CHAPTER 1: Third Eye Blind
Brian yawned deeply as he stretched his legs across his desk. His eyes darted towards the antique kitten clock that Salina had purchased weeks earlier, wondering why she would buy such an ugly thing. He rubbed his weary eyes when realizing it was half past 3 in the morning. He'd spent most of the night watching cheesy sci-fi horror B-movies presented on an after-hours program, "The Late Showing with William Shatner".
"One more hour", he mumbled, as a commercial showing new products for a facial cleansing solution called OXYCLEAN, played for the umpteenth time on the television. The other members of Doom Patrol were sound asleep. He wished he had made himself something stronger to maintain conscientious, instead of the glass of cold milk that presently stood before him.
At a moment, toward the climax of the movie, a low ringing sound coming from his desk counter distracted his somnolent mood. Pushing away papers and books off of his intercom, he could see a red light flashing on the machine alerting him that someone was at the front door of the building.
"I don't believe this", groaned Brian as he got up from his desk and walked sluggishly toward the personnel office to see who was up ringing the doorbell at this time of night. His uniform was wrinkled and unkempt. Lifting his arm and sniffing at the material on his sleeve, he made a mental note to wash his outfit sometime during the week. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming...why would someone be knockin' on our door this early in the morning?" Shuffling his feet as a creature of habit, he asked:
"Unless you're here with the pizza I ordered several hours ago and never arrived, don't expect to get a tip. If not, then who is it?"
"Police", the voice on the other side said simply, a note of distinct authority in the officer's voice. Brian didn't need to hear him speak more, as he recognized the voice immediately.
"Detective", Brian said wearily, opening the door wide. Standing under the archway was Detective Madison, as always, wearing his faded trench coat and puffing on a stick of Newports. It was a cold, damp morning...still set in the twilight of the night. "May I help you with you anything?"
"Not yet", the detective replied. "At least, I hope not yet. Please step outside." He beckoned Brian to follow him towards his patrol car. In the driver's seat was a more traditionally uniformed officer. Madison walked towards the back of the squad car and opened the door. "Care to take a look, doctor?" he asked.
He removed a pair of glasses from the lower pocket of his flight suit to see what it was Madison was alluding to.
Sitting in the back of the patrol car was a young Asian-looking girl in handcuffs, roughly about the same age as he: she had a round, cherubic face, massed with a cascading mane of raven black hair that reached past her shoulders and down the length of her back. She wasn't facing him, instead drawn away by the dimly lit street in front of the Doom Patrol High-rise.
"We don't know her name", the Detective said after exhausting a mist of cigarette smoke from his nostrils. Leaning his arm over the car and leering at her more closely, he added: "She didn't have any identification on her, nor ID showing her home address."
"Where'd you find her?" Brian asked.
"A guy closing up his newsstand in the subway under Market Street downtown called in a disturbance. Apparently, this girl was the cause of it, as she began walking up and down the side of the train track mumbling something incoherent. We picked her up because the guy thought she was a loon and might get herself mugged."
"Then why bring her to us?" Brian asked.
Before flicking it to the ground, Madison took one long last drag of his cigarette, his face partially illuminated by the glare of its tip.
"Because she kept repeating the same phrase over and over...something about a 'Dark Lord' and 'the power of love'."
"The power of love? So, she likes 'Huey Louis and the News' ballads; doesn't make her a case for us," Brian remarked. "We're Ghostbusters, not the mental ward."
"Believe me, Dr. Roig, I did not want to make the trip here," he said as he looked upward toward the towering skyscraper that is Doom Patrol HQ, "This place...creeps me out. Besides, since my shift is over, I'd catch hell at the station for leaving this girl unsupervised. I wouldn't have brought her to you if it hadn't been for those disturbing tattoos on her arm."
"Tattoos?" Brian's eyebrow arched slightly as he looked back at the girl. He had noticed that her clothes were in tatters; where the sleeves had been, revealed her left arm. In barely distinguishable blank ink were several icons and pictures revealing different meanings foreign to even an experienced occultist such as himself.
Finally taking notice of the two men talking over her, she suddenly turned her face towards Brian. When their eyes met, he saw through her a dismal sadness, marked with confusion, fear, and hunger.
Brian was about to introduce himself when the girl leapt toward him attempting to escape out the side door. The uniformed officer's hands quickly grabbed his gun from his hip holster, but stopped when Madison shook his head 'no'. In a baritone voice, the officer sternly commanded her to sit back in her seat.
"It's...it's all right", Brian said calmly, trying to choose his words wisely. An immense spasm of trepidation had crossed her eyes. She was terrified not knowing who these people were and why she was being held captive.
"I'm a friend", he continued, his hand reaching out towards her. "My name is Brian and I'm not going to hurt you."
She looked at him queerly, not knowing yet what to make of him.
"Listen; whatever it is that's troubling you, I want you to know that I'm here to help you. You're safe now." The girl slowly extended her hand out towards him and touched his palm. Her fingertips were cold.
"Brian--?" the she said, her voice soft and quivering with fright, "Truth?" Brian grinned at her and nodded.
"Every word, scout's honor", he said, thinking to himself how very much now he sounded like CJ.
The girl smiled back at him and slid cautiously out of the side seat. Before she was no more than part way out of the car, her eyes rolled and she fainted, her body falling limp toward the ground. Brian barely caught her as he himself fell too, landing in a mud puddle from the previous rainstorm of earlier that day.
Madison helped him get the girl to her feet. Brian, feeling secure that the Detective had a good grip on her, holding her steady, asked:
"So what are you going to do?" He looked towards Madison. "Hold on...
OK, I got her." Brian said, shifting his weight so that he could lean the young woman against his shoulder
"First and foremost, go home, warm up to my wife, and get some sleep", he replied. "Later in the morning, I'll look into the reason why she showed up downtown looking like that. Whatever comes up, I can assure you that you and your people will be informed."
"Thank you, we appreciate it", Brian said in a sardonic tone of voice.
"Before I forget," Madison uttered reaching inside the backseat, "she also had this with her." In his hand he held a long walking stick, the head of which was carved into the shape of a grotesque creature, a griffin he assumed. Three glass orbs were triangularly positioned on the front of its skull. The detective handed him the staff.
"I'll call in the morning to let you know how she is", Brian said, while Madison climbed into the patrol car. "Goodnight."
Before he took off, he rolled down the side window of the car, not acknowledging the still tired Ghostbuster.
"Yeah, kid...what's good about it?" The squad car pulled off into the dense fog of the night.
Brian carried the girl through the doors of the personnel office into headquarters, the stick held tightly in his free hand, the other trying to keep her upright. Her lithe body clinging onto his arm, she started to slip in and out of consciousness. Then, she spoke faintly:
"...sacred land...eternal darkness...the Dark Lord..."
"Hmm?" Brian asked her, stopping abruptly as he reached to push the elevator button to lift them toward the library.
"Kaiyan Wang...the power of love"
"Who's that?" again he inquired. But the girl stopped mumbling and a minute later; the occultist realized that she was sound asleep. When they arrived inside the room, he laid her down on top of a couch, putting a cushion underneath her head. The portly Doom Patrolman stretched his aching muscles and rubbed his neck. He yawned deeply and then took a seat beside her, being careful not to wake her. Now that she was settled in and resting comfortably, Dr. Roig had a clearer view of whom he had brought into his home. He took a moment to get a better look at her.
Her clothes, or rather what was left of them, resembled a sari; a feminine, Hindi form of dress similar to that which Salina wears on occasion, being that she is partly of Indian descent. Wrapped around the girl's neck was an ascot of some sort, leopard print fabric. Dark gloves, both of which were engraved in Japanese calligraphy, covered her hands.
Brian cleared away a stack of books and periodicals off a coffee table in front of them to kick his feet up on its edge to relax. He glimpsed at his watch and then debated whether or not he should do what he was pondering to do next.
"Aw, I might as well..." He said.
. . .
"BLOODY HELL!" the youngest member of the team of paranormal investigators snapped up in his bed as loud knocking at his bedroom door roused him from slumber. Like Brian, he hadn't bothered to climb out of his uniform from an earlier bust that day. He'd been in the recess of having a...very interesting dream about a girl named Mitsune from a Japanese love story called "Love Hina."
His hand stumbled blindly for his glasses upon the nightstand by his bed, unwittingly knocking over his alarm clock on the floor. Retrieving them, he instinctively put them on his face and groggily got out of bed.
"Hold on" he said when another series of knocks followed. His eyes had to take some time to focus when realized that it was Brian standing before him when he opened the door.
"Hey, I didn't wake you did I, CJ?" Brian asked innocently enough. Dr. London stared at him in utter amazement and blinked his eyes accordingly.
"No, I was...I was wide-awake", He whispered sarcastically followed by a deep yawn. "What's the matter?"
"There is something you need to see in the library." Brian said.
Unhappy with having been woken up so late, CJ folded his arms and leaned against the doorway paying little attention to the occultist's humble request.
"Can't this wait until morning? Morning of next week perhaps?" CJ asked.
"No."
Dr. Roig wasn't one to disturb his co-workers during their moments of privacy, but under the circumstances, this time he had no other choice. Cedric realized that since he was already awake, there was no point in trying to get back to sleep. For whatever reason, Brian decided to come to him at this current hour; he must have a very good excuse. Besides, the slime physicist knew that the likelihood of returning to his "pleasant dream" as it were, was not going to happen.
CJ sighed, "All right, what is this all about?"
Having already felt guilty for bothering CJ, Brian's composure perked up slightly when Dr. London acquiesced without discord.
"I'll summarize it all for you when you see", Brian said, "And, um...we should also bring Salina for this."
"Salina?" CJ asked quizzically and thought, uncertain, if that was a wise idea. "Waking her up at this time of night? It's your head, buddy."
. . .
"...judging by these tattoos", Salina said peering through a magnifying glass, while looking at the left arm of the girl. "She may come from a northern region of Tibet. Where exactly I don't know. Yet, I might be able to determine that given more time to study these markings. She's a long way from home, being in Philadelphia now. What do you make of it Ceej?"
CJ sat on a couch across from the girl, sleepy, with his hand cupped under his cheek; Salina was seated on a wooden chair facing the young woman. Unlike he and Brian, she was not dressed in her uniform, but rather in an exotic nightgown that left pleasing illusions to the imagination.
Drinking some hot cocoa that he'd made in the sub-kitchen of the capacious library, CJ's senses had begun to become more assiduously vigilant.
"I don't know", he said, doubt rising in his voice. "I've looked at her and I can't really discern anything out of the ordinary about her."
"I agree with him", Salina said nodding.
Brian looked down. "The tattoos, do they mean anything?"
"They could signify almost anything", Salina replied. "For all we know, she could be part of a cult or have a fetish for Asian body art."
"Yeah, but...there was something else. Something she said."
"What was that?" CJ asked.
"She muttered something about a 'dark lord' and 'sacred lands'...eternal darkness."
"Gozer worshipper you think?" CJ said raising an eyebrow, amused by his attempt at making a wry joke.
"The name she dropped was someone named Kaiyan Wang."
Hearing that, Both Salina and CJ tried to stifle a laugh.
"Crying Wang? CJ asked.
"Kaiyan," Brian corrected CJ.
Salina retorted silently, trying not to wake the sleeping stranger, "Don't fear the Wang."
"SALINA?" Despite the lewdness of her joke, the good-natured doctor found it difficult suppressing a hearty laugh himself.
"OK, well at least we have something going for us here. But, until we produce more information, let's not label her as an ancient Sumerian yet, " Brian said, casting a sly gaze at CJ.
While the two were in equivocal discussion over the possible meanings of the tattoos on the girl's arm, Dr. London called it upon himself to retrieve a PKE meter from a drawer in a counter near one of the bookshelves in the room.
"Well, I don't know if this will work. Let's try this", CJ said. He switched the stainless steel machine on, which resembled a cross between a microphone and a Sony® Walkman, and probed it over the girl's body.
The meter functioned normally as it began to receive negative readings.
"How's it reading?" Salina asked.
"So far, so good" replied CJ.
Just as Dr. London had raised the device above the sleeping stranger's head, the meter's sensors started to overload.
"Wait, this shouldn't be happening" CJ worried, "Her DNA is feeding too much information into the machine."
"Shut it off," Brian suggested.
"I WON'T TURN OFF!" he said, panic rising in his voice, as the PKE had began to overheat as the paranormal kinetic energy readings increased. "Damn, it burns!" The scientist immediately dropped the machine on the carpet. The three Ghostbusters rose up quickly, backing far away from the meter. It burst into flames, charring a ring of soot onto the ground. CJ gingerly jolted to the kitchen, grabbing the fire extinguisher to put out the flames.
Looking down on the floor, Brian asked:
"What the hell was that all about?"
"Too much energy", CJ replied breathlessly turning off the extinguisher. "There was an extraordinarily high amount of it on this girl; it caused an overload of the system's main power cell. That's never happened before."
Salina spoke, rubbing the back of her head. "How much negative energy was she giving-off to cause a surge of PKE of that magnitude?"
"The proportions of which", CJ said simply, "equals New Years Eve night, 1989, New York City."
Salina slumped back down in her chair with her arms drooped between her legs, "Oh, God..." She groaned.
The three Doom Patrollers looked from one another, but all their eyes soon diverted back to the still sleeping Tibetan.
"Is she even human", Brian said.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Replied CJ.
"Kaiyan Wang", Salina said ruminating. "That may have some connection. I'll...I'll check all of the available literature I can on that name. Spade's Catalogue, Tobin's, there may be something on the Internet referencing that."
"I will need to do a few more tests on her, hopefully much less combustible than what we have just witnessed, and defiantly take a look at that staff of hers to see if I can get a fixture of her DNA in the lab", CJ said.
"Great you guys do that", replied Brian, yawning. "Hard to believe that this girl slept through everything that just happened."
"Jeez, you must've been up all night on this", Salina noticed.
"It's nothing", Brian said. "Too many things have happened tonight for me to get any sleep now."
"Tell me about it", CJ mocked under his breath as he walked with the staff out of the library downstairs to the laboratory.
After Salina had begun perusing through Tobin's Spirit Guide on a laptop on the surface of a nearby desk, Brian once again took a moment to look back at the girl lying peacefully on the couch. He then reached over to brush away a strand of her hair that lay flaccid over her eyes and asked softly, enough so that Salina could not hear him. "Who are you?"
. . .
"Rough night?" Rob joked as he walked down the steps, descending toward the lab.
CJ sat on a leather chair hunched over a Macintosh computer, while currently running an analysis on their new visitor's property. It had been several hours later, now mid-morning, since the previously bizarre occurrences that befuddled the trio of Ghostbusters earlier on. Mr. Statler had just awoken from a good night's rest. Having already showered and shaved, he stood dressed in a pair of sweatpants, slippers, and muscle t-shirt. Chewing on one of his toothpicks, the bald Doom Patrolman now hovered over CJ.
"Indeed, Mr. Statler", CJ said, his voice cracking through a gentlemanly Floridian accent. "I'm surprised you didn't hear the commotion in the library earlier this morning."
"I sleep in silence," Rob said, pointing to his hearing aid.
"I forgot; my apologies."
Rob reassured and patted Cedric on the shoulder, "It's all right, man."
"But what do you make of these readings here?" Bending down, Rob looked at the blue monitor. Presented before him was a vast series of numbers that multiplied continuously.
"Not sure what I'm looking at. Ecto-physics isn't my niche", he said. "What are you doing, anyway?"
"I'm running a bio-scan of the staff that our current guest brought with her earlier this morning. In all my years of research, I have never encountered anything with more highly unstable properties such as this." Wheeling his chair over to the bulky machine, CJ shut down the monitor and pulled out the staff, handing it to Rob. Being the technician that he was, the muscular Doom Patrolman examined it in a contemplating manner.
"Niiiiice. Light-weight, polished wood," Rob remarked, tapping the end of the staff against the surface of the floor. "It's strong too. You can buy the same thing on the corner of 8th Street for five papers and a dime $5.10."
"What about that god-awful head?" CJ said pointing to the skull monster, not looking at it, as it disturbed him.
Rob stared at it and grimaced. "Anything that ugly should be considered a crime." He rotated the staff in his hands, examining it further. What perplexed him, though, was the weight of the skull base fastened on top. Observing its dimensions, width, height, and thickness of the material, he was confounded by how light it was.
"The headpiece, for something so thick, shouldn't feel this light. This part itself resembles wood, but I'd be hard-pressed if I said it was. It's some form of metal alloy, but none that I've seen before. Is that what you wanted to know?"
"Yeah, I guess so", CJ said, unsatisfied. He rubbed his eyes, feeling stressed out from lack of rest and being over-worked. "I just wish I knew what we're dealing with."
"Well, friend, don't burn yourself out. Leave your research here for now; it ain't going nowhere. Have you eaten yet?"
"No. In fact, I'd almost forgotten what time it was"; He said getting up from his chair. Before he left, CJ grabbed the staff, Rob having placed it on the table, and took it with him.
Rob arched his eyebrow as CJ walked toward him with the staff in his possession. The technician smiled at CJ and placed a kind hand over his friend's shoulder as they walked out the door.
"You couldn't resist, could you?"
. . .
Most of the members of the team had converged at the kitchen table for a late breakfast, and to discuss the situation at hand.
"Where's Brian?" Rob asked, as he and CJ walked in.
Salina, looking up from a large book, replied:
"Where we left him last night. I turned my head for like five hours and then I see him snoozing on the floor underneath the girl."
"Attaboy!" Rob grinned an unobjectionable smile. "Is she still here?" he asked.
"Yeah. She woke up around ten-twenty and couldn't help but look through our library books. She's a sweet little thing."
"Humph", Andrew muttered, wolfing down a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant. Being that it was too late in the day for anyone to cook breakfast, since it was a work-day, Rob and Salina walked around the corner to Dunkin Donuts® to buy everyone coffee and sandwiches. He ate the last of his food and followed it down with a cup of orange juice.
"So let me get this straight, Detective Madison shows up in the middle of the night and drops off some foreign loon by our door because he got freaked out by the tattoos on her arm? And Brian, without notifying us first, takes her in...not thinking ahead of the danger she might represent? Am I right so far?"
"Yeah, that's about right," Salina replied.
Dr. Williams pushed back the stringy, buoyant, black hair dangling loose over his forehead and then folded his hands on the kitchen table.
"We're problem solvers, not babysitters."
"It's in the job description", Salina said dryly, tying back her own hair into a ponytail.
"Since when?" He debated.
CJ perked up and stopped studying the staff for a second, when he paid attention to that last remark in the conversation, "Since we now have a melted PKE meter and a burnt carpet in the library."
Upstairs, still in the library, Brian woke dazed and confused as he snorted some of the dust from the carpet up his nose and sneezed. Wiping away a trail of drool from his mouth, he took a moment to remember how he'd gotten there: he then remembered leading a young girl up towards the elevator and waking up CJ and Salina to take a look at her. Everything after that, especially how he'd ended up on the floor, was hazy.
"Hello!"
Brian stood up and jumped back a little at the suddenness of the exclamation. Kneeling and positioned in front of him, he saw the girl he had got acquainted with earlier that morning
"I very sorry, did I scare you?" she asked innocently with a thick West Asian accent.
"Not really", Brian lied getting up off the floor. Checking his watch, he cursed to himself how late he'd slept. "Where're the others?" he asked.
"Your friends you mean?" She said. She pointed downstairs. "The woman with dark hair like mine went down that way not long ago."
"Thanks."
The girl laughed. "It is least I could do for Brian."
Brian blushed. "Yeah, well...hey, are you feeling all right? Because you fainted on me before and nearly took a fall on the concrete outside of the building."
"Oh. I don't remember that," she said.
(Interesting), he thought. "By now, my co-workers should be awake and hanging out downstairs. Would you like to come and meet everyone?"
"Wonderful!" She said and hugged his arm.
Thinking to himself, "Talk about your emotional adjustment. Well, at least this girl whoever she is seems more co-operable now than she was before. I hope you know what you've got yourself into, Brian."
He then saw the burnt carpet and residue of charred metal on the ground from where CJ had dropped the malfunctioning PKE. He looked down at her uncomfortably with a feigned smile; a quick shiver ran up his spine.
. . .
"Do you have a name, Ms...?" Rob said handing the girl a piece of toast after putting down the newspaper that he was reading.
"Pai", she replied munching on it, as if she hadn't eaten in a while, "That is my name."
"Pai...pai is good. You mind if I asked how you got here."
"Well, foul-smelling fat man with long coat brought me here last night in his car."
The four other Doom Patrollers spoke in unison, "MADISON."
Statler continued, "No, I'm sorry, I mean here to Philadelphia. Where are you from? Who are your parents?"
"Pai has no parents", she said solemnly. "They died when I was little. All Pai has now is Takkun."
"Who's that?" CJ asked.
"He's my best friend, next to Brian!
Andrew rolled his eyes in the direction of the occultist. Brian, looking sheepishly, pretending not to notice.
Want to see him?" Pai asked. The Doom Patrol looked at her questioningly as she grabbed her staff from CJ and unscrewed the head.
"Hey!" He exclaimed.
"Worry not," she assured him.
A puff of black smoke seeped out from the triangular-patterned glass orbs on the skull head of the staff as it landed on the table and began to take shape in front of Brian. It was a bird, he thought on first glance, but when the thing became clearer, he backed away from it. It sprouted the body and wings of a bird, but the head was more human-like in form. Its mane was colored brown.
The creature looked around for a moment before it hopped onto Andrew's plate and began licking up the remains of his sandwich. Needless to say, they all sat in bewilderment.
"That's...Takkun?" Andrew said; he was ready to poke it with a fork. But as the prongs got close to it, it screeched at him and took the fork in its teeth, bending all of the prongs and soon demolishing the fork itself in its jaws. It spit it out to one side, rolling towards Rob's direction.
"Holy...!" Andrew belted out loud.
Pai giggled at Andrew's expression.
The young woman had experienced a long and awkward night. She remembered very little of the events that transpired before her incarceration by the police, yet, all she recalled was the kindness of Dr. Roig. Having woken in a strange place, and being unfamiliar with the people around her, she had questions of her own.
"I thank you all for your hospitality, but I still don't know any of you."
"Oh, of course," CJ said. "Where are our manners? We're the Doom Patrol."
"Who?" She asked.
"Doom Patrol," Statler repeated.
Pai shook her head confused.
The birdlike creature, who had already perched itself on the vampire slayer's shoulder, fluttered away. Andrew lifted his head off his folded arms on the table and at that point, stepped into the conversation, informing her with as much patience as he could muster.
"You've never heard of the Ghostbusters? Paranormal Investigators and Eliminators...servicing all of your supernatural needs?
"No," She said. "I'm sorry."
"All right, people. We need to hire an agent, because our advertising sucks," he said, dryly.
Salina asked, her eyes not leaving 'Takkun'. "Pai, what exactly were you doing downtown last night? We have to know, otherwise we won't be able to help you in whatever danger you're facing."
The same look of fear that Brian had noticed last night appeared again. "I...I was..."
But before she could answer, a bell resounded throughout the high-rise.
"Never mind that now, we'll have to continue this later. Pai, if you'll excuse us, we have work to do." CJ said tossing his empty plate into the sink.
Everyone, excluding Pai, quickly assembled in front of Erin's desk in the personnel office as she finished writing down an address on her notepad.
"Trouble at Upper Darby Junior High School", she said handing CJ the address. "The principal reports of some kind of frog holding the children hostage."
"Come again?" Rob asked.
"A frog," She repeated.
"Well, stranger things have happened," said CJ, giving Rob the paper.
"Before we go handle this boyos", Salina interjected, "what do we do about our guest here?" CJ looked at the archeologist for a second and then stared at the ceiling, when Salina pointed a thumb above them, Pai who was still in the kitchen two floors above. He then looked at Erin.
"Erin, would you mind keeping an eye on Pai?" Looking from her desk towards the scientist, Erin nodded.
"Sure, it's not any trouble. She'll be fine."
"Alright, problem solved," CJ, said grinning at Salina. She rushed him in the direction of the elevator leading to the lower level of the building, which laid the Ecto-M. Rob and the others had already suited-up in the garage terminal and were inside the vehicle. "Before I forget, Erin, watch out for Takkun."
Erin scratched her head, with her pen, at CJ's last comment, just as the steel doors of the elevator closed.
"Who?"
. . .
The five Ghostbusters sat calmly in the stretch-limo hearse as it roamed briskly down the interstate. In the backseat lulled to rest by the silent motion of the car, Salina tilted her head against the window. Next to her, Brian sat uneasy with a heavy heart. He thought whether or not he'd done the right thing in accepting a total stranger to his team's care. Regardless of the fact that Detective Madison personally delivered Pai to their doorstep, in retrospect he understood that it would have been better to discuss the situation with his co-workers first before agreeing to be her keeper. Now, Erin was left behind at headquarters with a possibly threatening woman and a miniature monster probably still feasting on the silverware in their kitchen. Even though it felt like he didn't have any choice at the time, he couldn't help but wonder if Madison had screwed him over.
Brian checked his cell phone to see if the detective had left any messages. Unsurprising to him, there were none. He then pocketed the cell into a pouch in his uniform and turned to speak to Andrew.
"Andrew, I'm sorry. You're right...I should have checked with you guys first."
The vampire slayer had also been sitting in the back engaged in his ritual of polishing his weapon before going on a 'bust. He was no longer annoyed from earlier, but now focused on the current assignment at hand.
"What's done is done. It's ok, man; we'll deal with it."
"Thanks," The occultist said, relieved. "You live for this stuff don't you?"
Andrew dusting off his right glove stoically, "What else is there to do?"
"Um, well..." Brian was stuck for words when he saw the object that Williams was cleaning, "Interesting gadget you have there. What do you call it?"
Andrew assessed pleasure at introducing the weapon that had saved his life time and time again in his days as a hunter. The device was a glove, fitted with miniscule iron pointed daggers laced within the material of the apparel. Each dagger was coated with razor sharp tips, containing a deadly poison only fatal to nosferatu and werewolves; they expel on command.
"It doesn't have a name, I just use it when I need to. It's saved my ass on quite a few occasions. I guess you can call it my little 'peacekeeper'."
"Not bad," Brian smiled, fond of the device's now given name. "Watch where you point that thing, though."
"Don't worry, you're fine...unless you ever get in the way."
Brian glanced a wide-eyed, disturbed expression at Andrew for that remark.
Andrew grinned and placed a firm, re-assuring palm on the thick Doom Patrolman's shoulder, "Just fool'n with ya', bub."
Andrew then shifted his attention to the front seat where Statler was at the wheel. The window was down, while Rob hung his elbow out the driver's side door. The hard-of-hearing gentleman was sipping a can of Arizona ice tea and paying attention to the road, while wearing his shades, totally oblivious to Andrew calling him.
"Rob?"
No answer.
"Rob?" Andrew called again.
Salina turned her head to the side, "He didn't hear you, Andrew. Tap him on the shoulder."
"OK," Williams complied. He lightly tapped Statler on the shoulder and called again. "Rob, how far are we from the school?"
Statler, now noticing finally, acknowledged the slayer.
"Pulling up soon, man. We're almost there."