Again, his words did nothing. If anything, they caused the attack to grow in viciousness. Foxx’s arms began to shake under the strain, his eyes widening when he realized he wouldn’t be able to hold the man back for much longer.
How could a vampire’s insides look so damaged, yet still be this strong?!
“Foxx, either get him off you, or I will,” Harlow warned, the man standing only a few feet away. The dhampir had stayed back, but apparently, he wasn’t going to do so for much longer.
Staring into the man’s unintelligent eyes, while his arms began to shake more and more, Foxx tried to tug on one of his threads, to drain him…but nothing happened. Whatever was shredding through this vampire, it wouldn’t let him touch a single thread.
Tears filling his eyes, Foxx slowly closed them and spoke with resignation. “Kill him…”
The man’s weight was off of him in an instant. Foxx remained lying there, eyes closed, not moving, even as he heard the swing of a sword, and both heard and felt the spray of blood, followed by two thuds. But what did have his eyes opening was the smell that followed.
“What the fuck…?” the dhampir hissed.
Foxx let Harlow pull him to his feet, while his gaze zeroed in on the vampire now lying headless on the ground, the cut looking as clean as if a machine had done it. The thickest part of the blood puddle looked black, but where it had thinned out it was brown not red…
“What did you see when you looked at him? You saw something off, didn’t you?” Harlow asked.
“I…definitely…saw something…” Foxx said vaguely as he flicked his eyes to Harlow with a frown.
The man was in his normal black jeans, black T-shirt, and leather jacket, his short sword hanging loosely in his right hand. There were droplets of blood on his jacket, but not much. Foxx frowned as he stared at the blood.
He reached out to run his finger through one of the drops, but Harlow stepped back.
“Don’t touch it. Whatever is in him affects vampires…”
“I assume I’ll be fine as long as I don’t ingest it…”
“But you don’t know that.”
“I already have some on me, Harlow.” Foxx held out his left hand, showing Harlow the small droplets of blood that had rained down on him.
Harlow blanched. “Fucking hell, Foxx!” The man’s eyes were wide as he unzipped an outer left pocket and dug around. Pulling out what appeared to be a wet wipe, the dhampir started cleaning Foxx’s hand.
“Harlow…if this small amount of blood is enough to do what it did to the others, we are in trouble.”
“Tell me the second you feel off! Or better yet…let’s just go to the hospital!”
“Harlow, I’m fine. I feel fine.” He glanced down at his strands, noting they looked as normal as can be. “The poison, or whatever this is, I don’t think it caused this… Well, it may be a result of the exposure, but I don’t think it’s the poison itself. The blood… I’ve seen this occur naturally before, though usually it’s not this liquid. You have too. At least, I’d assume you likely have at one point.”
Harlow grimaced, and while still obsessively cleaning his hand, he asked, “What exactly is occurring?”
“His blood is, or rather was, already rotting inside him…”
“Rotting?” The dhampir looked over to the body, the hand on his freezing. “You’re right… This is exactly what blood looks like when it starts to rot… Well, aside from it not being a nasty congealed sludge. The smell is definitely right, though it’s never beenthisstrong before. But I’m guessing that’s likely due to me no longer being ‘human’. He just died. How the fuck is it rotting?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s causing it. And…” Foxx pulled his hand free. “I’m fine. I likely will be, as long as I don’t ingest any of that. Whatever this is…it’s not bloodlust. As mindless as a vampire in bloodlust can be, they can still speak, still think, even if the thoughts aren’t usually rational.
“There was nothing in the man’s eyes… No recognition that he understood what I was saying. But his blood rotting made sense with what I saw. He was dying before we got here. Dying while we were here. It was slow, but if what I saw kept up, he would have been dead before the night’s end.”
Harlow glared down at Foxx’s hand for a moment, before tossing the dirty wipe into a nearby rubbish bin. The man then reached into his pocket again, pulled out another, and startedto clean off his jacket. On throwing away the dirty wipe as he’d done the first, the dhampir asked, “What exactly did you see?”
“His threads were shredding, pulling apart, and extinguishing. If I can check over the course of the night how far along the damage is, maybe I can determine how fast the poison spreads once a vampire has been infected?”
“So, when you said threads, you really meant actual threads?” Harlow asked, sounding bewildered.
“Yeah, they are basically large glowing threads, formed by a whole bunch of tiny ones that are filled with life energy. They swirl inside the shape of one’s body, and all I normally see is the middle sections, as the ends usually fade and hide in that shape. But with him, the light was fading, and pieces were fraying off and already dark.”
Harlow stoodthere trying to wrap his head around the idea of actual fucking floating threads. The world…was fucking weird… This case was also fucking weird… Weird and off.
