Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 652: The Sequence of the Helix

"Wow, you really have me all figured out," Caius said sarcastically.

Athenodora smiled.

"Absolutely," she said, not buying the sarcasm.

Caius just looked at her trying to maintain a passive look that didn’t betray more about him. The truth was Athenodora’s accurate read of him had shaken him quite a bit. But then, he almost called himself an idiot both in his head and vocally because, of course, she read him well. Though she wasn’t very present in the original canon, every time she appeared, Athenodora was formidable and always in control. Of course, the things Caius thought he was hiding were not all that well hidden to her.

"I still want to hear that ’please’" Caius said.

"It means that much to you?" Athenodora asked with an amused expression on her face as she leaned away.

"It does," Caius said.

Athenodora considered it.

"Alright. I can give you that much," she said and then adopted the cadence of a damsel in distress. Like a captured princess calling out to a Knight in shining armor,

"Please, Lord Caius Von Helsing. Save me. You’re my only hope."

She even batted her perfect eyelashes.

Caius could tell it was fake but why did it sound so natural? Why did that cadence that didn’t at all change Athenodora’s voice move him so much? Did he have a savior kink? Was it just the idea of her in a supposedly vulnerable state that did it for him?

He let out a heavy sigh, trying not to show how annoyed he was that her cadence got to him so much as he shook his head.

"The ’Lord’ was a bit much," he said with a smile.

"Well, you are a Lord, aren’t you," Athenodora said still in that sweet, vulnerable tone and cadence and a hint of a purr, "Big strong, vampire Lord whose blood holds all the answers."

"You’ve made your point," Caius said, "I got what I wanted so you can stop now."

Athenodora smirked, her eyes running down Caius’s body to his groin where she could have sworn she noticed a bulge, and maybe unconsciously, her tongue trailed out of her mouth to lick her lips sensually.

Caius did his best to ignore that and called her attention by talking about something serious.

"Viktor had plans for the Blood Matrix. For that reason, it’s both complete and incomplete," he said.

"What do you mean?" Athenodora asked, her eyes flicking up to Caius’s face for a second before returning to his groin.

"I could tell when I studied the Blood Helix through the Arcane Orb that it has missing sequences. Hence it is technically incomplete.

However, the Blood Matrix works as Viktor hoped and doesn’t need its sequences filled in. Hence it’s also complete."

Athenodora shrugged.

"Okay," she said, "That sounds like your problem. What does it have to do with curing me?"

"You don’t find it interesting?" Caius asked with a smile.

Athenodora rolled her eyes.

"I guess it is," she said but it was clear she was still impatient.

So Caius hurried along.

"To achieve his grand plans of overthrowing divine order, Viktor wished to secure his survival. So the Blood Matrix’s baseline trait was regenerative healing. No matter the mortal injury sustained, with the Blood Matrix, Viktor could heal."

"But then, he chickened out in the end," Athenodora said without even a bit of sensitivity or pity for Viktor’s fate.

"I suppose. But what if the Blood Matrix couldn’t heal his mental state? His brain wasn’t damaged. Not really. His mind was what was messed up and I don’t think the Matrix could fix that," Caius said.

"But you told Conscience that the Blood could have healed him and he was stupid not to use it," Athenodora pointed out.

Caius shrugged and began to pull up his left sleeve.

"I was just saying whatever I needed to make Conscience useless. I had no way of knowing for sure if the Blood would have worked or not.

Though I’m pretty sure I was right that whatever tortured Viktor worried that the Blood might work. Or at the very least, the dead torturing him realized the Blood might make it harder to push Viktor to death since he would be practically unkillable by that point. At least by any mortal means.

Still, with the Blood being in such a strange state of completion and incompletion, I’d say it was a gamble for everyone involved. How would one’s physiology and psyche react?

It’s a giant question mark."

"Is this your way of saying you’re not sure if the Blood will heal me or not?" Athenodora asked with her eyes narrowed shrewdly.

Caius simply smiled as he folded his sleeve past his elbow now, showing off his lean-muscled forearm with perfect skin.

"Here," he said, presenting his arm to Athenodora who eyed it.

"You didn’t answer my question," Athenodora said.

"Why bother when with a few sips, you’ll have answered the question yourself," Caius said and then observed her more closely as he added,

"Maybe you’re scared."

"Oh please," Athenodora rolled her eyes.

"It’s okay to be scared," Caius said, "We’re in uncharted territory. Never has there been a host for the Blood Matrix and never has there been an attempt to pass on its healing trait. It’s normal to be nervous."

"I don’t get nervous," Athenodora said, "And I don’t appreciate your mind games."

"You said before that you have read me so well," Caius said, "Why then are you so worried? Perhaps there are some things I can still hide from your knowledgeable eyes."

Athenodora frowned and then she grabbed Caius’s arm so tight that her claws dug into his flesh. Some blood seeped out but the wounds were already healing around her claws.

Caius winced but his smile was gentle.

Athenodora raised Caius’s arm to her lips and then she opened her mouth and sank her fangs into his forearm. Caius’s blood hit her tongue and it tasted as good as it always did. As it flowed down her throat and into her body, it eased the discomfort she had been feeling from the curse. But it was no different from what she had felt and tasted for over a week now when she used Caius to keep herself from dying from the curse.

Caius took a breath and closed his eyes as he reached out for the Blood Matrix. The Helix did not actually exist anymore. At least not in the way it used to. It seemed a lot less physical and seemed ingrained in a part of Caius’s being that didn’t occupy a physical space. He would have said his soul but that didn’t seem quite right.

He decided not to dwell on that at the moment. Instead, he was satisfied with how easy it was to reach out to the Blood matrix. It was as easy as harnessing the magical or physical might in his vampiric blood. It was even easier than calling on the wisps of Divine energy his Divine seed produced. The integration between himself and the Blood was so seamless that it was a wonder where the Matrix ended and Caius began.

Within a second of reaching out to the blood, Caius’s mind was absorbed into the Helix of the Matrix. He could see the sequences he had only observed through the Orb or Arcane Scripts far more directly. He could interact with them.

Only one sequence was filled at the moment: the Baseline upon which all the others were to be built.

The baseline contained the Regenerative Healing Trait among other traits but it was so attached to the Blood Helix that the trait could not exist freely outside of it. But it didn’t need to exist outside of it. Just a single purposeful burst of Regenerative Healing to fix what had been broken was all Caius needed for now.

So Caius called on the Trait and latched it onto his Blood. He could have sworn he sensed something else follow along but didn’t know what. He considered that it might be the Trait that allowed him to turn deathly white after Philip tore out his heart. But it didn’t feel like it.

That deathly white trait had carried a far more domineering feeling. Whatever followed the Regenerative Healing Trait out of the Helix was more mellow.

Athenodora jerked suddenly and Caius was pulled out of the Helix, blinking his eyes as he returned to his body just as Athenodora jerked again, digging her fangs aggressively deeper into his arm.

Thin lines of blood, like interconnecting cracks appeared around the area where her lips touched Caius’s skin. The cracks spread down Athenodora’s neck and were all over her body in a second.

Athenodora knew the exact moment Caius’s blood went from normal to extraordinary. Never had she tasted blood that strong. It was intoxicating and intimidating. It had Caius’s taste, the one Athenodora had grown addicted to, mixed in but she could hardly enjoy that with such a powerful concentration that took hold of every part of her body.

The cracks grew slightly larger and darker and as they did, Athenodora’s eyelids flew open, revealing her wide eyes where even her sclera had turned a dark blood red.

Athenodora pulled her fangs out of Caius’s arm and fell onto the ground, arching her back as things she could not possibly understand burst into her vision;

A giant Helix and its sets of sequences flashed across her vision as Athenodora felt Caius’s blood, carrying a Regenerative Healing Trait move through her body, searching for all that was broken. And fixing it all with such aggressiveness that Athenodora’s back arched at such an angle, one might have sworn it would snap.