Authors: A.L. Larsen
Lu burst out laughing. “
Cheese curd?
Really? Where did you get that?”
Joey smiled at her. “No idea. Seemed to fit, though.”
“I’m sticking with you, Joey. End of discussion. And we’re running out of time, Bryn’s going to call any minute. So get to compelling, vampire,” Lu said, pointing to the main apartment.
“You really won’t consider sitting this out?”
“No chance.
We’re
going to rescue Alastair, you and me together. And once we accomplish that, don’t think you’re getting rid of me so easily then either.”
“Alright, fine,” Joey grinned. “Step aside, BFF. I got me some compelling to do.”
Less than half an hour later Ted was cleaned up and in a cab with some money in his pocket, on his way to his cousin Marty’s apartment. Joey had woven a story about Ted deciding to visit San Francisco, and while there, getting mugged and having his truck stolen. It explained Ted’s scrapes and bruises and why he didn’t have his vehicle with him. Lu would make sure the truck was returned to him when she eventually made it back home, and for now this story should explain things well enough.
All else was forgotten, the events of the last few days wiped away, all the monsters back to being fairy tales.
“He won’t go back to my house, right?” Lu asked Joey. They were on the street in front of the high rise office building. The sky was a deep indigo blue, the street lamps glowing yellow, and they were waiting for the cab that would take them to the address Bryn had given them when he’d called a few minutes ago.
“I made sure he won’t go back.”
“I hate that we manipulated him like that, but it was for the best, right? This way he gets to keep thinking everything’s ok, that there aren’t monsters around every corner.” Lu fidgeted anxiously, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
Joey soothingly ran a hand down her upper arm. “You did the right thing. I know you care about him, Lu, and this was the best thing you could do for him.”
Augustine sauntered up to them then and held out a brown paper bag to Joey. “Here,” he said unceremoniously.
Joey took the bag, raising an eyebrow at Augustine. “What’s this?”
“Take out. I figured you were probably still hungry,” Augustine said. He idly watched the passing cars, the street clogged with traffic.
Joey peered into the bag, tugged at a tube attached to a unit of blood with ‘UCSF Medical Center’ printed on it, and took a long draw, keeping the plastic pouch concealed within the paper bag. Then he said, “Thanks. But I can’t believe you robbed a hospital. That’s bold even for you.”
“I hardly
robbed a hospital
,” Augustine rolled his eyes. “I just compelled a nurse to bring out a couple blood units. I figured you wouldn’t have the sense to feed, and I know you didn’t drink enough from me earlier.”
Joey took another long drink, then said, “You know I’m totally not buying this nice guy routine.”
“What nice guy routine? I just told you you’re too stupid to eat. And bringing you blood is practical. I still need your help, I need you strong.”
“This will probably all prove to be one huge act, all part of some elaborate scheme,” Joey continued. “But right now I’ll admit I’m having a hard time seeing your end game.”
“That’s because there
is no
end game. I’m just trying to get Alastair out of whatever trouble I got him into. That’s it. No schemes, no ulterior motives.” Augustine looked depressed and weary.
“It’s scary what a good actor you are. You almost have me believing that you feel bad about all of this,” Joey told him.
Augustine stared at the ground for a long moment. Then he said quietly, “Not that I expect you to care, but Jin did something to me when he came to my hotel and took Alastair. While I was knocked out, he somehow pulled my humanity to the foreground and made it impossible to shut off. Which, I’m sure, is all part of that ‘watching me suffer’ scenario.” Augustine sighed and muttered, “I’d managed to bury my humanity so deep down that I’m surprised he could even find it.”
“What does that mean? That you have feelings now?” Lu asked.
“I always had feelings, aside from guilt. But now I get to experience remorse for more than fifteen centuries of murder and destruction.” Augustine continued to stare at nothing while Lu wondered how he resisted throwing himself on a stake.
“Ok, hang on,” Joey said. “Are you telling me that even with your humanity back, you kept us locked up and starving for three days?”
Augustine looked up at him. “You weren’t my priority. Alastair was. I told you I spent two days trying to work a locator spell to find him. I was so drained afterwards that it’s a miracle I was able to take down the prison spell at all, let alone in only a day.”
The cab they’d called pulled up to the curb then and everyone piled in, Augustine in front, Lu and Joey in back.
Lu glanced out the window, not really noticing the city as it rolled by. Seeing Ted had stirred up a lot of emotions, but this wasn’t the time to deal with any of that. She tried to clear her head and focus on the task at hand.
“Do you really think Bryn can find Alastair?” she asked after a while.
“I’ve learned to never underestimate Bryn. If anyone can manage a spell like this, it’s him,” Joey told her.
A thought occurred to Lu. “When Alastair went missing in Ashland, why didn’t you call Bryn then?”
Joey grinned. “I know it seems like we constantly go running to him whenever we need help, but that isn’t actually the case. Bryn has plenty to deal with already, without involving him in all of our problems too. That said, I
would
have called him if Alastair had stayed missing any longer.”
Eventually the cab came to a stop, and Joey handed a few bills through the partition to the indifferent driver. They were in an industrial part of town, litter and graffiti punctuating the landscape. Joey and Augustine stepped out onto the sidewalk and Lu slid out too, tugging at her skirt as she came around the back of the cab, wishing for a few extra inches of fabric.
As the taxi rolled away, Joey looked again at the address he’d scribbled when he’d spoken to Bryn. “Now did I write a five, or a two?” he wondered out loud, trying to decipher his own handwriting.
“It’s a two. Get in here,” Bryn called. He held open the door to an old warehouse made of dark red-brown bricks.
Lu and Joey preceded Augustine into the building, and Bryn grinned broadly. “Did you two just come from the prom?”
“You should talk, you could be coming from a prom yourself,” said Joey, tossing the brown paper bag with the now-empty blood units into a nearby trash can. The warlock was dressed in an elegant, perfectly tailored tuxedo, every dark hair in place. “Though actually, that tux makes you seem more mature somehow,” Joey observed. “Wait, did you do something to make yourself look older?”
Bryn nodded as they headed into the warehouse. “It’s tough to do business when you look like a nineteen year old kid. So when I’m in work mode, like I was in Sacramento, I cast a spell that makes people think I’m about thirty. It hasn’t worn off yet.”
“You don’t look thirty. You look maybe twenty-two,” Joey told him.
“That’s because you can see through most of it, pet. Anyone who knows me is able to look past the veneer, and only a little of your perception is altered.”
“So what’s with the tux?” Joey asked.
“I’m supposed to attend a charity function later tonight. I don’t want to go, but it’s actually in my honor. Why are you dressed up?”
“We needed some fresh clothes after Satan over there — ” he tilted his head to indicate Augustine, “— held us prisoner for the last couple days. We found these in the apartment of a dead vampire CEO when he finally let us go.”
“Armani looks good on you,” he told Joey. Bryn turned to Lu then and knit his brows in concern. “Are you ok? Augustine didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“I’m fine.” There was no point in going into the werewolf abduction story now.
Bryn looked her over and seemed to decide she was indeed ok. All her cuts and scrapes had healed completely thanks to Joey’s ministrations, and she looked no worse for wear.
They were walking past mountains of crates and boxes. It reminded Lu of the warehouse at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ “What is this place?” she asked.
“Just one of my storage facilities,” said Bryn. “I’m a bit of a pack rat, I’m afraid.”
“Understatement of the century, Bryn,” Joey grinned.
“Oh!” The warlock suddenly stopped walking and turned to Joey. “I don’t know what just reminded me of this, but happy birthday!” He took Joey by the upper arms and kissed both his cheeks, then handed him a thick envelope. “I didn’t think I’d get a chance to give this to you in person, so that worked out well at least. Open it later when you can enjoy it, when we have Alastair back and you’re not worried sick about him.” He patted Joey’s cheek. “And we really are going to get him back. Don’t fret, love.”
Joey put the envelope in the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and then startled the warlock by grabbing him in a bear hug. “Thank you. I can’t believe you remembered my birthday. And thank you for helping us find Alastair.”
“Of course. He means a lot to me too, you know. And so do you,” Bryn said.
They resumed walking and finally entered a large room at the back of the warehouse. It was mostly empty, though a few boxes and crates were starting to fill in the corners. At one end of the room a little desk was set up, its surface cluttered with a computer and printer, books and stacks of paper.
Now the warlock acknowledged Augustine for the first time, coming to stand in front of him and appraising him through narrowed eyes. Suddenly Bryn drew back his fist and punched Augustine in the stomach, hard. The vampire dropped to his knees, gasping, and Bryn bent close to Augustine’s ear and said quietly, “That’s for taking Lu and Joey prisoner, and for all the suffering you’ve put Alastair through. And you know you deserve far,
far
worse.”
Bryn straightened up and took a step back then, and Augustine lunged at him. But the vampire bounced off thin air as if he’d hit a brick wall, landing hard on his back. Augustine sat up, glaring at the warlock as he said, “Really? Trapping me in an invisible box like a mime? What a tired cliché, Bryn.”
“You’d prefer to see it?” Bryn asked, tilting his head to the side and crossing his arms over his chest. Suddenly walls of fire raged around the vampire, shooting up to the twenty foot ceiling.
Lu gasped and took a step back instinctively. And then the fire was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Augustine was on his feet, trying to look indifferent. “Oh please. Even
I
can do that.”
Bryn smirked at him then and shook his head, muttering, “I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”
“Yes you do,” Augustine said with a little grin.
“Wait, what?” Joey interjected. “You don’t know what you saw in him? You two weren’t —”
“Don’t judge me too harshly, Joey. It was over three hundred years ago, and I was young and stupid,” Bryn said embarrassedly.
“And in love,” Augustine added softly.
“A lot has changed, vampire,” Bryn muttered, turning his back to him. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then said to Joey and Lu, “I shouldn’t have brought that up, we need to stay focused. I don’t have much time. If I’m not out of here in two hours and on my way to that gala, my boyfriend is going to kill me. So let’s get started.”
“Absolutely no way are you getting a locator spell done in two hours,” Augustine told him. “Not even with the four of us acting as conduits.”
Bryn glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Augustine, grinning a little. He sounded uncharacteristically American when he said, “Wanna bet?”
“Ok, let’s get to it,” Lu said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “How can I help?”
Bryn handed her a piece of chalk. “Here. Finish drawing the world.” The room got much brighter then and Lu saw that they were standing on the beginnings of a huge sketch of the earth, done in yellowish chalk on the dark concrete floor. She went to work completing the continents and outlining countries.
Bryn tossed Joey a piece of chalk as well and he joined in on the map. Meanwhile the warlock went to the computer and searched several files, finally pulling one up and sending it to print. The clunky old printer wheezed to life, slowly spitting out the document.
When that was done, Bryn superimposed a red four-pointed compass rose right over the top of the map. It was maybe ten feet in diameter, and in the center where the four arms came together was an intricate starburst shape. He drew it by subtly fanning out his fingers, instead of actually using chalk and getting his hands dirty.
Still, when he concluded, the warlock brushed his palms together and inspected his tuxedo for smudges. “Hmm. I suppose this isn’t an ideal outfit for the task at hand.” He crossed the room and took a pair of huge light blue coveralls from a hook, then pulled them on over his tux, turning back the cuffs again and again. Bryn was nearly six feet tall, and the coveralls appeared to belong to someone more than a foot taller and three times as heavy. Lu could only wonder who or what they belonged to.