KvsW- Casefile [008][REDACTED]

The process of being inducted wasn’t a very long one. It also didn’t shed a whole lot of light on what joining actually entailed. They received a few explanations for basic items, but a lot of information seemed to be sealed behind that great wall, the all-encompassing concept of the need-to-know basis. They never even learned what the name of the organization was.

Regardless, Dave and Chris grasped the basic gist. Most of the time, they’d live out their normal life, doing as they pleased. But every so often, when a problem arose, they’d be given a call on a secure line, or sent an encrypted email, or both. And those communications would outline what needed to be done, ROE, those sorts of things. If anything else beyond that needed to be given, they’d be called in to be briefed in person.

Support from the organization mostly consisted of legal immunities and backup in the form of other contractors. They would have to use their own weapons and equipment, which suffice to say, bummed Dave out by a significant degree. He’d been hoping that becoming a spooky government contractor meant he’d be given access to an armory of cutting edge gear, like out of some spy film. Chris had laughed at his reaction when he was told, knowing it was an unreasonable expectation from the start.

And so, the pair returned to their (relatively) normal lives. Together, they worked to get Dave’s cabin into a liveable state, installing all the basic creature comforts and deciding that more extensive modifications could come at a later date.

A bit of waiting saw the seasons transition from winter back to spring. The snow had come and gone, but it was still chilly, so the muggy heat and mosquitos were yet to make their comeback in force.

The windows of the cabin were being kept open, but more for ventilation than anything, though it was a rather nice day out. Chris had just pulled in right out front, and carried a pair of six packs into the cabin, setting them down on a table inside. She pulled a pair of beers from one, and went over to the bedroom, to find Dave with a rolling brush, painting the walls a stark white, though from the looks of it, he'd done a much better job coating the floor after kicking over a paint can. And himself, too. He was covered in white splashes and specks.

She whistled to get his attention, and he cursed aloud, dropping the roller, slipping on spilled paint and landing on his ass like one of the three stooges.

She burst into a fit of stifled giggling, covering her mouth with her arm and barely keeping a grip on the beers. She set them down on the floor for a moment to help Dave up. He gave her a dirty look as she continued to giggle, but softened when she kissed him on the cheek and pushed a cold bottle into his hand.

“You really need to work on your situational awareness.”
“Yeah, yeah…” He popped the cap and took a swig.

“Don't be salty with me.”

“You didn't have to start laughing…”

“It was funny! Besides, I'm not the one who spilled paint all over the floor.”

Dave grumbled again. Chris rolled her eyes and leaned in to peck him on the cheek again, but Dave suddenly whirled around and wrapped his arms around her midsection, pulling her close.

“Agh, fuck! Stop!” she shouted, struggling to get out of his grip. “You're all sweaty and covered in white shit!”

“So I'm basically you in bed last night?”

“Son of a bitch that's not funny!” she growled, finally batting his arms away, her shirt now dirtied.

“Come on,” he said, now smiling like an idiot, “It's a little funny.”

“Fuck off!” she yelled as she stormed out of the room to get a fresh set of clothes.

“Let's call it even then, alright?”

“I said fuck off!”

Dave chuckled, knowing he'd pay for it tenfold later. As he looked around the room, he remembered once more how much of a mess it looked, and sighed. “I'll just… slap some carpet over it… that should work,” he mumbled, not really wanting to clean all the paint off the floor.


==========================



Some time later…

After the pair had cleaned up, Dave went and made dinner in an attempt to smooth things over, to little avail. Chris remained in her sour mood well into the evening, even after Dave managed to coax her into letting him cuddle her on the couch.

“Come on, are you gonna stay pissed off all night?”

“Yes.”

“I already apologized.”

“Hmph.”

“Maybe I can help your mood in another way, then,” he said with a shrug and a smirk. He started kissing her neck and collarbone, but she pushed his face away.

“I already said no. Not tonight.”

“Awww, come on!”

“Are you going to make me repeat myself?”

Dave sighed heavily, and would have kept on trying to circumvent her decision, had his phone not started beeping. He picked it out of his pocket and swiped the screen, finding a new text from an unknown sender.

“Huh… weird…”

“Who is it?”
“I dunno.” He opened the message. “It's like… a string of maybe 20 or so alphanumerics… they seem random. And right after is a hyphen and an ‘M.’”

Chris perked up, all of her annoyance seeming to evaporate in an instant. “Think it's ‘M’ as in you-know-who? Is it them? Are we finally getting a job?”

“Maybe. Where's that satellite phone? The one they gave us after we signed all the contracts?”

Chris got up and disappeared into the bedroom for a few moments before returning with a blocky yellow-black thing that could have been mistaken for a brick with an antenna. She handed it off to Dave, and he punched in the number string, then put the satphone to his ear.

He instantly regretted it. A hellish electronic screeching came through the receiver, like a distorted dial-up tone. It caused Dave to recoil and wince. When it finished, he tentatively put his ear to it once more. “Hello?”

“Hello, contractor,” replied a garbled voice on the other end. “Thank you for calling promptly.”

“Uh, of course… I assume you're a part of the organization?”

“Need you really ask?”

“I meant more of in the sense of should I call you anything specific, or-”

“That is irrelevant. But if you must call me something, refer to me as Switchboard. I have orders to pass on to you, and time is of the essence. I would advise obtaining a writing implement before I continue.”
“Uh, gotcha.” He motioned to Chris. “Pen, paper, we have some?” She nodded and scrounged up a pencil and a scrap of paper for him. “Okay, we're good.”

“You are instructed to rendezvous with two of our operators, callsigns Papa Bear and Compy. They have requested backup on their current operation, and you two are being sent in as your first official assignment. You have 36 hours to make your way to the rendezvous point, coordinates are as follows…”

Dave wrote them down and handed the paper to Chris. A quick check with a GPS unit saw the coordinates planted somewhere a bit outside of Denver, Colorado.

“Okay, we'll be there. Anything else you can give us?”

“You will be fully briefed on-site by Papa Bear. He is leading this operation, so follow his orders.”

“Understood.”

“Good luck.” The line clicked and went dead.

Dave set the phone down and looked over at Chris. Or, he would have been looking over at Chris had she not already leapt off the couch to begin gathering guns and equipment and tossing them into duffel bags. He knew she’d been getting more than a bit stir-crazy without something deadly to hunt. Seemed to be she didn’t even care for the details, and just wanted any excuse to get back into the fray. Chuckling to himself, he got up to help her.
34 hours and 1,300 miles later...

Chris drove for the final leg of the trip, having switched out with Dave so he could rest and not wrap them around a tree at highway speeds. He was snoring loudly, and she was considering slamming on the brakes to jerk him against his seatbelt, but decided against it. They were almost there, besides.

Bearing with it for a few minutes longer, she finally pulled into a small parking lot in front of a little business plaza. There were a couple of restaurants and shops, all rather modest since it was in a suburban area. She scanned the area but didn't notice anything that could have appeared out of the ordinary. So, she decided to enlist the second pair of eyes sitting next to her, who was currently only occupied with drooling out the side of his mouth and making a noise akin to a death rattle. She kicked him in the shin and he startled awake.

“Ahhh...fu… what?”

“We're here, with a couple hours to spare. Wake up.”

“Why… why’d you kick me…”

“Because you were snoring the whole way and it was getting on my nerves. Now stop yapping and get out there, it's my turn to have a nap. See if you can find those guys we're supposed to meet.”

He stumbled out of the car, still half asleep, and went into a small coffee shop first. After buying a latte, he stepped out and had a seat at the outdoor dining area which lined the sidewalk outside the plaza’s restaurants.

Sipping his drink, he studied the people around him. He realized with a growing anxiety that he should have asked for any information regarding what the operators looked like. It was a weekend, and the place was relatively busy, so he'd have a hard time picking anyone out of the crowd. Still, he tried his best to do so.

There were quite a few couples milling about, a few families, some people on their own. He started ruling out the people least likely to be employed by a secret government agency. He could rule out a group of 90 year old women tottling about, gripping their handbags with white knuckles. The teenage lovebirds making out in the corner could also be counted out. The family that looked like a carbon copy of the Brady Bunch was another group of highly unlikely candidates.

“Well this is fucking pointless…” he muttered to himself, realizing he'd never be able to spot the operators just by looking at them. They were probably going to come to *him* anyway. They probably were just watching him from a distance.
Now just idly sipping the froth at the bottom of his cup, Dave shifted his gaze to a pair seated at a table a few meters away; a father and his daughter apparently enjoying a nice little Sunday outing together. The girl was having a bowl of strawberry ice cream, while the man had two burgers, a hot dog, a couple of large orders of fries and a milkshake laid out before him. He was eating like a man starved for over a month, consuming food at an alarming rate, to the point that an elderly couple next to them up and left out of sheer disgust. Fascinated by the scene, and with nothing else to do, he watched them for a while.

The girl looked to be a teenager, though she was rather short. She was pale and skinny, with emerald eyes and a head full of mousy brown hair in a loose bob cut. Every so often her father would reach over the table to ruffle it, upon which she would protest and straighten it back out.

The father was a bit of a contrast, tall and somewhat tanned, with a receding hairline. Despite the amount of food he was currently shoving into his mouth, he was fit and well-built. He had a bit of an air about him, ex-military if Dave had to guess. But otherwise, he was the spitting image of an embarrassing dad in every other sense; everything from a goofy lopsided smile to the garish blue Hawaiian shirt.

That last bit caused Dave to do a double take. A memory from a couple of months prior sprung to mind, of a man in a balaclava wearing a similar shirt. Actually, he thought, it was exactly alike, if it wasn’t the very same. Was Morrigan really sending them in to work with the man who’d bagged Chris, he wondered?
Dave shook off his musings and looked back up from his table, and felt a pair of eyes boring into him. The man had noticed Dave staring. He stopped chewing, put his half-eaten burger back down on its wrapper, and was stared right back.

Dave blinked first and broke eye contact, and in an instant the man had gotten up, closed the distance, and sat down right across from him. The iron gaze was still unbroken and focused squarely on Dave as he now stared down at the table.

“Uh… hi…” he said, half-glancing back up.

“Hello there.”

“Sorry for… uh, staring… I’m just supposed to be… meeting someone…”

“Really? Who might that someone be?”

“Uh… I…” He gulped. “I don’t actually… know…”

The man suddenly smiled and chuckled. He clapped Dave on the shoulder and stood up. “I’m just screwing with you, Dave.” He held out his hand.

Dave stood up and shook the man’s hand. “So… if you know who I am, I guess that means you’re Papa Bear?”

The man smirked. “Call me that while we’re working. I’m on break right now, so call me Kris. Nice to officially meet you.”
“Oh, same… I’m… Dave, as you already know and, uh, my partner’s name is also Chris.”

“I know, I’m the one who bagged her.”

Dave was a bit taken aback at how up front the man seemed to be. “Right… so if you’re Papa Bear, where’s Compy?”

The man’s daughter raised her hand and waved. “Right over here!” she declared with a grin.

Dave looked at her, then back at her father. “She’s Compy?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” asked the girl, now with her arms folded over her chest in annoyance at not being spoken to directly.

Dave turned his head toward her again. “But, you’re a kid?”

“She’s not a kid, she’s my daughter,” said Kris. “Specifically, *my* daughter.”

“But she doesn’t even look old enough to drive…”

“I can drive!” she blurted out. “I have my learner’s permit, anyway!”

Kris smirked. “I know what it looks like here, but she’s capable. You’ve seen me at work. Think of her as my apprentice.”

“I… I…” Dave sighed in defeat. “Okay… if you say so…”

“Of course if I say so. You and your girlfriend are taking orders from me on this job anyway, remember?” Kris went back over to his daughter and sat back down to finish his food. “You should go collect your girlfriend, bring her here while we finish up. I believe you were promised a briefing.”

Thoroughly bewildered, Dave opted to simply do as he was told. There’d probably be time for questions later, anyway, he reasoned as he headed back to the car.


================


Dave knocked on the window, causing Chris to stir. She rolled down the window, rubbing her eyes. “Hmm… what is it? Did you find them?”

“Yeah I… I found them…”

She sat up a bit straighter, noticing his expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Just that… this line of work keeps finding new ways to surprise me…”

“Don’t be vague, tell me what’s up.”

“The operators. One’s a man. One’s a girl.”

“So?”

“A *little* girl.”

There was a moment of delay, followed by a flat “What.”

“Uh-huh. And the man… eh… you might recognize him…” She was about to ask him what he meant when he waved his hand. “Eh… let’s just go introduce you,” he said, stepping away from the window and heading back. She climbed out and followed him.
Arriving back at Kris’s table, Dave found himself somehow even more bewildered than when he left, for he was only gone for a scant two minutes and the man had somehow been able to suck down the entirety of the food that had been in front of him.

Kris patted his stomach a couple of times when he saw Dave walking back. “Ahhh. That hit the spot.” After stretching, he stood up and immediately offered his hand to Chris.

Dave stood between them, still just as bewildered a before. “So, uh, Chris meet Kris, and uh… vice versa.”

“Nice to officially meet you.”

“The pleasure’s mine… Dave said I might recognize you, but…”

“Well, not like this. You’d recognize me if I had a balaclava and a plate carrier on.”

It didn’t seem to register with her until Dave leaned over and whispered something into her ear, upon which she seemed to become incensed. “You!”

Kris grinned. “Uh-huh, me!”

“You’re the guy!”

“I’m the guy!”

“Why the fuck did treat you me like that? Like I was a terrorist or something?”

“You’re referring to the bag treatment? Oh, no that’s just how I say hello,” he retorted with the most shit-eating smirk humanly possible.
Chris turned to Dave. “I’m not working with this asshole.”

“Chris, please…”

“Listen here, young lady,” said Kris, stepping forward. His voice was lowered and there was a much more serious expression on his face. “That was because you were in an entrenched position and we didn’t want to have to goad you out of there by getting the police involved. If I were to have actually treated you like a terrorist, you would know it. Trust me on that.”

There were a few moments of tense silence between the two similarly named people, before the man’s daughter stepped between them and piped up. “Ooookay, introductions out of the way, we should maybe tell them all about the reason for them even being here, right papa?”

Kris stepped back and patted the girl on her head. “Of course, pigeon.”

“Papaaa! Not in front of people!” she protested, bringing a smile back to the man’s face.

Kris took a breath and looked back up at Dave. “You can talk some sense into her, or not. Either way we’re headed to a safehouse we established nearby. Follow us if you like.” With that, the odd pair retired, heading to their car.

“Fuck… come on, honey, let’s just follow them there.”

“I already said-”

“I know what you already said,” he replied, grabbing her arm. “But we’re here to do a job, so you’ll just have to bear with it, okay? When we get there you can sort it out with him if you like, or you can avoid him.” When he received no response, he continued. “This is our first official gig with these guys. We want to look good, right?”

She took several deep breaths. “Right…”

“Then let’s follow them.”
The drive there was uneventful, and not too far as it turned out. The safehouse was also a literal house, situated in one of the nearby suburban subdivisions. A quaint little bungalow, it was furnished in much the same was as the one Dave remembered Morrigan bringing him to. Cots in the bedrooms, aluminum tables, mini fridges with drinks and frozen foodstuffs.

Kris had the incoming pair bring their bags inside, and instructed them on which room they could use to sleep. Then be brought them back out into the main living room, and sat down on a folding chair. His daughter was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him with a disassembled AR, cleaning it. Dave sat across the room from him, while Chris leaned against a nearby wall.

“First order of business, I want you two to know that it wasn’t random chance that you got assigned to me. I specifically asked for you guys to help us on this op.”

“Why us?” asked Chris, folding her arms. “You had to guess I wouldn’t have a very favorable opinion of you based on our first encounter.”

“Yes, but I’m hoping we can remedy and move past that. And there’s also the matter with you guys being the new kids on the block, you might be a little… overwhelmed… at first. There’s a lot of scary shit out in the world, and it’s of course our job to keep it all in check.”

“Again, I’ll ask, why us?”

“Morrigan thinks you have potential. And… I’ll be honest, I’m a little impressed myself. You two have only been doing this for about a year, and you’ve stirred up a massive amount of shit.”

Chris’s expression softened a bit, and Dave raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes, really. With that being said, let me temper your moods by saying this: the two of you have stirred up a MASSIVE amount of shit. And we’ve had to deal with it.”

“Oh…”
Kris nodded. “Uh-huh. Wiping out an entire population of Michigan Dogmen and unbalancing the local supernatural ecosystem. Shooting one of the rarest, and perhaps most peaceful varieties of Bigfoot, right in the head. Killing a Wendigo’s corporeal form, thereby releasing the ancient cannibalistic spirit contained within so it could go and possess another unlucky bastard out in the wilderness. And then your coup de grace, burning down a forest to kill a Skinwalker. MY. Skinwalker.”

Dave furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“That was MY kill. I was literally twenty miles away when I saw this huge wall of smoke just blotting out the fucking sun. First time anyone gets to kill a Skinwalker in decades and you guys stole it from me.”

“Oh… uh… sorry?”

Kris was looking genuinely broken up about his missed opportunity, but took a breath and recomposed himself. “But, it’s alright. The past is the past. Bygones are bygones. Right, Chris?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great. I want this to be, above all else, a learning experience. Cool?”

Dave and Chris nodded in response.

“You’re going to be learning on the job, while we hunt a very dangerous sort of prey.”

“What?”

“Vampires.”


=============

They looked at Kris for a moment, then at each other, shrugging. “Well, if werewolves are real,” said Dave, “Then I guess it makes sense that vampires exist too.”

“What kind of vampires are we dealing with?” asked Chris. “Bram Stoker or Nosferatu?

“Eh… sort of. A little bit of both. Enhanced senses, strength, speed, natural night vision, rapid healing. All the standard sorts of abilities you'd expect. The difference is that you don't necessarily need sunlight or a stake through the heart to kill them.”

“How do you mean?”

“Contrary to the legends, vamps aren't actually undead. No, they're quite alive, and as such they're vulnerable to all the things that a normal person is vulnerable to. Like bullets.”

“Huh… I was sort of hoping there would be a gimmick…” said Dave, musing.

“Nah, no gimmick here. Besides,” said Kris, pulling a bullet from his shirt pocket, “A couple rounds of M80A1 through a bone, or the skull? You'd be hard pressed to find something that could withstand that.”

He stood up and headed over to a table with a an old guitar case on top, ruffling his daughter’s hair as he passed, earning a groan from her. “Still, vampires are no pushovers. Aside from the enhanced senses, they're every bit as intelligent as a normal person, some of them even moreso.”

“So, might it be safe to assume some of them might be smart enough to bring guns with them?” postulated Chris.

“That would be a good assumption. But as it turns out, those enhanced senses are a double edged sword. Loud bang, bright flash. Disorients them. Makes it easier to finish them off.”
“So, yet another weakness. Are you sure they aren't pushovers?”

“I'm sure. They're resourceful, and they’re durable, and I've got some nasty scars to prove that they’re very capable opponents.” Kris popped the guitar case open and pulled what appeared to be a heavily modified FAL from within, setting it aside on the table. He pulled several empty magazines for it out as well. “Overall, though, it’s the same with any cryptid. If you get cocky, you get dead.”

He turned back to face the pair with a handful of tungsten-tipped REAL FUCKIN’ NATO in one hand and a half loaded mag in the other. Leaning against the table, he saw Chris yawn. “Long drive?”

Her response was an affirming nod and another yawn.

“You should get some rest, then. I'll start you guys in on this tomorrow.”

“No need to tell me twice.” She turned towards the guest bedroom.

“Hold up a moment,” he interjected, causing her to look back over. “No hard feelings, right?”

She sighed, and after a moment, shrugged. “Yeah, sure. We'll call it a clean slate.”

“Awesome. Oh, and we'll sort out what to do with our extremely similar sounding names later.”

She rolled her eyes and retired to a cot, leaving Dave still in the living room with Kris and his daughter.

“So, uh, how long have you been running this op before you called us in?” he asked, wanting to fill the silence.
“A few months. It’s mostly been reconnaissance. Still is, in fact. I understand you were working with Zulu before you were inducted, yeah?”

“Who?”

“The Irish preacher. Foul mouth? Probably former Provo IRA?”

“Adam, you mean,” replied Dave.

“Yeah, that’s him. Though, if you refer to him in the future, call him by Zulu. Real names are for times like this, when you’re in person, and not on the job.”

“Got it.”

“Anyway, I was going to ask if he taught you anything about reconnaissance before you broke company.”

“Eh… a little bit. Took us driving about, described a few techniques of his, which mostly consisted of sitting up in trees freezing his bollocks off in the middle of the night, so he said.”

“Right, heard about his church. Seems he didn’t get too much time to impart much, did he?”

“Not really.”

“Well, we’ll have a bit more time together than what you got there, hopefully. We’ll be able to get real hands-on with some of this.”

“Great, can’t wait,” replied Dave with a smile.

“You're certainly eager,” said Kris.
Dave shrugged. “Well, you've been doing this a while, yeah? It'll be nice to learn a few things without being directly tossed into the fray, for a change.”

“Had some rough starts with jobs, then?”

“Barely scraping by, eluding death and serious injury has become a bit too commonplace.”

“Oh, well that never really stops, so you know. Look.” Kris lifted his shirt, exposing a large, jagged scar running along his abdomen.

Dave winced just from looking at it. “Jesus…”

“Yep. Some big scaly sonuvabitch damn near disemboweled me. But not quite,” he said with a smirk. “What about you, any old battle wounds?”

“Uh… a couple, sure.”

“Well go on then, show me!”

Dave chuckled. “Uh, this one is from when Chris and I first met, and we killed that wendigo you mentioned.” He hooked the collar of his shirt and pulled it aside to reveal a portion of the scar where the beast had sunk its teeth into his shoulder, near to the base of his neck.

Kris hissed through his teeth. “Yikes, man. Missed your jugular by only a couple of inches.”

“Yup. Lucky miss. But, I did end up with a girlfriend out of the whole affair. And a new line of work. So, I consider myself even luckier for it.”

“You wanna talk lucky, I’ve got a set of scars on my back from-”

The girl sitting cross-legged on the floor sighed in that exasperated way that only a teenager can, and rolled her eyes. “Papa, is this going to end with you stripping down to your underwear while you tell the new guy about the time you fought a Mexican death god? For like, the third time this month?”

“Hush, you.” Kris knelt down and tousled her hair, and before she could vocalize her indignation, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of head. “Don’t be such a sourpuss, my little panzeryousei.”

“Daaaaad! Not in front of people!”

Kris looked back over at Dave, who was smiling at the little display of paternal affection. “Oh, by the way, this is Freja. Forgot to introduce you to her properly earlier.”

Dave gave a little wave to the girl, who was trying to squirm out of her father’s embrace. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, dad, can you let go already?”

“No.” He picked her up and kissed her cheek and head some more, earning more protests as he carried her away. “It’s almost bedtime, sweetpea. You need to brush your teeth.”

“Daaaaaad! Put me doooooown! I can walk by myself just fine!”

Dave burst into laughter as the pair headed upstairs, and once he recovered, decided he would head into the guest room to join Chris in some well-needed rest.
The next morning…

Dave was laying in a heap on top of his cot, his arm hanging off the side of it, deep in some sort of strange dream. He was murmuring, shifting position, all the while with his mouth hanging open, a low guttural snoring escaping his throat.

The sound was suddenly cut off, replaced with gurgling as Dave suddenly ceased to inhale air, and inhaled ice cold liquid instead. He jerked awake and sat up, sputtering and coughing.

“Bang. You're dead.”

“What… what the fuck… huh?” Dave looked around in a panic and saw Freja on her knees next to his cot, a glass of water in one hand, and the other hand half-covering the mischievous grin on her face. She was giggling uncontrollably.

“You're a really heavy sleeper,” she managed to say before returning to her giggling fit.

“What was that for?” asked Dave, his bearings returning to him.

“Papa told me to come wake you up. But you wouldn't wake up even when I poked you and shook you. So, ice water!”

Dave sighed, as Freja jumped to her feet and trotted to the door. “Wake up your ‘hussy’ too,” the girl said, gesturing at Chris on her own cot. “I don't think she'll appreciate the wake-up call as much as you. Hee hee…”

“Wait, what did you say? My what?”

But Freja had already left the left the room, likely to update her father, Dave presumed. He sighed again and rolled off the side of the cot, stretching and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looked over at Chris, and saw the whole affair had not bothered her in the slightest, for she was still fast asleep. “Chris, you awake?” Nothing. He wondered if his terrible snoring had caused her to build up a tolerance for nighttime disturbances.
He approached and noticed a pair of plugs in her ears. No wonder she was still asleep, Dave thought. He pulled one out of her ear, and a mischievous thought of his own crossed his mind. Smirking, he bent down and put his mouth next to her ear, and blew a raspberry.

The retribution was swift and brutal.

Chris’s elbow swung out in a flash, catching Dave in the throat and knocking him flat. In the next instant she was on top of him with her fist raised, stopping short only when she saw it was only her idiot of a boyfriend, gasping for breath.

“Damn it, Dave. Remember I told you not to do that?”

“I… forgot…” Dave rolled over on his side, grasping his throat when Chris got off of him. “Fuck…”

“Come on, you big baby. You brought that on yourself.” She helped him to his feet and gave him a kiss. “I hope you relearned your lesson.”

“Yeah… my throat’s gonna be sore for a while though…”

“Again, you brought it on-”

“I know, I know…”

She yawned and stretched. “Come on… let’s head over and see what’s going on with the other two.”
A couple of rooms away in the safehouse’s kitchen, Kris was busy cooking up what appeared to be a genuine gourmet breakfast. Steak, hashbrowns, eggs, french toast, and fresh orange juice. He’d already set up a plate for his daughter, who was munching away happily. Dave, still rubbing his sore throat, gave her a dirty look, to which she simply responded with a smug grin.

Kris peered over his shoulder, feeling the pair’s presence. “Ah, there you two are. Was wondering when you’d wake up. Sent Freja to get you. How’d you sleep?”

“I was doing just fine,” responded Dave, “Until your daughter waterboarded me awake.”

“Really? She did, eh? Freja…” Kris looked down at his daughter, who stopped chewing at the mention of her name and looked back up at her father with big, innocent eyes. “What did you do with that glass of water?”

“Nothing…”

“I told you not to mess with the new people…”

“Sorry, papa…”

Quick as a flash, Kris leaned down and planted several kisses on the girl’s forehead and cheeks, prompting her to bat him away. “DAAAAD!”

“Don’t mess with the new people. Okay?”

She grumbled in response, her cheeks rosy with embarrassment.
“Alright. That’s settled now. Dave, Chris. Have a seat. I’ve made enough for everyone, here.” Kris piled some food on a pair of plates and passed it to the couple.

“Thank you,” said Chris, more than happy to have a proper meal that didn’t originate in a microwave packet. Her face scrunched up as she bit down on something crunchy. “Ugh… the hell? Garlic?”

“Yeah, to help you prepare for what we’re hunting. Garlic and steaks!” Kris smiled at his own pun.

Chris seemed less than amused, staring at Kris with incredulity. “Oh, god. You really are a picture perfect lame dad.”

Kris nodded with great enthusiasm. His enthusiasm only grew at hearing Chris’s turn of phrase. “Picture perfect, you say?” He dug into his pocket.

“Oh, come on dad, really? Every time someone says that?” protested Freja as Kris pulled out his wallet.

With an expertly practiced motion, the man flipped his wallet open and a roll of photographs spilled out, held in place by two well-placed fingers. Each one depicted himself and his daughter at what seemed like birthday parties, and each one showing them a year older each time. Kris had the same stupid grin he was wearing now in every single one, and Freja had the same annoyed expression as well. Dave looked over at the girl, and saw that her current expression was an exact match.

“Huh…”


==============


After the meal, Dave was helping Kris clean up the kitchen, while Freja was off in the other room with Chris, showing off her AR while Chris compared it to her WASR.

“Do you know how to tail a car?” Kris asked Dave, seemingly out of the blue.

Dave was taken a bit off guard. “Uh, not really. Seen movies but I'll take the validity of those with a grain of salt.”

“Well, then that’ll be the first thing you learn today.” Kris scrubbed a dirty pan as he continued. “You’re lucky that we’ve got the intel guys to handle all the boring stuff, like spending hours poring over coroner’s reports and witness testimonies looking for patterns and inconsistencies.”

“We’ve got intel guys?” ask Dave, perking up. “Morrigan never mentioned that…”

“Yeah, of course we’ve got intel guys. Do I look like a desk jockey to you? How else do you think we’re able to spend all our time hunting? Those guys tell us where to look and we handle the rest.”

“Huh… so, they do the paperwork, we do the legwork.”

“Bingo.” He put the pan down in the sink and dried his hands with a dishtowel. “And if we're lucky today, I'll also get to teach you a thing or two about the dark martial art of snatching people.”

“The infamous black bag treatment. Just jumping right into the swing of things, are we?”

“Well you know what they say. The best way to learn something is to do it. Or at the very least, watch it up close and personal.” He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. “Freja, time to get to work! Get your stuff and get the car ready!”
“Wait, she’s driving? Or are you teaching her too?”

“Pffft. No, she’s got tailing people nailed down. She’s a natural.”

Dave looked over to the doorway to see a flurry of activity as the young girl scurried about, grabbing equipment. “You can tell even at her age?”

“Definitely. She is to driving what I am to stealing people.” Kris smirked. “And when she gets older, she might be a natural at that, too.”

He headed into the next room with Dave in tow, just in time to see Freja finish putting on a backpack that offset her center of balance. Chris looked on with bemusement, and looked over at the entrance of the other two. “So what’s the deal? I’d wish you’d tell me what you plan on doing before just going on and settling it without me.”

Kris put his hands up in a placating gesture. “You’re right, sorry. Before we called you in, Freja and I had worked up a lead on someone working with the vampires we’re hunting. A familiar. One wedged into a very opportune public position for the bloodsuckers.” He went over to the front door and held it open for Freja, so she could lug her backpack to the car. “I’ll tell you guys more about it on the way. Oh, bring sidearms for today. We’re trying to keep a low profile.”


====================


They were on the road within a couple of minutes, piled into Kris’s 1973 Ford Falcon. Freja was behind the wheel, and Kris was up front next to her with a bulky-looking tablet. Dave and Chris were left to occupy the backseat, with Freja’s overstuffed backpack on the floor between them.

“Okay pigeon,” said Kris to Freja, “Remember Mr. Cotter?”
“Okay, and this Cotter guy is a familiar then? Who is he?”

“He’s a high school principal.”

“I think I can see where this is going.”

“Mhm. And the man displays some… let’s call it, suspicious behavior. Like meeting shady individuals in the park at night. Exchanging folders. Briefcases. Cash.” Kris pulled a picture of the man up on the tablet to show to the pair. He was a short, chubby man with prominent jowls, and as Freja had said, a skeezy combover.

“Are you sure he’s not just into hard drugs or something?” asked Dave.

“I doubt it. But, that’s what we’re hopefully going to find out for sure today. And even if we’re wrong, it’s still a win for someone.”

“Papa, I see him, fifty meters ahead,” spoke Freja, her eyes fixated on a black Lincoln Town Car.

“Good job, sweetpea. Keep a good distance, like I taught you.” He turned back to Dave and Chris. “Anyway, we would have normally snatched him on his way to work, or while he’s home, but unfortunately both of those options are out since it would be far too public of an event. We *did* get a couple of bugs into his home, though, so today should be a little different. Apparently he has some sort of meeting with the school board. Only we’re going to make sure he never makes it there.”

“Snatching him in the middle of the day is less public than snatching him while he’s at home?” asked Dave.

“In this instance it is, just trust me. I’ve done this a lot.”
Freja handled the car expertly, maintaining a distance of several car-lengths behind her target and avoiding unnecessary attention from the other motorists on their way to work. Internally, Dave had to hand it to Kris, because it was as he said. His daughter was a natural.

Eventually, their target turned off the freeway and exited into the downtown portion of Denver. As Freja kept on the target through the narrow city streets, Dave suddenly remembered something. “Hey, Kris? I imagine when we grab this guy, we aren’t going to want to be using our real names in conversation?”

The man looked back at him, expression blank. “Oh yeah… shit. I totally forgot until just now. I even asked Morrigan to let me give you your callsigns. Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “I'll just do it now. Give me a moment to think.”

Chris groaned. “Are we going to be stuck being called whatever you think up here in this car for the rest of our hunting careers?”

“Chris, uh… I’m gonna call you Harpy. Because when I bagged you, you screamed like a horrible mythical bird creature.”

“Fuck you.”

“And Dave. I’ll just call you Rover. Because you’re always following someone around on their heels.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t worry! You’ll probably find these endearing at some point, sooner or later.”
“Papa,” Freja interrupted, “The man, he’s turned left, gone into a parking garage.”

Kris turned back around and handed the girl a few dollars. “Pay the fee, get us in. Don’t lose him.”

The girl brought the car up to the booth and all but tossed the bills at the attendant, then proceeded inside. They just barely glimpsed a pair of tail lights disappearing around a corner, so she followed them around the garage’s central column, up the ramps and onto the third floor. The black Lincoln found an open spot and pulled in.

“Bring us around, would you, pigeon?” He reached into the glovebox to grab a pair of balaclavas, then turned around to toss them into Dave’s lap. “Get those on, don’t take them off until he’s in the trunk.”

The pair slipped the masks on without a word, and readied their sidearms. Chris press-checked her 1911, and Dave quickly snapped the cylinder of his revolver open, spun it, and snapped it shut with a flick of his hand.

“Don’t do that,” said Kris, not even turning around, his eyes now concealed behind a pair of aviators produced from a pocket somewhere on him.

“Ah… sorry.” Dave’s thumb still stroked the hammer, though. The adrenaline caused his hands to jitter.

Freja circled the car back around the central column of the garage, until they could see the man locking his car and heading to the elevators.
“Gas, gas, gas! Step on the gas!”

The V8 engine roared as Freja stomped on the pedal, closing the distance in a scant couple of seconds, then slammed on the brakes, laying a patch of rubber as the car skidded to a stop just a few inches from the man, causing him to fall on his ass out of sheer shock.

The doors flew open as the masked trio hopped out, guns at the ready. The man had no opportunity to scream or call for help as Kris descended upon him, slipping a black canvas bag over the man’s head and cinching it. He then held the man’s wrists together, allowing Dave to apply zipties. Another set of zipties were applied to the ankles, then the pair dragged their prisoner to the rear of the vehicle while Chris kept watch, her head on a swivel.

“Compy, pop the trunk!” There was a dull thunk as the lock disengaged, and the pair hefted the poor bastard inside, slamming the cover back down after him. The principal’s state of shock had obviously worn off by then as they heard muffled pleas for mercy from within.

“Harpy, we’re clear, mount up!” The trio hopped back inside and Freja laid a patch of rubber down the parking garage ramp. Within a few minutes, they were back on the freeway once more. Within a couple of hours, they were out of the city, driving through the woods.
“The creepy dude with the skeezy combover?”

“Mhm. That’s the one. He should be leaving his home right about now. Get on his route.”

The girl gave a quick nod and took a turn off onto the main highway. Kris turned around in his seat to look at the pair behind him. “Time for a little background. Dave, remember what I said about intel guys? How they scour through all the paperwork looking for patterns?”

“Yeah?”

“They found a pattern emerging in this town, which is why we’re here. A string of disappearances. All of them young girls, school-aged.”

“Like Freja.”

Kris seemed to get uncomfortable for a split-second before continuing. “Mhm. Anyway. They sent us in to check it out. From what it seems, the vampire, or more likely, vampires, have connections. Familiars.”

“Familiars… aren’t those the guys that watch over vampires as they sleep?” interjected Chris.

“In fiction, yeah. But real vampires don’t actually need sleep. So instead, familiars are people vamps make deals with. Think of, say, drug cartels and corrupt officials. The comparison is rather apt, as vamps can get pretty well organized.”


====================


“Okay, and this Cotter guy is a familiar then? Who is he?”

“He’s a high school principal.”

“I think I can see where this is going.”

“Mhm. And the man displays some… let’s call it, suspicious behavior. Like meeting shady individuals in the park at night. Exchanging folders. Briefcases. Cash.” Kris pulled a picture of the man up on the tablet to show to the pair. He was a short, chubby man with prominent jowls, and as Freja had said, a skeezy combover.

“Are you sure he’s not just into hard drugs or something?” asked Dave.

“I doubt it. But, that’s what we’re hopefully going to find out for sure today. And even if we’re wrong, it’s still a win for someone.”

“Papa, I see him, fifty meters ahead,” spoke Freja, her eyes fixated on a black Lincoln Town Car.

“Good job, sweetpea. Keep a good distance, like I taught you.” He turned back to Dave and Chris. “Anyway, we would have normally snatched him on his way to work, or while he’s home, but unfortunately both of those options are out since it would be far too public of an event. We *did* get a couple of bugs into his home, though, so today should be a little different. Apparently he has some sort of meeting with the school board. Only we’re going to make sure he never makes it there.”

“Snatching him in the middle of the day is less public than snatching him while he’s at home?” asked Dave.

“In this instance it is, just trust me. I’ve done this a lot.”

Freja handled the car expertly, maintaining a distance of several car-lengths behind her target and avoiding unnecessary attention from the other motorists on their way to work. Internally, Dave had to hand it to Kris, because it was as he said. His daughter was a natural.
Eventually, their target turned off the freeway and exited into the downtown portion of Denver. As Freja kept on the target through the narrow city streets, Dave suddenly remembered something. “Hey, Kris? I imagine when we grab this guy, we aren’t going to want to be using our real names in conversation?”

The man looked back at him, expression blank. “Oh yeah… shit. I totally forgot until just now. I even asked Morrigan to let me give you your callsigns. Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “I'll just do it now. Give me a moment to think.”

Chris groaned. “Are we going to be stuck being called whatever you think up here in this car for the rest of our hunting careers?”

“Chris, uh… I’m gonna call you Harpy. Because when I bagged you, you screamed like a horrible mythical bird creature.”

“Fuck you.”

“And Dave. I’ll just call you Rover. Because you’re always following someone around on their heels.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t worry! You’ll probably find these endearing at some point, sooner or later.”

“Papa,” Freja interrupted, “The man, he’s turned left, gone into a parking garage.”

Kris turned back around and handed the girl a few dollars. “Pay the fee, get us in. Don’t lose him.”

The girl brought the car up to the booth and all but tossed the bills at the attendant, then proceeded inside. They just barely glimpsed a pair of tail lights disappearing around a corner, so she followed them around the garage’s central column, up the ramps and onto the third floor. The black Lincoln found an open spot and pulled in.

“Bring us around, would you, pigeon?” He reached into the glovebox to grab a pair of balaclavas, then turned around to toss them into Dave’s lap. “Get those on, don’t take them off until he’s in the trunk.”

The pair slipped the masks on without a word, and readied their sidearms. Chris press-checked her 1911, and Dave quickly snapped the cylinder of his revolver open, spun it, and snapped it shut with a flick of his hand.

“Don’t do that,” said Kris, not even turning around, his eyes now concealed behind a pair of aviators produced from a pocket somewhere on him.

“Ah… sorry.” Dave’s thumb still stroked the hammer, though. The adrenaline caused his hands to jitter.

Freja circled the car back around the central column of the garage, until they could see the man locking his car and heading to the elevators.

“Gas, gas, gas! Step on the gas!”

The V8 engine roared as Freja stomped on the pedal, closing the distance in a scant couple of seconds, then slammed on the brakes, laying a patch of rubber as the car skidded to a stop just a few inches from the man, causing him to fall on his ass out of sheer shock.

The doors flew open as the masked trio hopped out, guns at the ready. The man had no opportunity to scream or call for help as Kris descended upon him, slipping a black canvas bag over the man’s head and cinching it. He then held the man’s wrists together, allowing Dave to apply zipties. Another set of zipties were applied to the ankles, then the pair dragged their prisoner to the rear of the vehicle while Chris kept watch, her head on a swivel.

“Compy, pop the trunk!” There was a dull thunk as the lock disengaged, and the pair hefted the poor bastard inside, slamming the cover back down after him. The principal’s state of shock had obviously worn off by then as they heard muffled pleas for mercy from within.

“Harpy, we’re clear, mount up!” The trio hopped back inside and Freja laid a patch of rubber down the parking garage ramp. Within a few minutes, they were back on the freeway once more. Within a couple of hours, they were out of the city, driving through the woods.
Freja turned the car off the main road onto a smaller dirt path that led deep into a wooded area. It was clear from the road’s existence that someone owned this land, but the lack of wear and maintenance was telling in that the owner did not come around often. They drove far down the path, the Ford juttering violently with every dip and pothole despite Freja’s careful manner. The man in the trunk was faring far worse than those sitting up front, however. He was whimpering loudly, crying and appealing to God. It was making Chris very antsy.

She leaned forward and tapped Kris on the shoulder. “Hey, we’re not gonna like… kill this guy, are we?”

“What? Of course not,” he replied, tone dismissive. “Though,” he added after a split-second of reflection, “He might end up wishing he was dead when we’re done with him.”

“Papaaaa…” whined Freja, glancing over at her father.

“What? He’ll still be alive, munchkin.”

The girl sighed as she made the final stretch into a clearing with a log cabin in the middle of it, where the road terminated. She pulled up in front and shut off the engine. “I’m not worried about you killing the guy. I’m worried about whether or not I’ll get a crack at him too.”

It was her father’s turn to sigh. “Sweetie, we’ve gone over this before. You’re not old enough for me to teach you enhanced interrogation techniques.”

“But daaaaad!”

“No buts. That’s the end of it, alright?”

The girl groaned in the way that teenage girls do when told they can’t go to the party with all their friends, or vacation in Cancun over the summer. It unnerved Chris a bit, hearing it come from a girl being told she couldn’t torture someone.

Dave had somehow managed to fall asleep and stay asleep during the ride, so Chris shook his arm to wake him up. He blinked blearily. “Are we there yet?”

“Yeah,” answered Kris. “Get your masks on, we’re back on the clock.” The man slipped his own on, and it was almost as if he became someone else, his entire demeanor changing as he donned his work persona.

He stepped out promptly and went around to the trunk, popping it open and pulling the principal out. He dragged the man away from the car a short distance as the other three caught up with him. Papa Bear forced the man down to his knees, making sure all he would be facing would be the woods in every direction, then removed the black bag from his head.

The man took a deep breath, but kept his eyes shut. He probably subscribed to the belief that if he saw his captor’s faces, they would kill him, Dave thought.

“Mr. Cotter,” began Papa Bear, who was now kneeling beside the man, his voice low as he spoke into his ear, “Sorry to have stolen you away from your meeting so abruptly. We would have made an appointment, but your secretary was on her lunch break. A shame, really.”

“Wh-who are you people… what do you want?” asked their prisoner in a shaky voice.

“What do we want? Well, what I want is to know what happened to several young girls who’ve gone missing in this area recently.”

“What? Why would I know anything about that?” He replied, voice trembling.

“Because they were all students attending your school, Principal Cotter.”

“Y-you think I had something to do with that? I didn’t!” he exclaimed, as if he were trying to convince himself.

“Mr. Cotter, I’m a very busy man and I don’t have a very high tolerance for bullshit. I’d like it if you’d stop wasting my time here and simply tell me what happened to those missing girls. Becky Haleford. Jamie Crenshaw. Ashley Brecken. They were all the same age too, another little coincidence, eh?”

“I swear, on my life, on a fucking bible I didn’t have anything to do with it!”
Papa Bear let out a long, drawn out sigh and stood up. “Not in a very cooperative mood, I see. It’s a good thing I have a lot of experience in making people talk.” He turned to his daughter. “Compy, did you bring all of our tools?”

“Sure did, papa.” The girl pulled her backpack off and set it on the ground, going through the contents. “I got the pliers, the hammer, the sandclub, the nippers, barbed wire *and* the razor wire… the compression bands and… ooooooh, ooooh oh! The goblin darts!”

“Great. Let’s save the best for last. Gimme the pliers, let’s get to work on his fingernails.” Compy tossed him the tool and Papa Bear immediately took hold of one of Cotter’s hands, his iron grip keeping it steady even as the man panicked and tried to pull away.

Dave grimaced, and even Chris looked away, muttering “Jesus Christ,” under her breath.

“FUUUCK! WAIT! I’LL TALK! PLEASE NO! NO GOD NO!” The principal broke down into pathetic sobbing, and a dark yellow-tinted stain started spreading across the front of his pants.

Papa Bear lightly slapped Cotter’s cheek, as if to cheer him up. “There. Was that so hard, bud?”

Dave could almost feel Kris’s shit-eating smirk even through his mask. And Chris finally understood how the man would treat a terrorist. And both were glad he was on their side.


=============

Principal Cotter spilled his guts to Papa Bear. Promises of wealth and immortality were strong motivators for a chubby, balding 60-something bachelor with a gambling addiction. Strong enough that he'd be willing to aid a group of vampires take the lives of several young girls. Apparently, several members of the school board were also in on it, as well as several members of the police department. Clearing out that particular conspiracy, however, would be left to men in crisp black suits and dark glasses. Papa Bear was far more interested in the vampires themselves.

While this went on, Dave looked down at Freja. Her balaclava had painted-on angry eybrows over the holes for her eyes, and a sideways 3 painted below so it resembled a certain emote. Through those two little holes, though, he saw the girl’s eyes full of fire and hatred, fixated on their prisoner, and he looked down further to see her hand resting atop her holstered pistol. For a moment he wondered if she was actually having some murderous intent toward the man, but she ended up balling up her fists and stalking back to the car.

Papa Bear finished with Cotter and slipped the black bag back over the head of the resultant sobbing, sputtering mess of a man. He whistled and beckoned to Dave, who came over. Together, they dragged their prisoner over to the log cabin, which was more of a shed, really, and tossed his ass inside. Papa Bear fixed several padlocks to the door before pulling his mask off, reverting to his normal jovial self. “I'll be honest, that guy was a bit of a letdown.”

“Your daughter was looking ready to shoot him.”

Kris raised his eyebrows. “Did she draw her gun?”

“No, but-”

“Then she wasn’t going to shoot him.”

“Not what I was getting at. Was just wondering why she seemed so upset at this guy in particular.”
“She doesn't like to see harm coming to innocent people, young girls especially.”

“She seems a bit young to have such strong convictions… did something happen to her to make her that way?”

Kris seemed to ignore the question. “Let's get back to the car, call this shitbird in, and get back to work.”

Dave shrugged to himself and followed. Upon re-entering the Falcon, the father noticed the sour expression on his daughter's face, and so he leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “Don't worry, sweetie. We'll round up all those vampiric bastards and make them pay.”

“I know, papa…”

“Hmm…” Kris pondered for a moment before snapping his fingers. “How about. We go for ice cream. You can have the biggest sundae you can handle, and after that…” He pulled a yellow notepad from his pocket. “We'll pay a visit to the first address that Principal Cotter gave us.” Freja perked up a little bit, and Kris smiled. “Aaaand… maaaaybe… I'll teach you a bit about interrogation.”

Her face lit up immediately. “But back there you said-”

“I know, honey, but I think I've changed my mind. Do you still wanna learn today?”

Her response was a bout of rapid, excited nodding, which elicited a chuckle from her father. “Okay then, my little panzeryousei. Let's head out.”
Later…

It was coming into the late afternoon as the Ford Falcon navigated along a suburban street somewhere south of the city proper. It was painfully plain, with only the occasional lawn ornament or car parked in a driveway to offer some visual variation. It was a place one would hardly suspect a vampire to be taking up residence. Despite the gravity of the hunt ahead, however, the atmosphere within the car was jovial.

Kris was in the driver’s seat with his daughter beside him, and Chris and Dave were seated in the back, as they'd become accustomed to as of late. Chris was resting her head against the window, feeling like she'd been relegated to a status of side character in her own story, while Dave listened in on the conversation going on up front, as if content with such a development.

“So, should I think of something to say, like a one-liner, before doing stuff?” Freja asked her father, all but bouncing in her seat from excitement. “You know, like in the movies!”

“Well it's not vital, but I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't, sweetpea.”

“Okay!” The girl scratched her chin as she thought for a moment. “Okay, okay. How about something like, ‘I'm feeling nice today, your choice between a bullet or being burned at the stake!’”

Her father raised an eyebrow. “Please realize if you're gonna pull a one-liner it has to be done threateningly or it falls flat, sweetheart.”

“What? I can be threatening!”

“Of course you can be, pigeon,” Kris said, booping her nose.

“I CAN BE THREATENING!” she shouted, balling up her little fists and hitting the dashboard.

He chuckled and grinned at her. “We’ll work on your one-liners later, sweetie,” he said, patting her head of fluffy hair.

“Daaaad, don’t do that!” She pushed his hand away and fixed her hair.

“You know you love my headpats, my beautiful little panzeryousei.”

“Daaaad!” she exclaimed, getting red in the face.

With a wistful smile on his face, Dave leaned over a bit and gently nudged his partner.

Suppressing a yawn, she turned her head from the window. “Hm?”

“Hey,” he said, his voice quiet enough for only her to hear, “You think it'll be like this when we have kids?”

Chris ignored him, hoping he’d avoid the subject. But he nudged her again, thinking she hadn't heard him. “Chris?”

“Yeah, yeah sure,” she said quickly, sounding disinterested and turning her head once more back to the window. Dave seemed satisfied with that, and intertwined his fingers with hers, giving her hand a loving squeeze.
Kris brought the car to a stop by an alleyway running between two rows of homes. He pulled his aviators out of his shirt pocket and put them on. “We're close enough now, I'm making my approach from here.”

“Want one of us with you?” asked Dave.

“No, Freja’s gonna drop you off in front of the house and circle around the block.”

“What are we here, the bait?” asked Chris with some semblance of annoyance, her mood spoiled since Dave's question.

“Not bait. Just running interference. I want you to ring the doorbell and then hide. I’ll be in position by the time you get there.” He stepped out of the car and immediately started heading down the alley, and Freja shifted across the center console to take the wheel.

As per her father's instructions, Freja dropped the pair off and took off around a bend, out of sight.

“Feels like I'm back in fuckin’ high school,” Chris grumbled as they walked up the driveway.

“Why are you so pissed all of a sudden?” asked Dave.

“I was hoping by now I would've gotten to shoot something,” she complained, diverting from what was actually troubling her.

“Well that'll come soon enough, don't worry. In the meantime we're learning how to operate operationally from an actual operator, isn't that-”

“Dave, I want you to shu… just… be quiet. Please.”

“Sorry.”
Coming up to the front door, Chris slammed the doorbell a few times and the pair took cover around the corner of the house. From within there was shuffling and muffled profanity as the occupant peered through the blinds and expressed their annoyance. Then, there was the sound of glass shattering, followed by a struggle.

“Doesn't sound good… think we should get in here and help him?”

As if on cue, however, the front door opened and Kris whistled. “It's all good. Get in here.”

The pair filed inside and closed the door behind themselves. Kris was standing over a young woman laying on the floor on her side, all bound bagged up.

“Oooookay,” said Chris, “This is getting a little bit dark now for my tastes.”

“Relax. It’d be dark if we were dealing with actual people and not the murderous soulless bloodthirsty husks of people.”

“Still looks pretty dire from where I'm standing.”

“Just help me drag her to the basement.”

They helped him bring the woman over to the door of it. “I got it from here, get me a chair or something.” Kris then proceeded to drag the woman down the stairs by her feet, letting her head bounce off each step going down.

“Oh come on, now that's just unnecessary,” murmured Dave.
Freja came around shortly, parking the car out front and lugging her heavy-looking bag in on her back. Kris came back up the stairs, rewarding the girl with a hug and kiss on the forehead. He turned to Dave and Chris.

“Okay. Listen up. If you thought the last part was a bit excessive, you may not very well like what's coming next. And I wanna let you know that it's okay if you sit this out. There's no shame in it. This part of the job isn't for everyone.”

Chris crossed her arms. “Before you go and start torturing that woman-”

“It's not torture, it's enhanced-”

“Yeah yeah I got it. My point is, can we at least have some proof that she's actually a vampire? How can we tell?”

“I'll give you some proof before I start,” he said, then turning to his daughter. “What about you, pumpkin? Are you still sure you wanna do this with me? It's gonna get pretty bad.”

The girl nodded with conviction. “I'm sure, papa. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm ready.”

Kris took a breath and took the bag from his daughter’s shoulders. “Follow me then, all of you.” He led them down the short flight of steps, and in the middle of the basement was their alleged vampire, seated on the chair and well and truly tied down with rope, a garden hose and even a chain. Kris dropped the bag next to the chair, the heavy thump causing the occupant to stir.

“Compy,” said Kris, his tone shifting to the serious side, “Get the mirror.”

“Yes sir.” She handed a small and ornate hand mirror to him.

“Observe,” he said, now addressing Chris and Dave. “The whole myth about vamps not appearing in mirrors, just that. A myth. What a mirror does is show the true form of a vampire. But, as it happens, only silver-backed mirrors, as were so prevalent back in the day. Now they're all coated with tin, so those would be useless.”

“That one's a silver mirror, then?”

“Mhm. Old style. Now, observe,” Kris said, flourishing his free hand like a magician. He tore the bag from the woman’s head. She was pretty, for sure. A bit pale with blonde hair, she looked like she was in her early 20s. She was also bleeding from some gash hidden by her hair.

“She looks like any ordinary human, yes? But she's cold to the touch, and completely nocturnal. Unfortunately those could be explained away to any layman. So could the mildly elongated canine teeth. Vamps can alter certain aspects of themselves to hide those traits. They're a little like skinwalkers in that regard, they blend in well. But the mirror test is irrefutable.”

Kris slapped her a few times, until she came to. “I'm gonna give you one chance,” he said, as the woman hyperventilated and panicked, tugging on her bindings with seemingly all her might. “One chance, to tell me where your elder is. And you will be spared. I promise.”

“Wh-what is this? Who are you people? Oh god, what-” Kris shoved a rag in her mouth.

“You know who we are, and what we want. Now, are you gonna cooperate or do things have to get… ugly?”
She continued to plead even through the makeshift gag. Kris sighed and held the mirror up to her face. The image of an emaciated corpse stared back, with bloody sunken eyes, skin sloughing off in some places. The woman recoiled and went into a fit of rage. Instantly she tore one of her arms free from the bindings and slashed at Kris’s throat, though the man had jumped back just in time, her claws only just grazing his chest.

Freja came around the other side of the vampire and pulled a friction lock baton from one of her jacket’s inner pockets. She snapped it open and started striking the side of the vampire’s skull until her father came around and grabbed her hand to stop her.

“That’s enough sweetheart,” he said, trying to coax the baton from her fingers, “She’s pacified.” She let him take it, and he struck it against the floor to retract the length before putting his hands on her shoulders and kneeling in front of her. “Are you alright?”

She was breathing heavily, and her fists were still clenched, but she nodded.

“You have to learn to control your emotions, remember?”

“I… I know papa… I just got… so…”

He quieted her by drawing her into a hug.

“Hey, guys,” said Chris, her and Dave’s guns both out and pointed at the now unconscious vampire, “Not to butt into your little moment, but are we really gonna be able to control this thing when it wakes back up?”

Kris stood back up and cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah. We’ve got proper chains in the trunk, made of titanium. We’ll get this vamp good and locked down. Are you still game for sticking down here for the interrogation?”

Chris shook her head. “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t think this part’s gonna be for me.”

“That’s fine. Go ahead and be our eyes up there. This might take a while.”