Chapter Text
“Never met the kid before.” the driver, a Mr Somerton, stated.
“Sure I may have seen him around the mall a few times, maybe once or twice at the bridge.” he included. “But never really chatted with him.”
“Did you ever see what he was doing at those locations?” the officer asked.
“Panhandling I’d guess. Asking for money. Sleeping sometimes. Never really paid attention. Just part of the background ya know?”
Philza frowned as he replayed the audio.
“Did you know the driver? Mr Somerton?” he asked.
“Mark? Yeah, he was a regular at the mall.” Techno replied. “Wouldn’t really give much coin but he would buy me sandwiches from the shops now and then.”
“Did you ever talk to him?” Brian’s pen began to scratch against paper.
“All the time, it was kinda hard to get rid of him.” Techno chewed on the necklace. “Mostly just things like the weather and if there was a sale or freebies and such around the mall. But sometimes he’d ask if I was okay and if I needed anything.”
That didn’t add up.
Philza shook his head, rubbing at his temple. It was well past midnite by now. He had taken up shop in one of the offices to check the recordings of the night’s interrogations while Brian worked with Techno on explaining the expectations of the court.
It was going to be a long night.
He paused the interview recording from Techno, switching back to the one of Somerton.
“If you didn’t know him, why were you driving him?” the officer asked.
“I mean he looked like a hitchhiker, some lost kid in the middle of nowhere, figured if I didn’t pick him up someone else would.” Somerton shifted in his chair, adjusting the bandaged arm that rested in a sling at his side. “Trying to be a good samaritan. Didn’t realise he was feral.”
Philza paused the recording once more.
He’d called Kris earlier, confirming what he suspected about symptoms of ferality. It wasn’t well documented in the few dhampir’s that had been studied, but with vampires it wasn’t something that one could just snap out of.
The Curse, The Chattering, The Voices, whatever one chose to call it. The souls of the afflicted, murdered unjustly, forever attached to whoever bore the same affliction. Whenever they had taken hold of an afflicted’s mind, the only way to quell them was to feed. And not just drink a bit of blood or take some iron supplements, though that could put off the symptoms for a little bit it was never going to be the true treatment. No, the Curse forced the vampire to enact a bite, to fully envenomate and drain their victim entirely of blood. The very act of, and only the act of drinking blood and biting into flesh was what sated the Curse.
It could be calmed temporarily of course, through the act of consuming things like meat or dark chocolate, anything that could be eaten that contained an element of biting and iron within it. Sometimes in milder cases, just the act of biting was enough to calm the symptoms of the Curse.
He remembered the first time he’d seen Caera biting his own arm, the poor kid had lost sensation in the wound from his own venom and the Curse had forced him to latch onto the limb, chewing on the flesh until Phil had managed to intervene.
It was then he had learned about the usefulness of keeping chocolate and chewy fidgets on hand. While he’d already known about the mandatory prescription of dark chocolate for all registered vampires, he’d had to learn the rest from Caera himself.
And Kristin.
Though, she was far more capable at helping with their son’s vampirism than he was, he had to admit. To be fair, seeing as she was a vampire herself, she had all the experience to qualify her as a prime caretaker. And if Caera had ever bit her while fighting the Curse, there was no risk of being turned. It wasn’t as if she could be turned again.
Though, that then brought up a new question.
While a vampire had venom, during feedings that didn’t involve the Curse, they could control the rate at which it was produced and injected into their donor. If they had a donor.
Philza had been Kristin’s donor for years, he knew well enough the effects of vampire venom on a human body. Drowsiness, numbness near the wound, a general sense of relaxation. It wasn’t bad, not something he really would seek out but not awful. But if the vampire hadn’t fed for a long time, if the Curse flared and demanded blood, there would be no control of the venom. The victim would be drained and killed almost instantly, and awakened as a newly formed vampire some twenty four hours later.
But that was vampires.
What about dhampirs?
Techno had snapped out of his Curse induced -arguably stress induced- wall staring the minute that chocolate was involved. But, he had managed to chew up his arm in the meantime.
So, blood and the act of biting doesn’t necessarily stop the Curse flare up for dhampirs? He wondered.
Except, he hadn’t seen when the lad had bitten himself. For all he knew he could’ve been trying to manage the flare up while in the back of the cop car on the way to the station-
God that must’ve been hell…
-And the symptoms would flare and fade throughout the night, until given a proper form of treatment.
On top of that, from all the vampires he’d encountered who’d been in the midst of a flare up, or completely feral by the time he’d arrived on scene, they’d always been active. Hissing, snapping, violent sometimes. But mostly pacing and muttering to themselves, jaws clicking as they tried to bite onto something.
Techno was just quiet. He wasn’t even moving.
He had just been staring at the wall, pressing his face into the corner. There was no pacing, no biting, hardly any sound.
That had to be a dhampir symptom.
Philza stood from the desk, stretching his arms and legs for a moment before beginning to pace.
Smaller fangs, he began to list. Not nearly as averse to light, reacted to a flare up with unusual symptoms of avoidance and applying pressure to the forehead…
Another thought occurred to him.
Techno had evidence of a TBI.
Would his behaviour be affected by that too?
Maybe his symptoms were different because of his injury?
“Fuck.”
He was back at the beginning of the issue again.
With a defeated sigh, he returned to his seat and began to dial the familiar number once more.
“Hey Kris.” he twirled the pen in his fingers as his partner’s sleepy voice responded.
“I know you’re working hon,” she mumbled. “But it’s late and I’m tired…we’re only nocturnal in stories you know…”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I have more questions.”