(A Totally Spies-Moonlight crossover)
Chapter 2:
After a month, Alex was back investigating the circumstances surrounding her death. To say that something didn't feel "quite right" would have been a serious- understatement! Althugh she was sure Timon of Scandia, alias "Tim Scam", was involved with the Carlosis, and bringing them up from the Argentine, Alex was also fairly sure that was not the only reason that she and her friends were lead to a scene that - looking back - had "set-up" written all over it!
Why, Alex wondered after her memories started coming back, had she, Samantha, and Clover been the only agents assigned to that case? Usually, back-up would have been assigned!
Usually.
Alex had a hard-enough time finding clues, outright. That, however, was no real surprise. She chuckled lightly. It had, after all, been a month since the attack. And?
The Cleaners had done their jobs of removing any overt-signs of Vampiric-carnage well!
Although, even Alex - as inexperienced as she might have been - could still smell traces of blood that was fresher than when she was killed.
Mick, Jacob, and Mandy had explained the Cleaners and their role to Alex before she had started her hunt for answers. So? Alex knew she would have to search deep inside of herself to find the tools to aide in picking up clues from that particular late-night orgy.
Fortunately, even before she had become a spy, Alex's father and grandfather had taught her how to hunt and track, and she had had to backtrack herself a few times when lost! So? Alex just put her tracking-skills to use with her now-sharpened vampiric senses!
Besides the investigating, Alex had fallen back on her skills of serveillence and spying, keeping eyes and ears open, whenever and wherever possible, for Samantha and Clover.
Samantha Simpson and Clover Benoir had - changed - in the month since their best friend's death. And? From what Beth had reported seeing, and what Mandy had relayed from talking to Caitlyn and Monique, Alex did not like the changes:
"They're losing themselve to grief. They're becoming obsessed. They're going to get themselves killed!" She whispered. "Or, worse!"
Gradually, Alex began to recognize her surroundings. She, then, took a deep, long, sniff, closing her eyes. "Yep. This is where is happened. No bleach, here! Guess the Cleaners didn't find any excess-blood, here? That's frightening me! They planned this out, damn the Carlosis! This was a surgical strike!"
Thankfully - for a reason known only to himself - the Assistant M.E. had kept the clothes that Alex had been found in the night she was killed. At least, Alex now knew what her morrtal form - and it's blood - had smelled like. She had to stifle a sudden urge to laugh. Technically, if would be hard to prove a murder had been commited, especially since the corpse was walking around L.A.! But? Justice, for the night-time crowd, always seemed to be an in-house affair. Vampires looked out for their own. They always had. And, Alex knew, she always would!
Soon, Alex was picking up two more scents. These were masculine - though, not human - and, although destinct, they seemed to be related! Possibly Arnulfo and Giovanni?
Alex fingered the blades she now wore in scabbards on each hip. They were ancient Demascan steel, and - yet - as sharp as any Japanese Katana! Perfect for subtracting a vampire from its head! They were on loan from Caitlyn and Dominique - until, they said, they could have swords made for Alex.
Or? Until Alex could get her hands on her great-grandfather's sword? The weapon,
she had been told by her father - and his father - was very old, possibly, Medieval,
but? It was in museum-condition!
"I just hope I can get to it without setting-off any alarms.. and, scaring mom to death!" Alex mumbled. "That's JUST what I need on my conscience for all eternity!"
Soon, Alex' trail of the Carlosi Brothers ran cold. At least, along the ground.
"OK." Alex pondered. "The trail seems to begin in this alley. So? They probably came from the tops of these buildings, somehow! These things don't have side-doors to this alley. Or, many windows. Well? Now that I know where the trail begins, I might as well check where it ended, again!"
As Alex made her way back to the murder-scene, she caught the scent of mortal-blood,
and her ears heard two familiar voices.
"Oh, my god..", she whispered, "please! Don't let them see me!"
Alex de la Vega then, as silently as she could, slipped into the darkest shadow she could find. And, stayed there!
"What are we looking for, again, Sammie?" Clover whined-out. For what was, the vampire judged by the redhead's reaction, probably the hundredth time that night.
"I don't KNOW, Clover!" Sam tried not to bite the blonde's head off. "Something that MIGHT lead us to a murder-weapon would be nice!"
Alex chuckled lightly, in spite of herself. Clover's and Sam's arguments had always scared her a bit when she was alive. But? The fights that followed had been a bit comical! Especially, as they meant that the friendship they had between them was still strong.
"What a terrible way to go!" Clover whimpered. "Poor Alex. So painful. Such a sweet girl. And, like, who used razors and needles? Creepy, much?"
"And to the neck and shoulders!" Sam sighed. "Beyond 'creepy'! Way beyond."
From where she stood, as still as a statue, Alex felt a tear trickle down her cheek.
She felt a almost-overwelming urge to run over, crush her two friends in a hug, and reassure them that she was alright! Or, as alright as a vampire could be. But? That could not be, could never be, and so - through sheer will - Alex just stood there, watching silently. And made a vow to be there to protect Sam and Clover, for as long as they lived, and by whatever means possible.
"Wait! Sammie?" Clover exclaimed. "I found some more blood, I think. Just a few drops.
Seems too fresh to have been Alex'! But? Maybe it can help can help us figure out what's going on here!"
'Blood? Damn!' Alex thought to herself. 'This is becoming the Carlosi's Dining-room!'
"Blood?" Samantha turned around. "Hold up, Clover! Let me take a picture of the scene,
then you can bag and tag the specimen!" With a couple of rulers, and two or three clicks a mini-cam, Sam noted the location. "OK, now, Clover! Bag it and time it! And, we'll see how well WOOHP can alylize this stuff!"
At hearing the redhead mention WOOHP, Alex felt a chill run up her spine to her brain!
For some reason, her intuition - which she suddenly wished she had listened to all those nights ago - was screaming at her! She, suddenly, felt that WOOHP was the absolute-last place that EITHER Sam or Clover should go!
"Well, Clover?" Samantha said. "I think we've found all we'll find, here! We better call it a night before our moms get too worried. We'll have this anylized, first thing, tomorrow!"
Alex breathed a small sigh of relief. As much as she wanted to pay-back the Carlosi Brothers for introducing her to Hell, the young vampire did not want to use her friends as bait!
Then, as Alex played rear-guard to Sam and Clover's retreat, she spied a shadowy figure on the roof of a building.
A Carlosi?
Alex took a sniff.
A Carlosi.. DAMN HIM to whatever Circle of Hell befitted him!
A couple of hours before sunrise, Alex and Amanda were discussing the investigation.
"I cannot BELIEVE how close I was to losing my friends, earlier!" Alex hissed, her eyes glowing red. "No. Scratch that. I can believe it." She calmed down and said dejectedly, "I just didn't want to! I still don't want to. Even without the threat of vampires, you have to be careful at night! And, Sammie and Clover were being everything BUT careful!"
"i can understand their feelings, love!" Amanda smiled.. then, quickly frowned. "Are ye SURE about the Carlosis still being in town?"
"I caught their scents from where they killed me to where they first started." Alex answered. "And I ,later, sniffed it in the air where we were. The Carlosis are DEFINITELY still in town! And, still making that spot their picnic-area. I'm going to have to shadow the girls, more. Which means, I'm going to have to borrow the swords, again. I'm going to owe Caitlyn and Dominique, big time!"
"They will not mind of the borrowin'!" Amanda grinned. "They've been around Samantha and Clover for almost as long as yuirself has! Themselves have learned the ways of the two lasses!" Amanda cooed.
"C'mon, Mandy!" Alex whined. "They're not THAT bad!"
Amanda looked askence at Alex.
"Well?" Alex giggled helplessly. "Maybe they are?"
"Ye can always bite them?" Amanda suggested.
"WHAT?" Alex shrieked. "Turn them into vampires?"
"Nothing as drastic as that, Alex-Darlin'!" Amanda ressured her with a touch and smile. "just something I had t' learn when dealin' with my kin. To TRY to keep them out of mischief. It takes less blood-loss and less saliva t' control a person than it does t' turn them. Ye only need a taste of blood - a spoonful or two - t' imprint someone's scent on you, and, a wee lick or kiss into a bite t' have them t' follow your commands!"
"Well..", Alex pondered what Amanda suggested. "I may have to do that. But, I don't want to. Because, it'll mean giving my existance away. And yours, and everyone else'!
And? I'm learning why you need to be so secretive. However, I may have to if they get WOOHP involved much. When I overheard Samantha mention going to test the evidence she and Clover found in the WOOHP labs, I got a bad feeling. I mean, Timon was a WOOHP-
spy at one time."
Amanda shivered at the mention of the old vampire, then took a sip of blood to calm herself. "You'd be right to be trusting of yuir instincts, Alex!" She warned her friend.
The next evening, her frame wrapped in a formless, billowy shroud, Alex watched from a ledge as Sam and Clover came back to the crime-scene. at her sides were two silver swords and a long tree-branch, sharpened into a stake! As her friends searched for clues, she searched for hungry vampires!
"Got any clues from the evidence we found last night?" Clover asked Samantha.
"Some." The redhead answered. "Only enough to make me wonder about this case. None of the blood we found was Alex', according to the WOOHP data-base. Not even the dried flakes we found."
"Big surprise, there. Right?" The blonde responded.
"True." The redhead replied. "I mean, We are looking into a case that's more than a month old! Would have been nice to find something of Alex here, though. But, that fresher blood you found did start a few questions to come up. The police just always thought of this place as just a body-dump."
"Because of the lack of blood?" Clover asked.
"Yes." Sam said. "But, like, you know the creepiest-part about it is? WOOHP found saliva mixed in with all the blood we found! Even the dried blood!"
"Saliva?" Clover winced. "Oh, YUCK! But, I guess the smell of blood WOULD call the scavengers! And.. like.. with all the rats and strays around here..."
"That's.. Where it get bizzare, Clover!" Sam replied. "None of the saliva came from any known-source! Class, Genus, or species."
"WHAT?" Clover hit the high-notes, then dropped to a whisper. "But, like? That's.. impossible! Isn't it?"
"I used to think so, Clover." Sam said hoarsly, looking around. "These buildings are too big and close together! Let's get back under some more lights."
Spotting a figure on an opposite roof, Alex collected her weapons and leaped silently down to the ground, within easy sprinting-distance to Clover and Sam!
"I am afraid you will not be going anywhere, bambinae!" A heavy South American accent whispered. "Not in this life. come. Join us."
As Clover and Sam froze in fear at the heavy male whisper, another whisper, feminine but sharp, seemed to echo though the square:
"There will be no blood-feast, tonight, Carlosi. Leave.. or die. Permanently."
The male figur chuckled evilly. "So! You claim these morsels,little one? Maybe, we can share? I KNOW you, Signorite! Mi frater and I.. we MADE you.. you are just like us. Just as we lusted for! Give thanks to Il Graeco, La Scandiani."
"You may have turned me," Alex answered the lusty bat as they circled each other, as she leaned on a staff, "but? I am not like you, or your brother. Nor, will I ever be like you!"
"Of that? We shall see, Indio." The vampire chuckled, removing his hood. "We shall.. see..."
An unearthly, demonic light shon out from old vampiric eyes. And, Alex screamed like a banshee as those eyes burned into her mind!
"Bare your neck, bare your body, bambina.. yield to me the fruits of the whore. Then, KILL YOUR SISTER! FEAST on her BLOOD!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Alex screamed, then charged at the Carlosi, revealing her staff to be a stake! The stake pierced the vampire through to heart, then Alex plunged the stake-point into the ground about a foot deep!
Alex then shuck violently, as the old bat lay parylized against the ground. Fighting to get Carlosi's hypnosis out of her head, she fought to desperately remember her promise to herself.
"And, Arnulfo. You can thank The Greek the next time you see him," Alex growled out slowly, "when I send him to Hell!"
Then, she grabbed the swords from their scabbards, and swung them downward in perfect arcs against either side of the vampire's neck, severing the head clean from the body!
Alex gulped in air. The deed who done. Arnulfo Carlosi was truly dead. Or, would be, as soon as she incinerated the body and head! But? His last legacy - his cursed-command to the young vampire - seemed to live on: The fight for her mind and what was left of her soul - before she had repaid the old bat - had taken its toll. She needed nourishment, and the smell of fresh blood was overwhelming her knowledge that she had packets of blood on her body just in case something like this would happen!
"Thank you..?" Alex heard Sam's weakened voice.
"Run." Alex whispered, keeping her back turned. "Run for your lives. It's not safe here. Not with me."
"Excuse me?!" Clover snapped out. "My friend was trying to thank you?!"
"And I'm still trying to save you!" Alex whispered as she suddenly fell to her knees, fighting her hunger. "How can I save you, when I'm feasting on you?!"
Sam suddenly thought she recognized the whisper:
"A..A.. Alex?"
Suddenly, Alexandra de la Vega sprang upright and whirled around, the shroud around her pirouetting around her! She beared her fangs, red eyes burning into Samantha and Clover:
"RUN!" She screamed. "Run as far and as fast as you CAN!"
And, Sam and Clover ran!
As she watched them vanish into the night, Alex leaned against Sam's car, and drank her two packets of blood. Then, she looked at the car, at smiled at the keys left in the ignition:
"Thank you, girlfriend, for leaving me the keys to Arnulfo Carlosi's crematorium! I just have to pack it!"
An hour later, after packing Carlosi's severed-head and staked-body - seperately, and extra gas and a couple of drums of oil and grease, Alex lit some twisted bedding she had stuffed in the gastank for a fuse, and jogged a safe-distance away from the car. Then, she waited.
BOOM!
Later, in to hours before dawn, Alex shook violently and cried into Amanda:
"It was.. terrible.. Mandy! Terrible! The thoughts that Arnulfo.. forced.. into me! The hunger I felt. Even with my preparing for the worst. Oh, god!"
Amanda took Alex in her arms, caressed her, took her to her breasts, and rocked her slowly.
As she softly sang the centuries-old cradle-songs she remembered her mother singing to her,
Amanda rembered similar terrors brought by her vampiric tormentors.
"At least, one of the Devils-of-the-Argentine is dead, Alex! And, sure and Samantha and Clover are safe!"
"At was a near-thing, Mandy," Alex sighed. "and my black-beast almost won! What's worse?
Sammie guessed who I was. So? I can guess where she and Clover will be, tomorrow night!"
"Are ye sure, Alejandra?" Amanda lightly held to a slightly-trembling Alex.
"Aye. I'm sure." Alex answered. "Even with my demonic-side popping out, Sam saw through it.
And? Once Sammie latches on to something, she doesn't let go until she finds her answers! She's a pitbull, that way."
"Like someone else I know!" Amanda giggled. "Come, now, Alex! The eastern sky is brightening.
The sun will be up in about two hours time. It's best off to bed! Fortunately, ye have yuir home-sod t' comfort ye!"
"Coming, 'Mother'!" Alex giggled, taking one last look at the fast-approaching dawn. It was beautiful. Just, she was learning, like Amanda!
The next evening, Alex stood in the shadows of the trees of the cemetery she would've been buried in, had not the good vampires of Los Angeles seen to it her body was removed from the casket after her funeral.
'I wonder what would have happened,' She thought, 'if I'd've been left in my coffin. Probably would've woke up starving, and've killed the first thing I came across! Carlosis would've loved that. Hell! The Greek would've loved that! Damn you to EVERY HELL, Timon! And, whoever set The Greek on us. He's definitely on my hit-list!'
This was the first time Alex had ever been to her grave. Part of her had always fatasized about who would try to remember her. But? She, now, she was always fearing that someone would have recognized her, somehow!
Well? Somebody had!
Caitlyn and Dominique had been spying on Sammie and Clover, and had told Alex that both girls were jumpier than usual, even for Clover! According to Dominique: "Samantha had drunk a tanker-
full of Espresso!"
And Caitlynn had discribed Clover in one word - "Mreow!"
And - from what she was now hearing - Alex had to say the spies of the spies were not exagerating!
"Are you SURE of what you saw, Sammie?" Clover whined low, "You can't have seen what you saw?
PLEASE tell me you didn't saw what we saw! Please?"
"I TOLD you, CLOVER!" Samantha hissed out of rapid-fire motion, "I saw what I saw! And, you saw what I saw! And More importantly, I heard what I heard! So, QUIET!"
"Yes, ma'am?" Clover whimpered. "Sammie? Where are you going? Don't leave me!"
Alex' heart ached! Clover and Sam needed a reassuring hug!
"I'm not leaving you, Clover!" The redhead assured her friend."I'm just checking around Alex' grave for any tracks."
"Do ghosts leave tracks?" Clover whimpered, as she crept closer to her partner.
"I don't know." Sam mumbled.
"But, like, what do we do if we see her, again? Or, it?" The blonde asked. "Oh, my god, I hope it's not an it?!"
"I don't know..", Samantha sighed. "Run like Hell?"
"First sensible thing you said all night, Sam." Alex dead-panned.
And, Sam and Clover leaped straight into the night sky!
"Clover? Caitlyn's right. You ARE acting alot like my pet-cat!" Alex responded when her friends hit the ground. "And, Sammie? Do us a favor? Lay off the coffee, awhile."
In response, Samantha instinctively swung her leg to knock Alex' legs from under her!
"I'm afraid that won't work, Sam!" Alex called down from a tree-branch where she sat, twelve feet above Samantha!
Alex then jumped down, landing right in front of Samantha. "No use looking for my footprints around this grave." She said. "Never once used, it's practically new. Some friends made sure I never had to claw my way out of it."
Sam and Clover grew pale, and stepped back.
"Alex?" Sam whispered frightfully, "That.. was you.. I heard.. last.. Oh, my god! What happened to you?"
"I was killed, Sammie." Alex whispered. Her eyes glowed like embers as she lifted her head to bare her fangs.
"Oh, m'god!" Clover yelped. "That.. thing.. last night.. was..?"
"Yes, it was me, Clover." Alex admitted. "Sorry, Clover! But? Killing that monster that killed me took everything I had in me out of me! And? That included fighting his command to kill you two! I had to do something to save you.. from me! Oh? And, Sammie?
I'll try to find someway to pay for your car! I had to use to a a makeshift-crematorium!"
"Crematorium?!" Samantha jumped! "Alex? What was that thing you fought?"
"A vampire from South America, it's name was Arnulfo Carlosi." Alex answered.
"A VAMPIRE?!" Sam gasped. "Alex! You're a.. a..?"
Alex' eyes glowed a little brighter as she answered in a deathly-still breath:
"Yes."
"That's it!" Clover suddenly came to life. "I'm calling WOOHP! We need..."
Alex' eyes glowed a yellow flame, flecked with white, as she stared into her friends'
souls:
"You will not call WOOHP. You will not go to WOOHP." Alex breathed out. "I do not trust WOOHP. WOOHP sent me.. to die."
Alex turned around, and Samantha and Clover started breathing normally, again.
"Girls? Do me these two favors? Consider them last requests! One? Look after my mom?
I can't watch out for her all the time, and, I worry about her! And, two! Don't follow me! Please? I don't want what happened to me.. happening to you."
As she got to the trees, Alex turned around to Sam and Clover.
"I'll always love you, and I'll always watch over you."
With that said, Alex de la Vega vanished into the night.
