Chapter Twelve

Guild Calls

Half an hour later, Mercedes's cell phone began ringing. She checked the ID, saw it was Val, and her expression shifted to confused concern.

"It's just my best friend, Valarie," Mercedes said in response to Alucard's inquiring look.

Alucard gave a nod in understanding and Mercedes answered the phone.

"Heya Val," Mercedes said. "It's a bit later than usual to be calling. Is everything okay? Did pop-pop end up in the hospital after all?"

"No, pop-pop is still home in bed and sleeping," Val said with a distinctly vexed tone. "But you were supposed to be logged on an hour ago for the boss run tonight. The loud-mouth fuck said we've been sitting on our asses waiting for you long enough and I either called you or he did, but we needed to get this show on the road."

Mercedes groaned in remembrance. "Basier ma vie… That's right… I completely forgot we were making that run tonight…"

"Uh, yeah, that was tonight Mercedes," Val said, clearly displeased by the absentmindedness. "We've only been planning this run for the last three weeks with trying to get everyone's schedules matched up."

"I know Chibi," Mercedes said in placation. "I'm sorry. I've just had a lot on my mind the last few days."

"Yeah, ok," Val said in a more chipper tone. "Now your memory is jogged, so hop your ass on and let's get moving!"

"I kinda can't though…" Mercedes said with a grimace.

"Why the hell not?!" Val exclaimed. "You're home aren't you?!"

"Of course I'm home, Val…" Mercedes ignored the raised eyebrow from Alucard as he listened to her best friend question her.

"Your computer isn't acting up again, is it?" Val interrupted.

"No, but…"

"So what the balls is the problem?" Val asked impatiently. "Me and Luke have been trying to keep Jan from flying off half-cocked for the last hour, which is about as difficult as defeating a Tarrasque with a stock party starting at level 1!"

"That's a literal impossibility," Mercedes deadpanned.

"Exactly! I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to keep his ass in a stasis."

"Chibi, I feel your pain," Mercedes said patiently, "but I have company tonight. I can't hop on right now as it would be rude to them, and I really can't go starting up a boss run like this right now as I might need to suddenly bounce off and then you'd all be left hanging."

"You have company tonight?! Seriously? Tonight of all nights?!" Val exclaimed, sounding half outraged and half curious. "Who is over there? Geo and Felix? Liam? Did CJ follow you home from work again for a meal? Cuz they can all take a hike, we've got a game to play."

Alucard gave the seer a pointed look to remind her to be careful what she said

Mercedes gave him a glare; she didn't need the silent reminder.

"No, it's not anyone you know, Val," Mercedes said evasively.

"Then who is it and why is it so damned important that we can't make this run?" Val asked even more indignantly.

"Val, I'm not getting into it tonight, but suffice it to say I'm a bit preoccupied and this either needs to get shuffled about so I'm not needed or rain checked."

"Holy hell! You've got a guy over there, don't you?" Val asked in surprise. "About the only way I can see you blowing off a run like this is if you're finally getting a better kind of action again."

Mercedes was instantly blushing and refused to even glance in the vampire's direction as she knew his hearing would have easily caught that loud declaration.

"Val," Mercedes said in a clipped tone, "it's not like that at all."

"Uh-huh, sure." Val wasn't the least convinced. "Who is he, Mercedes? It is a he?"

"My guest is a he, Val, but it's not what you're thinking."

"A guy is at your place this late at night and you're gonna tell me it's not what I think it is?" Val asked, highly affronted. "I'm not stupid, Mercedes. Who is he? Is he cute?"

"Val, I am so not having this discussion," Mercedes said in embarrassment, as she could hear Alucard chuckling now. "Especially not with my guest here."

"I can hear he's there; he's got a sexy laugh!" Val was instantly intrigued. "Please tell me the rest of him is that sexy?!"

"Val!" Mercedes had to restrain herself from yelling.

"Come on, Mercedes! Tell me!" Val pleaded.

"Yes, do answer that, draga mea." Alucard's sultry Romanian accent was back as he spoke aloud. "I'm almost as curious to hear your opinion to your friend's question as she is."

Mercedes shot the vampire a vicious glare, seeing him smirking rather tauntingly again. She couldn't believe he was pulling this stunt twice in one night. Especially as he well knew they had to be concerned with keeping others unaware of the looming situation and he was now making that more complicated to have happen. Mercedes didn't have time to retort though, as she was nearly deafened by Val.

"Oh my god!" Val exclaimed, voice hiking an entire octave higher before dropping again. "That accent is as sexy as the laugh! Who is he, Mercedes?! How did you meet him? Please tell me he's as hot as that accent? He sounds like he should be a voice actor for Castlevania!"

Mercedes hung her head in irritation. She heard Alucard chuckling even more so at Val's assessment. She shot the progenitor of vampires another furious glare as she answered her surrogate sister, "Val, he's just a business associate."

"You're conducting business this late at night?" Val was puzzled. "That doesn't make any sense. And I know you're a seer, Mercedes, so you can't lie… But then that means you're not telling me something, cuz no one conducts business at this hour unless they're vampires like Liam or Davin or something…" Mercedes's mental prayer that the pause didn't mean what she thought it meant went unanswered because Valarie quickly exclaimed, "Wait a minute?! Holy shit! Mercedes, is he a vampire?!"

Mercedes sighed and partially conceded. "He might be."

"And vampires are almost always hotties! How in the hell do you manage to meet all the undead hotties?! Please tell me you're gonna bang him?! I don't care if he's there for business right now. You desperately need to get laid and if he's been around any length of time, he's gotta be good in bed. You need to fuck him!"

Mercedes had no response to that. She was too mortified to speak. Especially as Alucard was laughing all over again, even more profusely than before.

"Mercedes?" Val said from the other end of the conversation. "Mercedes? Come on, Mercedes, I know you're there! Answer me! I haven't gotten any since the Dragon Prince at con last year, so I've gotta live vicariously through you. Bang him and then give me all the juicy details!"

"The Dragon Prince?" Alucard asked in confusion with a raised eyebrow.

Mercedes glared at him and clarified so his already inflated ego wouldn't get larger. "It's a character from a fantasy series whose country is constantly having issues with dragons. Someone was dressed up like him for a costume convention."

"What's your sexy-accented vampire look like?" Val asked from the other end of the line. "Could he pull off a Dragon Prince cos-play?"

"Not the Dragon Prince you're thinking of, no," Mercedes said wryly. "Now, seriously, Val, let's drop the subject and say goodnight so you can try working out with Luke what to do about tonight's run."

"Woah, not that quick," Val argued. "You can't let slip you've got a sexy voiced vampire over there and then change the subject like that! Dish, Mercedes!"

Mercedes's phone made a beep noise. She glanced at the screen and groaned in even greater irritation. "Val, I thought you said that Jan was letting you make the call?"

"…He was?" Val stopped her questioning to answer hesitantly in confusion.

"Then why is he calling me right now?" Mercedes demanded, phone still beeping with the incoming call.

"Probably got sick of waiting for you to hop on and I'm silent on the guild chat right now," Val said dismissively. "I should have noticed it got silent all of a sudden."

Mercedes's phone stopped beeping because she sent the call from Jan to voicemail.

Three seconds later, it started beeping all over again.

"Par les dieux!" Mercedes exclaimed in frustration. "Jan's calling again. Val, can you message or Skype Luke and tell him to confiscate Jan's cell? Please? I am so not in the mood to deal with him tonight."

"Not unless you start dishing on the guy at your place," Val countered mischievously.

Mercedes gave another groan of frustration and stomped a foot in irritation. "I'm seriously about thirty seconds away from turning my cell off, removing the battery, and not putting it back in until I have to go to work on Friday. Tell Luke to deal with Jan and then you and Luke figure out an alternative to tonight's run."

Her phone stopped beeping. Then started a third time.

"Nope," Val said immovably. "Jan's saying on guild chat that if you don't answer his calls or have your ass signed on in the next five minutes, he's heading up to Philly and he'll give you a reason to be too busy to make a boss run."

"Like Luke would let him leave the state and head back up to the tri-state area against the Elders' orders," Mercedes countered, entirely unconcerned by the threat. "Val, I'm gonna let you go so I can deal with Jan and talk to Luke real quick to try sorting this out."

"Wait, wait, wait…" Val said immediately.

Mercedes hung up on her best friend. She looked over at Alucard and glared even more furiously as she saw he still looked amused.

The human heiress pointed at the Vampire King and said in frustration, "You, your majesty, really are an incorrigible bastard. Believe when I say, I'll eventually get you back for this unnecessary, disruptive mischief somehow. A seer must always keep her willingly given word and I am giving you my word on that. Now be quiet when Jan calls again. You really don't want him hearing you and figuring out who you are, as he would be highly likely to start running his mouth to the entirety of the American vampire community about where you're spending your evenings."

"As you say," Alucard said with a nod of his head, still smirking.

When Jan called a fourth time, Mercedes answered the call.

"Evening, Jan," she said as levelly as she could. "Thanks for blowing up my phone."

"Mercy-cakes!" Jan's voice was like a foghorn through the speaker and Mercedes had to hold the phone away from her ear. "Got my second favorite guild bitch to answer her goddamned phone, so whatever the fuck works! Why the hell aren't you logged on yet?! Hell's Harem has a boss to gang rape and we can't do that without our Queen of the Biatches there to kiss our wounds and make them all better if things get a little rough in the process!"

"Jan, I'm sorry, but something came up for tonight," Mercedes said, trying to remain patient. "Can you please put Luke on the phone so I can try to work something out with him to salvage the run tonight or reschedule?"

"What?!" Jan yelled in surprise. "What the fuck do you mean 'something came up for tonight'?! Is the little dude sick again?!"

"No, he's fine…"

"Computer busted again?!"

"No, my computer is fine…"

"Then what the fuck, Mercedes?!" Jan demanded indignantly. "We've been planning on tromping this fucker for weeks! Hell's Harem needs you there to support the rest of us while we fuck this fucker's shit up! You can't just back out at the last fucking minute!"

"Jan, I said I'm sorry." Mercedes tried to offer a solution to this set-back that was unintentionally her fault- "Please put Luke on the phone so I can try to fix something with him. He's got the cleric cross class that could sub for me tonight."

"Fuck that shit!" Jan protested vehemently. "Luke isn't half the healer you are. And if he hops on as healer, we're going in without our best healer AND our best DPS. No fucking way! We'll get slaughtered like a bunch of pussies instead of being the ones to deliver the bloodbath! I don't care what our Queen Bitch has to fucking do to do it, but get your sweet ass on the goddamned computer, log the mother-fucking on, and let's go pound this one out like we planned! Otherwise I'm gonna fly up there and pound one out in you for fucking the whole guild up the ass by ditching on us!"

"Jan!" Mercedes snapped out at the crass vampire, at her tolerance level for irritations. "Seriously?! I've had it for tonight! Put Luke on the gods-damned phone, or I'm sending one of my hounds down there right now to bite your junk off and then you won't be fucking anything in the near future unless you're the one taking it up the ass!"

Mercedes saw Alucard raise an eyebrow at that threat. She gave him a pointed smirk, wordlessly asking if that was well enough threatened.

Alucard smirked wider and gave a single approving nod.

"Fuck! Mercedes!" Jan was yelling in horror. "You wouldn't fucking dare!"

"I've had a rough week, so try me, Jan," Mercedes replied sharply. "Put Luke on the phone."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" Jan reluctantly agreed. "Hold your tits and your dogs in check a moment, Bitch Queen. He's getting himself something to drink. When you decide to get all Damme it's fucking sexy and I don't need your hounds snapping my wood off before I get to jerk off just cuz big bro wanted his over-fucking-priced blood-wine break."

"Fair enough," Mercedes said with a sigh.

"So, Mercy-cakes…" Jan said, almost conversationally. "While we're waiting on big brother... Why aren't you making this run tonight?"

"I have some real life business to deal with," Mercedes said simply.

"What sort of business?"

"None of yours."

"Fuck off, Mercedes!" Jan exclaimed indignantly. "Here I am trying to be all polite and shit and you're gonna go being like that?"

"Jan, it's business, and you don't know how to keep your mouth shut for more than twenty seconds when the business isn't yours," Mercedes said flatly. "I'm not getting into it with you."

"Hey! Hey! Give that fucking back! I'm not done with Mercy-cakes!"

Mercedes could hear brief scuffling on the other end, more cursing from Jan that was becoming steadily further in the background until it faded away, and then Luke chuckling.

"Good evening, my dear Mercedes," Luke said in good humor.

"Good evening, Luke," Mercedes said in far nicer tones. "You're a gentleman and a scholar for rescuing me from the base refuse. I shall assume either Val filled you in or you overheard Jan's exclamations?"

"It's always my pleasure to be of service to the lady. And yes, Val made mention you are indisposed this evening for business. I also overheard as much as you were speaking with my idiot brother." Luke spoke with noticeably aggrieved tones in regards to Jan. "I can certainly take over as healer for this run; my secondary should be adequate for this boss. I messaged Vin and Kara when Val said you were unable to join the run tonight to see if one of them could hop on as DPS. I am still waiting to hear from them. If one of them are unable to fill in for my spot, we can reschedule for another night."

"Thank you, Luke," Mercedes said with a sigh of relief.

"My pleasure," Luke said pleasantly. "This is the first scheduled run you've had to miss in two years. It's not as big of a deal as the loud mouth is making it sound."

"Which one?" Mercedes asked wryly.

"Either, I suppose," Luke agreed, chuckling in amusement. "Oh, by the way. I received the book you sent me yesterday. Thank you again for tracking down that compendium."

"Oh! I'm glad to hear it made it there safely! And like I told you before, it was no problem," Mercedes replied. "Most anything can be found, especially on the internet, if you know where to look and are persistent. I just happened to catch that one quickly enough after being listed to secure it."

"Easy for the seer to say," Luke joked. "Not all of us have senses that poke us in the right direction at the right times so often. I've been trying to find a copy for nearly five years now."

"Hey, I can't always get hints on cue, nor can I make things be available just because I want them to be," Mercedes protested. "It took me nearly eight years to hunt down my tarot deck. Sometimes it's just good old fashioned persistence."

"Fair enough," Luke conceded. "I won't keep you any longer as you are busy this evening. I hope all goes well with whatever business it is you have."

"Thank you, Luke," Mercedes said with another sigh, this one a shade stressed. "I hope so as well."

"Are you alright, Mercedes?" Luke asked with a note of concern.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Mercedes replied. "It's just been a long week."

"Well, there isn't much I can personally do exiled out here in the sticks, but if my lady does need those services I can offer, you know how to reach me," Luke offered reassuringly.

"I know and I appreciate that, Luke," Mercedes said sincerely. "I have a busy few days ahead from the looks of things, but sometime in the next week or two, we'll try to catch up."

"Sounds delightful," Luke replied. "Try to have a pleasant evening."

"I'd say you as well," Mercedes said with a smile, "but I'm leaving you to Jan and Val's mercy, so I'll go with 'Good luck'."

Luke chuckled. "Thank you. Good night, Mercedes."

"Good night, Luke." Mercedes ended the call and let out a sigh of relief.

"You weren't exaggerating in the least with your description of your best friend or that Jan person," Alucard noted.

Mercedes glanced over at the vampire and gave a rueful laugh at the look of mordant amusement on his face.

"Now you see what I'm dealing with?" Mercedes asked rhetorically. "Like I said, you could have been stuck dealing with more-difficult-to-cooperate-with American allies. All things considered, Luke is a decent guy and we get along pretty well as we're both history buffs. Val really is a sweetheart and one of the most loyal friends imaginable under all her swearing and outbursts, but she can be relentless at times. As you obviously overheard, she grilled me and I'm sure I haven't heard the end of it, but she only told the guys I had business. She does know when to keep her mouth shut. Jan is mostly just a pain in the ass to deal with, though. He has his good moments, particularly in alleviating tense moods with some ridiculous stunts, but he has the attention span of a squirrel on crack and the temper of a rabid starving mutt, and you heard the results of that. I don't know how Luke hasn't killed him by now except to say it's family obligation and he'd otherwise be stuck as the only vampire within a few hundred miles of where they're living."

"I heard you make mention to your friend that the two vampires were not allowed in the tri-state area," Alucard commented. "And Luke said something about being exiled?"

"Indeed," Mercedes said wryly. "They used to live here in Philly up until the nineties, but Jan started to get on some of the Elders bad sides. Small wonder there." She rolled her eyes. "And then Luke went snooping in some archives that he wasn't supposed to because, as I said, he's a history buff like I am, but he had less reservations about how he obtained materials he wanted than I do. He wasn't caught in the act, but the Elders knew it was him. I'm not sure exactly what happened or what he was looking into. I just know that the Elders gave Luke the option to move himself and his brother down to Oklahoma, which is the equivalent of hell on earth for vampires in this country and none live there if they don't have to, and not leave the state boundaries unless they plan to leave the country permanently, or they'd be dead. So they moved down there and opened a club."

"Oklahoma?" Alucard asked, raising an eyebrow. "They have a lot of tornados if memory serves me correctly."

"Yes, they do," Mercedes replied, confused to his line of thought.

"You mentioned your son slept through a tornado while visiting friends," Alucard pointed out. "Were they the friends you were visiting?"

"Oh." Mercedes coughed nervously and looked away. "Might have been them."

"You weren't concerned about the dangers of visiting vampires you only knew from the internet who lived across the country?"

"As you've seen, I'm perfectly capable of handling myself against average threats," Mercedes replied matter-of-factly to the thinly veiled rebuke, gaze back on the progenitor of vampires. "They're vampires, so an attempt to attack me would have been treated quite differently than humans. While Luke could have been a significant danger if he wished to be, we have a fairly strong rapport with one another due to similar interests in research. I knew he'd not wish to kill someone he can intelligently converse with as there are so few for him to do so with. Not to mention, Luke knows I'm friends with Elders. He well knows he would ruin any chances of getting back in their good graces and his exile lifted if he harmed me, and in fact would have signed his own perma-death warrant by doing so. Being friendly with me gains him far more than endangering me, and he is more than smart enough to use that to his advantage. Jan is more bark than bite, especially as Luke keeps him on a short leash, so being around him is more a danger to one's mental faculties than their physical wellbeing."

"Yet you allowed your son around a vampire who can't speak a sentence without swearing or making some crass comment?" Alucard asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Xander was a baby at the time, so he wasn't likely to pick up the bad language, and Luke made Jan mostly stay at the club while we were visiting," Mercedes replied a bit defensively, blush faintly forming. "I went down to trade notes and books with Luke on something and Val came along to help keep an eye on Xander or keep Jan occupied so we could work in peace. And Jan was under threat of slow death from both Luke and I if he slipped up in front of Xander like that. Summoning Cerberus and Hades on him once was all it took to keep him mostly behaving."

"Is that why he calls you 'Bitch Queen' and was so easily deterred?" Alucard asked, now sounding vaguely amused.

"Uh, yes to the latter and no to the former," Mercedes said, discomfort growing for another reason now. "The game we play has people pick a user name, and Val was the one who talked me into joining and made the account for me. She knows about my hounds, and I knew I wanted my first character to be a druid who could summon animals, so she picked QueenBitch as my user name as a joke. I dislike being called a bitch, but she thought it'd be funny and I didn't feel like making a new account. Luke and Jan joined the old guild we were in, that guild kinda fell apart, and the four of us started a new guild with a couple of old members transferring over with us. We had already visited Luke and Jan at that point, and their club employs scantily clad vampire waitresses, so Val and Jan decided it would be funny to call the new guild 'Hell's Harem' as it contains two vampires, myself, and Val as my apprentice in magic."

"What were you and your scholar vampire friend, Luke, trading notes on during your visit?" Alucard asked, having noticed her embarrassed reaction and attempt to steer the discussion away with talk of the online group on general.

"Um…" Mercedes turned away and walked into the kitchen to fetch a fresh cup of coffee. "I'd rather not discuss that."

"Would rather not, Seer, or can't?" Alucard persisted, smirk forming as he followed her.

"Would really rather not," Mercedes stated again, having a feeling he had already made the correct guess and didn't want to have to actually confirm it.

"Why is that?"

Mercedes sighed in frustration. This truly seemed to be her night for unending humiliation. "You're not going to let this drop, are you?"

"Indeed not."

"They were notes on you," Mercedes said briefly, taking the Band-aid approach of just getting it done and over with quickly. "Luke is a huge fan of yours. Not just huge, but probably one of your biggest this side of the ocean. He and I got to talking one night between some raids we were doing in game and I mentioned I was researching you for academic purposes. We ended up having a really long debate on things written, especially in regards to whether you were the original vampire or not, as there are stories of supernatural beings similar to vampires that predate you by many centuries. We ended up having several more debates and then, as he isn't allowed to leave Oklahoma, we had the visit down there to trade notes and sift through everything we had both acquired to try sorting fact from fiction."

"I see…" Mercedes didn't have to turn around to know the progenitor of vampires was grinning; his voice was filled with even greater open entertainment. "Seems a lot of trouble to go through just for the sake of research, Seer."

"I'm a history buff with vampire friends," Mercedes reiterated as she tried to keep a neutral voice so as to keep from giving the vampire more ammunition to tease her with. "Your story is quite the puzzle to try unraveling. Perhaps one of the biggest historical puzzles to occur in the last millennium. That's all there was to it, Alucard, so don't get any ideas to the contrary."

"And the compendium you tracked down for Luke was likewise about myself?"

"Yes," Mercedes said with another sigh of aggravation.

"I'm surprised you're not attempting to interview me yourself for the sake of research," Alucard said tauntingly.

"I've got other things to concentrate on right now and I've been learning enough as it is from just interacting with you," Mercedes said with a smirk forming. She glanced over her shoulder to Alucard, "But if you'd like to change your stance on making such things I learn known, your majesty, I could always conduct an interview and write a short exposé on your current interests and activities when this is all said and done."

"Don't even think about it, Seer."