An answer to the NFA Operation Hink Challenge (see my profile for the link to the NFA challenges board).

Details of the challenge:

Main Character(s):Chose from the list below for the Main Character/s
Tony DiNozzo
Timothy McGee
Abigail Sciuto
Jimmy Palmer

Rating PG13

Theme: Choose from one of the Themes below
Werewolves
Vampires
Selkies
Shape-shifters
Nagas
Superpowers

Length: 500 - 2500+Words
Restrictions: Not many
No Smut - Only implied sexual encounters
Must be considered plausible. no off the wall assumptions or out of the blue context - research is your friend)
Be in-character as possible no matter the theme you choose

Prompts: Must use one of the following sentences in your entry
You've got to be kidding me! I thought this stuff only happened in really bad horror movies.
Ah, well that's what you get for listening to religion.
You've got about two minutes to get out of those clothes before I get impatient.
Is this your idea of a joke? Because it's really not nice to mess with an NCIS Agent.
Oh I don't know. The fur kinda grows on ya after awhile.

Submission deadline: August 7th 2007

McGee was puzzled: unlike most electronic devices which gave up their innermost secrets without a fight, Ducky's computer was stubbornly refusing to yield to his superior logic. He looked over to where the old medical examiner was hovering over his latest body which, unusually, was adorned with a 3 ft wooden stake protruding from its chest. McGee shrugged and returned to his battle.

"Not another dead corpse," he heard Ducky sigh.

"Isn't 'dead corpse' kind of redundant?"

"Well, yes, in most circumstances," Ducky agreed, "but this particular corpse was undead long before the stake pierced his heart."

McGee paused in his computing to look up at Ducky who was incongruously picking over the body as though the conversation was…well sane. When he'd sorted out this computer, McGee might have to have a quiet word to Gibbs about Ducky's state of mind.

"I had better contact Abby and tell her another of her number have fallen," Ducky muttered.

"Her number?" McGee frowned but his eyes stayed glued to the screen.

"Don't tell me she hasn't told you?"

"Yes, well no, maybe. Told me what?" McGee could almost see the bug in the code.

"She's a vampire. Can't believe you never made the connection: white skin, out all night, shields her skin with gloves and an umbrella during the day - she sleeps in a coffin for goodness sake.You know the Bulgarians believed that people who talked to themselves were vampires. They would certainly have picked Abby on that criteria, maybe before even me, and I am genetically predisposed to sensing them."

"You're a vampire, too?"

"Oh goodness me no," Ducky chuckled. "I'm the son of a vampire: though according to South Salvic legend I could also be a vampire. No, I instead inherited the ability to detect and even kill vampires if need be."

"Your mother is a vampire?"

"Oh don't act so surprised - how old do you think she is?"

"I don't know – late 90s?"

"Well add another zero to that and you'd be closer to the mark," Ducky informed him. "Mind you, being immortal doesn't make you immune from dementia. The only way I can save the old dear is to drive a stake through her heart – and don't think I haven't given that some serious consideration; even before I knew she was a vampire."

"Doesn't she have to suck people's blood or something?"

"That's a common misconception," Ducky dismissed him. "Many modern scholars will tell you that, in fact, any animal blood will do. In Abby's case, we keep her well supplied from the bodies that flow through here but my mother subsists on a diet of corgi blood."

"Don't they die?"

"Well, yes but we just replace them. No one ever seems to notice: they all look pretty much alike."

"Have you ever killed a vampire?" McGee enquired politely.

"Oh no," Ducky reassured him, "not for many years now. You should have seen my in my youth, though. I was never going to be a great cricketer but wearing my whites was a marvellous excuse to carry around three sharpened wooden stumps without arousing suspicion."

"Uh huh." McGee started to wonder if he should give Gibbs a call right now.

"No nowadays, I just train up the next generation. Gerald was doing quite well until Ari took out his slaying arm. Now he just freelances. His family funeral business keeps him well supplied in blood. I have high hopes for young Mr. Palmer. Only the other day he was telling me he had his suspicions about a young lady in this building; said he had been checking her out very carefully."

McGee stopped listening as he finally tracked down the computer error. Now he had to devise a method of sucking the life out of it...neutralizing it: Ducky's weird conversation was warping his mind. He looked up again but Ducky was so absorbed in his work the casual observer might have thought the conversation had never taken place.

The moment McGee's mind reverted to the task at hand, a question stuck him. "You said 'we keep Abby supplied'?" he said, keeping his eyes glued to the screen.

"Gibbs and myself," Ducky confirmed.

"The Boss knows?"

"Oh yes, it's his strong association with vampires that drives his protective instincts over Abby."

"He's a vampire too?"

"Now you're being foolish, Timothy," Ducky chided. "His first wife was a vampire."

McGee's fingers hovered uncertainly over the keyboard. "His first wife?" he clarified.

"Yes, the Serbians had it right when they said red hair is a vampiric trait. Ever since then, Gibbs has scoured the world for red heads in search of another."

"So is the director…….?"

"No, Gibbs investigated her quite thoroughly when they first met."

"Doesn't Abby have a giant cross tattooed on her back?" McGee picked at the inconsistencies in the code and Ducky's argument simultaneously.

"Yes, the nuns put it there," Ducky explained.

"The nuns?"

"You didn't really think they go bowling did you?"

"Well..." McGee hated to admit it but it had sounded perfectly reasonable at the time.

"My goodness no," Ducky chuckled. "That would be absurd: they are a slaying order."

"A what?"

"Abby helps them slay the renegade vampires – you know the ones who give vampires a bad name."

"I thought all vampires had a bad name."

"You're thinking of the literary interpretation: Bram Stoker threw public vampire perceptions back to the Dark Ages. In folklore the story is quite different; vampires can go on to lead full and active afterlives. Abby's cross symbolizes not only her vampire status but also indicates she is well integrated into society. Besides, the nuns told her no one would notice."

"No one would notice that?"

"Ah well, that's what you get for listening to religion."

McGee clapped his hands together firmly. The bug was out, the code was clean and beautiful again and he was about to escape from crazyland.

"Computer's fixed," he sang out as he hurried for the door.

Ducky looked up surprised. "I'm sorry, Timothy, I was miles away. I completely forgot you were here."

"That's ok," McGee smiled benevolently as he fled.

"I've just had the strangest conversation with Ducky about vampires," McGee began as he entered Abby lab.

Abby looked up sharply. "Tell me everything he said."

"Um, well, I don't think I can. I was trying to debug his computer. It was just something about you being a vampire then his mother then Gibbs' first wife: it was just crazy. Then when I left, he didn't even seem to remember the conversation."

Abby moved towards him with a grave expression. "Did you see him talk?" she asked firmly.

"What?"

Abby grasped him by both shoulders, her eyes boring into him. "Did...you ...see...him...talk?"

McGee tried to recall events. "Ah no, I was concentrating on the computer and every time I looked up at him he was working as if he hadn't said anything."

"Do you remember talking?"

"Of course I was talking, we were having a conversation."

"But do you actually remember moving your lips."

"I wasn't paying that much attention, I was debugging."

"Oh," said Abby ominously.

"What? What 'oh'? Did someone declare this 'International Freak Out McGee Day' and forget to tell me?"

"You don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Sit, McGee." She pushed him onto a stool.

McGee watched as she paced the room. This explanation had better be very convincing otherwise the entire team was going to share a padded cell.

"I noticed it the first time we met," Abby began. "When you are zoned out computing, your subconscious mind gets a little restless and goes off and sort of interrogates other people's subconscious. They never know it's happening and you get all confused about why people keep telling you conflicting or bizarre things. Don't you remember how you were when we first met: socially awkward, and shy - you even had a stammer?"

"Ah, um, er, yes, um I sort of remember the stammer."

"I took you home and put a blocking spell on for you. It worked wonders: look how confident you've become. It's been three years; I think it's time for a booster shot."

"I have no idea what you just said."

"McGee," Abby spun from her pacing to face him. "Do you want to live with the truth in a world of blood sucking vampires or live the Truman show lie of normalcy to ease the burden of your own self-awareness?"

"I'd prefer the lie."

"Me too; come with me."