The boys actually work in this chapter. Try not to follow over in a faint and hurt yourself :) And as always, much gratitude and thanks to everyone who takes the time to write a review. It helps me to know if things are still ringing true

It was several hours after the fight that Carl finished the last of the briefs. There had been a surprising amount of information there, which made him wonder why there were no weapons designed to deal with gargoyles. For an organization that had been around for hundreds of years, they didn't seem to put their vast experience to use in any meaningful ways. And having read about the kind of damage gargoyles could do when defending their nests, he was very grateful that he was here to help Van Helsing out.

He looked at his notes with a thoughtful expression. His hypothesis about a gargoyle's sensitivity to sound had been correct. Though what no one else had put together is that the sensitivity appeared to be tied to the body composition of the monsters. Apparently they had much in common with their decorative stone counterparts. Carl was convinced that the right harmonics would create a vibrational response that would completely incapacitate the gargoyles. The problem would be finding the right pitch and frequency – kind of like trying to hit just the right note to shatter glass. It had be exact or it wouldn't work. Unfortunately there was no way to test things before Van Helsing had to face the monsters in their nest. He had to get this right the first time.

Sighing heavily, he began to sketch out the device he was trying to build. It was going to need to be very compact and portable while putting out a high volume. There were 4-5 gargoyles left and there was no way of knowing how large their nest would be or how spread out the gargoyles would be. It would have to be able to generate enough sound to cripple them all for an extended period of time since Van Helsing would have to dispatch them one by one with the tojos. Terribly inefficient but with hides that tough, there just wasn't a distance weapon out there that could do it. For now anyway.

Putting that aside, he settled down to get seriously to work.

Van Helsing had finished reading through the activity reports and communicated his own situation (minus the addition of Carl) to the rest of the Hunters. He didn't expect a response since the rest of the Hunters avoided him at all costs but it still paid to follow procedures in situations like this. While he may not like the other guys, he didn't want anyone else to walk into a situation blind like he had.

Now he was trolling the police reports looking for any kinds of activity that might give him some ideas as to where the gargoyles might be nesting. He suspected that they were probably in an abandoned warehouse somewhere near the place they attacked Carl but he had learned not to make assumptions. Seeing a couple of damage reports that looked promising, he made plans to check them out tonight. He hadn't patrolled in a couple of nights and it was time he got back to it. He wasn't in top form yet but he wasn't planning on taking them on tonight. Get a trail, find where they are and then come back with Carl's secret weapon and take them out nice and easy.

Speaking of Carl, he should probably check in on him and see if said secret weapon was likely to happen. If not, he would need to check out the place with a Plan B in mind. Strapping on his tojos and grabbing his jacket, he headed out to talk to Carl.

When he poked his head into the lab, he found Carl hunched over a series of drawing scribbled with undecipherable notes on them. Clearly he had found something of use in the briefs. Van Helsing cleared his throat and said, "I'm going to head out and patrol. There's a couple of property damage reports that look promising for finding a trail on the gargoyles."

Carl frowned at Van Helsing. "Isn't that dangerous? You aren't completely back in shape and I've read about how bad those things are if you corner them in their nests. They'll take you apart. You need to wait a day until I can complete a working model on the debilitator." He looked at Van Helsing expectantly, waiting for his agreement.

Van Helsing just shook his head and said, "I don't intend to follow them that far. I just want to get their trail and figure out where the nest is. I'm quite happy to wait until you trick up this thing you've been talking about. Speaking of which, how exactly is this thing supposed to work?"

Carl huffed in aggravation and said "I'm not sure it's going to matter if you go and get yourself killed before I complete it." He stared pointedly at Van Helsing who lounged against the door completely unaffected by Carl's glare. Finally giving up, he sighed and gathered up his drawings. "From what I was able to discover from the briefs, gargoyles are in many ways like their stone counterparts who decorate buildings. Their structures are such that loud noises and I believe high pitched ones will cause them a great deal of pain. It creates some kind of vibration that could prove to be debilitating if pitched at the right volume and frequency. What I've designed is a small, portable device powerful enough to create enough sonic noise to cripple the gargoyles. It should keep them down long enough for you to take them out one by one."

"Should be enough to take them out?" Van Helsing raised one eyebrow in question.

"Hey, its not like I've got a test subject to work with. But the data suggests that this should work. After all, the car horn was enough to stop them long enough to for you to run so this is just extending out from that. The trick is not building this but finding the right frequency to completely cripple them. I've got to create enough vibration to cause debilitating pain, not just annoying."

"And exactly how are you going to perform this trick?" He wasn't looking completely doubtful but he was concerned.

Carl pulled a diagram from out of the pile. "Since I'm not sure exactly what frequency is going to be the most painful, I've created it to cover a wide spectrum. Once we arrive at the nest, I'll need to try different ranges to see what will completely take them down. I have a pretty good idea of where to start but I'll need to fine tune until I get the perfect pitch."

Van Helsing looked less then thrilled. "That doesn't sound very exact. I thought you'd be creating something that would work first shot."

Carl glared at him. "I told you, without a test subject, I can't be exact. But even with being slightly off, it will still hurt them enough to slow them down. The plan was that you wouldn't actually try to engage them until I had them down."

Van Helsing straightened from the doorway. "When you get them down? Just how close do you need to be for this to happen?" He was starting to get a bad feeling about all of this.

"Again, I can't be sure. But best estimation would be 00 yards." He said it casually hoping that the Hunter wouldn't think much of it.

It didn't work. "100 yards? That's way too close. If it takes you a few tries to get the frequency right, they'll be all over you."

Carl blew out his breath in a huff and said, "They'll be slowed down enough that I'll be fine. This is how it needs to work."

Van Helsing shook his head and moved closer to the table. "No way. I'm not letting you get that close. You'll have to show me how to work the thing." He leaned onto the table and grabbed the diagrams. He tried to make some kind of sense of them but he couldn't even tell if they were right side up.

Carl snatched the diagram back and said, "It's too complicated. You won't know how to judge how it's working. I have to be there to work it. Look, 100 yards is pretty far away and they will find it harder and harder to move. I'll be fine."

"No. You've got no experience in dealing with them. You'll end up getting hurt and that's a liability I don't need. You are staying here." He crossed his arms over his chest with a glare that said he wasn't going to discuss it any more.

Carl looked mutinous and snapped, "Excuse me, but I do have experience with these things. Have you forgotten how we met?" Van Helsing opened his mouth to argue but Carl continued on. "And let me remind you whose action it was that got BOTH of us out of there." He glared at Van Helsing. "We're suppose to be partners and partners work together. I'm not staying home." His face was set in equally stubborn lines and he refused to look away from Van Helsing's own glare.

"Carl," growled Van Helsing. "I don't want you to go. Make the device and show me how to work it and I'll take care of the gargoyles."

Carl shook his head. "No. If I do that, then you'll only end up getting killed. That's not how this partnership is supposed to work. I'm supposed to be your backup. And I can't watch your back if I'm sitting at home. " He moved towards Van Helsing and said, "I know you think I'm just a geek but I assure you, I can handle myself. If things start to get hairy, I promise I'll get out of there. I've got no real desire to end up as a gargoyle's dinner."

Van Helsing continued to glare but finally looked away when he realized that Carl was not going to back down on this. He stared angrily down at the floor and then looked up and said tersely, "The minute I say to get out of there, you get. No arguments, no backtalk. You get the hell out of there and you don't stop until you're back here. Promise me or we call this whole thing off now."

Carl nodded and said "Agreed. You say 'go' and I'm out of there. No arguments." Carl knew of course that he would never hold to that but Van Helsing didn't need to know that. What was more important was that he agreed to let Carl be there. They could argue out the details afterwards.

Van Helsing looked at Carl searchingly. Carl had agreed to this far too easily and it made him suspicious. But with Carl looking back at him as if deception wasn't even a word in his vocabulary, there wasn't much he could do. He sighed in resignation and said "Fine. When we actually enter the Nest, you can come along. But you stay as far away as possible to operate that thing and you stay out of sight and out of the fight, understood?"

Carl nodded in agreement and carefully kept his feelings of triumph off his face. Gloating would not help his cause. He began to short through his papers and notes to cover up any chance of giving himself away.

Van Helsing watched him for a moment longer but realized that whatever he might suspect, that Carl had outmaneuvered him. He would be coming along with him to destroy the gargoyles. Letting out a sigh of annoyance, he shook his head and said "Fine, now that we've settled that, I'm heading out on patrol. I should be back pretty late." He turned and started to head out.

Carl watched the Hunter and felt a small twinge of apprehension. He called after him "Be careful out there. You aren't 100 yet and while I've made the tojos tougher, getting up close and personal wouldn't be a good idea."

Van Helsing gave him a sour look and said, "I'm well aware of that Carl. I'm not going to engage them unless I absolutely have to. Tonight is about finding out where they are holed up. Once I've got that, I'll head home. I've got no desire to get the crap beat out of me."

Carl flushed a bit at the reprimand and mumbled "Sorry, still getting use to this whole 'working with someone' thing. Didn't mean to come off all mother hen."

Van Helsing realized that Carl hadn't been nagging but expressing an actual concern for him. The thought gave him a warm feeling and he decided to soften his response. "That's ok, I'm still getting use to it too. Didn't mean to snap. Not use to having someone worrying about me." He gave a slight smile and said "Bit of an adjustment but I think I'll get use to it." He turned and headed out, calling over his shoulder, "I'll be getting back pretty late so don't wait up."

Carl just stared at the doorway that Van Helsing went through and finally allowed his face to show the concern he was feeling. He shook his head and said, "Like I would waste my time trying to sleep while you are out there." He sighed and went back to work. It was going to be a long night.

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