Ezra focused on his body, trying to feel the blood. After a few seconds of trying, he frowned. Why couldn't he feel anything?
His mind went to the blood chicken and his acceptance of eating it. He was still thinking like a human. He was a vampire now and was no longer subject to the laws of nature.
He was alive in a dead body. It should be easy to feel the vitality inside of himself.
He closed his eyes and focused his attention inward. At first, he couldn't feel a thing, but slowly, he began to feel a certain heat, tracing a map throughout his body. Before long, he could feel every drop of blood present in his body.
"Don't compress all the blood you have." Olivia's voice filtered into his ears. "That remaining bit of blood is what keeps us from looking like actual corpses."
"Oh! Forgot about that. Yeah, what she said." Gen giggled.
Ezra began to pull the blood towards his heart, taking advantage of the veins and arteries already present in his body. Defying both logic and biology, the blood compressed into his heart, filling more space than should be possible. He did remember to leave a tiny bit of blood out.
After compressing the blood, he recalled the second step. Ignition. Intense emotion.
He tried to call up happiness, but he couldn't summon enough of it to make it intense. His life so far hasn't been anything to write home about. When you're trying to survive, there's very little room for happiness.
He strained, trying to summon joy, before giving up. He frowned. What else could he try? Sadness? No. He'd never been one to stay sad for too long. His mind wandered around before settling on an emotion.
He took a deep breath before summoning rage. The rage he'd kept buried under lock and key. The rage at he'd nursed from a young age at how unfair life was. The rage he'd felt after he had been put into such a huge debt.
The rage rose up like the old friend that it was. As the rage bubbled within him, he could feel heat building up in his chest. More. More! MORE!
Whoomph!
The blood in his heart ignited and transformed into an ethereal mass of energy that rushed out of his body, spreading into an invisible cloud around him.
"Yes! That's it! An Aura!" Gen pumped a fist, celebrating his accomplishment. "An Aura is a mass of vitality spread around but still connected to you."
Ezra opened his eyes in wonder. He could feel the Aura like a sixth sense, providing him with a 360-degree vision of everything within a two-meter radius. He could even see under the seat of the hover car!
"It is one of the most important tools of a vampire. It gives a large range of vision, effectively giving you eyes at the back of your head. Best of all, it grows stronger as you age."
That was when Ezra noticed something incredible. "How is it broadcasting my emotions?" He could feel his sense of wonder like a warm cloth hugging him. It also felt like a weight in the air!
His mind went back to where he'd felt something similar. When Sarah had wanted to kill Gen, a sense of certainty had enveloped her sword.
"That's one of the Aura's abilities." Olivia said, focusing on the road. "You can radiate certain emotions or feelings you choose. You can even imbue those feelings onto objects."
"You can even use your Aura to enchant and hypnotize humans. It doesn't work that well on other vampires though." Gen sighed in disappointment before she perked up. "You do get telekinesis even if it's pretty weak. Only those crusty old vampires who have lived long enough develop decent telekinesis."
Ezra was looking everywhere at once in amazement. "Do we get telepathy?"
"Hah! Unfortunately, no." Gen snorted. "Just the most useless telekinesis to ever exist, extrasensory perception and good old fashioned empathy."
"Pull your vitality back in." Olivia spoke. "This isn't the time to waste it. We have more pressing matters."
Ezra reluctantly pulled the Aura back into his heart. It was intuitive, like he'd been doing this for decades, not minutes.
He couldn't stop the grin on his face. Now that he had a taste of the power, he felt like a real vampire now. To others, it's just an everyday power but to him, it's hypnosis, telekinesis, and emotion imbuing. And there's even more!
"What's the second major vampire power?" He asked eagerly.
"Tattoos."
"Say what now?"
"Vampire tattoos." Gen smirked before pulling off her leather jacket to reveal toned abs and lithe arms. Her breasts were held back by her crop top which looked a size too small and Ezra's eyes were glued to them before she snapped her fingers in front of his face.
"You said?"
"You can stare at my boobs later. For now, stare at my tattoos." Gen's smirk widened.
Ezra shifted his gaze to the tattoos that covered her body. Her stomach was covered by two colorful tattoos. The first one which was just above the navel was of a chameleon. The chameleon looked incredibly life-like with its skin shimmering with different colors. Ezra could swear he just saw it blink.
He looked at the other tattoo which was above the chameleon. It was a dark spider. The spider was just as life-like as the chameleon. He could make out each individual strand of hair on the completely black spider. It was like someone took a HD picture of a spider and placed it on her body as a tattoo.
"This is..."
"Blood tattoos." Gen flexed her biceps. Her biceps were covered with the dark web coming out of the spider's legs. The web coiled all over it, making her arms look like it was covered in solid black ink.
"This is the power that all vampires use. By mixing blood and ink, the resulting blood ink is used to create blood tattoos. When infused with vitality, the tattoos are then activated, granting whatever powers you give the tattoo." Gen explained.
"However, you can only tattoo a monster. Anything else and it won't work. Not a weapon, an alien, some gold or even a fireball. But you can tattoo a monster that shits gold."
"Wait what?" Ezra's jaw dropped. "Shit gold?!" If that was true, his money problems were a thing of the past.
"Yes. Every monster you tattoo can manifest the abilities you choose for them during the tattoo drawing. Like the chameleon here, every vampire has it. It's the one responsible for the black zones."
"Of course, there are limitations." Gen ruthlessly bursts his bubbles of fantasy. "First, Once a monster gets an ability, you can't change it later. Second, the abilities all use vitality as fuel. The moment your vitality runs low, the abilities become unavailable, just like us right now."
"We've used up most of our vitality evading capture from those pursuing us and with the fight against Sarah, our vitality is dangerously low." She said, meeting his gaze. "Another limitation is that while you can get more tattoos, the more you get, the harder it becomes to make them stronger. There's more but that's all you need to know for now."
"For example," Olivia interrupted, gesturing to the glowing red chain at the side of her neck. "Mr. Y's chains are not directly from him but from whatever monster he possesses. The chain prevents us from using vitality and I'm sure that is not the only thing it can do."
"She's right." Gen continued. "Of course, the more powerful the monster is, the more vitality it needs. There is a way to mitigate this, though. If the monster is destroyed, it's gone forever. But when it's within you, you can make it grow stronger by feeding it vitality. This makes it easier to manifest, and it uses up less vitality."
"Can I tattoo a monster that creates blood?" Ezra asked.
"Yes, but the created blood won't grant you new vitality."
"I see."
"Wait till you meet an old vampire." Gen laughed. "Those dudes are badass."
"We're here." Olivia announced as they pulled into a parking lot.
Ezra stopped and stared at the building in front of them. That can't be right.
"What are we doing at the T-Max building?"