“—it caused his centrioles to refocus their transmissions internally, directing rapid cellular repair and healing. Because they’ve been repurposed, he has less outward power for manipulating the world around him. However, should he draw power from heat, electric, earth, air, or water, he’ll force his centrioles back to magic manipulation duties and cease their accelerated healing actions,” the doctor finished.

“So no sucking power from your environment,” Stacia warned. “Just your own internal power – which is exhausted.”

“So how do I feed myself,” Declan said.

“I suggest using your hands,” Singh said.

“Ouch, burned by your own doctor!” Lydia said.

“But?” Declan began.

“They should be healed enough for light use,” Singh said.

Ignoring Lydia’s laughter, Declan turned to the buffet and tentatively pulled his right hand out of its sling. It was a bit shaky but he smoothed out the motion as he pulled the plate toward the food trays, his left coming out of its own sling to help.

“Three days. Fast for a human,” Senka said to Singh. “Even with my blood.”

“Declan has more centrioles than other humans, so every cell that the small sample of V-squared touches before it is killed off by the immune system becomes a powerful director of healing. We’ve found that the effect diminishes within a week as the virus gets eradicated.”

“What about LV?” Stacia asked.

“LV is a more aggressive invader. It takes very little to either infect the body fully or kill the host, or in some cases, the body wipes it out without effect. That’s why we don’t use it on humans. But once infected, the centrioles of weres do some really interesting things. Like witches, they use outside energy, but that energy is directed at the body and the additional DNA carried inside the virus.”

“So Stacia is using a form of energy akin to magic to Change instead of lighting fires and making winds blow?” Declan asked.

“Exactly,” Singh agreed with a nod.

“But what about Chris, who has traces of LV but is fully infected by V-squared?” Nika asked.

“The LV contamination occurred in his ancestors’ past, as did some Chinese-based V-squared. We don’t know anything about the actual experiments that were conducted in that World War Two prison camp. But when Chris was exposed to Tanya’s V-squared, his body reacted differently than all other cases we know of. We don’t understand it fully,” Singh said.

“Who is we?” Declan asked. “Who are the researchers?”

Singh turned to Tanya, the young vampire princess drawing a breath to speak.

“Contact! I’m under attack!” Omega said. The two orbs by the witch turned and started projecting a high definition image on the closest blank wall. In an instant, it was as if they were all in the jungle with Omega.

Chapter 43