Great and Small III

Jess noticed Vince James walking a little stiffly as they waited for the police to clear everyone.

She shook it off. It's nothing to do with me, and I don't care. Instead, she turned to Ms. McGowan. 'Who were those people?'

Ms. McGowan checked around before answering. 'The Hellsing Society. I'm a member.' She showed one of the rings on her fingers.

Jess realised that it bore the same insignia as those people had been wearing. 'And the Hellsing Society is…?'

'An order of people who are organised specifically to oppose people like Dr. Dred,' Ms. McGowan said. 'Threats that the ordinary law enforcement and public servants are unprepared to deal with. Once we've trained some more, you'll have an option to join too.'

So…when I turn 18. 'Okay…and…what happened to all the animals?'

'Dr. Dred hit them with a ray that magnified their normal size.'

Jess shook her head. 'No. I mean, when they were big, they got slow. Nobody…' She swallowed. 'Nobody died because they were hunted by a carnivore. I heard the police say that the only people who were…lost were under the animals.'

'I…don't know.' Ms. McGowan frowned for a moment, but then shook her head. 'I imagine there is some reason, but it's not my field.' She clicked. 'And thank you for reminding me. About the police.'

'What about them?' Jess asked.

'Tell them you have no idea how the animals returned to normal size,' Ms. McGowan said. 'Just let them get the idea that Dr. Dred's machine wore off.'

Jess rolled her eyes. 'What? Did you think I was going to admit to magic? No one would believe that.'

Ms. McGowan smiled. 'Bright girl.'

Dracula frowned as he led the boys through the properly. 'Her blood smells spicier?'

Vince nodded. 'Definitely, uncle.'

'What does that mean?' Howard asked.

'It means the girl's coming into her own powers and learning how to use them,' Dracula said. 'I'd be looking around to see if you can narrow down her trainer. I wasn't aware of any other witches in town.'

'Witches in town? You mean after Circe?'

Dracula smiled as all three kids jumped.

'That sounds interesting.' The woman standing at the door of the garage was just wiping her hands on a dirty rag.

'Not the word, I'd use.' Dracula gestured to her. 'Boys, you remember Carmilla?'

'Oh, yeah.' Vince smiled. 'I don't think I've seen you since I was a kid.'

Carmilla grinned. 'And I must say, the spell aside, I think you look like a pretty even mix between both of your parents.'

Vince smiled sort of sadly.

Carmilla looked over at Howard and Frank. 'Howard, I certainly hope that skinniness is normal for adolescent wolf-men. And Frank…you're a lot bigger than I thought you'd be?'

The two of them chuckled. Frank lifted his hands onto his head in slight embarrassment.

Vince decided to save him. 'You were fixing up our car, weren't you?'

Carmilla threw the roller door open. 'And it's finished.'

The three teenagers slowly stepped into the garage where the red sports car sat in the middle of the floor.

'It doesn't look any different,' Howard remarked.

Carmilla pulled the keys out of her pocket and held them out. Vince frowned as he took them. The car key had a casing over the top of it. The casing was equipped with a switch. Curious, Vince flipped the switch. A serious of clicks made him look up. What he saw made excitedly bubble up in his chest.

The car transformed.

The whole car shifted. The car maker's insignia flipped over, becoming concealed. Maroon panels slid over the red paint job of the car. Large bat wing-like guards slid into place around the rear wheels. The car looked sleeker and far more distinctive than it had before. If Vince hadn't seen the transformation, he would never know it was the same car.

'Wow…' Frank breathed.

'I take back what I said!' Howard declared. 'This is so cool!'

'If you think that's cool, wait until you see the rest of my modifications.' Carmilla led them over to the car. 'I hope you like rocket science.'

:[

Jess stepped into the city library.

Her mother hadn't known why the animals had fallen like that either. But she hadn't cared. And Jess had spent the last few days going through every book in the house. None of them had given her any results. So she took the newspaper article of the event into the library and walked up to the first librarian she saw.

'Excuse me.'

The librarian turned. 'Yes? How may I help you?'

'I have a question.' Jess pulled the paper out of her purse and showed it to the old woman. 'I was on a field trip to the zoo the day this happened. There was something I didn't understand, though.'

The librarian took the paper and nodded. 'Strange world we live on: one where a mad scientist can do such things to those poor animals.' She looked at her.

Jess took that as the cue to ask her question. 'The enlarged animals were slowed down. The first one I saw was an alligator and…it didn't catch anybody. Some of them seemed to buckle over. I've asked but nobody seems to know why.'

'Ah.' The librarian nodded. 'Follow me.'

Jess followed the woman as she made a beeline for the science section. Once there, she pulled down and book and opened it up.

'Here we are.' She handed the opened book over. 'What you saw, dear, was the direct effect of something called the Square-Cube Law.'

'Mathematical principles that details the relationship between a object's volume and surface area as it changes size,' Jess murmured as she read the definition. 'So that means…oh, yeah. Uh huh…uh huh…Oh.' Jess lifted her eyes from the book and thought about it for a moment. 'So the animals slowed down because…they were carrying more weight than they were used to?'

'Yes,' the librarian said. 'The animals that crashed to the ground did so because they suddenly had legs that could not support their body weight. In some cases, some of those animals may have even fallen because they were suffocating.'

Jess looked at her, surprised. 'Suffocating? How?'

'A lot of animals, especially those with exoskeletons, don't grow very large because their organs aren't efficient enough to maintain a body over a certain size,' the librarian said. 'In a lot of cases, they wouldn't be able to breathe properly.'

:[

Violet McGowan sat at a conference table with her associates.

'Well, Vi,' Alexander Pryce, the current head of the Society said. 'I must say, you've found a talented young witch. She not only took her own initiative for those animals, but she did it quickly and efficiently. You're sure she had no trainers before you?'

'Certainly not,' Violet said. 'She was too surprised when I told her about her first use of magic.'

Alex nodded. 'Very good. Onto the next item on the agenda: several of our men noticed a daywalking vampire that disappeared before we could corral all of the animals.' Alex checked his notes. 'He was accompanied by a wolf-man and a patchwork monster, and he flew both up to Dr. Dred's blimp.'

The secretary looked up in surprise. 'I was under the impression that vampires burned up in the sunlight.'

'They do, usually,' Alex said. 'There are certain circumstances, however, where they become what we call daywalkers. Dred actually has a daywalker, but we know that she is suffering from humanitis. So, we need to work out this other one.'

'He could have it too,' one of the newer board members suggested.

Violet shook her head. 'He has access to too many of his powers. Before suffers of the disease even lose their vulnerability to sunlight, they lose their ability to fly.'

Alex nodded. 'So he doesn't have humanitis. What are our other options?'

'He maybe a different breed of vampire than what we usually see around here.'

'One of his forebears was human?'

'He's drinking a potion or wearing some sort of talisman to counteract the effects of sunlight?'

Alex was writing all of these ideas down. 'And those, I believe, are the only options for how a vampire could walk in daylight.' He turned around. 'All right. Send a memo to the rest of the Society. We have a daywalking vampire. Never walk anywhere alone. Don't so much as wind your window down for strangers. And always carry something holy on you.'

Violet nodded but, at the same time, they all knew the simple fact.

If this vampire was a daywalker because of human blood, holy items would not help.