The witch cleared her throat. “So,” she began, folding one arm over the other as she stood at the foot of the treatment table. Her eyes roamed the length of Braithe’s naked, emaciated form. “I have completed a preliminary examination. It has by no means given me conclusive answers, but I’m in a position to be able to make some educated guesses.”

“Please,” I said, “just tell us everything that’s going through your mind—even if you’re not sure it’s true.”

“I’m sure that these creatures can be killed, just like regular vampires such as yourself can,” the witch said to me. “They possess, after all, physical bodies.” She reached for a container on the counter that was filled with sharp knives—presumably for dicing up ingredients—and picked one up. Hovering the knife over Braithe’s right hand, she slid the edge of the blade against the tip of his forefinger, creating a small slit in his skin no larger than a paper cut.

Braithe remained just as unconscious, and not even the smallest tinge of blood emerged from the cut. The wound remained dry, almost brittle.

Uma replaced the knife on the counter before continuing, “The body of a human-turned-vampire such as yourself, if left without blood for too long, can start to morph and mutate into something different. Quite different.”

“But not all of those creatures on the ship were starved of blood,” Aisha said, frowning. “I saw with my own eyes how perfectly normal vampires were turned by the Bloodless into one of them in a matter of hours.”

“Correct,” Uma said. “Originally, there was a vampire, possibly even more than one, who got deprived of blood for too long. In the process of their bodies adapting to survive without blood, they still retained the vampiric ability to turn… except now, their victims take the form of their new evolved bodies.”

There was a span of silence as Aisha and I waited with bated breath for the witch to continue.

“Regarding the ‘original’ Bloodless, so to speak,” Uma said, “I imagine that during the earlier days of blood deprivation—the first few months perhaps, maybe even up to a year, depending on how recently they’d last fed—their bodies consumed their own blood for preservation… In time, when no new blood was consumed, the body had to start finding another way to survive. What you see here”—she eyed the length of Braithe—“is nature’s answer. A body that craves blood more than anything else… but that no longer requires it to function.”

My mouth hung open as I gazed at her, enraptured, scared to miss even a single word.

“What about Derek Novak?” Aisha asked the witch. “You must know of the legendary ruler of The Shade. He survived four hundred years without blood, and he didn’t turn into one of these things.”

“I am aware of that vampire’s case,” the witch replied. “But he had the assistance of a witch at the time— a witch who cast a sleeping spell upon him, that would have also served to preserve his body.”

“Hm,” Aisha murmured.

“I haven’t examined this one internally yet,” Uma went on, eyeing Braithe again, “so I can’t go into precise details regarding how his body is able to function exactly, but I think I’ve gleaned enough to help wipe out the ship…” Uma’s eyes fell on me. I guessed that she would need to cut Braithe open at some point, especially if she was ever going to find a cure. I hoped that she wouldn’t make a mistake in the procedure and end his life accidentally.

“You mentioned, Julie,” the witch continued, “that you already tried to stake a Bloodless through the heart—perhaps the most common way to kill a vampire. I think I know the reason why that doesn’t work. As I’m sure you’re aware, when a human is turned by a normal vampire, the vampiric infection is transferred through the blood and settles in the heart first and foremost—that is where the nature of the Elder takes root, which gradually affects the rest of the body physically. But in the case of the Bloodless, based on the fact that staking the heart doesn’t kill them, I’m taking a guess that the absence of blood has caused the original infection’s concentration in the heart to break down and infuse the entire body.”

Aisha shook her head and held up a hand. “Wait, you’re losing me. I know that a vampire’s immortality is due to the Elders’ nature infecting their heart—which is why destroying the heart also destroys the immortality—but if in the case of the Bloodless the Elders’ nature has dissipated from the heart due to lack of blood, wouldn’t that make the Bloodless more vulnerable? More mortal, not stronger?”

“You’re right in a way,” Uma replied. “The vampiric infection that causes immortality still exists in them, but it is broken down and leaked throughout the body which simply means that no particular part of the body is especially vulnerable. You have to strike in multiple places to end them—for example, chop them to pieces so that they can no longer physically move.”

There was a pause as Aisha and I let Uma’s words sink in.

Aisha crossed her arms over her chest. “What I don’t understand is how an original Bloodless could even come about. How long would they need to starve in order to reach this state?”

“Taking a wild guess, I would say at least six years,” the witch replied. I was grateful that Aisha had no way of knowing the real truth of how the original Bloodless came about, my own Hans being part of the group.