And the Rest is History
46
Avian Way
They stepped out on Avian Way. As they neared, Drake stared up at it. "Oh, my gosh!"
It was a tall, dark shingle, white painted, Victorian style farmhouse with heavily hedged white fences. "That was not here when I last looked!" Little lamps hung at intervals along the fence line.
"What's the matter?" Morgana asked. "How is it supposed to look?"
"Like a small two story building with a single garage and a tree."
"You're saying it doesn't look like that to you?"
Drake turned to her. "We're seeing different houses? Hooter?"
"A very large, Victorian style house tightly fit onto a regular house block."
Hooter read out the warning sign on the fence. "It says 'beware the gnomes and fairies'."
"What says 'beware the gnomes'?" Morgana said in mild frustration, "Confounded; it must be enchanted."
"It looks enchanted to me," Drake agreed, "So; gnomes, Morgana?"
"Oh," She answered in mild frustration, "stay on the path, do not step on the grass. I assume there 'is' a path?"
Drake took her hand and led her along the path up the front steps.
The broom standing by suddenly took off, sweeping at them to get off the porch.
The door ripped open, "No-no-no!" In a white shirt and grey jumper, the youth caught the handle, "Naughty, Broomie, what did mum tell you?" He told it off.
The resident was head and shoulders over Drake, built muscular but thin. He put the broom back in the corner and turned back to them. "I'm sorry, how can I help..." His gaze drifted to Morgana.
The light and pleasant tone in the youth's voice vanished and a much darker tone took its place, "Oh, I see. Come inside." He showed them in.
The hall was rendered in an artificial wood texture.
The young duck's eyes continued to draw to Morgana. "My name's Justin. Justin Mallard." He introduced himself in that same serious tone.
He showed them into the front right room. A basic TV stood in front of the thick curtain and laced street side window. A simple fireplace was parked on the interior wall between the small, compact lounge and the door. Two armchairs upholstered in a yellow tapestry stood off to the side in front of a busy looking bookcase. A small round table stood between them with a mouse statue on it.
"You've got a very nice house here." Drake started with a smile.
Justin turned his eyes to Drake, glaring in suspicion. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"
"Drake." Drake answered, perturbed by the quiet hostility. How had he off-sided this Justin so fast?
Justin snorted, "No, Justin. And I'm the only one here at the moment, so I'm sorry but you'll have to speak to me or come back another day."
"Oh, that's fine," Drake attempted another smile in the face of this unwelcoming attitude, "may we ask what you do for a living?"
"I'm a waitperson." Justin frowned, "Not sure what that has to do with you. Why do you feel the need to ask such a frivolous question?"
Drake cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you offside."
"Really, are you 'sure' about that?" The tips of fangs had become visible as Justin spoke.
Lurker vampire. Drake blinked. "The reason I asked about the job, is because, are you aware, that there's a curse on the Mallard family blood line?"
Justin's prickling continued, "Yes. Thank you. I am aware..." He stated stiffly. "Oh! The broom!" Justin suddenly said, his voice a slightly higher pitch, "Broomie belongs to my mother."
Drake frowned. There was a panic at the base of this vampire's voice. "What have you 'done'?"
A dark sedation replaced the prickling temper. The snake had coiled. Justin glared back. "Nothing yet. I'm just... waiting for you."
Definitely lurker. Drake swallowed, "So, I see."
"Justin, what's the matter?" Morgana's voice, and feminine footsteps coming down the stairs.
Justin stepped away from Drake. "Some people from the witches council, mother." He gestured to them then vanished right before their eyes.
"You'll have to excuse my son; he's a vampire." The Morgana duplicate said politely as she approached, "they're very... 'sensitive'." Morgana stepped through the doorway and looked at the three of them. The resident Morgana was wearing a black dress with red trim very similar to one of his wife's: same taste. Recognition hit. "What...? You're not from the witches council!" She rubbed her brow.
"What's your son hiding from the witches council?" Drake asked automatically.
"No, he's 'not' hiding anything; 'we're' hiding 'him'." Morgana replied argumentatively, "To the extent that they shouldn't know he's alive, but I'm sure he'll rectify that 'little detail' in a comparatively short interval now he's an adult." Her voice was dramatic and loud compared to his own Morgana beside him, "You're from that universe Dovesworth came from, I take it?" She folded her arms.
Sudden calm. "Yes." Drake swallowed, this woman was intense.
"Oh, well, he's not come back, at least not to this house."
"Why... why do you need to hide your son?" Drake asked, feeling rather weak.
"A vampire and a witch; it's a terrible scandal. The witches council hold that vampires are not allowed to practice magic and vice versa." Morgana shrugged, "As such we sent all our children to public school."
"You..." Drake felt uncomfortable with the question, "Have other children?"
"Our daughter Raya. The witches council 'know' about her..." Morgana uttered in a tone of ill-appreciation. "Erm, you look rather pale. Are you alright?" She suddenly asked with new trace of concern.
"I'm fine, I'm just trying to come to terms with everything."
"Well. Can I offer you a cup of tea?"
"Thank you."
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen had been de-modernised with a hearth and a pot on the stove. They sat down at the plain wooden table. As the kettle boiled, the resident Morgana picked up the notebook near the stove, read the details on the front page and then put it down again.
"Your son," Morgana spoke from Drake's side, her voice so much lighter than the other's, "Is good with magic?"
"Level thirteen." She answered thickly from the stove.
"That's extraordinary." Morgana applauded lightly.
"In of himself I agree. Since he's taught himself solely from books."
"And you are...?"
"Level ten."
"Socially acceptable."
"Of course."
"And your daughter?"
"She's a teacher." Morgana spoke as she made the tea on the sideboard. "Married; her address is in your notebook I should think. Her husband works for S.H.U.S.H.." Morgana handed them cups of tea. "Then there's our adoptive daughter, Gosalyn. She works at S.H.U.S.H. as well. She and Dark don't always see eye to eye, but then, that's the way he raised her." She sat down with her own cup.
"So you really only have one son?" Drake felt a little more assured of the sense it made.
"My husband maintains he has three. We have four grandchildren at this present moment..." She paused in her listing, "er... extended families." She added in a slightly off tone, "A few friends. And then St Canard. The family computer is in the library."
"Are you hiding anything?" Drake asked outright.
Morgana stiffened, "Just my husband's halfway house." She replied in some propriety, "It's all old computers and such things in there. He uses it now as a place to think sometimes, to sleep occasionally..." She sat back, "Uh. I feel so inordinately uncomfortable without him."
Drake wasn't sure that was the reason she felt uncomfortable. She was still withholding. He needed to try a different line.
"Has he ever bitten you?"
The resident Morgana glared at him in a way that reminded him exactly of Justin.
"Have you ever been bitten by a vampire?" He rephrased.
Morgana stared at him. "Oh, I see. Well, for your second question, yes I was, and for your first question, my husband and I share a spirit link. Our energies are fused together; we are yin and yang and your question is meaningless."
A large spider climbed up on the table. It neared her fingers and she started patting it.
"You have a familiar." Drake's Morgana lightly noted.
"Yes, that's a rather long story. You don't have one?"
"No."
"How on 'earth' did you 'survive'?!" The resident Morgana gazed in horror at herself.
Morgana by his side hesitated, "Er, with some difficulty."
"But however did you get away from him?"
"Drake helped me."
Resident Morgana's face took a slightly pink tinge. "Well. That's far more easy to imagine."
"Why doesn't your son recognise us?" Morgana asked, "We're basically his parents from an alternate universe."
Resident Morgana was a little more pleasant in her tone now. "A vampire knows exactly where their family members are and I am right here. Therefore you're someone else."
"We need to find this halfway house." Drake resolved.
"I said 'I' was hiding it, not my husband." Morgana sighed, "The Audubon bridge." She shook her head. "You are playing against yourself, Darkwing... You are here." Morgana gazed solidly back at him. "That means you've already reacted. He's won."
Drake clenched his fist. this was doubly upsetting for the fact she was using it to block him. "He's playing chess with us. There are more pieces on the board than allowing only one move. I'm not taken out; I can still change the direction I'm moving."
"Perhaps you 'should' go to the bridge. Try to make friends with my son. You might learn something that can help you against my husband."
Drake sat back. "They don't get along?"
Morgana raised an eyebrow as she brought her cup to her beak, "My son is his own person. He speaks for himself."
"I beg your pardon." Drake frowned in a blush. "The bridge?"
"No doubt he'll be there by the time you arrive." She glanced away.
"Doing what?"
"Not my business," Morgana's voice was suddenly curt, "is the answer to that." She stood up. "Allow me to see you to the door."
With finality, Morgana ushered them out the door.
They walked along the path.
"That was a very sudden bluster. She was nice enough until that last question." Morgana ruminated as they trekked across the suburbs.
"It's the maternal temperament." Hooter explained, "One sees it all the time in criminal cases. The mother protects the son. They are hard-wired to do it and it's very difficult for them to do otherwise. The most we can usually do as investigators is read the pain in their expressions to try and gauge how bad the situation their son is in."
"Oh," Morgana responded hollowly, "Thank you. I suppose."
Drake clasped her hand.
"Because she knew that of herself," Hooter considered, "That's why she had to send us off so quickly."
"Did you get anything?" Drake asked him.
Hooter was quiet for a time.
He answered at long length, "Something questionable."
"It's a rather ill-feeling," Hooter mused, "to think that vampire has our every move locked down before we've even done it. I can't see it, but it's easy to imagine. Vampires are rather on top of whatever their chosen line is."
"He's still a person." Drake replied stoically. "Now we know his weak point is his son. It's a defensive protection barrier."
"But surely redundant now he's an adult," Morgana mentioned.
"Which gives a good point to the question on how well the two get along." Hooter disagreed. "The boy is more than ready to look after himself."
"But do they get along?" Drake repeated.
"His parents are still protecting him, there's at least some friction there." Hooter advised, "And we know he resents the witches council; to a point of preoccupation," Hooter continued in thought.
"But 'who doesn't' resent the witches council?" Morgana dismissed, "My father heads the council so you know how atrocious they are by that statement. I do feel terribly sorry for him. Vampires are not well accepted in their circles at all."
They continued to walk. Drake checked his phone for the time and discovered it was flat. Instead he looked to the sun. "I think it'll be sunset by the time we get there."