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Sounds of crashing could be heard behind the door as Mista put his shoulder to it, trying to force it open.
“It’s probably barred,” Giorno said. “We need to try getting him to calm down before we get him out of there or this could become a very dangerous situation.”
“Because talking went so well earlier,” Fugo snapped.
Giorno clenched his jaw, but couldn’t deny Fugo had a point.
They’d been asked to look into a young dhampir who had taken it upon himself to become a nuisance to the vampire society of Napoli and talk him down before he did anything he would really regret. However, as soon as they had gotten there, he had gone off on some rant about taking down the vampire aristocracy and ran off to the upper story of the house where he had locked himself into one of the rooms.
Mista looked between his companions with a shrug obviously deferring to their opinion.
Fugo huffed. “We need to get in there.”
Giorno stood back, arms folded over his chest. He still would have liked to go with a less violent approach, but it did seem like they wouldn’t get anywhere otherwise.
Mista took out his blunderbuss and pressed it against the lock. “Stay away from the door!” he shouted into the room as he fired.
Parts of the door splintered off and Mista and Fugo gave it a couple firm kicks to open fully.
Giorno rushed inside after them, stopping for a moment in shock at what he saw.
The room was covered in laboratory equipment. Liquids boiling and distilling in tubes and beakers. There were glass shards on the floor as if some equipment had broken.
The dhampir spun around, facing them with a large knife, glowering.
“You’re just the same as all of them!” he snarled. “You’re all on the side of the vampires!”
“That’s not true,” Giorno said, trying to put his hands up calmly, stepping in front of Mista and Fugo who were both carrying weapons at the ready. “It’s a Hunter’s job to be unbiased.”
“Then why are you coming after me?” the dhampir demanded.
“Because we’re worried that you’ll hurt someone who doesn’t deserve your wrath,” Giorno told him. “We just came to talk.”
“Then tell them to put their weapons down!”
Giorno shook his head. “They can’t do that. But you can just talk to me, okay? I’m a dhampir as well. Your name is Marco, right?”
The young man eyed him warily, before his face contorted in rage. “If you are a dhampir then you should understand more than anyone what it’s like, and yet you defend those who oppress us!” He threw an arm toward the beakers. “I have been trying to find a way to make us stronger, so that we at least have a chance to go up against them. Don’t you see, Hunter? The future will be ours. You should join me so we can take down the ones who wish to grind us into the dirt.”
Giorno felt a deep sadness at the desperation on Marco’s face. “I can’t speak for you, Marco, and the life you’ve lived, but the one thing I have learned is that for every bad person in this world there is a good one who is also seeking change. I know it’s hard to see it this way, but flashy displays of violence only hurt a cause like ours. I know it can sometimes seem that there will never be a light at the end of that tunnel but that light isn’t going to be made with an explosion either.”
Marco seemed to contemplate his words for a few moments, before his fists clenched again. “Have you ever thought that you’re just a coward for thinking that way?”
Giorno tried not to let that bite at him, but he could feel Mista and Fugo’s impatience behind him, their unease as the dhampir got more and more agitated. He needed to stop this. He stepped forward.
“Marco, you have two options here. Either come with us quietly or we’ll be forced to take you down to the prison.”
Marco sneered. “You really are just like all of them, aren’t you?! Why don’t you all just go to hell!”
He rushed the Hunters, and grabbed Giorno, flinging him to the side. Giorno crashed into one of the tables tipping over a rack that contained multiple vials of liquid. The vials crashed to the floor with Giorno and shattered. He hissed as glass from one dug into his hand.
“No!” Marco shouted, clenching at his hair, distraught. “No, no NO! That was my serum! That’s all I had!”
He tried to rush for Giorno, grabbing for several of the unbroken vials that rolled around the floor when Fugo and Mista managed to grab hold of him from behind, dragging him backwards as he screamed and fought like a madman.
Giorno pushed himself up, removing the glass from his hand. He had no time to think about what might have been in those vials and now consequently in his body, because Fugo and Mista were struggling to restrain the dhampir who was spewing curses at them.
“You alright, Giorno?” Mista called, barely avoiding a flying fist.
Giorno plucked a couple more shards of glass from his hand. “I’m fine. We need to call the constables.”
“Well, do it quick,” Fugo snapped as he and Mista finally wrestled the dhampir to the ground and started to tie restraints around his wrists and ankles before tying them together.
Giorno tied a handkerchief around his hand as he hurried out of the room and down the stairs. His footsteps clattered uncomfortably loud in his head for some reason—must be the emptiness of the house.
Their carriage driver was waiting outside and Giorno planned to ask him to run to the police station in town.
However, as soon as he stepped from the shade of the house, his body burned as if he had suddenly caught fire.
Giorno let out a shocked scream, staggering backwards as he stared down at his right hand, seeing it red and blistered. His whole arm, up to his neck and that side of his face also felt raw and painful.
The driver leapt off the carriage and hurried over to him.
“Signore Giovanna! Are you alright?”
Giorno gritted his teeth, wincing at how loud the man’s voice was, his heartbeat so much more prominent than it should have been. “I-I’ll be fine. We need you to run for the police now.”
The man looked skeptical, but Fugo burst out the door in a second, staring at Giorno.
“What happened, why did you scream?”
He trailed off as Giorno turned to him and his eyes widened, crouching next to him. “Giorno! You’re face, what…?”
“I’ll go get the police,” the driver promised, seeming satisfied that Fugo would help Giorno now as he hurried off down the street.
“What the hell happened?” Fugo demanded again.
Giorno cringed. “Please, be quiet,” he pleaded. “My head….everything is so loud.”
“Was there some kind of booby trap?”
Giorno shook his head. “Just…the sun. I don’t…I don’t know what happened.”
Fugo took Giorno’s good hand and helped pull him to his feet, allowing Giorno to lean on him as he helped the dhampir back inside. “I’ve only ever seen these kinds of burns on a vampire who got exposed in the sun.”
Giorno nodded, wincing as Fugo sat him down at the base of the stairs in the foyer. “Stay here for now. I’m going to go see what the hell that little bastard put in his ‘serum’.”
Giorno sat there, slumped against the railing as Fugo headed back upstairs. He could hear everything they talked about from where he was.
“What’s in it?”
“I told you,” Marco snapped. “It was meant to make a dhampir more powerful.”
“It doesn’t seem like it worked,” Fugo replied.
“It simply magnifies our senses and abilities.”
“You realize it also magnifies your allergy to sunlight, right?”
Giorno furrowed his brows. The serum was interesting in theory but it did seem rather counterproductive even if it seemed to work the way it was intended, more or less.
“How long does it last?”
“I don’t know, I’ve only done one test run. Not very long.”
Giorno wished his body wasn’t in such agony at the moment. The burns pulled against his clothing—it really hadn’t done much to protect him. Was this what it was like to be a full vampire?
The police showed up and took the dhampir into custody as he continued shouting threats. Then Fugo and Mista hurried to help Giorno up and get him out to the carriage.
“We’ll get the driver to pull it as close as possible,” Mista promised. “In the meantime, take our coats. We’ll use this umbrella too.”
Mista and Fugo settled their coats over Giorno’s head and Mista held the umbrella over him as Fugo helped him to the carriage, shutting all of the windows as soon as he was inside, leaving them all in darkness.
“How bad is it, Giorno?” Mista asked him worriedly.
“I’ll…be okay,” Giorno grunted. He thought, anyway. Every mild bump the carriage went over jostled his body painfully, and his increased audio sensitivity was really starting to make his head pound on top of it.
They repeated the procedure of getting him out of the carriage covered as much as possible. Giorno could still feel the uncomfortable heat on his lower body, but the house was blessedly cool since the maids kept the curtains drawn for the most part with so many supernaturals living in the mansion.
“Infirmary,” Fugo said.
Footsteps sounded and Giorno could see Trish heading down the stairs.
“Oh, you’re all back? I assumed you would still be at the police station. Bucciarati just headed over there.”
“Giorno was injured,” Mista said.
“What?” Trish demanded, hurrying over to them. As soon as she saw Giorno’s face, she gasped. “Did you get burned?”
Giorno cringed and Fugo turned to Trish. “Try to keep your voice low, he’s overly sensitive right now.”
They explained what had happened as Trish followed them to the infirmary.
“Trish there should be some salve on that shelf over there for burns.”
Trish headed over to look and Giorno slumped onto one of the cots as Mista and Fugo helped him take his coat and shirt off.
Giorno hissed, the burns stinging abysmally as they were exposed to the air.
“Here, I found it, oh—Giorno those look awful.”
Trish looked horrified at the sight of the burns. “Was that holy water?”
“The sun,” Giorno said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose against the headache.
“These are pretty bad,” Fugo murmured. “Hopefully the salve will help a bit but it will probably take a few days for you to recover fully.”
“I’ll let you have some of my blood fresh for extra nutrients,” Mista promised.
Giorno nodded and slumped there on the cot as Fugo started on his face and neck, spreading the salve on thickly and following it with gauze Trish helped to wrap on.
The pain of any pressure at all on the burns made Giorno nauseous and he swayed, trying to resist the urge to pull away from Fugo completely.
“Here,” Trish gently coaxed, sitting down on the cot beside him and helped lower Giorno down until he was lying on his good side with his head in her lap. Giorno stiffened in surprise and Trish flushed slightly, but stood her ground as she turned to Mista. “Could you get him a cool cloth for his head?”
Mista nodded and hurried to fetch the cloth as Fugo continued.
Giorno was tight with pain. The burns were getting worse as they traveled down his arm to his hand and Fugo’s ministrations were quickly becoming agony.
Trish seemed to see how much he was suffering and reached for his good hand, squeezing it gently.
Mista brought the cloth back and Trish placed it over Giorno’s eyes and forehead, giving him something blessedly cool to help ease his headache.
“I just need to wrap your hand now,” Fugo said, carefully twining the bandage around his fingers.
Giorno let out a small sound of relief as Fugo finished and settled his hand carefully down on the bed.
Mista came over with a freshly drawn cup of blood.
“Can you drink?”
Giorno nodded and Trish and Mista helped him sit up to drink before laying him down and tucking him into bed.
“I’m afraid that’s all we can do for now,” Fugo said. “I’m going to have to go to the station to make our full report.”
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Trish assured him.
“Thanks,” Giorno murmured. He felt a little better after drinking the blood, but he was mostly exhausted. “I think the serum is already wearing off. Nothing is as loud as it was before.”
“Good to know,” Fugo said. “I guess next time we corner someone so delusional we need to be more careful not to do it in his lab.”
“Is he really so delusional?” Giorno couldn’t help but ask. “All he really wanted was to be equal. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
“Most of us aren’t okay with murdering for it,” Fugo pointed out. “What you said to him back there was true—essentially that it’s better to make small changes for good, instead of big changes for bad.”
Trish nodded. “And hopefully in a world without Diavolo in charge, we might have a better chance of those small changes being impactful.”
Giorno smiled slightly. “Yes. You’re all right. Thank you.”
Trish pulled a blanket over his waist. “Get some rest. Let me know if you need anything.”
Giorno let his eyes slip shut as his companions left and dreamed of a brighter future.