Disclaimer: I own the characters mentioned on my profile and the storyline. Lyrics belong to Anberlin.

(Revised and edited: 7/6/2015)


Deceitful Things

Chapter XXVIII: Play Your Cards Right


This was over before,

Before it ever began

Your lips, your lies, your lust,

Like the devil's in your hands


Danilo smirked as he could hear the phoenix mumble under her breath over the telephone, knowing she would've screamed in frustration if she had the chance.

"What do you want us to do?" He heard her snarl after a second's notice.

Danilo had to resist outright laughing at her continued defiance and obvious disgust towards him. He had to hand it to this woman, she was stubborn and completely in over her head, but she was headstrong and didn't let anyone get away with anything.

"Please, put the Van Helsing brother over the phone," he explained, before interrupting, "Oh, yes, Detective, I do know he is in your company. Do hurry, I am not very patient."

He heard voices over the phone, ignoring them as he took a quick glance at the squirming bundle in his left arm. He sat in an arm chair, the little plant monster dangling by his shirt by his paw and the rather bloodied babysitter werecat lying on his feet, her back being used to prop them up like an ottoman. She had some nasty looking gashes on her side, arms, a harsh-looking scratch going down her back, and her right eye was bloodied and swollen up.

"Please…please...please let us go," she wheezed out- he was thinking she probably had a collapsed lung after he threw her into the kitchen island. The little plant monster sniffled, and Danilo could see he was staring at the hybrid as if he saw the Grim Reaper himself (which was a bit correct, since he did plan on killing them, but whatever.)

"Hush, I'm on the phone," Danilo commented to her, before hearing some noises on the other end as masculine voice came over the line.

"Danilo?"

"Well, hello there, Van Helsing! I am so glad we get to meet again; it's been such a long time! Such a shame it could not have been Gabriel, but then again, not everyone does live forever now, hmm?" Danilo chatted as if he was at a lunch-out.

"Cut the crap, Danilo. What do you want from us?" Eric Van Helsing's emotionless voice replied.

"My, my, right to the point, aren't we?"

"Look," Eric's voice sternly continued, "Just let the kid and the girl go. We'll listen to whatever you have to say, but just let them leave."

Danilo remarked, "And why would I want to do that, Helsing?"

"Goddammit, they didn't do anything to you! Nobody here has ever done anything to you! It's me that you have a problem with! Do whatever you want to me, but you need to let them go!"

"No, I don't 'need' to do anything at all, Helsing. Do you not think I haven't heard that before? Of course, it's always nobody's ever done anything to me," Danilo snarled, an act a bit out of character, before returning to his calm demeanor, "It is only of mercy to kill this child and his nursemaid."

"Danilo, for God's sake, he's a kid!"

"And I've killed plenty of children, before. You of all people should know that. And he's a plant monster, what does he mean to you? It'll be no different than ripping a weed out of the ground. Isn't that right, my boy?"

Danilo held up the boy so he could stare at him. The child just whimpered and looked away, and Danilo was satisfied to hear his heart race. He was also satisfied to hear Van Helsing growl on the other end, obviously having heard the child's cries of fear.

"I really don't know why this concept is so difficult for you to understand, Van Helsing. I just want you to give me a moment of your time and not send any of your…reinforcements here. But if you insist on defying me, I'll stomp this little plant to pieces. Is it that hard to grasp?"

He heard someone sob on the other end, possibly the child's mother.

A moment after hearing Eric curse in Romanian, Danilo heard him suck in a breath before replying, "Okay, we'll do it your way. What do you want us to do?"

"Oh, many things. Shoot yourself in the head, sacrifice every monster to me, leave yourself on the front so I can kill you and that wretched Count."

"Damn you, you fucking-"

Danilo responded, "Really, child, must you modernizers curse every three words? Oh, such dirty language! But to put it into perspective, you are aware of the full moon in three days time, right?"

"….You want to meet us that night."

"Such a clever boy. Yes. What better way than to face the two men who entrapped me in that hellhole than to kill them when the Mother Luna is at her prettiest? What better way to show my dedication? It is the clearest night of this week. So, you and…Dracula," Danilo growled, "We meet that night. Maybe in the forest, maybe in the mansion, whatever suits you the best? Oh, I know what you are thinking, you're planning on ways to ambush me. But by all means, go ahead. The more, the merrier. I always loved celebrations! But, a warning, Van Helsing: We are to have no contact before that night. I will remain out of your way; you will remain out of mine. The second the moon's at its highest, it's a free-for-all."

"And if we violate these 'rules' of yours?"

"Does it really need to be explained? It's quite child's play, really: You violate my orders; I'll kill both this child and this girl. Then, I'll kill every single man, woman, and child in this village. And then do the same at the next village, and then the next, and then the next. I'll slaughter them like cattle until there's not one soul left standing…alive, that is. I've done it before for centuries, and I can certainly do it again. The question is whether or not you're willing to go through with that.

"You hear such younglings refer to themselves as 'monsters' as if that's something to be proud about. But they have no idea what it truly means. I really am a monster, Sir Helsing, and I will do what any monster does. I'll go through with what I was taught, what I have been doing until you finally- if that day is to ever come- hunt me down and strike me in the heart. But what will you do? Are you willing to risk this child's life just to finally be rid of me like you should've done all those years ago? Are you able to handle that much blood on your hands? Put all these lives at stake? The choice is yours. "

A few seconds passed with not a word spoken. But abruptly, Eric's reply came out. It was short and carried a heavy tone of resentment towards the volkodlac.

"Fine."

"Oh, and one last thing, Sir Helsing. You may want to set up a search party, as I have a feeling these two may have trouble finding their way back home."

Danilo let the child go, grabbing the babysitter by her hair and tugging her up so their faces were almost touching, "I must go now. The kitty and I are going to have a little fun…"

He cackled madly as the werecat starting screaming hysterically, tears rushing down her face. Danilo made sure that the Van Helsing descendent every word before the line went dead.


One look at the plant woman, and Nix could tell she wasn't doing so well. Her pretty green face was pale, her cheeks smeared by runny smeared rivlets of mascara and eyeliner. Her pink and green hair was badly mused, having run her hands through it so many times, and she looked exhausted, ready to have a nervous breakdown at any second. She was staring straight ahead at the dashboard, her shoulders badly trembling, her lips quivering.

Nix couldn't blame her. Looking at this girl, this young mother, she was reminded a lot of herself. A single mother only trying to get by in the world with a child saddled with her and the weight of the world on her shoulders- people judging her on the outside like they knew her life story. Oh yeah, Nix knew that feeling. She felt that feeling ever since the bitter divorce her and her ex-husband went through, in which the only real thing she had to keep her sanity intact was Blaze. And though it seemed Venus was doing well by herself without her son's father in the picture, Nix knew very well the pain of being alone and losing the love of your life never went away.

It just became a dull ache.

"I know how you feel," she suddenly spoke up, the painful silence in her car sliced by her voice. Venus looked at her, eyes wide and doubtful, though there was something that told Nix to continue.

Nix wasn't someone who liked to talk about her feelings. What was the use? She thought. Feelings couldn't turn back time. They wouldn't prevent the arguments she and Fier had during their marriage, the hour-long fights that would turn into one of them working overtime to prevent them from seeing one another, as that would just lead to another altercation, the final fight of words that led to their long and painful divorce when Blaze was seven, the fact that her son was now part of a very, very broken home. They wouldn't fix her broken heart, and they certainly wouldn't bring back the love she once had for Fier, nor would they return the love he once had for her. There was no love between the two anymore; hell, they didn't even like each other. Hence the crude words exchanged every time they crossed paths.

Oh, no. Nix didn't like to talk about feelings. And she certainly didn't care about other people's feelings.

But for some reason, this instance seemed to change her mind. Maybe it wouldn't make the young woman next to her in the passenger seat feel better, but at least it would do something.

"Funny how time changes, right? One day you wake up, you're twenty-three, carefree, cocky, and you feel invincible when they're right next to you. Like, all you need is them and you can take on the world. But then you wake up the next day, you're ten years older and realize that they're not the person you once knew. That you realize you have a kid and you have no idea on how you're going to not completely screw them over in their life. You're in love, and when you're young, you think that's enough. That what that movie says is true about love surviving any storm. But then you realize that saying's total bullshit. Love isn't enough, not when you can't even be in the same room together without getting at it, not when there's not a moment when you're not hating them, not when it gets so bad it's like everything that happened was just a dream."

Venus sat up, listening to the phoenix as she continued to talk about her life. Though they did not know each other, it gave Venus a sense of comfort knowing that at least somebody knew what she was going through. Her friends may have tried to sympathize with her, but at the end of the day, none of their husbands had left them barefoot and pregnant; their husbands went to bed with them every night, and were still there in the morning.

Before she could reply, the radio suddenly blared, a crackling sound coming over the walkie talkie. Nix took her hand off the steering wheel and grabbed it. "Nix, here."

"We found them. He took them to the park."

Nix and Venus looked at each, a beat of silence passing before Nix slammed on the gas, Venus being forced to grip the arms of her chair to avoid smacking into the window. Flashes of houses, streetlights, and buildings went by in a blur, her heart picking up speed in fear that Nix's sharp turns and jerks would get them into an accident. Time sped up as within minutes, the car was speeding down the streets that lined the park. Trees and leaves blended into a dark paint splotch against the indigo of the sky.

As they pulled into a parking space, the flash of red and blue police lights painted the dark background into bolts of light. A shed lay a few feet in front of them, a streetlight shining a few feet from that. Nix could see Blythe near the shed with a few other police officers. Lying against the shed, being treated by paramedics, was a frail-looking teenage werecat, the dark red splatters staining her t-shirt, jeans, fur, and pale blonde hair evident even from a distance away.

Nix could see Blythe kneel down, putting his hand on a rather shaken looking child, a plant monster about seven years of age, whose hair was a rather odd mix of white that shot through with pink and green.

"Triffan!" Venus screamed, flinging her door open and scrambling out before Nix had even put it in park, nearly tripping on the pavement as her toe caught on the edge. Gaining her footing, she sped down the park, gaining speed like a cheetah even with her spiked high heeled boots. Triffan turned at the sound of his name, unable to gain perspective as his mother launched herself at him and enveloped him in a bear hug, crumbling to the ground as he buried his head in her shoulder and dug his fingers into her shirt.

Sticking her hands in the pockets of her coat, Nix walked over, watching the heartwarming moment of mother and son as she came to Blythe's side.

"What's the sitch?"

"Nekole Pawterson, sixteen. She'll be in the hospital for a few days before she can make a witness statement," Blythe reported.

"And the kid?"

"Pretty shaken up and probably needs some major therapy, but otherwise, the bastard didn't lay a hand on him. There's something you gotta see."

Nix tilted her head in confusion as he partner turned, one sharp-nailed hand reaching behind and gesturing her forward. They walked a few feet to the side of the shed.

"Blythe, what are you-" Nix started to question, before the vampire held up one hand and beckoned her to be quiet. With the same hand, he pointed to the shed's wall.

A large, sloppy sentence was written on the wall, big enough to nearly cover it, the coppery smell and dark red shine on the material giving off the obvious hint in blood. With droplets running down and staining the metal, the message simply said:

tHrEe dAyS


Get ready, the final showdown's just a couple of chapters away.