"Can an ordinary human turn immortal after a venom bite?" Dimitri asked.
"No," said Number One. "The venom can kill humans, but it can also kill immortals. It all depends on how much is injected. To induce a Dormant, the immortal needs to be careful and inject enough to trigger the transition, but not enough to kill."
Tarik had intended to kill him, but because his friends had stopped him, the venom had just activated Dimitri's dormant genes.
How the hell had he gotten them?
Was one of his parents a descendant of immortals?
Dimitri forced himself to keep writing, to ask the next logical question as if he were simply gathering data.
"What happens once a male Dormant is activated?"
"He might lose consciousness for a short time," Number One said. "Then he might be sick for a little while. Fever and body aches are common because the body is working on re-forming itself. After a day or two, the fever breaks and the good things begin. Better vision, sharper hearing, heightened sense of smell. Reflexes become faster. Healing accelerates. But the process takes time. Up to six months until the transformation is complete."
Every word landed like another cog aligning in the machine. Enhanced vision. Sharper hearing. Faster reflexes. Accelerated healing.
All things Dimitri had experienced in the past forty-eight hours.
"So, everything keeps improving over the following six months or so?" He kept his voice steady.
"Vision, hearing, and smell improve right away and don't change much over time. Strength and endurance keep improving. The body becomes more resilient, harder to injure, and quicker to recover." Number Six shifted in his chair. "The fangs and venom glands take the longest to grow, and their growth is painful."
"How long does that take on average?"
"Approximately six months from activation," Number One said. "It's the most dramatic physical change. New glands form in the throat to produce venom."
The length of time and the pain were to be expected. The bone structure of the jaw had to reshape to accommodate theelongating canines, and new neural pathways had to develop to control the extension and retraction of the fangs.
The good news was that he had six months until visible manifestations of his immortality emerged.
"Are the boys given medication for the pain?"
All eight chuckled in unison. "The transition turns a boy into a warrior. What kind of warrior would he be if he needed medication for pain?"
"Is there any way to speed up the process? Or slow it down?" Dimitri asked.
"Once the activation begins, it proceeds at its own pace. It cannot be rushed, slowed, or stopped."
Dimitri looked down at his notes, pretending to review what he'd written while his mind raced through the implications.
It was irreversible.
He was turning immortal, and there was nothing he could do about that.
"Thank you." Dimitri closed his notepad and set it aside. "That was very helpful information."
He rose from the stool and walked over to the counter where the syringes he had laid out waited in a labeled row. His hands were surprisingly steady as he picked up the first one and turned back to face Dave.
"Number One, as always, you are first."
Dimitri administered the injections, moving from one body to the next, working through the sequence while his mind continued to process everything he'd learned.
He was a Dormant. Had been one his entire life without knowing it. Tarik's bite had activated his immortal genes, and now he was becoming one of them.
The thought should have been terrifying, and in some ways it was, but there was also something else beneath the fear and the excitement. It was a flicker of hope he hadn't expected.
He would become stronger, faster, and much harder to kill. He would be better able to protect Mattie and stand up against threats like Tarik.
