Keith Mars placed his gun in it's holster, picked up his bag, and strode out of his office. Worry and anger etched all over his face.
'She better have no fingers, because other wise I'm going to kill her for not answering her phone.' He thought to himself. 'Yep. Plain old murder. No jury would convict me.'
'Of course, that's only if she's still alive.' A nasty voice said in his head.
'Shut up.' He told it. 'She's perfectly fine ... until I kill her for making me worry.'
Keith got into his car and sped away.
-
Veronica and Lily were walking hand in hand down the streets of Neptune. It was day. The sun felt glorious, and Veronica knew that everything would be all right. That was her first mistake. Her second was questioning it.
Veronica looked to her best friend. "Aren't you supposed to be gone?" She asked sadly.
Lily turned toward her. Her eyes were dull and lifeless, blood streaming down her face from a mortal wound. "Aren't you?"
Veronica tried to pull her hands from Lily's ice cold grip. "Please!" She begged. "Let go!"
When that didn't work, she tried calling for help. "DADDY! HELP ME! DUNCAN! LOGAN! WALLACE! SOMEBODY PLEASE!"
They didn't come. Veronica desperately tried to claw at Lily's face. But before she could, Lily pushed her away.
"God Veronica! If you wanted me to let go so badly, all you had to do was say so!" The sun was gone, and so was the blood from her face. Her eyes, though still lifeless somehow, were no longer dull. "I mean seriously, do you really need to get all 'girl fight' ? I thought we were friends." Lily tugged at her collar absently. "Not like you could take me anyway." She said playfully.
Veronica noticed the wound on Lily's neck.
"You're hurt!" she cried, reaching to see if she could help.
Lily, again, grabbed Veronica's hand. "Trust me," she smirked "I'm not."
Her face changed, and Lily's teeth tore into Veronica's throat.
-
Veronica woke up with a start. Actually, it was more like she woke up with blood curdling terror. Either way, she still fell out of her chair.
"Uhh." she groaned, "That was impressive." She started to rise. "Don't worry Wallace, I'm fine. No need to make sarcastic..." but Wallace was gone! He wasn't in his bed! Where was he? Was he missing? Was he hurt? Oh my God! What if he was kidnapped! All of her questions were answered when she heard the flush of a toilet.
Wallace came out of the bathroom, holding Veronica's computer. "Hey. Good sleep?" he asked when he saw her. She went up to him and gave him a big hug.
"I take it that's a no?"
"Uh-huh." she said into his shoulder.
She let go after a beat, and smiled at him. "Sorry. I had a really, really bad dream and when you weren't there when I woke up, I panicked in a 'sleepy illogical' kinda way."
Wallace smiled back. "Don't worry. This is a vast improvement over the last time you had a nightmare around me."
"It was your fault." Veronica told him. "You woke me up."
"Still didn't have to kick me."
She looked at what Wallace had in his good hand. "Speaking of kicking. Did you just bring my laptop with you into the bathroom?"
"Ummm..."
A look of nausea appeared on her face. "That's so gross." Wallace tried to defend himself. But really, what kind of defense could one come up with in this situation? "Just tell me you washed your hands." Veronica pleaded.
Wallace assured her that he did as he got back in his bed. "You should see what I found." He told her after he got settled. "Check it out. Angel has a website."
"Really? Gimme." She eagerly reached for her laptop. "Huh. Angel Investigations. I've never heard of them." Veronica read the company slogan. "We Help the Hopeless?" She raised an eyebrow at that one. "Kind of a weird slogan for a P.I."
"Yeah. About that." Wallace started. "How come you don't have a slogan?" He thought for a second. "Mars Investigations: We're Out of This World."
Visibly trying to contain her laughter, Veronica shot back. "Wallace Fennel: Deeply Stupid."
Wallace grinned at her. "OK. So maybe advertising isn't in my future, but investigation...? Look at this." He pointed to employee list link.
Veronica opened the page. "Now what?"
Wallace told her to click on 'Winifred Burkle: Technical Associate.'
"It's the nurse." Veronica looked smug. "See. I told you she was a phony."
But Wallace wasn't done yet. "Why don't you google her name."
When she did, she found obituaries. "Dead? Winifred Burkle is dead?"
Wallace nodded. "According to her parents, she died about a year ago."
"Twin sister?" Veronica suggested.
"Papers said she was an only child."
"Maybe they were separated at birth." Wallace gave her a look. "It happens." she said defensively. "Just look at Mac."
"She was switched at birth, not separated."
"Still very soap opera." Veronica reminded him. "She faked her death and is in hiding."
"In California. Two blocks from where she used to work." Wallace said flatly. "If that's true, somebody should be fired. Because they did a terrible job."
Veronica was getting frustrated. "Well what Wallace? Did she come back to life? That makes much more sense. I don't know why I didn't think of that first."
Wallace took it all in stride. "Go to the links page." He instructed solemnly.
Veronica did. "Demonsdemonsdemons dot com?" she looked at her friend. "Are you kidding me?"
"Yeah." he told her in a tone that said he wasn't. "Click on it."
After about a minute Wallace heard the reaction he was waiting for.
"Oh my God. This has got to be a joke. Wikipedia dot com/demons?" she asked incredulously. "This has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen."
"Look up vampires." He asked quietly.
At that, Veronica stilled. A strange emotion in her eyes. It could have been fear. It might not have. But he could count the times, on one hand, when Veronica looked like that. The first was the time she came clean on the Lily Kane murder file. The second was when she told him what happened with Beaver. Veronica Mars shows many faces. Anger, hate, love, despair, sorrow, sometimes joy, occasionally happiness, and once, he could have sworn he saw contentment. But this. This look now. It meant something bad. And Wallace knew why.
Veronica shook her head, and the look was gone. Replaced with an almost desperate disbelief. "Come on Wallace. Vampires? Do you even know how you sound?"
Wallace nodded. "Like I took too many pills. I don't expect you to believe me. Not until you look them up. I didn't even think of vampires until I read the site's article on common demons. I thought it'd be funny." He told her, shrugging.
She stared at him like he was some kind of mental. "Well you're right. It does sound like you took too many drugs. Is it time for an intervention?"
"It sounds crazy, and it probably is, but don't give me that look until you read. It all adds up. The face changing, the teeth, the strength, the eyes, all of it gets a mention."
But Veronica didn't look. She just turned her laptop off, got up, and started pacing. Wallace wanted to be surprised. He wanted to be offended that she wouldn't even look, but he couldn't be. After all, if some-one came up to him a week ago and talked about vampires seriously, he wouldn't even have given a listen. Not even if that some-one was close to him. It was all just too stupid. Vampires were fictional characters in Anne Rice novels. In real life, they were portrayed by morphine addicts who star in B movies. They weren't supposed to go around attacking two kids from Neptune. If he didn't find that site, he would've chalked it up to some kids on drugs or something. Dismissed the faces as some kind of illusion. Even after reading about something that was so similar to what he saw, he still couldn't fully believe it. He wanted Veronica to take a look too. He hoped that she would be able to shed some well needed skepticism, but she believed. She just wouldn't admit it to herself yet. And that, Wallace realized, was the real reason why she shut her laptop off.
"What was your dream about?" He asked her. Veronica stopped pacing and turned to him.
"Nothing. It was just a nightmare, that's all." She sat back down in her chair. "It was silly."
Wallace wasn't hearing that. "Silly enough for you to manhandle me when I came out of the bathroom." He pointed out.
Veronica glared, annoyed he brought that up. " I already told you. In my after sleep daze, I thought something bad happened to you. But if I knew you where going to be crabby, I wouldn't have bothered."
"Was it about the other night?" Wallace asked gently.
"Just leave it alone OK? I don't need analyzing." She snapped back, raising her voice slightly.
But he wouldn't budge. "Well you sure need something. You look like crap, and you only slept for like, two hours."
Veronica was stunned at that fact. She looked to the clock and confirmed it for herself. "I thought it was longer." She said quietly.
"Why?" Wallace asked. "Was it because of the nightmare?" She nodded her head. "What was it about Veronica?"
She breathed deeply, steeling herself for something that she knew would be unpleasant.
"Lily. It was about Lily."
"Go on." Wallace encouraged, happy she was opening up. So she told him about her dream, and when she finished, Wallace let out a slow whistle. "That's messed up." Veronica agreed, but Wallace wasn't done. "You saw something I didn't that night." Not saying anything Veronica just stared down at her hands. "You don't need to read some website, you saw it first hand." She kept staring. "Come on Veronica! Please? I gotta know." Wallace was pleading now. His desire to know overriding any sense of decorum. "What did you see?"
Veronica raised her head slowly. "No." She said softly. "You can't know. Because if you do? Then it's real."
"Doesn't matter if I know or not Veronica, it's still real!" He told her forcefully. Veronica was shaking her head now, hands covering her ears. Desperate to deny the truth. "How can you ignore the truth, when it's biting you on the neck! I know it's harsh but..."
"Harsh? Harsh? I'll tell you what's harsh Wallace!" Veronica was enraged now. "Harsh is realizing you were raped! Harsh is hearing the murderer of my best friend being found innocent! Thinking my dad died, watching my mom leave again and again! Harsh is my life Wallace!"
Wallace could only respond to her rage with calm. "My dad died, that was harsh on me. And then I found out he wasn't even my birth father. My mom lied to me my whole life. That was harsh too. I found a girl I love, and I lost her. My best friend gets in so much trouble, I thank God everyday she isn't dead." He looked her in the eyes "You don't have the monopoly on harsh Veronica Mars. Plenty of it to go around." Wallace Fennel sounded wiser than his years.
Veronica was crying now, a little girl terrified of the dark. Full on tears and sobs and snot. "You don't understand." She bleated.
The response was simple. "Then make me."
She was shaking her head again. "I can't Wallace."
"Why?"
Veronica seemed to calm somewhat, though the tears still fell freely. She seemed amazed that the question didn't end her. She tilted her head thoughtfully. And when she spoke, it was with only a little of the emotion that she felt.
"I have grown up, all my life, with the knowledge that people were evil. I spent my formative years seeing humanity cheat, lie, steal, rape, murder. I've seen the worst in mankind, and that terrifies me." Her voice began to loose her unnatural calm. "And now I find out they aren't the worst that's out there? Now I have to deal with vampires and monsters?" She broke down completely again. "God, Wallace. What are we going to do? How can we survive this?"
Wallace sat up and pulled her close. She clung to him like a life line. His words were spoken softly, but with conviction. "I don't know. But if anyone could, it's you V. You have got to be the bravest person I have ever met. Whatever comes? I got your back. We'll face it together."
