6

Kier decided to walk around for a bit, and left a note for Logan that he thought he might be able to get some more substantial information from another contact who wasn’t so Human friendly. He had no idea if he’d buy that or not, but he hoped so, as it would give him time to think.

He ended up in a nearby bar, more trendy and clean than the ones Logan frequented, which you could tell by the number of mojitos and various -tinis being served. He ordered a mojito he just looked at, and ended up talking to a nice looking Asian guy in a reasonably expensive suit who smelled like Calvin Klein. He wasn’t sure if he was gay or just friendly - there was no obvious flirting - but he found himself eying his neck; he could see the faint thrum of his pulse. And he wondered if he could pull him away and have a quick bite. He wouldn’t take it all, he was just a bit peckish because he was a nervous eater.

No, no, no. He was supposedly a good guy now, and taking blood at the bite club was different than just picking someone and biting them. People at the bite club volunteered to get bitten; they knew what they were getting into. It was a mutual act as opposed to one forced on some random stranger. And no matter how hungry he felt, he knew he wasn’t starving - he’d eaten before they came to Canada. His nerves were just starting to fray, that’s all. He still had no idea how he was supposed to handle this.

He got back to the hotel to find Rags up and visibly groggy, but sitting up and eating a sandwich, as well as having the hair of the dog that bit him (a bottle of beer). Logan was also out of the shower but still damp, wearing a tight black t-shirt so new he could still see the creases in it where it was folded up in the package, although his scruffy jeans were still the same. (At least the demon blood splatters had dried and looked like they could have been paint.) Apparently while he was gone a video iPod was delivered specifically for Kier, although Logan said the bellboy who brought it said the man who brought it didn’t leave his name. Logan assumed it was from the Brotherhood of Vestus, and Kier guessed he was right.

He hadn’t watched it yet, as Kier had just beat its delivery by ten minutes. Logan sat on the edge of the bed, and he and Rags both scooted by him to have a look at what was on the tiny screen. It looked like a horror film set, a sort of grim nightclub, with several bodies scattered all over the floor amongst overturned furniture. It looked familiar to Kier, but his gut recognized it before his mind - it roiled and burned like it technically couldn’t do since he was dead. But then he saw himself on the small screen, a desperate would be victim pulling planks and overturned tables off the door that had been barricaded to keep the monsters out, unaware that they were actually locking themselves in with it. “Turn it off,” Kier said, looking away. He felt tears burn in his eyes, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to anger, sadness, revulsion, or all of it.

“That’s you, inn’t?” Rags commented.

Logan understood what it was, though, which was a credit to him. “This is it, isn’t it?”

Kier nodded, and could still hear the audio, and didn’t need to, as the script was burned into his brain. BRIAN recoils in horror as the door is thrown open from the outside and MONIQUE enters, her face transformed into that of a vampire. Brian backs away, stunned and disbelieving.

Brian

No. (Beat) Not you.

Monique smiles, but it only shows off her fangs.

Monique

Yes, me. It’s always been me, you silly little boy.

Brian is unaware of KURT and JULIO coming up behind him, and starts when they grab his arms from behind. Brian struggles, but can’t pull away. Monique comes up to him and grabs his face, and as soon as she does, Kurt and Julio release him. Brian is transfixed by Monique and can’t move.

Of course it was when “Monique” actually bit him and started drinking his blood that he realized it wasn’t any normal horror movie - it was a snuff film. And, oh yeah, vampires apparently did exist. Who knew?

Logan shut it off, and Rags complained, “Oi! I was watchin’ that! So what ‘appens? I dinn’t realize you were actually an actor, mate. I mean, Bren told me, but I ain’t ever seen you in anyfing. No offense.”

Kier scrubbed the tears out of his eyes, turned away from the both of them in the hopes they didn’t notice. “It’s not a real movie. I thought it was at the time, but I was wrong.”

“It’s the snuff film he was killed in,” Logan said, standing up. He dropped the iPod on the carpet and stamped on it, shattering it into a million pieces.

“Oi, are you fuckin‘ nuts?!” Rags shouted, clearly startled. “You know ‘ow expensive dose are?”

“I don’t care,” Logan snapped, sounding surprisingly angry. “They probably pulled it off one of their victims. The whole point of it was to shake up Kieran.”

Rags was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking that over. “I don’ get it. Ya made a ‘orror film while a vampire?”

Logan sighed irritably. “No. He was hired for a vampire film that was apparently made up of actual vampires. They killed him and changed him on screen so other vamps could whack off, or whatever the fuck they get outta crap like this.”

Although he still felt sick with rage and self-pity, Kier realized that Logan was being protective of him, and he wasn’t sure why, but he was touched. “I guess Bren didn’t tell you that, huh?”

“Naw, I guess not.” He scratched his head, and when Kier looked back at him, he blinked his crystal eyes in what seemed to be confusion. It was hard to read eyes made of minerals, but he’d been around Rags long enough that he kind of could.

Logan paced restlessly, stopping to retrieve his own beer bottle from the top of the room’s television set. “No one’s last minutes should be recorded.” He said that like he knew how rough that was.

Holy shit, did he? Supposedly he’d died before, right? Had he ever been filmed? Creepy.

He told them his story, and a course of action was decided upon. Rags got this weird idea for a spell that might help them, although it wasn’t clear how. This required them to get going early so they could stop at a drugstore and get Rags what he needed to do it. And how weird was it to be in a Toronto drugstore at near two in the morning, buying lipstick and Kohl eyeliner pencils with two other men, one of whom had impressive musculature and sideburns and the other with a flabby gut and wearing sunglasses indoors? The teller looked at them like they were all freaks, and that just seemed appropriate.

They ducked into the men’s room and Rags took off his shirt. He drew most of the symbols on his front, but couldn’t get the ones on his back or arms, so he and Logan had to do those (and were they thrilled about that). Actually, Kier didn’t do it for long, as some symbols he couldn’t draw on Rags because they were harmful to vampires or something. So he got to sit on the sink and watch Logan, who grumbled all the way, muttering, “This better work.” Rags seemed slightly offended - or maybe it was just the kohl pencil hurt - but Logan had a point. Rags’s first spell didn’t exactly work to plan. But he was sober now (relatively), so perhaps this one had more of a chance of working.

When they were done, Rags put his shirt back on carefully, trying not to smudge the symbols, and Logan and Rags bought a couple of beers before they left the drugstore, weathering even stranger looks from the clerk, who suddenly seemed to realize that the three of them had been in their men’s room for about an hour. The guy was clearly thinking some weird gay sex thing had just occurred in the gent’s, and Kier was tempted to lean over and tell him, “I wouldn’t fuck Rags if he was the last man on Earth. He’s a nice guy and all, but … no.” Yet he didn’t think that would help somehow. Also, Logan might realize that Kier would happily fuck him, and that could screw up the relationship dynamic.

Logan knew where High Park was - of course - and since it was such a long walk, they had Rags teleport them all there, but just outside it, so Logan could do a little reconnaissance. But why he didn’t know, as Kier warned him there might be guys at the park that had nothing to do with this, and Logan surprised him by telling him he knew. “The guys trolling for sex. Yeah, I know all about it,” he said, before disappearing quietly into the dark. Kier wanted to ask him how he knew that exactly, but figured he was just really old and had seen just about everything. He was probably incredibly hard to shock … which may have explained his hair.

He and Rags headed into the park, towards Grenadier Pond, and he was vaguely aware that they were being followed. Trees lined the park, tall and full, casting shadows in spite of the dim lights, and he could smell the people as well as the vampires around, and if he could, certainly Logan could. Even though the storm had cleared off, leaving a cool night in its wake, a strong breeze came up occasionally, as cold and sharp as a knife. Between the trees he saw the surface of the water ripple and shimmer like a gauze curtain, and Logan joined up with them, whispering, “They’re all over the place, but I don’t know how many are Brotherhood or just lazy vamps looking for a quick bite.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Kier whispered back, his stomach twisting into an anxious knot. He wasn’t sure he could do this, but he had no choice now. He was committed.

Logan paused at the tree break, looking down towards the water warily, and there was this small noise, a kind of whispering hiss, and something hit Logan in the neck. He pulled it out and looked at it - it was a tiny dart - and had time to shoot an evil glare into the trees before collapsing to the dirt, as boneless as a rag doll, the dart bouncing out of his fingers. The vampires seemed to materialize out of the night, led by that long haired vampire he’d seen before. “That’s the toxin of a Rizuor demon,” the hesher vamp explained. “A neurotoxin as paralyzing as it is deadly, and we bet he hasn’t been exposed to it before. We gave him a lethal dose four times over. That should keep him down for … what? About an hour? That’s kind of a handy ability to have.”

“Where is Kayla?” he demanded. “I brought them here like you asked.”

“Oi, what d’ya mean ya brought us ‘ere?” Rags demanded.

A big blond vampire who could have been a body double for Dolph Lundgren back in the ‘80’s crouched down next to Logan, and exclaimed, “Son of a bitch! Canadian Special Forces!”

The metalhead vamp scowled and looked back at Dolph. (Did Dolph have a Russian accent?) “What?”

“This guy, he’s Canadian Special Forces! Or he was. He’s the crazy Canadian the Allies sent to Stalingrad during the siege. Some of the brass wanted to try and work something out with the Allies, supplies and such, so the Allies said they’d send someone. We didn’t think they could get anyone through - I mean, it was war, a Russian winter. The guy’d have to get past German lines and survive the cold too, but they said the Canadians had someone who could do it. This was him. He spoke fluent Russian too, with a slight Siberian accent. We called him the Wolf. He could drink us all under the table.” He smirked in reminiscence. “You shoulda seen the things this guy could do with a knife. He once threw one from three hundred yards and nailed a guy right in the eye.”

The hesher was unimpressed. “He’s a Human. It can’t be the same guy.”

“He’s a mutant, an old one” Kier pointed out. If the Russian vampire actually knew Logan way back when, would that stop him from hurting him? “It probably was him. He can still do amazing things with knives.” A glance around confirmed about a dozen vampires surrounding them on all sides, and none of them close enough to grab.

The long haired vampire gave him an evil look, possibly for encouraging Dolph to look at Logan as something other than meat. He then looked past him, over his shoulder. “You can walk, Persaid. We got no use for you.”

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere wifout Logan,” he replied icily.

“Where is Kayla?” Kier interjected, his anger rising.

The long haired vampire’s eyes were as clear and cold as an arctic tundra. “Did you really think we trusted you? We factored betrayal into the equation. We’ll bring you to Kayla - we don’t bring her to you.”

Like a dream - or a nightmare - Drusilla drifted out of the woods, her skin so pale it was luminous in the dark, her hair a clinging shadow, her lips too red and her eyes too bright and too empty. She was so skinny she hardly seemed to inhabit the empire waist burgundy velvet dress that she was wearing. She probably would have been pretty if she didn’t look completely barking mad. “Ooh, you’re pretty,” she said, and it took a moment for Kier to realize she was talking to him. “You’re like a doll full of flowers and tears.” She then leaned forward, and stage whispered, “But you’ve got a secret, don’t you? A surprise inside.” Her gaze scudded down to Logan on the ground, and her smile grew, becoming hungry and predatory. “His blood still tickles. Even black, it’s red.”

Bren had not described her madness with enough detail. It wasn’t that her brain was broken more than it was simply puree; he had no idea how it wasn’t leaking out her ears. Perhaps she shoved corks in them.

Rags stepped forward, and snapped, “Leave ‘im alone, bint.”

She glanced at Rags with something like disinterest, but suddenly her eyes widened and her mouth formed a little O of horror. “He’s not right!” she exclaimed, backing up a couple of steps. “He burns!”

Great - confirmation that the spell was working.

The long haired vampire rolled his eyes. “What is it now, Dru?”

“He’s the sun. Send him away!”

“The sun,” he repeated in a weary whisper, rubbing his eyes. Clearly he was tired of Dru and her insanity, and he almost sympathized with him. “Boys, get him out of here.”

Two thick necked vampires advanced on Rags, who took off his shirt, revealing the marks in red and black all over his torso. They grabbed his arms, and suddenly let go of him, recoiling in pain and horror as their hands smoked like smoldering fires. “I am the ‘igh priest of the Stone Temple,” Rags proclaimed in a surprisingly authoritarian voice. “And you parasites cannot man’andle me.”

That was the spell and the symbols marked on his skin: he was consecrated. His skin was essentially the solidified version of holy water, which is why Kier could only help draw the symbols on him in the beginning, marks and sigils sacred to the Gorgons. This put him directly under their protection, essentially a holy artifact, and any vampire who grabbed him long enough would burst into flame.

The long haired vampire stared at him in disbelief, but then turned that look on Dru, who was cringing back against a lodgepole pine like Rags really was glowing. (He wasn’t, but who knew how Dru saw things?) “Why didn’t you tell us he was a priest?”

“She can’t see me,” Rags said, walking towards them. All the vampires backed up, even Kier as Rags walked past, because he felt like heat. And the weird thing about that was that once you were a vampire, your sense of hot and cold pretty much disappeared. “I’m a Persaid demon, ‘member?”

Persaids were basically negative energy sponges, demons who could absorb the ambient bad feelings around them before they could explode into something terrible (generally - not always), but this uncontrollable and fairly odd ability made them impervious to all psychic powers. Telepaths couldn’t read them, seers couldn’t see them - they were big blanks, the psychic equivalent of black holes: energy could go in, but it couldn’t come out. As demons went they were considered harmless, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have their uses, especially as secret weapons.

“Where’s Kayla?” Kier demanded one more time, as Rags advanced on the long haired vampire. He was wisely backing up. “What do you want with her and me?”

“This is your plan?” the vamp chided, although he never took his eyes off Rags. “Depending on a Persaid to save your ass? That’s pretty lame.”

The two vamps who had tried to grab Rags grabbed him, big guys who must have been weightlifters, and Kier let them hold him. He could break out of this, but he wasn’t ready to just yet. “Get him out of here,” the hesher shouted, and to Kier’s surprise, they started dragging him backwards into the woods. What the hell was this?

Before Rags could turn or he could yank an arm free, a muffled shot rang out, and blood splattered on the side of his face as the vamp holding his left arm had part of his head explode, and he toppled over like a bowling pin. “Sorry I’m late,” Marcus said, coming out of the woods aiming a rather large and nasty looking high powered sniper rifle. “Met a really cute guy by the fountain.” Shouldering the rifle, he picked off the other vampire holding his arm. “Know it won’t kill ‘em, but goddamn, a shot to the head’s gonna take a long time to heal.”

“Finally,” Logan snapped, jumping up to his feet and making Dru let out a squeal of fear. “I think I swallowed some dirt.” He turned his head and spit, and as he did, he popped the claws on his left hand, making both Dolph and the metalhead jump back half a foot.

“And how is that my fault?” Marc wondered. He’d picked off two more vampires before the rest wisely slunk into the shadows. But Marc was still picking them off, because he saw in infrared, and the vamps appeared, according to him, as “dead blue spots”.

Back at the hotel, Logan had called Marc to see if he could help. He wanted to come up, but he was in Baltimore and didn’t know if he could make it up there in time - in case he couldn’t, he had a friend in Toronto he could call. But Marcus called Helga, and Hel knew a wizard in the area who owed her (or Bob - that wasn’t clear) a favor, and he was able to teleport Marc up to the city. Marc had called Logan while they were still at the drugstore, and said he’d meet them in the park. It was his idea to shoot the vampires in the head, and save the wood for when the numbers had dwindled.

Of course he’d told Rags and Logan about the phone call. After Logan was so protective of him, how could he lie to him? Also, there was the little matter that Logan knew he was lying when he actually attempted to do so. Lying to Logan was a difficult proposition at the best of times.

The long haired vampire gaped at Logan in abject horror. “How in the fuck are you immune to Rizuor venom?”

Logan lifted his shirt, and showed the mark Rags had drawn on Logan’s stomach before they left the bathroom. (Rags even remarked on how his stomach was hard enough to make an excellent drawing surface. This made Kier turn and bite his fist, a gesture he didn’t think anyone in real life ever did. But it was either that or whimper.) It looked like a circular tangle of curvy snakes drawn in kohl, in direct center between his belly button and the bottom of his ribcage. “It’s a ward that prevents poisoning, or some shit like that,” Logan explained with a shrug. “A Gorgon thing. Fuck if I know; I wasn’t even sure it would work.”

“I told ya it would,” Rags replied, somewhat defensively.

Marc had picked off all the vampires save for Dru, Dolph, and the hesher. Some of the ones he’d shot in the head were moaning on the ground and moving, but they were still so hurt and befuddled that they wouldn’t be in fighting shape anytime soon. The four of them advanced on the vampire trio, Marc slinging his rifle over his back and pulling out a stake instead. He was wearing all black - pants, shirt, boots, coat, and watch cap - so he looked like a ninja, an assassin, or both.

“Did you really think this would work?” Logan asked the long haired guy. “Do you know how often we’ve been set up, individually and as a group? Did you really think you could get the drop on us? Especially with only a dozen vamps? Seriously, that’s fuckin’ pathetic. I was prepared for at least two dozen of you.”

“It is disappointing,” Marc agreed. “I got enough ammo with me to retake the Alamo. I mean right this second, and you know how gun happy they are in Texas.”

Logan reached out and grabbed the long haired guy by his throat, bringing his sprung claws right up to his eyeballs. “Now you’re gonna take us to Kayla, and she’d better be alive and unvamped, or you won’t live long enough to regret it. Got it?”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he knew he had no chance here at all, and nodded tightly, giving Logan an evil scowl.

Dolph continued looking at Logan with something akin to wonder. “Fuck, it is you. I recognize your voice.”

Logan shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t remember that far back. You weren’t a vamp in Stalingrad, were you?”

“No, I was a sniper. I didn’t get vamped until after the war.”

He just nodded, not sure what to say to that. Sorry?

Kier cleared his throat, and as soon as he had their attention, pulled out the stake he had carried, hidden beneath his shirt and tucked into the back of his jeans. He raised it into striking position. “We both know I’m not going to kill you until I get Kayla back, but you know what?” He plunged the stake into the metalhead’s shoulder, making him scream in pain. “I can put a whole bunch of holes in you. So you tell me now what the fuck you want with me, or I’m gonna perforate you so badly we’ll all find out if it’s possible for a vampire to bleed to death. Now talk.”

He glared at him in molten hatred for a good long moment, and then he said something that made no sense at all. “We thought it was her we wanted, but it’s you, you misbegotten abortion of a vampire. You weren’t supposed to be this; you were supposed to be the one.”

Kier exchanged glances with Logan, Marc, and Rags, and none of them looked like they had any idea what the fuck the guy was talking about. So he asked what he knew they were all thinking.

“Huh?”