Dhampir

Mina followed a trail of blood through the midnight streets. It was faint, and had gone easily ignored by most people for the better part of the day as they went about their lives. Many of them didn’t see it, and those who did, hadn’t bothered to give it any thought. There was more to think about and deal with, no sense devoting more than a passing thought to strange stains in the street. Who or whatever had been hurt had been long gone by the start of the day, and by now the wind and the afternoon’s light rain had put an end to even those passing thoughts.

Mina was not most people. For her, the blood was vibrant and fresh, bright and red as if it had just dripped from the veins. She could smell it, the metallic tang setting her teeth on edge. Though she didn’t like to admit it, it smelled welcoming. Delicious, even. Is this how people with normal lives felt when they smelled a roast, cooked by a lover? Or was it more like a pie, cooling on the window sill? But this wasn’t the scent of a treat, it was the scent of a wounded animal.

A wounded person.

Cautiously winding her way through the streets, Mina once again had intrusive thoughts about herself, this time caused by seeing her reflection in a full length mirror. Cracked and worn, someone had left it in the garbage, and there was an insufferable pull to stop, just for a moment, and look at herself in that broken mirror. 

A leather waistcoat with a large mantle, and a high collar. Trousers tucked into black boots, buckled up to mid-calf with a low heel. A vest that was once fashionable, perhaps a decade ago, that hides a tight cuirass of boiled leather. A heavy, padding reinforced leather cap with its wide brim folded into a sharp corner in the front. A single large glove on one hand, and a bracer on the other.

Her outfit was a man’s outfit. She’d had it tailored for her new bust, waist, and hips—she’d needed to start her wardrobe from scratch, it seemed—but they were still a man’s clothes. Her eyes rested on the embroidered patch on her breast. It sat at a strange angle now, even with the compression of the cuirass. It felt heavy when she thought about it. The symbol of her Order. They would have forbidden her to wear it now, if they could justify it.

Why did she still wear clothes like this? What was the point of it, if she wore men’s clothing instead of billowing dresses, or even some of the scandalous outfits that women in the foreign nobility could justify wearing? Everything she went through and here she was, following the scent of blood through alleyways. She could have enjoyed balls, or… or whatever it was that respectable women, respectable ladies did with their time.

But she also saw her face in the mirror. It was, in an objective sense, perhaps plain. She knew that to the rest of the world, she was dour and grim. When they didn’t think they could hear her, she overheard someone in the inn muttering to his friend that Mina had a look that could freeze vodka. Another man had given her cause to demonstrate that when he was overly forward with her. Regardless of how drunk he had been to attempt his flirtations with the lone woman, it was that look that made him sober up. She hadn’t even been that angry, only mildly irritated. She certainly wasn’t going to hurt him for his poor attempt.

But seeing her own reflection made Mina’s face light up. It was, in her own mind, an angelic transformation. Her pulse quickened, and she felt an uncharacteristic tinge of embarrassment. She turned away, and glanced back at the mirror, seeing herself from a different angle. The way her hair, chopped and unevenly cut as it was, swayed within her collar made her feel like some blushing schoolgirl having found a letter from an admirer in her things.

The thought came unbidden, and it soured her a little. She’d never been a blushing schoolgirl, and it was unlikely that she’d be receiving letters from any admirers. She sighed to herself, and with a moment’s hesitation, she lightly kicked the bottom of the mirror, breaking it further and causing the pieces to fall to the cobbles.

As she returned to following the blood trail, she held her weapon in her hand, running the edge along her fingers. The blade was an extension of her, and though she could feel it gliding along her bare skin, it didn’t cut. Thoughts swam in her head, unformed and distracting, but she wove through streets and alleys, wondering. Mostly, her wondering was existential. What was she doing, and why did she continue even after the dhampir had sought to cast her out? Her blade wavered with her uncertainty, and her pulse quickened once more as she nicked her fingers. It was shocking, but not surprising. She let the sword drop, and carried on, this time sucking on the blood from her fingers.

And then she heard the wailing.

A sharp, quiet cry. Someone in pain.

She ran now, through the twisting and the turning of the cluttered streets, risen up out of years of unfocused growth from the time when the city was a town, and when the town was a village. The blood led to a door and Mina didn’t slow as she tucked her head in and drove her shoulder through it. She stumbled inside and hurried down the stairs, towards the basement. There was a door in her way again, and this time she simply kicked it, throwing splinters around as it was thrown off its hinges.

There was a teenage boy in the corner of the room, his eyes stained with tears, his clothes stained with blood, particularly around the sopping mess of his leg.

A man stood over him, holding a cane with a silver fist on one end, clutching an orb. The man was raising the cane above his head before the door fell onto the floor, ready to strike the boy. He was now staring at Mina, and for a moment the two of them locked eyes. She took the moment to look at the basement. It was filled with various tubes and bottles, with bubbling liquids moving from one flask to another over heat. The room was filled with the scent of blood, some months and years old and no longer appetizing.

In a flash, the man pulled a hypodermic needle from his jacket and jabbed it into his own chest, depressing the needle.

In a flash, Mina stepped forward and swung her hand in an arc. At the height of it, her sword returned, cutting the mad scientist’s arm from his well dressed body. It didn’t stop the plunger of the needle from sucking down, pumping the chemical into the man.

He laughed, which became a cackle, which became a gurgling mess as his flesh rippled like mice writhing under a bedsheet. Veins bulged, and muscles hypertrophied with all the speed of flowing water. This time when Mina went to strike, she was hit in the chin by that cane. The force of it snapped her neck back and sent her stumbling. That gaudy fist was, indeed, silver, and it left her chin blistered and steaming.

It hurt, too, but she couldn’t focus on that right now. Not with the teratoma slinking its way from the man’s bloodless stump, growing into a replacement limb, though far more mangled, and with more teeth and eyes than arms typically have.

The grotesque limb was thrown forward, and Mina interposed her blade. The hideous arm kept coming, flowing like water around the thin, glowing sword, which had become more organic itself as it drank the man’s rotten ichor. The force of it was so strong that Mina’s heels squeaked along the smooth stone as she was pushed back, but she didn’t falter.

Mina Harker was a dhampir.

She wasn’t the daughter of monsters or some half-breed. That was an old term, one that her order took upon themselves, or maybe everyone just called them that and it stuck. No, she was a monster hunter. Most people never