Andy landed badly.
Son of a…Ouch! Picking herself up from the concrete floor of the parking garage, she looks around; glad that yet again, Mick's building appeared to have a ridiculous lack of traffic.
She brushes her scratched palms on her jeans and sighs. She had not been ready to teleport out of there and had gone with the first location that she could picture clearly enough she wouldn't get lost in the dark and trapped. You almost didn't make it, idiot. I can't believe you jumped between like that. Worst case would have just been that you'd have had to calm another vampire down. Right? But Mick had been pretty alarmed about the idea of his friend Josef seeing her. She could still feel his panic vibrating in her chest. Why can't you stay out of that man's head?
Ok. Breathe. You are Andy. Remember that. Andy. She shifts, this time wholly into the hawk. She jumps from the floor of the now cave-dark garage and flies towards a bright spot, the exit. With a strong beat of her wings and a sharp twist of her long tail, she rakes up and lands on a light pole just outside the garage.
The bright sky beckons above the dim canyon of buildings, but she clings to her perch, desperate to control the instincts of her very alien body. You are Andy. Not a goshawk. Andy. It's hard to think in words, her thoughts come as pictures with just an echo of her voice behind them. Beth. Silver Prius. She takes off, the quick beat-beat-glide rhythm of her wings quickly taking her above the dim shadows of the buildings. She sees a change in the air just to her right and with a tiny shift of her weight, she moves into an updraft caused by the early morning sun warming the east face of the building below. Effortlessly she's lifted a few hundred feet and the exhilaration of the air flowing around her almost allows the hawk to take control.
The flash of sun on something silver down on the dim street catches Andy's eye and mind. With extreme effort she focuses on the car below, pushing the hawk down into the back of her consciousness. Don't lose it, Andy. You know how dangerous this is. The car swerves recklessly, and Andy slips out of the rising air to follow. She can see the license plate easily; it's the number Mick told her. She allows herself to lose a little altitude and follows Beth. Its good Mick sent me after her…she's going to squish herself on the road right here if she keeps driving like this…
"Josef, please. Not n-ouch!" Mick yelps.
"Hold still." Josef probes for the pellet with the hemostats. Successful, he pulls it out and drops it into the glass jar half filled with bullets and assorted shrapnel. "I don't know why you keep this souvenir jar. It's rather macabre."
Mick looks at Josef and blinks. "What else am I going to do with it? You can't just throw away all that lead; it's bad for the environment. What with the living forever, I'd think you'd care about taking care of the earth."
"You aren't going to distract me. Who were you talking to?" Josef begins fishing for another pellet.
"Josef. You wouldn't understand. Can't you let it go?" Mick grinds his teeth as Josef cuts another bit of silver free and drops it into the jar.
"Try me." Josef eyes flick up to Mick's briefly and back to the wound. "You know I don't let anything go."
"Josef…"
"Mick. Now. I'm losing patience." Josef's normally smooth voice contains a hint of frost, but he continues working on Mick's shoulder.
Mick closes his eyes. I don't think I get to keep any of my secrets today. He looks at Josef. "Okay. But please put down the scalpel for a minute."
Josef looks up at Mick for a moment. "This sounds interesting." He drops the scalpel and hemostats onto the table and stands. "I think I may need refreshments for this."
"Josef." Exasperated, Mick looks up at his friend.
"Fine." Josef sits and folds his arms across his chest.
Slipping from updraft to updraft caused by the buildings of Los Angeles warming in the rising sun, Andy follows Beth across the city. She stays high, the hawk's vision easily tracking the little Prius. Using the goshawk's body without disappearing into its instincts was like walking a tightrope over an abyss. Despite the exhilaration of freely flying without the risk of discovery, she hated shifting into this form, but it was really the only option for following Beth. Mick's car was entirely too recognizable, and she couldn't just teleport somewhere she hadn't been before unless she was called with a vision.
The car below slows, and Andy allows herself to stall a bit. The change in airspeed flowing across the top of her wings lifts small feathers, which act as a brake and she loses altitude quickly. Beth turns into the parking lot of a somewhat isolated building, and Andy drops down to land on a light post at the corner of the lot. Andy watches Beth get out of her car and almost run to the entrance of the building. She unlocks the door and looks over her shoulder, wiping tears from her face with the heel of her hand. She steps inside the building and out of sight.
Poor thing. Andy drops off the light and glides down to perch on the railing near the entrance. She bobs her head, trying to see through the window. She makes out Beth pushing the button for the elevator. Okay, going up. Andy jumps from the railing and with a few wing-beats lands at the very top of a small shade tree bordering the walkway into the building. The branches bend under her and she spreads her wings for balance. Andy stretches her neck to try to see into the second floor, she's rewarded with a view of Beth stepping out of the elevator. She walks towards Andy and turns left and out of sight again. And what are you up to? Andy flies to a streetlight along the road that's even with the next window on the second floor. She now has a view of the neon sign on the building; concentrating, Andy forces the hawk's mind to see the lines as symbols, then words: BuzzWire. Crap. This may be very, very bad.
"Josef. Remember a few years back, the news story about 9/11?" Mick tries to ease Josef into the information.
"I don't really need background, Mick. Spit it out." Josef sighs sharply and crosses his legs.
"Fine. I was talking with Lady Hawk when you came in." Mick says it in a rush and watches Josef out of the corner of his eye.
Josef closes his eyes for a long moment.
When he opens them again, Mick is surprised that they are still brown. He takes a breath in relief. Maybe this isn't going to go that badly after all.
"Try again, buddy." Josef uncrosses his legs and stands. "I am definitely getting something to drink now."
"But, it's the truth. That's who I was talking to. Lady Hawk." Mick cranes his head around to look at Josef, mystified.
"No. You weren't." Josef calmly pulls two glasses off Mick's shelf and places them on the counter.
"I don't think I understand." Mick continues to stare at the older vamp, forehead furrowed.
"You are still alive. Or undead, whatever." Josef slides the door to the fridge open and pulls out one of the crystal bottles. "Therefore, you were not in the same room with Lady Hawk."
"But…"Mick shakes his head; unable to make sense of Josef's reaction.
Josef pours the blood into both glasses, and returns the carafe carefully to the refrigerator. He walks back to Mick and hands him a glass. "Tell me something I can believe. Perhaps that your reporter friend walked in on you or…" Josef stops.
Mick looks away and takes a quick swallow from his glass.
"She did. Didn't she? Good Lord, Mick, what is wrong with you?" Josef stands up and stares down at Mick. He sets his glass on the table with trembling hands. "Where did she go?"
"Josef, stop it. I didn't say that Beth was here. She wasn't. It was just Lady Hawk." Mick tries desperately to lie, but Josef was right, he sucked at it.
Josef freezes, glaring at Mick for a long moment, his expression changing slowly to one of incredulous disbelief. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"I am. Completely serious." Mick looks up at the elder vampire a little fearfully.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that creature is?" Josef begins pacing in front of Mick.
"Which one?" Mick regrets his attempt at humor immediately.
"Cute. While I am no fan of your freshie reporter friend, I'm talking about Lady Hawk." Josef continues to pace restlessly.
"Only what you told me that day when I joked about the 'angel rescues' and you half took off my head." Mick follows Josef with his eyes. "You never did say why you were so freaked out by that news story…I remember you said that you were sure they weren't real. That Lady Hawk wasn't real, in fact. I think your exact words were: We'd better hope that she isn't real. The only time those things appear is when the world is about to end."
"Well, maybe I was exaggerating about the world ending, but they do only seem to come around when it seems that it's pretty stirred up." Josef stops pacing briefly to look at Mick.
"They? What are 'they', Josef?" Mick asks, frowning.
"I've seen things like Lady Hawk before. Twice, in fact. They are hunters, they call themselves 'Guardians', and as far as I've been able to tell they target…" Josef licks his lips and looks away.
"What, Josef?" Mick reaches out and grabs Josef's sleeve.
"Demons, Mick. All right?" Josef pulls away and turns his back to Mick.
"Are you showing your age here, Josef? Demons?" Mick almost laughs.
"Believe what you want." Josef snaps.
"So why do you think she's dangerous to us? I mean I know you said before that she would hunt us but that's not true. At least, she's been pretty calm about me." Mick shifts his injured shoulder, the silver beginning to bother him again.
"She's been pretty calm, has she? How and when exactly did you happen to meet?" Josef's voice has gone unpleasantly smooth.
Mick swallows. "Ah…it was almost a week ago, now. I got into a tight spot working that kidnapping case. She came out of nowhere. She saved my life, Josef. I'm not kidding."
"A week ago." Josef picks up his glass and drains it. "And when were you going to mention this little…adventure?"
"I…I didn't think it was that important." Mick curses himself silently, Got anything better than that? Slick, St. John.
"Right." Josef moves towards him and sits back down in his chair. He picks up the scalpel and hemostats and eyes Mick, "How about you tell me about that insignificant little incident while I finish this?"