Chapter Four:
"Are you sure you're going to be all right?"
"I told you- I'll be fine," Lance said, pressing his cheek to the ground. "I just don't much like flying." He shot a glare towards the gleaming metal death trap that had carried him, all unexpecting, into the air and across the sea, all at speeds he was damn sure he'd never been meant to travel. It now rested underneath a camouflage net, in a small grove of trees.
"I don't much like seafood, but I've never kissed the dirt coming out of a crab shack," Daisy observed.
"Can we do the banter thing later?" Lance asked, finally sitting up. "Like, when you do something mockable?"
"Fine by me," said Daisy. "Let's talk strategy. Officially speaking, SHIELD has no authority to operate in Latveria- they never signed on to the relevant treaties. Mostly because the local nobility has no interest in anyone having any sort of firepower in this country."
"My experience has been, anyone starts a sentence with 'officially speaking,' there's something unofficial they're not mentioning."
Daisy shook her head. "Nothing of any real importance. SHIELD has a couple of contacts in the city, but no one I would trust to help us with this. For all intents and purposes, we're on our own out here."
"So what's the plan? We cowboy up and ride on this castle?"
Daisy shook her head. "Too risky. We don't know how many vampires are in there, how many humans they might have mesmerized or just on the payroll, or what they're planning. Damnit, I wish we knew what the Baron was up to in Paris. You really have no idea where Mystique is?"
"Last I heard, she took off after her kids made it clear that they had no desire to play happy family with her," Lance said. "I haven't exactly been turning over rocks looking for her."
"Can't be helped now, I suppose," Daisy said. "Anyways, we need a clearer picture of what's going on before we make a move. Which means, for the time being, we need to go incognito." She pulled the camouflage netting aside and popped the trunk of her car. Out came a large box, which, upon being opened, turned out to be full of eyeglasses, wigs, and make up. Daisy selected a large, thick rimmed pair of eyeglasses, and handed them to Lance.
"Seriously?" He asked, putting them on. "This is the ultimate SHIELD disguise kit? What happened to all your high tech image inducer toys?"
"Holograms can be detected or shorted out if you not what you're looking for," Daisy said. "Whereas most people aren't much good at recognizing people- even people who've wound up on TV as often as you have- out of context."
Underneath the disguise materials were a pair of passports, one of which Daisy handed to Lance. "Yeah, the context being, I look like a hipster," Lance muttered as he flipped open the passport. "Dominic Petros? What kind of a name is that?"
"Your name," Daisy informed him. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you the kind of alarm bells that would start ringing if anyone official knew that you were here."
"Okay. So we fly..." Lance considered the word choice, and evidently regretted it, because he stretched himself out prone on the ground again. "We go under the radar. How do we find out what they're up to? We can't exactly walk up to the castle and pretend to be selling girl scout cookies, and then just ask to pop in and use their bathroom for a second."
"That's not the plan exactly, no. But the thing about vampires- I mean, the one consistent, notable fact about vampires that go out and try to take over the world- they're not very good about controlling their appetites. I assume that's a big part of why they're based in Latveria. The aristocracy here has been preying on the peasants for generations. It wouldn't take much to convince them to let some new friends join in the fun."
"You mean they're holed up here because the local government's letting them just feed on whoever they want?" Lance grimaced. "Remind me why we're not breaking down their door and killing them all?"
"Because we'd die," Daisy said patiently. "Believe me, the idea disturbs me just as much as it does you. But getting ourselves killed isn't the way to stop it. And in the short term, it does give us an opportunity."
Lance's eyes widened. "Don't tell me," he groaned. "We're going to play fangbait."
"Oh sure, it's a real nice country you got here," Daisy told the bartender, once more using the irritatingly chipper voice she'd previously deployed on the Dunwich Asylum receptionist. Lance sat at the bar, nursing his drink enough to avoid drawing the bartender's ire, while making sure not to drink so quickly that his alertness was dulled.
"But ya know, it's kinda not as exciting as I was expecting," Daisy continued. "I heard that there was some real wicked parties going on in town, if y'know what I mean." The bar was a dive deep in Hassenstadt's red light district, and Lance was already nervous- several of the men had eyed Daisy and him with obviously predatory intent as they entered the room.
The bartender rolled his eyes as he took Daisy's glass. "You are looking for something wicked, Miss?" He said, laying one hand on the bar, palm up.
"That's right, mister," Daisy said. "Why do you know somewhere- oh! I get it." She winked conspicuously and laid a bill on the open palm.
The bartender pocketed it without looking. "I will write down an address for you," he said, "When you get there, tell them what you told me, that you came looking for something truly wicked. I promise to you, that you will not be disappointed."
Behind Daisy's back, several of the bar's patrons shot each other smirking looks, and one made a remark in Latverian.
"Well?" Daisy asked, as they emerged from the bar.
"Well, they definitely didn't look like they thought they were doing you any favors," Lance said. "No one mimed vampire fangs, if that's what you mean."
"It's a decent sized city," Daisy said. "There's likely to be all sorts of trouble we could run into, other than the sort we're looking for. But the man did say something about leeches. Could be a good sign."
"Yeah, or we could be walking into some sort of giant leech fighting ring," Lance said. "I don't suppose you've got any better ideas?"
"Nothing in the time frame we're looking at," Daisy admitted.
"Then I guess we should go check out the leeches," Lance conceded, raising a hand to hail a cab. The driver, a young man in a soft felt cap, greeted them in heavily accented English, apparently excited at the prospect of chauffeuring a pair of Americans about the city.
As soon as Daisy handed him the slip of paper with the address, however, a look of fear came over his place. "Ah! Miss- you do not want to go there. That is not a good place. I will take you to see the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mountain Springs instead. A much more pleasant visit, I think. Much better for you."
Daisy peeled off a trio of bills from her roll and offered them to the driver. "We can take care of ourselves," she assured him. He looked at the bills for a long moment, his desire for the money obviously warring with his fear of the address, and then, muttering what sounded like a prayer under his breath, he took the cash.
He was silent during their drive, although he frequently glanced back as though hoping that his passengers would come to their senses and give him another destination. As they pulled up outside the designated building, he took the rosary off of the rear view mirror, and handed it to Daisy. "Take this, Miss," he insisted. "It may help."
"Will you wait here for-" before Lance could finish, the driver had slammed the door, and was driving away. "I guess not."
"I'd say it looks like we're in the right place," Daisy said, examining the rosary.
Lance meanwhile, was eying the building- a large concrete structures, which lacked windows or more than one door- and that with a bat carved in relief in the center of it. "Are we going in?"
"No, there's likely to be too many in there.I think we'll just wander about the alleys here for a little while and look vulnerable."
Lance stared at her for a moment. "I'm not saying that the plan itself is stupid," he said carefully. "But you really need to work on your presentation."
Daisy shrugged. "It is what it is. Now tie your hair back, show a little neck."
Gladys the vampire was not having a good day. She had tarried too long in the charnel house the previous night, and the rosy fingers of dawn had come stealing before she could hie herself back to the Castle Actherliek. She had been forced to hide away the daylit hours in that den of rough mannered louts- those deemed too ill behaved to have a place in the Castle proper.
Now, picking a flea from her hair, and crushing the Siphonapteran beast between her molars, she perched on a building ledge, and watched the young human stroll aimlessly below.
Her head was clouded, and her mind roiled and moiled with a thousand half formed thoughts and fancies. She thirsted, with the primal instincts of a vampire lineage stretching back to the dim Hyborean days of old- even if it had been with her, specifically only a few weeks.
She would feast on this young mortal. She would drink him dry as bone- dry as the desert sands, and, her thirst slaked, her mind would blow clear of all the larvae and lamias that now haunted it, and she would make her way home to the Castle.
She sprang from her place of concealment, and landed whispersoft behind him. Silently, she reached out to grasp his shoulder in her Protean grip. Then, without warning or notice aforehand, a band of white-hot Tartarean pain encircled her neck. She tried to scream, and managed a faint gasp. Her erstwhile intended whirled about, making a slight grimace of distaste. Then, the pain about her neck spread, and she drifted into a bright new hell.
"Good morning," said Daisy.
"She does mean morning," Lance said, "Nice, clear day."
The vampire they had caught struggled weakly against her bonds for a moment, and then glanced about. She was bound securely to a tree, with her arms stretched backwards around it. The leaves of the tree were thick enough on the boughs to shade her in her present location, but just a few inches further out, the ground began to be dappled with sunlight.
"Can you speak?" Asked Daisy. "I wasn't expecting the rosary to have quite that effect on you."
"I can speak," the vampire hissed, "I can tell you that you'll burn for this! You think you can come here and pull this shit? When the Master hears what you've done, he'll peel your skin off and wear it as a hat."
"The master?" Daisy asked. "He's dead- we killed him in the US days ago."
Gladys's eyes widened for a moment, and then she scoffed in scorn. "Hah! The master wasn't even in America!"
Daisy turned to Lance with a smirk. "Look at her," she said, "Acting like she knows so much."
"You think so doesn't know so much?"
"I bet you five dollars she doesn't even know what the Baron brought back from Paris."
"Why are we bothering to interrogate her, then? We already know more than she does. I say, we just leave her there for the sun."
"There's no way you know what he brought back from Paris! No one does! He's not going to announce it until the rally tonight."
"Must be a big deal," Daisy remarked, "If even a pathetic little mosquito like you is going to be there."
Heedless of the danger of the sunlight, Gladys threw herself forward, the ropes binding her snapping as she dived, snarling, for Daisy's throat. Daisy stepped aside, leaving Gladys to charge into the sunlight.
Lance watched in horrified fascination for a moment as Gladys fell to the ground, screaming and thrashing, her skin blackening and smoking. He tore his gaze away, and, managing a sickly smile, quipped, "Not her brightest idea." He shuddered slightly. "Did you get what you needed?"
"It's a start," Daisy said. "It's telling that she didn't deny the fact that every vampire in the area would be at the rally- as mad as she got, I don't think she had an exclusive invitation."
Lance sighed and covered his eyes with one hand. "Why do I get the feeling the next step of your plan is 'infiltrate the rally filled with vampires?'"
Daisy grinned. "Don't be ridiculous. The next step is to load up on wooden stakes. We infiltrate the vampire rally tomorrow."