chosehumanity | Bristol, Sunday Morning (Reply)

George Sands	George paced up and down the waiting room, stealing the occasional glance at the door, at Josie just 'round the corner, and at the ceiling, because the ceiling was as good a thing as any to look at when you had vampires trying to take over the world, and was he here yet? Seconds were counting!
Jack Priest	The seconds might tick by more than George would like. Not that Jack didn't make all due haste; he knew George wouldn't call him if things weren't dire. It was just a little difficult to take anything involving the phrase "evil vampires trying to take over the world" entirely seriously, so his "due haste" was on the leisurely side. "I'm here," he said, once he spotted George pacing. "And it looks like nothing's attacked yet. What's going on?"
George	"No time! No time," George informed him, hastily. So little time, in fact, that the werewolf apparently saw fit to try and shove Jack in the direction he'd last spotted Josie. "You need to talk to her."
Jack	Jack stepped back quickly. "You needn't shove me, at least not without telling me who she is," he pointed out. "It'll save time."
George	George made a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat. "She's Mitchell's ex," he said, "...From the sixties, believe it or not. We haven't been able to get anything out of Mitchell about what he's been up to for, for, for weeks and according to her, he's in more trouble than we could have thought. Now can we just-- move on?!"
Jack	So Mitchell had clammed up again. That wasn't new but it was always worrying. "I'll talk to her," Jack promised, starting to walk in the direction George had indicated. "I can't help if people don't tell me what's going on, George. I'm likely to do more harm than good. We can 'move on' now."
George	"Good." George was still nodding by the time they'd slipped into the small check-up room, but about what, even he wasn't sure.
Josie	The woman standing there looked to be in her sixties, at the very least, the smooth planes of past beauty marred with wrinkles, but there was still a twinkle in her eyes, and a determination in the set of her jaw. "Is this your friend?" she asked. "Is he one of--?"
George	"No," George said, shutting the door behind him. "No, he isn't. He's just-- he knows about this kind of thing."
Josie	She nodded at him, fidgeting just a little bit, openly worried. "And your thing?" she asked. "Mitchell mentioned, but... what is it? Are you a wizard, or something?"
George	George stared. Then he barked out a laugh. "Nooo," he said. "A wizard? Oh God, that's ridiculous."
Josie	"Once you've dated a vampire, you tend to have a different criteria for what's ridiculous," Josie snapped, irritated. "Now who is he?"
Jack	"My guardian is a vampire," Jack said, though recent -- complications -- with Sebastien had him sounding rather less proud of that fact than he sometimes had in the past. "Different world, but I get called in once in a while on things like -- this." Whatever this was. He offered Josie his hand, figuring George's condition was his own to disclose. "Jack Priest. Also not a wizard, by the by."
Josie	Josie nodded again, and took his hand for a quick, firm shake. "I'm sorry about my rudeness," she said, sincerely, "But Mitchell's in a great deal of trouble, from what I've gathered." She took a deep breath. "He introduced me to another vampire-- to recruit me. To make me one of them. He told me, the other one, he told me the vampires are mobilizing. Oh, they're making it sound all New Labour, but this is an invasion. It's a coup. And the first thing they're doing is recruiting on a bigger scale than ever before. Taking people who are dying."
Jack	Jack nodded once, grimly. "And Mitchell knows about it," he said, to make sure he understood. "Is there a plan, or is it just -- lots of newborn vampires, lots of chaos?"
Josie	Josie sighed. "It seems fairly well-organised," she said. "Mitchell's been helping them get into the hospital for whatever they need. But the other vampire... he said, 'No one gets left behind'."
Jack	"Converting everyone?" Jack asked skeptically. "it would seem to me that after a bit the numbers wouldn't -- work, not unless they just didn't plan on eating."
Josie	"That's what I've been thinking," Josie said, frowning. "But that's all I know. And I don't like the sounds of it."
Jack	"Neither would I," Jack decided. "Where are you and George figuring we can start to fix this?"
Josie	"You need to find Mitchell," she replied. "I'm here for my cancer treatment. I'm not in any shape to do anything besides get in your way. I... know where they are based, though. You'll probably find him there." George looked jittery.
Jack	Jack glanced over to George. "Time for us to go?" he checked. "I'd guess you know the way."
George	"Time," George said, nodding rapidly. (Way, way too rapidly.) "Er, thanks, we'll-- we'll." He turned around and pushed open the door abruptly. They needed-- they needed to get back to the house and get Annie, and then go, go go go go-- He probably should have stopped to talk to Jack to put things into perspective, but he honestly didn't stop moving until he was well back and in the house.

---

"You know what I don't get?"

Mitchell privately felt you could probably fill the Atlantic Ocean with things Seth didn't get, but that was really neither here nor there. He sighed from his position at the front of the entrance hall, and listened with all of one ear as Seth rambled on.

"Why Bristol? Why not London, or Manchester?" Seth asked. "What's that all about?"

"Well, the first vampire settled here in 1630," Mitchell said. He wasn't sure why he was even bothering, beyond the fact that Seth was all up in his face and the guy's ignorance just plain offended him, sometimes. "Richard Turner. We never got 'round to getting our shit somewhere else."

Seth dodged his head sideways, blocking Mitchell's attempted escape further into the funeral home. "The first vampire lived here?" he prompted.

Oh, for fuck's sake. "The first to have a double life," Mitchell said, irritably, and took a step to the side. "He ran for Parliament, he was a slave-trader, killed maybe, I don't know, a thousand people. No one ever knew."

"Really!" Seth sounded downright fascinated. Of course he did.

"Has nobody told you this stuff?" Mitchell asked him, incredulously. Seriously, what was this all about?

But Seth just assumed a simpering smile, and blocked his path some more. "All the best stories are about you, Mitchell," he said. "Everyone elsei s like, 'I got this tramp in a doorway'. But with you, all they ever talk about is when Mitchell did those twins, Mitchell got that soldier, I mean--"

Yes. A lot of stories. Most of which Mitchell would have preferred to block from his memory and his conscience both, if it was all the same to Seth. He'd had enough of this, and so he shoved the other vampire out of the way, halting his ramble in the process. "I need to talk to Herrick."

About Josie. About... things. Something. He wasn't so sure.

"You want me to ring you through?" Seth asked, darting forward, back in front of him.

"I want you to get out of my way," Mitchell snarled, because force was about the one thing Seth ever really seemed to get. Got in his face. Shoved him again. Brushed on past and further into the hall.

"We should do this more often!" Seth called after him. And then, louder: "Mitchell's here!"

It didn't matter. Whatever Seth's game was, Mitchell wasn't interested. He needed to find Herrick, talk about their game plan, maybe sort out a few questions that had been bouncing around in his head after yesterday. He ducked into a corridor, and then the next.

Where did Herrick keep office, anyway...?

Something echoed in his ears. Something... bad. Familiar. A sound. He frowned, breaking off his search, turning 'round to find the source of the noise.

There it was again.

He went after it. Down one corridor, then another. Clearly no longer in the end reserved for guests, because there was no nice carpeting on the floor, the ceiling was low and the walls were a grisly, stark white--

The noise came again, and now he recognised it. Screaming.

Someone was screaming.

He followed it, quicker and quicker, down one hall then the next. He followed it down to a heavy door, locked from the outside, and easily wrenched open. He followed it to a room.

The first thing that hit him was the smell.

The second thing was a simple word, bouncing briefly around his brain-- Auschwitz.

There were beds. Rickety, crappy beds, stacked on top of each other. The room smelled like a slaughterhouse, rank and bloody, just enough to jab sharply at the instincts in the back of Mitchell's head. Christ. What in the--

"Hello?"

Someone pulled loose from the mess. A human, bandages on his throat and on his wrists and... elsewhere. He was staggering, like he was too weak to walk properly, and Mitchell's heart caught somewhere in his throat.

"You didn't give her long enough," the man said, halfway between accusation and plea. "The last one, I told him, she'd just come back, for Christ's sake--"

"What are you doing here?" Mitchell asked. He still couldn't place it. It was too ... something. He'd seen-- no. Christ. What--

"Look, please." The man's eyes were watering. "There has to be an order to this! That's why Michael died, and, and Daisy got so sick!" Jesus. Jesus jesus jesus--

This couldn't be what it looked like. "What are you talking about?" Mitchell asked, practically begginging someone to give him something, anything, that wasn't what this looked like.

"We keep quiet. We eat when you say," the man said. He'd stopped walking. It had looked like a lot of effort to begin with. "But there are too many of you now. No-one has time to recover. Please."

Or maybe this was exactly what it looked like.

"Are they... feeding from you?" He didn't even need a full answer. And he didn't get one, but the pleading-- the pleading was all he needed to know. A kind of distant horror took hold of him, intertwined with outrage. No. They were supposed to be the better option-- "How long have you been here?"

"Weeks."

Only now did the man seem to grasp that Mitchell wasn't here to-- he wasn't going to.

"There were other people's clothes when we got in here. There-- there were toys under the bed."

No. No no no no--

He almost didn't hear the door opening again behind him. Almost. He spun around, feeling his stomach lurching, only years of experience keeping him from heaving. He turned, and came face-to-face with Herrick, and stared, almost wishing he'd. Almost thinking he'd.

"We were going to tell you," said Herrick, conversationally, "But... like so much in life, it all comes down to timing."

---

George	George burst in the door without even bothering to spit out a warning. In fact, he'd practically slid halfway into the living room before he opened his mouth, and when he did, the words came out at machine-gun rate. "Annie, Annie, Annie, we've got to rescue Mitchell. The thing with the vampires, oh, my God, it's a lot worse than we thought. I brought-- I brought Jack here to help." He sped into the kitchen, rambling on all the way and giving no one even a second to get a word in edgewise. "There's this woman at the hospital, she's f... No, we'll, we'll tell you on the way." He rushed back out of the kitchen holding a fork. He was halfway into shooting Jack the age-old is this good? will this work? look when something else struck him as relevant. "They're... They're...based at an undertakers. Stereotypes clearly hold no fear for these people." Annie, lying on the sofa, didn't even stir the whole time.
Jack	"No one thinks anything odd about bodies coming into an undertaker," Jack said, almost idly. He was going to ask George what on Earth he thought he could do with a fork, but then he was distracted by Annie's utter stillness. "Does she do that?" he asked apprehensively, stepping toward the couch. "I didn't know ghosts slept."
George	"She doesn't. I mean, Mitchell's been telling her that she should try, but, I don't know--" George rambled, tossing the fork aside and plowing back into the kitchen. "I don't even know what I'm looking for," he went on, "Something to defend myself-- something--" There was still no movement from Annie; but if one came close enough, you could tell her eyes were open, her irises ringed in blue. She stared vacantly into nothing.
Jack	"Does your necklace do anything?" Jack called over his shoulder to George. He wasn't used to thinking in terms of killing large numbers of -- anything, really, let alone vampires. Let alone vampires who seemed to be totally fine in the sun. He came closer to Annie, resting a hand on her arm carefully, as if he thought she might leap up and bite. "Are you all right?"
George	"Not to Mitchell," George called from the kitchen. There was no further sound coming from him, barring the jostling of various drawers and kitchen utencils.
Annie Sawyer	Annie didn't react. She didn't shift. She simply laid there, caught in her own head, her fingers clinging to the pillow under her head. "No," she whispered, but it was such a small noise, it was nearly impossible to be heard.
Jack	Not to Mitchell, but to the rest of them, maybe? It was something to think about, even if the practical application was a bit gothic for Jack's tastes. Then again, if they were going to have to go to a mortuary ... It was the less important crisis at the moment. "I figured," Jack said, withdrawing his hand slowly as he thought about his next move. He was the next thing to a stranger to Annie, and he was reluctant to ask questions for that reason. "Will you be all right? You heard George, it seems to be time to charge."
Annie	"I... can't," Annie whispered, choking on every syllable. "I can't move, I can't--"
Jack	Jack shifted his weight from foot to foot, feeling a choking panic rise in him. This was too close to the people he couldn't help in Kaeleer. He reminded himself this wasn't there, and Annie could hardly get more dead, and was calm. Calmer. "What happened?" he asked, unable to stop himself. "Is there anything George could do?"
George	"I have something!" George crowed victoriously, leaping back out of the kitchen wielding-- "A whisk, and I have... my... mobile phone recharger." He frowned, tried bashing the air with the whisk, then with the recharger. It was... ... He was the worst werewolf ever.
Jack	... so maybe George helping Annie was not the best plan ever. "You have to sit up, Annie," he said, easier now that his sense of the ridiculous had been pulled into play. "George is going to show us how to whisk vampires into submission."
George	"Oh, shut up," George said, mulishly. "What else am I supposed to get? Stakes? Garlic? I wasn't exactly raised to do this--" He fell silent when he finally saw Annie. Well. Mostly. "Annie?"
Annie	"No, no, no," Annie whimpered. She hadn't as much as smiled, shifted, sighed. Breathed. Something. "I can't-- Owen's won. I can't touch him. He just keeps on killing me..."
George	George had gone perfectly rigid, whisk drooping between his fingers. "Okay," he said, slowly, "First off, you need to stop talking." He pointed at her with the recharger. "Then you need to stand up and help."
Jack	Jack found he had precisely nothing to contribute; Annie's pain was deeper than he could fix or properly address, and arguing with George about whether being raised with something or not was an excuse for being an idiot felt petty at best. So he stood back for a second, then, thoughtfully: "he's right. And I would think the two of you alone could be frightening, if they aren't expecting you."
George	... Well, maybe from a certain perspective that the vampires they were about to charge in on didn't tend to subscribe to. But George was full of foolish late-teens courage now. "What he said," he said, triumphantly. "Annie, our friend is in danger. Mitchell needs you. Your friend. And if you can't do this, then-- then you have done to yourself the one thing Owen couldn't do. Because then you have finally died." At least he'd dropped the whisk.
Annie	Annie turned slowly on the couch, eyes flitting from Jack to George. Parsing. George panted like he'd just run a marathon making that speech. Annie pushed herself up.
Jack	Subscribing to that certain perspective -- or pretending to -- was a damned sight better by Jack's lights than sitting down and whining about being doomed. Or than trying to attack with household implements. "Good girl," he told Annie, not realizing how patronizing he sounded. "And thank you, George. I couldn't have done that."
George	"Yes, well," George said, stepping back and cocking his hip as he tried - and failed, especially considering that the recharger was still in his hand - to look nonchalant and badass. "All in a day's work. But we really do need to get--" Dangerous wave of the recharger, "...armed and going. Now."
Annie	Annie shot Jack a very mild glare, clambering up onto her feet. She licked her lips. "Right," she said, and set her shoulders as strongly as she could. It felt like wrestling quicksand.

[[ tbc, nfb, nfi, ooc-okay. Warning: slavery, abuse, and vague mentions to past spousal abuse. Taken from Being Human 1x5, and preplayed with the awesome