THREE WAY WAR
The situation was desperate.
Like zombies in a movie, Hodges and Erica advanced on Sarah.
Sarah first tried a karate kick on Jarod Hodges, as he was practically a stranger. He stopped for an instant, but then walked robotically forward. A karate chop. Nothing.
Sarah then tried a karate chop on Erica. Earlier that night, it had freed Erica from another of Coquette's trances. But this time, nothing.
Try as Sarah could, Erica and Hodges seemed nigh invulnerable to her karate moves. Slowly, Sarah was backed into a corner next to a black BMW F10 sedan.
Erica and Hodges each grabbed Sarah by the shoulders with an icy, steel grip.
This was Coquette's doing, as the long undead vampiress laughed melodically.
"It is not so easy, non?" said Coquette mockingly. "I am looking right at them, and I am funnelling them my strength. I should have them destroy you now, but I want to know more! Tell me all, and then I shall force you to destroy yourself. Now . . . Colby, are you not done with mon ami Ethan? C'est ridicule?"
Ethan and Colby both seemed, on some subconscious level, to labour under the assumption that they were each human beings.
Ethan had unwillingly turned into a werewolf less than an hour before, so perhaps it was understandable that he tried to used his front paws as fists, and his back paws for the type of footwork usually seen in a boxing match. He growled threateningly, and snapped his teeth, but that was the extent of the use of his werewolf abilities.
Colby, for his part, was forced by instinct to show the yellow of his eyes and his fangs. But other than some hissing, he too was under the impression that he was boxing.
Colby tried to make an uppercut at Ethan and missed; he took a paw to the right eye.
"Idiote!" laughed Coquette. "Use your fangs, speed and flight . . . you are too much used to biting your neck into the pretty young things Colby."
"Mon ami Ethan? Some way to treat a friend" interrupted Sarah acerbically.
"Oh watch them" said Coquette amused, "They are both creatures of instinct; creatures of the night. A werewolf and vampire cannot be so close for long, their hatred for each other will begin to coerce the end of this. It will push through their veneer of humanity. Now, see!"
Sure enough, the quasi-boxing ended with hissing from an enraged Colby and outright attempts at slashing by the equally angered Ethan.
Colby flew up out of reach of Ethan, trying to swoop down. But he was quickly knocked to the floor as Ethan tackled him in best football fighting form. Colby scrambled away; this made Ethan gave up trying to fight standing up, and again dropped to his four legs and ran after Colby. Ethan took a massive bite from Colby's left knee, at least temporarily crippling him.
"He bit me!" yelled Colby, flying up atop the BMW and nursing his bleeding leg. "The damned werewolf bit me . . . I'm going to be like him, howling at the moon and sprouting fur, muzzle, tail and fangs."
"Imbecile! You have fangs, of the very best kind" snapped Coquette. "And you cannot be turned into the loup garou, you are already the vampire. Oh, Colby, you are hopelessly soft and stupid!"
Sarah wondered how she was able to defeat Werewolf Ethan so quickly two years ago . . . as a fledgling!. It was hard to tell with him wearing the letterman jacket and jeans, but Werewolf Ethan might have been bigger than two years ago. Or it was just the fact that Ethan had the use of his human mind? Sarah had reason to remember as purely a werewolf Ethan was surprisingly stupid!
Sarah was very nearly knocked to the floor; it was Ethan tackling Hodges and Erica and freeing her.
"Be careful, you might scratch me" she warned Ethan.
Ethan gave a nod; he was back to his hind-feet and torn-out sneakers. Sarah wondered if Ethan was really more comfortable on two legs or if he just hated walking like an animal. She suspected the latter.
Coquette looked annoyed at Colby, and at Ethan (who seemed to be smirking, but it was hard to tell on a wolf), and finally at the Erica and Hodges who had been tumbled down like bowling pins.
"What is that saying you anglos have? Colby, how you say, si vous voulez que quelque chose soit bien fait, vous devez le faire vous-même?"
"If you want something done right you have to do it yourself?" said Colby uncertainly.
Colby's knee was still dripping blood all over the Barton's BMW.
"Oui" said Coquette, giving a fanged smile.
Coquette disappeared in an instant.
Before Sarah and Ethan could even realized what was going on, Coquette had taken the upper hand.
"Grrrr-yellllllp" Ethan growled in pain.
Coquette had, moving at super vampire speed, disabled Ethan by the simple expedient of pulling his tail with all her force. Not realizing how to respond to having his tail pulled, Ethan fell spread-eagled to the floor. In an instant, Coquette tied Ethan up securely in the heavy towing chain, and lifting the back passenger tire of the BMW, tied the end of the chain about the axle of the car.
Coquette then examined her nails while the glamoured Erica and Hodges again held Sarah in their unnatural steel grip.
"Regarde! See who you are fighting and who you have displeased!" said Coquette, looking at Sarah. "But this Ethan of yours. He too is impressive . . . even as a loup garou. But I suppose you wonder why he can persist against a vampire. Simplicity! Ethan is smart, Colby is a fool. Even a footballer must know how to play the game. Ah, Ethan would have been so useful in my beau massacre, beautiful massacre. I would have simply given him the slack on the leash and let him on his, how you say, way killing the youths here while I had my party there!
But it is no use crying over the milk that is spilt! I cannot let your destruction of my servant Andre and mes amis stand unavenged. Or your apparent treachery to and leaving our kind, which I am still confused over the, how you say, way in which it was affected. And . . . who is that boy there? Hodges lâcha Sarah et l'attrapa immédiatement!"
Hodges immediately let go of Sarah, and walked robotically to the corner of the room and grabbed the teenage-looking Tempus Mercator's arm.
But Tempus only looked wryly at Hodges and laughed.
"Regarder!" demanded Coquette, and looked Tempus in the eye.
For a second, Tempus didn't respond, then the demon went as rigid, still and robotic as Hodges.
Sarah looked on in shock at what apparently just happened. A vampire "glamouring" a demon? Should that be the way it worked? Sarah would have thought it wouldn't have been possible.
"Bien" said Coquette, "You see surprised? Pourquoi? Why? Dites-moi tout. Je vous commande! Tell me all, I command you!"
Sarah's head began to hurt, as if an invisible pair of hands had grasped her skull and was beginning to squeeze with all its might. This force was as strong as steel, and cold as ice.
Altogether, it was a terrible, disgusting feeling.
These non-corporeal steel-and-ice hands passed through her skull and began to squeeze her brain.
Sarah knew she was succumbing to the power of Coquette's most intense form of vampire hypnotism.
"I was third amongst those immortals residing in the New World" said Coquette, or rather it seemed to Sarah as if Coquette's voice boomed through Sarah's head. "In the nord, only Anastasia surpassed me. In the sud, only the thousand-year-old Huitaca of Cuzco, leader of the Peruvian immortals, is my equal. In a few ways I was, and am, the first more powerful at the art of the vampire glamour. In Canada, beside Anastasia and myself there was behind us, oh so very far behind us, the Reverend Horace Black. Jesse, as you know him, was le amateur an amateur glamour, only perfected where he could find it useful. And Anastasia's devotee Harlow, his was of the most primitive kind. It is only I who can get one to confess their innermost knowledge! SO PARLE-TU!."
Instead of talking, Sarah was awakened to consciousness by a sudden flash of heat and light from one of her pockets.
"Behold . . . the . . . power . . . of . . . the . . . lucifractor" murmured Sarah, in a dream-like state.
And the spell was broken.
Sarah did not remove it from her pocket immediately, but focused her angry eyes on the young woman before her.
"AIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" screamed Coquette. "You have it?"
Sarah did not reply, but held it up.
"I know what that thing is. I'm outta here" said Colby. "I don't care if my knee falls off or I do start chasing cats."
A passing breeze, the pedestrian door slamming behind him, and Colby was gone.
"I will get that traitor!" hissed Coquette.
"If you survive that long" said Sarah. "If you try to attack me again . . . let's just say you'll get a very good sunburn."
All of Coquette's pride and conceit vanished, leaving a very scared looking young woman. Or, rather, a very scared looking 350 year old bloodsucker that looked like a young woman.
"How would you like to make, how you say, a deal?" said Coquette.
"I've had enough of that the last few days" said Sarah.
"I will let go of you and tu ames?"
"The man . . . the creature . . . Hodges is holding is not my friend."
Technically, Hodges was not Sarah's friend either; she hardly knew him. But Sarah thought it was mean-spirited to make a big deal of it now.
"Well, then, I keep him?"
"Still no deal."
Sarah hesitated. A thought came to her mind.
How exactly do we put back that bolt into the ceiling where it belongs? This vampire is almost 400 years old and very powerful. Like Jesse, like Anastasia, she probably knows a thing or two about magic. But would she help?
Coquette examined Sarah's face closely. It was seemingly expressionless; too expressionless!
"You have a secret you seek my help with, do you not!" said Coquette, with relief. "You might trade?"
"Maybe" admitted Sarah after a pause.
"You go after the monsters, oui? How would you like some secret knowledge to go after others. Wait, you are going to do something, oui? It is the hunt for another creature of the night? Non. To steal Ethan from this Trixie. Non, though you would like him I see it in your face. There is some . . . some . . . some ceremony you must do? Oui, you cannot conceal. You will tell me, and I will tell you how to . . . ."
"IF YOU DO, YOU REGRET IT" said Tempus, who pushed Hodges roughly off of himself and strolled to the two girls.
Tempus's eyes glowed red.
"Qu'est-ce que vous êtes? What are you that you break through my glamour so easily?" said Coquette, who looked to him with annoyance.
"Some three hundred and fifty years ago, when you willingly became a vampire, you befouled your soul and hid it behind the darkest of shades" said Tempus coldly. "Your power comes from my master and your soul will be ultimately forfeit to him in the end."
"NON!" Coquette exclaimed.
"As well you have known since you supernaturally sought to cheat death and perpetually maintain your beauty and your wealth. You may last for centuries or millennia yet, but you will be dust in the end. You may persist in the limbo of the vampires for a century thereafter, but your soul is ultimately forfeit to my master. For I am the demon merchant of time, Tempus Mercator Daemonium!"
Coquette took a step back, and for an instant looked frightened once again. Then she narrowed her eyes at the demon, and looked at Sarah.
Sarah for her part, positioned herself so she could zap both Coquette and Tempus with the Lucirfractor at the same time. The orb, in fact, was glowing dully in her hand.
Coquette noticed this and gave a grim little smile.
"You do know, mon ami, that a demon does not have control of the vampires. I have not formally sold my soul to bargain with the evil one, as a witch does. And is forever at the evil one's beck and call. I am independent of you, still."
"Your soul is still forfeit as you freely chose your fate with the knowledge of what it entailed" Tempus said disdainfully.
"Démon marchand de temps" said Coquette haughtily. "I have some of the occult knowledge. You bargains souls for interference in things that have past, but you power there is usually little to effect very large change. If one is willing to sell their soul to the evil one, their soul is deeply tainted by that desire. You rely on the purity of the soul for your power, but that purity is tarnished by the act of dealing with you. But . . . ."
"What if the demon was trapped in a coin and I was tricked into a wish I didn't really mean?" said Sarah.
"Ah!" said Coquette. "I have not survived so long being a stupid one. This Tempus insults me by suggesting my ultimate fate be it only millennia from now. Your story of another timeline, a new reality, intrigues me more than my grievance over the insult you have thrown upon me tonight! So, mon petite!Hold him, hold me with the lucifractor. Only tell me! J'ai toujours aimé les commérages! "
"NO!" said Tempus. "You've forgotten there's one thing I can do that'll make me immune to the rays of the lucifractor."
"I knew you weren't immune as you are, like you said at the hotel" scoffed Sarah.
"Be that as it may, I suggest right now you think of your fine teenage lycanthrope chained to the BMW here!" said Tempus.
Ethan growled from where he was.
"Oh yes, Ethan, this form suits you. You're really nothing but mangy animal. You were about to restore the timeline. But your sorrow . . . make no mistake, it was your sorrow . . . induced your little sister to let you have your little fun at the dance. She was really thinking of the innocent high school movies preteens watch. But you were really looking forward to a wild teenage party, where you could have your girl and play the hero. You had your evening of drunkenness and vice."
"Oh, Ses péchés sont ceux du jeune homme dans le saloon . . . Ethan's sins are those of the young man in the saloon" laughed Coquette.
"You are the one to identify what's a sin!" observed Tempus.
"A demon in service of the devil and a murderous five hundred year old vampire!" Sarah put in. "Do you really expect us to stand here and listen to either of you."
Sarah stood more closely to Ethan as a show of solidarity.
"Though you yourself just criticized his choices a short time before" observed Tempus, blowing smoke rings again. "Now, Sarah, you forget one of the power of demons. One that had been exercised on you, in the timeline in which you're familiar. Demonic possession, and your werewolf boyfriend has provided me with enough cause to enter and possess him. I usually hate to do it, I don't like it, but . . . ."
Ethan gave out a very pained whine, and seemed to struggle with an invisible force for a second. Then his yellow pupils went bright red.
The possessed werewolf now stood on its hind-legs, and tried to shake off the tow-chain. It succeeded. Then, with its paws, it threw the jacket to the ground.
"Stay back Ethan" said Sarah.
The werewolf gave a fierce growl. It looked towards Erica, lying on the floor.
"Stay back Ethan, I'm warning you" said Sarah.
"You must lucifract him, mon petite, to save the others" said Coquette. "Or you must trust me to fight him for you."
"And if you do?"
"You tell me all?"
"I will."
"Bien"
The second fight was a good deal harder for Coquette. She was very wary of being bitten, Sarah could see that. But . . . .
"Prends çaprendre ceci et cela et cela!
Coquette was smart. There were plenty of tools in the garage. Heavy tools like hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, a jack, and another tow chains.
Coquette could, of course, fly. And fly at super-speed. For the dead travel fast.
Coquette threw them down on Ethan one after another.
Clunk. Thud. Clank. Bang.
Although none of these tools were silver, they certainly hurt the demon-possessed Ethan.
The demon-possessed Ethan let out doglike whines as the tools hit him in various places.
The werewolf was reduced to trying to stand on two legs to reach Coquette. Then it was reduced to simply crouching from the furiously flying missiles.
CRAAAAAAAACK!
The Bartons had an iron sledgehammer in the garage.
If Ethan hadn't been only vulnerable to silver, he would have been dead. As it was, he was actually knocked out!
Soon enough, Ethan was wrapped in two tow chains and tied to a steel beam holding up the garage. When he recovered (and it was a matter of minutes) his eyes were back to their supernatural yellow.
"The demon could be hurt, Ethan" said Coquette complacently, "so long as it possessed a physical body. That last blow forced it from you. You won't hear of Tempus again tonight. Now, Sarah, tell me everything!"