1/4 "I've got a full week ahead of me" (Being Human/Primeval crossover)
Title: “I’ve Got a Full Week Ahead of Me”
Summary: A bid for power has led to this - the eve of incipient war.
Fandom: Primeval / Being Human.
Characters: Leek, Caroline, Connor, Abby, Helen / George, Annie, Mitchell, Herrick,
Canon Creatures: predatories (1.06), grabbyseals (2.04),
Invented Creatures: pad-feet, bigeyes, the Penultimate,
Author: Keenir.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: 1.01-2.04 / Pilot.
References made to background in “Nature Wins” and “The more Things Change”).
Author’s note: this was born from the “and let the children of Darwin behold” comment in the pilot episode.
(also, I’ll keep the non-Present Day events in story-chronological order, not geology-chronological order)
(yes, Bristol House is where Annie was living before the guys moved in…and yes, I did nick the name-idea from Down House; a fiver if you know that name) ;)
(a Bull is a proclamation, just like a Papal Bull)
Chapter One: Laurasia: alliances re-form as trust fractures.
Chapter Two: Pangea: they’re all in the same boat, like it or not.
Chapter Three: Eo: every one alone.
Chapter Four: Rhodina: resolution as the dust settles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prologue:
Years ago in the farthest future:
Click.
Her dreams hurt less, but even there there was pain. So she knew she was returning to conciousness because the hurt was here out in force. Pebbly skin under the bruised callouses that comprised her fingers. Whaleback? Some carpeting mimicking animal hide? She no longer bothered to curse at the inquisitive streak that had pulled her through the woundings and recoveries; instincts such as those were all that she had left to her. Sea air flowed in and out of her nose with each breath, saltier than anywhere she’d been - more saline than the Dead Sea.
Through the fog of dizziness - what did they do to me this time? - she pulled her head up, looking across the flight deck of a back. Big animal, she noted, doesn’t feel like its moving, absently as she continued to be sprawled on part of its back like a discarded doll. And she saw a spindly something standing immobile fifteen meters away. Are we on the same animal?
No one had called her by name in years. The last person to have said her name, had been Stephen. Once, she’d wished that Nick had been the last to speak her name: Helen.
Now she only wished that they would stop, stop all the cuts and pokes and hurts. Most of the incisions had healed by now, physically. They’d opened her up, prodding and running currents and injecting. All the while, padding around her on their soft-soled feet.
Once, she’d hoped to bring an end to the existence of horrors such as vampires. Or, if that was not possible, then to cripple them as a race. She certainly had had sufficient reason.
Now, she barely gave vampires a second thought. She was too busy surviving the padfeet.
Turning her head to look to the side - and shit! it hurt to do that - there was another of the things standing at the same distance in that direction too. And as much as her vision tended to blur while under the knife, Helen knew that these weren’t the padfeet.
No. These were some sort of bat. Toothy. Carrying a spear.
Get it over with, Helen thought.
Tilted its head. It clicked at her, echolocating at her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thirteen Months Ago:
He was dying. Finally, in his opinion. Physically, shape-changers were nigh on invulnerable, able to heal any injury taken in the heat of battle with their prey.
Their minds were another matter entirely. Such as this one. Fifteen years of being a were had taken their toll. He didn’t think of himself as a seal, but his lucid human moments were few and far between as well.
He’d never been able to pass on the shape-changing nature to anyone…he’d long ago given up cursing what literally was lethal shyness. Take too long, and the transformative mechanism haemorrhages
As the life ebbed out of him, his blurring sight noticed a shimmering in front of him, fragments of light here and there, all together, yet not connected to one another. And something - a something - stepped out of it, walked around him on padded feet. It click-clicked at him, as if it expected an answer.
Click as blood leaked out of the were, seeking any groove or slope to the ground.
Click-click-clicked as the blood flowed away in a trickle of a stream, into a fishpond, where, as it happened, only one trout was left. The blood was eaten by things that were eaten by others, all the way up the trophic chain to the trout. None of these was afflicted by what the blood contained - they lacked both the mass and the biochemistry to undergo the Change.
And before the month was through, the trout was caught and eaten by a human. One by the name of Caroline Steel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter One:
.~~.
The Night of the First Day:
The Docks:
Bristol Coast
PRESENT DAY:
Darkness flooded the warehouse inside more than outside. Outside, the Moon was full. Inside, not even a candle was lit.
But the black abyss was no obstacle for those inside. Oliver Leek walked slow circles around his prisoner. Watched the beast flail about as much as the restraints allowed. Without those restraints, the captive could - and now would, if given half a chance - kill him. “You disappoint me, Caroline. I don’t like disappointment.” Dryly, “As you have noticed, I don’t handle it well.” Officially he’d left the ARC and gone home for the night. Unofficially…well, it was plain that he was here.
Caroline twisted and spun, trying to get at him. Tightly bound around her ankles and waist, the chains from the ceiling didn’t let her swing that far - mostly because of the manacle circling her neck, that was tied to the ring in the concrete floor.
“Sad,” Leek said mockingly. “And to think you were doing so well. Until, that is, you failed utterly.”
I threw the lizard in the fridge and not out the window. Figured it would get Abby to take Rex to the vet - you’ve got people there, Leek, I know you do. But all she did was hiss at him, baring her teeth. Her fangs.
This did not impress Oliver. “Bluff all you want, creature. You’re not getting out of here. And you’re not getting fed.” The days of our rapprochement are over.
Caroline’s skin broke out in gooseflesh, her eyes losing some of their lustre.
Leek looked up, at where the setting Moon would be if not for that roof. “But I am not without mercy. I can grant you a quick death, or a slow one; entirely your choice.”
She snapped at him, sharp teeth biting down on air an inch from where he stood. Caroline could get no closer.
“Very well,” Oliver said, walking away. He clapped his hands once, drawing his followers after him. “We’ll see who comes out worse for wear - her or Herrick,” and smiled at the thought.
.~~.
Herrick was running. The vampiric mind was notoriously prone to focusing, to tunnel-vision what it let in. They had this ability because it had served them so well. But right now, Herrick couldn’t see any lanes or doors or manholes, or even a window to break through - there was only In Front Of him, and Behind him. And the danger was behind him, and getting closer. Hence Herrick running.
It was mostly, though not entirely, an alien concept. Herrick knew that werewolves hunted his kind; but his pursuer neither smelled like, moved like, or radiated like a wolf. That was what made this such a foreign experience. The unknown. He was supposed to be the unknown, damnit, the finality coming at you from the shadows. The hunter.
Not the hunted. Not some sorry sack of flesh all too aware of his own mortality. Not a man who could hear the approaching clawed footfalls of his doom as a not-quite-counterpoint to the noise produced by this downpour. Rain as heavy as this, tended to dim down how well he could see - and as for his pursuer, Herrick could only guess.
A blare, an airhorn of a sound so shrill even mighty Herrick dropped down. Splash ignobly into a puddle broad enough for three. But he was alone - the hunter’s hunter had already brought down Herrick’s bodyguards. One thing, one creature, one imposter not in the slightest bit human, had done this.
And then it was here, standing at the edge of the puddle. It watched him, and now it was wary.
It was a bird, Herrick could make out. A wingless, heavy-legged bird with a deeply-serrated beak coated in blood.
Why was it hesitating? Had it finally realised in its dim brain that vampires were not to be trifled with? Or did it simply have a fear of puddles?
Drawing on one last reserve of energy, Herrick moved, turning completely around and grabbing this horror by one leg and slamming it down with enough force to crack open the fragile skull.
This was a mortal bird, dead now. One with a collar at the base of its neck. Three words were inscribed into the leather. No; two words and a name:
TRUCE OVER. OLIVER.
.~~.
The First Day:
The Docks:
That Warehouse:
“Oh come off it, Connor,” Abby said as they walked down the empty street between the rows of warehouses. “You can’t honestly expect -” stopping when she thought she heard something, throwing up a hand to keep Connor quiet.
“What is it?” Connor whispered, not sure whether to look to Abby for direction, for where to look, or to look all around.
“You don’t -” and ‘hear that?’ died on her lips as the moan repeated itself, louder this time. “In here!” she said, her voice hushed and emphatic, darting to the wall of the warehouse that was the source of the sound.
Connor got up atop some of the leftover boxes and looked in the window. “There’s just one person in there,” he told Abby. “The lights’re on. Windows’re too dirty, I can’t see who it is, but they’re definitely alone.”
“Any sign of a Creature?” They were out here because there’d been a Creature sighting. So the two of them had come right out here, not even stopping in at the ARC first.
“No mess of any kind, no blood or gore or corpses,” unless the one person in there is the corpse. But even those predatories - the flightless bats - strung up their kills. “I’d say no.”
Abby sighed, pulling her radio out from her belt, telling the ARC they needed backup and medical supplies. Just in case. “Let’s go,” she told Connor, who hopped down from the boxes.
They slid the door open, and it complied with an ease that said it wasn’t as abandoned as it looked on the outside. Indoors, it was empty, just as Connor had said, except for -
“Caroline!” Connor said, almost a shout, more nearly a cry, but far too loud for Abby’s tastes, given that there was a Creature around here somewhere.
Strung up head-down, Caroline Steel whimpered, her eyes open wide and unseeing - her dilated pupils were milky. Shivering, she was lying in a small pool of her own sweat.
Wrapping most of Caroline’s body was a furry pelt. Sealskin, Abby silently identified, modern sealskin, not those future seals. Seals that got the shit beat outta them, looking at all the cuts and bruises that so liberally coated the fur coat. The ropes wrapped around *that*.
Connor and Abby unhooked the chains and - with a pocketknife - cut enough rope to get Caroline out of her bindings.
Connor stripped off his jacket and put it around the shivering Caroline. “’ere,” he told her. “You’re gonna be fine. You -” and Caroline moaned - that bellowing sound they’d heard outside.
“You’re safe now, Caroline,” Connor said, putting an arm around her. He knew extra body heat wasn’t a good idea - not his absolute worst either, but that didn’t help either - but he didn’t know what else to do while they waited for backup.
Voice. I know…I know that voice. “Sssssafe?” Caroline stuttered. Hungry. Famished.
“Yeah, safe.”
“I believe - I trust - you. Connor?” So…so…God, those aren’t good rumblings.
Hearing her empty stomach asking for food, “Yeah, Caroline?”
“Stand up. Step back.” Turning her head to look at him, to him, “And thank you.”
“ For what?”
“Everything.” And I’m sorry.
Connor stood up. Abby kept watch, not sure what this girl was up to. Why were you out here, Caroline? Who trussed you up? And where’d you get the sealskin?
Caroline looked at her knees, and crouched down on her hands and knees. I’m safe. I’m covered, in both senses of the word. And she let herself finish the change.
Abby’s eyes went wide as the sealskin *melted* into Caroline’s legs, assuming the same was happening in the places covered by Connor’s jacket. Human skin tightened on Caroline’s face, and there was the faintly-audible sound of bones popping into place. Even then, even with that, there seemed to be an extra joint to Caroline’s arms and calves. No wonder she likes Connor’s sci-fi movies, Abby figured: she is one.
Kneeling up, Caroline zipped up the jacket, then stood up on her feet. And faced them.
It took Connor a moment to say “Wow.”
Which, judging by her expression, was entirely the right thing to say. “Thank you,” Caroline repeated. “Thank you for rescuing me, saving me, thank you for all the kindness you’ve shown me - both of you have shown me,” sparing a thankful smile for Abby as well. “And I’ll understand if you chose to hate me.”
“What for?” Connor asked, puzzled.
Abby noted that Caroline’s face was back to normal, even the eyes, and she wasn’t sweating any more. “It got anything to do,” Abby asked, “with what you’re doing here?”
“Abby!” Connor hissed.
“It does,” Caroline said. “It’s okay, Connor. Before, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get fired - our boss mentioned the Official Secrets Act.”
“’Our boss’?” Abby asked.
She nodded. “Mr. Oliver Leek.”
“Oh he’s not our boss,” Connor said cheerfully. “He works for our boss.”
“Well, he’s my boss,” Caroline said grimly. “He’s had me keeping an eye on the two of you, keeping tabs on you both.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Never told me, even when I asked.” Slapped me a few times, though. “I lied to him a few times, to make him think this was harder work than it was.” If I’d said I liked spending time with you, Connor, he’d have assigned someone else to work with you.
“What sort of lies?”
“That I didn’t like you.”
“And you expect Connor to believe that?” Abby asked. “You just admitted to spying on us.”
“I don’t expect anything,” Caroline said. “I admitted to it because you saved my life.”
“So,” Abby asked, “the truth now. Did you have anything to do with Rex ending up in my fridge yesterday?”
“I did. I put him there.”
“WHAT??”
“I did so in violation of what I’d been instructed to do. I was supposed to throw him out a window, and he’d get picked up by one of Leek’s goons.”
“Not very nice to your coworkers, are you?”
“You don’t call a stormtrooper a Jedi, you call him a stormtrooper.”
“True,” Connor said. “So…what do we do now?”
“Its in your hands,” Caroline said, conceding her life to her trust in them.
If this is a ploy, Abby thought to herself, it’s a well-played one.
Her stomach rumbling again, “But,” Caroline asked, “could we grab a bite to eat first?”
.~~.
Bristol:
Bristol General Hospital’s basement:
As it was morning, George woke up the same way he always did after a long night as a wolf: eyelids snapped up as his body shook itself. But the first thing he saw this time was different. “Hello,” Annie said, sitting cross-legged beside him. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
George jerked away, searching for something to cover himself with…and pulled a mattress off a bed to serve until he could get to his clothes. “What the hell are you doing here??” Had she come over to rescue someone else who’d been trapped down here with him? Does ‘this is getting to be a habit’ qualify if this was the second time?
“Mitchell needed the house,” Annie said.
“You’ve got a room!” not sure if that sounded panicked or simply shriek-like.
“He asked for the whole house, said he wanted to be sure - not sure o’ what - an’ that it’d be best if I were out for a bite.”
“Would you stop that smiling? Please?”
“Come on, George, it’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen b’fore.”
“Maybe so, but I’m not putting this mattress down.”
“Good.” Annie stood up, going over to where George’d left his clothes - the door’s open - picked them up and set them down on the bed next to George. “You fancy a curry?”
“What?” Was there a law somewhere that said that ghosts had to make utterly no sense at least once a week? Because Annie was really fulfilling that, in triplicate.
“D’ya fancy a curry? There’s this place not far from here, where me Uncle Gene used to take me for special breakfasts; you’d like it, George.” When we’d get there, usually on my birthday and a few holidays, Uncle Gene’d tell me stories about me namesake.
“Sounds good,” George said quickly. “But d’you think maybe I can get dressed first, alone?” As Annie walked away, “With the door shut.” As the door was closing, something occurred to him: “You can’t see through walls, can you?”
The only answer was the door shutting.
.~~.
Bristol House:
The doors were all closed, the blinds drawn, and the tea made an hour ago had been microwaved. Now… “What do you want, Herrick?” Mitchell asked now that his visitor was comfortably seated - there were niceties to these things, niceties he knew not to disregard.
After sipping at his tea, “I want you to take your pet, and hunt down the party who tried to kill me this past night.”
“You can’t simply sanction them?” Mitchell asked. Sanction and isolation were the strongest weapons their people had to enforce order among their own number.
“I’d do so gladly, were it an option. But the attack was authorized by Oliver himself.”
“Oliver?”
“Yes.”
“I thought he was dead…or immolated.”
“He may have immolated himself for a time,” Herrick said, granting the possibility, “but he’s active now. And he’s calling for an end to the Agreement.”
“He’s serious about this?” It was madness.
“Deadly,” bringing the mug back up for another sip. Watching Mitchell mull over this matter, “And Oliver is keeping to his old habits.”
“Sending animals into battle?”
“Yes. Only these are abberants.”
“Mutations?”
“Of unknown origin. I offer you this task - ascertain where Oliver is getting his beasts, or put a full stop to his activities. Reinforcements are yours to call upon.”
Always handy. “And in return?” It should have not needed to be said - by necessity, their society was one of reciprocation. Even one of Herrick’s rank was not immune to obligation. But with what upsets Herrick had been proposing, Mitchell didn’t care to leave anything to chance, particularly if it were a feature that would be scrapped.
Herrick nodded, as if Mitchell’s question were perfectly understandable. “In addition to activating your defunct office, smoothing relations between yourself and at least one of your daughters… and I shall announce a bull placing your pet under my protection. And,” enriching the offer still further, “I will apologise to you at the next convocation.”
Face was just as important to vampires as it was to many human cultures. For them, it was one’s image, one’s reputation and skills. For Herrick to admit he was wrong… Mitchell nodded, “Then I’m in.” We’re in.
.~~~~~~~.
Summary: A bid for power has led to this - the eve of incipient war.
Fandom: Primeval / Being Human.
Characters: Leek, Caroline, Connor, Abby, Helen / George, Annie, Mitchell, Herrick,
Canon Creatures: predatories (1.06), grabbyseals (2.04),
Invented Creatures: pad-feet, bigeyes, the Penultimate,
Author: Keenir.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: 1.01-2.04 / Pilot.
References made to background in “Nature Wins” and “The more Things Change”).
Author’s note: this was born from the “and let the children of Darwin behold” comment in the pilot episode.
(also, I’ll keep the non-Present Day events in story-chronological order, not geology-chronological order)
(yes, Bristol House is where Annie was living before the guys moved in…and yes, I did nick the name-idea from Down House; a fiver if you know that name) ;)
(a Bull is a proclamation, just like a Papal Bull)
Chapter One: Laurasia: alliances re-form as trust fractures.
Chapter Two: Pangea: they’re all in the same boat, like it or not.
Chapter Three: Eo: every one alone.
Chapter Four: Rhodina: resolution as the dust settles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prologue:
Years ago in the farthest future:
Click.
Her dreams hurt less, but even there there was pain. So she knew she was returning to conciousness because the hurt was here out in force. Pebbly skin under the bruised callouses that comprised her fingers. Whaleback? Some carpeting mimicking animal hide? She no longer bothered to curse at the inquisitive streak that had pulled her through the woundings and recoveries; instincts such as those were all that she had left to her. Sea air flowed in and out of her nose with each breath, saltier than anywhere she’d been - more saline than the Dead Sea.
Through the fog of dizziness - what did they do to me this time? - she pulled her head up, looking across the flight deck of a back. Big animal, she noted, doesn’t feel like its moving, absently as she continued to be sprawled on part of its back like a discarded doll. And she saw a spindly something standing immobile fifteen meters away. Are we on the same animal?
No one had called her by name in years. The last person to have said her name, had been Stephen. Once, she’d wished that Nick had been the last to speak her name: Helen.
Now she only wished that they would stop, stop all the cuts and pokes and hurts. Most of the incisions had healed by now, physically. They’d opened her up, prodding and running currents and injecting. All the while, padding around her on their soft-soled feet.
Once, she’d hoped to bring an end to the existence of horrors such as vampires. Or, if that was not possible, then to cripple them as a race. She certainly had had sufficient reason.
Now, she barely gave vampires a second thought. She was too busy surviving the padfeet.
Turning her head to look to the side - and shit! it hurt to do that - there was another of the things standing at the same distance in that direction too. And as much as her vision tended to blur while under the knife, Helen knew that these weren’t the padfeet.
No. These were some sort of bat. Toothy. Carrying a spear.
Get it over with, Helen thought.
Tilted its head. It clicked at her, echolocating at her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thirteen Months Ago:
He was dying. Finally, in his opinion. Physically, shape-changers were nigh on invulnerable, able to heal any injury taken in the heat of battle with their prey.
Their minds were another matter entirely. Such as this one. Fifteen years of being a were had taken their toll. He didn’t think of himself as a seal, but his lucid human moments were few and far between as well.
He’d never been able to pass on the shape-changing nature to anyone…he’d long ago given up cursing what literally was lethal shyness. Take too long, and the transformative mechanism haemorrhages
As the life ebbed out of him, his blurring sight noticed a shimmering in front of him, fragments of light here and there, all together, yet not connected to one another. And something - a something - stepped out of it, walked around him on padded feet. It click-clicked at him, as if it expected an answer.
Click as blood leaked out of the were, seeking any groove or slope to the ground.
Click-click-clicked as the blood flowed away in a trickle of a stream, into a fishpond, where, as it happened, only one trout was left. The blood was eaten by things that were eaten by others, all the way up the trophic chain to the trout. None of these was afflicted by what the blood contained - they lacked both the mass and the biochemistry to undergo the Change.
And before the month was through, the trout was caught and eaten by a human. One by the name of Caroline Steel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter One:
.~~.
The Night of the First Day:
The Docks:
Bristol Coast
PRESENT DAY:
Darkness flooded the warehouse inside more than outside. Outside, the Moon was full. Inside, not even a candle was lit.
But the black abyss was no obstacle for those inside. Oliver Leek walked slow circles around his prisoner. Watched the beast flail about as much as the restraints allowed. Without those restraints, the captive could - and now would, if given half a chance - kill him. “You disappoint me, Caroline. I don’t like disappointment.” Dryly, “As you have noticed, I don’t handle it well.” Officially he’d left the ARC and gone home for the night. Unofficially…well, it was plain that he was here.
Caroline twisted and spun, trying to get at him. Tightly bound around her ankles and waist, the chains from the ceiling didn’t let her swing that far - mostly because of the manacle circling her neck, that was tied to the ring in the concrete floor.
“Sad,” Leek said mockingly. “And to think you were doing so well. Until, that is, you failed utterly.”
I threw the lizard in the fridge and not out the window. Figured it would get Abby to take Rex to the vet - you’ve got people there, Leek, I know you do. But all she did was hiss at him, baring her teeth. Her fangs.
This did not impress Oliver. “Bluff all you want, creature. You’re not getting out of here. And you’re not getting fed.” The days of our rapprochement are over.
Caroline’s skin broke out in gooseflesh, her eyes losing some of their lustre.
Leek looked up, at where the setting Moon would be if not for that roof. “But I am not without mercy. I can grant you a quick death, or a slow one; entirely your choice.”
She snapped at him, sharp teeth biting down on air an inch from where he stood. Caroline could get no closer.
“Very well,” Oliver said, walking away. He clapped his hands once, drawing his followers after him. “We’ll see who comes out worse for wear - her or Herrick,” and smiled at the thought.
.~~.
Herrick was running. The vampiric mind was notoriously prone to focusing, to tunnel-vision what it let in. They had this ability because it had served them so well. But right now, Herrick couldn’t see any lanes or doors or manholes, or even a window to break through - there was only In Front Of him, and Behind him. And the danger was behind him, and getting closer. Hence Herrick running.
It was mostly, though not entirely, an alien concept. Herrick knew that werewolves hunted his kind; but his pursuer neither smelled like, moved like, or radiated like a wolf. That was what made this such a foreign experience. The unknown. He was supposed to be the unknown, damnit, the finality coming at you from the shadows. The hunter.
Not the hunted. Not some sorry sack of flesh all too aware of his own mortality. Not a man who could hear the approaching clawed footfalls of his doom as a not-quite-counterpoint to the noise produced by this downpour. Rain as heavy as this, tended to dim down how well he could see - and as for his pursuer, Herrick could only guess.
A blare, an airhorn of a sound so shrill even mighty Herrick dropped down. Splash ignobly into a puddle broad enough for three. But he was alone - the hunter’s hunter had already brought down Herrick’s bodyguards. One thing, one creature, one imposter not in the slightest bit human, had done this.
And then it was here, standing at the edge of the puddle. It watched him, and now it was wary.
It was a bird, Herrick could make out. A wingless, heavy-legged bird with a deeply-serrated beak coated in blood.
Why was it hesitating? Had it finally realised in its dim brain that vampires were not to be trifled with? Or did it simply have a fear of puddles?
Drawing on one last reserve of energy, Herrick moved, turning completely around and grabbing this horror by one leg and slamming it down with enough force to crack open the fragile skull.
This was a mortal bird, dead now. One with a collar at the base of its neck. Three words were inscribed into the leather. No; two words and a name:
TRUCE OVER. OLIVER.
.~~.
The First Day:
The Docks:
That Warehouse:
“Oh come off it, Connor,” Abby said as they walked down the empty street between the rows of warehouses. “You can’t honestly expect -” stopping when she thought she heard something, throwing up a hand to keep Connor quiet.
“What is it?” Connor whispered, not sure whether to look to Abby for direction, for where to look, or to look all around.
“You don’t -” and ‘hear that?’ died on her lips as the moan repeated itself, louder this time. “In here!” she said, her voice hushed and emphatic, darting to the wall of the warehouse that was the source of the sound.
Connor got up atop some of the leftover boxes and looked in the window. “There’s just one person in there,” he told Abby. “The lights’re on. Windows’re too dirty, I can’t see who it is, but they’re definitely alone.”
“Any sign of a Creature?” They were out here because there’d been a Creature sighting. So the two of them had come right out here, not even stopping in at the ARC first.
“No mess of any kind, no blood or gore or corpses,” unless the one person in there is the corpse. But even those predatories - the flightless bats - strung up their kills. “I’d say no.”
Abby sighed, pulling her radio out from her belt, telling the ARC they needed backup and medical supplies. Just in case. “Let’s go,” she told Connor, who hopped down from the boxes.
They slid the door open, and it complied with an ease that said it wasn’t as abandoned as it looked on the outside. Indoors, it was empty, just as Connor had said, except for -
“Caroline!” Connor said, almost a shout, more nearly a cry, but far too loud for Abby’s tastes, given that there was a Creature around here somewhere.
Strung up head-down, Caroline Steel whimpered, her eyes open wide and unseeing - her dilated pupils were milky. Shivering, she was lying in a small pool of her own sweat.
Wrapping most of Caroline’s body was a furry pelt. Sealskin, Abby silently identified, modern sealskin, not those future seals. Seals that got the shit beat outta them, looking at all the cuts and bruises that so liberally coated the fur coat. The ropes wrapped around *that*.
Connor and Abby unhooked the chains and - with a pocketknife - cut enough rope to get Caroline out of her bindings.
Connor stripped off his jacket and put it around the shivering Caroline. “’ere,” he told her. “You’re gonna be fine. You -” and Caroline moaned - that bellowing sound they’d heard outside.
“You’re safe now, Caroline,” Connor said, putting an arm around her. He knew extra body heat wasn’t a good idea - not his absolute worst either, but that didn’t help either - but he didn’t know what else to do while they waited for backup.
Voice. I know…I know that voice. “Sssssafe?” Caroline stuttered. Hungry. Famished.
“Yeah, safe.”
“I believe - I trust - you. Connor?” So…so…God, those aren’t good rumblings.
Hearing her empty stomach asking for food, “Yeah, Caroline?”
“Stand up. Step back.” Turning her head to look at him, to him, “And thank you.”
“ For what?”
“Everything.” And I’m sorry.
Connor stood up. Abby kept watch, not sure what this girl was up to. Why were you out here, Caroline? Who trussed you up? And where’d you get the sealskin?
Caroline looked at her knees, and crouched down on her hands and knees. I’m safe. I’m covered, in both senses of the word. And she let herself finish the change.
Abby’s eyes went wide as the sealskin *melted* into Caroline’s legs, assuming the same was happening in the places covered by Connor’s jacket. Human skin tightened on Caroline’s face, and there was the faintly-audible sound of bones popping into place. Even then, even with that, there seemed to be an extra joint to Caroline’s arms and calves. No wonder she likes Connor’s sci-fi movies, Abby figured: she is one.
Kneeling up, Caroline zipped up the jacket, then stood up on her feet. And faced them.
It took Connor a moment to say “Wow.”
Which, judging by her expression, was entirely the right thing to say. “Thank you,” Caroline repeated. “Thank you for rescuing me, saving me, thank you for all the kindness you’ve shown me - both of you have shown me,” sparing a thankful smile for Abby as well. “And I’ll understand if you chose to hate me.”
“What for?” Connor asked, puzzled.
Abby noted that Caroline’s face was back to normal, even the eyes, and she wasn’t sweating any more. “It got anything to do,” Abby asked, “with what you’re doing here?”
“Abby!” Connor hissed.
“It does,” Caroline said. “It’s okay, Connor. Before, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get fired - our boss mentioned the Official Secrets Act.”
“’Our boss’?” Abby asked.
She nodded. “Mr. Oliver Leek.”
“Oh he’s not our boss,” Connor said cheerfully. “He works for our boss.”
“Well, he’s my boss,” Caroline said grimly. “He’s had me keeping an eye on the two of you, keeping tabs on you both.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Never told me, even when I asked.” Slapped me a few times, though. “I lied to him a few times, to make him think this was harder work than it was.” If I’d said I liked spending time with you, Connor, he’d have assigned someone else to work with you.
“What sort of lies?”
“That I didn’t like you.”
“And you expect Connor to believe that?” Abby asked. “You just admitted to spying on us.”
“I don’t expect anything,” Caroline said. “I admitted to it because you saved my life.”
“So,” Abby asked, “the truth now. Did you have anything to do with Rex ending up in my fridge yesterday?”
“I did. I put him there.”
“WHAT??”
“I did so in violation of what I’d been instructed to do. I was supposed to throw him out a window, and he’d get picked up by one of Leek’s goons.”
“Not very nice to your coworkers, are you?”
“You don’t call a stormtrooper a Jedi, you call him a stormtrooper.”
“True,” Connor said. “So…what do we do now?”
“Its in your hands,” Caroline said, conceding her life to her trust in them.
If this is a ploy, Abby thought to herself, it’s a well-played one.
Her stomach rumbling again, “But,” Caroline asked, “could we grab a bite to eat first?”
.~~.
Bristol:
Bristol General Hospital’s basement:
As it was morning, George woke up the same way he always did after a long night as a wolf: eyelids snapped up as his body shook itself. But the first thing he saw this time was different. “Hello,” Annie said, sitting cross-legged beside him. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
George jerked away, searching for something to cover himself with…and pulled a mattress off a bed to serve until he could get to his clothes. “What the hell are you doing here??” Had she come over to rescue someone else who’d been trapped down here with him? Does ‘this is getting to be a habit’ qualify if this was the second time?
“Mitchell needed the house,” Annie said.
“You’ve got a room!” not sure if that sounded panicked or simply shriek-like.
“He asked for the whole house, said he wanted to be sure - not sure o’ what - an’ that it’d be best if I were out for a bite.”
“Would you stop that smiling? Please?”
“Come on, George, it’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen b’fore.”
“Maybe so, but I’m not putting this mattress down.”
“Good.” Annie stood up, going over to where George’d left his clothes - the door’s open - picked them up and set them down on the bed next to George. “You fancy a curry?”
“What?” Was there a law somewhere that said that ghosts had to make utterly no sense at least once a week? Because Annie was really fulfilling that, in triplicate.
“D’ya fancy a curry? There’s this place not far from here, where me Uncle Gene used to take me for special breakfasts; you’d like it, George.” When we’d get there, usually on my birthday and a few holidays, Uncle Gene’d tell me stories about me namesake.
“Sounds good,” George said quickly. “But d’you think maybe I can get dressed first, alone?” As Annie walked away, “With the door shut.” As the door was closing, something occurred to him: “You can’t see through walls, can you?”
The only answer was the door shutting.
.~~.
Bristol House:
The doors were all closed, the blinds drawn, and the tea made an hour ago had been microwaved. Now… “What do you want, Herrick?” Mitchell asked now that his visitor was comfortably seated - there were niceties to these things, niceties he knew not to disregard.
After sipping at his tea, “I want you to take your pet, and hunt down the party who tried to kill me this past night.”
“You can’t simply sanction them?” Mitchell asked. Sanction and isolation were the strongest weapons their people had to enforce order among their own number.
“I’d do so gladly, were it an option. But the attack was authorized by Oliver himself.”
“Oliver?”
“Yes.”
“I thought he was dead…or immolated.”
“He may have immolated himself for a time,” Herrick said, granting the possibility, “but he’s active now. And he’s calling for an end to the Agreement.”
“He’s serious about this?” It was madness.
“Deadly,” bringing the mug back up for another sip. Watching Mitchell mull over this matter, “And Oliver is keeping to his old habits.”
“Sending animals into battle?”
“Yes. Only these are abberants.”
“Mutations?”
“Of unknown origin. I offer you this task - ascertain where Oliver is getting his beasts, or put a full stop to his activities. Reinforcements are yours to call upon.”
Always handy. “And in return?” It should have not needed to be said - by necessity, their society was one of reciprocation. Even one of Herrick’s rank was not immune to obligation. But with what upsets Herrick had been proposing, Mitchell didn’t care to leave anything to chance, particularly if it were a feature that would be scrapped.
Herrick nodded, as if Mitchell’s question were perfectly understandable. “In addition to activating your defunct office, smoothing relations between yourself and at least one of your daughters… and I shall announce a bull placing your pet under my protection. And,” enriching the offer still further, “I will apologise to you at the next convocation.”
Face was just as important to vampires as it was to many human cultures. For them, it was one’s image, one’s reputation and skills. For Herrick to admit he was wrong… Mitchell nodded, “Then I’m in.” We’re in.
.~~~~~~~.