Faith, Hope & Charity

A Faith Lehane Mystery

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

Chapter Seven

Back at Stone's house, after yet another late evening at Elaine's restaurant, we ended up back at the Turtle Bay house. Another evening of sex – Stone was a satisfying and inventive lover, I'll give him that, but he lacked passion. Now that I'm a worldly wise twenty-something (I'm fuckin' kidding) I had learned enough not to blurt out what I was thinking, most of the time anyway. And what I thought was that Stone was pining away for the love of his life, and trying to make up for that lack by filling his life with as many women as he could convince to hop in bed with him. Seeing as he was well-off, good looking, had a fine house, and was a hell of a good lawyer, he was very successful in that endeavor. Nothing I could do about whoever was missing from his life though.

"Hey Stone, how come you sometimes say 'Turtle Creek' instead of 'Turtle Bay'?"

"There used to be a creek here, but they filled it in and replaced it with a storm drain. Then they filled in the bay, so even that's just an old tradition now. Mind you, that was just after the civil war, no one alive today has ever seen either the bay or the creek."

"Okay," I said, not that interested in fucking ancient history. I turned over and pretended to go to sleep.

Around midnight I got up without waking Stone, dressed in black jeans, dark gray hoodie over a dark blue shirt, and steel-toed black boots. I snuck downstairs, quietly eased the front door opened, and was blasted by flashing lights and a siren. Fucking burglar alarm. Seconds later Stone came bounding athletically down the stairs, waving his gun.

"Whoa officer! It's just me, goin' out for a walk."

He slowed down, pointed his pistol at the floor and safed it. "You just about gave me a heart attack, you should have told me you planned to go out." He went to the hall closet, opened a panel and entered a code, and the silence was golden.

He took a good long look at me and said, "Do you want to tell your lawyer anything?"

"No."

"I thought not. Still, we do have lawyer-client privilege, you can tell me anything, anything short of plans to commit murder anyway."

"Hey, I'm just going for a walk, nothing to do with the case, and I will try hard to stay out of trouble." I didn't see any upside in burdening him with my plans for hunting vampires and demons.

He sighed, "Okay, here's a key, and here's the code to get back in. If you go through the kitchen you'll find a door to the common gardens in back. Much easier to get in and out without being noticed."

Fuck me, I guess he really did trust me not do anything felonious, or he was giving me enough rope to hang myself, I wasn't sure which.

So Turtle Bay is on the East side of Manhattan, near the UN building, not far from Sutton Place. I didn't really know the neighborhood very well – stands to reason since I didn't know the City, but from the looks of the buildings and the incredibly expensive cars parked on the streets, I assumed this was a place for rich fuckers. I stopped dead in my tracks – I was one of those rich fuckers now; how strange was that? But I was still the nastiest motherfucking predator on the streets, no matter how much money I had.

Okay, I thought, time to get my shit together and concentrate on hunting. I let my my thoughts go blank, leaned back and breathed the air, and reached out to feel the night with all my senses. I felt drawn north and west, and as an experienced Slayer I knew when to follow that feeling, so after I walked about twenty blocks or so I found myself in Central Park. Hmmm, might be good hunting here, I'd heard that this wasn't exactly the safest part of the city at night, although native New Yorkers took some kind of perverse pride in telling me how much worse it used to be.

I started jogging along a dirt path, headed north, and it wasn't long before that disgusting dead smell tickled my nose. Oh yeah, there's vamps here.

It was only a few minutes before I could hear a three people ahead, two staggering drunkenly along the jogging path and the third seemed to be ahead of the other two. The woman was saying, "This doesn't look like the way to Via Quadronno, you sure we aren't lost?" Her words were slurred, oh yeah, she had definitely overindulged.

One of her companions answered, "Yeah, yeah, I know exactly where I am, and the all you can eat bar is just up ahead, it's to die for, count on it."

Fucking vampires, I thought, where do these assholes come up with this shit? Suddenly, the woman said, "Who's that guy? What's goin' on here?" Now she was worried, apparently the other vamp just showed himself.

"Hey, hey, honey," said the first vamp, "not to worry, we're just gonna share a little, that's all!"

"FUCK OFF!" I could hear sounds of struggle now. "OW! LET ME GO YOU ASSHOLES!" Followed by a thump.

"What the hell didja do?" asked the second vamp.

"Nuthin', she just passed out. Too much vodka, I guess."

"Yeah? You suppose her blood will taste like a Bloody Mary?"

"Nah, drunks taste more like a fuckin' sewage dump. We probably should let her dry out a little, use her up in the morning."

"Fuck that, I'm hungry now."

Okay, time to swoop in and kick ass. "Hey assholes, can I join this party?"

"Hey babe, the more the ..." I wasn't in the mood to fuck around, I just slammed my fucking stake right into the fucking vamps fucking chest and stood back while he fucking dusted. The other one was shocked witless.

"What the...?" he managed.

"Come on bloodsucker, come out swingin'. Don't bother running neither, the way I feel I'll just run you down that much faster."

He tried to fight me, but he musta been a newbie, it wasn't no fight at all. Downright disappointing really. As he whooshed into dust, I heard a sound behind me. I swiveled – nothing – oh wait, the girl lying on the ground moaned. I kneeled to check her out.

"Hey, you alright?"

"Oooooooh, I don't think so. I saw you fighting those assholes, where'd they go?"

"They took off, didn't have it in 'em for a fight, fuckin' cowards."

"Oh, oooooh, god, yeah, thanks. I think they planned..."

"Yeah, it wouldn't have gone well for you. Come on, get up, let's get you back to, uh, where are you staying?"

She stood up and stumbled to the side of the trail and upchucked into the bushes. "Uh sorry 'bout that."

"Don't worry, we've all been there." Not since I became a Slayer, and there had definitely been times I'd drunk enough that I sure would've emptied my stomach all over the landscape before being slayerized. Damn, that's an advantage that isn't in the Slayer Handbook, I wonder what Giles will say when I propose adding that little tidbit?

"I live out on Long Island, in the Hamptons." She clumsily got to her feet, I steadied her, kept her from falling.

"Kind of a long way from home, aren't cha?"

"Yeah, I was drinking to forget... Well never mind that, find me a taxi and I'll get gone."

"Where's your purse? Phone? Money? Credit cards?" Her clothes were very expensive – after Buffy and Cordelia I had a pretty good idea what it cost to dress like that – so I knew she wasn't a deadbeat.

And when did I, Faith Lehane, street urchin, start caring about what people were worth? What the hell was the matter with me?

"Ah, I have no idea," she said, looking around blankly for her missing stuff.

"Come on, I can give ya a ride."

"So uh, what's your name?"

"Emily, Emily Thorne."

"I'm Faith Lehane. My bikes parked about twenty blocks from here, so we gotta hoof it, then..."

"Your BIKE? You expect to ride double on a bicycle out to Montauk?"

"Ah no, it's a Harley-Davidson..."

She interrupted me again. "No way, I'm too fucked-up to ride on the back of motorcycle, I'd probably fall off, let's think of something else."

"Well, you can sleep over at my lawyers house, that's where I'm spending the night."

"Yeah, suddenly I'm not in the mood for sleeping in stranger's houses, and I really don't like lawyers much."

I laughed, "Yeah, I know what you mean, this ones pretty fucking good though."

But I'd had enough of trying to rescue drunk maidens, I saw a cab and flagged it down. I asked the cabbie how much to the Hamptons, gave Emily more than enough to cover it, and said, "See ya later, Em."

"Wait, how can I repay you?"

I wrote the address of my Sag Harbor house on a scrap of paper. "We're practically neighbors, just pay me back whenever. But wait a couple of weeks, the house is empty right now."

A week went by before the cops finally relented and let me back into my house. Did you see how quickly my aunt's house became my house in my head? I think that's human nature, but I gotta to tell you, I was really looking forward to going through that house. I suppose the detectives went through my aunt's personal papers, but I hoped they hadn't actually taken anything.

But more than anything else, I was really looking forward to doing tai-chi up on the rooftop deck while the sun comes up over the ocean.

I drove by the guard shack and waved at Ernie, who waved back. My own fucking security guard. What the hell has my life come to? I've gotta do something about this, I mean shit, why does Faith the fucking Vampire-Slayer need a security guard at all? I drove up to my house, thought about driving up the steps again, but thought better of it, superstitious of me I guess, I mean the last time I did that I found a dead body in my kitchen. I wondered if anybody had cleaned up the blood. I parked the Fat Boy and walked around the house, just to make sure there weren't any cop cars littering my grounds. I finally went in, went to the kitchen, and …

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked.

"I am Jacques, your chef."

"Seriously?" He spoke with a French accent, I won't even try to reproduce that on paper, other than the occasional French word, misspelled probably, so you'll just have to imagine his accent.

"That is, if you are mademoiselle Faith Lehane?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's me. Say Jack, whattaya think about cooking for a half-dozen or so girls, all healthy eaters I might add."

"I would rise to the challenge of such an occasion! But mademoiselle, my, how you say – appellation – is Jacques, not Jack."

"Okay, good to know Jacks, and for the record, I'd never say 'appellation'. Say, I could use a little something for lunch."

"Oui mademoiselle, I have some lovely fresh oysters from Chesapeake bay..."

"Sounds good to me." At his delighted look, I added, "I'm from Boston, seafood is in my soul. Actually, you'll find I eat pretty much anything, but I ain't used to fancy cooking – although I suppose I could get used to it."

"Excellent. Lunch will be served in thirty minutes, will that work for you?"

"Sure thing Jock."

"Jacques!" He mumbled some rapid French that sounded uncomplimentary, so I made a mental note to figure out how to pronounce his name properly – if I liked his cooking.

I went to the library and grabbed that demonology book lying on the table, and then headed upstairs to find Aunt Helen's office. It was right where I remembered. I calculated the time in England – Giles should be finishing up his afternoon tea – and picked up the phone.

"Hey G, how are ya?" I asked when I got through to the ISWC.

"Spiffing, and how are you my dear?" He sounded tired, I think he was being ironic.

"Well, you're talking to an heiress now, I'm not used to it yet, although I suppose I'd have to admit it's better than living on the street – and I know from experience."

"H, h, heiress?"

"Yeah, my lawyer says I'm worth twenty million bucks or so now. Actually, I think he's undervalued the total, my house on Long Island might be worth that much alone."

"I was not aware you came from a monied family."

"Well, not on my mother's side, that's fer sure. But my Aunt Helen, mom's sister, had married well and she apparently thought highly of me."

"Your Aunt Helen?"

"Yeah, Helen Wilkerson."

"She had no other heirs?"

"Uncle Scott died in a yachting accident years ago, I have two cousins that each got a fair amount each, and then one ended up dead in Aunt Helen's house, I don't know who did it yet."

"But you're working on it?"

"Oh yeah, the cops are looking at me, and I gotta make sure the guilty parties get caught if I want to stay free."

"Do you need any help?"

Did he mean that, or was he just being polite? I didn't really know. Past experience with Giles didn't leave me all that trusting. "I don't think so, Helen's law firm, which now works for me, seems to be excellent."

"Good, good. Assuming you get this unpleasantness worked out, what do you plan to do with your windfall?"

"Well see, that's why I called. The house on Long Island sits on twenty acres, and there's another twenty acres of wetlands across the populated side which helps keep it private, and it's fuckin' huge, and it even comes with a staff. So I wondered if we could make it a 'Slayers East' headquarters. I'll rent it to the Council cheap, this place is too big for me alone, and I don't want to have to start firing people."

"Ah, I see. This may be cost effective, we certainly have many more Slayers than I know what to do with. How many are you thinking?"

Damn, I hadn't really thought this through. Obviously, SiTs meant Watchers, ideally in a one to one relationship, and I wasn't even sure how many bedrooms I had. "Ah, I'll have to see how many rooms I have, but I would think three or four to start with, plus a couple of Watchers, as long you don't send me fucktards."

"Not to worry, I don't have any Watcher's to spare, but I'll have some girls there in a few of days. And Faith, the Council will support your efforts to the fullest, I am confident that you will succeed brilliantly." *

"Wait..."

"Thank you, have your solicitor send me the lease agreement, ta-ta."

"Wait, wait, … Giles?" Bastard hung up. Shit, what did I get myself into? And the staff, how will they react to a houseful of girls, what will they do if – or when – they find out about Slayers? Do they know anything about the supernatural world? And the neighbors, what will they think? Will the zoning board even allow a half-dozen unrelated girls to live here? Giles didn't ask me how much, he must be really backed into a corner to agree that fast, without even negotiating a deal, or even making an on-site inspection. Fuck. And I didn't even get the chance to ask him about Aunt Helen. And I still gotta figure out who killed my asshole cousin.

I wandered down to the kitchen and sat at the oak table and watched Jacques work, I think I made him nervous.

"Would mademoiselle care to eat in the dining room?"

I have a fucking dining room? "Nah, this is good. I like the view from here, the ocean and the garden is nice."

"Ah oui," he said. "On the menu is a dozen oysters on the half shell, followed by oyster stew, followed by an oyster sandwich – the type referred to here in America as a po-boy – with a salad of fresh greens from your own garden."

I think I was eight years old the first time I ever tasted raw oysters, I didn't care for them but I had to eat them anyway because the 'uncle' feeding them to me was a real bastard. But now I'm a fucking fire-breathing slayer, I can eat anything, so I said, "Damn, that sounds great. You know the whole time I was in California I didn't eat a single oyster. They do have them there, but I guess not in the restaurants that I frequented." Especially restaurants owned by the state penal system. I wonder if penal and penis come from the same root? Wouldn't surprise me, I sure felt fucked-over in prison.

He served me a dozen raw oysters on the half-shell, looked like fucking whale boogers to me. Still, I had watched people happily slurping them down so I squeezed lemon on one, added some red sauce, and ate it. It was, huh, it was indescribably good. How 'bout that? Amazing that something that looked so disgusting could taste fantastic.

The oyster stew was a revelation, and the sandwich was perfect, and the salad topped everything off. And I didn't have to pay $40.00 for it either.

As I strolled upstairs after lunch, I mentally kicked myself, I knew what Jacques earned annually, and if he didn't work weekends it would be about three hundred dollars a day, or a hundred dollars per meal, whether or not I ate here. Plus ingredients, and I would bet my motorcycle he didn't buy anything cheap. All of a sudden, that forty dollar lunch was starting to look inexpensive. Shit, was I becoming a cheap bastard as well as a rich fucker? No, I would not, I promised myself sternly – the chef stays.

Another stranger, apparently my secretary, approached me and asked if I wished to accept a call from a Mr. Barrington. She managed to get across the idea that if I didn't care to talk to such low individuals I could leave it up to her.

I laughed as I took the phone, "I'll always take Barrington's calls," I told her. I said into the phone, "Hey Stoney, what's up?"

"You want to join me this afternoon for a little investigating?"

"Fuck yeah, where?"

"Meet me at Woodman & Weld, then we'll go to Greenwich Village."

"Okay."

I handed the phone back to the woman. "Hi, I'm Faith, who are you?"

"I'm Stephanie Heliopolis, your Aunt Helen's secretary, and now your secretary, unless you have other plans."

"Hmm, for now, yes, but I don't know about your long-term employment. I've never actually needed a secretary before, so I don't really know what is that you do."

"I'll explain what I can do for you, if you have a little time."

"We'll do that, later. Right now I have to meet my lawyer."

"Hey Stone, is this the kind of neighborhood that's known for broken streetlamps?" By the time I rode into town and met up with Stone, it was dusk. We were sleuthing, backtracking cousin Roger's movements. Stone says the first thing you do in a murder investigation is learn all you can about the victim, so, here we are, skulking around his pad in the Village after spending a little time going through Roger's finances at the law office, which was possible because Roger left all that stuff up to his mother, who naturally had her lawyer take care of it.

"No, definitely not. The city maintenance department is very good about upkeep in these more upscale blocks."

"Hmmm," I murmured. I had spotted four young men hanging around beyond an architectural niche in the building front. I could hear them talking, and they were up to no good, even by my standards. I said quietly, "Watch out Stone, there's four guys lurking in the shadows up ahead." I also was aware of two behind us that I didn't care for. The distinctive smell of Hoppes gun oil was in the air – at least one ahead and one behind were armed, maybe more. What to do now? I wondered.

"Four what?" Stone asked.

"What the fuck, Barrington, I thought you used to be a cop! Have all your street smarts evaporated?" He looked ahead in sudden understanding. I whispered, "You worry about the two behind us while I take care of the ones in front."

Three of them had stepped out in front of us and were trying to project menace. "Aren't you guys just adorable little wannabes!" I said before they could get a word in, pissing them off no end. They glanced at each other, off balance, trying to figure out how to answer me, so took a few fast steps and pushed between them, disarmed one, tossed another into the guy who was still in the shadow with a gun, made sure all were out for the count, when I heard two quick gunshots. I turned. I didn't see any blood, but Stone was standing still with his hands up. Two men beyond – one with a gun trained on Stone. Apparently he had shot into the air.

He said, "Well well well, as I live and breath, if it ain't Stone Barrington. And you must be that chick from the CIA I've heard so much about. Letting your women do the fighting now Stoney boy? Getting lazy in yer old age?"

CIA? What the fuck was that about? "Damn it Stone," I said, "can't you follow simple instructions?"

"And get us killed? They were armed, Faith."

"Yeah? So were these fuckers." I was still holding them down and had armed myself with two of their guns.

The talkative guy behind Stone said, "Sweetheart, drop the guns before I drop you."

"Right," I laughed, "no way motherfucker – surrender or die!" I just barely kept myself from laughing out loud when I said that. I was sure it was way over-dramatic and everyone else would just about die laughing, but they took it seriously.

"I guess I have to shoot your boyfriend then."

"He ain't my boyfriend." Just as I was about to put a bullet through the gap between Stone's arm and his ribcage in order to hit that asshole behind him, assuming of course that this gun was sighted in and accurate, I saw a shadow moving behind all of them. Shit, I thought, another one? But no, it was...

TBC

* BritSpeak to AmSpeak dictionary, or how to interpret British understatement and subtext (These phrases and the interpretations were grabbed off a random Internet site, so you just know they're absolutely accurate, ;-), ) :

When an Englishman says 'We will support your efforts', he usually means 'you're the only one who will do any work on this, good luck!'

'I am confident' usually means 'I am pretending not to worry.'

'Cost effective' often means 'cheap and nasty.'