The List, Part 7: Conclusion
Title: The List, Part 7: Conclusion
Fandom: Moonlight
Characters: Mick/Beth/Josef
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: After last tv episode, "Sonata"
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just like to visit them sometimes.
Author's Note: Fifth in my post-Sonata series. Vampires are being murdered, Mick must find the list of intended victims, before others are killed. I might have taken some liberties with the contents of the list from the show. Hope you don't mind.
P.S. Thanks for the great comments! I really appreciate the feedback!
The worst moment of my life was when I heard Beth’s voice in that amphitheatre. When you’re staked, you’re paralyzed, trapped inside yourself, unable to help anyone, yet totally aware of everything going on around you. It was the worst kind of torture. And it had all started at the Council meeting, eight hours earlier.
All the members of the Council, save Daryl and his wife, had arrived at my place at the appointed time of nine o’clock. I updated them all on what had been happening with the bodies and the list. The Cleaner went along with me, inserting her thoughts about the list and the identities of the victims. I wish I had picked up on her mood then, or the strangeness of the “extra security” she had brought with her-namely, her four cleaning helpers. Had I been more alert, I wouldn’t have ended up helpless in the planetarium
Everyone on the Council had their opinions of what to do, of who was the author of the list. We hadn’t reached any conclusions, but all agreed to be more vigilant, to take no unnecessary risks. The meeting was winding down, and I vaguely remember the Cleaner in deep discussion with one of her associates-Cleaner Number Three, as I thought of her. The prettiest one, in my opinion, whom I’d considered dating before Beth came along. Next thing I knew, Number Three’s voice rose, and she was saying: “No! I won’t do it!” Seconds later, she was dead on my floor, beheaded by Cleaner Number One. While we watched in shock, her four goons had simultaneously staked us, and we fell to the floor, stunned. When I think of it now, it was brilliant. Completely unexpected. Methodically planned. And, next to when Coraline turned me, the biggest betrayal of my life.
We were tossed like rag dolls into rolling laundry bins, transported down the elevator into their waiting van. My mind was racing, trying to figure out why she had done this to us, what her motives might be. She’d kept us in the dark until she stood above us in the amphitheatre, explaining her master plan to Beth and the others.
I lay in the soft light of dawn, knowing that in a couple of hours, the sunlight would start to feel unbearable. I felt the distant numbness of the stake through my chest, but my mind was by no means numb. Mostly, what I was feeling was fury. Fury at my own gullibility, and how my friends and I were about to suffer because of it. And then there was Beth. I hope she truly realized how much danger she was in, although, knowing her, she wasn’t thinking about herself at all. I knew her worry and love for me had brought her there to try to save me. I also knew that if I got out of this alive, I was going to kill her.
Then, like an angel’s, Carrie’s voice entered my mind. “It’s okay Mick,” she told me. “Daryl and I have a plan. I swear, I’ll protect Beth with my life. Sit tight,” and she chuckled softly at her joke, trying to put me at ease. I appreciated the thought, but it wasn’t working.
When the shooting started, I discovered a whole new definition of hell. And for the first time in a very long time, I began to pray.
From my vantage point on the floor behind the chairs, I watched in awe as Daryl and Carrie, in perfect synchronicity, reached in their pockets and pulled out the stakes they’d gotten from Mick’s. As if anticipating their actions, the Cleaners had time to fire off several rounds before I heard the sickening sound of the stakes hitting their marks. As they fell, a few final shots flew wildly, ricocheting off the walls or into the open sky. By that time, their henchmen had made it up the stairs, machetes at the ready. But the Cleaners should have had Daryl and Carrie searched, because they each pulled their own machetes they’d attached to their belts, complements of Mick’s vampire kit.
It was four against two, and I hoped to even the odds a little more.
“Ben,” I said, over the clashing of metal, “Go find a gun!” He was way ahead of me, and had been much more observant than I. He went right to where Daryl had thrown his guns earlier. Daryl and Carrie were holding their own, however, and soon at least one head bounced down the stairs, rolling macabrely near Mick’s feet.
“Mick!” I gasped, and I ran around to another set of stairs that led down to my four friends. I glanced up and saw that the goons were occupied by Daryl and Carrie, so I bent over Mick. His beautiful eyes stared straight up, unseeing.
“Oh my God, Mick,” I whispered, placing my hand on his stiff face. “I’ll get this out of you.” I grabbed hold of the stake. It wouldn’t budge. I changed my grip and tried again. Still, it wouldn’t give. It was like trying to pull the sword from the stone, but I wasn’t King Arthur.
Two shots rang out, and another crony fell, thanks to Ben. Two down. There was a lot of jumping, kicking, and growling above me. I saw Ben trying to get a clear shot without hitting our rescuers, so, from somewhere deep inside myself, I summoned all my strength and pulled one last time. I held the freed stake in my hands in disbelief, and felt the tears start to fall as Mick gasped in relief. “Beth…” Despite the danger around us, I threw myself on him, hugging him with all my might, kissing him all over his face. He was still confined to the chair, immobilized by the silver chains, and there was nothing I could do about that because of the padlock.
I glanced over and saw Simone struggling with Josef’s stake, so I moved to help her. When we finally got it out, Josef let out his breath in a whoosh. “Thanks,” he whispered, “I needed that!” Before he could say another word, Simone was passionately kissing his lips.
Another shot was fired, and I looked up to see a third man fall, and, simultaneously, Daryl beheaded the last one with a neat slash of his blade. At last there was silence. Carrie and Daryl effortlessly jumped down the stairs to join us, making quick work of removing Logan and Guillermo’s stakes.
“Uh, we can’t touch those chains without gloves,” Daryl said.
“She must have the keys on her,” I said, going to the Cleaner. As I patted her down, it was all I could do not to twist the stake in her chest. I found the keys in her jacket pocket, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to confront her. Though her eyes were blank, I knew she could hear me.
“Justice is a bitch, isn’t it,” I murmured.
Ben came down to help, and, after unlocking Mick and removing the manacles, I passed the key to him and Simone. They all were free in minutes. We laid them on the floor of the planetarium. I knew they would all need to feed again soon to regain their strength. The increased brightness of the room wasn’t helping. I went to the control panel in the middle of the room, and found the button that would close the dome again.
I heard Ben’s indrawn breath, and turned to look. Josef was already feeding on Simone’s proffered arm. Ben was looking with a mixture of fascination and abhorrence, as Josef feasted in a kind of ecstatic frenzy. I planned to do the same with Mick, but having an audience was a little disconcerting.
Daryl picked up on the situation right away. “Talbot,” he said. Do me a favor and go down to my car that I parked off the road. There’s a cooler in there with blood bags.” He indicated Logan and Guillermo. “These guys are gonna need it to regain their strength. And the sun is starting to get a little too bright for me to go. I’d appreciate it.” He tossed the keys to Ben, who seemed more than willing to hightail it out of there.
To give us some semblance of privacy, Daryl and Carrie began cleaning up the mess. The cleaners and two of their helpers were still alive, though paralyzed by stakes or silver bullets. I didn’t know what was going to happen to them, but I had a pretty good idea. The majority of the Council was still alive, and I knew vampire justice would be swift.
I turned to Mick, who was sitting up by now, though looking incredibly weak. I pulled him into my arms, pushing his head into the curve of my neck. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I know you need me right now.” He planted a sweet kiss there, before saying, “I won’t take much. You just fed me yesterday…” And then he bit down.
It took a little while for me to recover from the weakness of being both staked and chained in silver. Beth’s blood was a great help. More than her blood, was the bliss of being so close to her again, the relief that she was okay. It was hard to stop drinking from her, but I forced myself to because I didn’t want her too weak from the blood loss from two days in a row. The little I had was enough of an energy boost that I could get to my feet, and survey the damage.
Daryl had gotten body bags from the Cleaners’ van, and Carrie had brought the cleaning supplies. It occurred to me that we would need to find some more cleaners, and it would be hard to find ones as discreet as these had been. I looked over at the head Cleaner, and although I still felt rage, I also felt very sad. I thought she had been a friend. I think I took betrayal a lot worse than other vamps I knew.
Josef had finished with Simone’s arm, and seemed to be recovering quickly. He and Simone went to stand beside Beth and me, feeling a little guilty that we were too weak to help much with Daryl and Carrie. Carrie looked in my direction.
Good to see you guys up and around. Sorry you missed out on all the fun, she said in my mind.
She looked at Josef and likely said the same thing, for he chuckled. “Yeah, it sounded like it was fun,” he said. “From where I was sitting, though, it was damn frustrating.”
By this time, Talbot had returned with the cooler, and gave Daryl back his keys. “I parked your car by the van,” he said.
“Thanks, man. Glad to have you on our side.” They shook hands. Carrie took the cooler and knelt down by Logan and Guillermo. She put a tube to each one’s lips.
Talbot was his usual blasé self, even in the midst of what must have been a very shocking experience. He caught my eye and walked back down the stairs to us.
“St. John. I always knew there was something…different about you. I never would have guessed it was something like…this.” His eyes were drawn to my two friends who were feeding from the blood bags.
“Well, I guess Beth felt she had no choice but to fill you in. I’m sure you appreciate why we must be so secretive.” I hope he was getting the warning note I was trying to insert into that sentence. If he exposed us, I would have to kill him. “I wish you had left Beth at home, though.”
“I tried, believe me.”
“Let me guess…you told her to stay in the car.”
He laughed. “Yeah. She’s not very good at following orders, is she?”
“You’ve figured that out already, eh?”
Beth nudged me with her elbow. It smarted a little more than it would have normally. “Hey,” she said. “I’m right here!”
Josef looked at Talbot, his manner deadly serious, despite the casualness of his words. “So, what do you plan to do with your new-found knowledge?” The eyes of all the vamps turned to him.
He looked around at all of us, no doubt struggling with what he knew was right before the law, and what he had seen that day. He chose wisely.
“As long as vampires aren’t killing humans, I’ll protect your secret. What you do with your own people, well, that’s your business.”
We all could agree with that on the surface, but we knew very well how sometimes “accidents” happened. No one was about to admit to that, however.
Logan and Guillermo were coming around after the infusion of blood. Carrie helped them sit back down in a chair, while Daryl was busy trying to find bullets still stuck in the walls. He was prying them out with a pocketknife. Beth left my side a minute to go ask if she could help scrub the floors where the vamps had been beheaded. I smiled as she grimaced at the puddles of blood, but I admired her dedication.
Carrie shook her head. I’m sure she was communicating to her silently that she and Daryl would handle it. I walked over to Daryl to thank him I was overwhelmed at how he had saved us, and still managed to protect Beth and Simone at the same time.
“I know you’d do the same for me, Mick. And for Carrie.” He looked over at his wife. We tried to hide our chuckles at sophisticated Carrie, down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor. I heard that, she said in my head.
“Hey, if you guys do a good enough job,” I ventured, “maybe you could be our new Cleaners.”
“Uh, no thanks, man. The bar keeps us busy enough and I’d prefer to work with the living dead, not the dead dead.” I extended my hand, which he shook, then drew me in for a rough embrace. It was like hugging a mountain.
My laugh was muffled against his hard chest. “Thanks for everything,” I said when he finally let me go.
“You’ll just owe me.” He raised his voice, including all of us: “Hey, why don’t you guys go and get into your freezers for awhile? No offense, but you look like you need a few days at least.”
“Yeah,” said Josef. “But you look like that every day.” Daryl laughed but didn’t even try to get into a battle of wits with Josef. No one could win that war.
I took Beth’s arm. I noted how Ben Talbot was helping Logan and Guillermo to their feet, and they were heading for the stairs. I hated to admit how he’d come through for us.
Simone and Josef were heading out too. Carrie and Daryl would use the van to transport our prisoners, and we would borrow their car along with Talbot’s to get the rest of us home. We agreed to have their trial that night.
Beth and I rode with Ben. We sat together in the back seat, holding hands, her head resting against my shoulder. I caught Ben peaking at us in the rearview mirror, but I was feeling no jealousy now. When we reached my apartment building, I felt a wave of mental exhaustion overtake me, along with a wave of gratitude. When we got out of the car, I reached in the driver’s side window and shook Ben’s hand. No words passed between us, but I looked him square in the eye. We had an understanding now. Now that he knew I was a vampire, I had nothing to fear from him. Now that I was in his debt, he had nothing to fear from me.
“Take the day off,” he said to Beth. She reached in the window herself and kissed him softly on the cheek. I didn’t even flinch. “Thank you, Ben,” she said.
As he drove away, I automatically shielded my face with one hand against the morning sun. But, truth be told, I was very happy to see it.
The End