Assorted Ficbits
July 11: Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death
Special Agent Gerhard Stahl knew -- knew to the depths of what was left of his soul -- that something had gone horribly wrong when he found not one but four interns hiding in the Clean Room, wearing virtually identical expressions of resonant mental trauma. Using his gentlest tones, a plate of chocolate-covered cinnamon buns, and the assistance of four burly nurses from the infirmary armed with quick-acting sedatives, he managed to coax them out in relatively good order, saw them strapped onto mobile hospital beds, and sent up for psychological evaluation.
Then he went and noted on each of their permanent files his recommendation that they be accorded an enhanced hazardous duty allowance.
He found the source of their distress stretched out with his feet up in the staff lounge, a tiny pot of intensely black coffee at his elbow and a plate of the aforementioned buns next to it, in firm possession of the flatscreen’s remote control, idly surfing video files with an expression of intense boredom on his unreasonably handsome mask of a face.
Stahl glanced at what he was watching and transferred a look that lay halfway between long-suffering despair and perfect irritation to his defiantly erstwhile partner. “Delgado, I thought we had an understanding about not watching the video record of that thing in Detroit while the children are in the office…?”
July 14: Beast With A Human Face
Jagdherrin Ionela von Kallisch had cause, on more than one occasion over the years, to wish that the order of birth in her daughter’s sons had been reversed. Damon was an utterly competent, capable, and dedicated man, a natural leader of other men, as fierce in their defense as he was on the Hunt -- a competence and a ferocity that stood him in good stead when rare circumstances forced them to justify the continuance of their commission from the Republic, as the Lege occasionally required. No one could summon fiery rhetoric on the floor of the legislature chambers quite like Damon, who had the injuries he had suffered before his twenty-fifth winter to display as object examples of the harm they kept from the innocent and the powerless.
He did, however, lack two significant qualities of character that, in her estimation, kept him from being as fully-rounded a gentleman as he was a huntsman. The first of those was tact and the second was compassion. Lack of the first had, more than once, caused him to put his foot down firmly wrong with individuals whose goodwill would have helped his cause, so intent upon the Hunt that he considered any display of delicatesse or even basic courtesy to be an intolerable delay in the proceedings, to be disposed with entirely or tended to with such churlish brevity that it was almost more insulting than the lack.
The second was causing him, at that very moment, to glare down from their high vantage in the upper mezzanine of the Monarch’s Residence at the quadrille being performed on the ballroom floor below, as though he found the mere existence of dance or dance floors mortally offensive. Fortunately, no one else was close enough to them to accurately determine the precise direction of his gaze -- the fearsome reputation the hexenjagd enjoyed conferred a few advantages, a bubble of personal space about them being but one -- or the provenance of his generally sour expression. Unfortunately, she knew any counsel she offered to him on the issue would fall on ears largely deafened by the unshakable conviction that the object of his distaste was a serpent clasped to a much-beloved bosom, a grotesque and inhuman abomination merely awaiting the proper time to tear away its mask of deceptive humanity to reveal the lusus naturae within.
It didn’t help matters that Merrick and Kieran were obviously enjoying themselves greatly.
July 16: Not Using the Z Word
“Doc! Over here!”
Nate slung his field bag over his shoulder and turned to face the source of that particularly strained and breathless shout. It was Sergeant Alessi, a beat cop he’d had more than a little contact with over the last few months, one of the solid, no-bullshit kind he respected most when it came to their knowledge of the local neighborhoods, their character and peculiarities, both usual and other-than.
“Hey, Sarge. What’s -- “ He took one look at her and motioned her closer. “Okay. Give it to me in small words.”
“Call came in about an hour and a half ago. Noise complaint.” Sergeant Alessi licked her lips, which were significantly paler than usual, as was her face, her scattering of freckles standing out even more vividly than usual. “My partner and I pulled the call. No one answered at the front door so we went around back -- the back door was ajar. Found the first victim in the kitchen, adult male, and another two -- adult female, juvenile male, upstairs in one of the bedrooms.” She shot a quick glance over her shoulder where her partner sat in the back of the first ambulance to arrive, being tended to by the paramedics. “On the way back down the stairs, something grabbed Tommy by the ankle, pulled him down. It refused to respond to commands -- repeatedly. I shot it, twice, in the chest, once in the head and -- “
From the other side of the police cordon, a low ululating moan rose above the sound of emergency services vehicles and police radio chatter. Sergeant Alessi paled and hurried back towards her car.
Nate pulled out his cellphone, scrolled through his contacts, and hit the auto-dial. “Delgado? Listen, I know you’re there and since I’m trying not to use the z-word, you might want to get your ass down here. Now.”
Special Agent Gerhard Stahl knew -- knew to the depths of what was left of his soul -- that something had gone horribly wrong when he found not one but four interns hiding in the Clean Room, wearing virtually identical expressions of resonant mental trauma. Using his gentlest tones, a plate of chocolate-covered cinnamon buns, and the assistance of four burly nurses from the infirmary armed with quick-acting sedatives, he managed to coax them out in relatively good order, saw them strapped onto mobile hospital beds, and sent up for psychological evaluation.
Then he went and noted on each of their permanent files his recommendation that they be accorded an enhanced hazardous duty allowance.
He found the source of their distress stretched out with his feet up in the staff lounge, a tiny pot of intensely black coffee at his elbow and a plate of the aforementioned buns next to it, in firm possession of the flatscreen’s remote control, idly surfing video files with an expression of intense boredom on his unreasonably handsome mask of a face.
Stahl glanced at what he was watching and transferred a look that lay halfway between long-suffering despair and perfect irritation to his defiantly erstwhile partner. “Delgado, I thought we had an understanding about not watching the video record of that thing in Detroit while the children are in the office…?”
July 14: Beast With A Human Face
Jagdherrin Ionela von Kallisch had cause, on more than one occasion over the years, to wish that the order of birth in her daughter’s sons had been reversed. Damon was an utterly competent, capable, and dedicated man, a natural leader of other men, as fierce in their defense as he was on the Hunt -- a competence and a ferocity that stood him in good stead when rare circumstances forced them to justify the continuance of their commission from the Republic, as the Lege occasionally required. No one could summon fiery rhetoric on the floor of the legislature chambers quite like Damon, who had the injuries he had suffered before his twenty-fifth winter to display as object examples of the harm they kept from the innocent and the powerless.
He did, however, lack two significant qualities of character that, in her estimation, kept him from being as fully-rounded a gentleman as he was a huntsman. The first of those was tact and the second was compassion. Lack of the first had, more than once, caused him to put his foot down firmly wrong with individuals whose goodwill would have helped his cause, so intent upon the Hunt that he considered any display of delicatesse or even basic courtesy to be an intolerable delay in the proceedings, to be disposed with entirely or tended to with such churlish brevity that it was almost more insulting than the lack.
The second was causing him, at that very moment, to glare down from their high vantage in the upper mezzanine of the Monarch’s Residence at the quadrille being performed on the ballroom floor below, as though he found the mere existence of dance or dance floors mortally offensive. Fortunately, no one else was close enough to them to accurately determine the precise direction of his gaze -- the fearsome reputation the hexenjagd enjoyed conferred a few advantages, a bubble of personal space about them being but one -- or the provenance of his generally sour expression. Unfortunately, she knew any counsel she offered to him on the issue would fall on ears largely deafened by the unshakable conviction that the object of his distaste was a serpent clasped to a much-beloved bosom, a grotesque and inhuman abomination merely awaiting the proper time to tear away its mask of deceptive humanity to reveal the lusus naturae within.
It didn’t help matters that Merrick and Kieran were obviously enjoying themselves greatly.
July 16: Not Using the Z Word
“Doc! Over here!”
Nate slung his field bag over his shoulder and turned to face the source of that particularly strained and breathless shout. It was Sergeant Alessi, a beat cop he’d had more than a little contact with over the last few months, one of the solid, no-bullshit kind he respected most when it came to their knowledge of the local neighborhoods, their character and peculiarities, both usual and other-than.
“Hey, Sarge. What’s -- “ He took one look at her and motioned her closer. “Okay. Give it to me in small words.”
“Call came in about an hour and a half ago. Noise complaint.” Sergeant Alessi licked her lips, which were significantly paler than usual, as was her face, her scattering of freckles standing out even more vividly than usual. “My partner and I pulled the call. No one answered at the front door so we went around back -- the back door was ajar. Found the first victim in the kitchen, adult male, and another two -- adult female, juvenile male, upstairs in one of the bedrooms.” She shot a quick glance over her shoulder where her partner sat in the back of the first ambulance to arrive, being tended to by the paramedics. “On the way back down the stairs, something grabbed Tommy by the ankle, pulled him down. It refused to respond to commands -- repeatedly. I shot it, twice, in the chest, once in the head and -- “
From the other side of the police cordon, a low ululating moan rose above the sound of emergency services vehicles and police radio chatter. Sergeant Alessi paled and hurried back towards her car.
Nate pulled out his cellphone, scrolled through his contacts, and hit the auto-dial. “Delgado? Listen, I know you’re there and since I’m trying not to use the z-word, you might want to get your ass down here. Now.”