Chapter 3
It was nearly sunrise when Vinyl’s hatchback pulled up in front of a Victorian in Twickenham. Without a word, the two of them got out and went up the front steps.
The door was unlocked, and they walked in, past the kitchen and sitting room to a back office. The furnishings were sophisticated, as if recently renovated, and in Octavia’s mind, a travesty to kill off history.
Seated at a glass desk with a flashy computer on it was a man with a carefully trimmed moustache. He wore a lightweight microphone headset, and also a suit, unwrinkled despite the appearance of the man having been up all night. Gunfire sounds came from the computer every time he clicked the mouse.
His eyes flicked to Vinyl and Octavia before going back to the computer. “I apologize, fellows, but I am out of time for playing with you.”
One long burst of gunfire later, and he took off the headset and stood up. Fleur came into the room and stood quietly behind the corner of the desk while the man addressed the visitors. “Glad to see the two of you. Ms. Melody, I have something that may strike your interest.”
“Did you find them, Mr. Fancypants?” she asked. “The vampires who killed my parents?”
“I found one of them who was there,” he said.
Octavia started to speak, to demand the information, but Fancypants held up a hand. “You know me, I’m all in favor of hunting down animals like this, but I must caution you what will happen when you embark on this path.”
“Are you joking?” Octavia asked. “This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for you to give me!”
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“After all the low-life scum you’ve had me kill, yes, I think I’m ready to finally get some closure.”
He tilted his head and studied her critically. “And then what?”
Octavia paused. “What do you mean?”
“What will you do after you get your closure?”
“I don’t see that it’s any business of yours,” Octavia said. “Though I hadn’t thought about it.”
“How long have you been a vampire?” he asked.
“Six hundred twenty two days.”
Vinyl snickered and Octavia shot her a look. She turned back to Fancypants. “Why?”
“Do you think that was enough time?” he asked. “You’ve had a goal. This is what you’ve been working towards. Did you ever think about what you wanted to do once it was achieved?”
“As I said, I don’t see that it’s any business of yours.”
Fancypants nodded. “Right then. There’s a werewolf named Bypass Pavement that lives up in Hemel Hempstead. Kill him.”
“What...what happened to…” Octavia glanced at Vinyl, who shrugged, looking just as confused.
“Young lady, in my considerable experience, these revenge stories rarely end well. You still need time to tailor your own terms.”
“Come on, dude,” broke in Vinyl. “She’s twenty three years old, real-world. Six hundred twenty two days is a long time for her.”
“I would appreciate it if both of you would stop treating me like a child,” Octavia said, teeth practically clenched.
Fleur smirked. The other two were better at hiding their reactions. Octavia felt her protest was justified, though growing realization told her that perhaps it had been ill-advised in the presence of the other, more experienced people in the room. Very much more experienced.
Octavia knew Vinyl’s approximate birthdate. Fleur wouldn’t admit her own age, but from context Octavia had determined it was “old.” Fancypants was...well, Octavia didn’t know very much about the man, but had noticed both of the other two deferred to him respectfully.
She let out a long breath through clenched teeth. “What’s this werewolf in Hemel Hempstead done?”
“He’s a bit of a murderer and an eater,” said Fancypants, smoothly letting the former topic drop.
Fleur handed over a slip of paper with the target’s address and a magazine of .380 ammunition for Octavia’s pistol. Silver bullets.
That was that, and Octavia and Vinyl left the house. The sun had just broken over the horizon and upon returning to the car, Octavia took her sunglasses out of her purse. They were a pair of square-aviators, and she inspected them briefly for cleanliness before putting them on. She also took her handgun out and reloaded it.
There was an unlabeled bottle of pills in her purse and she took one without anything to wash it down. It was good she’d put on the sunglasses first because her eyes involuntarily widened. She didn’t know what was in the pills, but they never failed to turn a vampire into a morning person.
Ready now, Octavia faced forward and put on her seatbelt. “Let’s get this done before I need sunscreen.”
Vinyl put on a horrible imitation of her accent. “Wot, a spot ‘o sun ‘ere in old Blighty?”
Octavia threw a flat look at her.
“But seriously,” said Vinyl, “Are you okay? That was rough back there. I totally didn’t expect that.”
Octavia sighed. “I suppose I can reluctantly see Fancypants’ point, as much as it infuriates me, but where does he get off dictating how I run my life?”
Vinyl glanced at the address of the target. “Well, let’s go end this guy’s and then we can work it out.”
She started the car and off they went. Hemel Hempstead was located to the northwest, a bit of a jaunt and outside the London ring road.
Octavia stared out the window as they drove, turning over in her mind what she had learned that morning. Even she herself didn’t know the exact details of what had happened to her parents, being that it was happening to her at the same time. It was possible that one or even two of the vampires had not killed her parents at all, though they were still guilty by cheerfully condoning it.
Despite having another target, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to Christmas Eve. At least being in a bad mood helped get her in the right frame of mind for what lay ahead.
They pulled up at the address. It was some shoddy-looking apartments. At this time of morning, there were likely to be many people around, getting ready for the day. It would be better to follow Bypass Pavement for a bit and establish his routine before moving in.
“Or we could catch him asleep,” said Vinyl. “That would be super easy.”
“Or extremely difficult.” Octavia may have been comparatively young, but she’d seen a lot during her time in this business.
“You could turn into a bat and go up to his window to see if he’s home.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “The joke’s wearing thin. I’ve never encountered a situation when I thought turning into a bat would be a good solution. Plus, bats can’t hover. How would I look into a window?”
“You could swoop by or something.” Vinyl gestured with her hands.
“And what exactly do you know about swooping?”
Vinyl shrugged. “Anyway, it’s my turn, so I’ll play it my way.” Vinyl found a place to park and the two of them headed up.
At the door, Vinyl stepped back to watch for anyone coming. Octavia took out her picks. She was by far the better cracker out of the two of them, deft fingers and keen hearing applying to more than just playing the cello. The door was open in ten seconds and the two of them went in.
Vinyl took the lead, shoulders loose and moving cautiously. Octavia kept her hand on her gun, hidden inside her purse.
Both of them smelled human blood in the kitchen. Vinyl opened the refrigerator. There was a torso inside, the rest of the parts messily separated.
Not that they needed confirmation of Bypass Pavement’s activities - Fancypants had never been wrong - but it did help. The two of them moved on, stepping lightly, clearing the apartment front to back without a sound.
The bedroom was last, and there he was. Bypass Pavement must have been two meters tall, his feet hanging off the end of the mattress. They needn’t have been quiet, either, as any sound was easily masked by his snoring.
“Well, let’s do this,” Vinyl remarked. She drew back her hand, fingers sprouting hair and shortening into claws, and yanked the sheet off with the other.
Her strike to his throat was a good one, but even a mortal wound didn’t kill instantly. His eyes snapped open and he jerked upright, reactively seizing Vinyl by the front of her shirt and throwing her clear across the room where she went halfway through the wall.
He struggled out of bed and to his full height, head near the ceiling. It looked like he was going through a partial transformation of his own, or trying to. Octavia took a step back and pulled out her palm-sized pistol.
Fortunately, that was about when blood loss caught up with him and he fell at her feet, the room shaking like an earthquake. Then, silence, as he lay facedown and motionless.
“Ugh, shit,” groaned Vinyl, extricating herself from where she’d been embedded in the wall. She straightened up and worked a kink out of her back before crouching to pick up her pink sunglasses. They were plastic and unbroken after the trauma.
She dusted them off and put them back on her face before doing a quick check of the rest of her body. There was blood on her fingers, not hers, though she had shifted them back after the partial transformation.
Vinyl grabbed the corpse by the hair, lifting the head for inspection. “Okay, he only got a little fuzz going, nothing anyone is going to notice. I really didn't want to shave this guy to make him look human. We’re good.”
“Come along, then,” said Octavia. “The neighbors will wonder about the noise.”
“Just a sec.” Vinyl stretched, audibly cracking her neck. She put out her arms and rotated them, wiggling her fingers.
“I get it, you’re not as young as you used to be,” Octavia deadpanned.
“But am I still cute?” Vinyl put her hands beneath her chin, pointed ears poking up through her hair as she did her best impression of puppy eyes.
Though, it probably would have worked better if she’d taken off her sunglasses.
Octavia sighed, because other than the dead man, the spreading pool of blood, and the hole in the wall, it likely would have been a cute scene.
The two of them headed for the door. However, just as they got there, Vinyl’s hand reaching for the knob, she came up short, nostrils flaring.
Octavia caught her body language and the two of them backed away from the door just as someone knocked on it.
Of course, they didn't answer. The knock came again.
It was only when someone started jiggling the knob and muttering that Octavia glanced sharply at Vinyl, a silent question in her eyes.
Vinyl gestured at the door, miming fangs with her fingers. Octavia put her hand on the other weapon in her purse.
“Hey, Bypass,” a male voice called. “You’re supposed to do your sleeping at night. Come on, get up. I’m thirsty.”
With no response from inside, this time he hammered on the door. “Hey! You know the deal, you eat ‘em, I squeeze ‘em.”
Vampires had to get their sustenance somehow. Partnering with a man-eating werewolf was at best distasteful, though technically better than doing his own murders.
While Octavia only drank medical discards and felt some moral superiority about it, she was not the police. An association with a murderer wasn’t the same as guilt. In fact, technically, when one got down to it, Octavia was a murderer too.
But she would have been able to control her reaction had the unexpected visitor not said exactly the wrong thing. “Come on, don’t make me go get some live blood. I’m still dealing with the fallout after the last time that happened. You remember that house, right? ‘Course, they deserved it because of what they did to my flowerbed.”
Vinyl was already turning her head towards Octavia but wasn’t quick enough to stop her as she took a step forward and punched straight through the door with a strength that belied her delicate fingers. Her hand closed on someone’s throat on the other side and she yanked him into the apartment, breaking the rest of the door in the process.
He ended up on the floor, Octavia’s knees on his chest, her hand still squeezing his throat. Her other hand held a polished wooden stake above his heart.
“Oh,” he said, looking at her face. It wasn’t nearly an appropriate response, but perfectly understandable for someone who had just realized the depth of the excrement into which he had just landed.
“I’m going to kill you,” Octavia said, though even as she said it the statement sounded melodramatic.
“Well, you were the one who remodeled the garden and cut down my favourite tree!” he said, bouncing back.
Octavia blinked. “You murdered my family!”
“Wait, what? No I didn’t. That would be crazy.”
“You’re a murdering vampire!”
He held out his hands and indicated her fangs, which had popped out of their own accord. “Bit of a hypocrite. Look, it's not like I kill innocent homeowners for minor trifles.”
“But you were there,” Vinyl broke in with a reasonable tone of voice. “So you can see where this is coming from.”
“Okay, finally something we can agree on.” He nodded as best as he was able. “Yes, I was somewhat upset that you had remodeled. I used to live in that house, you see. I put a lot of work into the landscaping. But I wasn’t the one who gave your dad the heave-ho or dismembered your mum.”
Be that as it may, it didn’t change Octavia’s posture even as he shifted uncomfortably under her. “Who did? Who were the other two?”
He held up a finger. “Ah, but I’m all about self preservation here. You let me go first and I’ll tell you.”
“You tell me or I’ll kill you,” was Octavia’s counter-offer.
“But how do I know you won’t just kill me anyway?” He raised an eyebrow.
Octavia twirled the stake in her fingers and broke his nose with the blunt end.
“Ow! Son of a-”
Vinyl’s head turned at some subtle signal. She spun in place and took a few steps towards the door, putting herself between it and the scene with Octavia and the gardener. A second later, an elderly woman walked by and came up short.
“Sorry, ma’am, this apartment is closed for renovation. There’s some unpleasant filth in here,” said Vinyl.
The lady took a long look through the door and then hurried on her way.
“Shit,” said Vinyl. She turned back around. “Wrap it up.”
“Well, it seems you aren’t in a position to bargain-” he began.
In disagreement, Octavia slammed the stake down, the sharpened wood sliding between his ribs and into his heart. The man spasmed and gurgled, blood rising to his lips.
There wasn’t time to say something witty. Octavia wiped the stake on his shirt, stood up, and left the apartment with Vinyl.
Not a moment too soon, either. They could hear sirens in the distance.
Getting into the car, Vinyl paused, her hands on the wheel. “Did you notice that he had six fingers on each hand?”
“I noticed. It didn’t seem as important at the time, relatively speaking.”
Vinyl shrugged. “Anyway, I’m not going to say he was innocent, but I personally would have been a little more lenient. Who knows, maybe he actually would have given up his friends.”
Octavia put on her seatbelt and stared forward. “Fancypants found him, I’m sure he can find the others.”
Vinyl tilted her head. “There is that. Weird how we just randomly ran into him, though, after Fancy said you weren’t ready. I know there are only so many bloodsuckers in London, but that was one of the biggest coincidences I’ve ever seen.”
Octavia agreed, but firstly, “Must you slur?”
“Must you be so sensitive about it?” Vinyl started the car and put it into gear. “There’s tons of names you can call me and I wouldn’t mind. Who decides what’s racist, anyway?”
“I know you were born in a simpler time, but at the very least can I personally ask you not to say things like that?”
Vinyl tipped her hand. “That’s why I like you, Tavi, I can usually count on you to be predictable and boring, when you aren’t killing people.”
“I like being predictable and boring. I wish I could be more predictable and boring.”
“That’s part of why I dye.” Vinyl ran her fingers through her hair. “I know you don’t want to be the one standing out in a crowd.”
Octavia looked at her, surprised. “Thank you.”
Vinyl changed the subject, turning towards Twickenham. “Let’s go find out what Fancypants isn’t telling us.”
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It's a wacky cartoon about a cat and a mouse! Everyone laugh!
But I really do like this idea just from reading the description. Keep it up! :)
Huh... no "Vinyl is a vampire" trope... well done.
The concept seems cool but I can't resist a Simpsons joke
Nice story. I love the fact that Octavia is the vampire and vinyl the werewolf instead of the usual reverse.
But in chanter 2, it's not "vivant" (masculine), but rather "vivante" (feminine).
Also, what is Fleur qualifing as "magnifique" ? Because if she is talking about the taste of the blood, it's better to say "savoureux", "succulent", "exquis" or "délicieux".
Trust me, i'm french.
Hehehe, and here's the end... well, this is going awesomely, can't wait for more dude!
I'm sorry, but before I read this, I have to mention that this popped in my head.
8464278 Same.
8464079
Impossible, your English is too good for you to be French. At most, I'll believe you are Canadian
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Me french. Me no speak good english.
8464548
Still. EW.
8464079
I think it's less about the direct taste and more about how it makes her feel. I will, however, go back and change to the correct gendered phrase. This is where Google Translate gets me.
8464548
What I get from that is that the vampire that was going to screw Octavia decided to screw the hole created by the chair leg. Hence, my reaction.
I do like how the ancient vampire is playing vidya games. It's not too often you see ancient creatures in works of fiction who bother to really enjoy and take part in modern entertainment.
I am convinced that Fancy Pants was playing Counter Strike and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
EDIT: Unless it's Doom.
8465458
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Whatever it is, it's definitely PvP. More about Fancypants next chapter.
8464079
Bullshit, I didn't see a single 'hon hon hon' in there anywhere. Either TV lied to me or you are, and the magical talky box is my friend!
8465680
Hon hon hon...
Satisfied ?
8464548
It's all according to the douchebag vampire sexiness scale:
Less Sexy
More Sexy
Huh that was unexpected