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The Angel's Knight #5 - Just Call Me Slayer of the Morning
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Los Angeles, October 14, 2017
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I've had a lot of strange nights in my life, let me tell you that. Comes with the territory when you grow up in a neighborhood that's infested with the undead. You either learn to handle the things that crawl out of their holes once the sun goes down or you die, no third way about it.
Another thing I've gotten used to is that life is in the habit of throwing you one hell of a curveball every single time you think you have it all figured out. When me and my crew were out kicking vampire ass every night I met a vampire with a soul that turned my world upside down and inside out. When I thought I had said vampire all figured out he changed due to his honey's death and started his twelve-step program of ridding the world of all evil.
And now that I've more or less gotten used to being part of a worldwide crusade against demons of all kind while still patrolling my old neighborhood along with my crew, now something like this happens.
"Mind telling me what happened out there?"
The girl sitting across the table from me has confused written all over her face. Her hands are still clutching that damnable wooden spoon she jammed into that vampire's chest not ten minutes ago. Man, I never considered a spoon a lethal weapon before. Shows what I know.
"I was sorta hoping you could tell me that, Gun," she said. "What kinda name is Gun anyway? Some kind of street name? Why'd you name yourself after a pistol?"
"It's Charles Gunn, damn it! Two 'N's, as you well know, Diana. What kind of game are you playing here, girl?"
She looks up, seeming surprised.
"Oh, so you know me?"
I laugh, but it ain't funny. "Diana, stop giving me shit, okay? Of course I know you. You've been a regular here for half a year. What is the matter with you? And how did you know how to kill that vampire?"
She looks at me as if I'm crazy. Yeah, I've seen people looking at me like that before.
"Vampire? Okay, now which one of us is handing out shit here? There ain't no such thing as vampires."
"Riiiight! And that guy out there just had a serious case of disintegration disease. No more games, kid! Vampires are real and you obviously know it. You staked that thing like an expert, so where did you learn that?"
She looks down at her hands like they're the only thing making sense in the world and I get the feeling she's not giving me shit. Something has changed about her. Okay, granted, I don't know her too well. It's hard to keep track of everybody when you've got half a dozen shelters in this city alone, home away from home for several hundred kids. Most of the time I manage to remember their names, but that's about it.
I do remember, however, that Diana was not the kind of girl who went out in the middle of the night and staked vampires. Or so I thought, at least.
"I ... I don't remember," she finally says. "Not you, not this place, nothing."
Say what?
"I was in some kind of accident," she continues. "Or so they tell me." She gives a bitter laugh. "As far as I can tell my life began about two weeks ago when I woke up in the hospital."
Okay, with most people I'd beat them upside the head for trying to sell me a story like that, but over the years I've gotten pretty good at reading people. It's a survival trait in this kind of business. You gotta be able to tell whether the nice-looking momma across the street is smiling at you because she digs you or because she wants to make a lunch outta you. If you go out every night to hunt down the undead you gotta be able to read the people you take with you because your life depends on them watching your back.
I don't think Diana is lying to me.
"You got ... what? Amnesia?"
"Something like that. Doctors couldn't really figure it out. I remember a lot of general stuff, you know? Who's president, who won the world series, the likes. Nothing about myself, though. It's all one big blank."
She looks up at me from behind a curtain of dark hair and there is fear in those eyes. There are quite a few types of fear, you know? The one that gets you when a vamp is about half a second away from twisting your head off is nowhere near the worst of them. I've seen the one in her eyes quite a few times before. It's the look you get when you find yourself in a world that stopped making sense and haven't got the slightest idea what to do next.
"So ... vampires are real?" she asks, sounding like she expects me to shout out April Fools any moment now.
"Really real, kid. It doesn't get any more real."
Is it the light in here or has she grown a lot paler the last two minutes or so?
"And did ... I mean ... did I ever do something like ... that ... before?"
I give her a smile. "Stake vampires with a wooden spoon? No, I think I'd definitely remember you doing that, kid."
Looks like she only now realized that she's still got the object in question clutched in her hands. She throws it away with enough force to make it shatter against the wall. Okay, I think it's definitely time to lower the tension level in this girl a bit. I don't want her to pass out from having revelations piled on top of her, at least not until I get a few of my own.
"Then ... then how did I know how to do that? Vampires are real? God, what ... what is going on here, Gunn? Isn't it enough that I don't remember anything of my life? This is ... this is a really bad time to find about something like that, you know? I don't have a lot of nights to compare it to, but this one really, really sucked. I just ..."
She seems to deflate, sagging into her chair, looking like a small child about to start crying.
"I just want things to make sense," she mutters, sounding incredibly lost.
I think I'm definitely the wrong guy to handle something like this. Give me a pack of starving vampires any day of the week, but what do I know about consoling an amnesiac teenager who just found out about the seedy underbelly of the world the hard way? This is way out of my territory.
"Hey! Everything all right?"
I look up and see Anne coming into the room. Looks like the cavalry just arrived. I just nod my head in Diana's direction, which tells Anne all she needs to know.
Anne's one hell of a girl. She told me that she was once a really strange number. Gothic chick, wanted to be 'embraced' by the 'Lonely Ones', meaning she wanted to become a vampire. Had a whole lot of romantic notions about the undead from reading too many Anne Rice novels. Wouldn't know it from looking at her today. She's grown into a really tough lady. It definitely ain't easy running a shelter in this part of town and she was barely out of her teens when she started. No one's messing with her, though. Most people know better.
Most people also know there is a certain vampire out there who'll beat the living shit out of anyone stupid enough to make trouble for Anne or her kids, but that's another story. Right now she puts her arm around Diana's shoulder and gives the girl some much needed hugs. I'm really glad I'm not the one who has to do that. I never was any good at that stuff.
"Maybe you should get some sleep, Diana," she tells the girl. "It's been a long night for you and slaying a vampire earns you at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and a king-size breakfast in bed, okay?"
Diana just nods, allowing herself to be lead towards one of the few private rooms Anne has in this place. A minute later the kid is tucked into bed and halfway asleep, hopefully without any nightmares waiting in the wings. I still remember the night I met my first vampire. One of the main reasons I keep my head shaved is so people don't notice the white streaks I got as a memento that night. Would clash with my tough macho exterior.
"Good night, Diana," Anne murmurs, brushing some hair out of Diana's face. I think she would have made a great mother. Well, I guess she is one. A mother with several hundred kids to take care of and she does a great job of it.
"Thanks, Lilly," Diana mutters as her eyes fall shut.
Lilly?
Anne stands back up, her mouth hanging open. She looks like she just saw a ghost.
"Lilly?" I ask her, whispering so as not to wake the kid.
She looks puzzled, wearing the mother of all frowns, then just shakes her head and motions for us to leave the room. A minute later we're back in the kitchen. Coffee's gotten cold by now, but I force the stuff down anyway. Night's not gonna get any shorter, I think.
"I called myself Lilly once," Anne says after a long silence, looking down at her clasped hands. "That was years ago. I dropped it long before I started the shelter. How could she ...?"
Her voice trails off. Looks like I'm not the only one with a lot of open questions regarding this girl I thought I knew. There goes the world again, throwing me yet another curveball. And here I thought it would be just another normal night, nothing but vampire's to slay and aching bruises to nurse. I guess I should know better by now.
"I think it's time to call in the experts," I tell Anne. "This girl ... something really strange happened to her, that much's for sure."
I don't need to spell things out for Anne. She's not in the vampire slaying business herself, but she's close enough to it that she's picked up a few things. Things like the fact that a normal human being isn't really capable of thrusting a wooden spoon into a vampire's heart. It takes a lot of strength to do it with a sharpened wooden stake, but a spoon? No way a girl her size could do it without something extra. But where would a girl like her get a dose of supernatural stre...
Oh my God!
With no clear memory how I got there I'm on the phone, having dialed the number for the Hyperion. It rings seven times before someone picks up and each ring is like an eternity to me.
"Angel Investigations," a sleepy female voice answers. "We help the helpless."
"Tara, hi! It's Gunn."
"Charles, hi! Everything all right?"
"Maybe not. I need you to check something for me, girl."
"Certainly. What ...?"
"Did Faith come home tonight?"
"What? I ... I don't know, I was asleep until a minute ago. Why? Is something ...?"
"There is a girl here at the shelter, Tara. A girl with supernatural strength that just staked a vampire with nothing but a wooden spoon for a weapon."
There is a deadly silence on the other end of the line and I know Tara doesn't need anymore clues. To a stranger Tara might seem like a shy little squeaker, but she's anything but. Aside from a whole lot of brains she's also as tough as they come. A few years ago I saw her call lightning down from the sky in order to fry a group of vamps. It's healthy to respect people who can to that kind of stuff.
"I'll go check," Tara says, all sleepiness vanished from her voice. I hear her put the receiver down and her steps vanish into the distance, leaving me with nothing to do but wait and listen to my own thoughts.
Girl with supernatural strength, check! Knows how to kill vampires even though she's never met one before, check! Natural talent for jamming wooden objects into hearts, check! All adds up to one thing. A thing that can only have happened if a certain friend of mine did not return home tonight.
God, I hope I'm wrong. Please let me be wrong about this!
It seems to take forever until Tara picks up the receiver again and I realize I'm holding my breath, waiting for her to confirm my worst fears.
"She's here, Charles," Tara says. "Asleep and unharmed."
Relief floods through me and I almost fall down on my ass, my knees are shaking so badly. Faith is okay. She didn't get herself killed out there. Thank you, God!
Relief aside, though, that leaves me back at square one.
"Then we have a mystery on our hand, blondie," I tell Tara after a minute or so of sighing in relief. "If that's not a new Slayer snoozing in Anne's bedroom right now, what is she?"
"There could be a number of explanations, Charles. I think the best would be for you to bring her here first thing tomorrow. I'll look up a few things and let Giles and Wesley know. And Faith."
"You do that, girl. You do that. My little mystery kid here practically keeled over a few minutes ago, but I'll bring her by as soon as she wakes up."
"I take it she wasn't exactly prepared for that encounter tonight?"
"Not nearly. As far as I can tell the girl's an amnesiac. She was in some kind of accident and remembers nothing further back than the last two weeks. Definitely hasn't made things any easier for her."
"I can imagine. Maybe we can help her make sense of the world tomorrow."
"That would be a plus. See you tomorrow, blondie!"
"Get some sleep yourself, Charles! Good night!"
TO BE CONTINUED
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The Angel's Knight #5 - Just Call Me Slayer of the Morning
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Los Angeles, October 14, 2017
#
I've had a lot of strange nights in my life, let me tell you that. Comes with the territory when you grow up in a neighborhood that's infested with the undead. You either learn to handle the things that crawl out of their holes once the sun goes down or you die, no third way about it.
Another thing I've gotten used to is that life is in the habit of throwing you one hell of a curveball every single time you think you have it all figured out. When me and my crew were out kicking vampire ass every night I met a vampire with a soul that turned my world upside down and inside out. When I thought I had said vampire all figured out he changed due to his honey's death and started his twelve-step program of ridding the world of all evil.
And now that I've more or less gotten used to being part of a worldwide crusade against demons of all kind while still patrolling my old neighborhood along with my crew, now something like this happens.
"Mind telling me what happened out there?"
The girl sitting across the table from me has confused written all over her face. Her hands are still clutching that damnable wooden spoon she jammed into that vampire's chest not ten minutes ago. Man, I never considered a spoon a lethal weapon before. Shows what I know.
"I was sorta hoping you could tell me that, Gun," she said. "What kinda name is Gun anyway? Some kind of street name? Why'd you name yourself after a pistol?"
"It's Charles Gunn, damn it! Two 'N's, as you well know, Diana. What kind of game are you playing here, girl?"
She looks up, seeming surprised.
"Oh, so you know me?"
I laugh, but it ain't funny. "Diana, stop giving me shit, okay? Of course I know you. You've been a regular here for half a year. What is the matter with you? And how did you know how to kill that vampire?"
She looks at me as if I'm crazy. Yeah, I've seen people looking at me like that before.
"Vampire? Okay, now which one of us is handing out shit here? There ain't no such thing as vampires."
"Riiiight! And that guy out there just had a serious case of disintegration disease. No more games, kid! Vampires are real and you obviously know it. You staked that thing like an expert, so where did you learn that?"
She looks down at her hands like they're the only thing making sense in the world and I get the feeling she's not giving me shit. Something has changed about her. Okay, granted, I don't know her too well. It's hard to keep track of everybody when you've got half a dozen shelters in this city alone, home away from home for several hundred kids. Most of the time I manage to remember their names, but that's about it.
I do remember, however, that Diana was not the kind of girl who went out in the middle of the night and staked vampires. Or so I thought, at least.
"I ... I don't remember," she finally says. "Not you, not this place, nothing."
Say what?
"I was in some kind of accident," she continues. "Or so they tell me." She gives a bitter laugh. "As far as I can tell my life began about two weeks ago when I woke up in the hospital."
Okay, with most people I'd beat them upside the head for trying to sell me a story like that, but over the years I've gotten pretty good at reading people. It's a survival trait in this kind of business. You gotta be able to tell whether the nice-looking momma across the street is smiling at you because she digs you or because she wants to make a lunch outta you. If you go out every night to hunt down the undead you gotta be able to read the people you take with you because your life depends on them watching your back.
I don't think Diana is lying to me.
"You got ... what? Amnesia?"
"Something like that. Doctors couldn't really figure it out. I remember a lot of general stuff, you know? Who's president, who won the world series, the likes. Nothing about myself, though. It's all one big blank."
She looks up at me from behind a curtain of dark hair and there is fear in those eyes. There are quite a few types of fear, you know? The one that gets you when a vamp is about half a second away from twisting your head off is nowhere near the worst of them. I've seen the one in her eyes quite a few times before. It's the look you get when you find yourself in a world that stopped making sense and haven't got the slightest idea what to do next.
"So ... vampires are real?" she asks, sounding like she expects me to shout out April Fools any moment now.
"Really real, kid. It doesn't get any more real."
Is it the light in here or has she grown a lot paler the last two minutes or so?
"And did ... I mean ... did I ever do something like ... that ... before?"
I give her a smile. "Stake vampires with a wooden spoon? No, I think I'd definitely remember you doing that, kid."
Looks like she only now realized that she's still got the object in question clutched in her hands. She throws it away with enough force to make it shatter against the wall. Okay, I think it's definitely time to lower the tension level in this girl a bit. I don't want her to pass out from having revelations piled on top of her, at least not until I get a few of my own.
"Then ... then how did I know how to do that? Vampires are real? God, what ... what is going on here, Gunn? Isn't it enough that I don't remember anything of my life? This is ... this is a really bad time to find about something like that, you know? I don't have a lot of nights to compare it to, but this one really, really sucked. I just ..."
She seems to deflate, sagging into her chair, looking like a small child about to start crying.
"I just want things to make sense," she mutters, sounding incredibly lost.
I think I'm definitely the wrong guy to handle something like this. Give me a pack of starving vampires any day of the week, but what do I know about consoling an amnesiac teenager who just found out about the seedy underbelly of the world the hard way? This is way out of my territory.
"Hey! Everything all right?"
I look up and see Anne coming into the room. Looks like the cavalry just arrived. I just nod my head in Diana's direction, which tells Anne all she needs to know.
Anne's one hell of a girl. She told me that she was once a really strange number. Gothic chick, wanted to be 'embraced' by the 'Lonely Ones', meaning she wanted to become a vampire. Had a whole lot of romantic notions about the undead from reading too many Anne Rice novels. Wouldn't know it from looking at her today. She's grown into a really tough lady. It definitely ain't easy running a shelter in this part of town and she was barely out of her teens when she started. No one's messing with her, though. Most people know better.
Most people also know there is a certain vampire out there who'll beat the living shit out of anyone stupid enough to make trouble for Anne or her kids, but that's another story. Right now she puts her arm around Diana's shoulder and gives the girl some much needed hugs. I'm really glad I'm not the one who has to do that. I never was any good at that stuff.
"Maybe you should get some sleep, Diana," she tells the girl. "It's been a long night for you and slaying a vampire earns you at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and a king-size breakfast in bed, okay?"
Diana just nods, allowing herself to be lead towards one of the few private rooms Anne has in this place. A minute later the kid is tucked into bed and halfway asleep, hopefully without any nightmares waiting in the wings. I still remember the night I met my first vampire. One of the main reasons I keep my head shaved is so people don't notice the white streaks I got as a memento that night. Would clash with my tough macho exterior.
"Good night, Diana," Anne murmurs, brushing some hair out of Diana's face. I think she would have made a great mother. Well, I guess she is one. A mother with several hundred kids to take care of and she does a great job of it.
"Thanks, Lilly," Diana mutters as her eyes fall shut.
Lilly?
Anne stands back up, her mouth hanging open. She looks like she just saw a ghost.
"Lilly?" I ask her, whispering so as not to wake the kid.
She looks puzzled, wearing the mother of all frowns, then just shakes her head and motions for us to leave the room. A minute later we're back in the kitchen. Coffee's gotten cold by now, but I force the stuff down anyway. Night's not gonna get any shorter, I think.
"I called myself Lilly once," Anne says after a long silence, looking down at her clasped hands. "That was years ago. I dropped it long before I started the shelter. How could she ...?"
Her voice trails off. Looks like I'm not the only one with a lot of open questions regarding this girl I thought I knew. There goes the world again, throwing me yet another curveball. And here I thought it would be just another normal night, nothing but vampire's to slay and aching bruises to nurse. I guess I should know better by now.
"I think it's time to call in the experts," I tell Anne. "This girl ... something really strange happened to her, that much's for sure."
I don't need to spell things out for Anne. She's not in the vampire slaying business herself, but she's close enough to it that she's picked up a few things. Things like the fact that a normal human being isn't really capable of thrusting a wooden spoon into a vampire's heart. It takes a lot of strength to do it with a sharpened wooden stake, but a spoon? No way a girl her size could do it without something extra. But where would a girl like her get a dose of supernatural stre...
Oh my God!
With no clear memory how I got there I'm on the phone, having dialed the number for the Hyperion. It rings seven times before someone picks up and each ring is like an eternity to me.
"Angel Investigations," a sleepy female voice answers. "We help the helpless."
"Tara, hi! It's Gunn."
"Charles, hi! Everything all right?"
"Maybe not. I need you to check something for me, girl."
"Certainly. What ...?"
"Did Faith come home tonight?"
"What? I ... I don't know, I was asleep until a minute ago. Why? Is something ...?"
"There is a girl here at the shelter, Tara. A girl with supernatural strength that just staked a vampire with nothing but a wooden spoon for a weapon."
There is a deadly silence on the other end of the line and I know Tara doesn't need anymore clues. To a stranger Tara might seem like a shy little squeaker, but she's anything but. Aside from a whole lot of brains she's also as tough as they come. A few years ago I saw her call lightning down from the sky in order to fry a group of vamps. It's healthy to respect people who can to that kind of stuff.
"I'll go check," Tara says, all sleepiness vanished from her voice. I hear her put the receiver down and her steps vanish into the distance, leaving me with nothing to do but wait and listen to my own thoughts.
Girl with supernatural strength, check! Knows how to kill vampires even though she's never met one before, check! Natural talent for jamming wooden objects into hearts, check! All adds up to one thing. A thing that can only have happened if a certain friend of mine did not return home tonight.
God, I hope I'm wrong. Please let me be wrong about this!
It seems to take forever until Tara picks up the receiver again and I realize I'm holding my breath, waiting for her to confirm my worst fears.
"She's here, Charles," Tara says. "Asleep and unharmed."
Relief floods through me and I almost fall down on my ass, my knees are shaking so badly. Faith is okay. She didn't get herself killed out there. Thank you, God!
Relief aside, though, that leaves me back at square one.
"Then we have a mystery on our hand, blondie," I tell Tara after a minute or so of sighing in relief. "If that's not a new Slayer snoozing in Anne's bedroom right now, what is she?"
"There could be a number of explanations, Charles. I think the best would be for you to bring her here first thing tomorrow. I'll look up a few things and let Giles and Wesley know. And Faith."
"You do that, girl. You do that. My little mystery kid here practically keeled over a few minutes ago, but I'll bring her by as soon as she wakes up."
"I take it she wasn't exactly prepared for that encounter tonight?"
"Not nearly. As far as I can tell the girl's an amnesiac. She was in some kind of accident and remembers nothing further back than the last two weeks. Definitely hasn't made things any easier for her."
"I can imagine. Maybe we can help her make sense of the world tomorrow."
"That would be a plus. See you tomorrow, blondie!"
"Get some sleep yourself, Charles! Good night!"
TO BE CONTINUED
