17. The Law

" H ow's that?"

Foxx glanced over, but he was listening more than anything. The dhampir's heartbeat was elevated compared to a vampire's, but still slower than what would be normal for a human. "You are still stuck in the middle."

"What about my scent? I've been… I'm not sure how I do it, but I've managed to change it a little, I think."

He sniffed, finding an odd mix that wasn't quite human, but not vampire either. "You have to be careful, Harlow. Your scent and heartbeat naturally default to vampire, but if you try to fuck around with both, within range of another paranormal, they will notice something is wrong, even if they don't know about dhampirs." Foxx sighed. "Even if you got the heartbeat right, it's doubtful you'd be able to maintain it for long."

"Wouldn't they just assume I can make illusions?"

"Not when they know you were human just last week. And Oceana, while younger than me, is old enough that she likely knows about dhampirs. You have to be careful around her. Besides, I don't think you are of the Illusionist line anyway."

Harlow frowned. "So…I'm still considered to be part of a line?"

"You are vampire adjacent. Genetically, at least, part of you is from a creature that came from one of the Goddess' six bloodlines. So, yes, you will have the powers of whatever line you come from, on top of your dhampir shit."

"How are you sure I'm not of the Illusionist Bloodline then?"

"I'm not a hundred percent positive. But when I look at your threads, they don't…" Foxx frowned. Slipping into his Fate Bloodline powers, he glanced back over. "Well, some tell me outright, while most I just get this feeling of what they aren't. And that is what I feel you aren't when I look at them. The Illusionist line being weak to my bloodline makes it easier to pick those out."

Harlow growled, "I better not be of that Beast line. I have no fucking interest in changing my body any more than the shit that is going on right now. My threads look different now that I'm not…‘human', right?"

"They do…" He eyed the swirling lines inside the man. They were all gold. But he wasn't sure if that was their true color, because…gold meant vampire. "They used to be white…but…are all gold now. Usually a new turn—well, a newly turned vampire, that is—part of their threads stay white for some years after, until eventually turning all gold.

"On the other hand, werewolves who are changed and not born, always keep some white threads. It could just be confirming that you weren't ever really ‘human'. Regardless, it is a problem. Because you having no white threads left may bring questions from those who knew you before you changed."

‘Those' being Oceana… Stressed…Foxx was stressed.

"Do you think the gold color is a mask? Like how my scent and heartbeat are now."

"That is what I'm thinking. That your body hid the real color to protect you. As for what bloodline you are… Usually a turn takes after the one who changed them, but Micah was of the Illusionist line. I'm guessing that you take after whatever your vampire parent was."

"Right… Vampire parent," Harlow grunted. "Saying that out loud still sounds weird."

Foxx couldn't help but wonder if Harlow had considered what it meant, that he was what he was… He had said his parents abandoned him…but could that really still be true now? "Harlow…" he hesitated.

"What?"

Foxx grimaced. "Never mind, it's nothing…"

"Foxx, just say what you want to say."

"Have…you thought about your parents?"

"What about them?"

His gaze flicked over to the man. "I mean… Well, technically…they didn't abandon you…"

The dhampir blinked, his expression blank as can be. And he remained silent for a moment, his brow furrowing, before slowly saying, "Yes…they did?"

"I mean…they did, but they didn't really? I mean, they didn't want to leave you. In fact, they wanted you so much that they risked death to have you, but they knew that in order for you to live, they had to leave you somewhere…where no one could connect you to them. Back then, the only way they had to insure your survival was to get you as far away from them, and the paranormal world, as they could, without anyone finding out that you existed."

Foxx somehow found it…nice to know that as much as Harlow claimed to be a loner, there had always been at least two people out in the world praying that he would stay alive.

Harlow slowly tilted his head as he thought over Foxx's words. He supposed, with the new context of the whole dhampir thing…that was most likely what had happened.

With Foxx continuously glancing over, waiting for him to respond, Harlow let the knowledge sit, and just waited to feel something… And then…he attempted to try to feel something…but there was a big, fat nothing.

Sighing, he drawled, "Either way, it doesn't affect me. Well…besides the fact that one of them being a vampire has put me in the current fucked up situation that I am in."

"Ah…" Foxx gave a weak smile, as if he was slightly sad that it didn't affect him.

He didn't really know what to do about that, because it wasn't like he could make himself feel more for people he presumably hadn't met since birth.

The vampire cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Well, why don't you…check the case on my phone? I'm sure it's there."

Harlow glanced down at Foxx's phone in the cup holder, before looking back at the man. "I can't use that thing."

"Well, you are going to have to learn!"

Nope, no learning necessary. He refused!

"Foxx, I'm getting another flip phone, even if they can't fix mine."

"I already told you that you are NOT getting another flip phone! Now, pick it up, old man!"

He growled, "Foxx…"

"Pick it up and get used to it! I even removed my lock while you were getting dressed, so you could easily practice!"

Harlow glared for a moment, before huffing and grabbing the phone from the holder. He tapped the screen and it lit up. He tapped it again…and while the screen seemed to move a bit, nothing happened.

"It's not working."

"Slide up, don't tap."

He growled and slowly slid his finger up. "Okay, it worked… Now what?"

"Haven't you ever used a tablet or anything?!"

"No?"

"You're such an old man, I swear."

Many frustrating minutes passed by, with Harlow, honestly, wanting to throw the phone and Foxx out the window multiple times.

"HARLOW, I SWEAR TO THE GODDESS ABOVE, IF YOU DON'T TAP THE RIGHT THING THIS TIME, I'M GOING TO?—!"

"I'M THERE! I'M THERE!" Harlow hissed, before taking a deep breath. "See." He held up the phone. "I'm in the email."

"About bloody time!" Foxx snapped, glaring at him.

He cleared his throat. "Right… I just…scroll now, right?"

"Yes," the vampire ground out between clenched teeth.

Harlow slowly scrolled. "So, the chaos started about four hours ago just as the sun set. The Hunters Guild was called in three hours ago, and it's an ongoing situation. We'll basically be arriving six hours after this all started. The city we've been assigned to is smack in the middle of the other two, so we will have to drive through multiple blockades to get to it.

"Apparently, out of the three, Lowville has the most street cameras, and based on what they've seen, we are looking at eighty-five out of control vampires in that city alone." He scrolled some more, his eyes flicking over to Foxx, and he frowned at the man looking dumbfounded. "What?"

"You are going to break my screen if you touch it any harder."

He blinked and looked down, noticing that it did look like the screen was starting to bend inward where he was touching it. Harlow cleared his throat and slowly pulled back until it flattened out again. "Better?"

"Yes…"

"Okay." He read a bit more before saying, "They apparently got some videos of what they believe is a few of these people losing it."

"Play them."

He grimaced. "How?"

Foxx took a deep breath. "Tap the video."

Yep, his vampire sounded like he was suppressing violent urges.

"Okay…"

Well…maybe he'd agree to let him get a flip phone now. Well…not let… Harlow was a grown ass man… He didn't need anyone's permission to do anything…

Foxx wouldn't really break up with him over a phone, would he? Harlow glanced over and found the vampire starting to look murderous.

Clearing his throat, he tapped the first video, and thankfully, it started.

"It looks to be like some sort of back room somewhere. There is a woman, I believe, with her back to the camera, a man in front of her," he explained to Foxx, since the vampire couldn't exactly drive and watch the video.

" I don't feel so good ," a woman he assumed was a vampire rasped. Then the woman collapsed. " It hurts, it hurts ."

" Should I call an ambulance ?" the man with her asked, his hands hovering over her.

" IT HURTS !" she screamed, curling in on herself.

There was silence at first, and then between one second and the next, the woman began attacking. The man with her was dead only moments later. The video stopped on a freeze-frame of the woman. As grainy as it was, he could tell her eyes were…wrong. Just as the vampire's on the TV had been.

"Play the others," Foxx ordered stiffly.

He did, and they were much the same. As the last video stopped, Foxx cursed. "They all sounded like they didn't know what was going on?! I couldn't see, as I'm driving, but their eyes, what did they look like?"

"I couldn't see most of them, as they were facing away. The first one, even though grainy, I could tell her eyes were off, at least by the end. But with the last video, I had a clear look at the whole process. The whites of his eyes were normal at first, and then slowly browned as he kept screaming in pain. It looked just like the vampire's eyes on the news footage."

"Were they…drugged?" Foxx rasped.

"But with what?"

What drug would cause this?

"I don't…know… But I don't think they know what they are doing. I don't think they are in control at all."

"Foxx…" He grimaced on seeing the concern on the vampire's face. "It doesn't matter if they know, or are in control or not…"

"But if someone drugged them, what they're doing isn't their fault!" Foxx snapped.

"It's not… Yet… The law is…"

"What if we can save them?!"

"Foxx, they have killed already."

"Well, so have I! Would you kill a human if someone drugged them without their knowledge, and then, due to the effects of the drugs, they killed someone else?!"

"The law?—"

"Is wrong!" the vampire cried. "The law is wrong! If these people were drugged and don't know what is going on, then killing them is wrong!"

And this was exactly what he meant when he said that Foxx felt more than him. The vampire was crazy and sadistic, but he had always cared more for strangers than Harlow ever would, or could.

"Foxx…did it look like we could safely contain them?"

The vampire grimaced, and started biting his bottom lip.

"What would your council do to them?"

Foxx winced. "You bringing up my council, when I don't agree with many of their actions, doesn't change my mind."

"They'd do the same thing to them as they would want to do to me, isn't that right?"

"Yes… But it wouldn't be right in either case."

Harlow sighed and eyed the man for a moment before saying, "Do you want to call Tony, to see what he has to say about it?"

Foxx slowly looked over at him. "Can we?"

He sighed again. "Let's call Tony."