Jack slammed down the pay phone in disgust, collecting the leftover coins it spat out at him. Daniel, Sam, Rogue, and Bra'tac watched him inquiringly.
"Line's dead," he griped, shoving the coins into a pocket at random. He accepted the crystal back from Rogue. "Can't tell if it's this one or the airport's though."
"Either way," Bra'tac pointed out, "It is a bad thing, is it not?"
Daniel peeked over at Sam's shoulder at the map she had just opened up. "Where is the airport anyway?"
Sam's eyes studied the paper before her closely. "That's what I'm just trying to figure out." They stopped moving as she caught sight of something. She jabbed her finger at a point on the map. "There." She grimaced. "It's going to be a bit of a walk."
Jack forced a smile and pushed the crystal into his coat pocket, zippering it. "I guess we better get moving, then."
Luthro did not want to give too much away about his plans by biting the airport officials. He could not be sure that with the crystal the mutants and their new friends would not be able to track them whenever new vampires were made. So his followers were reduced to scare tactics to frighten the other passengers away, and settled down impatiently to wait for the flight.
Airports are the same no matter what, the vampire sulked, they always make you wait too long.
If he thought that it would further their plans, he would have bitten the offending air controllers to hurry their trip along, but Dracula's covey was understandably trying to keep a low profile. They were so close to making the United States ruled by a vampire that they couldn't risk their enemies stopping them now.
A slight rustle among his vampires distracted Luthro from his musings. "What is it?" he demanded, an involuntary chill running down his spine.
Susan, a mousy-looking woman with glasses, threw a worried look in the direction of Dracula's second-in-command. "I lost contact with Hubert and Leo outside of the airport."
"They probably just forgot that their supposed to stay in contact," a model-wannabe snorted, tossing her blond hair, "relax."
Susan's teeth lengthened and her eyes glowed red at the implied insult to her judgment. "I don't like it," she hissed.
Luthro stepped between the two of them. "We can't take anything for granted," he told the blond vampire. She pouted.
Luthro ignored her and turned to Susan. "You take Quincy, Paul, and Leon out to check it out. Keep in contact and be careful, it could be our human friends already."
"Humans are no problem," the blond protested, a little put out at his taking Susan's side.
Luthro leveled a glare at her. "With the crystal they are. Learn your place, Diana, and don't presume so much."
Susan smirked at Diana and took to air. "Quincy, Paul, Leon! We need to check on Hubert and Leo!"
The three men answered her summons, and with one last brilliant smile thrown in Luthro's direction, Susan led them out.
In the end, Jack ended up splitting up his little group even more when they reached the airport. Bra'tac and Rogue were far stronger than any of SG-1, and O'Neill hoped that her powers and his symbiote would protect them both from being turned into vampires. Besides, he felt better if they came at the building from different directions since it was no doubt filled with vampires.
"Gotcha, chief," Rogue chirped, grabbing a startled Bra'tac from behind and taking to air. Bra'tac initially struggled, but adapted quickly to this new vantage point of the battlefield.
"Keep radio silence unless you see Baba or one of you get bitten," Jack warned, "I don't want the vampires to know there's two groups."
"Understood," Bra'tac acknowledged. Rogue just threw Jack an exuberant grin and flew around to the back of the building.
Jack turned to the rest of his team. "Daniel? Carter?"
"Lemme just catch my breath…" Daniel gasped. Carter nodded in sympathy and rubbed her calves.
"It was a long walk, sir," she admitted.
"No kidding," Jack grimaced, "don't you just hate Rogue and Bra'tac for not even breathing hard? Unfortunately, kids, Earth may not have time for us to catch our breath. There's bound to be guards, and we need to take them out before they sound the alert."
"You need to, you mean," Daniel pointed out, looking at the stone Jack had taken out of his pocket, "you're the one with the crystal."
"We need to mass-produce this thing," Jack griped, holding the crystal up in front of him. He started walking forward, his eyes flitting back and forth as he took in the area. Daniel and Sam fell in behind him, their all-but-worthless weapons at ready.
Daniel broke the silence again. "Uh, Jack?"
Jack didn't even slow his stride. "What?"
"Why do we need these weapons if we know they won't work against vampires?" He pushed his glasses up and looked apprehensively around.
"There might be Jaffa around, Daniel," Sam reminded him. "We can shoot them."
"And it's a comfort thing," Jack added, "Like Linus and his blanket."
Before Daniel could question the reference, Jack cut in: "Vampires up ahead."
Sure enough, two male vampires were languidly loitering around the door of the airport. One glanced up upon when he noticed their approach, and he said something to his companion, eliciting a chuckle from him. The Joker stepped forward a false smile pasted on his ugly face.
"Hey, man…" he began. The rest of the sentence died unspoken in his throat as SG-1 came closer and he saw what was in Jack's hand. His eyes widened in terror, and his hand scrambled for his cell phone. Backing up, he hurriedly tried to dial with shaking fingers.
"Oh, no you don't!" Jack announced. It had already clicked in his mind that they weren't close enough for the crystal to affect the vampires yet, and he knew that couldn't let Ugly get a hold of his friends. With a toss that would have made Roger Clemens proud, Jack flung the crystal at the vampire with all of his might. It smacked the other man in the chest, sending him sprawling, and rebounded away from Jack.
Jack didn't have a chance to curse his bad luck when Ugly's companion reacted. Obviously more angry than he was smart, the vampire didn't bother with calling for backup and rocketed toward Jack, eyes a fiery red. Jack backed up, his P-90 spitting bullets worthlessly at his attacker. "Daniel! Carter! Get a hold of that darn crystal!" he yelled anxiously over his shoulder.
He didn't bother listening for their acknowledgments as he tried to continue keeping the vampire at bay. The P-90 barely slowed him down, though, and Jack tumbled backwards as he backed off the curb. The vampire took advantage of his loss of balance to knock him down flat on the street.
The red-eyed monster smiled hungrily at him, his teeth lengthening. "This," he lisped, grabbing Jack's throat in an iron grip, "Is for Leo."
Jack wanted to challenge him, or to yell at Sam and Daniel to hurry, but he couldn't breathe and the world was going out of focus. His body wouldn't respond to his frantic orders, and all he could see were those fangs getting closer and closer…
Just as Jack thought he would pass out, he felt something cold and wet touch his neck, and then he heard a weird scream and the pressure against his throat was gone.
"Jack!" He felt himself being propped up against someone's body, and anxious hands examined his throat.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Stop that; it hurts.
"He's breathing," the voice announced to another person in relief, "he's just got some saliva on his neck and a nasty bruise. Talking and breathing isn't going to be fun for a while."
"Sir, you need to respond," the other person told him, also feeling his neck, but for a pulse.
Jack's head was now beginning to clear a bit, and it was dawning on him who was talking to him. "Carter, Daniel?" he croaked, opening his eyes.
Sam pulled back her hand. "You worried us a second there, sir; you passed out."
Jack's brow crinkled. "Don't remember that," he managed, wincing at the effort. Man, it hurt to talk!
"He almost crushed your throat," Daniel explained from behind him, still supporting Jack, "Came that close to biting you as well."
Sam nodded and held the crystal up to where Jack could see it. "He was so busy with you, though, sir, that he didn't even notice me coming. I made sure to knock him and his friend out just in case they get any urge to get themselves vampired again."
"They might notice when these guys don't check in," Daniel added, shifting his grip on Jack, "so, whenever you think you're ready, I think we should get moving again."
Jack nodded, and started to stand up. Carter reached forward and grabbed his arm to help steady him, and Daniel kept himself pressed against Jack's back. Jack stood there a second, getting his bearings.
He nodded once more. "Okay," he whispered, "I'm fine."
Sam tentatively let go of his arm, but Daniel didn't back up. Jack decided to let that pass – for now.
"Carter," he said huskily, "you've got point with the crystal. Daniel, you and I need to stay as close to her as possible. We don't need a repeat of what almost happened back there."
Carter nodded and started moving slowly ahead. Daniel finally stopped pushing against Jack, but still kept a cautious arm out ready to catch Jack in case he lost his balance.
Proud as he was, Jack wasn't going to quibble with Daniel about this now; he would have done the same for the younger man.
As the three slipped stealthily into the airport, Jack hoped the others were doing better than they were.