I don't own these characters, they own me. Toby Whithouse and the BBC own the playground.
Special thanks to TangentiallyTJ, Whimsyfox and ShoePigeon for the Beta.
"What was that then? For luck?" Tom asked Alex, not long after Hal had pulled free of her and departed.
"Luck, yeah, sure…" Alex replied distractedly, as she watched Hal cross the street and enter the building.
"Oh, now really Tom," Allison tutted at him with a smile, "I told you I had a feeling about them two." Tom immediately started to blush and looked away. "Your room may be further away but you certainly aren't blind."
Alex turned to look back, and at Tom's embarrassment she remained silent, dropping her hands into her coat pockets with a smile.
"But…" Tom stuttered a bit. "Oh," and with the realization of what Allison meant, even his ears started to turn pink.
Allison patted him on the back as a good-natured jest before taking his hand. Being the only ones on the street, it was a little difficult for them all to remain inconspicuous, but they situated themselves a little deeper into the shadows of the archway, prepared to wait.
"No wonder detectives are always eating on stakeouts. I'm starving," Alex declared after the first few minutes, to no one in particular.
"But you can't eat," Allison responded over her shoulder. The girl was keeping her word, maintaining a vigilant watch on Hal's building.
"It's guff, I know." The ghost started pacing towards the interior of the archway. She couldn't help but feel a nagging apprehension. She was prepared to rent-a-ghost herself up to that window at the slightest provocation, but so far, there had been nothing.
The click of shoes alerted her and she noticed the approach of a lone figure from the other side of the underpass. The girl couldn't have been more than nine, and was walking casually, hands held primly at her back. What in the hell was a kid doing here? Alex immediately wondered if the girl had gotten lost from a sightseeing tour. Maybe she could help, if the girl was young enough to see her.
"What'cha lookin at o'er there?" the child asked Alex, tilting her chin towards the street beyond, confirming that she could indeed see the ghost. The question made Tom and Allison turn around as Alex, thrilled she could be seen, approached the little girl.
"Just the street. 'Ave you lost your Mum and Da, sweet?" Alex asked.
Before it occurred to him to wonder what a kid was doing alone in this area, Tom felt a nagging suspicion he'd seen her before. As Alex approached the girl, a gut-sinking realization hit Tom as to where.
"Alex – NO!"
But his warning was too late. The child brought forth a heavy black blade from behind her back and swept it in an air-cutting slash right through the center of Alex. The ghost stepped back, her wide-eyed surprise barely registering before she fragmented into an ethereal mist. In less than a heartbeat, Alex was gone.
Tom let out a growling wail and he rushed the vampire girl. As the child's eyes flicked black, Allison quickly recovered from her confusion, pulling free her stake to join Tom in the retaliation.
They didn't have a chance to reach her though, as doors on either side of the archway opened and they were surrounded by more than a dozen vampires.
Nave, standing behind Castle as they hid at the far end of the underpass, observed the fight unfold. It was over quickly despite several dusty casualties. He was fascinated to watch the demise of the vampires, having thus far only read about it and practiced simulations. But when the remaining few Type Twos pinned the girl Type Three, Nave made to step forward but Castle held him back.
"We do not interfere unless they involve humans," the young man reprimanded him sharply.
It felt oddly uncomfortable for Nave to stand by and watch the two young werewolves being apprehended. Tom McNair had quarreled with him, but the girl was innocent. She had thus far contained her condition quietly. But before he could protest, the whole group disappeared through one of side doorways they had come from.
Alex reappeared from a deep vacuum of nothing with a crackle of energy. She came into being like static on a jumper with little flashes and sparks. Whatever that kid had hit her with hurt.
Disoriented, she realized she was no longer under the railway arch, but instead, had reappeared in a classically decorated office, directly in front of Hal.
He was unconscious and tied to an office chair with what looked like several rolls of gaffer tape. Someone had been very thorough in restraining him.
Shite.
How much time had passed? Glancing at Hal's watch, she was startled to see that she had lost more than twenty minutes. She didn't know how she had re-materialized here – or even what that kid had done to her – but she was glad. Hal was obviously in trouble.
"What is it with you and bondage, sugar?" she said to him, even though he was out cold. Alex listened, but there didn't seem to be any other sounds from the office. She looked around for something she could cut Hal free with, but didn't see so much as a letter opener. She supposed she could unravel the tape... Or, she could just teleport them to his storage bay, where surely there would be some metal bit she could use to free him.
Standing behind him, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Easy in, easy out," and she yanked.
Alex felt like she had slammed head-first into a solid wall from a moving vehicle. She staggered and stumbled, dropping to the floor in a heap behind the chair. Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it for the second time in as many minutes, she became aware of a thin trail of white granules circling the perimeter of the room.
What the fuck... salt?
Alex put out a hand to support herself in standing upright, only to have it pushed back by an invisible force field. She remembered the odd lines on the floor of the warehouse, surrounding the Old Ones, and mentally kicked herself that she had never asked Hal about it. She just assumed it was some sort of ritualistic vampire nonsense...
She stood, completely befuddled, and staggered against the perimeter. She could not pass the boundary line of salt. It repelled her like the polarized force of a magnet, non-negotiable.
Hal groaned.
She came around to see him flexing his fingers weakly over the edge of the chair arms. His chin had dropped to his chest. "Mmm..." he slowly rolled his neck, letting his head drop against the chair back. Where previously he appeared unharmed, there now was a thin line of blood trailing from his nose. He must have felt the barrier same as she, only he possessed a body to be damaged by it, living or no.
Alex squatted in front of him and put her hand on his knee, "Hal? Are you alright?"
"...been...better." Coming to, he managed speech slowly, with painful effort. The sensation was similar to the time he and Fergus jumped from a cliff into the sea to escape capture; a shocking impact and freezing numbness.
"Shite, I'm sorry – I did'na know." Alex was glad he was talking though. Hopefully that was a sign he was recovering from it.
"It's...okay," Hal stated, breathing slowly and with control. He flexed his hands again. Not much else seemed able to move yet, though he could feel the paralysis ebbing with traveling pinpricks. The skull-crushing pain of Alex's attempt to teleport from a salt cell must have jump-started his body's recovery. Richard knew his neurotoxins far too well to have inappropriately timed Hal coming around. Aside from finances, poison had always been Richard's special hobby, collected from his travels and tested on lesser vampires and slaves. Hal fathomed that they didn't have much time before he returned with Hetty, for surely, she was here, just as Hal had surmised and Richard had confirmed.
"Can you...?" Hal managed to ask Alex, eyeing his bonds.
"Sure. May take a wee bit though,"
"Knife. Desk drawer," Hal's words were slightly slurred.
Alex walked around to the opposite side of the desk and started to rummage through. She couldn't help but notice the carafe of blood. "Nope. Sorry love."
Hal made a frustrated growl which dropped his head to his chest again. Alex returned to kneel in front of him, concerned. This wasn't just from her failed rent-a-ghost attempt.
"Christ – are you drunk?" Her chest swelled with anger at the thought. If this so-called colleague had gotten him to succumb to drinking blood again - after everything they had been through to keep him from it...
He sighed and lolled his head back upright to look at her. "Drugged," he stated, his eyes speaking truth.
Alex breathed a sigh of relief, "Some friends you sure seem to have."
Hal didn't answer, apparently lost in thought.
"How long...?" Hal asked.
"It's been twenty-five minutes. We weren't waiting long yet before -" Alex started, but Hal interrupted.
"You'll... have to. Not... time," he finally said.
"I'll have to what?"
"Computer,"
"Okay...?" Alex stood and went back around the desk. Taking a seat, she opened the laptop. "It's password locked."
"Denial is... a river."
"What?"
"One word,"
"Oh..kay..." She typed first De Nile, like the joke, but when that didn't work she tried the actual spelling.
The system blinked on. She was in.
"Right, now what?"
"Accounts. Find me."
It took her a minute. The system and subsequent files were not set up intuitively. Finally, she realized his was not under his last name, like the others.
"Henry?"
Hal inclined a yes and tried to lick his lips. He was superbly thirsty. He tried to look anywhere but at the carafe Richard had left.
Alex opened the file. "What am I looking for? There's like, a shit-ton of stuff in here."
"Ledger... or payroll program."
Alex opened the most recent file. Scanning quickly, she opened another file to see if there had been some mistake. If the numbers and listings she was looking at were real... London, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Russia – the property listings went on. Hal's "estate" was all over Europe.
"Um. What exactly do you want me to do?"
"Dividend balance. Process payment,"
"But – you'll be paying the Yorke Estate – that's here, isn't it?"
"Yes. We'll transfer." Hal's speech was slowly improving.
"Alright... thought you used to know naught about computers?"
Hal shook his head, "Only that I didn't type. I told you."
Alex thought back and realized he was right. "I do know rudimentary computer science," she remembered. They all had inferred that he didn't really, and he hadn't seen to correct them.
"Not a complete... Luddite," he managed to smile.
"Okay. Done. Now - transfer where?"
"New account," Hal proceeded to recite from memory a routing and account number.
"Thought you didn't exist on paper?"
"I don't," Hal deadpanned. "Transferred?" Alex nodded. "Clear the account settings and close out." She did so and then looked at him with a raised eyebrow across the desk. "We can go."
"Um – hello? I'm stuck and your -" She waved an arm at the general restrained state of him.
"You can't break the barrier from within, but I can..."
Alex made an "Oh" face, but it was easier said than done. Her abilities seemed muted in here and he was strapped to a sturdy, classic and heavy sort of chair. Trying to move it without making noise was questionable.
"Shite. Do you trust me?"
Hal looked her in the eye, gave a crooked smile and nodded, "Of course."
Alex stepped back, all the way to the opposite wall, sunk into her legs, then lunged. She shoved into his shoulder in a low tackle with all her might. The chair and Hal crashed sideways to the ground, narrowly missing the wall. Then immediately, the swift approach of footsteps.
Christ that hurt! But it meant he was starting to feel sensation again. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Hal took a deep breath and blew through the line of salt just as Alex placed her arms over him. Richard's secretary opened the door in time to see the ghost they had supposedly blocked - disappear with Mr. Yorke, chair and all.
They reappeared in the darkness of the garage, in front of the Bentley where Alex had stood earlier. The only light came from a pale glow around the door.
She righted Hal, which was significantly easier now that they were free. "You got some shears in here?"
"Left-most trunk,"
The antique trunk was locked, but Alex merely waved it open. Inside was like a scene out of Bond... or World's Top Ninja Assassin. Tiered shelves of perfectly placed weapons, mostly blades, but also a few elaborately-handled stakes that Tom would have salivated over.
"Bloody hell, Hal,"
Yesterday, she thought that she was blissfully falling for him, but for the third time today, she realized that she didn't know him at all. Threats and gory details while raving-mad was one thing. But seeing evidence of his past life in person made it all very real, somehow. She took one of the smaller knives and closed the lid of the trunk.
He watched her, but didn't say anything as she cut him loose. Once his arms were free he helped to pull the tape clear, wincing a bit, with slow movements.
"Ugh – why must he have used tape? He knows how I feel about these things."
Hal stood, carefully testing his feet. He still felt like he had taken a dip in Novocain, but seemed able to stand.
"Let's retrieve Tom and Allison, shall we?"
Alex nodded and without discussion, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled them back to the underpass. The walkway and street beyond was curiously devoid of their friends.
"Uh-oh," Alex, caught up with breaking Hal loose, had forgotten that Tom had shouted a warning just as that kid had attacked her. The thought hadn't even occurred to her that the child could have been a vampire. Who the hell would make a child vampire? That was just... awful.
"Alex?" Hal's voice had a warning edge. "What is it? Where did they go?"
"They were here when I... shite." Alex met Hal's eyes and bit her lip. "I didn't teleport in to get you on purpose. We were waiting, and then there was this kid..."
"A girl? Dark hair?"
"Yeah – how did you..." but Alex stopped in the realization. "She's one of you, isn't she?"
Hal nodded, "Hetty."
"Tom, he shouted a warning right before she waved some sort of knife through me -"
"Iron. It can ward off an unsuspecting spirit, just as salt can trap one. It's as if they knew you were with me." Hal shook his head. "They couldn't have been watching the house – I would have sensed their presence. Someone must have seen us today." Hal sighed, but then exclaimed irritably, "Fuck."
"But surely Tom and Allison could take one little vampire – where could they have gone?"
"Unfortunately, Hetty rarely works alone." Hal held a hand out to her. "I suspect I know where they are. There's a way in through the shop, if you can take us back."
*Hal's memory of cliff jumping refers to a delightful story written by ByThePrickingOfMyThumbs: s/7960016/1/An-Age-Old-Perspective