The experiments in the lab continued as normal. This time, there were a few more pricks and prods into Dean’s skin, draws of blood, and even more experiments. Usually, he would ignore a lot of the pain.
For one, he was used to it, and because he was a Werewolf, it wasn’t as painful as the first time turning when their fur practically ripped through their skin.
This process would be repeated a few times until eventually, the skin would no longer be ripped and the fur would just grow on the skin. Then there were also the painful days of starvation and restriction during the full moon.
Yet for some reason, the prods and pokes were getting to him this time. A large needle the size of a bottle with a thick end was jabbed right into the back of his neck, and a stinging pain continued.
“You’re just doing this on purpose today, aren’t you!” Dean snapped.
“Do you really think someone as busy as me has time to just poke and prod you for fun? Do I look like a man who doesn’t have a company to run?” Rickle replied.
“You don’t look like a man to me.” The words had aggressively come out of Dean’s mouth before he thought about what he was really saying.
For a moment, Rickle looked deep into Dean’s eyes, and the two of them didn’t break contact.
“Was it this morning?” Rickle said. “I knew I was being lax around you, but I had a million other things on my mind at the time as well. You guys and your keen sense of smell—I have to put double the amount on just to trick your nose.”
Dean’s heart started to beat faster. The reason he had been agitated this entire time was because of the smell he had in the morning. He was sure of it, that Rickle was a vampire.
The experiments, everything was getting to him as the thought was coming to his mind: what if this vampire was just tricking him, just taking him for a fool?
Now that he had been found out, would he have to fight his way out of the situation?
“Calm down, will you? I’m not trying to harm you,” Rickle said as he stopped the experiment and moved away, sitting back down in his seat as he had done the first time the two of them had met.
“However, your nose has not lied to you. You are right; I am indeed a vampire.” When Rickle said these words, his eyes started to flicker red, but with a blink, they soon changed back to a deep dark brown.
“Before you start slicing and dicing and trying to make history repeat itself, I think I should make my position clear. I am not a part of the vampire society. In fact, right now, the vampires don’t even know of my existence and believe NIRV is just being run by another human. So it would be best for the two of us to keep this as a secret between us,” Rickle explained.
Dean didn’t know what to believe. The vampire could be lying to him, and he would have no way to tell, but if he didn’t believe him, it would mean the experiment would come to a complete end.
The experiment to stop himself from becoming a Werewolf. The one saving grace was that he hadn’t been killed yet, just poked, prodded, and had a lot of his blood drawn out.
“Will we still be able to complete the experiment? Will everything be okay between us?” Dean eventually asked.
“Of course. I wasn’t lying when I said I was curious about this process. You de-wolfing yourself is something that has never occurred in history, and I would like to be a great part of it,” Rickle explained. “Of course, I knew what you were before you knew what I was, but I thought it was just best to keep things that way.
“I have to be honest, though. Now that the two of us know what we are, I want to take the experiment in a different direction. I am close to completing your request. In fact, I am certain I now have a way to remove the wolf from you.”
Dean’s eyes lit up. Was it a coincidence that now the vampire had been found out, a solution was near? How many months had they been going at this with seemingly no results?
“To finish the experiment, there is something I need from you. I need to know everything there is about Werewolves: how you work, what makes you tick, the feelings of your powers, and the feelings of powers beyond your own. Let me know them to the best of your understanding.”
“After that, we will need to run more experiments, and once everything you know about being a Werewolf has been cleared, we can safely go through the process.”
“Everything I know?” Dean was taken aback. “Why would you need to know something like that? How is that meant to help with the process? I can’t see why that type of information would help at all.”
“Or, are you planning on using all the information you have and using it to help the fight with the vampires against the Werewolves?”
“I already told you, I am not part of the society,” Rickle replied. “If anything, I am a champion of Earth and society of all races as a whole. The information you give me will help me progress further in other research that I am conducting. It’s just the start of something, a string of things to come. Well, maybe I wasn’t the start of this.”
Rickle seemed to ramble on about things that Dean didn’t care about, and it was clear he would be vague about the answers he would give as well.
“Why now of all times? Why are you confident everything will be fine… It’s hard to trust you now,” Dean asked.
Rickle then stood up and held a metallic object in his hand. The object started to meld and change shape, turning into something different altogether, now just a round ball of sorts.
“Just like you aren’t an ordinary wolf, I am not an ordinary vampire. I have a power of sorts that lets me work in certain ways. There will be sacrifices on both ends—that’s how my power works—but I guarantee you will get your results. It’s an exchange; that’s what this has been, that’s always what this relationship between the two of us has been.”