All too soon, morning tormented Faith and Mort out of their comfortable bed. Both the bright sunshine and their empty bellies made strong cases that it was time to be up, so they reluctantly gave up on more sleep. After a warm shower together, they put on clothing, noting that it was time to do laundry again.
"Maybe we need more clothes," Mort sighed, pulling out his last clean shirt.
Faith sighed, looking at her own heap of dirty laundry, and made a small shrug, "We were travelling pretty light."
Their stomachs gurgled, and they gave up thoughts of laundry in favor of seeking breakfast.
Tanya and Wesley were there, and Faith decided very firmly not to think about the fact that the shirt Tanya was wearing looked an awful lot like one that she'd seen Wesley wearing… no, no more of those thoughts, there were pancakes.
"Pyro mentioned that the two of you were planning on a patrol last night," Wesley began. "Did you see anything unusual, or anything that might give us more information in thwarting that Master... Mistress Vampire?"
Mort gave a small grin and whispered, "He actually said thwarting. I didn't realize that anybody actually talked like that over breakfast. Big speeches in front of an audience… yeah. But not over pancakes."
Faith grinned at him, "That's a Watcher for you. Unusual… there's a probably mutant snapping turtle, or else a demon that looks an awful lot like a snapping turtle. The main difference being that it's the size of a Volkswagen. And a bunch of the vampire version of June Cleaver's minions were bustin' up a mausoleum last night."
"A mausoleum? Which one, and what were they looking for?" Wesley leaned forward.
"We don't know what they wanted, but they didn't find it," Mort commented, stabbing several pancakes with a fork and dropping them onto his plate. "And they don't talk much once they're dust."
"It was over near the orchard, and the name on the mausoleum was Schwannstein," Faith added. She decided to leave out any mention of the vampire with the hat.
"Perhaps we could go over later in the day and see if we can find anything?" Wesley offered.
"Someone needs to stay here, Pyro's things should be arriving today or tomorrow and someone has to sign for them," Tanya cautioned.
"We can manage to have someone stay, maybe Pyro would be a good choice, they are his things. It might also be good to see what we can find on the family, where they lived, what they owned… if they had any particular reputations," Wesley agreed.
"D'ya think that the vampire lady could be a member of the family?" Faith asked, stabbing a few more pancakes onto her plate. "She had to have come from somewhere."
"When Wes and I look up the family, we'll have to see if we can find some pictures. Maybe if there's a family resemblance, you two can spot it… if she's related. Though we can't ignore the possibility that whatever caused the minions to be there may have nothing to do with who she is… was. Can we even be certain that they were her minions?" Tanya ended with a puzzled note, and sighed before sipping at her morning coffee.
"Yes." Mort paused, and then added, "We saw the vampire with the hat again, and discovered that giant snapping turtles like the taste of vampire."
Everyone shuddered at the images that conjured, though Wesley and Tanya hadn't yet experienced the sight of a snapping turtle the size of a car eating something that was still trying to escape.
Faith explained, "The minions in the mausoleum said that She'd promised we'd be dead. No reason for them to be listening like that unless they were her minions."
"Sound reasoning," Wesley admitted.
"Do you think Pyro would rather stay here and sign for his things if they arrive, or try to help with some of the investigations?" Tanya offered.
"What investigations?" Pyro's voice came from the doorway, slightly groggy as he stumbled towards the table. "I smell pancakes…"
"You have options three," Mort began, the tilt of his head and the slight faked accent suggesting that he was imitating someone. "Choice one – a fun filled trip trying to find information on a bunch of dead people whose mausoleum was being ransacked by vampires last night in hopes of figuring out what the hell they wanted. Choice two – go to the ransacked mausoleum looking for clues. Choice three – stay here to sign for your things if they arrive."
Faith had no idea who or what Mort might have been quoting. "The upside to staying here is no vamps, and the comforts of home. The upside of looking for the information, most places with the info have windows and sunlight. The upside of the mausoleum is that it's less microfiche and bad handwriting. Downsides… sometimes mausoleums have vamps in the daytime, research in libraries can be boring, and waiting for deliveries can be boring."
"What's wrong with hand written books and microfiche?" Wesley grumbled.
"I'll wait here for my stuff, and maybe call and let my friends know that I'm okay, if that won't rack up too much of a long-distance bill," Pyro glanced at Tanya.
"Sounds good to me," Tanya agreed. "We'll have to see if Lorrie wants to go look for information on the Schwannsteins or search the mausoleum, or if she'd rather stay here. If you're here alone, I'd rather you didn't do anything on the roof."
"I can deal with that. Maybe a little more target practice with the crossbow," Pyro commented.
"I guess Mort and I will head back to the cemetery after we finish breakfast. You and Wes will probably head towards the library as soon as it's open," Faith looked towards Tanya. "Should be quite the fun morning."
"A morning full of research," Wesley murmured with a smile.
Faith shook her head, not quite understanding how Wesley seemed to think a day with old books, newspapers, and microfiche was actually fun. Yikes. Give her something active any day. Then again, maybe that was just one more difference between Slayers and Watchers.
End part 54.
"This is different than what we did while we were travelling, isn't it?" Mort had his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, and his shoulders were slumped as he meandered towards his motorcycle. "I don't remember doing more than a quick glance to check for nasties yea or nay before we left the cemeteries."
"None of the vamps or demons we ran into while traveling had any big mystic plans. Just hunt, kill, and hide. Repeat when hungry. Big plans make things more complicated. They tend to need certain things, and sometimes rituals at a particular time. Some of the magic types, when they get a cool item, they try to take it with them, and it gets buried with them," Faith shook her head, following Mort.
"Kind of like getting buried with your glasses, false teeth, and wedding rings?" he glanced back, one eyebrow lifting.
"Yeah. 'Cept Granma's false teeth can't summon demons from beyond, curse your enemies, or help with some magic ritual. And for all we know, they could have been looking in the wrong one to begin with," Faith shrugged.
"So we just go look for anything weird?"
Reaching over to give him a quick hug and take the opportunity to squeeze his backside, Faith nodded, "Pretty much."
Just as he was preparing to start the motorcycle, Mort asked, "So, what do you think we'll find?"
"I expect a trashed mausoleum, and us maybe managing to make a list of who was supposed to be in there. If there was anything obvious to find, they would have found it, and we'd have seen it when we dusted them," Faith answered.
"I guess that makes sense," Mort agreed. "At least they were all old enough to be dry bodies instead of rotten squishy ones."
All Faith could do was shudder. Squishy, decomposing bodies always made things worse and smellier than they were before.
There wasn't much to say on the trip back out to the cemetery, and it wouldn't have been easy to try talking while going anywhere on a motorcycle anyhow. Faith just let her mind wander, enjoying the sunshine, seeing the blurred colors of flowers and green growing things and the floating wisps of clouds. The drive was much prettier by daylight. She could even hear birds singing somewhere.
Even the cemetery looked prettier by daylight. The sunlight showed that the scattered flowers were sunlight yellows, fiery oranges, blues and purples, with a generous scattering of pinks and reds that looked nothing at all like blood. The tombstones were even prettier, all clean and sparkling in the sunlight instead of pale shapes looming among the shadows. The green of the leaves was visible, turning them into thinly covered trees instead of skeletal reaching shapes that loomed over everything.
"It was to the back and right, wasn't it?" Mort offered.
Faith just nodded, her arms wrapped around him as they moved towards the back of the cemetery. There was no need to leave the bike towards the front and walk, they weren't trying to sneak up on any vampires this morning. If there were vampires, they couldn't have left anyhow, not with all the bright sunshine.
They had no trouble spotting the Schwannstein mausoleum. It was a big structure of white marble, gleaming in the sunshine, both doors closed.
"Did you close the doors behind you?" Mort asked.
Faith shook her head, trying to sense if there was anything that might be lurking inside. Any vampire, any demon… nothing. "No."
A quick glance around and then Faith opened one door, expecting to see the sunlight highlighting the dust covered mess from last night. Coffins on the floor, bodies exposed to the air, and vampire dust and a shovel on the floor.
That wasn't what they saw.
The shovel was gone. Each casket was closed and tucked back into place on the appropriate shelf, the sides an even distance from the edge, the spacing between the head and the feet and the walls balanced. There was no vampire dust on the floor. Faith didn't even see any cobwebs in the corners.
"Okay… someone came in after we left and cleaned up? This is…" Faith blinked at the interior. "I've stayed in hotels that didn't look this clean."
"That's got to be something unusual. I don't know if it's a clue, but it has to be weird," Mort rubbed at his chin, and glanced around. "Shall we start writing down names?"
In ten minutes they were leaving the cemetery, with a list of fourteen dead Schwannsteins, along with their birth and death dates. They'd also noticed that there was an empty space marked with a plaque for Erwin Schwannstein, who was born on April 18th of 1704 and died on November 5th of 1730, with no sign of any casket. Come to think of it, that one had been empty last night.
"I have to wonder if this will help with the research or just make a bigger confusing mess," Faith sighed.
End part 55.