Passing the Baton

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel stood at the foot of the alley and frowned.

His vampire senses were keenly attuned to the difference in the air; that was the word he ascribed to the electric charge and chemical scent of a narrow passage that should smell like piss and garbage. After getting a note at Ragnarok, he felt obliged to show up and at least see what all the fuss was. Daniel understood that some kind of magical door to hell had opened and demons were sporadically coming through. People were needed to stand guard. And do what, Daniel didn’t really know; intervene? Take notes? Roll out a welcome mat?

There was a girl leaning against the wall, arms crossed, legs long and straight.

He pulled on his earlobe and cleared his throat. “I’m Daniel,” he said. “I got a message.” He watched her push away from the concrete block wall and approach him. An unknown chill went down his back and then he saw the stake in her hand and figured out why. He raised his palms. “Whoa… I didn’t come here for that.”

“Relax,” she said. She stowed the weapon in a band around her leg. “I’m Rhiannon. Normally you and I wouldn’t be so friendly, but right now we’ve got bigger concerns.” She straightened up. “For all we know, the creatures that came through that door rip off vampire faces, too, and something tells me you like yours.”

Daniel scowled.

Rhiannon tipped her head. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” he said, on the defense because it sounded like an insult, except that nobody in his right mind would want his face torn off Texas Chainsaw Massacre style. “No argument here.”

“Good.” Rhiannon fiddled with a blocky gadget with a rubber antenna. “Besides, I know your friend Holly. She asked me specifically not to stake you.” She turned a knob and the speaker crackled.

“Oh. Oh!” He brightened and stood up straighter. “Well, um… what do you need? I’m not all that combative.”

“You’re good enough. Here.” She handed him a heavy walky-talky and a pack of extra batteries. “Radio if you see anything weird and one of us will answer. Then pass it to the next person when you’re through. Someone will be here before sunrise. Did you bring a weapon?”

Daniel brandished a tire iron he pulled from his car trunk and a butcher knife from his kitchen.

Rhiannon’s mouth puckered with some kind of humor the vampire didn’t get. “Okay.” She shook her head. “Don’t worry. Probably nothing will happen. I staked a vampire who came sniffing, but that’s it. The portal’s been quiet.”

“Comforting.” Daniel craned his neck and looked at the gap in the wall, the painted line around the border.

“Yeah. Well.” Rhiannon patted her pockets to make sure she had keys. “I think that’s it. So… thanks for showing up.” It felt too weird to thank a vampire, so she cut around him and headed toward the parking lot. “Later, Daniel.”

“Later.” He watched her go, then he settled into the spot Rhiannon had vacated and wished he’d thought to bring a book.

Comments

[daniel_stacy]

It took all of forty-five minutes for Daniel to go stir crazy in the alley. He had paced its length, scaled a wall and observed from on high, sat on the asphalt until his ass went numb, and sang I Wanna Be Sedated to himself in English and rudimentary Spanish. Anything to keep from staring into that black abyss in the wall, a darkness so thick it seemed to move.

The vampire thumbed through a phone book and found the number for Solomon's Scrolls. He fed the phone a quarter and dialed. A feminine voice picked up.

"Hey, is Melody there?"

[melodymagic]

"It's for you," Jazz said, handing the phone to Melody as the older witch headed back to the workbench and continued preparing some things to take to the alley where what sounded like a portal had opened.

She muttered to herself, grey-haired head bobbing up and down as she finished grinding some sage before tipping it into some small hessian bags.

Melody put the phone to her ear, a little puzzled as to who would be calling so late.

"Hello?"

[daniel_stacy]

“Melody! It’s me, Daniel. Stacy.” Like that clarified things. Had he ever told her his surname? Only now did he realize it was odd to call a woman he barely knew at her workplace, especially considering his undead state. He squinted towards the other end of the alley. Still alone.

“You will never guess where I am right now.”

[melodymagic]

Mel recognised his voice and giggled softly when he gave his surname. "Hello Daniel Stacy, and you're right, I probably never will," she replied, glancing across at Jazz whose hearing was excellent for someone of her years.

"Where are you?"

[daniel_stacy]

“I,” he lowered his voice like they were co-conspirators, “am in an alley next to a convenience store.” There was a beer cap under his shoe, crushed flat but still scraping metallically in the quiet. He squatted to pick it up and turned it over in his fingers. Coors. He could use a beer right now, but that meant leaving his post and going into the store. Good guys, bad guys, whatever, Daniel felt halfway useful to somebody right now and he wasn’t planning to fuck it up in the first hour.

"Now ask me what I'm wearing. Kidding, I'm kidding."

[melodymagic]

She couldn't help but giggle again when he said he was kidding. "And why are you in an alley next to a convenience store and calling Solomon's Scrolls?" she asked, actually wondering why he had, but secretly thrilled and trying not to let that show in her voice and trying to mimic his.

[daniel_stacy]

“I’m in the alley because there’s an inter-dimensional portal out here and I’m supposed to watch it and see if anything comes out. I’m calling you because you know magic. And trust me, this is definitely magic. Spooky, too.” Not for the first time, Daniel put up a hand to feel the otherworldly draft coming from the doorway.

[melodymagic]

Melody's eyebrows shot up and she looked across at Jazz, the older woman turning her head slightly when she heard Mel's small gasp.

"Really? That's the one next to the market? A man came in here a little while ago and told us about it, and Jazz and I are coming over. She's just getting some things ready."

[daniel_stacy]

It was Daniel’s turn to look surprised. “Really? That’s good. The girl said somebody would be out to replace me before the sun came up, but given the stake in her hand, I had reason to question.” He hefted the electronic device in his hand and checked to see that the red light was still aglow. “She gave me a walky-talky though. I was just thinking about radioing some truckers when I remembered I had quarters.”

He brushed the pad of his thumb against his chin.

“What do you think about Nine Inch for a call sign? And I’m referring to the length of this antenna, so get your mind out of the gutter.”

[melodymagic]

Now Melody did laugh, her hand pushing her hair behind her ear as she tried to cover up the outburst, and the slight rise of colour she felt around her throat.

"You went there, not me!" she told him rolling her eyes, both at his comment and herself for momentarily going there.

"And do you think truckers are really who you want to be getting into conversations with? Isn't there enough danger just waiting on the other side of that portal for you?"

[daniel_stacy]

“What’s wrong with truckers?” he asked, pretending to be more offended than he actually felt. Daniel scratched at the beer logo and then flicked the cap into the street. “They’re gainfully employed. They’re nocturnal. They can go the distance. We have a lot in common.” The vampire snickered at himself. “God, I can turn anything into a euphemism. I need professional help.”

Not for the first time he heard a skittering sound and cast a paranoid look at the doorway, only to realize the culprit was a piece of windblown trash.

[melodymagic]

Again the heat rose around the base of Mel's neck and she sighed. "There's nothing wrong with them, and you do!" she told him. Jazz had started putting things into a carry-all, including some things that Mel knew were for dealing with 'serious stuff', as Jazz had described it when warning Mel not to go into that drawer when the young witch had first started in the store.

"So how long have you been there?" she asked, "and have you seen anything come out of the portal at all?"

[daniel_stacy]

“An hour. Although it feels like twelve.” He tested the length of the segmented phone cord. “Doing the right thing is boring. Nothing’s come out of it but air, though. Or gone in, for the record. I thought about it. It might just be a parallel universe on the other side, except everyone’s got gills and six fingers. Are you gonna try to close it?”

[melodymagic]

"I think that's the plan," she replied, "and the guy who came in here said there's been something pretty nasty happen nearby, something about a couple of people being skinned? Or their heads were? And that whatever did it came out of there, he could smell something about it, I can't remember what he said it smelt like. Can you smell anything different?"

[daniel_stacy]

He sniffed. "Yeah. I guess the atmosphere's different, wherever that thing leads. It's breathable. It doesn't smell like sulfur, so I doubt any horned devils are going to pop out, but who knows."

He'd probably yell like a little girl if a line of ducklings waddled out.

Wait... Should he tell his sire about this?

And shouldn't he have thought of that already?

Daniel thought about that slayer again. Maybe he should keep this to himself.

[melodymagic]

Mel repeated what Daniel said so Jazz could hear, the older witch nodding and checking again what she'd already packed. She reached up and tugged open a drawer further up the wall, pulling it out and plonking it down on the workbench. She rummaged through for a moment, then pulled out something with a small throaty sound of triumph before returning the drawer to its slot.

"What will you do it they do?" Mel asked, trying to disguise the hint of concern she felt. He was a vampire, she shouldn't be concerned.

[daniel_stacy]

His brows knit together and he sighed. “Psssshhhh…. I dunno, hit? Bite? Run until my high heel breaks?” He wondered what Deanna would do; probably stand back and take Polaroids of the carnage. Did vampires help with this stuff if it was in their interest, too, or was it just all chaos all the time? He knew little about his peers – in fact he knew more good guys than bad – and he wasn’t sure how to rectify it, short of siring a buddy.

“I’ll be all right. I’m already dead. Why, are you worried about me?”

[melodymagic]

"No!" Melody replied too quickly. She laughed at her own response and used the laugh to hide the speed, adding "I'm just making sure to pack some superglue for your high heels, and noting that if we find the portal unguarded you have to run squealing and to check behind the nearest dumpster."

[daniel_stacy]

“I’ll have you know I won my last fistfight.”

Daniel leaned against the phone booth and crossed his ankles. There was a motorist standing near the edge of the parking lot and the vampire watched him, wondering if he was about to have a confrontation, but the man was only checking the air in his tires. After he got the gauge reading, he got in his car and drove off, leaving Daniel in the quiet.

He was about to launch into the story when the streetlamp nearest him flicked and buzzed. A tickle of cold air touched his neck. Daniel rubbed at the spot and looked at the wall. “Hang on…” He set the receiver down and took a few steps to investigate.

This time, the wind blew hard enough to rustle the empty can down the way. He cued up the radio and said, “Uh, I think this thing is about to wake up.”

After a few seconds, a groggy female voice came over the channel. “Let me know if you need back-up.”

Daniel answered a hesitant, “…kay.”

[melodymagic]

About to ask who the fistfight was with Mel stopped when she heard the clunk of the phone receiver being placed down. She frowned, pressing her receiver closer to her ear to listen for anything happening, closing her eyes to listen more intently.


"When you're ready," drowned out whatever noises were happening on the other end of the phone and Mel's eyes flew open as she looked up at Jazz. "He said something, but I couldn't hear it," she told her, indicating the phone.

"Well there's not much we can do here, is there?" the older witch pointed out, indicating the backpack she had prepared, resting on the floor next to the workcounter. "You carry that, and be careful, it's heavy," she told her, picking up the bag she had just finished putting a few more things in and putting it over her arm. "And lock up. I'll go round and get the car and meet you out front." With that the older witch left the shop, Melody pressing the handpiece to her ear again.

"Daniel? Are you there? Daniel?"

[daniel_stacy]

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” He felt his face twitch and he knew the demon inside was straining towards the surface, hoping to make an appearance whenever it burst through the veil. “But I should probably go. It’s getting drafty out here.” He remembered his weapons, a large knife and a tire iron. He felt better about the tire iron. He set the blade on top of the phone booth and let his face shift into its ridges and crest.

[melodymagic]

"Yeah, Jazz has gone round back to get the car and I have to lock up. We'll be there soon," she told him, hoisting the heavy backpack onto her shoulder and picking up the keys for the shop. "Try and stay out of trouble, yeah?" she added, adjusting the strap of the pack to a more comfortable spot on her shoulder. She figured it was really stupid to tell a dead man not to get himself killed.

[daniel_stacy]

“Of course.”

Daniel couldn’t decide if it was better to suggest Melody stay at the shop and save her ass, or get here fast enough to close this thing before a demonic triceratops burst through it. So he just hung up the receiver and stood within a couple yards of the doorway, watching and letting the wind blow his hair back from his forehead.