I sprinted home, partially to avoid the sunlight, partially to put distance between myself and Carla. I did get some glares or looks of confusion as I ran, especially given the abnormal speed at which I did so. I estimated that I was probably, given the distance between my home and parliment square, and the time it took to reach my appartment, running at about 20 to 25 miles per hour, far beyond normal human speed.
When I got home, I locked and bolted my door, barricading it with my wardrobe. Setting my ill-gotten bounty down on the desk, I allowed myself a moment to breathe. Vampires, The Inquisitors, Deep Ones? How the hell did all this happen at once. Had I been thrust into this strange new world, or was I only now opening my eyes to reality?
I needed to understand. I needed to know what I now was. I flung open my doctor's bag and spilled the tools out onto the desk, on top of the documents. I needed to run tests, lots of tests. I found a scalpel and sample bottle within the mess, I needed to analyse my blood. It had been...different than before, back at the appartment.
I drew the blade across my fingertip, opening a shallow wound to collect a sample, but I didn't bleed very much, and what I did bleed coagulated, and healed within seconds, a wisp of steam rising from the freshly healed site. I made a deeper cut, extracting a drop of the viscous, crimson liquid, before the wound closed again. I sealed the bottle to prevent it from coagulating. Neither cut hurt at all, feeling like a dull itch before the wound closed again.
I found my heart and breathing rate to be at a level that wouldn't sustain a human, at 6 beats, and 2 breaths per minute. In addition, my lungs were still likely reeling from tuberculosis. I wondered what my new limits were.
Within the papers, I found a slim, leatherbound journal, which was embossed with the words "codex monstrum". I was elated to find an apparent shortcut to my problem, but was disappointed to find that although superficially presented in a factual and acedemic manner, it was a book of religious and superstitious writing about supernatural creatures, with little information on their biology or morphology. Still, the chapter on vampires, all 20 pages of it, shed a little light on my condition, amid zealous orders to exterminate them, and blatant exaggerations of their abilities, given my experience.
Even so, the text did hint at my own abilities, if only in vague terms. Enhanced strength and speed were apparent. Unearthly vitality, it seemed was also present, as was ability to shrug off would-be lethal injuries. I had no knowledge of whether or not turning into a bat, wolf, gaseous form or other transformations were misinterpretations, pure fiction, or true. I certainly had no idea how to do such a thing.
As for weaknesses, sunlight vunerability was greatly exaggerated. In my brief experience, it greatly irritated my eyes, but little else. My skin seemed perfectly fine. I would have to test the validity of the claim religious symbols repelled me.
To test my apparent weakness to silver, I sheared a little of the metal from one of Luis' bulllets, and pressed it to my palm. No effect.
Not satisfied, I made an inscision in my palm, and put the flake of silver against the wound. This time, the wound sizzled like it had been filled with vitriol, a horrific pain shooting up my arm. I withdrew the flake, and watched as the wound bubbled and spat, my healing ability struggling to overcome the silver's effects. It took some five minutes to heal fully. It seemed vunerability to silver was a genuine concern.
My final major question was regarding the requirement for vampires to consume human blood. I had consumed 3 or 4 litres about 5 days ago. How long until I'd need to feed again? How does one procure human blood ethically?
I could already feel a gnawing thirst snaking into my throat. Oddly, my sense of hunger was fairly normal. I had eaten as I always did, and felt fine, but my thirst couldn't be satiated by water.
I could return to the waterfront and feed on Deep Ones, seeing as they, on a technicality posessed human blood, albeit rancid and nauseating human blood. It was also no garuntee they'd show up, nor was it impossible I'd be swarmed and killed. It became a question, not of what I would hunt, but who. Human beings were now my food source.
I had no desire to harm or kill anyone. I was obligated to heal others by oath. It was also true, though, that there were many people alive because it was illegal to kill them. It could be argued my need to drink blood could be made into a community service, of sorts. Like everyone else, I knew all kinds of undesirable emerged under the cover of night. Gangsters, opium pushers, pimps and even madmen who killed for sport. Surely I could justify their loss as a benefit to society. Still, a life taken could not be given back. I wouldn't be able to absolve myself of that. I'd have to live with the guilt, however minimised it was by the nature of my "prey".
I waited until nightfall, making use of my time to read as much as I could from the documents I'd taken. There was a signifigant volume of it dedicated to spellcraft. From what I gathered, and already knew, arcana and alchemy were one in the same, use of basic elements to produce complex effects, the tricky part being everything in between. Nonetheless, I managed to memorise a handful of "sigils" and carve the Yellow Sign into the smooth steel of my pocket watch.
The three sigils I'd memorised were all used in casting low-level spells, and I'd seen them in my own collection of occult texts, but they'd been labelled as mere protective glyphs, rather than spellcasting components. Each sigil also demanded a small amount of my vital force, there described as "pneuma", other places "psi" and further afield as "Ma'at" and "Ki".
Through a half-hour of practice, and focus on the sigil, I could produce lights and a glasslike barrier of force, which while unable to protect me from powerful spells, would suffice against physical harm. My final spell was a projected bead of force, capable of, in my testing, flaying layers off a wooden plank, but not breaking bricks. With more practice, however, I reckoned that might change.
Hiding my papers, cleaning my instruments and refilling my doctor's bag, left my appartment, locking the door behind me. It was settled, I was on the hunt.