Midnight Academy. Born at midnight - стр. 18

– Do you take away unnecessary emotions? How? For what? – she asked, even more amazed.

So far everything has only become more confusing. Vampires without fangs and the need to drink blood are some kind of toothless vegetarians.

– It’s simple: people with an unstable psyche have moments in life when emotions take over them so much that they lose reason. Then they do things that affect the rest of the world. With their emotions they change the lives of other people, and mostly exclusively for the bad. For example, they commit a crime or become the cause of a series of accidents that lead to someone’s death. We – vampires – take away these “extra” emotions from them, thereby maintaining balance in the human world. Moreover, various emotions may turn out to be “superfluous” – even happiness.

– And before this you had to drink blood? – I clarified, grimacing.

My imagination quickly painted the entire procedure in the most vivid colors, including the nasty taste of metal in my mouth. I definitely wouldn’t agree to such an abomination, because…

What if a person is sick with something? Or haven't washed for a week?

I shuddered with disgust.

“It happened, but not for the last three generations,” Nirel confirmed. – Now, fortunately, this is not required. We have learned to do without this procedure. Now we take away dangerous emotions with the help of touch. Prolonged touch and slight hypnosis. If such emotions are not drawn out, then a skew will constantly occur, first in one direction, then in the other. Of course, problems happen despite the existing protocol of actions, but it’s better to do at least something than to do nothing, right?

I nodded, agreeing with the guy. If he was telling the truth, then the matter smacked of a fair amount of pessimism, because something out of the ordinary was happening in the world every day.

But on the other hand, I briefly imagined what the Earth would look like now if vampires had never existed. Probably, we would all simply die out and everything would go from scratch: bacteria, fish, monkeys, dinosaurs, cavemen. Maybe nature learned from its mistakes and therefore created vampires in the next round?

Actually, I asked the third-year student exactly this question.

“Maybe,” he answered slyly. – In any case, we are the protectors and balance of this world. And not only us. All Midnighters.

– Is there anyone else? Spiders? – I guessed.

But it turned out to be wrong. I'm not feeling good today. It’s understandable, there are so many new discoveries in less than a day, so much contradictory and at the same time incredible information that it’s time to go to bed as soon as possible with dreams that tomorrow will be different – normal.

– Not spiders. Transformation is Percy's special gift. Each vampire has his own special gift, but not all of them reveal it right away. For example, it hasn’t shown up for me yet.

Smiling with slight sadness, the guy quickly returned to our main topic:

– In addition to vampires, Midnighters also include werewolves, witches and hunters.

Having caught on to the most important word, I fidgeted on the bench with impatience.

– Hunters? Everything about the rest is more or less clear. Witches can cast spells, werewolves turn into animals, and hunters? Who is this anyway?