43. He Slipped!

H arlow parked, but before he even had a chance to do much else, Foxx was already out, yelling, "Something's wrong!"

"Foxx!"

Cursing, he threw off his seat belt and jumped out, rushing after the man. Following Foxx into the clinic, he trailed the man's scent, catching sight of the vampire just as he disappeared behind a door marked Labs - Authorized Personnel Only.

Yanking the door open, he hissed, "Foxx, you can't just—FOXX!" He rushed to the man's side when he spotted him collapsed and gasping on the floor.

"Something… S-something in the air."

FUCK! His eyes widened as the whites of Foxx's eyes began to change to brown. "No… No, no…"

Harlow scooped Foxx up and quickly got him out of the room, gently setting him on floor, and then he rushed back inside to find fucking Doc, the one who had to have caused this.

He found the vampire collapsed on the floor behind his desk, his hand reaching out towards a broken vial. The man's eyes were mere slits, barely open, but even so, he could tell the whites of his eyes were fully brown…

The hand clenched. "Harlow…" Doc gasped.

Yanking Doc to his feet, he chucked the man over his shoulder and ran out of the room, kicking the door closed behind him. The metal dented as it shut. Flipping Doc none to gently off his shoulder next to Foxx, he demanded with an angry growl, "Fix this!"

"Counteragent… Vial… Desk… Shot—H-hurry!" Doc rasped.

Cursing, Harlow yanked open the door to the lab and rushed back in. Eyeing the desk, he grabbed the tube filled with a glowing green liquid, and a small sealed syringe that was laying nearby.

Running back, he kneeled beside the two men. Tearing open the packet around the syringe, he filled it as far as it would go, and…stabbed it into Foxx's chest where his heart would be, because Foxx was more important. Also…he'd be damned if he was going to stab his vampire with a used needle.

Pressing the plunger, once it was fully empty, he pulled it out, refilled it, and injected Doc next.

Setting it aside once it was empty again, Harlow sat back and watched…waiting. Not that there was much to see. Foxx's eyes were scrunched closed, the man grimacing in pain.

The longer he waited, the more his pulse beat away in his throat. Part of him wanted to demand his brat to open his eyes, so he could see if it was working. To see if the odd brown color was reversing…

Was this it…? Was he going to lose Foxx to this…? To whatever the fuck this thing was…

No…he couldn't… Harlow swallowed, doing his best to push back what could only be rising panic.

But then…Foxx's eyes slowly cracked open, and Harlow's shoulders sagged on noticing the brown was gone. His gaze flicked over to Doc, and the vampire's eyes were still only slightly cracked, but the brown that had dominated the whites of Doc's eyes had started to recede, white slowly reappearing.

A few minutes more passed, and Foxx's breathing returned to normal, the man no longer squinting or looked to be in pain.

"What the hell, Doc?!" Foxx hissed, glaring at the other vampire.

The doctor rolled his eyes—eyes that were very close to being normal again. "It's fine, we'll survive. Just relock the front…" The vampire frowned. "Wait…how did you get in?"

Foxx smiled sweetly. "I broke the lock."

"You…" Glaring at Foxx, the man stretched with a groan, rubbing at his eyes. He used the wall to stand up, his gaze flicking down to Harlow. "Well, that's new."

Helping Foxx up, he stood. "Yeah, yeah, dhampir. The council knows, we solved our differences. Now, like Foxx asked, what the hell was that?!"

The man rubbed at his eyes again. "Well, I…was being careful, keeping people out of my lab…and then…I slipped."

"You slipped?!" Foxx croaked, sounding bewildered.

"You worked on the counteragent fast, it seems. Unless whatever fucking got Foxx is some other poison you decided to cook up." Eyeing the doctor, Harlow frowned as he noted the man had some serious bags under his eyes.

"How could that be the poison?! Those people were likely infected for hours before it made them collapse and go insane."

Doc cleared his throat. "I'm afraid the reaction was so fast because of how concentrated the amount was. I'm guessing they didn't release a whole vial's worth in a small airtight room." The vampire yawned before eyeing Foxx, the man's eyes going shiny. Foxx's eyes did the same seconds later, both of them just staring at each other.

"You two are looking at each other's threads, aren't you?"

"Yes," they both replied.

"Nothing…is tearing apart," Foxx mused. "But it looks like it was progressing a hell of a lot faster than it had been in those vampires… Luckily, what has been torn is weaving back together."

Doc's eyes returned to normal and he nodded. "Yours are obviously not as progressive as mine. But what damage was done is reversing."

No longer feeling like his insides were being torn to shreds, or that someone had shoved a lightbulb powered by a thousand suns into his eyes, Foxx closely examined Doc. Mainly the huge bloody bags under the man's eyes. "You slipped, huh?"

Doc cleared his throat. "YES, I slipped."

"What exactly did your daily schedule look like before you ‘slipped'?" Foxx asked sweetly.

The vampire glared, crossing his arms as he let out a deep sigh. "I may have canceled all of my appointments, and put off sleep for a while."

"Which is why you fucking slipped! You know we can't function without fucking sleep, right?! You, as a doctor, should know that!"

"Well, I probably would have become one of those lost vampires from the other day if you hadn't come, so feel free to be smug about that, you bloody lowland British fuck!"

"Highland Scottish bastard," Foxx hissed.

"Okay…" Harlow said slowly. The man was eyeing them both. "I feel as if I shouldn't get in the middle of this, but also, I really don't fucking care. We did come here for a reason, other than to save your ass."

"Yeah, a reason, and maybe since you infected my ass with it, you can tell us what the hell it is that they, and now you, are poisoning vampires with."

Doc snorted. "Let's head back in. I'll explain everything, and then you can tell me why your asses are here. It should be safe based on my research. Once infected, we should be immune."

"Are you sure?" Foxx asked, his brow raised.

Doc glanced at the lab door and ground out, "Based on the fact your dhampir dented my fucking door, and likely destroyed my tightly sealed room, yes!" The man's Scottish accent was in full swing now.

Harlow smiled. "Oops."

"Oops, my ass." Doc hmphed. Straightening up, the man shoved them back to open the door, and stormed away.

"Prickly as always, I see," Harlow snorted.

Foxx sighed. "Let's…follow, I guess." He eyed the vial Harlow still held. "But…keep that handy, just in case."

Harlow grunted in response.

Foxx went inside the lab. Pulling out a chair from under the counter, he sat down, watching as Doc cleaned up the broken vial on the ground. Grimacing, he wrapped his arms around himself at the slight chill in the air. Not even slight…it was bloody cold in there.

Eyeing the ground, and the lack of anything being there besides the broken glass the vampire was cleaning up, Foxx pointed out, "There's nothing there… What exactly was in the vial?"

Doc straightened, dumping the dust pan over a bin marked hazardous materials . The man then hit a big red button, and the sound of fans began, as air started to circulate.

"It was a liquid, but—" The vampire yawned, shaking his head as he walked unsteadily over, pulled out a chair and took a seat. Clearing his throat, he asked, "What do you notice about the room?"

"It's cold?" Foxx drawled.

"Is it?" Harlow frowned. "I suppose…it's a little colder than normal."

Doc scoffed. "Ignore him. Dhampirs run hotter than werewolves. But yes, it's cold. Even a human would find this temperature unpleasant enough to at least warrant long sleeves. You asked me what it is, and the answer is…it's a poison, yet also…a virus."

"Real…clear, Doc," Harlow snorted.

"It's because what it is…is slightly unclear. I've recreated it, but the fact is, once introduced into the body, while it does spread through the bloodstream…it also multiplies like a virus would."

"But we can't be infected by viruses." Foxx frowned. "We can't get sick like that."

"It's too complicated, and frankly, a waste of my time to explain fully what's in it. Just know that it is a mix of holy water, ashes from a bible, aconitum phoria, a rather nasty viral concoction that should never have worked on us, but...yet does, and some other chemicals. Along with one random chemical that I'm positive is only there to help bind everything together, yet is likely the sole reason why those infected suffer from extreme light sensitivity."

"Heaven's Wolfsbane?" Harlow asked.

Doc's eyes flicked to Harlow. "Yes?"

"Foxx, what are the odds that we just happened to run across a group of werewolves that were growing that exact plant in a swamp?"

Foxx frowned. "Would Maverick use werewolves as a means to an end?"

Harlow chuckled. "In a fucking heartbeat."

"Then…the odds are questionable. It was a large amount…" Foxx frowned.

A very large amount. Even with how much it sells for on the black market…to be honest… "As much as it sells for, the demand isn't that high. Mainly as the customer base is constantly dying. It would take years to sell just one season's worth of growth, given what was there. And each year they'd just have more and more… It would be an endless supply that would never sell. I wouldn't imagine they'd even be able to handle storing it."

"How much are we talking about?" Doc asked with a frown.

"Maybe a little under a football field's worth," Harlow drawled.

Doc tsked. "How high?"

"About two feet," Foxx stated.

The vampire winced. "It's a slow growing strain. To get that high, I'd say it has been there for at least four years. It has a dormant period, but doesn't shrivel up. Being an annual plant, even after just a year, it would be a lot. After four… Though, I suppose that this year's was never collected… Either way, no grower with plans to just sell on the market would plant that much. If it's them, the amount collected…" Doc seemed to force back a yawn before continuing. "To make a single dose of the poison…one only needs a microscopic speck of it."

Foxx groaned. "Meaning, they have collected enough to make us worry."

"Yes… We got sidetracked. I mentioned the cold air…because the poison goes from liquid to gas when it comes in contact with air under fifty degrees."

"Which is why I was instantly infected when I walked in."

"Yes, the room…WAS…airtight." Doc glared at Harlow.

"What were you doing before you slipped?" Foxx asked.

"I was testing if the counteragent worked. My plan was to release a small trace amount of the poison into the air, and…"

"Hope for the best?" the dhampir snorted.

Doc hmphed. "Yes, well, while I wasn't a hundred percent certain it would work until moments after you injected me, I was ninety-nine percent sure. I did plan to have a syringe filled already before I infected myself, but the plan obviously changed…" The vampire's eyes narrowed. "You couldn't have grabbed both needles?"

Harlow shrugged. "I didn't actually notice there was a second one."

"Why are you two here? If there is nothing else, leave. Now that I know how much poison they could have made, I need to begin the process of procuring the raw materials needed to mass-produce the counteragent. I used up what I had creating this much, which, mind you, is likely only enough for three more people. Shipping alone will take a few days, so the sooner I get things ordered, the sooner I can rest. As I might as well do so while I can." The man finished, saying the last part through another yawn.

Foxx winced. "Doc… About that…"