Luckily for Face, his departure had not gone un-noticed. As Hannibal and B.A. questioned The Nest's regulars about Mark, Murdock swooped through the crowd with a worried expression.
"No luck, Murdock?"
"Negative, Colonel. Face said he's got a line on something, but . . . I don't know, Hannibal, something seems a bit off."
Hannibal and B.A. looked over Murdock's shoulder to see Face exiting The Nest with a beautiful brunette. Then, they saw the bruisers gathering from the far corners of the room to follow them.
"Well, he's certainly in trouble now." Almost before Hannibal had finished his thought, the three of them were barreling up the stairs after their friend. They burst into the alley expecting the thugs to be beating on Face, but they were instead standing in a semicircle . . . watching the brunette nuzzle Face's neck?
The team's confusion turned to horror as she raised her mouth from Face's throat, both covered in blood. Her face formed a ghastly grin as Hannibal pulled his .45 and Murdock and B.A. scattered to take out the brutes between them and Face. "Ah," she said, "looks like Blondie here was just the appetizer."
"Blondie" was by this time feeling a more than a little light-headed, in addition to the pain in his neck. He tried to pull back to give Hannibal room to shoot, and did a double take as he looked at Sylvia's mouth. As if being covered in blood (My blood? Face cringed) wasn't horrible enough, there were also honest-to-goodness fangs protruding from her jaw. Stunned, Face looked in disbelief at the rest of her face, which had somehow contorted into something . . . not quite human.
A sharp crack echoed throughout the alley as Hannibal fired a shot. Sylvia staggered, releasing Face, who lost his balance and plowed into one of the other assailants. Murdock, meanwhile, had ripped off his cloak and was waving it at the thugs like a bullfighter in the ring. One of them obligingly charged, and Murdock attempted to wrap him up in the cloak while the two of them were rolling on the ground.
The rest of the gang was shortly engaged in trading punches with Hannibal and B.A., who seemed to be having more than the usual trouble. Grabbing hold of an opponent's shirt, B.A. flung him into the air and onto a pile of rubble.
Nobody noticed the broken bit of crate that pierced the thug's chest, or the fact that he promptly turned to dust and blew away.
By this time, Murdock's thug was quite thoroughly tangled in his cape, and Murdock had moved on to tag-teaming with Face against the goon he had knocked into, with negligible success. Hannibal, meanwhile, had been stunned by a punch from a remarkably huge and muscle-bound brute now taking turns with B.A. smashing their fists into each other's jaw.
"Man . . . you punch like the frakin' Slayer. . . " the goon managed to say, before collapsing into a heap. The rest of the thugs had picked themselves up, and regrouped around Sylvia, whose features Face noticed had gone back to normal, albeit still streaked with blood.
"Foolish mortals," she spat. "Do you think you can beat us with your guns and bare fists?" The rest of the gang slowly advanced towards the team, although none of them seemed particularly eager to menace B.A.
"She's got a point, guys," said Hannibal. "Face is hurting; get him back to the van while I provide cover fire." As B.A. grabbed Face, slung him over his shoulders (over the latter's weak protests), and headed for the van, Hannibal emptied his .45 at the approaching thugs. His shots seemed to have little effect, and when the gun clicked empty he turned and ran up the alley, with the gang close on his heels. As he reached the street, B.A. pulled the van up on the curb, letting Hannibal jump into the passenger seat while Murdock fired several rounds out the side with the team's antique Thompson.
With a loud screech, the A-Team disappeared into the night.
A short drive later, the team sat in the back room of the Golden Pagoda, a Chinese restaurant whose owner, Sam, was an old friend of the A-Team. Soon, they were eating a late supper in the back of the restaurant while Sam skillfully patched up Face's neck.
"I'm telling you, guys, she grew fangs." Face was saying. "Her whole face looked it came out of one of Hannibal's monster movies."
Hannibal frowned around a mouthful of Kung Pao squid. "Growing fangs, chewing up your neck . . . Face, it almost sounds like you think she was a vampire or something."
"And vhy not?" demanded Murdock. "Did you think I vas the only von cursed to vander through endless nights of – mph!"
B.A. sat back down, having forced an entire egg roll into Murdock's mouth. "There ain't no such things as vampires, Faceman – she was probably just on crack cocaine, or somethin'."
"And that made her face contort like an accordion?" Face retorted. "No, there's something else going on here."
"Face," Hannibal said gently, "are you sure you weren't just seeing things? You did say she gave you something to drink something before the two of you went out to that alley. Who knows what she might have drugged you with . . ."
"It wasn't drugs! I saw it just as clearly as I'm seeing all of you!"
"Faceman might be right." Sam put the finishing touches on Face's bandage, then gave a pensive frown. "I myself have seen many things in China and in Vietnam that would be explained if he were."
The uncomfortable silence which followed this remark was broken by Face. "Hold on a minute, guys – during our little tussle I managed to grab something off one of the . . . one of them." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a rather ordinary-looking leather wallet. He tossed it to Hannibal, who flipped it open and began investigating the contents.
"Lawrence Tureaud," he read off of a driver's license, "born 1949, address in Oxnard . . . huh, that's odd."
"What is?"
"His driver's license expired back in '81." Tossing the license aside, Hannibal pulled out a dog-eared business card. "Wolfram & Hart," he read, "it seems old Lawrence is a 'security consultant' for them, whoever they might be."
Face wrinkled his nose. "They're lawyers, Hannibal. Real scuzzballs, too. You guys remember Fat Louie Capetti?"
"Yeah," said B.A., "wasn't he a mob kingpin, or somethin'? They caught him stealin' kids off the street, and making 'em work for him. " His huge hands involuntarily fisted at the thought of children being victimized.
"Yeah, well, when his trial came up he somehow got off with time served. The whole thing reeked of a shady deal, and guess who his lawyers were?" Face grimaced. "That sort of thing is pretty standard for a Wolfram & Hart client."
"Maybe Mark got mixed up with one of those clients." Hannibal mused. "If we could find out whether anyone else has disappeared in this area lately, that might give us some idea of where else to look."
"Ze Police are not wery likely to know, if many of ze missing ones are runaways," noted Murdock.
"Good point. Where could we go to hear some local scuttlebutt without it getting back to the kidnappers, though?"
"Hannibal, we're not even sure there are any kidnappers," objected Face. "For all we know, Mark and his girlfriend snuck off to Vegas together and they'll turn up at home next week."
Hannibal smirked. "Yeah, Face, but down at The Nest tonight you stirred something up asking about him. Now I'm kinda curious to find out exactly what it is."
"Charlie might know somethin'" B. A. offered. "Kids like that is always hearin' things 'bout what's going down on the streets."
Nobody else could really think of a better plan than this, so the A-Team finished their meal, bid Sam goodnight, and went to get some sleep before the following day's investigations.
The next morning, a sidewalk interrogation by B.A. revealed that Charlie had in fact heard of several people going missing recently. Some of his playmates had volunteered some information of their own, and soon the team was pulling up near an abandoned warehouse suspiciously close to The Nest. They tumbled out of the van, cautiously advancing towards the back door.
Even in the bright California morning, the alleyway the A-Team found themselves in was dark with shadows. The humid air seemed deadened, somehow – the only sounds were the team's footsteps and the clink-clink of B.A.'s jewelry. Face nervously fingered an old rosary he had impulsively stuck in his pocket that morning – never particularly devout even during his schooldays in Catholic-run orphanages; Face knew that he was just over-reacting to the previous night's talk of vampires. And yet, every few seconds, he found himself checking that it was still there.
Midway down the alley, they found themselves in front of a metal door, locked with a heavy padlock. Face made short work of this with his ever-present set of picks, and soon the door was slowly swinging open, revealing only blackness beyond.
With a sharp click, Hannibal pulled back the bolt on his Mini-14. The rest of the team followed suit, but before they could enter the building, the silence was broken by a voice none of them recognized.
"I wouldn't go in there, if I were you."
Almost instantly the A-Team had their weapons trained on the interloper. He was filthy and shabbily dressed, as if he had lived on the streets for many years; and yet he appeared to only be in his mid-twenties. Brown-haired and pale-skinned, he looked like he might be quite handsome, under all those years of grime.
"Well, that all depends – if you were us, who would we be?" Hannibal questioned, his voice tinged with annoyance at being snuck up on.
Despite Hannibal's sharp tone, however, the vagrant remained unruffled. "Those guns won't stop what's waiting for you in there. If you want to live, stay out."
"Just how do you know that?" demanded Face. "Who are you, anyway?"
"A friend."
"But we haven't even been properly introduced," remarked Hannibal, in a somewhat flippant manner.
"I didn't say I was your friend."
"No, no you didn't." The flippant tone was gone now. Hannibal raised his rifle and put it right up on the stranger's neck. "That's why you're coming in here with us." He gestured towards the door with the rifle barrel. "After you – friend."
The warehouse was as dark inside as the alley had been, if not more so. The A-Team and their reluctant companion slowly inched into the blackness, their senses on high alert for any noise or other sign of life. Feeling along the wall, B.A. discovered a light switch and, after calling a quick warning, flipped it.
After shaking off the resulting flash blindness, the team found themselves in what seemed to be another club, similar to The Nest but deserted for the day. When a quick search turned up nothing out of the ordinary, Hannibal ordered the team towards another door on the far side of the room, expecting to find an office of some sort. Again, Face's facility with lock-picks soon had them through.
Beyond this inner door, a hallway stretched into shadows that the light from behind the team barely penetrated. As they cautiously crept down the hall, Face trailed his hand along the dark wooden paneling. "Huh," he mused, "this feels like authentic stuff, guys. Expensive, too. What would it be doing in this kind of place?"
Nobody had an answer for him. Suddenly, Murdock stopped short, looked around, and said; "Hey guys – ve seem to be missing our fifth vheel."
The rest of the team looked around in shock. Indeed, somewhere between the front door and the hallway the mysterious vagrant had completely disappeared. Hannibal took the sudden departure in stride: "Alright, then, let's finish up here and get out before he can come back with any more friends."
At the other end of the hall the A-Team found two doors. The first lead into a fairly standard, if luxurious, office. While Hannibal and B.A. checked the filing cabinet, Face and Murdock checked the desk. "Aha!" Face exclaimed, holding up several pages for the rest of the team to examine. They seemed to be letters, handwritten on Wolfram & Hart letterhead . . . and obviously in some sort of cipher. Face wasn't even sure what language some of the squiggly symbols came from – certainly nothing any of them had ever seen, in Vietnam or subsequently.
"Bring 'em, we'll try to decode them later," ordered Hannibal. The team then left the office, opening the second door and hurrying through. What they found next, however, stopped their exploration cold.
They were in a large room, one that probably took up half the space in the warehouse. Unlike the front half of the building, this was unfinished, with walls consisting of exposed studs and bare electric wires, and a plain cement floor. Oddly, there were a number of long tables scattered around the room, with rather lumpy contents covered with sheets. Hannibal approached one warily, with the rest of the team covering the door they had just come through. He reached out and grabbed the sheet, lifting it up to check out what it concealed.
What he found shocked the team into a brief moment of confusion. A pair of shoes, presumably covering feet attached to the pants-covered legs that went up under the sheet. Hannibal promptly ripped the sheet off completely to reveal a serene-looking, but very dead, young man.
They stared at the corpse, then slowly looked around at all the other sheet-shrouded tables around them. "My God . . . " mumbled Face, not knowing or caring whether he was praying or cursing. He and B.A. began checking under the other shrouds, while Hannibal and Murdock inspected the first body.
"At least . . ." Hannibal stopped, taking a deep breath to compose himself. "At least it isn't Mark." he concluded.
B.A. and Face walked back over to them, having finished their grisly chore. The enraged expression on B.A.'s face made the results clear. Face shook his head. "They're all dead . . . Hannibal, what's happening here?"
Whatever Hannibal started to say, however, was quickly overshadowed by the dead man next to them opening his eyes and sitting up.
To be concluded . . .
Author's Note: My apologies for how long it's taken to update, and congratulations to everybody who figured that the crossover was with some form of vampire fiction. Specifically, the crossover is with Angel: the Series which is, of course, the invention of Joss Whedon and not myself. Thanks to everybody for reading this far, and stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!