Chapter Seven
Dobbs
Gibbs still has his overcoat on when he enters Abby's unusually quiet lab, finding the woman subdued. He hadn't known her not to have her nerve-jangling music off since the day she'd been dumped by her friend Marty Pearson.
This situation is a lot more serious.
"Hi, Gibbs," she greets him morosely. "You here to yell at me too?"
"No." He'd gotten all his yelling at her out of his system last night.
"Good, because I really can't take any more this morning."
"What happened?" He'd come up from the garage hoping she'd had some results on the DNA testing. Now he's surprised, the normally elated woman isn't morose - she seems on the verge of tears.
"The Director called me to come into her office at 6:30 this morning, and when I got here she was all Hiroshima. You ever have anyone yelling at you when you have a hangover? It's no fun, Gibbs. I'm on report and I had to sign a disciplinary statement about what happened last night. She says I might be suspended."
"Let me worry about that, you won't be suspended."
"But Gibbs–"
"Abs, let me handle that. Do you have anything on the DNA?"
She shakes her head, still depressed. "No, I told you–"
"To see you after breakfast. It's after breakfast."
"Maybe for you, I haven't been hungry since–" she's interrupted by a 'ping' from one of her machines. "Holy Cow – I could eat one!"
It amazes Gibbs how her morose mood can vanish in a burst of delight. The screen before her lights up in a montage of colored bars that look like an upright, over-decorated medal bar. Whatever Abby finds in that mélange, it makes her leap for joy, not the easiest thing to imaging - of do - if she has a hangover.
"What do you see?" To him it looks like abstract modern art, and he suspects the artist had double of whatever the woman had consumed last night.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Lovely. Have it blown up and mounted on your wall."
"I will."
"First tell me what it is."
"The answer to your prayer."
"What's the question?"
She looks over her shoulder at him. "Have you ever noticed how the happier I get the grouchier you become?"
"Then tell me and we can both dance."
"This …" her hands run rapidly over the keyboard, "is that!" The multitude of bars vanishes, replaced by a medium close-up of a face above a Police booking placard and fronting a series of height bars. The thin face is Caucasian, with black hair and deep brown eyes. The name on the placard is Kevin Dobbs.
"That's our vampire?"
"You bet your hemoglobin. His DNA was swabbed right out of Angelina Costa's wounds. The idiot may have wiped the surface saliva off, but no one's as good as me!"
"Modestly spoken."
"I have the right to be self-glorifying, I was depressed."
"Not anymore. Send it upstairs." He starts away.
"Gibbs!" When he turns back, she has her arms up, outstretched in classic dance posture, a broad smile on her lips. "Remember your promise."
He comes back, takes her in his arms, leads a single step to his right, releases her and starts out.
"That's it?"
"Be grateful," he advises as he approaches the glass door, "that's more than some of my ex-wives got."
xx
"You wanted to see me, Director?" Gibbs asks, striding through the door, having passed Cynthia Sumner at his usual pace. It's beginning to feel like a rerun of yesterday morning. Shepherd hadn't sent for him, he's just being polite.
She slaps the file folder onto the desk and removes her glasses, dropping them atop it and gives him her very best glare. As his 'probie' from long years back, she's had plenty of time to practice. "After the morning I've had I'd rather not see you for a week, but yes." Gibbs looks down at his former partner as she strives to push down some of her anger. He knows the fire in the woman will soon burn someone. "I've just had a long talk with Abby."
"I hope you weren't too rough on her."
Shepherd is amazed. If anyone is rough on his people…. "How I handle my people is not your concern, Agent Gibbs. I was awakened late in the night by Metro, who told me one of my people improperly called a District-wide alert for a 'federal agent' who is no such thing. Do you know what her response was?"
"She was drunk."
"She was–!" Shepherd stops, not having expected to be anticipated. "She called a 33 code for a civilian. The 33 code, in fact the whole damned 10 series, is restricted to MOS; that's Members of the Police Service. O'Mallory's not even a full member of our Service; she's a useful Auxiliary, not an Agent."
"She didn't call it. She was out cold."
"Yes." She fights her anger down, then scrutinizes him more closely. "I thought you didn't like her."
"Got nothing to do with it. She's got one of our badges."
"Well," she concedes the point, "after soothing a lot of rumpled feathers, I learned what happened last night. Not from your report, mind you, but from MPDC. Now what have you to add to that?"
"Probably not a lot. They were at 'Starbase 86' when this bastard attacked a waitress."
"I thought you don't believe in coincidences."
"I don't, but I still believe in bad luck. And in a spot where the staff and some of the patrons are in costume, he could've come as Dracula and nobody would've noticed."
"Have you an ID?"
"Abby found one, Kevin Dobbs. Still have to check him out."
"I want to know the minute you do."
"In the meantime," he says, "I want to talk to you about Abby."
"I'll bet you do."
"We talking Suspension here?"
Shepherd wants to say yes but, "Damn it, Jethro, we both know we can't get along without Abby any more than we could without Ducky. We don't have a budget in the millions, not like the FBI. We've one crime lab, not twenty. Suspending Abby over this would be shooting NCIS in the foot, but I feel I had to make some kind of response to what happened. She crossed a mighty big line and MPDC wanted someone's head. I had to promise them one."
"Give 'em mine."
"I don't dislike them that much. Of course, I'm not giving her, but it'd do her good to think next time. She and O'Mallory might both have been killed, not for being at the wrong place at the wrong time but going bare handed against a murderer. So, no, I'm not going to suspend her. Abby's an extraordinarily brilliant woman – but she does have to think."
xxx
"You have Abby's ID on that bloodsucker?" Gibbs asks as he strides into the bullpen.
"Kevin Dobbs." DiNozzo confirms. "He's got a rap sheet as long as your arm, as they used to say on 'Adam-12'. His record goes all the way back to sealed records from Juvie, but I think I can probably break – I mean 'get something'. Or McGoogle here can do one of his 'Tron' special effects thingies and drop a logic bomb on them to blow out the records."
"If you knew what you were saying, Tony," McGee cuts in crossly, "you wouldn't be saying it."
"Well, at least I know–"
"Not when to shut up," Gibbs finishes.
"I would, but I've got more to say. Dobbs's been busted half a dozen times for ADW, nine for AR, over a dozen for menacing and a whole string of other charges, then suddenly he fell off the face of the Earth. His parole officer lost track of him, credit cards and accounts and all else just stopped. He's been off the grid for so long MPDC figured he was dead, but no one came complaining he was missing so they didn't look too hard for him. I think since he's a vampie he went underground."
"Dig him up."
"On it, boss."
xxx
Thus begins a long and intense hunt, one made no more hopeful by the fact that all the resources of civilian law enforcement has been unsuccessful in turning up the convicted multiple felon. Then, on his way back from the head, Gibbs is met with some good news.
"Adam Bradley was as good as his word." DiNozzo announces, "he just called and fingered John Vincent DeKalb."
"Not Dobbs?"
"You're gonna love this, boss. Wait for it."
"Done waiting."
"Seems there's a vampire fringe out there that does like to bite. It's headed by a guy who calls himself 'Oberon'. Bradley's and Oberon's groups talk and will socialize but not share. Bradley just had a long chat with Oberon before he called us. Anyway, DeKalb got rejected by Oberon's bunch a couple of months ago. Like them, he's deep into the Vamp thing, but he was considered too lunatic fringe for the lunatic fringe. They have rules about non-violence and consensual sucking. Seems he didn't want to play by the rules."
"Why didn't they turn him in?"
"According to them, he hadn't done anything. He just creeped out the creeps so they rejected his application and that, to them, was that."
"Did we get an address?"
"Bradley gave us what Oberon says DeKalb gave them. The address is in the middle of Hebrew Cemetery."
"In Wythe!"
"That place just keeps creeping up, doesn't it, Boss? I figure this guy must've heard about the party from some locals."
"Ya think?"
"Well the membership committee didn't appreciate the joke either when they dropped by to check him out. I ran my own trace and I'll tell you what I found. You're gonna love it."
"Done waiting." This time he raises his hand warningly.
"Okay, there are two John Vincent DeKalbs in Virginia. One is 87 years old, a retired steamfitter who probably can't bite more than porridge, and then there's a John Vincent DeKalb who actually isburied in Hebrew Cemetery."
Ziva's head snaps up. "Tell me that they did not put a 'DeKalb' into–!" but her outrage is cut short by DiNozzo's upraised hand.
"Seems he's converted before marrying the daughter of a Rabbi, and was too young anyway for the Blitz."
"That's Hol–!
Gibbs sidesteps to put himself between them. "You aren't going to tell me he died in the past month, are you?"
"Sorry, boss, 11 years ago."
"Children?"
"That's the kicker. He did have a son from a previous marriage, if you can call it that. They got married while the kid was in nursery school. Guess what the woman's last name was. Come on, guess."
"Dobbs."
"Awww, you guessed. In addition to Juvie Hall and numerous lockups throughout Virginia, 'Kevin Dobbs' spent a number of years in asylums, sentenced there for crimes committed during uncontrolled rages. Basically he has no self-control. He was released five years ago on a test pass and disappeared. I think he started using his birth father's name. Kevin Dobbs has vanished."
"A name change did that?" Ziva asks, as dubious as they all are.
"It could if done unofficially. He used it as an alias, stopped going to his old haunts, stopped seeing people, practically drained his bank account and Kevin Dobbs just dropped off the face of the Earth, or more likely crawled into a grave somewhere."
"BOLO. Maybe someone can dig him up."
xx
"It looks like Abby and Shav being in the same club with Count Dracula wasn't the coincidence it appeared to be," McGee cuts in before Gibbs can step away from Tony's desk.
"We don't believe in coincidences," DiNozzo says before Gibbs can, earning a hard look.
"Well, this sure isn't one. In the past two months there have been four cases of women being attacked, where the common factor was that they were bitten. All had been partying in bars or nightclubs prior to the attacks. One was attacked in her apartment, one in a private house, one taken on a rooftop and one dragged into an alley."
"Four cases and Metro isn't–?" Gibbs has heard too many outrageous things for one morning.
"Only two of the cases, the private home and the alley, ever involved Metro," McGee tells them. "The other two refused to file charges, afraid of reprisals. The guy scared them that badly. I pulled these records from hospitals; Saint Ann's in College Park, George Washington University Hospital, Quick Check in Kettering and MetroHealth in Donovan's Corner."
"They're all alive?"
"It looks like Costa is the first one we know he killed, but I'm still looking. Koshi is the first one to be attacked in a club. It looks to me like he's getting either bolder or further off the wall."
No one says it, but either one is very bad.
"DiNozzo, printouts and photos of Dobbs - or DeKalb, whoever he is, then you and McGee take the private house and the apartment. Ziva, you and I have the roof and the alley."
x
They don't even begin gathering their equipment when Abby, wearing the large silver and ruby cross Tony had given her on his return from Germany two years ago over a black tee shirt declaring that 'Vampires suck!', enters the bullpen. Gibbs knows she hadn't been wearing it earlier, she 'd been wearing a sparkly shirt over her silver chain enhanced leather miniskirt. 'How many outrageous shirts does she have downstairs?' he thinks, but is afraid to find out. She carries a set of four very small cardboard boxes in her hand.
"What'cha got there, Abby?" DiNozzo asks, always attentive to the young woman, especially when she's in her more outré outfits.
"I brought you some gifts," she opens one of the boxes, displaying an inch high silver cross that gleams in the light. "My programs don't need me to run so I brought these straight up. I spoke to Siobhan last night, this morning she dropped these off. Sorry, but she had to run, McGee."
"It's all right," he says, "I'll touch bases with her later."
"Bet that's not all you'll tou–" his glare silences her and she reconsiders. "Maybe I'm still not sober yet." But she can see in Gibbs' expression that the humor isn't her best idea.
"Anyway, you can use them as tie-tacks, lapel pins," she distributes the boxes quickly as she speaks, winding up back at DiNozzo's desk, "or anything you want."
"Abby."
She turns. "Come on, Gibbs, you need them."
"Why?"
"This guy thinks he's a vampire, he's going to respond as a vampire. Vampires can't look at crosses. He'll look away. Even if he does so for a second that's a second for you to have the advantage."
"Did you have O'Mallory bless them?" DiNozzo quips, trying to get her to see reason.
"You bet your bippy I did, actually she already had, can you picture her giving someone an unblessed cross? After last night she didn't need to be convinced at all. I just wanted to make sure you had all the protection you could get."
Ziva closes her box, holds it out for Abby to take back. "I do not think so."
"Come on, Ziva, just this once. Vampires aren't going to be bothered by a star. You need it for this wacko. Please?"
She appeals so wistfully Gibbs decides the matter for all of them by taking the one she'd put into his hands and attaching it to the lapel of his jacket, his eyes conveying his instruction to the others. Eventually Ziva gives in, burying enough of her distaste to attach the emblem.
"All right," Gibbs says, "you're our resident expert, take us out."
"Huh?" She's not sure she heard him properly.
"Tell us what to expect, and how we can deal with this bastard."
x
"Oh. Well, let's see," she hadn't expected to be asked to take the floor, but gathers what she knows quickly. "This guy really thinks he's one of the Undead. Not only is he PCP strong, a certified wacco, but he's behaving like a real vampire. I swear, Gibbs, when Siobhan threw a glass of 'holy water' in his face you'd think it was acid. He went berserk – though he ran off like the fastest sprinter I've ever seen. He was over the horizon before I could look up.
"But the point is that he flinched in pain all through Siobhan's blessing and did the whole acid in the face cavorting when she splashed him."
"So what does that tell you? How can we use it?"
"There are a lot of vampire myths, Tony can tell you the cinematic vampires change all the time. So assuming him to be a product of the Hammer and 'Dark Shadows' era, with a little of 'Lost Boys' and 'Bordello of Blood', I can tell you what I have that's not too contradictory."
"You mean he follows set rules, so he's going to have both strengths and weaknesses we can use."
"Yep."
"All right, go ahead."
x
"A vampire has superhuman strength; I think his doesn't come from PCP but from being a total loon. That holds up because only a certified wacko would attack a girl one night, drink nearly four liters of her blood, and then be out for desert the next night." She has to stop, to push the thought out of her head before her stomach revolts more than it already has.
"Vampires can't stand the sight of the Cross, so I'm really sorry I saddled Siobhan with that stupid IDIC last night, she might've worn a cross instead. He flinches at prayers or the name of God, and a face full of Holy Water was the best thing of the night.
"Now, he can hypnotize with his eyes, or likely thinks he can. If he tries it on you, you could possibly lull him into a false sense of security before you surprise him."
"Could work," Gibbs grants.
"A vampire can fly – so maybe if cornered he'll jump out of a window."
"Forget it."
"Just a thought," she says sullenly.
"I'd rather hear your other thoughts."
"Okay. He can't endure sunlight, and must sleep during the day in a place devoid of light. I'm betting he's a traditionalist and will sleep in a coffin –"
"Sounds familiar," Tony observes.
"DiNozzo."
"Shutting up, boss."
"Smart man, Tony," Abby agrees. "Now, a coffin is not essential, but if that or his crypt contains samples of his native earth, some vampires in films and books have been defeated by corrupting or stealing the dirt. Bram Stoker used consecrated Eucharists in the coffins."
"McGee, can you get any?"
McGee feels his face collapse. "I – I – I –."
"I don't mean blessed, McGee," he's amazed he has to clarify it. "I mean just, you know, the plain stuff."
"I – I can ask." He'll do it by phone, however; this way he can be out of her reach.
"There are two sure ways to defeat a vampire," Abby continues.
"Name them."
"You can drive a stake through his heart, but it has to nail him into the coffin, and follow this with decapitation. Or you can set him on fire and burn him alive."
She enjoys his fiery response to this.
xxx
Edie Parziali doesn't like strangers coming to her apartment unannounced. It takes two minutes, mostly of Ziva's assurances, before five bolts are turned, followed by the sliding of a chain lock. When the door opens, it only does so to the three inch limit of another chain. Gibbs is not going to point out that a thousand locks wouldn't help; this door wouldn't stand up against a good kick.
"Show me your badges," the blonde woman says, little more than her right eye and a segment of her face visible. Gibbs and Ziva comply, while standing well away from the door. "What does the Navy have to do with me?"
"We believe the man who attacked you also assaulted a Navy Seaman."
"Raped me. On my way home from work he raped me. Bit me! Can't go out, on Disability."
"Is that when you put the locks on the door?"
"No one's ever getting in here again."
Gibbs feels sorry for her; she is the prisoner and a particularly unsafe one, but he can't tell her that without undermining the last security she thinks she has. "Ms. Parziali, we'd like to show you a picture, see if you recognize him."
She thinks it over – for a long time. "All right." Her voice couldn't be lower and still carry.
When he holds out the photo of Kevin Dobbs, the supposed 'John Vincent DeKalb', Edie gasps and slams the door. "Get away from me!" she screams over the sound of a multitude of locks clicking into place. "Get away from me!" her shriek is even louder, coupled with retreating footfalls and the slam of another door.
Ziva looks up at Gibbs. "I shall take that as a 'yes'."
xx
When the two teams rendezvous, a compilation presents some disturbing information. Kevin Dobbs, a.k.a. 'John Vincent DeKalb', is their target. His brutality against his other victims presents a series of details none of the agents particularly want to dwell on. There are, however, certain things that each case has in common;
"This guy likes to bite," McGee relates unnecessarily, "and his targets are always sexual."
"No need to say where," Gibbs directs.
"No. But both Scottoliza and Griffin said he acted like a vampire. When I pressed for details, I'd say they mean he overacted like a vampire. The way he moved, the way he spoke, it was like he got his training out of one of DiNozzo's movies."
"Hey!" The outrage would almost be enough to make Gibbs smile if he didn't have Avila's and Parziali's words ringing in his ears.
"Good work."
"What's next?"
"Now we meet the vampires."
On the way back to Headquarters, only one more telephone call remains to be made.
xxx
"I'm going out to meet with some vampires," Gibbs announces as he strides into Autopsy. It's a task he'd been prepared for this morning, when he'd first heard of the group, until other things had crept up. Sometimes he wishes he had a team of ten instead of five.
"I trust you picked up some garlic from the café kitchen," Ducky quips.
Having had enough questionable humor already, Gibbs instead turns to his friend's new assistant, recalling an earlier case when Michelle Lee had surprised him with a vast store of knowledge about witchcraft. "What do you know about vampires?"
She shrugs. "They suck?"
'Well, I can't get lucky twice,' he thinks. Just as well, he can leave her behind with a clear conscience.
"Who is it you are going to see, Jethro?" Ducky, recognizing Gibbs' nearly exhausted patience, manages to deflect attention away from the young woman.
"El Jefe of the vampires; calls himself 'Oberon'."
"Ah, yes, the Fairy King in Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' You shall have to let me know if it was a fortuitous choice."
"I was in that," Samantha says brightly.
"Indeed?" Ducky asks, turning to his assistant.
"Yes, I was Puck – well, Robin Goodfellow."
"Puck's a man," Gibbs points out, already sorry for allowing himself to be drawn into this conversation.
Samantha grins up at him. "They didn't have anyone else short enough." Since she barely reaches five two, he can't contest that.
"I did it in High School, before my growth spurt," she glances at Ducky, knowing he is too much of a gentleman to take advantage of that line, "but I still remember most of the lines," she draws a deep breath but catches Gibbs' glare, "which probably aren't the best for right now."
"No." He turns on his heel and strides out.
x
Ducky watches his friend's departure, wishing the man would devote more effort to patience. Behind him he can hear Samantha's soft voice.
"'If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumber'd here'," she looks up as Ducky turns and sighs sadly. "He really doesn't like me, does he?"
"Don't let it worry you, Sammy; Agent Gibbs simply takes a while to warm to people."
"How long?" Since she'll be here only during the Palmers' honeymoon, she hopes it'll be in time.
"Well," he says with a smile to soften the sting, "in Agent DiNozzo's case, I believe it was some three years."
"Great."