The Frog brothers were not used to company, especially not ones who claimed to be professionals. No one even really paid much mind to the presumed crazy duo, Hell; it was rare for their own parents to give two shits about either boy at all. But alas, one rather slow night, a visitor came a-knocking at the Frog house.
"Alan, you're spilling it everywhere!" Edgar Frog snapped in frustration. The brothers were standing in the kitchen of their old apartment above the comic store, attending to the rather difficult task of sharpening stakes and pouring holy water into spray bottles. They had searched their living quarters high and low for funnels, but had found none, leaving them to spill half of what holy water they had on the floor.
"Well maybe if you could hold the bottle straight while I pour it, I wouldn't spill so much." Alan replied. He audibly gritted his teeth as the pitcher swayed and splashed a fair amount of its wet contents onto his boots.
Edgar grunted in reply, and returned to the stake he had been carving to a perfect point. They had been on strict vampire duty since they had helped Sam and Michael with their little...'pest' problem. Edgar had said that killing the vampires had been like freeing a lamb from its cage. Santa Carla had been in the possession of Max and the others for only God knows how long, and there wasn't a doubt in Edgar's mind that another pack of bloodsuckers would lunge at the newly freed hunting ground.
A silence settled over the two, Edgar sharpening the stakes, and Alan pouring the holy water. It lasted almost five minutes, before it was broken by an obnoxious pounding upon the front door. Edgar nicked himself with his knife, and Alan dropped the pitcher he was holding. Both brothers exchanged looks of caution; they never got company, never. Grabbing an already sharpened stake from his pack, Edgar slipped off the countertop he was sitting on and motioned for Alan to follow. Alan, nowhere near as paranoid as his brother, simply dropped a towel on the puddle at his feet and moved past Edgar to the door, but he waited to open it until his brother caught up and smacked him upside the head.
Before them was a man. He was rather tall, but still a bit stout. He had black hair, bald on the top. His skin was dark, not black or mixed. Punjabi maybe? He was wearing a blue dress shirt with a red tie and khaki's. He had a lab coat on, and there was a large black briefcase to his right.
He looked at the boys quizzically, "Is this the Frog residence?"
Edgar tightened his grip on the stake, which he had hidden behind his back, "Who wants to know?"
"Oh!" The man reached into his pocket and removed a business card. He handed it to them with a smile.
Edgar reached for it, but Alan snatched it first. They leaned in their heads so that they could both read it.
Dr. Philip Jelinski
Department of Protection and Disposal
of Supernatural Beings and Objects
1-785-742-0666
They stared at the small slip of stiff paper. After a couple of moments, Edgar ripped the card from Alan's fingers and thrust it forward.
"What do you think-!" Edgar closed his mouth and blinked. The man, Dr. Jelinski, was gone. Alan grabbed Edgars shoulder and turned him around to face the front room. The doctor was standing in the center of the room, looking around, and taking notes in a small book. At some point during their shocked stupor he had sidestepped them and made his way into the apartment. Before either of the boys could react, he turned and made his way into the kitchen. Exchanging panicked looks they bolted in behind him. He was standing beside the counter taking notes in his book. He pulled a stake out of Alan's fighter pack and turned it over in his hands. After finishing his observation he placed it on the counter and took some more notes as he walked over to where Alan had been handling the holy water.
Alan gulped, "Hey mister-!"
"Was a child ever baptized in this water?" The man asked, looking up at them with his eyebrows furrowed.
Edgar frowned, "Uh…No?"
With a sigh the man took another note. When he finished writing, he slipped the book into the front pocket of his lab coat and put his hands on his hips.
"Son, I can tell by what I see that you are both clearly amateurs at the disposing of supernatural beings, but certainly you know that you are not supposed to use baptizing water for the use of protection against vampires."
Edgar opened his mouth to reply in some nasty way, but Alan's curiosity sparked.
"Why?" He asked. Edgar elbowed him in the side and gave him a pointed look.
"Holy water is used to baptize infants and small children. It is used to ward evil away from the child. Baptism gives a sign of purity and clarity, that water is what binds the protection from evil to that child. Using the water that a child was baptized in is like cursing them, it's considered pollution of the holy, and you are destroying the protection that was placed upon the child." He looked the boys over, unsure if they understood what that meant.
"So," Alan said slowly, "Using that kids baptizing water is like breaking their spell of protection?"
The man nodded, "Exactly. In the old days in Transylvania, where vampires originated from, priests would bottle the child's baptizing water and give it to the family for protection."
Edgar, who had been standing in silence, raised up his hands in a dramatic way, letting his stake come into view for the man to see, "What is this? A Sunday school lesson?" He whipped around to face the man and lifted his stake, "How do we know you're not a vampire?"
The man looked at Edgar blankly, "I was sent here to help you boys do a better job of protecting against and disposing of the supernatural."
"We don't need help! We're experts!" Edgar snapped.
The man straightened and crossed his arms across his chest, "Oh really?"
Edgar's stance wavered, and he paused as if he was unsure of himself, before regaining his composure, "Y-yeah!"
"No, you're not." The man said all too calmly, standing straight. He moved over to the counter and lifted a stake for them to see, "If you were experts, you would know that common drift wood will not properly kill a vampire. You would know that the proper material for making a stake is solid oak, carved with a silver knife and dipped in dead man's blood," He gestured to the holy water mess, "You would have known about the holy water. You would have known that the proper way to dispose of a vampire's corpse is to burn it and dump the remains onto holy ground, and those are the basics."
Edgar stared blankly as Alan's eyes widened.
"Who are you?" Edgar asked as he lowered his stake.
The man smiled, "Just as it says upon my card. Dr. Philip Jelinski, Department of Protection and Disposal of Supernatural Beings and Objects."
He held out a hand, which Alan shook, "And you are?"
"Alan Frog. This is my brother, Edgar." Alan withdrew his hand and rubbed his arm uncomfortably, "So, where'd you learn all that?"
Dr. Jelinski chuckled, "I took classes at the lab. I actually majored in vampiric studies."
"What lab?" Edgar asked.
"The Institute of East Massachusetts. My mother was killed by a vampire, but unlike other people I wasn't furious with the creature, but fascinated by it. I located the nearest Supernatural study center, and they transferred me there." He smiled, "I've been studying the Supernatural for almost thirty years."
"Why are you here?"
"Our sensors picked up a high level of toxic waste in this area a couple weeks back, they sent me to investigate it, led me straight to the Emerson's. I tracked you two from there."
Alan frowned, "Sensors?"
"Yes," Dr. Jelinski said as he leaned his weight against the table, "When a vampire dies it releases a chemical called oxitormin into the air. We have sensors all around the world that can detect oxitormin, when one of them does it sends a folder of information to the institute. Things such as what type of chemical, how much of the chemical there is, and most importantly the location of where it was detected."
"That's not possible," Edgar said, "There's no way you have that kind of technology."
"Mr. Frog-!"
"Edgar."
"Edgar, we have some of the brightest minds on this planet working at the institute. We have people who can build watches that sing the time, touch screen TV's, and music players the size of a matchbox, don't sit here and tell me what we can and can't do."
Edgar looked at the ground sheepishly, "Sorry." He muttered.
Dr. Jelinski only smiled, "It's quite alright, there is no way you could've known. Now," He clapped his hands together, "Shall we get started?"
Alan and Edgar exchanged glances, "Uh…..On what?" Alan asked.
"Well on your lessons of course!" Dr. Jelinski said brightly, "I was sent here to teach you proper protection and disposal, and so far we've done nothing but bicker. Come now."
He grabbed a washcloth off of the coat hanger beside the fridge and quickly dried the table. He then lifted his black briefcase onto the table and opened it, from the briefcase he began to pull a variety of objects out and lay them side by side on the table. There were small bottles filled with a whole lot of different colored powders. There were small pencil sized stakes, clearly polished, and dipped in something red. There were bottles of liquid, canisters of herbs, small knives, amulets, a mallet, stones, crystals, and a couple of tapes. Alan even spotted what he thought was a toad skull with a line of symbols carved in the forehead.
"Alright," Dr. Jelinski said as he set one last bottle on the table, "What do you hunt the most?"
"Vampires." The brothers said in unison.
"What does this do?" Alan asked, lifting up a bottle of yellow powder.
"Oh," Dr. Jelinski took the bottle out of Alan's hands and put it back in the briefcase, "You will not need that for vampires. That is for banishing a witch's power."
"What about this?" Edgar held up the toad skull.
"That is for voodoo practices." The doctor took the skull out of Edgars hand and set it back on the table, "You can use voodoo to turn full vampires human again, but we'll get to that later."
"And….this?" Alan held up one of the pencil sized stakes.
Dr. Jelinski took it and held it up for them to see, "This is what I was talking about earlier. A miniature solid oak stake, carved with a silver knife, and dipped in dead man's blood."
"Why dead man's blood?" Edgar asked, leaning in for a better look.
"Dead man's blood is like an anesthetic for vampires, it makes killing them much easier. If you were to stake a vampire with one of your driftwood stakes it would thrash about, like it was having a seizure, if you used a stake covered in dead man's blood it would still scream, but it wouldn't be so messy. You staked a vampire in its sleep right?"
Edgar nodded, "Yeah."
"And how did that work out?"
"Well, we killed it, but it kicked me in the head. I fell on Alan and Sam, and it fell on top of us."
"It was disgusting." Alan said as he made a face.
Dr. Jelinski laughed, "I bet it was. It also makes the heart stop almost immediately; I'm willing to bet all three of you were sprayed with vampire blood."
"Damn right!" Edgar said.
Dr. Jelinski laughed again as he put the stake back on the table. He picked up a bottle of red powder and held it up, "Can either of you guess what this does?"
Edgar and Alan both leaned in close for better looks.
"Is it dirt?" Alan asked.
"No," Dr. Jelinski said. He pulled out the cork and pulled a little bit into his hand, "This is powdered phosphorus. If you were able to get a vampire to inhale some of it would weaken their senses. You see, vampires depend on their supernatural senses for pretty much everything, whether it's locating food, running from hunters, or even just looking at something."
"That is awesome." Alan said, pinching a small bit between his thumb and forefinger.
"Does it work on humans?" Edgar asked.
"Let's find out." Alan pinched Edgars arm, hard, and just as Edgar opened his mouth to cry out, Alan threw the pinch of powdered phosphorus into his face.
Alan burst out laughing as Edgar erupted into a coughing fit, while Dr. Jelinski simply stood there in childish interest. Edgar shoved past them both and turned on the sink. Bending over, he began to gulp water like a fish.
"What the hell!?"He gasped.
"Is anything blurry or disoriented?" Dr. Jelinski asked.
"No." Dr. Jelinski pulled out his small notebook and began to jot something down.
"But it burns." Edgar added when he saw the doctor writing.
Dr. Jelinski jabbed the pen into the paper as a sign of finality and looked up at him, "That is why they use it to make matches."
Edgar mad his way back to where he had stood before and smacked Alan on the arm, grinning slightly as it made a satisfying pop that rang throughout the apartment. Dr. Jelinski returned the booklet to his pocket and ran his eyes over the table, before bringing them to a stop on the toad skull Edgar had picked up earlier.
"Were you interested in the voodoo?" He asked.
"Uh….Yeah, I was." Edgar said, "What does voodoo have to do with vampires?"
"Well," Dr. Jelinski started, "Like I said earlier, voodoo can be used to turn full and half vampires human again, without having to kill the head vampire. Surprisingly it is actually quite an easy ritual. We just recently started testing it on head vampires, which is a little trickier, but not impossible. I did not bring the materials to perform a practice ritual, but I did bring a couple recordings of both successful and unsuccessful rituals if you would like to watch them."
Edgar and Alan shared looks of both excitement and anxiety.
"Yes please." They said in unison.
"Alright," Dr. Jelinski took two of the tapes and held one in each hand, "Do you have a VCR?"
(XXX)
Alan cringed as another inhuman shriek came from their small, rather cheap, television. Edgar had his knees pulled into his chest and his hands clamped over his mouth, as if he were going to be sick. They had expected a voodoo ritual to be interesting, not gruesome, gory, and overall horrifying. It had started interesting actually, until the vampire, a boy of about 18 with curly black hair and green eyes, had started thrashing around and vomiting blood. The brothers were mortified, whereas Dr. Jelinski was quite interested in the bag of chips that had been offered to him before the terrifying experience began.
"You call this a successful ritual?" Edgar asked, his voice muffled by his fingers.
Dr. Jelinski looked up from his chips, "Hmm? Oh, yes. They can get quite messy; this is actually one of the easier ones."
"Easy!?" Alan exclaimed from the other end of the sofa, "How is this easy? Look at it! It looks like it's having a seizure!"
"And why is it puking blood?" Edgar asked.
"Uh…" Dr. Jelinski placed the chip bag on the coffee table and stopped the VCR. Standing in front of TV, he explained, "Vampires digestive systems are vastly different from ours. They need different nutrients than we do, solely because there sustenance is different. For them to drink blood is like…its like-," He looked thoughtful for a second, "It's like when we eat fatty foods. Our human digestive system stores that fat as a sort of back-up plan in case we become malnourished. Because they're immune systems are so different from ours, when they eat human food, everything from it is absorbed into their system, every last bit. That's why they don't go to the bathroom. But when they consume blood, their digestive system sees that as the main sustenance source, so instead of storing the human food as fat, it stores the blood instead, and that blood can stay stored in the vampire's body for centuries." He turned and gestured to the vampire that was frozen on the screen in mid-thrash, covered in its own stomach fluids. "The blood that vampire is vomiting could be hundreds of years old for all we know. The voodoo is casting it out of his body. No one can live if their body their body is full of old rotted blood. Well, really it's more like paste due to the way they store it, it's really quite fascinating. I wish-!"
"Shut up, stop talking. That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard." Edgar said. He had removed his hands from his mouth and put them over his ears.
"Alright, we'll just finish the tape." Dr. Jelinski bent down and put his finger on the play button.
"No!" Both brothers shouted at once.
"You at least need to know how to tell when they are cured. I will fast forward to the end." Dr. Jelinski gripped the knob and turned it forwards.
The gory images went faster, and flew across the screen. It only took a minute for him to reach the spot he needed. He hit the play button and sat back down on the couch. The screen froze for a moment before playing from where it had been stopped. The boy began thrashing again, but he had stopped vomiting, he was just coughing. His thrashing began to slow before stopping almost completely. He gave one last feeble kick and began to groan. The camera got closer and zoomed in on his eyeball. It was dark, but you clearly see the pupil shrinking to a normal, undiluted, human shape and size. The straps that had been secured around his wrists and ankles were removed, and he was lifted off of the table. The doctors set him down on a bed in another room. They then began to strip his clothing off of him, until he was completely naked. The dirty clothes he had been cleansed in were thrown in some kind of toxic waste bin. Washcloths were retrieved from what seemed to be a bowl of soapy water, and were used to clean the blood off of him. When he was clean they toweled him off and dressed him in flannel pajama pants and a dark blue t-shirt. Blankets were pulled over him, and the tape ended.
The VCR whirred for a moment, then clicked, indicating that the tape was over. Alan and Edgar stared blankly at the screen, completely dumbstruck.
"Wait," Alan said, holding up a hand, "So did that work? I mean, is that guy human?"
Dr. Jelinski smiled over at them, "His name is Daniel James Javak. That tape was filmed 35 years ago, he was 18. Now, at the ripe age of 53, he is the head of the Lycanthrope holding facility in the Bahamas."
Alan's eyes widened, "Really?"
"Yup, one of our best minds. He woke up the morning after the ritual that made him a real boy and started studying. Said he was indebted to us for fixing that hellhole he called a life for over 70 years." Dr. Jelinski opened his mouth to say something more, but his watch beeped at him and he looked down at it with a surprised expression.
"Oh! I need to go." He jumped up from his seat and ejected the tape. He rushed into the kitchen and began to stuff things back into his briefcase.
"What's going on?" Edgar asked, as both he and Alan followed him into the kitchen.
"My flight back to Massachusetts has been rescheduled, it leaves in thirty minutes. Ah….here!" He pulled a folder out of his briefcase and slapped it on the table, "You will find everything we didn't go over tonight in that folder, and just take the bag, you're gonna need it for those vampires." He handed them the briefcase and looked down at his watch, "I really gotta go!" He pulled a card out of his pocket, threw it at them, and rushed out the door.
They stared at the door for a solid minute before looking at each other. With a shrug, Edgar began to flip through folder Dr. Jelinski had left, while Alan picked up the card he had thrown at them and looked at it. It was his business card, and below the lettering it said,
Call if you need anything, The Institute is always available.
If either of you ever find yourselves in Massachusets,
Feel free to visit.
P. Jelinski
Alan stuck the card in his pocket and moved to stand behind Edgar, reading over his shoulder. They eventually moved to the couch, but the Frog brothers read all night, absorbing their newly acquired knowledge like sponges.
Well, hope you liked it. I have had this idea for a while, but I finally managed to put it on paper. Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you thought.
-PoisonBones
P.S. This will be my last post/update of 2014.