The drive back to the Golden Pagoda seemed to be taking years. Hannibal marked several emergency vehicles blowing past them, presumably responding to the mess they'd left at the nightclub. "Keep her steady," he said to B.A., as the latter skillfully wove in and out of the traffic flow. "We don't need to get the Chips on us, on top of everything else."

Everyone jumped slightly when the ring of their mobile telephone split the air. Face, having ended up in the passenger seat, answered. "Hello? . . . Yes, Mrs. Kendall, this is us . . . Really? Oh, that's, ah, wonderful news . . . No, we never managed to make contact with them." He fell silent for a moment. "We're just glad they're back - that sounds just fine. Thank you." He placed the receiver back in its cradle.

"Well?" asked Hannibal.

Face straightened his tie. "Well, it seems that late last night, Mark and Robin called home from here in L.A. They met up with Mrs. Kendall, safe and sound – "

"Had they been to Vegas?" Murdock piped up. Face glared at him.

"Apparently not," chuckled Hannibal. Then the moment of levity passed as he continued, "Though that does raise the question of what they were doing while we were fighting the - "

The word vampires hung heavy in the air.

"She said we could keep her deposit," Face offered.

B.A. frowned in thought. "This is all soundin' just a bit too easy. We don't even know if any of those blood-suckers made it out of that warehouse before Murdock burned it down."

"Good point, B. A. " Hannibal glanced at his watch. "We know they can't operate in sunlight, so let's bunker down at Sam's until morning, then we'll see what we can find out."

Though in the past they had camped out in far worse places than an empty Chinese restaurant, sleep did not come easily to the A-Team that night.

Once the morning sun arrived with its assumed protection from the vampires, the team threw themselves into their self-imposed reconnaissance mission. They had spent part of the previous evening reminiscing about their military careers, and had come up with a short list of acquaintances whom had had "spooky" rumors attached to them. Unfortunately, as the morning wore on none of them panned out – some, like Auhangamea Pitt, had gone off the grid entirely, while others like Reg Slivko were still on active duty and would have been awkward, if not outright dangerous to the team's continued freedom, to contact.

Kirk Conover and Joe Dawson, on the other hand, had at least answered the phone when the team called, but both of them had clammed right up as soon as Face (who had been doing the actual talking while the rest of the team listened in) hinted at anything supernatural.

"There's no such thing as unicorns," Conover had blurted out before hanging up, confusing everyone. Dawson made no more sense, muttering something about phencyclidine before claiming he had a customer in his bookstore.

Hannibal had even managed to wrangle a call with the venerable Dr. Charles Winchester (retired), who had once patched him up in an infamous field hospital in Korea, but as Hannibal started to probe he only sniffed in disdain about "vulgar hunters" and asked if Cousin Johnny had put them up to this before he, too, hung up.

"Does anyone else get the impression they don't want to tell us something?" Hannibal remarked, his light tone failing to mask his growing irritation.

"Sure does, Colonel," agreed Murdock. "We got code words flying in all directions and none of us knows the secret handshake."

Fortunately, other avenues of investigation proved more fruitful. Amy Allen, who had resumed working for the Los Angeles Courier Express upon her return from Djakarta, had not only run down several of the phone numbers the team needed, but also agreed to look into the investigation into the nightclub they had accidentally burnt down.

"The police are calling it an accident," she explained, having met the team for a late lunch at a Doublemeat Palace near her office. "No casualties have been reported, but the property's tenant of record – a Sylvia Jones - "

Hannibal snorted in amusement.

"- is missing, along with several known associates." Finished with her report, Amy leaned back and regarded the team with a reporter's gleam in her eye. "So what's this all about, guys?"

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Hannibal cleared his throat and began.

"It all started a couple of days ago with our new client. She contacted us from up the coast, in, ah –"

"Sunnydale," supplied B.A. "Up near Lobster Bay."

"Right. She wanted us to find her son, who had disappeared after sneaking out here to L.A. with his girlfriend." Hannibal quickly began summarizing the first day of their investigations. Amy nodded along, rolling her eyes somewhat at Face falling so easily into Sylvia's clutches, and grimacing at Hannibal's description of her assault on Face's neck.

"I'd heard some of these trendy new gothic rock places were a little weird, but that's just nuts."

"No, I'm nuts," interjected Murdock, "the vampires are just morbid and creepifying."

"Vampires, Murdock?" Amy's chuckles died in her throat as she realized none of the rest of the team were acting the least bit amused.

"Amy," Face took up the story with a desperate note in his voice, "we went back to that club yesterday and found more dead bodies than a funeral home. Then they got up and attacked us and barely noticed when we shot them."

"Stepping into the sunlight made them burst into a cloud of dust, though. I bet that's why the police can't find Miss Jones – the fires you guys started probably had the same effect." Hannibal observed.

"They didn't like those crosses, neither." B.A. turned to Amy and gestured at Murdock. "Fool even killed one with wooden stake."

Amy took a deep breath. "This is a joke, right? You guys are just messing with me."

"I'm afraid not, Miss Allen," replied Hannibal, reverting to military formality.

"But vampires aren't real. It has to be some kind of – some disease, or something?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Could be. We've never seen anything like it before, though, and neither did anyone we contacted today. Not they were willing to admit, anyway," he frowned. "And at least if we encounter them again, we know what their weaknesses are." He brandished the sheaf of papers with the Wolfram and Hart logo and unintelligible squiggles. "We should also be keeping an eye out for more signs of what these people are up to."

"That reminds me, Hannibal," added Face, "Sam mentioned this morning that he has a cousin in San Francisco that might be able to decode that – guy named Egg Shen, claims he's an expert in, ah, Chinese black magic."

Nobody spoke for a moment. "Huh", Hannibal finally responded.

"You know, guys," said Murdock, filling what might have been another awkward silence, "I think I could generate a whole new persona out of this – maybe some kind of ex-vampire, a tormented individual hunting down the monsters he used to be one of. I could be – Murdock the Vampire Slayer!"

The rest of the team burst out laughing, thankful that Murdock could always be counted on to lighten the mood. Face was the first to recover. "No offense, Murdock, but that title needs work – it's one of the corniest things I've ever heard."

"Oh, I don't know, Face," replied Hannibal, clapping Murdock on the shoulder. "I think I'll pitch it to my agent – it sounds like it could make a great movie."

"Or maybe a TV show," offered Amy. The team looked at each other for a moment.

"Nah!"

Notes:

Cue the theme music.

Well, it took a little longer than I thought, but here at last is the final chapter of LA After Midnight.

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this story while I was getting this last chapter up. Thanks are also due to Stephen J. Cannell and Joss Whedon. the primary architects of the setting and characters.