Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

I'm Going to Watch You Someday

They stopped the ice bath when to Cool Suit arrived. This contraption ran water through ice water in a container, through coils in the suit, and back. Now instead of dumping ice on me, Morgan had to settle for changing it in the tub. I hope she got the passive-aggressive out of her system because I hate to think what she might do next otherwise.

Nakoma brought home a fresh load of ice. This time it is in coolers.

She looked at me concerned. "You OK, Dad?" She asked, feeling the part of my face that is exposed with her hand.

"I am freezing. Other than that, I am fine." I assured her.

I lied. Kinda dumb. Hard to lie to an Astral. But then, I'm covered in cooling gear so it's hard to read my body language.

"We are maintaining his body temp between 100 and 101 Fahrenheit." My mother told Nakoma. "Fever is the body's reaction to infection. It helps to fight it off. Too hot is bad but too cold would not let his body do its work. Jessica worried that the fever went from nowhere to over 103 so fast that it might spike up even higher. 103 is not life-threatening. Not even to a human. It's not good, but it's survivable. Jessica worried about the trajectory. I agree. Denise did the right thing getting your dad into the cold water quickly because we had to hit your dad hard with all the external cooling to get his body temperature back to here. Whatever it is they injected him with? His body went after it with a vengeance."

"We know it was a virus. Just not what kind. Right?" Nakoma asked.

"Yes. Speculation is that it is specific to Vampires." Mom told her.

I faded out of that conversation because despite everything; I have to sleep. My body may be fighting off this stuff, but the toll it is taking is on all my resources.

My feet started to hurt. Plutonium damage rearing its ugly head. I slept anyway, shivering into dreamland.

I had no actual dreams. Shifting grey and red landscape is all that played by my mind's eye. Shit. When I was being tortured by the HPA and Sandy my dreams were better than this.

Sandy. Forgotten in her cell at this point. Her sick self has been trumped by Sirens. Sandy was the perfect bait to get me there.

They paid a price for that too. Not only the damage to the building, but two guys stabbed. Why are Sirens always trying out their stuff on me? Hey! Let's let the Vampires know we exist! I know! Let's bash out Adrian's fangs! We have some stuff that makes Vampires get sick. I know! Lets set a trap with a rapist and shoot Adrian up with some and see how it works.

Shit. Just because I am unique in Vampiredom, I get all the incoming Siren BS.

When I next floated to near consciousness, I felt new blood in me. Jessica. At this point, I know that blood anywhere. I have looped with her, Helen, and Morgan so many times now. I drifted around, awake enough to consider that, but never really awake. As I drifted back down, I wondered why? No way they looped us. I have a virus that could hurt her too.

Next time I rose from the dark, I felt some Helen. Ever deceitful Helen. She will get into my face, but I remember the very first time we looped. After they cut me down off the cross. Nothing but incandescent love.

So it went. Morgan was next. Then Denise. Some Angel. Nakoma. A really odd one that seemed... Denatured, but is Vampire. I am getting a lot of blood. I pondered that in my half-delirious, half dreamless sleep. Am I bleeding? Losing blood? Is this a Vampire version of Ebola?

Gods above and below, and in between, and up at the Arctic Circle; Sirens are dumb. Do they think they can attack a Vampire openly and not have us know it was Sirens that did it? Wearing a white isolation garment versus my senses? Do they not know what will happen to them if they piss off Denise? My family? The richest woman in Vampiredom, aligned with the best detective and the pissed-off head of Crew? So stupid. If they think scooping up Ginger and Wyatt is going to stop Morgan from finding them, they are not going to be happy campers when their throats go missing.