Disclaimer: Carmilla the web series was created by Jordan Hall and Ellen Simpson, and is based on the novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Hellboy was created by Mike Mignola. This odd little blending of the two, however, was created by me. Here's hoping it works...

Laura would freely admit, she didn't exactly have a huge circle of friends. She'd had more growing up, but even then, close friends - the kind she might hang out with, that her Dad knew well enough to trust that she'd be safe going over to their houses - had been somewhat rare. There had been some over the years, though, and of those, at least a few had brothers. As such, while she hadn't ever been in a room in one of the boys dorms at Silas, she had (if only in passing) seen what boys' bedrooms looked like.

Tookerman's room was far better kept up than she'd expected. "I kind of expected more... debris," she remarked quietly as she looked around. It wasn't that it didn't look lived in, by any means: the bed wasn't exactly made, there were notebooks and textbooks on his desk, a couple of shirts hanging over the back of the chair, and a few posters taped up on the walls. (Posters for musicals and plays in varying languages, not just German and English.) There weren't any empty food containers or dirty plates left laying around, there wasn't anything strewn about on the floor, there weren't any odors that she might well not have wanted identified...

Carmilla chuckled, handing her a pair of blue nitrile gloves which she wasted no time in putting on. (Laura did have a package of vinyl gloves in her bag for situations like this, but, while cheaper, they were also less durable, didn't fit quite as well, and weren't really meant for dealing with chemicals or potentially infectious material. Prior to coming to Silas, that hadn't really been a concern.) "Yeah. This isn't the BPRD's first time dealing with a situation at a college - though none of those were the kind of long-term mission that this one is - so I know that the 'messy college guy' stereotype has a solid basis in reality. Not that it's only guys who do that. Hell, my quarters back at HQ can occasionally be classified as a disaster area." She paused, smirked, then added, "But don't worry. If you ever decided to visit, I'd make sure to have it clean for you."

Laura eyed her. "Would you be saying that if you didn't know that my limited funds and overprotective father who'd freak if I left town, never mind the country, made that almost certain not to happen any time soon, if ever?"

"What?" Carmilla asked, the very picture of innocence... assuming that picture was blurry and out of focus. "As resourceful a young woman as you are, I wouldn't put it past you to manage it, if you really set your mind to it." More serious, she added, "Besides, you're nineteen. You get to decide what you do with your life from now on, not him."

"Me or the Dean," Laura muttered. Her comment killed any kind of playful mood either of them might have been in, and she shook her head, refocusing on her surroundings. "Right. Back to it." The notebooks were the obvious first choice to search through, but quickly proved to have nothing but class-related information in them. Would it be considered paranoid to wonder if they'd been left out as decoys? Possibly, but without really knowing the guy, Laura couldn't say for sure that he wouldn't do something like that. There was no computer, indicating he likely had a laptop, which he'd brought to class with him. (Which, really, would be the whole reason to have a laptop at college, she thought.) There weren't any suspicious notecards or bank receipts in his desk, though Carmilla mentioned she hadn't found any bank slips in Perry's room, either, and they knew she'd been making large deposits. There weren't any blood containers in the minifridge, there weren't any papers with information an arts journalist had no business having... "I really don't know what we're looking for," Laura complained after a solid twenty minutes of fruitless searching. There hadn't even been anything interesting stuffed into the back of his closet! "The Voice of Silas does print up physical copies, but from what I understand, most of their readers are online. If this guy working on a story - or is engaged in something shady - any information he'd collected that wasn't just in his head would probably be on his computer, and it's not like we can just mug him and take it."

"Well, we can," Carmilla disagreed. When Laura shot her a sharp look, she held up her hands defensively. "Hey, I'm not saying that we will, or even should," she defended. "Just that we technically could, if we decided that we had to." She sighed, quietly closing the desk drawer she'd been looking through. That, clearly, was another dead end.

Laura shook her head, then resumed examining the contents of one of the three identical storage containers shoved under his bed, not wanting to get pulled into a discussion about semantics. The plastic containers were rectangular, about fifty centimeters long, but not even fifteen deep, and according to the text on the tops they were 'ideal for videocassettes', suggesting that they weren't exactly new. One of the other two had been full of an assortment of fliers, memorabilia, and souvenirs from various stage productions - apparently, however unpleasant he was, he had a genuine passion for the subject of his work, which told Laura he couldn't be all bad - while the second had contained a number of distinctly unhealthy snack foods. (It had taken considerable effort on her part to refrain from "sampling" any of them.) That he'd had that sort of thing stashed under his bed instead of out in the open where they could be eaten more readily had prompted Carmilla to wonder aloud if he'd felt that he'd needed to hide them, rather than risk judgement from Perry. Laura, having been on the receiving end of Perry's comments regarding her own diet, had refrained from comment. Perry only did that sort of thing because she cared - and what she said wasn't necessarily wrong - but it could still be easier to just try and avoid the issue altogether. But Laura had found that a lot of people were health-conscious at Silas - even Danny, though she tended to let Laura get away with eating whatever she wanted after being hit with even just a mildly pleading expression - so maybe there was a Perry-equivalent in Tookerman's dorm. Without knowing for sure, she didn't feel they could count that as evidence.

It was one more odd thing, though. Finding so many oddities, all of which could be connected to Perry... She still didn't want to believe it, but things weren't looking good for her Floor Don.

The container Laura was currently searching through held mostly a wide-range of books - many of them non-fiction, and she recognized some of the others as Silas-issued books for various classes - and assorted papers, which also seemed to be old classwork. Very old, given that none of it matched his current classes. Why he'd want to hang on to that, she had no idea. He could have been selling it to some of the underclassmen, she supposed, but given her current interests, a black market homework ring would be pretty small potatoes. She was trying to keep the contents from looking like they'd been too obviously disturbed, but by that point, she was starting to not care. How could someone in their third year at Silas not have anything even remotely interesting in their-? Wait.

What was that?

"Hello," she said softly as she picked up one of the larger hardcover books (about the size of the last Harry Potter book, which was her personal measurement in terms of books that could double as mêlée weapons), which was slightly heavier than it should have been, and she was pretty sure she heard something sliding around inside it when she picked it up. "What have we here?" She turned slightly and put it on the floor in front of her as Carmilla, lured by the prospect of an actual clue, rose from the desk chair and swiftly crossed the room to crouch down next to her. Laura was aware of her proximity, but for once, it didn't arouse any reaction from her. She flipped up the front cover of the book and found that, as she'd expected, it wasn't an actual book at all, but a small gunmetal grey safe. A fairly high-tech one, too: not only was there a sleek nine-digit keypad, but the LCD panel was big enough for a lengthy passcode.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Carmilla said, grabbing her wrists to stop her from reaching for it. "Easy, there. I've seen this design of safe before. You only get a few tries to input the correct code before you activate the failsafe."

"What, it sets off an alarm?"

"No, it detonates a charge of PBX."

If only from a semi-recent binge-watch of Stargate: SG-1, that was a term she recognized, and she twitched a few times in Carmilla's grip before almost violently pulling her arms back. "Th- I... A-A-Are you...?" she stammered out.

Carmilla leaned down and sniffed it. "Oh, yeah. I can smell the TATB - and trust me, after you get nearly blown up while clearing out a hidden Soviet missile facility overrun with the undead, you make sure that you know what that smells like."

"...I have so many questions about just that one sentence."

"I'll bet," Carmilla said with a quiet chuckle. "Well, TATB stands for triaminotrinitrobenzene. The rest of them are going to have to wait until we have more time." She gave Laura a sideways look, then added, "Before you give yourself a heart attack, you should keep in mind that TATB is extremely insensitive to shock, vibration, fire, or impact. You could throw this thing against a wall, and you wouldn't set it off. Also, the charge is directed inward. It wouldn't exactly be healthy for anyone in close proximity, given the shrapnel, but it isn't powerful enough to even take out the room, let alone the building."

Both of which were good to know, but those weren't her only concerns. "What the crapsticks is a college student doing with something like this?! I mean, I know Silas is weird and all, but it's not that flavor of weird!" If high explosives were readily available at Silas, she was pretty sure LaFontaine would know all about it, and there would have been a LOT more explosions in the past couple years than there had been - to say nothing of how much more tightly wound Perry would be, were that the case.

"From what Red and the others have told me, that's true," Carmilla agreed. "Even if it was, this particular style of booksafe is not exactly available to the public." She shook her head. "Hell, even if you can track down someone who's willing to sell you one, it'll cost you. Last one I saw was government issued."

"Which government?" Laura asked before realizing that the answer might well have been classified.

Fortunately, it either wasn't, or Carmilla just didn't care. "Peru, actually. They didn't come up with the original design, though. Honestly not sure who did. Not that it matters."

True enough. "So... What do we do? Track this Tookerman guy down and get the combination out of him?"

Carmilla considered that, then shook her head. "Only as a last resort. If he can't be mesmerized, there's no guarantee we'd be able to get the real combination out of him without resorting to torture, or something."

Laura's eyes widened. "I really don't think that should ever be an option."

"Yeah, the higher ups tend to agree with you about that," Carmilla said blithely. "What they are likely to be just fine with is taking the box to our resident psychic and letting him finally justify bringing him on this mission."

They had a psychic on their team? That was new information. "Would he be willing to be interviewed at some point?" she asked hopefully. Hellboy had been visibly unenthused about the idea, Abe was apparently kind of shy (and also dealing with learning about his former identity, so he might not want to talk about himself, especially to the girl who'd told him about it), Liz absolutely wouldn't want to talk about her past or any missions that involved the use of her pyrokinesis (Bree had told her about how Liz had dealt with the frog monsters), Carmilla actively hid from cameras to keep her 'Mother' from finding her... She wanted to interview someone from the BPRD, dammit, and this seemed like her best chance. Her only other option would be that Professor Corrigan she vaguely remembered hearing when she'd accidentally called Liz after she'd been attacked, and she had no idea if the woman was even in town, or had been talking to them from BPRD HQ.

Carmilla shrugged. "Eh, probably. Not sure he'd have anything useful to say, though."

"Who would?"

She paused, as if considering that, then replied, "Let's worry about the current situation first, shall we? You can worry about earning extra credit for your journalism class later."

"I know, I know..." she sighed. She couldn't quite help it, though. The stories they had to have! Even if she didn't get any credit for it at all, she would have wanted to know.

Carmilla allowed herself a brief, fond smile, as if she knew exactly what Laura was thinking. (Laura knew she didn't have the best poker face, so it was entirely possible that Carmilla had guessed what was on her mind.) "In the meantime..." She took out her phone, snapped a picture of the safe, then emailed it back to HQ. (Laura presumed it would then be forwarded to anyone who needed to see it.) "I need to work out a good place to do a brush pass to give Red the box so he can get it to Thorne."

"Ooo, how clandestine!" Laura teased with a giggle, wiggling her fingers at Carmilla to emphasize her point. "A 'brush pass'. You're just giving your friend something so he can run an errand for you." Thorne, she presumed, was the psychic's name.

"Call it what you want, Cupcake, I still need a place and time."

"You know, if I had a booksafe with a built-in high explosive booby trap protecting something valuable or important enough to justify using it, I'd notice right away if it disappeared," she pointed out.

"Nothing to really be done about that, unfortunately," Carmilla said with a shrug. "There is no innocent reason for him to have something like this, and we need to know what's inside it. Somehow, I doubt he'll report the theft to campus security." She paused. "Might be interesting to see who he does tell, though." She got up and walked back to the desk, picking up his phone and prying off the back casing. She deftly inserted what looked like a tiny microchip, then snapped the casing back into place.

"Did you just bug his phone?" Laura paused. "And did you do that to mine?" She didn't wonder too much about why his phone might be there when his laptop wasn't. There were a number of teachers who did not allow phones in their classrooms (if you had one, it had to be turned off; even putting it on silent wasn't good enough), and while some might make exceptions for smartphones that you could record with or take notes on, his Nokia was an old enough model that it couldn't do either. (And yet, even that wasn't as old and out-of-date as her phone.) Also, it was only half charged, and considering how long he'd been in class by that point, it must have been almost dead when he'd plugged it in.

"You had your phone with you at the time, remember?" Carmilla reminded her. "Didn't bother with your computer, either - which is just as well, I guess, as Wonder Librarian might have noticed something was amiss. With you making videos about what you learned, even if you didn't post them online, or discussing anything you didn't film with your friends, I didn't have to. Miss Perry, on the other hand..."

"Well... Hopefully that'll help us figure out what's going on sooner." Spying on her friends just made her feel uncomfortable. Yeah, she was studying to be an investigative reporter, but even journalists needed to have ethical standards, didn't they?

"That's the plan. And since I think we've now searched everywhere in this room that it's possible TO look, let's get everything back where it's supposed to be and get moving."

That was fine with her. As exciting as sneaking into places you weren't supposed to go could sometimes be, this was just making her stomach twist itself into knots.

Admittedly, knowing that she was going to be walking around with high explosives in her backpack until they could get rid of it wasn't exactly helping.

Her algebra class had been as uneventful as it had uninteresting. It hadn't been quite as boring as usual, though, if only due to her secretly enjoying people's reactions when she'd walked into the classroom with a black panther by her side. She'd known panthers were pretty good-sized, but she had to wonder if Carmilla's panther form was just a bit bigger than the real cats, as her head just barely reached Laura's waist. They had, by then, secured an apron and the appropriate paperwork (albeit with a few forged signatures), so her teacher hadn't been able to say anything. In response to any questions, she'd merely replied that after her recent attack - word about that had gotten around - having something around that could sniff out any frog men that got close to her could only be a good thing, and that her next video would explain further.

So she was going to have to film that video soon.

Carmilla had managed to get Hellboy's team to swing past the Student Healthcare Center so that Laura, under the guise of asking how the investigation was going, could discreetly hand over the booksafe. Hellboy and Abe would remain on campus while Liz brought it to that Thorne guy. (There was apparently some kind of multi-limbed creature in the park that the two would be hunting down. Unfortunately, they didn't have much more in the way of details to give her than that... or so they claimed, anyway.) She was supposed to be being wary of them, after everything the Dean had told her, so she forced herself not to ask too many questions, and hurried off to class as quickly as she could without being rude.

Hopefully, later on she'd be able to talk to them further, make sure they were handling everything she'd said in her message alright. She still felt kind of guilty about just dropping everything on them like that without any warning, even though she hadn't exactly gotten one, herself.

She had one more class that day, but it wasn't until late afternoon, so she had a few hours to kill. As such, she wasn't exactly surprised to get a text from Danny asking to meet up with her in the Student Union. She hardly had anywhere else to be, just then, even if going to see her girlfriend after making out with another woman (who was currently following her around as a panther) was a bit awkward and kind of weird. Upon asking, she learned that it wouldn't just be them, as Bree and LaF would be there, too. Hopefully, the extra company would help her keep an even mental footing. She'd texted back, asking as casually as she could why Perry was being left out. Apparently, her Floor Don had another class right then.

Laura didn't stop by the Student Union very often. It wasn't that she didn't want to socialize, but she'd gone from settling in to dodging Kirsch and friends to dealing with the whole missing girls/vampires/frog men situation. There had been a couple movie nights she'd gone to before Betty had vanished (the building had a five hundred and fifty seat theater, in addition to several lounges complete with large flat-screen plasma televisions), she'd needed to go to the bookstore to pick up the Silas-editions of some books for her classes, and the snack bar could make an acceptable alternative to the cafeteria if you didn't have time to head into town to find something more filling. Oh, there were billiards tables, ping pong tables, air hockey tables, and gaming consoles, but she really hadn't had time for any of those - or anyone to play against. If she wanted to study, she'd do it in her own room, or, if necessary, the Library. (If it continued being non-hostile to her, she might end up doing that more often.) She'd never been in any of the meeting rooms, but someone - probably Bree, given her pull with the administration - had managed to secure one. She supposed she could have let them know about her new "service animal", but, well, what would be the fun in that?

Given everything, she'd take her amusement where she could find it.

The room wasn't overly large, maybe just a tiny bit bigger than her dorm room (not counting the bathroom). The walls were a dull shade of cream, with a couple of paintings that showed landscapes that she didn't recognize. There weren't any windows, which she was sure had been a consideration when Bree (or whoever) had chosen this room. The floor had a plush, presumably sound-absorbing crimson carpet. (Actually, since it was a meeting room, she was willing to bet the whole place was soundproof.) The room was dominated by a large rectangular table, made of some kind of polished wood. (It could have been oak, mahogany, redwood... Identifying different types of wood wasn't exactly one of her skills.) There were three plush burgundy-colored leather chairs on either side of it, with one on each end. A large light panel illuminated the room, with a golden chandelier - a dome with six arms extending from the base that reached down, then curved up until they were almost flush against the ceiling light - that also had electric lights right underneath it, evidently just for aesthetic appeal.

Bree was the only one actually sitting in a chair. LaF was perched on a corner of the table, while Danny, true to form, was pacing back and forth. Whatever conversation might have been going on before she got there died quickly when they realized that not only had she arrived, but she wasn't alone. Unsurprisingly, LaF found their voice first. "Uh, Laura? You've got a panther following you."

"Yes, LaFontaine. Yes, I do," Laura agreed evenly as she closed the door behind her - after making sure Carmilla's tail was clear of it - then walking over to collect a kiss from her girlfriend. Carmilla might want to steal her away from Danny, but that didn't mean she'd done so quite yet.

"Laura, why do you have a panther?" Danny asked slowly.

"Why don't you have a panther, Danny?" Laura replied without missing a beat. "Did you forget yours?"

"Gonna be one of those kind of days, is it?" Danny murmured.

"I wasn't aware you'd chosen to take advantage of the service animal program Silas offers," Bree interjected, looking at Carmilla with a sufficiently neutral expression to tell Laura that she had heard about Carmilla's preferred alternate form, and they weren't fooling her.

"You can't be around all the time," Laura said with a shrug, mentally willing her to go along with it. "Having something that can sniff out frog men and scare off drunken frat boys can only be a good thing." She paused as something occurred to her. "Hey, um, Danny? Speaking of frat boys, have you seen Kirsch around, lately? Not that I miss his stalking or anything, but between his girlfriend having parasites in her brain and being taken away for her own good, his best friend being revealed as a sociopathic vampire who nearly killed her before being hunted down and killed himself, and the woman who did that walking around campus like nothing happened... Well, I'm kinda worried about the big lug, and with all the Summer-Zeta stuff, you're more likely to see him outside of Lit Class than I am." They had Lit on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so she could find out tomorrow if she had to... assuming he didn't just blow it off.

"Haven't really seen him myself, but from what I've heard, he's been kinda quiet." Danny sighed. "Look, don't tell my Summer sisters I said this, but he's not a bad guy, exactly. Will was just a terrible influence on him. Without that, though, he's kind of... directionless, I guess."

"Having someone that close to you betray you and everything you stand for can be difficult for anyone to process," Bree said, pointedly enough that it was clear she was trying to work around her mental bindings to tell someone something. Given what she'd learned earlier that day about Perry, though, Laura honestly wasn't sure who she was talking to... assuming it wasn't just a blanket warning. "The deeper the bond, the harder it can be to forgive."

"Honesty is the best policy," LaF agreed.

"Yeah..." Laura said slowly, feeling uncomfortable. "Though, the fact that you can't just tell me everything I need to know about who's on the Dean's team is proof that sometimes, that isn't always an option."

"True. Yet, nothing was stopping Will from telling Mister Kirsch that he was a vampire. As far as I know, any of us can admit to that. Thanks to you posting your videos online, he could have told Kirsch and the other Zetas the truth about himself, and who he worked for. He chose not to. I know you were curious about why we didn't get along. Mother didn't recondition him as much as others of us because she didn't need to. He enjoyed his victims' suffering, causing them pain. Had he been given the chance, he might well have killed you just to spite me. He stayed under the radar within his fraternity for the most part, played the fool. I'll pray for his soul, but he does not deserve your pity."

Laura honestly couldn't say she was surprised by any of that. Will had struck her as slimy scum the first time she'd met him, and that impression had never really gone away. "Still, though, I feel bad for Kirsch," she maintained.

"He has an entire fraternity of bros to talk to if he needs to," Danny pointed out. She'd wrapped her arms around Laura's torso from behind, resting her chin on top of Laura's head. Laura couldn't help but compare being held by Danny to being in Carmilla's embrace, and each had their selling points. Carmilla's ears flicked back in annoyance, but she otherwise wasn't outwardly reacting. "And really, given your solidly pro-Bree stance in your videos, he might not want to talk to you just yet."

"I know." That was one of the reasons she hadn't tried seeking him out herself, after all. "Hey, Bree? Speaking of people not getting along with you, what's up with you and the Glee Club?"

Bree sighed. "Ah, that. Presently, just the continuation of a decades-long grudge. It began in the year Nineteen Hundred and Four, when the Dudley Chapel burned down. That is a different story altogether, but the Lustig theater building was built atop its ashes. I did not particularly appreciate this, and they, in turn, did not care for my efforts to reestablish a chapel within the building."

"Did you?" Laura asked, not knowing much about that building beyond the fact that it was full of theater students, thus a place to be avoided.

"Yes. It was never really consecrated, and few beyond myself make use of it, but they've always resented having to share their space."

"I'd like to see them complain to the Dean about having to share the auditorium with her," Laura muttered.

Bree gave her a brief, humorless smile. "In truth... Sometimes, so would I." She sighed. "Which is always one more thing to tell the priest whenever I can go to Confession."

That just seemed like a topic that would be full of landmines, so Laura decided to avoid it for the time being. "So... Not that I'm against spending time with you three, but was there a reason we're meeting here, of all places?"

"Given the number of people who want to kidnap and/or kill you, somewhere private and secure to talk just made sense," Danny told her. Laura wriggled out of her grasp and headed over to the table to drop into one of the chairs. (It was very comfortable, as it turned out. Sadly, she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to get away with smuggling one out for use in her dorm room.) Danny naturally followed suit, but before she could move her chair closer to Laura's, Carmilla positioned herself inbetween them, flicking her tail with haughty disdain.

Bree observed the arrangement with an unhappy look, but didn't comment. (Laura was pretty sure that would come later, though.) "As for a specific reason... Yes. As you know, Security has been working to identify the amphibian intruders," she told them. "Naturally, the identification they presented to the guard at the gate was fake, but that did mean we have their pictures. Two of them are still unidentified, but one matched the description of a man wanted by the police in Shanghai for everything from petty theft to murder, and another fit a missing persons report in a small town in rural England."

"So chances are good that the other two weren't local, either," Laura surmised. "What about the one in the lab?"

"That's where things get interesting," Bree replied, and Laura started getting the feeling that it wasn't just Carmilla that was causing her dissatisfied expression. "The Oanness Club could never manage to get it to shift into its human form, according to their notes - and I thank the Lord for scientists making sure to fully back up all their records and test results offsite."

"Oh, yeah," LaFontaine chimed in. "You never keep all your data in one place."

"In any event," Bree continued, "while we have no picture for this one, the records do list a name: John Peterson. Unlike the others, he was a local."

"What's so interesting about that?" Laura asked, confused.

"The fact that town records list John Peterson as having died forty years ago."