14 – Alive and Warm

Sitting on my bed in the dark, my mind was still buzzing with what I’d learned.

I knew how to turn people into vampires now. Or at least had a good hunch, driven by foreign instincts.

It was so simple in concept. Drain out their blood and replace it with mine. Ideally without killing them in the first part, obviously. I could tell there was a bit more nuance to it than that, but the basics were correct.

So far it appeared that just feeding on a creature or human by itself didn’t affect them beyond the lost blood. I couldn’t be entirely certain yet, but I had at least not noticed any changes in the unconscious man’s body that couldn’t be explained by mere blood loss.

I’d also managed not to kill someone by feeding. It had been close, but even several minutes later the man’s heart was still beating weakly but rapidly over in the infirmary. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to recreate the level of mental control necessary.

Another important discovery, more critical in the short-term, was the sense of fullness I now enjoyed.

The amount of blood I drank, by my rough estimation, wasn’t much more than a liter or so. A large amount for a human. With their five to six liters of blood on average, it could be as much as 20 percent. Still, it was a rather small quantity in the context of feeding.

Especially with how empty I’d felt before, including my own veins, my expectation would not have been for such a small amount to fill me up this much. I felt downright content. Comfortable in my own skin. Warm.

Only now did I fully realize just how cold I’d been feeling when I was hungry. It’d just been part of the background discomfort of hunger.

Thinking of something, I sprang up and walked to the desk. In one of the drawers was a shard of the mirror I’d kept in case I had need of it. Like now.

Holding the about half-palm-sized piece of broken glass, I beheld my reflection.

Staring back at myself was, well… myself. Or Kalin, to be more precise. But compared to earlier, when I’d last looked at myself in the shattered mirror’s kaleidoscopic shards, I was no longer even the least bit transparent.

After putting the shard back, I plopped myself back down on the bed.

Does it have to do with how well fed I am? Am I less corporeal when hungry or something?

The idea has some merit, I decided after pondering it. When starved of blood, I became less like a living being. My temperature reduced and my heart beat less. I distinctly recalled a flash of memories from when I nearly bit Mia – I’d stopped breathing for a while, without even thinking about it. Reflecting less in mirrors wasn’t too far-fetched as a more metaphysical change.

This effect could potentially be useful. If I didn’t breathe, it would be much harder to discover me when I tried to hide. Reduced body heat could also help with that, if there were means – likely magical – to detect living beings by temperature. If I remembered correctly, some animals back on Earth also had thermal receptors that let them see infrared light, aka heat.

Maybe becoming less conceptually ‘alive’ would also help against certain spells. My knowledge of magic was pretty bare-bones, but there was no way no one had developed a spell to detect living beings. The advantage of such a spell would be invaluable.

Unfortunately for any potential hunger-assisted sneaking, being hungry like that really sucked. Vampire-related pun partially intended. I snorted in amusement at my thoughts.

My self-control really took a hit when I was ravenous. As evidenced by the earlier incident with Mia. And back then I hadn’t even been close to actually starving. Well, as best I could estimate something like that.

For now, I’d have to shelve any ideas of stealth related to starving myself or otherwise intentionally losing blood. It wasn’t like I could appear as basically a walking corpse to people without raising suspicions. And if I disappeared over the next few days, it would be even worse.

No, at least for the next little while I’d have to do my best to remain well-fed and as human as vampire-ly possible. I suppressed another amused snort.

With my attention less occupied by my thoughts, I noticed Mia’s heartbeat approaching. She was already well within my normal, non-focused detection range, so I must have been pretty distracted. Something to be careful of in future.

About a minute later, there was a soft knock on the door.

“Enter.”

A thin shaft of light illuminated the room and grew as the door swung open wide enough for Mia to peer inside.

“Are you okay?” Her voice was quiet, worry evident in her tone. I couldn’t tell whether she was worried for me or about me though.

“I’m fine, why do you ask?” I grimaced a little as I remembered the last time she’d entered this room when I was waiting. “Never mind, I get it.”

I heard a relieved sigh. “As long as you’re in control, everything is okay. I’m coming in, alright?”

“Sure.”

The door swung open, revealing Mia, magical lamp in hand. That’s right, I left that thing in her room. Good thinking, Mia.

Once the door was securely closed behind her, Mia stopped staring at me like a hawk and placed the lamp down on the desk.

After a minute of awkward silence, she spoke.

“So, how did it go? I checked in on the infirmary and that man is still alive at least. There also wasn’t anything obviously different about him. At least nothing I could tell. What happened?”

“Hmm. I have some results from my testing. Let’s say good news and bad news.”

“Bad news first,” Mia interrupted me. I smiled.

“I was getting to it. It’s more like not-positive news, really? The man in the infirmary is likely never going to wake up.”

That earned me a scrutinizing glare from Mia. “Did you do something to him?”

“Well yes, but he was in that state before. I’m pretty sure Lars’ strike damaged his brain enough that even though he is still technically alive, with breathing and heartbeat and all, his mind might be damaged beyond recovery. Not without magical means he will not receive anyway.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer. I continued.

“Anyways, the good news. There’s several things, actually. I figured out how to turn someone into the same type of creature I am. And just biting them won’t do it.”

Mia paled at my statement, opening her mouth to say something. I didn’t let her interrupt.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t turn that traitor. I did drink his blood though. Which gets me to my second piece of good news – I’m feeling nice and full right now. Which took a surprisingly low amount of blood. As you yourself noticed, that man is – technically – still alive. So I’ve confirmed that feeding isn’t necessarily lethal. Which I’d call very good news.”

The nod Mia gave was a lot more uncertain. This time the pause I left was long enough for her to interject.

Stolen novel; please report.

“About that ‘turning’, how– how do you know, if you haven’t done it?”

“It’s a sort of… instinct, I guess? I could feel the possibility when I drank that guy’s blood. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on doing that any time soon. And even then, I’d like to stick to willing subjects if possible.”

“Uh-huh. And that instinct… does it drive you? Are you likely to suddenly lose control like you did with hunger? To forget the ‘willing’ part of your statement?”

To give Mia credit, even though her heart-rate had spiked when I mentioned that, she hadn’t moved from her position of standing near the desk.

“It’s not like that. It’s not that kind of instinct. Like some desire to reproduce or anything like that. It’s more… well, hard to describe, for one.” I chuckled a little, though it felt inappropriate to the tense atmosphere.

“I’d say it’s more like an instinctual awareness of something I can do. I’m having a hard time thinking of an example of something similar. Like how you know how to breathe maybe? Though that’s too basic a function. Hmm. Can’t think of a better explanation right now. Either way, it’s not something that you have to worry about. It’s guidance on how to do it, but not a drive to do it, if that makes sense.”

“Okay…” Mia drew the word out long enough for me to doubt she really thought it was.