Many thanks to my wonderful beta, moonflower333 :)
Fandom: The Gates
Title: Deep in the Wilds of Suburbia
Pairings: Canon
Rating: Call it PG-13
Summery: What if the paranormals had no more clue about each other's presence in the Gates than the Monahans do? Devon gets into some bad Juju and Nick and Dylan team up to track down a rogue vampire.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. I'm just borrowing it, and when I'm done I'll put it back where I found it.
Chapter Thirteen: House Call
Dylan woke to the sound of the doorbell. The bed was empty and cold beside him, but if he listened, he could just hear Claire moving through the house downstairs, on her way to answer the door. When she spoke, her voice was strong and cheerful.
"Oh!" she cried. "Come in, come in. Dylan! It's Peg!"
He rolled over and rubbed his face. He had never quite gotten used to waking up before dusk. By the time he dressed and entered the kitchen, Peg had already taken it over. Big bushy bundles of herbs lay across the counters and the same black bag from the night before sat next to them. Outside the rain had stopped and the sun peeked out, making the world outside distressingly bright as it reflected off puddles on the patio and glinted in drops that fell from drenched leaves. And here Dylan had been hoping it would stay overcast all day.
Claire inspected a small glass object in her hands. She held it up when he came in, puzzlement in her face. It was a glass dolphin, its back arched as if jumping. Peg stepped around the island toward him, sandals slapping on the tile.
"Hi, Dylan. I've got one for you, too," she said, and dropped a little wooden teddy bear into his palm.
"You shouldn't have," he said, and returned Claire's quizzical expression.
"They're charms," Peg explained. "For protection. Try to keep them on you if you leave the house.
"And the herbs?" Claire asked, her hand hovering over one of the bundles.
"Don't touch those!" Peg ordered, and Claire jerked her hand back. "The magic's a little delicate," she continued more calmly. "It's better if I'm the only one who handles them." She came back to the counter and held up a green bundle with thin, oddly shaped leaves. "I've got lavender for luck and sage," she shook a bunch of gray-green leaves at Dylan, "for harmony."
"And the branches?"
"Oh, I got those at Pottery Barn." She twirled a bundle of sage. "I think they'll round out the arrangements nicely."
He looked back down at the teddy bear. It had a bow tie. He held it up to Claire.
"I'll trade you for the dolphin," he said.
"Not likely," she said, smiling and lifting one brow.
"No trading," Peg admonished them. "I picked these for a reason. You each have your own that will only work for you. At least I think they'll work. Devon's gotten into something and I don't know what she'll do now. Oh, and salt." She said the last to Claire. "Salt disrupts the energies. Put a ring of it around the house and it'll be that much harder for her to do anything to you."
"Is all this really necessary?" Dylan asked. "Couldn't I just pop 'round and give her a good," he looked at Claire, "talking to?"
"Been there, done that," Peg answered. She sighed and started sorting the herbs into attractive arrangements. "It's better if you stay away from her for now. I know how to handle this kind of thing, so just let me deal with her." She pointed at a tall bar chair. "Can I use that?"
"For what?"
She held up some sage. "We should put these above the doors. I've got brackets, and…" She opened the bag and started digging through it.
"No. No, absolutely not."
"Dylan," Claire said, pleadingly. She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck, the dolphin still in her hand. "Let her help," she said quietly.
"There have been enough people invading our lives lately. We don't need them coming by unexpectedly to—to redecorate."
Peg continued rooting through the bag, pretending to ignore them.
"She knows more about all this than we do."
"For all we know, you got better because of Devon's help, not hers. It was rather convenient of her to just show up last night."
"Dylan, do you honestly think she's untrustworthy?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I trust her."
"You trusted Devon, too."
"No, I never trusted her. She tricked me into—" She glanced at Peg, who poked idly through her bundles. "I'll give you the details later. I trust her. I think she can help."
He put a hand on her neck on the old, invisible bite and she leaned into it.
"You look better. How do you feel?"
"Like new. After Devon left, I felt… violated." She hissed the last word. "But not now. Whatever was making me sick, it isn't there any more. I can feel it."
"Alright," he said.
"Thank you," she whispered. She returned to Peg while he sat at the island to keep a close watch on things. Claire arranged a chair in front of the patio doors and handed up tools to Peg as needed.
"I can put those up for you," he said as Peg lined up the brackets with a leveler and a pencil. She laughed.
"Sorry if I'm stepping on your manhood, Dylan," she said. "But for best effect I really should do this myself. I appreciate the offer, though."
"So Peg," Claire asked with exaggerated casualness. "How is Devon able to do all this? It seems almost like witchcraft." She glanced at Dylan, her smile barely concealed.
"That would be because it is. Dylan saw a little last night. Hammer."
Claire handed the hammer up, exchanging it for the leveler and pencil, and smirked at Dylan.
"Oh, that's good to know," she said. "Dylan and I were in disagreement on that point."
"What my lovely wife is trying to say, Peg, is she told me so." Under his breath he added, "But I was right about the sunscreen." Peg did not react except to begin hammering but Claire heard him clearly and rolled her eyes.
"You're not getting out of it that easy," she told him. "I've earned this gloat and I'm going to savor it."
"So would that make you a witch, Peg?" he asked, ignoring Claire's remark.
"Lapsed. Bracket."
"What does that mean, exactly, 'lapsed'?"
"It means I went to med school and I don't do love potions," she said over the sound of the hammer.
When the patio doors were properly decked, they relocated to the arched entryway of the front doors and Dylan managed to convince Peg to let him carry the chair. No sooner did she stand on it, leveler and pencil in hand and blocking both of the double doors, than the doorbell rang again. Dylan pulled the curtains aside to find Nick standing on the doorstep. He pointed to the side, indicating the patio, and went back through the house, hoping Nick would understand and meet him there. Moments after he stepped outside, Nick appeared around the corner in uniform and with a file folder thick with papers under one arm. He shook his head and frowned questioningly.
"What's going on?" Nick asked, gesturing at the house. Dylan snorted.
"Oh, couldn't you tell? The local witchdoctor is adjusting our feng shui."
"What?"
"You've missed a lot. That's Peg Mueller in there. She and Devon are witches according to her. Devon's the green one and Peg's the one in pink. Oh!" He dug the charm out of his pocket and displayed it. "She gave me a teddy bear. Do you ever stop and ask yourself 'when did my life go off the rails?'"
"Every day. We need to talk."
"Am I under arrest for something or is this social?"
"Neither." He hefted the file folder. "I'll see your teddy bear and raise you a third body. You're a sort of expert witness at this point and I need to ask you some questions." He paused, frowned, and lowered his voice. "You really think Devon Buckley is a witch? What's that even mean? She dance around trees or turn people into newts?"
"I can't speak as to what she dances around, but she made Claire sick and…" He shook his head and glanced through the glass of the patio doors. "Nick, she was bleeding out faster than she could drink it. I've never seen that."
"Well, I went looking for her this morning. I checked her apartment complex and she's not answering her door. The spa is closed and the guy who runs the café next to her says she's out of town, but he doesn't know why or where to. I had Eddie pull the logs for the gate and we've got her leaving the Gates at about five this morning. Got video of it, too. He's gonna call me when she shows up again. And Dylan? If she shows up dead…"
He did not need to finish the sentence. If she showed up dead, Dylan would be the first suspect. He almost pointed out that if he killed her, she would not show up at all, but instead put his hands behind his back and nodded.
"Understood."
"This," Nick lifted the file folder again, "is the Jansen case, now quickly becoming the vampire murders case, if you've seen the papers."
"I haven't. Is this third body as obvious as the first two?"
"I'd rather find somewhere to talk first."
"Ehm…" As much as it pained him to let another outsider into the house, he was reluctant to leave Claire alone with Peg and between the sun overhead and its reflection in rainwater everywhere else, it was getting uncomfortably bright out here. "Inside, I suppose." He led the way in and was about to sit at the dining table when Nick stopped him.
"There somewhere more private?" He nodded at the women in the foyer. "This is an ongoing investigation. I'm not even supposed to be talking to you. I'm sure you understand the need for confidentiality."
"Of course." He changed direction and led Nick into the foyer where Peg teetered on her perch, the tiles making the chair unsteady. Claire had one hand on the chair back and the other up in case Peg fell. She craned her neck to whisper so only Dylan could hear.
"Witch or not, she'll crack her skull open," she hissed.
"Hope springs eternal," Dylan murmured back, earning a quizzical look from Nick.
"Tch," she chided.
Nick exchanged a brief greeting with Peg and Claire as the men went upstairs. Dylan opened the door to a small, darkened room lined with wooden bookshelves stained a deep brown that seemed black in the gloom. An old, overstuffed chair and a comfortable-looking leather couch took up space in the middle of the room. Thick curtains blocked any light from the single, large window. Nick squinted in the darkness at the spines of the books that overflowed the shelves, then gazed around as if looking for something before shaking his head at Dylan, who crossed to the window and pulled the curtain aside.
"You would have a library with no lights."
"Yes, well… Can you see well enough now?"
Nick sat in the chair, the closest piece of furniture to the indirect sunlight coming from the window and nodded. He dug a little green notebook and a pen out of his breast pocket as Dylan took a seat on the couch.
"Okay, first things first," Nick began, clicking his pen. "I need you to tell me everything you did in the apartment."
Dylan settled back in his seat and crossed his arms, having decided to humor the man to get the information he wanted and send him on his way.
"Not much," he began. "I went in, poked around a bit, planned to just wait until he came home and get him then. But then I found the body, and apparently I'm out of practice at sneaking around because the neighbors saw something and called the police. I jumped out a window, went to the car and called you."
"How did you find the body?"
"Stuffed in a fridge."
Nick snorted. "What made you look in the fridge?"
"I was looking for a beer."
"Really?"
"Yes. I thought I was going to be there for a while."
"You don't strike me as the beer drinking type."
"I didn't strike you as the blood drinking type initially, either."
"Good point. I just thought it might have been your friend that wanted the beer." He said it casually, as if referencing something they both knew to be true. Dylan saw the trap and skirted it.
"What friend?"
"The, uh…" He made a show of searching for the description in the notebook. "Forty-something white male dressed too well for the neighborhood that was seen entering the building and prowling around the hallways about twenty minutes before the thirty-something white male that was too well-dressed for the neighborhood showed up. No one saw either man leave."
"I don't know who this man is. Maybe he's the one I was looking for."
"Oh, yeah. That could be it." He tapped the notebook against the edge of the table, as if in quick and excited thought. "He might'a come home, saw or heard you coming, and jumped out the same window you later used. Perfectly plausible. But then, if that's the case, why did he come back later lugging takeout?"
"Takeout?" This time Dylan's confusion was authentic.
"Vic number three." Again, he flipped through the notebook. "This one happened after you left." He read off his notes. "Hispanic male, mid-twenties, found near the building in the parking lot. John Doe, no ID. No one in the building could identify him, so he probably didn't live there. Here's the thing about this guy. He was killed after police arrived on the scene upstairs. People heard shouting, sounds of a struggle, went to investigate and found him. A woman upstairs said she saw two men fighting in the parking lot, but it was too dark to get a good description. John Doe was bitten, too, but not as neatly and he bled out on the pavement. Dead by the time the paramedics arrived. The perpetrator fled the scene before anyone could get a good look at him. Makes me think our guy was bringing home dinner and was surprised to find cops crawling all over his pad. So, why'd he come back, Dylan?"
Dylan gave him his best innocent shrug, but Nick smirked, a malicious glint of humor in his eyes that resonated with something deep and dark inside Dylan, who laughed, relenting.
"You're enjoying this," he accused.
"Yeah." Nick grinned.
"Look, it doesn't matter who, if anyone, was in the flat with me. This is my responsibility, not yours."
"Bullshit. Who was this guy?"
"He's a…"
GOING CRAZY. NEED TO SEE YOU. – C
"An acquaintance," Dylan finished.
"This acquaintance got an alibi for Saturday night?"
"I didn't ask." Dylan frowned. Was Christian responsible? Why would he leave such an obvious trail? It was just possible that Christian was in one of his moods and might do it as part of some ill-conceived plan to run Dylan and Claire out of the Gates. Suddenly, he felt a great deal more well-disposed toward Nick and his questions. "It's unlikely that he killed the woman in the flat. There was a vampire there, but not him."
"What makes you think that?"
"The smell. My acquaintance is… family of a sort. Family smell different from strangers, and it was definitely a stranger's flat."
"I guess I'll just have to take your word on that. What do you know about the cleaning solution all over the place? The best prints we got were a couple of partials on the underside of a cupboard door."
"Oh." He winced. "That was me. Didn't want to be linked to the place."
"You ever been printed?"
"No."
"Then I'll be sure to look that up."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Too bad. Next time wear gloves. Good news is we got a full print off the John Doe's glasses. Looks like the thumb. If the guy's got a record, we'll know who he is. Now, here's my next question. How do you turn someone into… one of you?" He gestured at Dylan, who just stared at him. "It's relevant, Dylan. Here." He shuffled through the file folder and pulled out a stapled packet of photocopies of hand-written notes. He leafed through them until he found what he was looking for and handed the packet to Dylan. "Third paragraph down. The ME found blood of unknown type in Jansen's mouth and stomach. Now, I've done some research." Dylan gave him a look before he continued reading. "Yeah, I know. Everything's true on the Internet. But this exchange of blood thing keeps showing up, which makes me think—"
"These are the notes from the autopsy." Dylan held the packet up, his eyes wide and his mouth dry in dawning horror.
"Yeah."
"Nick, I need to get back in the morgue. To Barbara's body. Now."
"Well, we can't go now and I don't have the key card anyway."
"So get it back."
"I can't just wave my magic wand, Dylan. Why's it so important?" He lowered his voice. "He tried to turn her into a vampire, didn't he?"
"Yes. He may have succeeded." Dylan rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. "Alright. It takes a few days for all the changes to occur. During that time you're more or less paralyzed but you're awake. You can feel what's happening. If she was turned and someone performed an autopsy on her…" He shook his head, not wanting to think any farther than that. Nick sat back and chewed his lip.
"Would that be enough to kill her for good?"
"Depends on if you think there's a God," he muttered, then louder, "We're very hard to kill."
"Okay, so we need to get back in."
Dylan spread his hands and gave him an exasperated nod – Ya think?
"I can probably convince them to let me in to see the latest bodies." Nick shook his head. "Or something. I'll palm the key then pick you up at ten."
"No, I'll pick you up. My car's less conspicuous."
"The BMW? No way. Anyway, nobody asks a cop what he's doing."
"You won't want to be associated with whatever I decide to do about this, and there'll be no hiding the evidence. My car."
"What are you gonna do?"
"I don't know. I can't…" He paused. "The other two, what do you know about them?"
"What am I looking for?"
"Blood in the mouth and stomach?"
Nick consulted the notebook.
"Okay, the one in the fridge? Name's Ackerman. There was blood in the mouth," Nick read off his notes. "And in the John Doe's. But it might have been theirs. Won't know 'til the tests come in."
"Tests." Dylan leaned forward and put his head in his hands. "Nick, this could be disastrous. If the others think that we're about to be exposed, they will remove anyone they think is a danger."
"Remove. You mean kill the investigators."
"If necessary. They'll go after the proof. If something shows up in these tests and they find out about it, they'll destroy the evidence and anyone who gets in their way."
"Then we need to find this guy. Fast."
"'We'? No. No, you need to stay out of it."
"Look, I'm not exactly eager to go head to head with one of you. I've seen what you can do. But you made a good point the other night. You've got a kid and a job. How are you going to do this without help? Time's wasting, and every minute this guy is loose, he risks exposing you and killing more people in the process. You said this is your territory. Can't you get the others to help?"
"It doesn't work that way."
"Then how does it work?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Jesus, Dylan."
"The situation is complicated. Political. If I involve them, it puts me in a bad position."
"Yeah, well, it sounds like they're going to get involved one way or another if someone doesn't take care of this fast. Dylan, can you honestly tell me you can handle this on your own?"
Dylan sat back, thinking, one hand to his mouth, the thumb unconsciously rubbing the middle finger. Nick had a point. He had a life during the day now and it was getting in the way of hunting at night. Claire would help, but he did not like the idea of getting her out of one danger just to throw her into another. He was also not quite ready to forgive her for keeping secrets from him. Christian, of course, was out of the question. Nick must have read something on his face because he nodded as if Dylan had responded out loud.
"Look," Nick began, "Maybe there was a time you could track someone like this down by yourself without blowing your cover, but that time is over, my friend. Now, are you gonna accept the help I'm offering, or are you gonna let him get another one in tonight?"
Tonight. Dylan thought of something and sat up straight.
"Nick, when was the third man killed?"
"'Bout six this morning. Why?"
"The sun has been coming up at around six-thirty."
"What's that mean?"
"Well, we can't all walk around in the daylight." He put his hands together in front of his mouth. "Assuming he can't, if he was surprised to find his flat unavailable, then he'd have to go to ground somewhere nearby."
Nick nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, he'd have to be within a half-hour walking distance." He cut off Dylan's protest. "No one heard a car engine start, so unless he parked pretty far away—"
"Unusual caution for someone complacent enough to bring the hunt home."
"Exactly. Dylan, how'd you find the apartment the first time?"
"Pure luck. I stopped for petrol and picked up the scent."
"Really?" The questions in Nick's face were growing more obvious, but to his credit he stuck to the pertinent ones. "Think you could do it again?"
"Not if I had to search the whole city, but if we've narrowed it down…" He shrugged. "Maybe."
"Are you sure this guy can't go out in daylight? What's stopping him? What lets you do it? And don't shut down on me. It might be important."
"Sunscreen."
"What?"
"Sunscreen."
"Bullshit." The corner of Nick's mouth twitched.
"No. Not everyone has access to it. My researchers developed it; another firm produces it. The… community at the Gates dispenses it to friends. We like to keep quiet about it, though. There's not exactly an infinite amount of it."
Nick coughed, ineffectually trying to cover his smile with his hand.
"You're serious," he said.
Dylan shrugged and nodded. Nick smirked, grinned, snickered, and finally burst out laughing.