, closing his laptop. “Go forward and check on our flight progress.
    Victor was surprised by the Colonel’s interruption, but obediently obeyed, rising from his seat and leaving the passenger cabin.
    Kenslir, seated almost on the other end of the small cabin, watched Laura from his plush leather chair. The cabin had six rows of the seats, with two seats on either side of the aisle. The chairs could all swivel around in a complete circle, which Kenslir had done after take off, to keep an eye on Laura.
    “Don’t get too friendly with my men,” Kenslir said.
    “Jealous?”
    “I still haven’t decided if we should trust you.”
    Laura started to get out of her seat. “You trusted me forty years ago...”
    “Sit,” Kenslir said, pointing a finger at the vampire. “I took a gamble, and it worked out. I’m still trying to decide if I should do that again.”
    “So what—after I find your giant, I go back to prison? That’s not very sporting of you, Mark. You know, in some cultures, when you save someone’s life, they belong to you.”
    “You never saved my life—it was the other way around.”
    Laura smiled coyly. “I know.”
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
     
     
     
     
    Tezcahtlip was genuinely impressed. For the primitives they were, the humans of over a thousand years ago had done surprisingly well building great structures. The stepped pyramid he now stood before was almost as magnificent as those built by the giants of his own time.
    The humans milling around him, taking pictures of the crumbling structures would truly have been impressed with those pyramids of the past. But most of those remaining in the modern era were buried or submerged below the waves, wiped out by the Flood of an angry Creator. The closest structure remaining to resemble those of his youth was far away, in the heart of this land now called Mexico.
    Tezcahtlip had briefly considered selecting that ancient site as his new capital. But it was too close to the humans and their modern cities. He wanted a remote location—both for its security and its mystery. After much consideration, he had decided upon what the humans called Chichen Itza.
    Now wearing the body of a normal