Iris responded smoothly, “I will schedule an appointment with The Eldest. He is very picky and requires advanced scheduling for any meeting.”

Sally’s face took a decidedly immobile cast at the name ‘The Eldest’. “Why does her need to meet him?” Sally asked.

“Because the Lycans will not permit access to The Key without his approval. Trying to acquire it without his approval has proven… lethal in the past,” explained Iris.

I took this in for a bit, “Who is this Eldest?”

Rachel took this moment to chime in, “He is the only confirmed immortal we know of. He has proven unkillable. Any vampire or lycan who has tried to kill him has died quickly and in agony.

“I wish I had a sample of his blood to investigate!” she muttered.

“Anyway,” Iris interrupted, “James, you should use the time while we wait to learn the nuances of working with Sally and whatever you need to learn about our little hidden society. If there are no more questions for me, you younglings should move on and go about your business.”

Rachel smirked at Sally and myself as we both startled at the term ‘younglings’. “Why don’t I sit down with the detective and give him a more detailed idea of what we are working on. Sally surely has other things to mind.”

As the three of us stood to leave, Sally was stiff as she said, “It just so happens that I have some investigating to do. I have some suspects to track.”

“Come with me, James!” Rachel said as she grabbed my hand. She led me by the hand into a corridor to the left of the central stairs of the lobby. We ended up walking into a large space partitioned with sliding panels and curtains. There were medical carts in each area and cabinets of medical supplies with glass fronts. Needle disposal boxes were located conveniently at every station. Directing me to one of the medical beds, she indicated I should sit. “Let’s get a nice blood sample from you,” she said as she pulled a cart over and took out the standard set of tools to take three vials of blood. As she went about the process with clear skill and warm hands, she looked deeply into my eyes. I could see clearly that her eyes were a gold-flecked green, with a copper colored rim to the irises. “So you are 43? I see that you have worked at the department for twenty years. Is that all correct?”

“Yes,” I said. “Can you teach me about the social structure here? Are you a vampire too?”

She blushed prettily. “No, I have asked Iris to turn me, but she says she doesn’t want to do what the other monsters do.”

“Why did you ask for that? Aren’t there drawbacks?”

She looked away a bit, “There are drawbacks. For instance, they can’t have kids. I’m not likely to live long enough to have kids. I have bigger issues. You may have noticed the copper color rings around my irises. That is from a disorder that I have to get treatments for on a regular basis. I also have a degenerative disease. Turning me would repair the genetic defects in my body. Right now, I am playing a game of medical ‘whack-a-mole’. So, yes, I want to be turned so I can live longer than somebody’s pet chihuahua.” The last part came out with a growl. After a moment to calm herself, she continued more evenly, “Anyway, A vampire ages around one year for every ten years a human ages in the same amount of time.”

I had to ask, “Why does Iris hate the other vampires of the world?”

“She doesn’t hate them, but she was turned against her own will. All of the girls here, you will meet them later, were turned against their will. Iris freed them from their cruel masters.”

“Masters? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Okay,” she took a deep breath. “When a vampire is turned, there is a ‘tuning’ of the crystal particles. I’m not sure how, but it makes it impossible to attack or disobey the vampire that turned them. That vampire becomes a master. The only way for the young vampire to be freed is for the vampire that turned them to free them, or for another vampire to give them enough of their own blood to override the master’s blood bond. There is complex math to it. The older the master is, the more blood is required to override their control and free the young vampire. There is a saying, ‘In Blood conflict, all being equal, eldest blood always wins’.”

This had me thinking. “So, if Iris turned you, and an older vampire came and made you drink their blood, you could be enslaved to them?”

“Yes. Iris was able to free herself by draining a vampire that was younger than her master, but old enough for the sheer volume of the blood to break her master’s control. That vampire became a zombie like the ones we have been seeing. She destroyed the monster and killed her master as soon as she was free.”

Many ideas were chasing themselves through my mind. “So, what does Iris expect The Key to do for her and the others?”

Rachel began to pace the room. “She and I think that it is likely that it would be able to replace the corrupted ‘software’ in the crystals in the vampire and lycan blood. Such a restore may fix the problems that started after the Mystics tampered. Vampires have tried to get it as long as they have been around.”

“How would it fix the zombies?” I asked.

“What makes them unable to recover, no matter what volume of flesh or blood they consume, the ‘software’ is unable to fully repair their cells. It’s like a computer that is stuck in sleep mode. They are consuming anything living that they can reach, but their higher brain functions are disabled. We have tried infusing test subjects with vampire blood, but they stay at the mental level of a rabid animal, and they are in a constant state of decay that offsets any regeneration that their bodies manage to do. We hope that the same ‘software restore’ would allow the regeneration to happen and restore them to what they were before.”

“Is there any way to turn a person back into a human after being turned into a vampire or lycan?”

“None we have been able to find,” she turned toward me again, “and I have been looking for a year. I trained under the woman who was the medical staff member here before me. She had spent forty years researching any leads she could find. All of the data was digitized before she passed away last year.”

“I see,” I replied. “ How does ‘turning’ work?”

“The human immune system is easily able to neutralize the infusion of the crystals into the system. However, if the human is in the process of dying, the crystals are able to enter their bloodstream through the mucus membranes and integrate into the body. It then repairs the body. If the blood that is administered in order to turn them is vampire blood, that is what they turn as. If lycan blood is administered, that is what they become. The other factor is, older vampires have built up toxins in their blood. If a healthy human has their mucus membranes exposed to vampire blood that is old enough, the blood’s own toxins will provide the ‘near death’ required for the turning to occur. For some reason, the toxin buildup does not seem to happen in lycans.”

“How old is Iris?”

“That is not the most polite question to ask of a woman who can snap your neck with less effort than I would use to stir my tea,” she replied with a stern look. A moment later, the stern face broke into a grin, and she snorted a rude laugh, “Relax! She knows that you will need to know all sorts of things. She was born around the year 1500. Her parents sold her to a famous Oiran to be an Asobi in training. Think singer, dancer, and sometimes prostitute. It was a hard time to be born a woman.

“Her future master came by one night. He was rich, so people did not care that he did not look like he was from Japan. He made the Oiran sell Iris to him. He gave the name Alec. We have no idea how old a vampire he was, but Iris described him as looking like he was in his 30s. He used her for several years as a lure to draw victims to him to feed on, but he never sold her to men or women during that time. It was only when she turned fifteen that he turned her.

“One of her greatest regrets is that she was never able to have a child. She felt shame for several centuries for not having a child.”

“Wow! She could have turned someone into a surrogate child, couldn’t she?”

“That was what I was thinking, at first. Now, though, I think she would see something like that as hollow. I would be glad to have her as my mother in that way, but it would not feel right to her. I know that now. That is why I don’t beg her to turn me anymore. She can’t have a child, and I can’t be saved from death.” The last bit was delivered with a wry smile.

At this point, the three vials of my blood were full.

I could not help but think of a dangerous question: “What do the vampires in this house do when they don’t have a worthy criminal to consume?”

“As luck would have it, our contacts with the city have ways of getting donated blood to us. We have six ladies here who have to eat at least one pint every few days. They get a bit feral when they are not fed.”

“If the Key could heal the weaknesses in the lycans as well as the vampires, why don’t the lycans use it to fix themselves?”

“That part is simple, the lycans can touch the Key, but they can’t use it. Only a vampire who has tasted the blood of The Eldest can survive even touching the Key. I already know what the next question is. No. A human can touch the Key, but can’t use it. So, the lycans hold the Key, and will not allow anyone near it without meeting The Eldest.”

“If you are done picking my brains for now. Would you like to have dinner with a young, available redhead?”

“Are you sure you want to be seen with an old fart like me?” I answered with a chuckle as I stood up.

“Age is just a number. Besides, you have more time ahead of you than I do. I happen to enjoy eating with a handsome, sophisticated, and mature man. Guys my age are too shallow.”

I offered her my arm and then allowed her to lead me to the kitchen.