Henry could have laughed. He MIGHT have laughed, had the scene been part
of some B-horror movie he'd dragged Lorraine to when they were dating, on
the off chance that the monster of the week should scare her conveniently
into his arms. It was perfect. The night, the wisps of cloud just
starting to pass in front of the moon, so thin that the clouds go white
instead of the moon's sphere being at all dimmed, the vampires in the
compound, the cross, the priest, the pooka--- and the sudden appearance of
a grim crowd of LIPs in the entryway to the compound, their faces dark and
serious, flickering slightly in the ruddy light cast off by the torches
they carried, which also served well to glisten off of the sharp farm
instruments they carried with them.
"Huphyuhrkoh," a woman, stepping forward from the front of the crowd, uttered lowly. She was dressed in peasant's clothes, and Radar, spinning around from his address to the Gangrel's grave, let his jaw go slack as he recognized the woman who'd come in... now, at least, it seemed like an eternity ago... with the wounded child.
The odd feeling he'd had about the case now congealed itself in the pit of his stomach as the pieces of the puzzle fell together.
The seneschal took a brief moment to look upon the situation with a good amount of distance. Though having been raised as a Kindred by the Camarilla, and always having been taught the value of the masquerade, there was something about this scene that made him value it to a much greater degree. There was something about living in the modern nights that made one forget what one's kindred ancestors had to do to survive. And there was nothing quite like staring down a quite stereotypical looking 'mob with pitchforks and torches' to dispel that forgetfullness.
"Huphyuhrkoh!" the woman repeated, another woman, clothed in red, coming up behind her and taking her arm supportively. The yelling mother's other arm flung out to gesture tremblingly at the crowd of various personnel assembled in the compound.
And at the gesture, the crowd began to come forward.
Irene was the only one to understand the woman's complaint in full, having heard several years before the fact that she would be going over to Korea once the U.S. finally got it's act together, and having begun a slow study of the language, focusing, perhaps in some areas more than others; most of the others, however, thought that the matter was fairly clear. The locals were obviously less than pleased with the new neighbors who moved into the M*A*S*H unit down the street.
Their impetus for doing so, however, mattered only little to Colonel Potter, who slipped away from the little cluster and firmly settled his hat on his head as he stepped toward the approaching group, his hands outstretched, palms forward in a forbidding gesture.
"Okay, hold your horses, folks, what's going on here?" he asked, calmly enough.
To which gesture the crowd hovered back a bit, still looking antsy, as the woman in silks walked slowly forward, relinquishing her hold of the other Korean woman's arm. A split moment's inspection of the Colonel, and she solemnly turned her head aside toward the crowd. A man stepped forward, warily eyeing the funeral-goers as he began to address Potter.
"Colonel, our people have been under attack. We require your assistance."
Potter dropped his hands, his stern, commanding face melting into an expression of concern, "North Koreans?"
"No, Colonel. A monster. Huphyuhrkoh." His eyes flitted back again toward the rest of the group. "We believe it hides among you. You may be unaware. Let our priestess among your people. We will show you."
"Hem. Well, sorry, folks," Potter replied, looking back over to his personnel and... guests. "We don't have any hu... phew... monsters around here."
"You, I believe, are mistaken, Colonel. They deceive you, or else they persuade you to protect them."
Potter was about to protest, but was interrupted:
"Colonel, our people are being killed. A few nights ago, a young boy was attacked. Now one of our young women has been killed. We do not wish violence. Only safety. But if you do not help us, we will destroy this camp."
A moment of tense silence.
Joles cast a look askance to Henry, who shrugged helplessly. He hardly remembered the incident with the boy anymore... he'd spent most of that night under the grip of the Beast, and many parts of it were growing rapidly hazy in comparison with the ones subsequent. As to the woman... all of the vampires had been in camp that night... Henry had been with the swamprats until Irene woke up, and they'd been together since the operation to awaken the seneschal. Henry was hard pressed to say what might have happened, though the possibility of another vampire lurking around camp without making itself known to the Seneschal was freaking him out a little. Joles, as well, was mildly worried: unlike Henry, however, he didn't show it.
The silence was broken not by a word, but by a gesture. The speaking man turned away from the Colonel, and waved a hand. The crowd resumed its grim approach.
"I, uh, think I hear the telephone ringing," Radar murmured in terror, just as Henry was saying, "Radar you'd better get inside and--"
Henry cut off as the reply came before he even knew his mind was headed in that direction. He watched to make sure the kid was safely inside, then turned back to the crowd as it began to approach. His usually genial face clouded over with anger as his beast threatened to jump loose and he threatened to LET it. How dare these people come in like this and try to destroy the 4077th, the camp he'd built from nothing more than a patch of dirt into a... a... a family? How could they DARE come in here and threaten to burn down this place and all the people in it? These people damned well better learn that if they expect to come in here and make threats, they're as sure as god made little green apples going to have their throats ripped out and their bits and pieces scattered from here to kingdom come!!!
In a flurry of superhuman speed Henry, enraged, ran to the swamp and picked up the 9-iron he'd been using previously, then bolted towards the group, intent on knocking their spokesman's head clear off.
That fellow, startled, stood in shock as Henry raised the club over his head, fangs bared and a fierce look on his face, his unnatural anger showing through. But the priestess had her wits about her, and swung around him, deftly drawing a long curved blade from a sheath hidden among her silken robes.
All this in an instant; in less than an instant later, a second, completely indistinguishable, nearly invisible blur of motion, and Irene stood between the two and had furthermore removed the makeshift weapon from Henry's hands and was holding it in a more socially acceptable manner, her hand wrapped around its neck and the end of it sticking into the ground firmly. She was about to reach around to disarms the priestess as well, but before she was able the woman brought down the weapon and it sliced deeply into the Toreador's bare, pale arm.
Henry was momentarily startled by the first drawing of blood, but, further egged on by this provocation, was about to leap around the Seneschal's wife and tackle the woman with the sword when Irene, her face momentarily pained but swiftly resuming her normal smiling grace, lifted a hand to stop him with a gesture.
"Steady, Henry."
With that, she turned back to the woman whose sword was trailing back from her flesh. The sword pulled free and lifted into the air, preparing for another blow but making no signs of putting it yet into force.
Irene bowed slightly to the woman, and the wound created by the sword began to retract the blood that was dribbling down her arm and knit itself back together. When she was intact again, she began to speak. She spoke in Korean, for the sake of her audience, but an English rendering of her statement was as follows:
"The loss of your young is unfortunate. Please, join us, tonight, in our grief. We also have our young ones," she turned and patted the cooling Henry on the cheek, "to hold in check, to look after when they make mistakes. We also have our dead," she gestured to the gravesite, "to bury and mourn. We're not... as you can tell... exactly like you... but... as I hope you can also tell... we're not all so different. Join us, spend the night here, let us speak together of our losses, and console one another in our grief."
Irene's soothing voice carried across the camp. Soon nearly the entirety of the Korean band had dropped their weapons, and were listening to her intently. Hawkeye, B.J., and Sidney were held in a similar state of fascianation, though they had no idea what she was talking about, and Henry had forced down his rising bile to stand peaceably and listen to her speak.
Furthermore, several drowsy nurses and non-coms had poked their heads out of their respective tents and were equally entranced.
A Toreador can be a VERY shiny thing, at times. Father Mulcahy knew this only too well, and so was able to steel himself against what he recognized as the second attack upon his emotional state. He remained unaffected, nearly alone among everybody present, yet, staring around, was nonetheless awed at the number of people bending to the vampire woman's will.
Disturbed as he was by the process, he had to admit it was effective. Within moments, the stunned silence began to fade into murmurings, and the murmurings into conversations, the conversations into rough communication between the locals and personnel.
Food was prepared specially for the event, even a little bit better fare than normal, and it was shared by all who could still partake in it. Alcohol, both local and that supplied from the good old US of A, was imbibed in fair quantities, and Father Mulcahy looked on with a faint smile as some of the Koreans attempted to teach a pair of mildly swamped swamprats some traditional funeral songs, to some little success.
Out of the corner of his vision, of a sudden, a hideous visage; the priest's heart skipped a beat and he stood stock upright before his vision returned to its mundane state and he saw that it was just Radar, scurrying out of the offices, looking this way and that until his eyes settled on Henry, who was using Irene and a system of complicated, fumbling hand gestures to try to communicate with some local indigenous fishermen about some good spots he'd found nearby in the last few months.
Mulcahy stepped closer, just close enough to hear the end of the conversation without seeming to be eavesdropping.
"And then last month our company clerk -- uh, that's Radar, he's probably around here some--"
"Here, sir. Sir? No, sir, that was in July. Sir?"
"Radar, was that last month we found that-- oh. Yes, Radar? What is it?"
Radar looked up, breathlessly. "It's Mrs. Colonel, your wife, sir."
Henry stopped, stunned.
"On the phone, sir." Radar added. "Better hurry, the line's faint."
"Faint--" Henry stammered witlessly.
"Yeah, or the operator dropped a grape nehi on the telephone wire."
Henry shook off the surprise of the news, and was about to make a break for the office when he stopped, sensing the Seneschal's eyes on his back. He turned around, meeting the warning gaze. The two kindred stared at each other.
Joles finally, reluctantly, nodded.
"Go talk to her."
~
"Huphyuhrkoh," a woman, stepping forward from the front of the crowd, uttered lowly. She was dressed in peasant's clothes, and Radar, spinning around from his address to the Gangrel's grave, let his jaw go slack as he recognized the woman who'd come in... now, at least, it seemed like an eternity ago... with the wounded child.
The odd feeling he'd had about the case now congealed itself in the pit of his stomach as the pieces of the puzzle fell together.
The seneschal took a brief moment to look upon the situation with a good amount of distance. Though having been raised as a Kindred by the Camarilla, and always having been taught the value of the masquerade, there was something about this scene that made him value it to a much greater degree. There was something about living in the modern nights that made one forget what one's kindred ancestors had to do to survive. And there was nothing quite like staring down a quite stereotypical looking 'mob with pitchforks and torches' to dispel that forgetfullness.
"Huphyuhrkoh!" the woman repeated, another woman, clothed in red, coming up behind her and taking her arm supportively. The yelling mother's other arm flung out to gesture tremblingly at the crowd of various personnel assembled in the compound.
And at the gesture, the crowd began to come forward.
Irene was the only one to understand the woman's complaint in full, having heard several years before the fact that she would be going over to Korea once the U.S. finally got it's act together, and having begun a slow study of the language, focusing, perhaps in some areas more than others; most of the others, however, thought that the matter was fairly clear. The locals were obviously less than pleased with the new neighbors who moved into the M*A*S*H unit down the street.
Their impetus for doing so, however, mattered only little to Colonel Potter, who slipped away from the little cluster and firmly settled his hat on his head as he stepped toward the approaching group, his hands outstretched, palms forward in a forbidding gesture.
"Okay, hold your horses, folks, what's going on here?" he asked, calmly enough.
To which gesture the crowd hovered back a bit, still looking antsy, as the woman in silks walked slowly forward, relinquishing her hold of the other Korean woman's arm. A split moment's inspection of the Colonel, and she solemnly turned her head aside toward the crowd. A man stepped forward, warily eyeing the funeral-goers as he began to address Potter.
"Colonel, our people have been under attack. We require your assistance."
Potter dropped his hands, his stern, commanding face melting into an expression of concern, "North Koreans?"
"No, Colonel. A monster. Huphyuhrkoh." His eyes flitted back again toward the rest of the group. "We believe it hides among you. You may be unaware. Let our priestess among your people. We will show you."
"Hem. Well, sorry, folks," Potter replied, looking back over to his personnel and... guests. "We don't have any hu... phew... monsters around here."
"You, I believe, are mistaken, Colonel. They deceive you, or else they persuade you to protect them."
Potter was about to protest, but was interrupted:
"Colonel, our people are being killed. A few nights ago, a young boy was attacked. Now one of our young women has been killed. We do not wish violence. Only safety. But if you do not help us, we will destroy this camp."
A moment of tense silence.
Joles cast a look askance to Henry, who shrugged helplessly. He hardly remembered the incident with the boy anymore... he'd spent most of that night under the grip of the Beast, and many parts of it were growing rapidly hazy in comparison with the ones subsequent. As to the woman... all of the vampires had been in camp that night... Henry had been with the swamprats until Irene woke up, and they'd been together since the operation to awaken the seneschal. Henry was hard pressed to say what might have happened, though the possibility of another vampire lurking around camp without making itself known to the Seneschal was freaking him out a little. Joles, as well, was mildly worried: unlike Henry, however, he didn't show it.
The silence was broken not by a word, but by a gesture. The speaking man turned away from the Colonel, and waved a hand. The crowd resumed its grim approach.
"I, uh, think I hear the telephone ringing," Radar murmured in terror, just as Henry was saying, "Radar you'd better get inside and--"
Henry cut off as the reply came before he even knew his mind was headed in that direction. He watched to make sure the kid was safely inside, then turned back to the crowd as it began to approach. His usually genial face clouded over with anger as his beast threatened to jump loose and he threatened to LET it. How dare these people come in like this and try to destroy the 4077th, the camp he'd built from nothing more than a patch of dirt into a... a... a family? How could they DARE come in here and threaten to burn down this place and all the people in it? These people damned well better learn that if they expect to come in here and make threats, they're as sure as god made little green apples going to have their throats ripped out and their bits and pieces scattered from here to kingdom come!!!
In a flurry of superhuman speed Henry, enraged, ran to the swamp and picked up the 9-iron he'd been using previously, then bolted towards the group, intent on knocking their spokesman's head clear off.
That fellow, startled, stood in shock as Henry raised the club over his head, fangs bared and a fierce look on his face, his unnatural anger showing through. But the priestess had her wits about her, and swung around him, deftly drawing a long curved blade from a sheath hidden among her silken robes.
All this in an instant; in less than an instant later, a second, completely indistinguishable, nearly invisible blur of motion, and Irene stood between the two and had furthermore removed the makeshift weapon from Henry's hands and was holding it in a more socially acceptable manner, her hand wrapped around its neck and the end of it sticking into the ground firmly. She was about to reach around to disarms the priestess as well, but before she was able the woman brought down the weapon and it sliced deeply into the Toreador's bare, pale arm.
Henry was momentarily startled by the first drawing of blood, but, further egged on by this provocation, was about to leap around the Seneschal's wife and tackle the woman with the sword when Irene, her face momentarily pained but swiftly resuming her normal smiling grace, lifted a hand to stop him with a gesture.
"Steady, Henry."
With that, she turned back to the woman whose sword was trailing back from her flesh. The sword pulled free and lifted into the air, preparing for another blow but making no signs of putting it yet into force.
Irene bowed slightly to the woman, and the wound created by the sword began to retract the blood that was dribbling down her arm and knit itself back together. When she was intact again, she began to speak. She spoke in Korean, for the sake of her audience, but an English rendering of her statement was as follows:
"The loss of your young is unfortunate. Please, join us, tonight, in our grief. We also have our young ones," she turned and patted the cooling Henry on the cheek, "to hold in check, to look after when they make mistakes. We also have our dead," she gestured to the gravesite, "to bury and mourn. We're not... as you can tell... exactly like you... but... as I hope you can also tell... we're not all so different. Join us, spend the night here, let us speak together of our losses, and console one another in our grief."
Irene's soothing voice carried across the camp. Soon nearly the entirety of the Korean band had dropped their weapons, and were listening to her intently. Hawkeye, B.J., and Sidney were held in a similar state of fascianation, though they had no idea what she was talking about, and Henry had forced down his rising bile to stand peaceably and listen to her speak.
Furthermore, several drowsy nurses and non-coms had poked their heads out of their respective tents and were equally entranced.
A Toreador can be a VERY shiny thing, at times. Father Mulcahy knew this only too well, and so was able to steel himself against what he recognized as the second attack upon his emotional state. He remained unaffected, nearly alone among everybody present, yet, staring around, was nonetheless awed at the number of people bending to the vampire woman's will.
Disturbed as he was by the process, he had to admit it was effective. Within moments, the stunned silence began to fade into murmurings, and the murmurings into conversations, the conversations into rough communication between the locals and personnel.
Food was prepared specially for the event, even a little bit better fare than normal, and it was shared by all who could still partake in it. Alcohol, both local and that supplied from the good old US of A, was imbibed in fair quantities, and Father Mulcahy looked on with a faint smile as some of the Koreans attempted to teach a pair of mildly swamped swamprats some traditional funeral songs, to some little success.
Out of the corner of his vision, of a sudden, a hideous visage; the priest's heart skipped a beat and he stood stock upright before his vision returned to its mundane state and he saw that it was just Radar, scurrying out of the offices, looking this way and that until his eyes settled on Henry, who was using Irene and a system of complicated, fumbling hand gestures to try to communicate with some local indigenous fishermen about some good spots he'd found nearby in the last few months.
Mulcahy stepped closer, just close enough to hear the end of the conversation without seeming to be eavesdropping.
"And then last month our company clerk -- uh, that's Radar, he's probably around here some--"
"Here, sir. Sir? No, sir, that was in July. Sir?"
"Radar, was that last month we found that-- oh. Yes, Radar? What is it?"
Radar looked up, breathlessly. "It's Mrs. Colonel, your wife, sir."
Henry stopped, stunned.
"On the phone, sir." Radar added. "Better hurry, the line's faint."
"Faint--" Henry stammered witlessly.
"Yeah, or the operator dropped a grape nehi on the telephone wire."
Henry shook off the surprise of the news, and was about to make a break for the office when he stopped, sensing the Seneschal's eyes on his back. He turned around, meeting the warning gaze. The two kindred stared at each other.
Joles finally, reluctantly, nodded.
"Go talk to her."
~