Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 13:12:21 EST Subject: Fluff: Joshua Chronicles, part 6b! With deepest apologies for the very long delay! The story thus far: Mrs. Sims-Jones, a wealthy and eccentric client, has requested of our hero, Joshua Trevallion, that he purchase her antiques either genuninely haunted or associated with the supernatural. Joshua's first purchase, a clock cupboard, was tainted with blood magic. He and Evighet met by accident at Christie's and tangled with a mysterious bearded mage who wanted the same object. They were saved by the timely interference of Stephanie, a streetwise werecat. Joshua moved on to San Francisco, going to Ahz's shop. She took him to an auction sale, where she purchased a halltree with a mirror that reflects past lives. Joshua persuaded her to part with it. From there, he answered a summons to Lieutenant Hodnett's current address, and received a lecture on the dangers of allowing the uninitiated to handle occult objects. From Los Angeles, he went on to Minnesota, meeting up with his old college friend Alexandra (Alex) Hart, and going with her to an estate sale. The sale proved to be in the residence of a vampire. Alex drew JOshua's attention to a mysterious incense burner, and he himself found the vampire/mage's grimoire, or book of spells. he was just examining this latter object, and contemplating meeting a young vampire named Daniel Morrissey whom the Lieutenant recommended, when he heard a scream from upstairs.... ________________ "Alex!" Joshua's head snapped up when he heard the scream. "I'll go check out what's happening," he told the esate agent minding the house. The antiques expert raced upstairs, wishing he'd brought something he could use as a weapon. Alex wouldn't scream unless something was seriously wrong. He reached the top landing, barely out of breath and grateful that he kept himself in shape. He only realized then that he was still carrying the incense burner and sticks. He set them down on the hall table in front of him. Another scream drew his attention to one of the bedrooms, and he ran in that direction. "Alex?" he called out, but there was no answer. The door was open, but Joshua knew better than to just barge in. He'd seen enough late night horror movies.he wondered to himself. He cautiously nudged the door open a bit further, standing to one side as he did so. Nothing happened. "Alex?" he asked again. No response, but he heard a sharp intake of breath. He edged into the bedroom, the dark flowered wallpaper, brooding antiques and Aubusson carpet barely catching his expert eye in passing. What _really_ caught his attention was the fact that Alex was lying prone on the carpet, and there was red pooled around her. And standing over her was the menacing bearded stranger from Christie's. "I don't see a cat this time," snarled the mage. ______________________________________ Daniel, heading for his appointment with Joshua, flipped the lucky coin he had found last week. Every time he thought heads or tails while flipping it, that's the way it came up. He was running a little behind, but he was sure that a couple of minutes would not make a difference. After all, who knew how much you could find at an estate sale. Depending on what was available, and how big the house was, you could spend hours looking. Just as he was about to enter the building where the auction was being held, his acute hearing heard someone scream from the second floor. *Hmm. I wonder what's going on there.* He slipped into a shadow and slid around the house. When he reached the back, he heard a scream coming from the window he was standing below. "Joshua!" Daniel looked around, appraising the situation. There were wrought iron bars over the windows, so that was not an option. He raced back around to the front of the house, and literally burst through the door. A very surprised elderly gentleman recoiled as Daniel stood in the doorway appraising the situation. "Where?" Daniel barked. The startled man pointed up the stairs, but said nothing. Daniel flew up the stairs, in four leaps. He paused long enough to listen for voices. "I don't see a cat this time," came a deep voice. Daniel eased toward the door not exactly sure what was going on. He could smell blood, and heard three distinct heartbeats -- one slowly fading. He looked into the door and saw three figures -- a sandy haired man with his back toward the door; a dark, bearded man standing across the room; and an uniquely dressed woman laying on the floor, with a pool of blood slowly growing around her. "Alex!" screamed the sandy haired man, as he stood looking at the bearded man. "She is beyond your help," said the bearded man. "This is the second time you have interfered with my plans. It will not happen again. You will join your friend." Daniel, realizing that something nasty was about to happen, acted before he thought. He leaped into the room, tackling the bearded man knocking him to the ground. "Another one?" hissed the bearded man as he looked up at the vampire on his chest. "Fool. You will learn the same lesson the other did." The bearded man reached into his coat pocket and started to pull out a small ugly figurine. Daniel could feel the power in it, and the man trying to use it. Without thinking, Daniel concentrated on the figurine. The power of it glowed in his mind like a hot burning coal. He could feel the bearded man's presence trying to shape the power contained inside the statuette. *Got to stop him,* Daniel thought. He concentrated even harder, and felt the bearded man push against him. Daniel used every ounce of energy he had to keep the presence away from the statue. A small part of Daniel's mind jumped when he realized what the statue was, and he nearly went mad with the blood power in the figurine. The bearded man took advantage of the moment to bulldoze through Daniel's unorganized defenses. Blow after blow battered Daniel's mind as he struggled to maintain himself. Between the blood in the room, and the blood power in the figurine, he could barely control himself, let alone stop the man from reaching the power in the item. Just as Daniel was about to succumb to the attack. It suddenly stopped. The pressure went away. *What the...* Daniel thought. "Daniel?" Slowly, Daniel's eyes began to focus on the sandy haired man, with a candlestick dangling from one hand, looking down at him. "Let me guess. You must be Joshua." Joshua smiled weakly, dropped the candlestick, and held a hand out to help him up. Daniel accepted and stood up. "Alex!" Joshua fell to his knees by his injured friend. "Who's the madman?" Daniel asked. As he turned to look at the bearded man laying on the ground, he saw him slowly fading away. "Shit!" he grabbed at the form, but his hand passed right through, and then even the form was gone. "Uh... You wouldn't want to fill me in here would you?" "She's lost so much blood." Joshua was desperately trying to stop the bleeding from Alex's head. Daniel listened as Alex's life slowly drained away. He saw only one choice for her. "Joshua, listen," Daniel commanded. "There s nothing more you can do for her. She'll die before help can arrive. You have a decision to make. I might be able to save her by turning her, but she has lost so much blood, and I don t know if I have enough to be able to change her without it. I could try, but I don't know... Would she accept if she was offered this?" Joshua focussed on Daniel, seeing the trim, dark-haired vampire for the first time. "I ... I don't know," he said, turning again to his dying friend. "Alex?" "She can't hear you," Daniel said, "she's too far gone. I'm going to try, anyway. Give me some room." "Everything okay up there?" the old man's voice came quavering up the stairs. "What if he calls the police?" Joshua asked. "We'll think of something." Daniel raised his voice. "There's been a slight ... accident," he called back down. "But I know first aid." He muttered under his breath, "Last aid, rather," and was sorry, because Joshua heard him and went white. "Save her," he begged. "I'll try. She your girlfriend? Wife? Sister?" "Just a good friend. A very good friend." Daniel gently removed Joshua from his vigil at Alex's side and knelt beside the too-still body. "Too late," he sighed, "but gotta try, or Josh here is going to fall apart on me." He bit his own wrist and held it to Alex's lips. "C'mon, my friend, anyone who dresses like you do would make a great vampire. Drink the nice blood." To his surprise, there was a faint breath on his wrist and the lips below the bleeding wound convulsed slightly. Daniel rubbed Alex's throat to get her to swallow, like convincing a pet to take a pill. More blood trickled past her lips and down her throat, but she was fading fast and Daniel didn't have enough to save her. "Need more blood," he said, eyeing the only other source in the room. Joshua paled again. He had shared his blood with Gideon on occasion, but only under the most intimate circumstances. Never had a vampire just casually asked him for it, as if requiring a late-night snack. But this was Alex ... she had always been so full of life. He did not want her to die. "Take what you need," he said to Daniel. _______________________________________________ "You're a brave guy," Daniel said, taking the trembling arm that Joshua offered. Without any other ceremony, he bit into him. Though concentrating on the blood, Daniel heard Joshua's sudden gasp at the sharp pain. He wondered at the strange sight they must make: a sort of vampiric blood transfusion. He only prayed that it worked. "Oh my," came a voice from the doorway. Perhaps trying to hide it, Joshua tried to jerk his wrist away. Growling lowly under his breath, Daniel held fast to Joshua's arm. Peering up past the rolled up sleeve, Daniel saw the stunned face of the estate sale worker. "What in God's name is going on here?" **Go away** Daniel sent mentally into the older man's mind, *...forget.* The man in the doorway blinked once as if clearing his head and stumbled away. It seemed that at least one disaster was averted. Looking down at Alex's pale face, Daniel watched as a smile crossed her lips. Joshua sighed, "she's going to be all right." It was almost more of a question that it was a statement. Daniel shook his head sadly. Letting go of Joshua's wrist, Daniel realized that all of their efforts had been for naught. The slight pull of Alex's lips stopped. Blood flowed freely over her cold smile. "She's dead," Daniel breathed. "I'm sorry." Joshua's mouth hung open in grief. All that came out was a soft, continual, "oh, oh, oh." He was too shocked to cry. Only a second ago she'd been full of life; they'd had breakfast together. It seemed unreal. How could Alex be dead? He reached down to wipe the blood from her mouth. Someone would have to tell her lover, make arrangements... there was so much to do. "Don't come apart on me now," Daniel said, not without compassion. "I need you to help me out here. Your friend slipped on this rug." He artfully kicked the colourful throw rug beneath Alex's still form. "And whacked her head on this marble table. We tried to give her first aid, but she slipped away before it succeeded." He smeared a bit of Alex's blood on the table to give the story vermisilitude. "Think you can remember that?" Joshua nodded. "Yes," he whispered. "Let's get it over with." They left the room, intending to go downstairs and call 911. Daniel wondered why Joshua stopped to stare blankly at a hall table. Since he did not yet know about the incense burner, he didn't realize it was gone. __________ The crane lowered the casket into the ground. A cool wind ruffled Joshua's hair. He stared blankly through sunglasses at the women that had formed a circle around the grave. They were members of Alex's coven, no doubt. From where he stood, he could hear low tones of their singing. Though the music seemed familiar and comforting, he couldn't bring his mind to follow it. Instead, scenes from last night replayed in his mind. Alex was dead. After finding a phone and making the calls, Joshua's firm exterior had started to crumble. Alex was dead. Even though he had told Morgan, Alex's lover, and the 911 operator, he still couldn't believe it was true. It had seemed so unreal. He'd agreed to meet Morgan at the hospital. He had told her in unfaltering tones all that had happened. Still, Joshua couldn't answer Morgan's most desperate questions: Why? Who was the bearded man? What would possess a man to kill for an antique? Sitting alone now, in a hard plastic chair, Joshua had shaken his head sadly. The fluorescent light bounced off the white- green walls in a way that made his eyes ache painfully. Sometime during it all, he'd started crying. A nurse had given him a sedative. Now, in place of the throbbing grief was just a distant emptiness. Alex, who'd been so full of life, was gone. A gentle hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Morgan was looking up at him with the same tired, blood-shot eyes he wore. "You're coming to the wake, aren't you?" She asked. He nodded, and she moved off like a ghost. His heart went out to her. When he thought what it would mean to loose a lover.... quickly, he banished the thought before grief seized his heart again. Shaking his head, he tried to concentrate on the now. As he moved to the waiting car, he watched the priest gave a disapproving glance at the women who still stood in a circle over the upturned earth. This was such an odd mixture of cultures. Most of Alex's friends seemed to be neo-pagans of some sort. Yet Morgan was apparently still enough of a staunch Catholic to insist on a priest. The wake she referred to promised to be traditionally Irish, minus the casket. In a strange way, Joshua was looking forward to that. Reaching the car, he squeeze in beside some of Alex's friends. Too tired and exhausted to be cordial, they rode the distance in silence never bothering to even introduce themselves. Once there, everyone filed in quietly. The mood was dark and heavy. The wake was being held in the large basement of the house of one of Alex and Morgan's friends. This same friend was putting up Joshua as long as he needed crash space. No one had wanted him going off to a hotel alone. Taking off his sunglasses, Joshua squinted in the harsh light that filled the space. Then he blinked again. This time he held back tears. The inside of the room had been decorated with pictures from Alex's life. Even though he didn't want to be reminded, he found himself drawn with all the others to walk along the walls and look at them. Here she was as a baby, there as a young woman. Despite himself, Joshua laughed right out loud at a picture of Alex at two. In a crazy amalgamation of her mother's things, she was already showing her predilection towards flashy clothing. The next picture almost made him gasp out loud. It was the two of them in their college days. He'd forgotten all about the spring break trip they'd taken... and how he'd confessed to her that night that he didn't think they could date because he was gay. She'd laughed and told him it was okay. Two years later she'd come out to him. His reverie was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Looking up, he saw Morgan standing on a little stage. In a loud, strong voice, she said, "Let's remember Alex as she lived...with laughter...and," she added, "some tears." One by one, people started telling stories about her and pretty soon there was just that: laughter and some tears. _______________________________________ "I think we'd better talk," Daniel said quietly in Joshua's ear. The wake was proceeding wildly. Alex would've appreciated such a send-off, Joshua thought, but he wasn't really feeling up to such a party. He'd said his good-byes and expressed his condolences to the bereaved. Getting away to talk to Daniel for awhile sounded good to him. He was dangerously close to tears. He nodded his agreement, and Daniel led the way out of the thronged rooms full of friends and family of the deceased. The young vampire went into a room well away from the partying. This turned out to be a small library, book-lined and with a cozy fire burning in the fireplace. A man in a black suit stood in the shadows near the fireplace. Joshua was so distraught and upset over not being able to speak privately to Daniel, even in here, that he did not at first even recognize the intruder. Until the man in the black suit turned, and the light fell on aristocratic features and a pair of very concerned dark eyes. "Gideon!" Joshua exclaimed. Forgetting about Daniel temporarily, he flung himself into his lover's arms. The Baron returned the embrace, there not being much choice, although he looked uncomfortable. Public displays of emotion or affection had never been Gideon's long suit. Daniel discreetly turned his head for a moment. How? Why?" Joshua's questions tumbled out incoherently as he released Gideon and though to wonder what he was doing there. Gideon nodded in Daniel's direction. "Mr. Morrissey was good enough to call me. He picked your pocket the other night, apparently, and found my name as the person to contact in an emergency. My arrival that night would have been fruitless, as you were heavily sedated. And I thought it best to wait until some of the fuss and media attention had died down. My presence at the wake wouldn't be questioned. So I asked Evan to drive me here as soon as it was dark." Daniel coughed. "You looked like you needed some support," he said. "I didn't know the Baron was a vampire until we spoke on the phone and I mentioned the Lieutenant." "We've discussed some of what happened to you," Gideon said. "But Mr. Morrissey does not know the whole story. Joshua, are you all right?" Josh nodded, and sank into the nearest chair. "Physically, I'm fine. Whatever they shot me full of that night packed a wallop, but I'm otherwise unharmed." The swelling on his lip had gone down, luckily. "Mentally..." he held up his hand, palm down, to show how shaky he was. "I am very sorry about your friend," Gideon told him softly. "I know that you liked her very much." "She was a gem. She helped me through some really tough times, in college and after. She was always there for me." He bit his lip. "Damn it, she _died_ for me." "Tell us about it." Joshua did so, beginning with his first encounter with the Bearded Mage at Christie's, and how Evighet and Stephanie had helped him there. He then talked about the more recent brush with his enemy; the fight over the incense burner and Alex's death. "Whoever he is," Joshua concluded, "he's got some sort of power over vampires." He looked a warning at Gideon-- "Blood magic," Daniel said. "I could feel it, in that little figurine he had. He can use it to make us black out, don't ask me how." "And he seems to be trying to gather more objects that use blood magic," Gideon said, steepling his fingers and regarding them thoughtfully. "Evighet said that the cupboard had been used for such purposes, and you said the incense smelled like blood." Joshua nodded. "Yes. And the incense burner made my senses tingle--though I must admit I felt nothing from the court cupboard. He must have wanted that incense burner pretty badly, though. He came back to get it after I hit him and he faded out." "I wonder what it does," Gideon said. "Pity you didn't get the chance to buy that grimoire." Joshua hit his forehead. "The grimoire!" he cried out, alarming the two vampires. "I completely forgot about it! I put it in my jacket pocket. It must still be there. That poor estate agent! Two thefts and a death in one night." He briefly put his head in his hands. Daniel's eyes met Gideon's, and the vampire-to-vampire message was clear. The grimoire had best be found and kept safe until it could be properly examined. "I'll go and get it," Gideon said. "Which is your bedroom?" Joshua told him, and Gideon went up and into the room. He found Joshua's suits hung neatly in a closet, and easily divined which one held the grimoire--it practically lepat into his hands. The Baron extracted this and stood holding the jacket for a moment, stroking the fabric and inhaling Joshua's familiar scent. The thought of how close he had come to losing Josh made him slightly dizzy. The grimoire now in his possession, Gideon went back downstairs to the room where Joshua and Daniel were talking. "So you intend to continue your buying trip?" Daniel was asking. "Oh, yes," Joshua replied, looking up as Gideon came back into the room. "After all, that guy has probably gotten what he wanted. I have only found a very few things for my client. I have a professional obligation to get her what she wants. My reputation is at stake here." "Does your life not matter?" Daniel demanded. "Of course it does, but I can't just abandon my search." "Joshua's right," said Gideon, causing both other men to look surprised. "For him to quit now would be to allow this killer to know he's won. Alexandra will have died for nothing." He squeezed Joshua's hand. "Of course, I'm going to worry about you every second, but you have to see this through." Joshua returned the squeeze. "Thank you. I thought you'd be trying to order me to give up." Gideon smiled. "I know better than to use my 'Lord of the Manor' tone with you." "Damn right," Joshua snorted. He looked at Daniel. "anyway, I can't give up. I owe it to Alex to keep trying. If I run into that bearded creep again, I'll just have to hit him harder." Daniel grinned. "Told you you were a brave guy." "I've had a good teacher," Joshua said, looking at Gideon. He suddenly sagged in his chair, the cumulative effect of recent events hitting him all at once. Had he been standing, he would have collapsed. Gideon was at his side at once. "I think you'd be better off in bed," he told his lover, who made no argument. "And then I'd better get this grimoire home safely." He looked at Daniel. "I'm sorry if this seems to dismiss you. I can't thank you enough for all your help." "No trouble," said Daniel. "I should get going anyway." He shook Joshua's limp hand. "Hang in there, guy, and good luck." "Thank you," said Josh. "For everything." His eyes conveyed his meaning. "I'm just sorry it didn't work." "Not your fault," Joshua mumbled. "Bed time," said Gideon, with authority. "Good night, Mr. Morrissey, and I hope we meet again." He half-carried Joshua upstairs, and helped him get ready for bed. The breather was essentially asleep before Gideon tucked him in and kissed him good night. When Joshua woke in the morning, he felt automatically for Gideon's presence, but no one was there. When he woke up more fully, however, he did find a note. "Call your friend Cosima in Washington, DC. BE careful. Evan sends his greetings. I love you. G." Joshua nodded to himself. Alex's passing had left him hurt and grieving, but it was time to move on to the next adventure. He checked the time, calculated the difference in time zones, and went to ask if he could use the phone. _______ Just to further confuse you all, the action in this story takes place last year, prior to the Hallowe'en party... *grin*. this was shared fluff, brought to you by hard work on the parts of: Lyda Morehouse (Alex), Redeucer/Marcus (Daniel) and of course, the Fluffmaster.... fraser@library.utoronto.ca Any compliments or complaints will be passed on to the fluffsters!