Hide And Seek
copyright 2003
by Anne Fraser
warnings; Language, violence
"I hate men."
The two men sitting at the pub table with the woman who'd just
stated those words looked at each other. Jake Fowler, a tall, muscled
man in his early thirties, rolled his eyes. The other man, slim, pretty,
and dark-haired, shrugged. Though these two could communicate
mentally to each other, neither of them attempted it. T'beth, who'd
just said she hated men, could hear them when they did that.
This was because Adrian, the black-haired man with the lithe
dancer's body; and T'beth, who was built something like a bipedal
panther; were both vampires. Jake was in transit between a mortal
human and a vampire. Despite the reputation the undead had for
bloodthirstiness, the three of them were drinking ordinary alcohol.
Jake had beer. Adrian had wine. T'beth had Sambuca.
She set her slightly sticky glass down and brooded over it, ignoring
her two companions. She was angry, and looking for an outlet.
"I mean it," she growled, disappointed with the lack of response.
"Then why," Adrian asked lazily, "did you come out drinking with
two of our despicable gender?"
Her caf‚-au-lait eyes bored into him. She didn't bother to answer.
What a tactless question, even for Adrian, Jake thought. Surely he
knew that T'beth was severely lacking in the friend department,
especially friends of her own gender. T'beth wasn't the coffee klatch,
pajama party type. He tried to imagine T'beth in baby dolls and
fluffy mules, trying on nail polish and giggling over the latest
Hollywood beefcake. It was quite an appalling mental image.
"So," Jake said in an attempt to keep T'beth from kicking Adrian's
butt, "what did uh " He couldn't bring himself to say
"Fluffernutter", but he couldn't remember the ORC agent's real
name. "What did he do?"
T'beth growled into her Sambuca. "He left."
Adrian looked up. "He what?"
"He left. You gone deaf, Talbot?" T'beth snorted, and drained her
glass. The waiter, sensitive to vibrations or simply out of self-
preservation, quickly replaced it with a fresh one. "El ee eff tee.
Left."
Any man who walked out on T'beth would have to have balls of steel,
Jake thought. He tried to keep that thought private so that the two
vampires couldn't pick it up. It would be nothing short of suicidal to
ask why Fluffernutter, AKA the Man Without A Lab Coat, had left.
Maybe T'beth would be upset enough to explain.
"I never did trust him," Adrian said. "I don't trust any of those idiots
at ORC."
T'beth slapped the table with her palm, making both men jump.
"They aren't idiots! They're doing important research!"
Another quick look of male disbelief was exchanged. Important
research?
ORC, the Occult Research Council, was an organization of
enthusiastic young people in white lab coats who studied vampires
and other supernatural oddities. Earlier this year, they'd put
identification and data-gathering microchips into earrings and tagged
both T'beth and Adrian as part of a vampire study. Jake had also
gotten a microchip, his status as a "bloodling" half vampire, half
human marking him for special interest. The vampires, seriously
pissed off, had tracked down the trackers and gotten the chips
removed. Somehow, actual bloodshed had been avoided. Agent
Fluffernutter, who did not wear a lab coat and had been in favour of
killing the vampires, had fallen head over heels for T'beth. The
attraction had been mutual, and it had been T'beth's efforts that had
kept Adrian from slaughtering the entire Council. In the six months
since their that encounter with ORC, T'beth and the MWALC had
been more or less living together. News that he'd walked out on
T'beth was not only surprising, it was dangerous for his organization.
ORC's anti vampire defenses had been laughable. Water balloons,
Jell-O and rubber bands had been involved. If Adrian wasn't held
back, there'd be a bloodbath.
"Maybe he just went out for a walk?" Jake suggested, aware how
utterly lame that sounded.
T'beth snorted again. "For three nights in a row? And he packed at
least one bag."
She'd been staying at the ORC agent's apartment, once he'd made
certain renovations. Sharing her own living quarters wasn't
something T'beth did, except in extreme circumstances. Jake and
Adrian had both spent a night in T'beth's loft back in January. Jake
couldn't imagine a less romantic setting than that barren space. Of
course, he couldn't imagine T'beth and the MWALC being romantic.
But he had thought they loved each other, as much as two such
different people could do. Fluffernutter was now a marked man.
Adrian stood up, ignoring what was left of his wine. "Let's go," he
said.
"Go where?" T'beth demanded.
"To ORC headquarters, of course."
She moved so fast to block his path that Jake had to blink. Adrian
scowled at her, but she didn't budge.
"Not a chance, little brother," T'beth said.
"If he walked out on you, his organization doesn't warrant your
protection," Adrian said.
People in the restaurant were staring at them, Jake noted. He didn't
blame them. Adrian drew attention pretty much anywhere he went;
so did T'beth, if for different reasons. The two of them made an
extremely odd couple; which was one of the reasons why they
weren't a couple.
"I don't care," T'beth answered Adrian's statement. "You're not
going anywhere near ORC."
He pushed at her, which had about as much effect as pushing against
the wall. Though Adrian had vampire strength, T'beth was more than
his match. She let him struggle against her for a minute, then
contemptuously shoved his butt down into a chair.
"Sit there and cool off!" she ordered him, leaning over to stare into
his eyes, commanding obedience.
A wooden crossbow bolt whistled overhead and stuck, quivering, into
the wall opposite precisely where T'beth and Adrian had been
standing but seconds before.
Jake turned quickly, though not quite as quickly as T'beth did, and all
three of them caught a glimpse of someone running like hell out of
the pub. There was an impression of swirling cloak, a hint of wide-
brimmed hat, a suggestion that long scarves were involved.
Adrian looked shocked. He rose unsteadily to his feet. The
expression on his face was that of a man who would have been sheet
white and gasping for breath had he still been human enough to do
those things. T'beth had pulled out a knife, but Jake hissed at her to
put it away. Amazingly, she did; aware, perhaps, that everyone in the
pub was staring at them.
There seemed to be no point in chasing the bowman. Adrian, getting
a grip on himself, pulled the quarrel out of the wall. The manager of
the pub came bustling up to them.
"What the hell is going on here?" she demanded, staring at the bolt in
Adrian's hand. "I'm calling the police!"
She felt a finger tapping on her shoulder, and turned around to see
T'beth's cafe-au-lait eyes boring into hers. "No, you are not," the
female vampire said. "There is no reason to call the police." She
raised her voice slightly, so that everyone nearby could hear her.
"Nothing happened here tonight. Go back to your food and drink.
We're leaving now."
"But..." Jake started to say that they hadn't paid for their drinks.
T'beth gave him a look. "We're leaving now," she repeated.
He gave up, and followed her. Adrian, the crossbow bolt still gripped
in his hand, tagged along behind.
Later, they sat in the living room in Adrian's house in the Annex,
staring at the quarrel. Adrian had set it down on his coffee table.
"We'll never be able to go back to that pub," Jake said.
"That would seem to be the least of our worries," T'beth muttered.
She was watching Adrian closely. He hadn't spoken at all, but was
seemingly still dazed from his close encounter with the true death.
T'beth had a strong suspicion that it wasn't being nearly skewered
that bothered the actor.
"Talbot," she said, making him look up, "what's eating you?"
Adrian looked at Jake. "You saw him," he said.
"I didn't get a good look, Adrian," Jake answered. "Neither did you."
"Who else could it be?"
"Lots of people know how he looks," Jake said, knowing it sounded
lame. "Anyone could copy the look."
"If one of you doesn't tell me who the hell you're talking about right
now, there is going to be bloodshed," T'beth growled.
"The long cape, the hat, the scarves..." Jake ignored T'beth, which
was a dangerous thing to do. "It's not that difficult."
"But how many people would know that I know him?" Adrian asked.
"Why would anybody copy the look in order to hunt me?"
"But why would _he_ hunt you?" Jake countered. "You've always
gotten along... ow!"
T'beth had smacked him one, hard, across the back of his head.
"You will tell me, right now, whom you are discussing," she said,
grammatically correct but extremely angrily, "or I will take that
crossbow bolt and insert it in the handiest orifice."
"We're talking about D, T'beth," Adrian sighed. "Vampire Hunter
D."
T'beth looked at Adrian, then at Jake, who nodded.
"You do realize," she said, slowly, "that you are talking about a
cartoon?"
"Anime, actually," Jake murmured.
She slammed her hand down, but since she was sitting on the comfy
couch, this had less than the intended effect. "I don't care! He's not
_real_!"
Adrian picked up the crossbow bolt. It had a wickedly sharp point,
for wood, was about a foot long, and looked as real as it could get.
There was an undeniable reality to a foot's length of lethally sharp
ash. It did not look animated, in any sense.
"I've met D," he said, not meeting T'beth's eyes. She was too angry
to look at for long. "The actor, that is, who played Vampire Hunter D
in the movie. He's quite real."
T'beth snorted. "He's an actor?" She threw up her hands. "I rest my
case."
There was silence in the living room. Then Adrian said, wearily,
"Jake, I can _hear_ you smiling."
"Sorry." Jake wasn't, but thought he should say it. "But Adrian, that
can't have been D. You just said it, he's an actor. He was playing a
part. Vampire Hunter D isn't real, even if D is. It's like saying that
Blade is real just because you've met Wesley Snipes."
"Actually, I have met..."
"You know what I mean! There's no such person as Vampire Hunter
D, T'beth is right about that."
T'beth's nostrils flared, but she refrained from commenting.
"Whoever he was, he sure looked like D," Adrian said, setting the
quarrel down.
"I told you, anybody can copy the look. You didn't see his face.
Hell, with the long coat, the floppy hat, and the scarves, it could have
been Doctor Who!" Jake shook his head. "It could have been
anybody, Adrian."
"Let's not drag the Time Lords into this," said Adrian, who
constantly surprised Jake by being up on pop culture. "It's enough of
a mess already."
T'beth's anger was draining away. She had no target to sustain it. "It
_could_ have been anybody," she agreed. "But most likely, it was
somebody who knows us, and knows that Adrian is familiar with this
Hunter D."
Jake and Adrian looked at each other. There weren't very many
suspects in that category.
"How thorough _is_ ORC's research?" Adrian asked, too casually,
after a moment.
T'beth looked for a moment like she was going to explode. Then she
calmed down, her muscles relaxing. "Fine," she said, each word crisp
and clear. "We will go and discuss this with ORC, in a civilized
manner. You will not hurt anybody."
"I don't have to take orders from you," Adrian said.
Her hand shot out, striking like a cobra on speed, and grabbed him
around the throat. She lifted him three feet off the sofa before he
could even gasp.
"What was that?" she growled.
"I meant, whatever you say, T'beth," Adrian choked.
She set him down. "Then let's go."
As they headed out the door, Adrian turned to Jake. "Fluffernutter
must have balls of steel," he remarked.
"Stop reading my mind, Adrian," Jake growled.
T'beth's voice floated back. "I heard that!"
ORC headquarters was in a secret underground laboratory situated in
one of the engineering buildings at the University of Toronto. The
last time Jake had been there, it had been thirty below Celsius
outside. Tonight it was hot, muggy and raining. Once again,
however, there was no sign of the campus cops as T'beth broke into
the building.
"Didn't old Fluffynuts give you your own key?" Adrian asked.
"What would be the fun in that?" T'beth responded, pushing the door
open.
They went down the stairs, along the dark corridor, and stopped in
front of the door that lead to the SUL of ORC.
"Man, I hope they don't have their anti-vampire traps in place," Jake
said.
"I hope so, too," Adrian nodded. "It took me forever to get that lime
Jell-o (tm) out of my hair."
"I've never heard anybody pronounce brackets before," Jake said.
"Impressive."
T'beth picked the lock. The door swung open. The three of them
walked in, T'beth with a loaded crossbow she'd produced from
seeming thin air held at the ready.
"Oh, it's you," said a voice. "Come on in, we've been expecting
you."
The underground room was full of computers, bubbling test tubes,
other vaguely scientific-looking equipment, and young people in lab
coats. Although T'beth scanned the room thoroughly, there was no
sign of anyone _not_ wearing a lab coat. She very carefully did not
show her disappointment.
The Woman In Charge met them at the bottom of the stairs. You
could tell she was the Woman In Charge. She had a button that said
so fastened onto her lab coat; plus, she was several years older than
anyone else in the room.
"Can I get you something?" she asked. "Coffee? Took...?"
"Don't trouble yourself," T'beth said to the furious-looking young
woman the WIC had addressed.
Took's scowl deepened. She quite evidently had no intention of
fetching anyone coffee.
"Where is he, Thatcher?" T'beth asked.
"I can't tell you that, Ms. T'beth."
"Yes, you can. It's easy. You open your mouth, your tongue and lips
move..." There was a strong suggestion, in the way that T'beth
casually held her still-loaded crossbow, that not telling her would lead
to inability to open the mouth. Ever again.
"No, I mean, I literally can't tell you." Thatcher remained remarkably
calm in the face of certain death. "I don't know where Fluffernutter
is."
The ORC agents all held their breaths. T'beth looked deep into
Thatcher's eyes, then finally lowered the crossbow. "It might be
expedient to find out," she said.
"T'beth," Thatcher said, almost gently, "If Fluffernutter doesn't want
anyone to know where he is, there is no way of finding him."
"Damn." For a moment, just a moment, T'beth's lips trembled.
Adrian moved towards her, hand extended as if to offer her some
comfort or support. Jake just stood there, not knowing what to do.
Then T'beth's expression hardened, and she took the bolt off her
crossbow, greatly relieving the worried expressions on the gathered
ORC agents. She ignored Adrian and showed Thatcher the bolt,
which Jake now recognized as the same one that had nearly turned
T'beth and Adrian into shish kabob.
"Can you tell me anything about this, then?" T'beth demanded.
Thatcher took it, gingerly, and looked around at her lab-coated
minions. "Brandybuck?" she asked.
A young man came forward, shaking a little. "Yes?"
"Can you tell us anything about this?" Thatcher thrust the ash wood
quarrel at the agent.
"It's a wooden crossbow bolt," he replied, unthinkingly, then looked
up to find not only his superior, but two vampires and a bloodling, all
looking at him like they wanted to murder him. "Um." He examined
the evidence more closely. "Sharpened and hardened in a fire," he
continued. "It's been used already, the point's been smashed in."
"It hit wood paneling in a pub," T'beth's dry voice informed him.
"Hand-fletched," Brandybuck continued, a slight sweat breaking out
on his forehead. "One black feather, the rest all grey."
"Your grasp of the obvious facts is masterful," said Thatcher, who
was still watching T'beth closely. "Where did it _come_ from,
Brandybuck?"
Brandybuck was about to say "An ash tree", but decided that he
would rather walk out of the Haltain building alive. "I can only think
of one place, Ms Thatcher," he replied, "and that's BOO."
"Are you trying to frighten us, you whey-faced little punk?" Adrian
turned on the young agent, grabbing him by the lapels of his lab coat.
"BOO, Mr. Talbot," Thatcher spoke up, "is an acronym."
"Put him down, Adrian," T'beth said. "You don't know where he's
been."
Adrian released the frightened Brandybuck. "I hate acronyms," he
growled. "Especially stupid ones. What the hell is BOO?"
"The Bureau of Occult Obliteration." Thatcher saw the stunned
expressions on the faces of her visitors. "Where was this bolt fired at
you?" she asked.
"In the Fox and Firkin," Jake replied. "This BOO apparently never
heard of discretion."
Thatcher and several of the young ORC agents exchanged glances.
T'beth's eyes narrowed.
"I bet," she growled, "that your next statement is going to be
something like, 'But BOO doesn't work that way!', isn't it?"
"They don't," said Thatcher briskly. "This bolt could have hit an
innocent bystander."
"Or worse, a waiter carrying firkins of Rickard's Red," moaned
Brandybuck.
Thatcher shot him a look that made him mutter about needing to dust
his keyboard and slink off to a safe distance.
"At any rate," the Woman In Charge continued, as if there'd been no
interruption, "BOO agents do not hunt vampires in public places.
Did you happen to see who fired this?"
T'beth glared at Adrian. "Tell the nice lady what you saw, Talbot,"
she said.
"I didn't see his face," Adrian said, "or hers," he added, with a nod to
T'beth. Hunters could be female, too, after all. "All I saw was the
back as he was running away. He or she was wearing a big slouch
hat, a long coat like a duster or a trench coat, and a lot of scarves.
Long scarves."
"Dr. Who fired a crossbow at you?" gasped Agent Sackville-Baggins.
"Not the Doctor, idiot," snorted Agent Proudfoot. "Vampire Hunter
D!"
Jake sighed. He was only a decade older than most of the ORC
agents, but in terms of experience and world-weariness, he felt like
their grandfather.
"It was a person, probably a man from the physique, wearing a
costume extremely similar to that of both Dr. Who and Vampire
Hunter D," Jake said. "Anybody could find a similar costume by
rooting through the racks down in Kensington Market. Besides,
they're both fictional..." His voice trailed off, as the penetrating stare
of two vampires made him realize he'd been about to say one of the
dumbest things in his life. "Wearing the costume doesn't make you
the person," he concluded. "I could go rent a Superman costume, but
that doesn't mean I can fly."
"Doesn't sound like any BOO agent I know of," said Brandybuck
doubtfully. "Ma'am?" he looked at the WIC.
"If this was a BOO agent, then he was acting without the Bureau's
knowledge and permission," Thatcher said, still staring at the
crossbow bolt as if would talk to her. "He was wearing a disguise.
I'm amazed that he used one of the quarrels, that's a real giveaway
that BOO is involved."
"And where," T'beth inquired, far too politely and casually, "do we
locate the headquarters of this Bureau?"
"You don't," came the not unexpected reply. "I don't have that
information to give you. BOO is a covert operation, after all, T'beth.
They don't _want_ vampires to be able to find them."
"Neither did you, and we found you."
"Don't think of using the witch again," Thatcher warned. "BOO has
many anti-occult safeguards."
"Water balloons and lime Jell-O (tm)?" Adrian drawled.
The WIC silently held out the crossbow bolt for his inspection. The
temperature in the underground room seemed to drop by at least five
degrees Celsius.
"All the same," T'beth said after a moment in which the implications
of Thatcher's gesture sank in, "I intend to find them. Or at least find
the agent who fired this at me and Adrian."
"Good luck," the WIC said.
Oddly enough, she appeared to mean it.
"So, do we get Gris to help us again?" Jake asked.
The three of them were back in Adrian's living room. T'beth leaned
against the piano, while Adrian lounged with boneless grace in an
easy chair. Jake perched on the edge of the couch, staring down at
the crossbow bolt which had been laid on the coffee table.
"Not this time," T'beth said. "I don't think BOO can be found by
magic, from what Thatcher said."
"Did you know about BOO, T'beth?" Adrian asked.
"Before tonight, you mean?" Her eyes narrowed. "Of course not, why
would you ask?"
"I thought maybe FluffyNuts might have mentioned it."
"It's Fluffernutter, and no, he didn't."
"Then why was he so anxious to Buffy us when ORC was tagging
us?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that Fluff worked for
BOO instead of ORC?"
Jake noticed the past tense. Poor Fluffernutter.
"He did express an opinion that all vampires should be wiped out,"
Adrian answered. "Several times. Of course, that was before you
exchanged glances across a crowded room and those damned little
bluebirds started twitting."
"That doesn't mean he was a BOO agent. Why would he have been
working with ORC if he was? They have rather opposite goals, after
all."
It was Adrian's turn to arch a brow, and he did it much more
artistically than T'beth. "Have you ever heard the word 'spy'?" he
drawled.
"I think we're getting away from the point," Jake spoke up, finding
the atmosphere a bit too tense and unfriendly. "The point is, we need
to find BOO and stop them from shooting at us."
The two vampires both swivelled to look at him. Both had glowing
red eyes, and T'beth was showing the tips of her fangs. Jake refused
to be cowed, or goated or horsed for that matter, and returned their
stares mildly. He picked up the crossbow bolt.
"There must be a way to trace this," he said.
T'beth took it from him, eyes and teeth returning to normal. "It's
hand-made," she said, "not store bought. Anyone can buy ash from a
lumber yard; though the feathers for fletching are a bit harder to come
by."
"Don't, for heaven's sake, anyone make a pun about Fletcherville,"
Adrian growled.
"Nobody was intending to," T'beth replied sweetly.
Jake, who'd been on the verge of doing just that, quickly shut up.
"Fletching's fiddly work," T'beth said, turning the bolt over and over,
looking at the now somewhat bedraggled feathers. "It takes time, and
you have to know what you're doing."
"Do you take classes, or what?" Jake asked. He knew a bit about
guns, but archery of any kind was beyond his ken.
"No, you can learn from books, or magazines, or even the internet."
T'beth shrugged. "You can even buy fletching supplies on-line. The
internet has made detective work a lot more difficult, that's for damn
sure. It was hard enough getting shop-keepers to give me information
in person. You can't mind control a computer screen."
Jake nodded. He'd tried.
"A psychic might have been able to pick up an impression from the
bolt," Adrian suggested. "But not after we've all handled it so much."
"We're not bringing in anyone else," T'beth said flatly. "And I don't
know any pyschics, anyway."
Once again, Jake was forced to swallow what he'd been about to say,
which was that he knew a psychic... well, sort of. Ray Griffin's new
girlfriend was one, and a good one, from what he'd heard, but he
already knew Adrian's opinion of the mage in Maine.
"I'll see what I can find out using my regular sources," T'beth finally
said, after staring blankly at the bolt for some time.
"How do you keep them regular?" Jake asked. "Metamucil?"
T'beth gave him a Look. He subsided.
"Maybe I can trace the fletching jig," she said. "They can't sell too
many of those in Toronto."
"Fletching jig?" Jake and Adrian both chorused.
"What you need in order to fletch your own arrows," she said. "You
also need glue, and feathers, and a sharp knife."
"Do you do your own fletching?" Jake asked. A crossbow was
T'beth's favourite weapon.
"Takes too much time. I order my bolts from a company. But this
bolt was hand-made; no arrow making company in the world would
just glue feathers on a sharpened wooden stick."
Jake wanted, badly, to say that "a sharpened wooden stick" was his
definition of an arrow, but when he thought about it, he kept quiet.
Arrows, or crossbow bolts, usually had metal points and a more
finished look than the one at hand. It hadn't even been painted,
stained or sealed; just hardened in a fire. It had been made for only
one purpose... to kill vampires.
"I'll see what I can find out," T'beth said. "You two keep a low
profile. We don't know who Vampire Hunter Q was after." She
looked at Adrian. "That means no bar-trolling, Talbot."
"I'm not going to let a hunter keep me inside," Adrian grumbled. "If
you give in to your fear, then the terrorists win."
T'beth's face was perfectly blank as she replied, "I may, possibly,
forget that you said that. Some century. Fine, then. I'm going to see
if I can find who fletched this miserable thing. If you go out and get
yourself killed by its twin, don't come crying to me."
She left.
Fletching is not a particularily dangerous pastime. In the general
field of weapons technology, in which category fletching falls, it rates
fairly low on the "loss to life and limbs" meter. Nobody ever blew
themselves up fletching arrows. Arrows seldom backfired, or went off
at the wrong time, or jammed, or started ticking in an ominous
fashion. True, a careless slip with the fletching knife could mean a
few fewer fingers for fletching with, but generally anyone that
careless with a sharp knife never got as far as owning a jig and
searching for fletches.
Suddenly, a whole new terror was added to the worlds of those in the
metropolitan Toronto area who had hitherto lived a relatively
blameless life but who just happened to hand-fletch their own arrows
as a hobby, for a living, for bowhunting purposes, or because they
were members of the Society for Creative Anachronisms and it was in
their mandate to be a fletcher.
A typical encounter would go something like this:
They would open the door and find an imposing
African-Iranian-Canadian woman on the doorstep, holding a
somewhat crude crossbow bolt and glaring at them like it was their
fault. She would thrust the offending weapon at them, so that the two
grey feathers and one black one would feature prominently. The
arrow-maker would notice, as who could not, that the arrow did not
have a metal point, but rather had simply been sharpened to a deadly
point and hardened by the simple expedient of being put in a fire. It
was an odd length, too; most crossbow bolts were, these days, either
half an arrow or else around the 20 inch mark, depending on the
preference of the person using them. This one was a foot long. Ash
was not the most common wood for a bolt, but was not that unusual,
either.
The woman would demand to know who had made the bolt. The
unfortunate fletcher would avow no knowledge of such a crude thing,
show this frightening woman his or her jig and arrows and bolts, and
then, when the visit was over, carefully shut and lock the door and
vow to take up macrame. Tole painting. Stamp collecting. Anything
that didn't involve bows and arrows.
Meanwhile, Jake went on with his life, going to work during the day
and mostly going home alone at night, watching tv, and going to bed.
Also alone. Adrian didn't have a normal life to go on with; so he
continued with what he had been doing before the Incident in the Fox
and Firkin: trying to find a job that would keep a roof over his head,
and dropping into bars to see who he could pick up to warm his bed.
He wasn't quite at the point where the two goals coincided.
Walking out of yet another audition, Adrian shrugged into his leather
jacket and contemplated his future. He knew he wouldn't be called
back. He couldn't do afternoon shows. The rest of a long night
stretched ahead of him. He had to fill it somehow.
If only he'd been Spike from that unspeakable television series, he
thought as he made his way up the street, he could have at least
smoked a cigarette to have something to do. But Adrian had quit
smoking in the 1920's. He didn't enjoy it, and it made his mouth
taste bad. It was a silly human habit, necessary to imitate once but no
longer.
There seemed to be no hope for it, he thought as he kept walking
aimlessly. He was going to have to fall back on the world's oldest
profession. Go back to a life lower than the gutter, one that exposed
him to danger, ridicule, and contempt. He was going to have to go
back to teaching.
As he recoiled in horror from this thought, he should have been
paying more attention to the others on the street. He seldom did,
unless he was either cruising for sex or hunting for fast food. He was
by far the most dangerous pedestrian out there, except for T'beth.
The only other active vampire in Toronto that Adrian knew of was
that little wimp Janine Goldanias, and she mostly kept to the west
end. The other super-and-preter-natural denizens of Toronto cut the
vampires a wide berth. Adrian hadn't even seen Gris since she'd
helped them back in January. Since these things were all true, Adrian
was ignoring his fellow passers-by in the humid night.
One would think that nearly being turned into ham on a stick would
make the little egocentric twit pay a bit more attention, wouldn't one?
Hmmm?
"That's quite enough from the narrator," Adrian growled.
So it was that he entirely failed to notice the blond man in the sort of
colourful military uniform that makes you a perfect target on the
battle-field who walked right up to him and shot him at point-blank
range with the entire contents of a Super Soaker.
"Holy water?" Jake asked with interest, picking up a discarded and
soaking wet shirt. It and the other garments Adrian had been wearing
had been tossed out the bathroom door.
"Must have been," came the muffled voice of the victim of the
soaking. "He knew what I was."
"But you're fine," Jake objected. "Besides being wet, I mean."
The door opened wide enough for a head topped with tousled,
still-damp black hair to emerge. Two aquamarine eyes viewed Jake
cynically. "Jacob," Adrian said, every syllable falling into place with
crystal clarity, "holy water only works if the vampire believes it does.
Like crosses."
"Oh. How do you know it's holy water, then?"
"What else could it be?" Adrian gently shut the door again.
"If that had been silver nitrate, you'd be in serious shit, Adrian."
"Fortunately, silver nitrate is a tad expensive to fill a water gun with,"
came the reply, once more muffled by the shut door.
A hand fell on Jake's shoulder. It was the first hint he had that T'beth
was in the house. He didn't jump or flinch, only because he didn't
want to give her the satisfaction.
"And if he had had a gun, loaded with a silver bullet?" she purred. "I
wouldn't have been around to save your butt."
The door opened a crack again. "Hello, T'beth," Adrian said
resignedly. "He didn't have a gun, even though he was wearing a
uniform."
"Tell me about the uniform."
"Jake, would you mind getting me some dry clothes?" Adrian asked.
Jake opened his mouth to say that he wasn't a Renfield, to fetch and
carry for Adrian, then shut his mouth again. The alternative was to
have Adrian walk buck-naked out of the bathroom. Although he'd
seen Adrian naked, it really was something Jake would rather not
view again. He went meekly to the bedroom and grabbed the first
articles that came to hand that didn't look like something from the
wardrobe department of Queer As Folk.
Adrian took them without thanks. Jake hadn't been expecting any.
When the master of the house was dressed, but fortunately showed no
signs of immediately launching into any songs from Les Mis, the
three of them went back downstairs.
"So, tell me about the kamikaze squirt gunner," T'beth said,
straddling the piano stool.
"He was dressed in a uniform," Adrian said, "with a long blue jacket
with gold frogging, a long vest, a white frilly shirt, and knee breeches.
Complete with high boots. He was blond. He looked a bit like a
much younger Michael York."
"Humour me," T'beth purred. "Pretend that I do not have your
extensive knowledge of every actor that ever daubed on greasepaint."
Adrian shrugged. "He looked very British," he said. "High
cheekbones, straight nose, broad forehead."
"The type of uniform you described is hardly current," T'beth said.
"Knee breeches were dropped from the military some years ago, I
believe."
"It was the uniform worn by the actor in the part of Captain Kronos,
Vampire Hunter," Adrian sighed. "Horst Janson played the role in
the movie, but my attacker looked more English than German."
"He was blond, though," Jake contributed.
"Using a Super Soaker wasn't in character," Adrian said, his
professional ethics offended. "Captain Kronos was a swordsman."
T'beth rolled her eyes, but kept her silence. It was left to Jake to say,
"I don't think there is a movie where the vampire hunter uses a Super
Soaker full of holy water. Well, except for in 'The Lost Boys',
maybe, if you stretch it."
"Are you two trying to tell me, in your own pathetic ways," T'beth
drummed her fingers on the piano lid, "that we have a hunter who
dresses up like characters from movies trying to kill us?"
"Not just any movies," Jake said. "Movies about vampire hunters.
He could be Blade next, or Van Helsing."
"Or Buffy?" T'beth asked sweetly.
"Not unless he's _very_ good at disguises," Adrian muttered.
"Right." She slid off the piano stool in one fluid motion, like a
panther stretching. "We need to find BOO. I'll go ask some more
questions."
Jake sighed. "No need, T'beth," he said, shrinking away from her
megawatt glare. "I found them."
"You?" she snorted. "How did you find them?"
"Well, I figured that there must be some means of communication
between ORC and BOO, even if they do have opposite goals. I mean,
the ORC agents _know_ about BOO, right? So there must be a way
to find them if you need them, and they have to have it written down
somewhere. So, I checked the phone book."
"You found the phone number for a covert vampire hunters'
organization in the PHONE BOOK? I don't believe it."
Jake picked up the yellow pages from the coffee table and opened
them to the "E's". "You have to think twisted," he apologized. "I'm
an anthropologist, I'm trained to study human behaviour. I thought,
'If I were going to hide a covert organization, but still needed it to be
found, where would I hide it?' So that's how I found it. Here." He
gestured at the open pages.
"Under 'Exterminators'?!" Adrian was afraid to look at T'beth. So
was Jake. They looked at the phone book. There was deadly silence
from the deadly woman in the room.
"There's no Bureau of Occult Obliteration listed," T'beth sniffed
after scanning the pages.
"No, they wouldn't be _that_ obvious. I told you, you have to think
twisted. Here they are." Jake's finger tapped an entry at the end of
the "O's".
"Bloody hell," said Adrian, once it sank in. "I still don't believe it."
"Twisted," Jake nodded, "only obvious if you're looking for it."
Neither of the men still dared look at T'beth. Instead, they stared at
the listing in the yellow pages.
Out, Out Bugs.
There was another one of those long, heavy silences after Jake had
pointed out the entry in the Yellow Pages. He wished, not for the first
time, that the bloody vampires _breathed_ so there'd be at least some
sound in the room.
"'Out, Out Bugs'," said T'beth after a moment. "I suppose they think
they're clever."
"It had to be listed somewhere that it could be found," Jake said,
almost apologetically.
"I'm so pleased that you use your anthropology training for
something," Adrian told him. His tone was somewhere on the far side
of sarcasm.
Jake said nothing. He was afraid to. He was alone in a house with two
seriously pissed-off vampires. Any second now, they were going to
notice the street address for BOO (or OOB, as the case may be) and
then the waste by- products would really hit the cooling device.
T'beth glared at the Yellow Pages as if they had personally offended
her.
"'Out, Out Bugs'," she muttered. "Where is this putrescence located?"
Jake ducked. Two pairs of eyes turned red.
"668 Eak Street," Adrian snarled.
"BOO, Eak?" T'beth's eyes narrowed. "That's beyond contempt."
"Yes, but we've established that the narrator has no shame," Adrian
snorted, looking upwards as if he could see someone hovering there.
"Did you note the 668, too?"
T'beth looked blank. "Yes, what of it?"
Adrian sighed. "668, the Neighbour of the Beast."
Jake slowly stood up again, since it was apparent that nobody was
going to die. At this moment. "Eak Street's out in Etobicoke," he said.
"We'd best go and check it out," T'beth said resignedly. "No doubt it's
just a front and will be nothing more than a respectable exterminator's
establishment."
"If it really is BOO, they have anti-occult defenses," Jake warned. "If
we go into the building, they can probably tell that you're vampires."
"We won't go into the building just yet," T'beth replied. "We'll just
drive by and see what the building tells us."
"Buildings don't talk," said Jake before he could stop himself.
T'beth hefted up her own personal crossbow. She smiled. Even
though he knew her well, Jake shuddered at that smile. She was on
the hunt. "They talk to me," she said. "Let's roll."
They took T'beth's car, as being the least conspicuous, though Jake
found himself driving. This was so that the vampires could duck
down if they thought the car was under suspicion. Nobody spoke on
the drive out to Etobicoke, but when Jake tried to turn the radio on,
T'beth's hand clenched over his. He desisted, and the ride continued
in silence.
668 Eak Street, in darkest Etobicoke, proved to be an older building,
of weathered yellow-brown brick, six storeys high and containing a
medical office, a law firm, a computer lab, and the other usual small
tenants of a low- end commercial rental unit. Out, Out Bugs had a
small discreet sign outside, indicating that they were on the fourth
floor; along with something called the Acme Distribution Company.
There was a cornerstone on the building. Jake found his eyes drawn
to it. It was too much to hope that Adrian and T'beth wouldn't see it,
too. 668 Eak Street was the Henry James building.
"Now _that_ is going too far," said T'beth through clenched teeth.
"Wait until everyone finds out that the narrator started a whole
discussion on ghosts just to find a mildly amusing name for a
building," Adrian almost smiled at the thought. "Don't worry, she'll
pay."
Although they watched the building for nearly an hour, there was no
suspicious activity, and nobody came out to challenge or attack them.
The only way to discover if BOO really did have anti-occult defenses
was to test them... which could be extremely dangerous.
"I guess I could go in," said Jake, reluctantly. "I'm not a vampire."
"No, but you're not precisely human, either," Adrian answered. "It's
likely just as dangerous for you."
"More so," T'beth replied. "Because you don't have our defenses. And
do you really think that the Bureau doesn't have all our descriptions?"
"So, how do we get in there?" Jake asked. "We could ask Gris..."
"No, no outsiders, not this time." T'beth watched the building closely.
"Besides, she's a witch, so if they have some kind of detectors, they'll
detect her."
"Someone has to go in," said Adrian. "It should be either you or I,
T'beth. It's too risky for Jake. Chances are that one of us can survive
whatever they've got."
"But T'beth just said they'll have our descriptions," Jake objected.
Adrian was sitting in the back seat, so Jake couldn't see his
expression. But he could _feel_ the vampire's sneer. "Jake," Adrian
sighed, "I am an _actor_."
"But you're still a vampire," Jake said. "They'll know who you really
are. There aren't that many vampires running around Toronto, after
all."
"I can likely get away with passing as human long enough to get a
good look around," Adrian said. "A caretaker, or a customer..."
Jake thought, very hard. "There are lots of people with legitimate
reasons to be in that building," he said.
"Yes, but at night?" T'beth replied. "It doesn't get dark now until quite
late, when most businesses are closed."
"The computer lab guys probably keep all hours," Jake said, from
experience.
"BOO would know all their names and faces," T'beth said. "We
would have to find one about Adrian's size, follow him, kidnap him,
and so on..."
"They work long hours," Jake mused, "and eat a lot of crap. Which
they get delivered."
"And your point is...?" T'beth demanded.
"No," Adrian's gloomy voice came from the back seat. "I see where
this is going. I'm too _old_ to be a delivery boy. They'll spot me a
mile off."
"Adrian," Jake retorted, "I thought you were an _actor_."
"Oh, that cut me to the quick, it did."
"Come on, you can do it. All you need is some acne."
It required a bit more than instant pimples to turn Adrian, with his
sleek dancer's body and pretty-boy looks, into a believable pizza guy.
It required, among other things, a large quantity of grape Jell-o (tm)
powder and hair gel, as well as coloured contact lenses, scruffy
clothing, a nose piercing (not without a certain amount of protest on
the part of the owner of said nose, until T'beth sweetly suggested that
he could get a butt piercing, free of charge, instead), a baseball cap,
and worn-down sneakers. After that, acquiring a delivery pizza bag
was _easy_. Not legal, but easy.
It all worked. Adrian looked like he had a near-terminal case of acne,
plus all the other embarrassing things that go with being seventeen
and having to deliver pizza in order to be able to take his girlfriend
out for, well, pizza. His spiky purple hair, slightly flattened by his
baseball cap, and his newly brown eyes rendered him nearly
unrecognizable. He slouched. He didn't look like he even delivered to
a university address, let alone taught at one. The pizzas he would be
carrying when he entered the building would fool a heat sensor. If
BOO had more sophisticated vampire-detection equipment than that,
there wasn't anything the little team could do about it.
There were lights on in windows on the fourth floor when they drove
up to the Henry James Building. There were also lights on in the
computer lab. Perfect. T'beth parked down the street, where she could
keep an eye on the building but not be too conspicuous. Adrian
hefted the pizza bag and, grumbling sotto voce, got out of the car.
"Break a leg," Jake whispered.
Adrian nodded. "Yours comes to mind," he replied pleasantly.
Feeling very vulnerable, the actor walked towards the Henry James
building. The few people on the street paid no attention to him. What
was one more pizza boy? The anonymity of his disguise came as a
surprise to Adrian, who was used to being noticed. This had distinct
possibilites--though preferably without the acne.
There was no night guard or locked door that required a passkey or
buzzing one of the offices. Anyone could have walked into the Henry
James Building at 668 Eak Street at any time. A directory in the lobby
listed the offices. There was one elevator, with old-fashioned brass
doors, that probably took more time to climb to the sixth floor than
walking would.
Adrian's sharp eyes, unhindered by the brown contacts, scowered the
lobby. There was one security camera, but his presence in the lobby
failed to cause a reaction from whoever was on the other side of it.
Either there was a security guard who was used to seeing pizza
deliveries all the time, or else the camera belonged to BOO and they
were waiting to see what he'd do. Depending on the technology behind
that camera, they might already know that he was a vampire.
He took the stairs. Elevators could become traps. The computer lab
was on the third floor. Adrian climbed one more flight above it, to the
floor occupied by "Out, Out Bugs" and the Acme Distribution
Company, Ltd. The door onto the fourth floor didn't creak when he
pushed it open. Nor did a horde of screaming vampire hunters descend
on him when he cautiously edged out onto the carpeted hallway.
"Just deliverin' some 'za," he said outloud, testing the sound of it.
"Must have gotten off at the wrong floor. Sorry, dudes."
Nobody answered. He could feel human presences on the floor, but
they were all behind shut doors. The hall itself was deserted. Down at
the end of it, however, a door was swinging open. Adrian wasn't
ready to be found out just yet. He tested the nearest door knob, found
it unlocked, and slipped inside the room it led him into.
Vampiric eyes pierced the gloom. Unless Out, Out Bugs dealt with
some seriously strange cockroaches, he'd found the Acme Distribution
Company storeroom instead. Anvils lined one wall. _Anvils_? He
walked over and rapped on one. It gave a dull thud that sounded like
solid iron. Curious now, almost forgetting his mission, Adrian poked
around some more. He found a box full of what looked like serious
fireworks, long rockets with short fuses, apparently outfitted with
straps that looked like they were made to fasten around a slim body.
Who the hell would be stupid enough to strap a rocket onto their
back? A box of old-fashioned roller skates, the boot kind that didn't
require keys, was next to the rocket packs. It was when he found the
anatomical chart listing the various body parts of the common
roadrunner and how to cook them that he heaved an exasperated sigh
and picked up his pizzas again.
"_Really_," he snorted.
He cautiously opened the door and peeked out into the hallway.
Deserted once more. He shut the Acme gag behind him, and
proceeded across the hall. There was a lighted office there, the sign
on the door reading simply "Out, Out Bugs. We get rid of what's
bugging you."
This door wasn't locked, either. Interesting.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Once more assuming the bored
slouch of the delivery boy, he opened the door and made his way into
the offices of what was allegedly an innocent exterminators' premises.
There was a reception desk, with a small waiting area, and offices
beyond, all of which had closed doors. There was a giant plastic
model of a cockroach in the middle of the reception area. It appeared
to be writhing in frozen agony due to having been transfixed through
the heart assuming that cockroaches possessed such an organ by a
long wooden stake.
Adrian stared at it. That wasn't, as far as he was aware, a
conventional way to kill cockroaches. He hadn't ever heard of
vampire cockroaches, though their apparent immortality might
therefore be explained...
"Can I help you, young man?" asked the receptionist.
He turned; aware, as he did so, of an office door opening behind him.
But the receptionist, a sharp-eyed woman in her apparent sixties who
reminded Adrian of the more frightening type of librarian, represented
the more immediate threat.
"Pizza delivery for Click N Keys?" he rasped, assuming a look of total
stupidity.
"I'm afraid you're on the wrong floor," replied the receptionist.
"They're one floor down."
Adrian heard footsteps approaching from behind, but chose to
continue his act.
"Sorry, lady," he snuffled. "Musta got off on the wrong floor. Hey,
anytime you wanna order pizza, remember Dominos..."
"Nice try, Mr. Talbot," said a voice. "Put the pizzas down, and turn
around slowly."
Adrian put the pizza down. He hadn't really expected this to work
more than two seconds. But he turned around with lightning speed,
ready to pounce on the source of the voice.
The source was a woman, approximately thirty-five to forty, Chinese,
armed with a very serviceable crossbow which was armed with a very
serviceable wooden bolt fletched with, and Adrian couldn't help but
notice this, two gray feathers and one black one.
"I can fire this faster than you can reach me, Mr. Talbot," she said
calmly. "Believe me." She nodded over Adrian's shoulder to the
receptionist, who hadn't shown any particular alarm at this
development. "I"ll handle this. You go have a break, but tell the
agents to stand by just in case."
The receptionist left, without a word. The woman with the crossbow
hadn't ever wavered her aim from Adrian's heart, even while talking
to the receptionist.
"Well, Mr. Talbot?" she asked.
He made a note of her excellent English. Second or third generation
Canadian, then. What the fuck did that matter at this particular
moment, Talbot?
"You didn't order the double pepperoni with mushrooms and green
peppers?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Not even with extra garlic," she said. "I do like
the purple hair, though. It will take ages to get the Jell-o powder out."
"Since you're going to kill me, that's hardly my main concern right
now."
"Not tonight, Mr. Talbot. Not with your friends waiting and watching
the building, not in our own front yard, so to speak. I am merely going
to ensure that you do not come tracking down the Bureau again."
"And how are you going to ensure that if you don't kill me?"
"By not killing you, which should prove that we are not behind these
extremely stupid and public attacks on you."
Adrian arched a purple-tinted eyebrow. "And I'm supposed to just
believe that?"
"It's true," she insisted. "If BOO wanted you dead, Mr. Talbot, you
would be dust."
He looked down at that very serviceable crossbow bolt. "One of those
was fired at me in a pub," he said.
"Not one of ours, Mr. Talbot. Anyone can fletch an arrow with our
colours. But ours are a bit more finished-looking than the one that was
fired at you."
He took a second look; hard not to do, since the bolt was still pointed
at his heart. It had been stained and verathaned or whatever the hell
you did to seal wood. Adrian was not a handyman. At least, not in that
sense. Chains and handcuffs and some of the more esoteric types of
hardware, now...
"Who are you?" he asked, somewhat belatedly.
Her expression didn't change and the crossbow didn't waver. "Sorry, I
don't introduce myself to vermin. But vermin that gets to live, at least
tonight. Whoever is after you might be a rogue Bureau agent; we are
investigating. They crop up from time to time, much as you get rogue
vampires. If this person does manage to slay you, well, we won't
mourn your loss; but it isn't our current mandate to eliminate you."
"I feel so much better now."
"Go home, Mr. Talbot. Never come back to this building; and don't try
any more silly disguises."
"How do I know you won't fire that bolt into my back as soon as I turn
around?" Adrian asked. She raised the bow so that it pointed towards
the ceiling.
"You have five seconds."
He was out of the BOO offices and at the bottom of the stairs by three.
Even though he probably could have reached her and killed her before
she could have aimed the bow back at him, to do so would only have
brought her friends out of hiding. There had been a number of people
on the fourth floor; Adrian's senses had been screaming at him for
some time.
And oddly enough, he believed her. It wasn't BOO. The crazy
costumes and ineffective attempts at murder didn't seem their style; or
at least not the style of the calm little Chinese woman with a very
deadly weapon. The stupid acronym and the stupider address covered
an efficient organization. That woman wouldn't have worked for an
inefficent one.
He'd left the pizzas behind. Spoils of war.
He was lost in thought of the Bureau (she hadn't used the acronym,
he'd noticed) and the woman and the crossbow bolt as he walked back
to T'beth's car. Once again, he should have been paying attention to
his fellow pedestrians. A man dressed in an even more outlandish
costume than Adrian's pizza-boy getup stepped in front of him. There
was a tweed Inverness, a ribbon tie, an old- fashioned suit and shirt, a
cross wielded like a weapon...
"Back, creature of the night!" declared the weirdly-dressed one. "I am
Peter Vincent, vampire killer!"
Adrian blinked. He was not having a good night, and this wasn't
helping.
"You don't look a thing like Roddy McDowell," he pointed out. "And
Peter Vincent wasn't even really a vampire killer, he was a hack
actor."
"Something you should know about," sneered the "vampire killer".
"Back, I say!" The cross was brandished again.
"You have to have faith for that to work with me, Mr. Vincent,"
Adrian sighed. He knew, in his actor's heart, that that line had
sounded much better coming from a sexy Chris Sarandon in Armani
than it did coming from a purple-haired Dominos delivery boy.
The "vampire killer" screamed incoherently and turned the cross
sideways, where it suddenly developed a muzzle. It was a gun. Adrian
had heard of these peculiar weapons, but had never actually seen one
before. They came in those bogus "vampire hunter kits" that turned up
on internet auctions from time to time. He knew an antiques broker,
also a vampire, who'd cheerfully kill for one of those guns...
"This fires silver bullets, vampire," said the rather deranged hunter.
"And don't try to tell me that's only werewolves. You bear two scars
on your body from silver already."
Where the hell were T'beth and Jake? Shouldn't they be rushing to the
rescue right about now? Adrian didn't doubt the bit about the silver
bullets. This stranger was lunatic enough to have already tried a
crossbow bolt and holy water.
"How'd you know about the scars?" he asked.
The sound of a car engine and squealing brakes made both men turn.
T'beth's car jumped the curb and slammed into the cross-toting
madman, sending his weapon flying one way and his body another.
T'beth opened the passenger door.
"Get your sorry ass in here!" she shouted at Adrian.
He leapt. Nobody bothered to check and see if "Peter Vincent" was
still alive, or how badly hurt he was. Only stupid people do that sort of
thing. The car sped off into the night.
"Well?" T'beth asked, after hauling Adrian off her lap and managing
to plunk him in the back seat.
"I met a BOO agent," Adrian said.
"Yes, I know, I just made Jake run over him," T'beth replied. She cast
a glance at Jake. He was pale and sweating, but he kept driving.
"Not that idiot," Adrian replied. "Whoever he is, he doesn't work for
BOO. No, I met a deadly little Chinese lady who says that, at the
moment, the Bureau is letting us continue our verminous existence."
"How kind of them. Tomorrow night, we go in with flamethrowers."
"By tomorrow night, T'beth, they'll have moved. They aren't stupid.
She told me to never go back to that building, but they won't be there,
anyway."
"Then who did I just run over?" Jake asked.
"Peter Vincent, vampire killer," Adrian told him. "I hope you killed
him."
"I hope you didn't," T'beth grunted. "It's bad enough that I'll have to
find a way to get rid of this car, without adding vehicular homicide to
the problem."
"So far we've had Vampire Hunter D, Captain Kronos Vampire
Hunter, and Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer. I sense a pattern." Jake
was still shaking.
"Yes, sheer stupidity," T'beth snorted. "Pull over and let me drive
before you throw up."
"I'm not going to throw up," Jake said with quiet dignity. But he
pulled over, and got out. "See? No throwing up at all involved."
T'beth scooched over to sit behind the wheel. "Good, I'm proud of
you," she told him. "Now get in the other side."
"Throw up," he continued. "Of course I'm not going to throw up. I'm
going to faint."
And he did.
Jake blinked up at the two pale faces staring down at him. His face
felt as if someone had slapped it repeatedly. "I ran over him!" he
said.
"Stop worrying about it, Jake!" Adrian snapped. His temper was
fraying at the edges. It had been a very trying night.
Jake sighed. He knew he didn't do it as dramatically as Adrian, or
look as good while doing it, but sometimes you just had to sigh. Like
when your two vampire friends brought you around after you'd
fainted because you'd just run somebody over with a car.
"It was self-defense," T'beth told him. "Anyway, I'm sure I saw him
trying to jump out of the way, so you probably just grazed him."
Jake wasn't reassured, but decided not to argue. Both vampires were
in less than sunny moods... assuming a vampire could ever be in a
sunny mood... and they hadn't been particularily gentle bringing him
out of the faint.
"Let's get back to my place," Adrian said. "So I can get this damn
gunk out of my hair."
T'beth drove, grousing sotto voce all the way about having to ditch
her car.
"Leave it downtown with the doors unlocked," Adrian suggested
uncharitably. "Someone will steal it within ten seconds."
There seemed to be a definite lack of the warm fuzzies in the car.
When they arrived back at Adrian's house, he stormed up the stairs,
complaining about how many unexpected showers he was having to
take as a result of their recent adventures.
"Maybe you could try drowning yourself, and save the hunter the
trouble!" T'beth called after him.
What Adrian replied was unprintable.
T'beth then drove Jake home, seeing that he was in no state to drive
himself, and told him to go to bed and stop worrying about having
run over Peter Vincent. He had done worse things in Iraq, after all.
After dropping Jake off (and failing utterly to reassure him), T'beth
then went back to her own lonely loft. She wished that she knew
where the hell Fluffernutter had gone. She needed something to
punch.
Since none of the three of them had bothered to check on the
condition of their mysterious hunter, none of them knew how
seriously he had been injured. He might be dead, or crippled beyond
moving. He might, as T'beth said, have just been lightly grazed. It
was entirely possible that all he had to do was spray on some Bactine
and he'd be back out prowling the streets, looking for his undead
prey.
The whole thing was starting to sound like one of those stalker satire
movies; "I Vaguely Recall What You Did Ten Summers Ago" or
something like that.
Jake got up the next day and went to his job at the recruiting firm; he
was a bit late because he'd had to detour to the Annex first to get his
car out of Adrian's driveway. His day passed normally; he found, to
his surprise, that he didn't actually feel that badly about having
committed vehicular mayhem.
T'beth and Adrian both had normal days, for vampires. They slept,
and rose at dusk. Adrian took yet another long shower, trying three
different shampoos to get the gunk out of his hair. He was only
successful after he'd half drowned himself. He snarled at his
reflection, which snarled back, but then that was the natural state of
his reflection. T'beth didn't have any purple or gel to wash out of her
hair, but she missed having someone to shower with.
Adrian had an appointment with the personnel director of George
Brown College, which was why he'd had to try so hard to deJello. He
dressed with extreme care; potential jobs in the dramatic arts didn't
grow on trees. If that damned hunter showed up and blew his
chances for a teaching job, there would be murder tonight.
T'beth dressed, too, though not with the same care; and went out to
prowl. She paid the rent by working as a private investigator; it
meant a lot of divorce work, but it kept her in crossbow bolts. She
was afraid of nothing. If that damned hunter showed up, she would
kill him.
Jake came home from work, nuked something frozen for dinner, and
sank in front of the tv. The life of a bachelor, he thought. He
doubted if the hunter would attack him in his own home, although the
guy seemed almost insane enough to try.
But no hunter showed up that night. Adrian had his interview in
peace and safety. T'beth gathered her information on a philandering
husband without anyone firing anything at her. Jake watched Angel
without interruption.
How boring, said the narrator.
This state of affairs continued for the next three nights. All three of
them walked the streets in perfect safety. Only Jake thought to
contact Toronto's other known vampire, Janine Goldanias, and ask
her if she'd seen anything strange or if anyone had tried to attack her.
"Only a Jack Russell terrier belonging to one of my clients," she
replied, amused. "Getting paranoid, Jake?"
"I'm serious, Janine," he told her. "Some whacko has been dressing
up like movie vampire hunters and coming after Adrian and T'beth.
Mostly Adrian."
"Adrian invites trouble, Jake, you know he does," she said. "I keep
my head down so nobody bothers me."
"Well, just be careful. This guy might go after you next, because he
keeps getting stopped from killing us."
"Okay, I'll be careful. Thanks for thinking of me, Jake."
"Heh. Alex would kill me if anything happened to you."
"Then thanks for thinking of you," she chuckled, and hung up.
The fifth night after their trip to the Henry James Building, Adrian
received a phone call from George Brown college. He was hired for
the fall term, to teach drama. The college quite understood that he
could only teach evening courses; they were, in fact, known for their
excellent evening program. The college wasn't the least bit worried
about the Hart House fire. Just as all his friends had continuously
told Adrian, the fire had not been his fault, but a horrible accident. It
was time to move on.
Naturally, he called T'beth and Jake. Naturally, they wanted to
celebrate with him. Naturally, this called for going out and partying.
Naturally, this meant that the three of them were together for the first
time since the foray out to Etobicoke. Naturally, this meant that the
narrator was plotting something nefarious.
No hole in the wall pub or even slightly upscale bar would do for a
celebration of this sort. Adrian took them all out to the Rosewater
Supper Club, although admittedly just to the bar rather than the
dining room. Even the bar was hideously overpriced, but Adrian was
in a mood to celebrate. He wouldn't have to worry about money or
job hunting, although he wasn't particularily pleased about having to
resort to teaching again.
Jake had driven; determined to prove to T'beth and Adrian that he
hadn't lost his nerve behind the wheel, he had insisted. Plus, he had
the most impressive car. The expression on the valet's face when
they'd pulled up in a white BMW convertible had been worth it. Jake
had been sorely tempted to mention that the car had been a gift from
a king, but had wisely kept his mouth shut about that. It would be
difficult if not impossible to explain _which_ king.
Adrian ordered champagne. It seemed the natural choice. They
toasted his good luck with the bubbly; Jake, as the designated driver,
had only one glass. He didn't really care for champagne that much,
anyway. But he was happy for Adrian; the actor had been slightly
depressed lately and it wasn't just because of his weird stalker. Now
if only Fluffernutter would come back so that T'beth could beat him
up then forgive him, and Adrian could find himself a steady lover,
things would really look up.
Jake's own love life was something he wasn't quite prepared to talk
about. He hadn't heard from Melly lately, and he wasn't quite sure of
the current status of their relationship. But at least he knew where
she was, and that she was there. Or something.
The Supper Club wasn't a very comfortable place just to sit and talk;
so they left shortly after they finished off the bubbly. It had been a
pleasant evening, though; the high from Adrian's finding work hadn't
worn off yet.
Jake drove down to the lake so that they could just sit and watch the
water for awhile. A few boats were still out, their lights reflecting on
the surface of Lake Ontario.
"Jake," Adrian said, "you really need to be here with a girl, not with
us."
"Yeah," he agreed. "But if you two want to cuddle there in the back
seat, I won't look."
He took a great deal of pleasure from the horrified expression Adrian
shot at him. T'beth just snorted.
"Well, guess we should head back," Jake said. "I do have to go to
work in the morning."
"I need to work up my report for my client," T'beth agreed. "And
Adrian here needs his beauty sleep."
"Bitch," the actor drawled lazily.
"Flatterer."
They drove back up to the Annex, so that Jake could drop off Adrian
first. When the BMW cruised up the street, though, Jake tramped on
the brake so hard that he gave everybody whiplash. There was a man
standing on Adrian's front doorstep... and it didn't look like he was
selling girl guide cookies.
In fact, at first glance, he looked like Albert Einstein. He had the
same mop of unkempt white hair, with the same bushy moustache.
As Jake parked, though, he could see that there the resemblance
ended. The spectre on the porch was wearing a black frock coat,
black pants, an old-fashioned white shirt with a starched front and
starched collar, a black cravat tied in a bow, and a long plaid woolen
scarf tied around his neck. He was carrying a bag in one hand, and
whatever was in the other hand he held hidden behind his back.
"Well, well," Adrian leapt lightly out of the convertible without
bothering to open the door. T'beth was right behind him. "Professor
Abronsius, I presume?"
"How kind of you to come calling," T'beth drawled. She pounced,
precisely like the panther she so strongly resembled, but the figure on
the landing produced a long wooden stake from behind his back and
she landed right on it, driving it into her chest with the impact of her
fall.
"T'BETH!" Adrian and Jake both cried out.
She hadn't even screamed. She just fell with a thud onto the top step,
blood oozing out from under her still body.
Jake's eyes raked the street, half hoping, half fearing that one of the
neighbours had heard the commotion and would call the police. Not
a face showed at a window or doorway, however. This was the
Annex. Everybody probably thought it was another damn film shoot.
But Jake's sharpened night vision caught something, just as Adrian
was about to charge the figure dressed as Professor Abronsius. The
"Professor" had another stake, ready to hand; obviously such a charge
would be nearly suicidal on Adrian's part. Jake grabbed the actor's
waistband, holding him back.
*I can see light reflected on a rifle barrel,* Jake thought at Adrian.
*What the...?*
There was a soft, subtle sound, the sort of sound made when a gun
with a silencer fixed onto it is fired. Professor Abronsius put a hand
to his neck, where a long feathered dart had suddenly materialized.
He said something, that sounded like "Amber", then his eyelids
fluttered and he fell over T'beth's body and rolled bonelessly down
the stairs to end up at Adrian's feet. The actor gave him a damn good
kick.
"That's enough, Adrian," said a familiar voice. A man came out of
the shadows of the house across the road and crossed over to the little
tableau on Adrian's front walk.
"Fluffernutter!" Jake exclaimed, recognizing the ORC agent.
"Evening, Jake," Fluffernutter nodded. He knelt by T'beth. "If he's
slain her, I'll tear his heart out," he vowed.
Tenderly, more tenderly than either fascinated member of his
audience would have guessed, Fluffernutter turned T'beth over. The
stake had gone through her upper left lung, missing the heart.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, including Adrian. Fluffernutter
put his back muscles to the job and yanked the stake out, then calmly
slit his wrist open with a pocket knife and put the bleeding wound to
T'beth's mouth.
Her eyes flickered after a minute; after a couple more, she had the
strength to push his arm away.
"Ambrosius!" she exclaimed, gazing up into Fluffernutter's tender
eyes.
"Tabitha!" he replied, gazing back down at her.
Little bluebirds began to flutter and tweet around their heads.
On the walk, Adrian and Jake exchanged thunderstruck looks.
"AMBROSIUS?" Jake mouthed.
"TABITHA???" Adrian exclaimed.
Fluffernutter helped T'beth to sit up. She looked benignly down at
the other two men, who were both staring at her.
"You didn't really think I was Vulcan, did you?" she asked mildly.
"You never, ever told me your real name," Adrian accused her. "Not
even when we..."
"Finish that sentence, and I'll use that stake on you," T'beth warned
him, with a glance at Fluffernutter.
"I was going to say, not even when we were both still with Carrock,"
Adrian muttered.
"No," T'beth nodded, "I never told you. And you will never repeat it
again. Ambrosius is the only one whom I permit to use it."
Fluffernutter helped her to her feet. The fact that she allowed him to
spoke volumes.
"So where the hell have you been, anyway?" Jake asked the ORC
agent. "And who is this guy?" He prodded the unconscious vampire
killer.
"Leave him alone, both of you," Fluffernutter warned. "He's not
responsible for his actions."
Adrian reached down and pulled off the Einstein mask and wig that
the "killer" was wearing. A young blond, British-looking face was
thus revealed.
"You're right," Jake observed, "he does look a little like Michael
York." He risked a glance at Fluffernutter. "So who is he?"
"The reason why I've been away," Fluffernutter replied. "I've been
deep undercover. I knew he'd managed to escape from the home
where he'd been kept, and was out to kill vampires, especially the one
I'd taken as a lover and her closest friends. He's jealous of me, of
course."
"So who is he?" Adrian repeated Jake's question, but with far less
patience.
"Yes, Ambrosius, who is he?" T'beth asked, her arm around her
lover's neck tightening more than strictly necessary.
Fluffernutter stood up straight. "I'm afraid that he's my evil twin,
Skippy."
"SKIPPY?" It was a chorus of three.
Fluffernutter nodded, looking miserable. "Skippy," he repeated.
"But he doesn't look anything like you," Jake compared the blond
vampire killer to the dark, brooding ORC agent.
"We're fraternal twins, born ten years apart," Fluffernutter explained.
"Mother never was very good at counting."
"But why have you been undercover?" T'beth asked her lover. "Why
didn't you tell me what was going on?"
"I wasn't certain that Skippy would come after you," Fluffernutter
replied. "I went undercover to monitor his movements, and to try and
deflect him. It was I who tweaked his crossbow so that it would fire
too high; it was I who switched the holy water in the Super Soaker for
plain tap water; I would have stopped him from doing anything bad
to you outside BOO headquarters, too, if you hadn't hit him with
your car. Luckily, you just grazed him; I'd never be able to explain to
mother if he'd been badly hurt."
"So what happens to him now?" T'beth asked.
"We take him back to the home and give him stronger drugs,"
Fluffernutter said. He pulled a two-way radio from his pocket..
"Prancing Pony to Weathertop," he said. "I have neutralized the
Nazgul, please send an ORC party for retrieval."
"Roger, Prancing Pony. What's your location?"
"Am at Helms Deep, Weathertop."
"Are there hostiles in the vicinity?"
"Roger, Weathertop, but they are currently in a state of truce."
"ORC party being dispatched to your 20. Over."
"Roger. Over."
Adrian watched Fluffernutter put the radio away. "Has anyone ever
told you that you have the most ludicrous codes on the planet?" he
inquired.
"Yes, but they're so ludicrous they're safe," Fluffernutter replied. He
turned to T'beth. "I'm sorry I had to leave without saying anything to
you," he told her. "But I couldn't risk such a delicate operation.
Forgive me, Tabitha."
"Of course, Ambrosius," she replied, with a smile that didn't look
deadly at all.
In a very short time, a mini-van pulled up. Four young people in
familiar-looking lab coats piled out, picked up Skippy, and laid him
in the back. Jake noted that they took care to strap him down, in case
he came out of the drugs in transit. The van took off into the night.
"Skippy got hold of my case notes," Fluffernutter said. "That's how
he knew about your scars, Adrian, and how he could predict your
movements. I won't leave them lying around again. I do apologize."
Adrian opened his mouth to say something scathingly sarcastic, but
T'beth was looking right at him. She still had the stake in her hands.
He shut his mouth again.
"No problem," he said through his clenched teeth.
"By the way, congratulations on getting that job at George Brown."
Fluffernutter winked at Adrian.
"Any point asking you how you know about that?"
"No."
"I'll say goodnight to you both now," T'beth said to Adrian and Jake.
"Ambrosius and I have some talking to do."
"I bruise easily, remember," Fluffernutter warned her.
"Oh, yes, I remember." Stake still clenched in one hand, she took
Fluffernutter's hand in the other, and the two of them wandered off
into the night.
"Ambrosius," Adrian said, shaking his head.
"Tabitha!" Jake exclaimed. He looked at Adrian. "You're not
holding out on me, are you? Your real name isn't Ignatius P.
Thistledown or Horace Grubb, is it?"
"Jacob, what a question!"
"One you're not answering, I note."
"Don't you have to go to work in the morning?"
"Yeah." Jake could take a hint, when it was swung with the force of
a wrecking ball. "Good night, Horace."
"Good night, John-Boy," Adrian shot back, and went into his house
in the Annex.
____
The End.
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