by Drew Hayes
Even if I hadn’t already suspected Wallace’s nature as a therian, his comment about flea shampoo being an essential would have clued me in. A vampire, a mage, and a therian—not a bad team, all things considered. But there was still one more person Wallace had mentioned that we’d yet to run into. As it turned out though, the door to the jail area opened right then, and a woman in jeans and an oversized sweater stepped out. I waited for an overt clue as to her nature, like I’d gotten from the others, but as she walked over, nothing jumped out at me. She seemed human to my senses, not that that really meant much. Krystal and Arch both read as human to me, and while I still had no idea what Arch was, I knew Krystal was anything but mundane.
“Arch, so good to see you again.” She was the first one since Wallace to greet Arch with a hug, and while it wasn’t as strong or as enthusiastic, it was surprisingly tender. I was about to look away when they broke apart and she looked to me. “And you must be Fredrick Fletcher, the accountant who goes by Fred. I’m Marjorie, but everyone calls me Marj, and you should, too. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
We shook hands, and I studied her, trying to figure out what qualified her to be on a team of parahuman badasses. Still no hints, so I let the matter slide out of my mind. The parahuman world was a big one, and there were plenty of types I’d never even heard of, let alone met. No sense searching my mind for knowledge that wasn’t there.
“Pleasure to meet you, as well,” I replied. “Do you all have a particular order you’d prefer I handle the job in? I’d like to cause as little disruption to your work as possible.”
“If you could start with the food so Harris doesn’t pitch a fit about not being able to cook, that would make everyone’s life easier,” Wallace said. “After that, go in whatever order you like. We’re stood down for anything except emergencies while you do inventory, so we shouldn’t need much in the way of ammo.”
“Closest thing we have to a vacation.” Marj sounded oddly cheerful about the fact that they rarely got time off, but perhaps she was just happy because they were spending the downtime with an old friend. “Arch, you want a rundown of what’s been going on since you left?”
“I’m here to watch over Fred,” Arch said. “So we’d need to be somewhere close to him.”
“Why don’t you all have a meeting right here?” I suggested. “Wallace, if you can show me to the storage area with the food, I’ll get to work so that Harris can have free rein of his kitchen once more.”
“Bless you, Fred. I was not looking forward to fighting him over the next meal.” Wallace brought me to the door on the right and led me through.
Behind us, Arch and Marj were already deep in discussion, and I worked hard to tune them out. Whatever they were talking about, I probably didn’t have the clearance for it, and even if I did, I was almost certainly happier not knowing. With any luck, I could just do my job, he could have a nice visit, and we’d be back on the plane soon.
Even as I told myself that, however, I didn’t really believe it. While it would be nice to dismiss such feelings as intuition, the truth of the matter was more straightforward: I was finally learning to prepare for the unexpected. Not that any amount of bracing could have truly prepared me for what was to come.
3.
The first day went surprisingly smoothly. For all the emphasis Arch had put on being alert and prepared for anything, ultimately, it was a quiet patch of hours spent taking stock of the group’s food and sundries. No one bothered me, except for Harris popping in repeatedly to ask if he could have access to the pantry once more, and even that stopped once I gave him permission. Curiously, he didn’t actually take anything to cook once he could; he just smiled, grew visibly more relaxed, and left me alone. With mages, I was slowly learning there was a certain amount of peculiarity cooked into their personalities. I had no idea if it was a side effect of using magic, or whatever enabled them to accomplish such a feat in the first place, and I didn’t spare much time trying to figure it out.
I was all about the job, forgoing sleep even after my watch told me we were into the daytime once more. True, I was a little tired, especially after the outing with Amy, but Arch wasn’t a man to use hyperbole. If he thought the less time spent here, the better, then I’d sleep when I was safe in Charlotte Manor again. Besides, I’d gone far longer than a few days without sleep during the crunch of tax season. We were still well within my comfort zone, and I planned to be done before the lack of sleep could wear on me.
As for Arch, he was staying true to his word. Every time I popped a head out the door of the storage room to ask something, he was there. Sometimes alone, more often talking with one of the members of the group. They were always polite and quiet enough that I could tune them out, but it was plain that they wanted to spend as much time with their former member as possible. He seemed to be enjoying it too, which made me feel a bit guilty about how quickly I was racing through the job. However, since he’d been the one encouraging me to get this over with, I kept up the pace. If Arch wanted to change the plan, he’d have told me about it. The man was never shy about giving orders.
By the time the sun set once more, I’d finished logging the storage room’s contents and had moved on to inventorying the nearby ammunition stockpile. If you’re surprised that it took me so long to complete one room while working nonstop through a day, then you are severely underestimating how much they actually had on hand. I’d thought Wallace was just using a simple phrase to convey meaning when he mentioned a siege, but the truth was that they really were set-up to withstand a prolonged attack for weeks, if they had to. There was even an impressive blood storage system that I suspected was magical and meant to sustain Paula.
Through all the counting and calculating, however, the same thought kept nagging at me: this was simple, basic work. While I’m not above doing menial labor when needed, that didn’t change the fact that this was a strange use of my time. The Agency didn’t own me outright—they could only force me to work so many hours in a given year, and this is how they were using a big chunk of them? It made no sense, which kept me searching for some other reason or explanation as I worked. Confidential materials they wouldn’t trust to someone with less experience, or a convoluted tracking system that would take expertise to figure out, anything to explain why I’d been brought here. A whole day had passed though, and I’d come up empty, which should have made me more relaxed, but was instead only increasing my anxiety. Unseen complications were always more worrying than the ones you saw coming.
A polite knock on the door roused me from counting bullets, which is a chore that lends itself to taking any distraction possible, and I saw Paula step into the ammo room with a pair of coffee mugs. I didn’t even need to sniff to know that they had blood inside them; the scent reached out and crammed itself into my senses instantly. Vampires were hardwired that way. I could tune out a lot of noise and smells when I put my mind to it, but blood cut past every line of mental defense I had and went right to the primal part of my brain.
“Evening, Fred,” Paula greeted. “We thought you might want to take a break for some nourishment. Even Arch eats at least once a day.” She extended one of the mugs to me, and I accepted. The blood was glorious—it always is, since the liquid lights up every part of a vampire’s tongue and brain—and before I realized it, I’d drained half the cup. Apparently, I was hungrier than I’d realized.
“Thanks. Sometimes when I work, I tend to zone out and forget about basic necessities.”
She snickered under her breath, explaining before I had a chance to ask about the laughter. “Sorry. It’s just a little funny, you know? There’s the old legend that if you throw seeds or small objects in front of a vampire, they’ll compulsively count them without pause, and here I come down to find you so spaced out from counting bullets that you forgot to eat. Makes me wonder if maybe that’s why they sent a vampire to do the inventory.”
“Sadly, my tendencies toward tallying extended well ba
ck into my human life as well,” I admitted. “Though I can’t say I ever had occasion to count bullets. Unless you count bullet points, which you probably shouldn’t.”
Paula sipped from her mug and walked over, taking a look at the pages where I was keeping track. “You’ve gotten through a lot of stuff already. I’m impressed, but I guess I shouldn’t be. Arch says this is your gig full time. I’d love to hear the story of how that happened.”
“Not much to tell, I’m afraid.” In retrospect, this sounds like I was being coy, but at the time, I really didn’t feel like my story was particularly worth recounting. “My sire turned me because I was a socially anxious shut-in who was better with numbers than people, hoping that giving me this power would let my ‘dark side’ out and I’d go on a killing spree. But with no one to teach me about parahumans, I just stuck to my old life. By the time I met another parahuman, I was sort of set in my ways again, so I found a way to bring my old life and my new life together.”
“Abandoned, huh? That’s a tough start. A lot of abandoned vampires don’t survive their first year. They draw the attention of agents or piss off the wrong people, or go crazy because they can’t accept what’s happened to them. I’m glad you made it through.” Paula was looking at me curiously, studying my face. She was probably checking for falsehoods, and I didn’t begrudge her that. Given her job, and that I was in their safe haven, it was natural to make sure I wasn’t concealing some wicked intentions.
I took another, more measured drink from my mug as I debated how to respond. It felt like she was fishing for something, but I didn’t know what. Since I had nothing to hide, I decided to barrel on as if I hadn’t noticed the scrutiny. “It was hard for a while, but thankfully I made some friends who taught me how this world works. How about you? How did you become an agent?”
Paula shrugged. “Was turned a few decades back. Didn’t mind the clan I was in at first, but eventually I wanted more for myself. Took a few years to train, and then applied to the Agency. Once they decided I had the right ethics and brain for the work, I got started. That’s pretty much it.”
It didn’t escape my notice that her story was really a few short points with as little detail as possible in between, though I didn’t raise the issue. Despite us both being vampires, we’d only just met, and it wasn’t polite to pry. Besides, it wasn’t as though I hadn’t skipped over quite a bit myself.
“Sometimes I wish I’d gotten the experience of getting taken in by a proper clan, other days I’m glad for the way things worked out. If I’d been educated by a vampire clan, especially one that would have had my sire as a member, I’m sure I would have inherited the old biases and fears toward other types of parahumans that they held. Instead, I got to make up my own mind about things, and I have more friends for it. In a way, I guess Quinn did me a favor abandoning—”
My words halted as the mug in Paula’s hand went tumbling down toward the floor. It never made it though, as she dropped and snatched it out of the air without spilling so much as a single drop. Sometimes I forgot just how powerful our kind was when we applied ourselves. Still, she didn’t exactly look steady as she stood back up, mug clutched firmly in hand. “Fred . . . did you say Quinn? As in, Quinn the one-armed vampire and former necromancer? That’s your sire?”
“He didn’t used to be one-armed,” I said, unsure of how else to really respond. “But then he messed with Krystal. Anyway, yes, Quinn is, or was, my sire. Why?”
“Because Quinn is one of the major players in Northview, a rat we’ve been trying to smoke out for months.” Paula downed the rest of her blood in a single gulp, then set the mug down on a nearby table. “That seems like a bit too much of a coincidence. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go talk to Wallace.”
As if he’d been waiting for the cue, we both heard the pounding footsteps of the group’s largest member barreling down the stairs. Frantic whispering sounded outside, and then the door swung open to reveal Wallace, looking far less composed than he had the last time I’d seen him.
“Paula! Gear up. That Ghoul Lord we’ve been searching for just showed his face on the other side of town, and he’s got a small army of lesser ghouls with him. Orders are to suppress as quickly as possible before civilians get hurt.”
Paula looked between Wallace and me for several seconds, then her eyes darted to Arch in the doorway. “You’re staying behind, I assume?”
“Do you really need me for something like that?” Arch countered.
“No, but I wanted to make sure Fred would have some backup, just in case.” Paula dashed past the door, yelling over her shoulder. “Give me two minutes to gear up, and I’ll be ready.”
“Fred, Arch, you two just keep at it,” Wallace said. “We should have this done in an hour or so, and be right back. Harris will seal the place tight, so nothing can get in, but that means you can’t get out either.”
“I’m aware of lockdown protocol.” Arch was checking his guns again, and this time, I was thankful for the ritual. If anything went awry, he was the only trained agent around. “I’ll explain it to Fred. You go deal with the Ghoul Lord.”
Wallace followed orders, dashing out the doorway and back to the stairs. From the speed at which he was ascending, I estimated it would be a few minutes at most before he and everyone else was out the door. I turned to Arch, noting the wary expression on his face.
“Do you expect any trouble?”
“As a rule, always,” Arch said. “But something that big happening—big enough to draw the entire team out with you on hand—makes me suspicious. From now until they return, you don’t leave my side no matter what, Fred. Is that understood?”
I nodded quickly. There was no way I planned on disobeying that order.
“Good, then get back to counting.” Arch pulled out a folding chair and set it so he was facing the doorway with his gun drawn. “There’s still work to be done.”
4.
Despite what you might expect, and certainly what I was prepared for, the door Arch was watching didn’t suddenly get knocked in by a crew of evil parahumans. Instead, nothing happened, save for me tracking the sounds of the team getting into their cars and driving off. With no other way to occupy my time, I took Arch’s advice and went back to counting bullets. In a way, I was glad for the task, as otherwise, I would have spent my time dwelling on all the possibilities of what might happen. There was one thing, however, that nagged at me, and eventually it grew so bothersome I couldn’t even focus on my work anymore.
“Arch, did you know that Quinn was in Northview?” It was blunt, I’ll admit, but conversations with Arch tended to work best when one got right to the point. Besides, we’d been through enough that I felt like we were friends, or at least amiable enough to skip some niceties.
“Of course. Krystal and I both get daily briefings about any activity that even slightly smells of Quinn,” Arch told me. “He’s the type to hold a grudge, so we’re always trying to be ready in case he finally musters up the courage to come back to Winslow. His presence is why I insisted on coming along.”
“Oh. Why not just tell me that on the plane, then?”
“Because I wasn’t sure it would come up, and I didn’t want you spending three days with that dangling overhead if it wasn’t necessary. There was always the chance that this was a coincidence, after all. They do happen, even to parahumans.” Arch’s eyes and gun never wavered from the door as he spoke; his focus was unbreakable.
“You don’t think so anymore, I take it?”
There was a long stretch of silence this time before Arch responded. “I think the Agency sending a useful resource to get a job done is a coincidence. But a big attack happening within a day of our arrival, one that leaves us alone in the house, that’s a step too far. My money says someone was trying to smoke Quinn out and decided that you’d be bait he wouldn’t pass up. They just didn’t count on him being organized enough to put together this big of a distraction.”
I
was about to protest that the complexity of such a plan felt far-fetched, but then I remembered the last time I’d seen Quinn, in a church surrounded by ghouls under his control. He liked using ghouls as pawns, so turning them into a massive distraction fit his usual pattern. Arch was right; this was too much coincidence to brush off. “At least we’re locked up in a fortress.”
You might think that was the moment the door was kicked down, or a mighty explosion interrupted us, but you’d be wrong. Nothing happened for several more minutes as I went back to work and kept counting bullets. When something did occur, it was more subtle than I’d been expecting, so much so that I almost didn’t notice. Without warning, the lights in the room simply died, and as I strained my ears for the familiar hum of electricity, I heard nothing. Nothing except for faint footsteps from somewhere above us.
“They killed the power,” I said. There was no point in pretending anymore; something was definitely going on, and given the number of footsteps, it was certainly a “they” situation. “I hear a lot of feet moving overhead, but I can’t tell if they’re in the house, or just on the property.”
“If they aren’t in now, they will be soon. Someone came here with a plan.” To my surprise, Arch had left his chair and was digging through his coat. Rather than pulling out another gun, however, he produced a pair of glasses with runes along the rim and donned them. “Enchanted for night vision, plus I won’t get blinded if someone throws a flash grenade. They’re also next to impossible to knock off. This isn’t my first time working in the dark.”
It took me a second to realize that Arch was responding to the confusion on my face, which he could now see perfectly. In general, I considered myself a well-prepared person; however, I had nothing on Arch and his personal arsenal of weapons and tools. Just as I was preparing to grab some heavy equipment to bar the door, Arch walked over and carefully pulled it open.
