Laura Hollis had left the Dean's former residence that night with a very simple goal in mind: find her girlfriend. Simple was not the same as easy, of course, but she was confident that if Carmilla saw her - or smelled her, she supposed - she would come out once it was safe to do so. She'd expected that the worst she might face was disappointment at not finding her, sore feet, or possibly blisters.
She hadn't been expecting a hailstorm of boar-hunting arrows.
She wasn't quite sure what had happened. She'd seen a couple of Zetas crossing the North Quad, so she'd headed in their direction. She honestly hadn't thought they were part of the patrols - or that they were off-duty, anyway - since she was pretty sure those consisted of more than two people, for safety's sake. She'd been planning on going up and talking to them, giving Carmilla - if she was around - plenty of time to see her. Failing that, they might have at least given her a better idea of where to search. Then she'd caught an odd motion out of the corner of her eye, and looked up to see a wall of death bearing down on her.
She'd done the only thing she could: she dove forward to avoid as many arrows as she could, curled up to make herself a smaller target, shielded her head as best she could, and screamed like a banshee when they started hitting her.
She had, at least, managed to dodge most of them. Clearly, her unorthodox strategy had caught her assailants off guard - or that was what she'd be telling Carm later. (That had totally been intentional, not just a by-product of her panic; that was her story, and she was sticking to it.) As the adrenaline rush started wearing off - and the pain began setting in, dammit, ow- she peeked out from under her arms to see that most of the arrows had fallen behind her, as if to catch someone fleeing. Or taller. Or both.
It began sinking in that she'd wandered into a trap meant for Carmilla (and/or Mattie), even as she tentatively began uncurling, sensing that the attack was over. On the one hand, she was glad that Carm (and Mattie, she supposed) hadn't been the targets. They would have been in a lot more trouble had they been incapacitated like this, and even just being hit would have been bad; she would be able to replace her lost blood a lot more easily than they would, given their current restrictions. On the other hand, though...
She kind of wouldn't have minded having someone she could trust there, to help her.
"What the- Hollis?!" Well, she supposed any help would be better than none, and since she was pretty sure that had been Theo's surprised voice, odds were she'd be getting medical attention before long.
"Holy shit!" she exclaimed, eyes wide. "I think my life just flashed before my eyes!" She frowned a little. "It's kinda sad that it actually improved once I got to this school..." She tried moving-
Mistake.
She'd woken up that morning with a killer hangover and splitting headache. (It had been bad enough that she counted it separately, as well.) This wasn't quite as bad in terms of pain, she didn't think, but that wasn't saying much. And she was bleeding. Still, as much as it hurt, she made herself twist enough to be able to see her body, needing to know how bad the damage was.
There was an arrow sticking out of her right calf, another had hit her hip bone (it must have been going fairly slow, as the bone didn't feel broken, and the arrow hadn't gone very deep; still, an X-Ray would probably be in order), and one had sliced a line along the back of her neck, pinning some of her hair to the ground. Given the multitude of arrows that had come at her, she knew she'd gotten insanely lucky. It was slowly sinking in that, not only could she have died, but that she could have died because someone had tried to kill Carmilla.
Anger sparked to life deep inside her. Slowly, inevitably, it began spreading throughout her body, warming her numbed limbs, fighting to suppress the pain. They'd tried to kill Carmilla. She'd saved the school last semester (even if that had only been a by-product of her saving Laura), and they'd just tried to kill her. Might have succeeded, had she been there.
Oh, I'll kill all of you myself...
Rational thought tried dragging her back, but she wasn't having it. Nobody - nobody - tried to kill her girlfriend and got away with it.
"-ey, you still with us?" Theo was saying. She hadn't noticed him crouching in front of her, or the other Zetas and Summers nearby. Rational thought tried again, pointing out that if she tried starting something while she was that distracted, Carmilla would be needing to avenge her death in short order. Reluctantly, she had to concede that point. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"
Glaring, she snapped, "Well, I was trying to catch up with those two bros so I wouldn't be out here by myself. Then I was getting impaled."
"Yeah... Sorry about that." To his credit, he did look apologetic. "This area was supposed to have been cleared of civilians." He directed a dirty look at Mel - oh, of course she was involved in another arrow-related incident - who seemed unmoved. "So when the archers saw someone approaching the bait..."
Patience... Lord, please give me patience... "I hate to break it to you, but Carm is a lot faster than me. Mattie's probably even faster still. A long-distance attack like that would give them more than enough time to get out of the way."
"Yeah..." His voice dropped to a barely audible volume. "Honestly didn't expect to actually hit anyone with this."
Her anger lessened a bit, at least toward him. If he'd just been following orders, counting on Carm to get away without taking any damage... Well, she had plenty of experience with putting on a show and giving people what they expected to see, after the beginning of this semester.
"Though, she may still show up, with you out here like this," Mel noted, not seeming terribly sympathetic. Or apologetic, for that matter. Laura gladly embraced having a new target for her anger.
"Hold still," one of the other Summers told her before she could say anything that she really wouldn't regret, if she was being honest with herself. Then the arrows were being pulled out, and the world vanished behind a red haze of pain.
She may have screamed again. She honestly didn't know.
When she came back to herself - again - she gradually became aware of one or more people bandaging her up. They suspected they hadn't gotten all of the arrows out, and wanted to take her to the hospital for X-Rays. (Somewhere in the back of her mind, she idly thought that the fact that Silas had a fully-staffed hospital, complete with X-Ray machines, an MRI chamber, multiple operating rooms and the like really should have been a clue that something wasn't quite right at that school, back when she'd been looking the info over before applying. She'd just been so excited about being able to leave home, and the stifling protection that he really didn't need, she didn't care what her Dad's people thought...) Mel argued against that, saying she was in no danger for the time being, and they wouldn't get any better bait for Carmilla. Somewhere during all this, they'd given her some freaking awesome painkillers, and her pain was fading away to nothing. That probably wouldn't last, but while it did...
With some effort, she got to her feet. She could almost stand normally, making her suspect that whatever they'd given her was of the same vein as the additives to the Zetas' beer, because that leg should not have been supporting her weight.
Gift Horse. Mouth. Come on, Hollis, focus.
This didn't go unnoticed. "See? She's fine," Mel said dismissively. Theo shot her an annoyed look, then turned to Laura... and hesitated, clearly understanding what the tense posture and utterly neutral look she was directing at Mel signified.
"Yeah, well, on the assumption that Karnstein and Belmonde aren't total idiots, we're going to continue our patrol." Or, he knew what was likely coming, and didn't want to stick around for it. He headed off, and the few other Zetas there - as well as a couple Summers, to Mel's obvious annoyance - followed him, leaving Laura standing there with Mel and four of her more loyal sisters. Or thugs. Whichever.
Five of them, then. She could deal with five. "You don't really expect this to work, do you?"
"Why not? Rescuing you is what she does. And after your drinking binge, she likely won't be far. I'll be honest, using you as bait did occur to me before."
"You're not going to be able to ambush her as easily as you did me," Laura pointed out, if only so no one could later claim she hadn't even tried to defuse things. "Especially standing around in the open like this." She was pretty sure Carmilla was nearby, though. She could feel it, somehow.
"Like we'd need to?" Mel scoffed, giving her a disdainful look before turning to scan the bushes. "Thanks to the Baron, we're on much more even footing, now."
"I don't know how you can drink that beer. It tastes like fish."
"Maybe so, but-" Mel froze, as did her sisters, evidently just then realizing just what Laura had been binge drinking last night... and that they didn't have any advantage over the injured and angry young woman they'd just turned their backs to.
Laura smiled. It wasn't a happy one.
Mattie had very nearly needed to tackle her sister to keep Carmilla from charging out into the Quad, regardless of the numbers or how heavily they were armed. If Laura hadn't started talking, she wasn't sure she would have been able to manage it. "Stop it, Mircalla!" she whispered harshly. "Use your brain. This isn't going to help her."
"Don't call me that," Carmilla hissed back. "Not now."
Mattie honestly wasn't sure how to react to that... and before she could figure it out, Laura was screaming again, and she had to move very quickly to stop Carmilla's forward lunge. They were next to one of the buildings, and if she managed to make it around the corner, she'd be spotted immediately. Carmilla, clearly, simply didn't care.
"No! They're taking the arrows out. Let them."
Carmilla was quivering with rage. "I will tear them apart with my bare hands."
"Sounds like a party. You might want to wait until your girlfriend isn't directly in the line of fire, though?" Mattie couldn't remember off the top of her head the last time she'd seen her sister so furious. Moments like this made it quite clear jut what their Mother had seen in the young Countess Mircalla.
"I know, I just..." She winced at every single pained noise Laura made. Fortunately, those seemed to be decreasing. Someone, evidently, really was trying to help Laura as best they could with what supplies they had on hand. "Okay, so some of them might live," she muttered.
They listened as Mel and Theo quietly argued over what was to be done with Laura, and Theo then excused himself and a number of the troops. Smart boy, Mattie silently commended him. She risked a quick peek out, darting forward and back in the blink of an eye. It wasn't risky in that she was worried about being seen, but because she had to let go of Carmilla to do it. "Five of them," she murmured. "Shouldn't be too much of a challenge." For the umpteenth time, she cursed whatever alchemical brew Vordenberg had given his troops. This shouldn't have even been a fight. She listened to Laura arguing with Mel and frowned. For her sister's sake, she wasn't sure she liked where the conversation was heading.
Strangely, as they talked, Carmilla actually began relaxing. When Laura commented on the beer, she even chuckled faintly.
Mattie raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny? She's still surrounded."
Carmilla answered that with a question of her own. "Do you know what the difference between them and Laura is?"
"Anger-management issues?"
Her lips twitched. "Well, that," she drawled. "Also the fact that, with the playing field having been evened, they're just a bunch of girls who like shooting things but otherwise don't know a thing about fighting..."
The sounds of violence erupted from around the corner.
"...and Laura's been a dedicated student of Krav Maga since she was eight."
Mattie's eyebrows rose as the fight continued, all shouting and blows landing and sounds of pain. Someone's phone began ringing. Fortunately, it began winding down before they could attract any obvious attention, culminating in the clear sound of snapping bone, and a (presumably unconscious) body hitting the ground. The ringing phone was abruptly silenced.
A moment later, Laura limped into sight, seemingly no worse for wear than she had been before the fight started, and looking just a bit smug.
Mattie decided she'd earned it.
This time, there was no restraining Carmilla from hurrying to her girlfriend's side. "Laura, are-" No, obviously she wasn't 'alright'. Blood was soaking through her bandages, her limp was getting worse, and Carmilla had barely reached her when that leg folded underneath her, nearly sending her to the ground before Carmilla caught her.
"I... could use a doctor," Laura allowed with a pained, rueful smile. "I think that fight burned through a lot of what they gave me." She didn't think that was how drugs were supposed to work, but normal logic went out the window when the supernatural got involved. "Not that I'm not really glad to see you - because I am - but what are you doing here? You know this was a trap meant for you two, right?"
"No, what are you doing out here?" Carmilla countered, trying not to sound as angry as she felt. Her panic, bereft of a target, was shifting into anger, and Laura didn't deserve to have that aimed at her. "You're supposed to be at home. Safe."
"I was looking for you. I- Oh, crap, my bag!" She began looking around frantically. "Do you see where it went?!"
Mattie, her eyes far better suited to the darkness covering much of the campus - Mother certainly had been stingy with the lights, hadn't she? - spotted a canvas backpack laying abandoned on the ground not far away. Picking it up, she held it out gingerly - some of Laura's blood had splattered on it, and she could smell the corruption of Vordenberg's alchemy plainly in it. "This is it, I presume?"
Laura sighed in relief. "Yeah. There's a book in there that may help. I can't read it, though..."
"So you came looking for me," Carmilla finished, shaking her head. "That couldn't have waited?"
"There are fewer people out at night; I thought I had a better chance of meeting up with you unobserved than I would in broad daylight," Laura countered, and there was a certain logic to that. Not enough to make Carmilla happy, though.
Curious, Mattie opened the bag... and froze. "This is one of Maman's books."
"Well, yeah. Where did you think I would have gotten it from?"
Mattie shot her a sideways look. "What made you think it would help, then?"
"Perry." She hesitated. "That... was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about," she told Carmilla. "I think... she may still have an unwanted passenger."
Carmilla sighed. "Given how many people have died here over the centuries, I suppose it isn't a surprise that one or more might have hung around. But we can worry about that after we get you some medical attention. I heard what they said about arrow pieces still in the wounds."
"Maybe still in there," Laura corrected. "Is it safe to go to the hospital?" she asked Mattie.
"They have no reason to detain you," she pointed out. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Admittedly, the administration might be a bit upset about her laying a beatdown on the Summers, but that could be written off as defending herself.
Then she caught the look on Carmilla's face and realized not only why Laura had asked that, but why she'd asked her. Carmilla plainly had no intention of letting her girlfriend out of her sight, and Laura knew better than to try and budge the immovable object. "Where's that mad scientist friend of yours?"
"LaF's... in one of the labs... in the hospital," Laura admitted reluctantly enough to let them know whose idea that had been. "They're looking into how to reverse the contamination of the blood supply."
That drew Mattie up short. She wasn't quite used to that level of consideration from humans, even if their concern was directed mainly at Carmilla and the Librarian. "They can take a break long enough to make sure one of the exam rooms is empty, at least."
"You're not walking on that leg," Carmilla stated firmly, scooping her up and walking toward the hospital as quickly as she could manage while still sticking to the shadows.
"I guess I'm not," Laura agreed, sounding bemused. With nothing else to do, she fished her phone out of her pocket. Or someone's phone, anyway.
"Is that an iPhone?" Carmilla asked.
Laura smiled a little, ignoring the slowly returning pain as best she could. "It's Mel's iPhone. Or it was. They broke mine, so I needed a replacement." She felt Carmilla's chuckle rumble through the chest she was pressed against, and her smile widened. Better she be amused by how she was evidently a bad influence on Laura - or a good one, depending on one's point of view - than realize she'd lost her old phone due to it being smashed by an arrow. Examining the iPhone, she let out a muted squeal of excitement and tapped something, eliciting a ding-ing noise. "Siri, can you hear me?"
*ding-ding* "Yes. You don't sound like Mel."
"Ooo, I didn't know they'd upgraded the voice recognition software that much!" She beamed. "Good to know the tech boys share, sometimes." Before either vampire could ask what that meant, she tapped the button again. "I'm not; my name's Laura Hollis. This is my phone, now."
*ding-ding* "Good. I'll make the necessary changes."
She buried her face against Carmilla to mute her laughter as much as possible. "I love this," she choked out. "Even Siri doesn't like Mel!" That kept her amused the entire walk to the hospital.
As much as LaFontaine hated to admit it, they were enjoying this. Oh, not the arrests, attacks, or friends (and whatever Mattie qualified as, these days) persecuted, but what they were doing now: Being handed a clear-cut problem and having free reign to solve it with science. The time constraint they could have done without, but nothing was perfect.
Science had always been their saving grace, their preferred way of dealing with the strangeness that pervaded Silas. As they'd told Perry earlier, if you dissect it, it can't hurt you. They smiled, remembering the conversation. Perry showing up to catch them before they left had been a surprise, though not as much of one as what had followed. Of course, this was Lola 'Communication is the Key to Solving Your Problems' Perry they were talking about, so perhaps it shouldn't have been. Still, they were glad to have their best friend back, and the delay for ice cream dinner had been more than worth it. Laura hadn't been present, evidently having headed out to look for Carmilla. Given that she was one of the few people on campus that they knew would be completely safe from vampire attack, LaF wasn't too worried.
Finding a sample of contaminated blood hadn't been too hard - clean blood would have been the challenge - but an unoccupied lab...? Harder to come by, unless they wanted to explain matters to the hospital administration, and try to somehow keep them from letting Vordenberg know what they were doing. Somehow, they didn't quite believe he'd be okay with it. But with the Alchemy Department facilities locked down, and the school's proper bio labs closely monitored, the hospital was their only option.
There was a research lab tucked away in a back corner of the second floor that seemed promising, but turned out to already have an occupant, a woman in black pants, a midnight blue shirt, and a white labcoat. Still, maybe they could share...? The woman looked up from the computer she'd been peering intently at upon their entrance, looking them overly carefully. "And who are you?" she asked softly, a faint British accent in her voice. She stood at about five-foot-five, with brown eyes and long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. LaF didn't know her, but something about her - her posture, her face, something - was vaguely familiar, so they'd probably seen her around campus at some point. "I don't believe you work here."
"No..." They needed to be careful, here. They didn't need the woman calling security, or something. "I just need to use the lab." The intent look was starting to make them nervous. "My name's LaFontaine."
"Ah." She relaxed, clearly knowing who they were. That was... hopefully a good sign. "Well, I don't see a problem with that. What is it you're trying to do?"
"Just curious about what the Baron's supposedly done to keep the vampires from feeding on us." They weren't about to admit to someone they'd just met what they were really looking to discover.
"I see." The ever-so-faint smile playing at her lips made LaF worry that she saw more than they wanted her to, but she simply inclined her head and gestured toward the rest of the lab. "I'll admit, I would be quite interested in learning that, myself."
"He didn't even tell hospital staff, in case something went wrong?" They frowned. That was just not good leadership.
"Are you honestly surprised?"
No. No, they couldn't say that they were, sadly. "Guess I'd better get to work, then." Something about that half-smile really did seem so familiar. Had she been a TA during their freshman year? She seemed a little too old for that - LaF tentatively guessed her age as being somewhere in the mid-to-high 30s - but there was no rule that said that only students in the 18-22 range could attend university. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Did I not say? How rude of me. I apologize. My name's Rebecca." She didn't offer a last name, but using only one name hardly set her apart at Silas.
LaF walked past her toward the lab equipment, noting as they went that she'd evidently been looking up student records. Admittedly, there were dozens of reasons she might want to be doing that, and since she was being nice enough to look the other way as they did their off the books labwork, they didn't feel comfortable pressing.
"Since you're here, perhaps you could clear up a few... discrepancies for me?" Rebecca asked casually as they began setting up. CBC first, they decided. It'd be informative to know what the blood cell count was before doing anything else.
"What about?"
"The file for one J.P. Armitage seems... disjointed." She had LaF's full attention. "Student class of 1874, listed as missing, presumed dead... until earlier this semester, when his status was updated to undead - a not entirely unusual change at this campus, but the only one with a gap of well over a century - and his student credits listed as 'expired'." She raised an eyebrow as she continued, "Given who was in charge of this university, it should come as no surprise that they kept excellent records of all blood-related matters, such as his blood type... which seems to have completely changed in the interim."
"Ah." They supposed that would be a legitimate medical concern. "You haven't watched any of Laura's videos, I take it?"
Silence. They turned to see Rebecca had paused mid-motion, attention suddenly sharpened. "Laura." The intent look was back. "Hollis?"
"Yeah." Rebecca must have heard about what had gone on last semester, if she hadn't watched any of the videos, given that she'd recognized LaFontaine's name, if not her face, and clearly knew who Laura herself was.
She closed her eyes, massaging the bridge of her nose. "Of course," she muttered. "Of course she's involved in this. That girl cannot stay out of trouble to save her life."
LaF wanted to argue that point - really, it wasn't always Laura's fault that she wound up in the situations that she did - but was interrupted by her phone ringing. "Hello?" Well, speak of the devil... "Oh, hey, Laura. We were just- What? Wait, you were shot?" Rebecca wasn't even pretending not to be paying attention. "Arrows... Right. I'll... get on that. You just get here." She hung up, paused, and turned to Rebecca...
...who didn't even give her a chance to speak. "I'll make sure one of the X-Ray rooms is clear. You should secure your research materials before going to meet them. Wouldn't want the staff seeing what you've been up to, would we?"
"Point." Though, the way she said that indicated she wasn't on said hospital staff. "Are you a doctor here? You never said."
"No, I didn't," Rebecca agreed, shutting down the computer station she'd been at and heading out the door.
"Great; because we clearly needed another mystery," they grumbled. But, doctor or not, Rebecca hadn't been wrong that they needed to get moving
They could worry about their new friend later.
