Page 23 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

The rattle of cicadas surrounds him as he stands on the gravel drive smoking a cigarette. He looks up at Graeme House and sighs. His work shift had dragged on, as worries and thoughts about Calliope swirled in his mind. He was anxious to get home, to see how she’s been faring after her first drink, and now that he’s here, he’s stalling, feeling a little like a stranger in his own home.

Is it still my house, he wonders,if it answers to her?He could leave, of course. There’s an itchy feeling in his bones that whispers to him that it’s time to do so. He’s stuck around long enough. It’s risky, after all, to stay in the same town for too long when you don’t age. The memory of mortals may be flawed but it still prefers change; it feels most comfortable when theshadows travel with the day, when leaves turn colors, when hair grows longer. It tends to dwell on things that stand too still.

But Rory has only been still for three years. He’d be foolish to leave now, especially with the ease of his arrangement with the Claytons. Of course, while he’s fine with one to two glasses of blood a day, a new vampire on such a sparse diet is a risk, even if said young vampire insists she is not thirsty. The sun is rising quickly, and as the day fills with light, each moment brings them closer to what he considers to be the inevitable degradation of Calliope into a blood-thirsty fiend.

He takes one last drag of the cigarette before snubbing it out on the side of the empty plant pot by the front door. He lets himself inside, head turned as he listens for any movement.

But the house is silent, save for Kane’s fluttering heartbeat. Not that he expected much else. He knows at least one thing went right during Calliope’s transition and that’s the fact that her body no longer needs a beating heart, no longer needs to absorb oxygen. She is silent in that respect.

Yet perhaps he expected to hear her rustling about the place? The swish of fabric, the soft click of a door being opened, the gentle patter of bare feet against the wood floors. Maybe he even expected her to greet him at the door with a peck on the cheek, asking him how work went.

He’s been alone for too long.

As it is, Kane is the one to greet him at the door, by landing on his shoulder, nails snagging on his shirt, one of the few he now owns that isn’t stained with blood.

With a click of his beak, Kane says, “Don’t panic.”

Rory arches an eyebrow. “Word of advice, Kane. If you don’t want someone to panic, don’t tell them that.”

“Just…come see for yourself.” Kane pushes away from Rory’s shoulder and flies up the stairs, Rory following quickly.

The bird leads him to Calliope’s room, and when he pushes open the door, he spots her lying on the couch, head lolling to the side, and his stomach plummets.

“What happened?” He rushes into the room, knees folding against the floor with a thud. He presses a hand to her forehead, and he almost snatches it away. Her body is still far too warm, the fever still roaring inside of her.

Kane perches on the back of the couch and looks down at her. “She’s just sleeping.” He flutters his wings. “I think.”

His eyes flash at the bird. “Youthink?”

“I hope.”

Rory’s nostrils flare as a muscle in his jaw clenches. “How long?” he grits out.

“A few hours.” A squawk. “I was checking on ourshadow friend in the lake. When I came back, she was…” His feathers puff out. “Unconscious. But I can still smell her. She hasn’t perished.”

“Oh, well, if you can smell her,” he mutters. But Kane is right. Rory considers her with a deep scowl, watches her eyelids flicker with sleep. Her lips part as she shifts, nuzzling deeper against her pillow.

Rory swears under his breath, wondering idly if her transition went so wrong simply because she’s too stubborn to let it go right. He wouldn’t be entirely surprised. She’s been impossible, headstrong, and challenging since he brought her to the house.

Still, that’s not how the magic works, and he swears under his breath, brushing a curl away from her cheek under the guise of feeling for her fever again. The line between her eyebrow eases as the coldness of his touch relieves some of the heat smoldering below her skin.

“What did I do wrong?” He looks up at Kane, a feeling of helplessness stealing through him.

Kane clicks his beak toward Rory. “Maybe nothing. I’ve found something you should read.”

Excerpt from On the Nature of Vampiric Entities, Chapter Thirteen: Dhampir and Other Breeds by Margravine Isotta

As we’ve established in previous chapters, vampirism is, at its core, a unique strain of a curse passed downthrough Bite (see figures 3.4-5.6).

We have already examined the intricacies of the most dominant strain. In this chapter, we will look further at variations of the curse, contraction methods, and the myriad of ways the curse may manifest.

The Dhampir

The dhampir is the result of a union between a vampire and a human. This is typically a male vampire and a female human, though there are some documented cases of the reverse. The latter is particularly rare, as the very nature of the vampiric curse makes it quite difficult for a female vampire to carry a child.

Whatever the source of the progeny, the resulting child is often a mix of the two parents, inheriting some vampiric traits while retaining a measure of humanity. Curiously enough, this isn’t always a 1:1 ratio. For instance, a dhampir may be blessed with eternal life, yet require more than blood for substance, or perhaps a dhampir lives as a mortal, but can compel others to do their bidding. In some cases, a female dhampir may even be able to reproduce with either human or vampire.

This, of course, opens the world of vampirism in a remarkable fashion, potentially ushering vampires into an evolutionary chain that heretofore had been denied them by their very nature. While viewed as an abomination by some in the vampire community, it is this author’s opinion that the hybridization ofvampirism will ultimately win out; that as our races intermingle socially and culturally, so will our bloodlines, ushering in a new, vibrant age of vampirism. The dhampir are just one display of this inevitability, but they remain the most poignant example.

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