Chapter 80: Waterboarding Vampires...

"They looked kinda like the all-Goth version of the Village People," Jason said with a shrug. He and the others stood between his car, Taylor's, and Wade's pick-up truck in the parking lot of a gas station. To one side was the road. To the other three sides of the station were tall evergreens. It was just cold enough to see one another's breath.

"I mean, there was Gothy Gangster Dude with his tommygun, and there was Goth Cowboy, and there was Goth... I dunno, he had a longsword on his back. Goth SCA Guy, maybe?"

Wade and Drew both scowled skeptically at Jason, but Taylor didn't. "All Lorelei said was that you can usually spot them because they're all pale and they mostly dress with some holdovers of their old timeframes from when they were human," she put in. "So maybe the gangster guy was turned into a vampire in the 1920s or something. The one at the party half-looked like he should've been at a Renaissance faire, and he had that crappy wannabe English accent."

"Seems like a kinda thin basis for profilin'," Wade frowned.

"Y'know, if I had found out Saturday night there really were vampires out there, I wouldn't be telling my friends about it two nights later," Jason had to say. "I'd have been telling people within like five minutes."

"Oh, 'cause you were so quick to tell me Lorelei's a demon, right?'" Taylor snapped back. "And anyway, I've been busy, okay?"

Wade's frown didn't go away. "Doin' whut?"

Taylor quickly fell silent, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked sharply at Drew and Jason, who both glanced away awkwardly. "Look," she said, "can we stay on topic? This is serious. I mean, do you really think that Lorelei's the type to go for kidnap roleplay with goofy costumers?"

"Hey, I ain't about to try to figure out what kinda freaky shit a lady like her's into," Wade shrugged. "But ah ain't sayin' this ain't trouble. Ah drove by that estate mahself, an' ah'm pretty sure ah saw dudes tryin' ta hide their guns under their coats. Ah mean, even if that's some rich dude's house an' he's just got bodyguards, they wouldn't be out at the gate wearin' black trenchcoats in the middle o' the night."

"Pretty sure that longsword I saw was for real, anyway," Jason shrugged. "You go to enough conventions, you get to know the difference." He glanced around at the three sets of eyes that stared back at him. "What?"

"Whatever. They got our boy an' we gotta do somethin' about it," Drew said. "Ain't like we aren't all on the same page there. Did Lorelei say how to fight vampires? Like are they immune to bullets and stuff?"

Taylor shrugged. "All she said was that they're really vulnerable to fire and that they really weren't a threat to her. Said they're tough and scary compared to normal people, but nothing she couldn't take care of herself. She just wanted to take care of the one at the party so he wouldn't eat anyone there that night."

"But y'all don't know if they really hypnotize people or whatever?" Wade asked.

"Not if you can see them coming, I guess. The one at the party looked at me trying to be all flirty, but... well, I knew what he was, so I just thought he was gross."

Drew and Wade both turned to Jason. He took a deep breath. "Sunlight, holy water, fire. Bullets probably won't hurt them a lot or really any of the normal stuff, 'cause they're partly dead, right? So they don't need their organs to work. Cut things off of them, though, and it'll matter. Stake through the heart is supposed to either kill or immobilize, depending on the myth or the fantasy derivative. Sometimes silver is supposed to work. Sometimes it's not."

"Thought silver was for werewolves?" Drew asked.

"Look, this shit's all supposed to be fantasy and myth in the first place," Jason shrugged. "There's all kinds of folk legends and stuff, and who knows which culture's more accurate than another or even if there really are that many different kinds of these things. And you've got a hundred asshole authors trying to cash in on a vampire fad right now. Every freak writing smut on the internet uses vampires, for God's sake. The whole thing should've died out ten years ago when the hot goth chicks stopped showing up to the vampire LARPs."

"Y'all were there for them good ol' days, were ya?" Wade quipped.

Jason scowled, and sighed, "I heard about 'em, anyway," he muttered. "Point being the legends are all diluted. Who knows what's actually legit and what isn't? But if Lorelei said fire's good, then I'd go with fire. Not like we're going to get our hands on holy water at this time of night anyway."

"Rachel's supposed to have a big flaming sword," Drew noted. "Where the hell's she in all this mess?"

"Yeah, but Alex also said she can't see him all the time. Like if Lorelei's with him, and that's what went wrong at the pool hall with that Gorge dude," Jason reminded him. "So either vampires count for that, or there's something else going on. And it's not like she's got a phone number."

As he spoke, there was an audible "clack" from the doors of the gas station's mini mart. Drew looked over to see the attendant, a thin, young man, locking the doors and looking at the four of them with obvious wariness. He also pointedly looked away when he noticed Drew looking back. Drew checked his watch and frowned. It seemed a bit early for the guy to be closing up his shop given the posted hours. It was late, but not that late.

"No, but if both Alex and Lorelei are in that house, we need some kinda help like that," Wade said. "We gotta figure out how to get her attention."

A black SUV pulled up to one of the pumps. Drew nudged Wade, who nodded. "Attendant's gone twitchy, too," Drew murmured.

"Wish we could just call the cops," Taylor frowned. She kept her voice low since Drew had obviously quieted down. It made her nervous.

"Yeah, but with what we've already seen, we can't be sure they aren't paid for already," Jason shrugged. His voice wasn't quite so subtle. He wasn't shouting, but suddenly the others felt as if he might as well have been.

The SUV's occupants, a man and a woman, both got out of the vehicle. They were both well-dressed, all in black and looking a little pale. The woman's clothes showed off her figure. The man wore a well-tailored suit. He walked with her to the door to the mini mart.

Wade threw down his cigarette butt and crushed it out. "Ah jus' wish it wusn' so late already," he grumbled. "Liquor stores all gonna be closed by now."

"Liquor stores?" Drew blinked. "You serious?" He watched as the couple got to the mini mart's doors, checked them, then looked at one another and sighed.

"Yeah," Wade nodded. "You'd think the one place that'd be open late at night'd be where you'd go to buy booze."

The couple approached. "Hi, 'scuse me," the man said with a smile. His voice was a bit gravelly, and the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "You wouldn't happen to have any cigarettes, would you? We're out, and that stupid market's closed," he added, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

"I'm dying for a smoke," the blonde complained with a winning smile.

"Yeah, ah gotcha," Wade nodded. He patted his pockets. "Ah. Crap, ah think ah got a spare pack in mah glove box. C'mon, ah'll hook y'all up." Wade turned, fishing his keys out of his pocket.

"You're a lifesaver, sweetie," the woman said. She followed close behind Wade to the passenger side of Wade's pickup.

The man cocked his head curiously. "Did I hear you guys talking about looking for drinks?" he asked. "You know, we're on our way to a party ourselves."

"You don't say," Drew shrugged.

"Good night for that. Partying," Jason nodded. "I can't stand having no party to go to on, um... Monday night," he finished lamely.

The man smiled. "We could help you out with that, you know," he said. "Supposed to be pretty wild."

"Jus' right in here," Wade said. He glanced in the side-view mirror as he opened the door, then reached inside.

"Take your time," the blonde told him. She looked back to her companion, hoping to catch his eye.

Wade grunted as he reached inside the glove compartment. The blonde was very close to him. Wade fumbled around a bit, saying only, "Jus' gotta tear off th' plastic."

The tearing sound seemed just a touch off-base to Natalia. She had just managed a wink in Lucien's direction before she caught the red glow out of the corner of her eye. She was fast, but taken by surprise as she was, Natalia couldn't get out of the way quick enough to avoid the emergency road flare Wade swung it at her head. He caught her in the side of the neck, rather than the head as he'd hoped, but it did plenty of damage just the same.

Drew tackled Lucien immediately. The stocky vampire was staggered but didn't go down under the assault. He was already drawing a pistol with lightning-fast hands from inside his sport coat. Drew grabbed at the armed hand while Jason rushed in to help.

Taylor glanced around, quickly looking for something to do. The blonde was flailing wildly, screaming and trying to batter Wade away. She was doing a good job of it, too, forcing him back despite the fact that her hair had caught fire almost instantly. Her neck seemed to be burning, too. Wade was slammed up against the side of his pickup. He held onto one of her arms, though, and jabbed the road flare at her mid-section.

She opted to help the other guys, who weren't even armed. Drew and Jason couldn't bring the guy down on their own, and in fact Jason was quickly kicked off and to the ground. Drew was still struggling with the man's gun hand. Taylor came around to their opponent's left, swinging a wide kick at the back of his right leg. Most of his weight was on that leg as the kick hit him right behind the knee. He fell back with Drew on top of him.

Drew poured everything he had into keeping that gun-wielding hand down while throwing his knee into Lucien's groin. The knee shots didn't matter a whole lot to Lucien. It wasn't pleasant, of course, but that sort of pain just wasn't as debilitating for the undead. Lucien twisted to get his left arm over toward his right as if to pry Drew's hands off his wrist, but then the vampire threw a back-fisted blow across Drew's jaw. It hit him like a baseball bat, even despite a poor wind-up and little leverage. Drew was sent staggering back.

Natalia flailed and screamed at Wade to knock him down, then battered wildly at the flames over her upper body in a vain attempt to put them out. Wade fell to the ground. The moment tore his road flare from his hands; which had already broken in half and scattered across the pavement as it was. He figured he was screwed.

Then Jason was there, grabbing the burning woman by the waist of her pants. He pulled hard, twisting her around to hurl her at Lucien even as the other vampire rose with his gun in hand. Taylor saw it coming and gave Lucien an extra shove into the oncoming flames. She wasn't strong enough to move him, but it threw Lucien off-balance enough that he didn't get out of the way in time. He tumbled to the ground with Natalia on top of him while Taylor scrambled out of the way.

Natalia was already beyond rational thought. She grabbed at Lucien, trying to get help from something, anything able to put out the flames. Lucien was badly burned before he managed to fight her off of him in a panic, but by then Drew was upright. His foot came down brutally on the side of Lucien's knee, resulting in a cringe-inducing crunch.

Natalia tumbled away. She quickly lost her footing, stumbled and fell down on the pavement again. Her dead flesh continued to burn, but there was nothing left in her throat to sound out her agony.

Lucien could and did heal his broken joints, but there was nothing he could do about his burns. Fortunately for him, he hadn't caught on fire in his unwanted tussle with Natalia. Drew kept up the pressure, throwing blow after blow down on the vampire and keeping him off-balance. Lucien's undead strength was somewhat drained by his burns, but finally he managed to catch Drew's wrist and twist it painfully, then kick him away with shocking force.

Lucien got to his feet, looking for his gun. He was just in time to see Taylor's car slam into him. There wasn't a lot of speed to it, but she didn't hold back and there was plenty of weight. Taylor struck him dead-on from behind, sending him tumbling facedown to the ground again. Taylor hit the brakes reflexively, but then kept her car rolling forward until she felt her front left tire roll up on top of him. She heard an agonized, frustrated cry. It was only then that she threw on the parking brake.

Drew got to his feet, clutching his side and huffing painfully. He looked down at the vampire pinned facedown under Taylor's front wheel. Then he looked up to see Jason there with the vampire's pistol in his hands. "You okay?" Drew huffed.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah. Where's Wade?"

As if in answer, Wade passed between the two, pulling back the slide on the pistol he had retrieved from his truck. There was a tire iron tucked into his belt. "Ah'm fine. Just 'bout t' hold up a gas station is all," he growled. "Watch that asshole under the car."

Drew glanced down to see Lucien pushing up against the wheel of the car. He was pinned right below the shoulder blades and thus unable to get much leverage from his arms, but his legs were trying to gain purchase for a mighty heave. Drew kicked the vampire's feet backward, causing him to slip and then grunt in pain as the car settled back down upon him again.

Jason watched Wade with no small amount of nervousness plain in his face. "You think he's really gonna--?"

Wade smashed the glass of the mini mart door with the tire iron. He reached inside, threw the latch on the door, and then went in. "Drop the phone, asshole!" they heard him roar. "Now get out here! Right fuckin' now! Where's the camera feed go? Ah said the camera feed! For the security cameras, ya fuckwit!"

"Jesus," Drew murmured. His eyes were wide.

"Yeah, I know," Jason breathed. "I'm really uncomfortable with this."

They heard the door of Taylor's car slam shut. She stepped over to join them, saying only, "My vote is we waterboard this motherfucker with a gas pump until he tells us everything."