Chekhov's Vampire (Act 3 Scene 1)

Twelve hours is a very long time to think about how STUPID it is to be driving through three states with a body rolled up in the back of your rental car. The benefit of it being a vampire is the lack of a pungent decaying flesh smell as vampires do not rot. I maintain the car at about five miles over the speed limit to keep from being suspicious and hope for the best. After an hour on the road I call Amy McAdams with a description of the body, but as bodies are not normally transported in black tarps for burial, I figure I would be at least temporarily screwed if I get pulled over. Giving the body over to a completely insane vampire is not my idea of smart either. Butch has provided ITG with all of our, admittedly limited, knowledge about vampires, but does that make our continued association with the man worth it?

I chew myself out for agreeing to this deal with him in the first place for the first three hours of the trip. I stop for gas in Colorado about half way to Denver in order to punch through the city before rush hour. The journey is surprisingly uneventful, despite the small nagging fear in my mind that I will get pulled over at any minute, no such issue arises. The only time I even speak to a cop is about ten miles away from Butch's place.

A truck, I can only assume the driver was totally drunk, lost control and traveled several hundred feet off the road, through a chain link fence, knocked over a sturdy looking metal power tower, and swerved off into a transformer. The driver did not survive and the damaged to the power tower resulted in it leaning over precariously, snapping some power lines and dragging another tower at an angle along with it. This had happened sometime during the night and power crews had been working through the night to repair the damage. A cop leans on his car up the road of the sight and signals for me to travel more slowly, I stick my head out the window,

"What happened?" I yell as one of the strained lines give a fitful spark.

"Someone drove their truck in there," he calls with a jerk of his thumb at the vehicle still tipped on its side near the massively dented transformer, "Must have been going a hundred miles an hour. Drive careful." He adds.

I nod and roll up my window, as I drive past I watch the cop in my rear view mirror, he does not even glance at my backseat or trunk. Continuing down the road, I notice that every house for miles has their power about, the truck must have taken out something central to power in the region.

At the end of Butch's driveway I stop, sigh, and study the tarp rolled body in the trunk. Butch does not like visitors and he especially does not like visitors who drive right up to his house. On the other hand it will take me forever to carry a body all by myself up his mile long driveway. It’s not exactly covered either, I flick my eyes along the area, the house is invisible because it's down a fairly steep slope, but before the slope is all flat land open to the road. I weigh my options, carry the body at great inconvenience to myself and possibly be identified from the road or drive up to the house, if cops find me with a body I have no business being around, I go to jail. If I drive up to the house, what's the worst that could happen? Butch might shot or blow up an unknown person in an unknown car. I twist my grip around the steering wheel as I debate with myself if Butch is that psychotic.

After sitting in the car for fifteen minutes, I climb out, retrieve the vampire corpse from the trunk, and start walking. The sun was just passing the horizon when I arrived and now it is properly night. A quarter moon rides in the sky and between it and the stars I can see well enough to make out my path, but hopefully will be difficult to observe from the road.

I start with the body in a fireman's carry over my shoulder, but as I am not a man, it keeps slipping off my less broad, slanted shoulders. After several attempts to readjust and maybe thirty yards of forward progress I give up and drop the body to the ground. Dragging the thing is slow progress on the dirt path and my grip on the tarp is not fabulous. Every couple hundred feet, I stop and readjust. About halfway down the drive, when I guess I am hidden from the road I sit down and take a break. Abruptly, I detect a flickering light out of the corner of my eye; I swing my face towards the light and jump to me feet in a panic before realizing the flicker is a light from the television of the nearest neighbor. The power must have returned in that instant and Butch's neighbors, who as far as I can tell are always watching TV, must have left it on. Several moments pass as I watch the house suspiciously. I have never paid it much attention before, it's too far away for me to see anyone and for them to see me, I judge and continue on with my body drag.

By the time I get to Butch's front step I am worn out and cranky. I have been up since down, taken out vampires, driven twelve hours, pulled a corpse for a mile, and now this asshole won't answer the door. Ringing the doorbell for the third time nets no response. Sitting on the stoop, attempting to decipher the big dipper, I consider just dumping the body there and leaving. Minutes tick by and I realize, I have not left yet. I stand and turn the door handle, to my immense surprise, it swings open. I stare at the dark opening and blink rapidly to make sure I am not seeing things. Peering into the dark, I poke my head inside and study the above ground house. From the stoop I can see every inch of it and nothings there.

"Um, Butch?" I call into the room. "You in there somewhere?" No response of course, I sigh. He is probably a mile away in his concrete cave.

Swiveling my head I examine the looks on the door frame. No sign of forced entry on the locks, any of them, and there's like ten. As if the whole house is going to explode at any second, I pick up my right foot, move it a foot inside the door, hover on one leg dangling my toes over the tile, and finally set my sneaker on the floor. Nothing happens, I slide into the room remaining hyper alert, I examine the second half of the locks on the inside of the door. They all look perfectly pristine and intact.

Why would someone as paranoid as Butch leave his front door unlocked? There's like ten locks and he couldn't be bothered to use one of them? My first thought is that he just forgot to bar the door, but I quickly dismiss that. Maybe he was in a rush, carrying something heavy, my eyes flick to the body. I am not going to find any answers standing with one foot barely resting inside the house, but my fear of the potential security features Butch has managed to install over the years keep me from pushing on. I have no idea what he has done to his house to protect himself from the end of the world.

After several minutes I sigh and decide the best thing to do is go around back to the barn and check on the pigs. I leave the door open, the body at the stairs, and proceed on with my search. Of course the barn might also be booby-trapped. I have known for a long time that Butch maintains a human-like appearance by drinking pigs blood. Apparently, the pigs are close enough that they can substitute for human beings, and he keeps a good number of pigs on hand.

Once, Butch mentioned something to the effect of, "I long for the good old days, when you could pick off a human without any fear of detection." Before he remembered himself and clammed up, I don't think he likes living off pig’s blood.

The sounds and smell of pig reach me long before I get to the barn. I must be down wind, the pigs are inside and have food. As far as I know they show no signs of neglect, but then I am not a farmer and have no idea what a mistreated pig would look like. Even if Butch is dead and they have been starving for a week I doubt I could tell.

I return to the front of the house and conclude there is nothing to do, but drag the body down into the bunker and leave it there. If Butch never returns, fine, at least no one else will find it down there. Pulling it up the short steps is a bit tricky, the corpse is reluctant to go and almost slides out of the tarp back into the dirt where it started. At the foot of the bed I drop it, and feel the locking mechanism beneath the foot of the bed which opens the underground bunker. It is a confusing thing with several tiny bumps and pull levers. I lay on my side and try to peer up at it, but the room is too dark to see anything.

Having observed Butch input the combination on several occasions, I guess, and hope the thing does not strike out with a viscous blade to cut my hand off. To my surprise, the sequence is correct and the bed swings upward. I stare at the opening to the bunker, which is as well lite as ever and the hairs on the back of my neck stick up. Turning I look back out the open door at the stares. There is something wrong here, I have no idea what it is, but something is diffidently wrong. Glancing between the bunker and the body I finally conclude I just want to finish my job and get out of here.

Pulling the body after me, I proceed down the stairs. It is much easier than going up the stairs, but once I am fully inside, the door to the bunker closes of its own accord. I pause and contemplate, trying to remember if it did that all or along and I will just be able to push up on it when I want to leave. Leaving the body to push up on the hatch brings no corresponding opening. I should have just shoved the body in, put the bed back in place, and left. Too late now though, I continue down with my cargo, hoping Butch is down there or I can find his control room and let myself out. At the bottom of the stairs, I push open the door. The table is there the same as always, with still no indication that Butch is anywhere. Rolling the body next to the table, I turn to leave the room. The door has closed itself behind me and when I press to open it, the door stays shut.

"Okay," I mutter allowed, I pull the handle, still nothing no give at all. A few seconds of heaving and yanking let me know it's not moving. "Butch!" I yell into the air, as I spin to survey the room. For the first time I am struck by the incredible blankness of the room. Without the body to orientate myself, I would not even know which door I came in.

"Butch," I call into the air again, "ITG knows I am here. You can't get away with kidnapping me, they'll send people." I know it's true, but I also know there is no one at ITG more qualified than me to take on Butch and no one on assignment within fifty miles. It would take a good long while to send a rescue mission, which might ultimately be unsuccessful or, at least, too late. On the other hand, Butch could be lying dead somewhere, having finally given up the will to hold onto his body, and this is all just a preprogrammed response mechanism of his lair.

I take a seat at the table next to my friend the dead vampire and begin having a conversation with myself about my options. Checking my cell phone, I see an unsurprising lack of signal. My watch shows no paranormal activity, but then I had been lead to believe that the technology in the watch either originated from Butch or was created with his help. I consider it reasonable to believe he possess some way to jam the detector, of course it could still be an indication that he is dead, as in will not get up ever again dead, not the kind of dead he already is. Watching the minutes tick by as I think, after fifteen of them elapse I decide I am not making any progress into investigating the mystery just sitting here.

Resolving to try the other doors, I start with the one on my right. It opens onto the server room, the only other room I have ever glimpsed in Butch's home. The twenty foot long corridor holds nothing, but neatly arrayed computer parts and an identical door at the opposite end. Letting the door swing shut, I stay in the first room and check the other two doors, both unyielding.

Back at the door to the computer server room, I survey the situation. Nothing inside the room to prop the door open and the self-closing, self-locking, sequence of doors behind me leads me to be suspicious of this one.  I drag the body a little further and use it to prop the door. Walking across to the other side of the room I push open the door on a little kitchenette. Two more doors lead off of this room, breaking the completely symmetrical lay out of the bunker thus far. I stand against the door half in both rooms, examining them both, neither has anything in reach to prop open the door. Returning to the first room, I take one of the chairs and use it to prop the kitchenette door open. Unfortunately it's a rather flimsy chair, not heavy enough to hold the door all the way open and I have to place it between the door and the frame to hold it from locking. This cuts off my line of sight through the other two rooms which makes me unhappy.

Quickly, I try the other two doors, one will not budge, the other opens on to a pantry stocked with canned goods. I scan the shelves doing a mental inventory. Most of it looks like it has been home canned from Butch's garden, the room is at least as large as the server room and completely stocked. There are no doors off of it, only the one I am standing in. Grabbing a couple of nearby, large cans off the shelf and prop open the door. Back in the kitchenette, I pull the door to the computer servers wide open.

"Shit." I exclaim, the door back to the first room is closed, the corpse and its tarp gone. Leaving the door into the kitchenette ajar, I run past the severs and push on the door, nothing. Half sprinting, half skidding I return to the kitchenette, the pantry door is still held open by cans, the remaining door shows no signs of moving.

I hop up on the counter of the kitchenette, sitting in a semi-reclining position with my back against the wall and the three doors into my room within sight. "Butch!" I shout again. "I know you're around somewhere and I bet you can hear me." I scan the walls as thoroughly. They are concrete, solid concrete, without any hint of cameras or microphones, but he must have some way of keeping an eye on me.

"Why are you doing this?" I try again. Why is he doing this? Catching a human to drain their blood slowly over time, fine. But why me? It will only spell disaster for him in the end. People know I am here, people who know what he is, people who could destroy him. Obviously, this is what his doomsday stock pile is for, I always assumed it was. Once the end of the world comes, humans would go missing all the time, what is to stop him from holding them, caring for them, and draining their blood every day? But this is not the end of the world. Someone will come for me.

It dawns on me, that maybe he thinks it is the end of the world. The power outage would not have affected him, he is self-sufficient, but maybe his neighbors came over to check on him or charge their phones. Or worse, maybe his neighbors are just as nuts as him and told him it was the end of the world, maybe the brought over a stock pile of guns and before they could use them he locked them in a room like mine. If Butch has guns, that would be my worst case scenario. As a vampire, even a vampire with fresh human blood, he does not stand a chance against me in a physical contest, but if he has a gun and I do not, that levels any playing field.

After a while resting and contemplating, I feel eyelids drooping. I would rather not sleep if possible, so I get up and to get to work. First, I take cans from the pantry to hold the door to the server room and the door to the canned goods completely open. Fortunately for me, both of these doors open into the kitchenette, unlike the door I used the corpse on, which opened away from me. This should make my impromptu doorstops more defensible. By sitting on the kitchen counter I can see the door through the server room back to the first room and the back of the pantry. Sizing up the pantry, I expect that the room is exactly the same size and exactly the same layout as the server room. Meaning, I think there is a hidden door at the back of the pantry. If Butch plans to drain my blood he would need a secret way into this place while I am sleeping to avoid face to face confrontation. The third door might be an option, but I suspect, that room holds a bathroom and possibly a bed.

I try the third door off the kitchenette again, still locked, "When one door closes another door opens." The voice of Butch echoes slightly in my kitchenette, the first contact I have had from him.

"Thanks, I gathered that." I respond to the air, "I can piss in the sink." I am certain this message is meant to imply that if I close the door to the server room, I will gain access to the bathroom. "That's also not true, at some point you let me open two doors." I motion towards my accomplishment. It is unlikely Butch intended for me to retain access to the computer servers, which begs the question, why put them their? A few more moments of contemplation leads me to realize that I have no idea what is going on in Butch's head.

I go back into the pantry and retrieve some coffee from the shelf. Then I open every cabinet in the kitchenette, locating the coffee pot, I start a brew while surveying everything else in the room taking stock of my supplies. They consist of, four spoons, forks, and butter knives, four large plates, four large bowls, four plastic cups, dish soup, a pot, a pan, a hot plate, a can opener and a hand towel. From my pockets, I pull out my own pocket knife and the EE device [in revision: add that she always carries these with her and what the EE is earlier] after a moment of contemplation, I pick up the chair I had used on the door and casually discarded in a corner and smash it on the counter. Amidst the splinters of wood, two of the legs have stayed together mostly, making them potential weapons as well. I line them up with the other things, retrieve a can of soup, which I open and begin eating strait from the can and pour myself a cup of coffee.

Butch has to show himself. I begin hatching a plan to lure him out of wherever he is hiding down here. My first attempt will be, to go to sleep. If there is no one else down here than maybe my prone form will elicit his desire to come drink my blood. Also, I know for a fact that I cannot continue on in a sleep deprived state for very long. This makes the coffee somewhat unnecessary so I stop drinking it. After I eat my soup I check my watch, it's past one in the morning now. I prop myself up against the wall on the kitchenette counter, among the scattered tools of my intended war on Butch and dose off.

Chekhov's Vampire (Act 2 Scene 4)

As the sun peaks over the hills to the east, Matt parks the large SUV brought by the Le gang in the desert just short of the vampire enclave's camera line of sight. JAX 1, who I think is Allen, confirms with Jen, who has stayed at the hotel room to monitor the cameras, that the SUV is unseen. Myself, MJ, Matt, JAX 1, 2, and 3 disembark and grab our gear.  The other five, Le, Yuan, Sara, Lucas and Alejandro abandoned their vehicle an hour earlier and are moving unseen to the three less accessible trap doors which will be blown first. I gather from the amount of yelling Jen has engaged in over our radio that Sara and Lucas have not been as successful at sneaking as we might have hoped for. The enclave does not seem to have noticed anything yet, so we proceed with the plan.

MJ and I gather our things and begin moving into position at the south trap door on the edge of the solar field. We are the closest trap door, but as our path takes us through the solar panels we will wire several of them for explosion, the explosion will be timed with the blowing of the first three trap doors, hopefully crippling the vampire power infrastructural. We place the explosives at the base of several solar panels and embed the detonators, once we are clear we inform the rest of the group. Crouching in the blind spot behind the camera on our trap door MJ and I wait apprehensively, Sara and Lucas are the last team to arrive at their trap door, the other teams are: Yuan with Alejandro, Le alone, Matt with JAX 2, and JAX 1 with JAX 3.

After several tense minutes of us waiting, Sara voice crackles through on our hand held radios, "Okay we're in position."

"Good," Le responds, "Cameras out in three, two, one."

Silence greets us as the first three groups knock out the above ground cameras to their trap doors.

"Jen has deactivated the magnetic locks on the lids." Le returns, "Everybody ready to drop explosives and detonate?"

"Yes," Sara and Alejandro answer simultaneously.

"Good, three, two, one."

I count to three again and the explosives at the base of the solar panels blow a wave of heat brushes my face, and several rows of solar panels go down. The sound of the destruction is much less dramatic then I imagined, the panels themselves twist and fall, but in my mind they act like glass dominoes producing a beautiful cascade of shattering glass. In reality they just slump over onto each other. I glance over at MJ and notice he is repeatedly rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans. He seems lost for a moment, but catches my eye, stops moving and twitches a smile at me.

"Jen says the power is largely out, but they seem to have a back up generator which lights the halls at least. She'll call the late teams individually with instructions. Fires are minimal, but we expect some casualties already. First three teams will drop in in three, two, one." Le instructs.

A few minutes pass. I maintain a calm demeanor and it takes me a few minutes to realize that MJ is becoming twitchier with every passing second.

My cell phone rings and I answer it, "Tell Matt and Xing to drop their explosives and enter." Jen says curtly, I relay the message through my radio. "Okay, you're the last team now. It looks like you will be coming in just above the main living quarters, I'm holding out to see if more vampires will enter into the hall. Trying to use the explosion to greatest effect. Your cameras still on and because they can't see you they think it's safe over there."

"Got it." I reply, MJ eyes me uncomfortably, and I pass the information to him. The right side of his mouth and eye take on an unusually facial twitch I have never observed before and he swallows mechanically.

"Okay, explosive and enter now." Jen bursts back.

I pull on ear muffs, identical to the ones already worn by MJ, remove my remaining larger explosive from my tool belt and add the detonator while MJ disconnects the camera. Flipping up the metal trap door I drop the bomb first and the lid second then hit the detonator as I avert my face. A tickle of flames rolls across my back and a muted fump noise is followed by a larger bang as the trap door smashes back open from the force of the blast. I lose my footing and end up on knees and elbows.

Straightening up, I remove my ear protection and start climbing down the ladder, MJ right above me followed by a slowly shrinking whole of sunlight. "Last team in, report." I say into my radio.

"Jen said the living quarters are over by you, we are moving towards you." A JAX responds.

"We have the blood center and are rigging it for explosion," Sara adds.

"I'm holding the computer center, but can't by pass the door." Le says.

The reports continue, as MJ and I move down the hall into the dark, the emergency lights are quite dim and I expect the vampires cannot actually see anything. The walls are charred from the explosion and I begin to come upon charred bodies sound echos down the hall as the vampires shot and run trying to organize themselves somehow. The hand on the ninth or tenth chard corpse starts to move towards the wall as if to push itself up, I pull my bat from the tool belt and swing it in an arc from my shoulder to the floor as it makes a satisfying snap and whips burnt flesh and brain material down the hall towards were I can make out retreating vampires. I should have gotten a golf club, I think. Behind me I hear MJ wretch, but not vomit, I hope he keeps it together.

More corpses pile up, but no other burned ones move. The hallway smells like a thousand fold amplification of a bathroom after a girl catches her hair on fire with a curling iron and too much flammable product. I door looms out of the concrete wall on my right, I turn in and MJ follows, the ratata of gun fire echoing from around a bend further up the hall. Four creatures are moving within the room, the first lunges at me on first sight. My baseball bat swishes through the air ending in a heavy thunk as the left side of the things face collapses in on itself. The bone, long weakened from death gives way easily and blood sprays from the right side of its face. A second vampire turn corpse at the sight, without the will to hold onto its body and endure physical pain the thing simply returns to what it really is. Good, I think, that one is perfect for Butch.

MJ fires a single shot behind me as I turn to face the other two. Both women, they were likely younger than me when they died, but now have crags in their faces exaggerated by ash from the explosion.

"Please, NO!" The first one cries to me in Spanish. "I never wanted this, I didn't ask them too, it just happened." She blubbers.

"Release your body and you will die." I answer, advancing towards the women and gesturing towards the untouched corpse crumpled a few feet away from us.

The second woman buries her head in her hands, the first touches the body with her eyes, a long pause elapses as I step up a few paces from her, turn my body and tighten my grip on my bat. Her eyes pivot back to mine, "I don't want to die, please." She raises her hand out as if to touch me and the bat whips out and crashes into her rib cage. Her body leaves the ground sending her life away at the same time, I see the light flick off in her eyes which plead to me one moment and are the picture of death the next. The body flies and lands haphazardly strewn across the nearest bed.

The remaining woman drops to her knees head bowed, "Our father-" I hear distinctly as I land a final blow on her skull. I turn away and begin checking the room for others, there are none. MJ stays in the doorway, two of the JAX search the room a little further down the hall on the other side. I step past MJ into the hall.

"Empty," they report and I nod in affirmation. This is reported on the radio. Everything else in the bunker is still, the vampires returned to their corpse state. Le has broken into the control room with Sara and Lucas, and they recovered a good quantity of drugs by the sound of it and are in the process of moving the contraband.

"Help me with this body," I say to the JAXs and MJ motioning back into the room. MJ hesitates before turning and following me. We carry the body out under our trap door, with the JAXs trailing. The others do a second sweep of the bunker. Together the four of us make an assembly line and pass the body up out of the bunker onto the sandy soil. In the light, I see it used to be a male, likely a teenager, diffidently not full grown. The left side of his face and body is covered in burns from the explosion. The burns are different than normal burns, the flesh is peeled away in an angry red slash with darkened edges and lose flaps of white unattached epidermis, but no bubbling or blistering of the skin has occurred.

I flick my eyes from the body to my watch, the operation took eighty-two minutes from the arrival of our vehicle to now. I switch modes to bring up the paranormal detector; the needle has returned to black, the paranormal signal is eliminated. MJ motions feebly towards the body and we grab it under the armpits and half pull, half drag the body to the SUV.

The JAXs have opened the back hatch and pulled out a black tarp for us to use. We drop the body on the tarp and wrap it before lifting it back into the SUV. A JAX shoves a black garbage bag into my hands, I strip and through my clothes, tool belt, and baseball bat into the bag before another set of clothes is pushed into my hands and I redress. One of the JAXs jogs off with all four of our black trash bags returning to the trap door where a final explosive will be detonated once our group has left and Jen has resealed the lids.

A few more minutes of waiting and all the original members of our SUV have returned. We drive back to the road and MJ and I transfer the body into the trunk of our rental car. I hop in the driver seat as he returns with the Le gang and begin my twelve hour drive to return the body to Butch.

Chekhov's Vampire (Act 2 Scene 3)

We return to the hotel, but I decide to take my computer and go sit outside at a local restaurant that advertises wifi. MJ initially declines, but I assume he will show up later when he is hungry. After I obtain the wifi password form the waitress and order food, I send an email to Butch, followed by one to Amy McAdams, the computer expert at ITG. Amy responds that I should log onto chat almost immediately.

"I'm in a public place," I type into the text box.

"That's fine," Amy's text flashes, "Based on the information Butch gave us I've been able to get into the enclave's computer network."

"That's great news." I interject while waiting for more text to appear.

"I'll be giving you access to their network momentarily. The big thing for you is the cameras."

"Yeah, that's what I really wanted to know about." I send two seconds after she adds another line.

"There are several feeds, but most of them focus on the road coming up to the buildings or the building themselves."

"So you think there are blind spots?" I ask.

"I don't know you'll have to tell me. But there's some angels that don't seem to overlap with others."

"Cool, thanks a bunch Amy."

"No problem, just doing my job."

I log off of the chat as my food arrives. I begin by just eating, but I am too excited to not look at the computer feeds. My fork rests in my quarter eaten burrito as I search about the camera views Amy has given me access to. She's right the majority of the views focus on the road and the gas station, with a few on the dinner and mobile homes. There are six camera's which focus on the outside of a trap door and six focused on the inside, leading me to believe there are six entry and exit points. I gain precious little information about the underground bunk and its inhabitants. The cameras are meant to watch those outside the enclave not inside and there are relatively few underground shots. The hallways and a control or computer room are all pretty well watched, but only occasional vampires stalk the halls, the main living areas must be somewhere else. I observe no living humans. Outside, I notice a distinct lack of camera's on the opposite side of the hill from the gas station, there are two that clip opposite edges of the solar field, but based on the angles I gather they are about 90 degrees different in which direction they face leaving a broad blind spot.

This group is not expecting any sort of real threat I conclude after a while. They're concerned about turning away prying eyes, but not about any sort of offensive directed at the enclave. This will make our job much easier, but I wonder about it all the same. I finish my food, and return to the hotel room despite the lack of MJ.

When I get there he is watching TV and I show him the camera feeds we pull out a map and look through them more carefully, marking the locations we expect the cameras to be at and their field of vision and the location of the trap doors. We begin a rough sketch of the underground bunker based on the locations of the trap doors. By the time we finish it's nearly midnight, we both go to bed agreeing that tomorrow there's no rush. The plan for the next day is to do a little more reconnaissance on the back roads and confirm the camera range. We spend the next couple of days plotting out the cameras, each morning one of us drives up towards the area, taking back roads to avoid the main block of cameras and scoots along the hill. The other person stays back in the hotel and tries to give the scooter pointers on where the cameras might detect them. Unfortunately, the cell reception is crap up in this area and most of the suggestions do not get through. We manage to stay out of camera detection anyway, and by the time the Le gang is supposed to arrive we have plotted entry ways up to three of the six trap doors without being seen.

The Le gang arrives early on our fifth day in Santa Fe. They have rooms in the same hotel, but cannot check in right away so they come up to our room in the morning and we all go over the information MJ and I have collected. There are ten of them so the room is pretty packed. People sit on every available space.

"Thanks for coming everyone," MJ says with a charming smile. "I'm MJ, this is Laura, I've meet most of you, but she's meet none, can you all go around and say your names?"

A thin, well-muscled man stands up, "I'm Le, I suppose the only person here that might be news to is Laura." I crack a smile and the other's chuckle a bit. "I lead this band of merry men and women." Inside I frown a bit at that, I hope it does not imply he expects to lead me and MJ. In that he will be mistaken.

Another bigger man stands up, he wears a cowboy hat, blue jeans, and boots, making him the most conspicuous many places, but the least here, "I'm Matt. I suppose I'm as much second in command as anyone."

The woman next to him waves at me, but does not bother standing, setting a trend, "Jen, I handle most of the technology I suppose."

Xing, Allen and Jason are the next three men, they appear similar enough to be interchangeable to me, I nickname them JAX collectively in my head. Another woman, Yuan is memorable in being one of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but was so stick think I could not imagine her being much use in a fight. The third woman is named Sara and the last to men, Lucas and Alejandro. Recognition stirs in my brain when I see Alejandro, but I cannot say where from.

I wave back at them all, "I'm Laura, I work for ITG like MJ." I consider making a joke, but conclude I am not funny enough to pull one off. "We appreciate you all being here and I'll let MJ fill you in on the details."

MJ nods at me accepting the floor, "Right, we're looking at an enclave that's believed to be about 250 vampires strong. We have access to their camera system." He waves to his laptop which is sitting out and Jen slides off the bed and into the chair in front of it. My hand twitches, I dislike sharing our information, but I picture no move to take the vampire enclave will involve keeping the Le group completely in the dark and away from our computers. "Most of the cameras are set to watch the road in and out of the area so we have very little idea of their actual living conditions. It's an underground bunker with six trap doors as entry points, they are all accessible without running across a camera line of sight." MJ motions to the map of the area we had made and Le grabs it off the table to show to the rest of the group.

One of the JAXs shakes his head at it, "They're not expecting an attack at all by the layout, it should be easy pickings. I thought ITG didn't go in for whole sale slaughter, not that I mind." he muttered the last bit and I doubted MJ or Le could hear him.

            "We don't," I replied, "but this group has shown some dangerous tenancies. They're a part of a drug smuggling ring and one was the assassin in that strange case in Mexico you may have heard of."

The JAX, possible the A, shrugs back at me, "Whatever you have to tell yourselves." The comment makes him rise slightly in my estimate; perhaps I will try to relearn his name later.

Another JAX wrinkles up his face in disgust, "So that's when you're lot makes a move against these things? Once they've already committed crimes against humanity? With all you’re cataloging you could take every little thing out in a year I be."

"Enough," Le's tone cuts through the man's looming rant, "we're not here to discuss politics, let's deal with the situation at hand."

            The man defers to Le, I expect this gang of hunter's is not as violent as the other's entirely because of Le. Some of the other members might be blood thirsty hounds, but I sense Le has a purpose to him that leads to a specific desired result every time he takes action. I study him out of the corner of my eye, the man has the attitude and charisma to be a CEO or a president I realize, what's he doing here?

The man acts deferentially to Le, I expect this gang of hunter's is not as violent as the other's entirely because of Le. Some of the other members might be blood thirsty hounds, but I sense Le has a purpose to him that leads to a specific desired result every time he takes action. I study him out of the corner of my eye, the man has the attitude and charisma to be a CEO or a president I realize, what's he doing here?

"One last, technicality before we go any further." Le raises a finger to stop the proceedings all his men turn their eyes to him, "We'll be taking any contraband found at the site. Drugs, guns, whatever they happen to have to smuggle."

I make eye contact with MJ, he is surprised, but hiding it well. "Fine." I say, "I have a demand as well." Le also disguises surprise well, but some of the others not so much, "We need to take back a body, preferably a body that's actually dead. This doesn't involve anything special from you lot, just stay out of our way at the end of this and we'll stay out of yours.”

Le cracks a wary smile, "Agreed." This is not the best deal I have ever made in my life. I do not like that I will be walking a away from the site with a corpse, nor do I like that Le's group will be walking away with drugs; however, all the previous ITG reconnaissance on the site suggests that the drugs are not kept there. Unless the Le group gets lucky they will be leaving with nothing, I comfort myself with that thought.

"Right returning to the business at hand then." MJ brings our attention back to him, "Everyone here has dealt with vampires before correct?" No voices contradict him. "Has anyone not encountered vampires." MJ's hand wobbles feebly in the air as a demonstration, nobody mimics him. "Good than. This lot has access to essentially doped up human blood, thanks to their partners in crime. It defiantly has erythropoietin, an over higher red blood cell count than normal, more steroids." The eyes of several of Le's men glass over, and MJ notices."Anyway the point is they won't be as corpse like as most vampires. This lot should actually put up a fight."

Yuan cocks her head to the side, "How much of a fight?"

"We won't know until we're in there," MJ answers, "More than we'd expect, but less than they would. Our computer team has accessed their network from what we gathered from their talk they are significantly weaker than what they were promised, most are much weaker than they were as living humans, but they’re not barely living corpses either."

"They won't have the blood hunger when they attack either though, that's good for us." Yuan adds a contemplative expression spreading on her face. I never knew a name for it, but I assume what she calls the blood hunger is the terrifying bull rush enacted by a vampire when it has starved into the corpse state and a living  mammal comes upon it. The things will shoot out like lightening and attach themselves to the living until they are drained of blood, it appears to be a reflex and is the most deadly attack any vampire can mount.

"Anyway we are still going to be outnumbered, about twenty five to one." MJ continues, "Our plan is this," he turns to the map and points to each trap door, "These three are the hardest to get to, the plan is to station one person at each, at a marked time two people will put explosives down these two, simultaneously we'll knock out the cameras on the inside and outside of each remaining trap door. After a minute the third trap door will be bombed. The remaining people will be clustered around the other three trap doors and we'll enter after the first bombs."

Le cuts him off shaking his head, "I think it would be better if we bombed all the doors to knock out as much infrastructure as possible."

"Do we have enough explosives?" I ask Le.

"Ah, I see." He jerks his head up, "Yes, we do. We have several pounds of demolition grade explosives, enough to bring the whole place down like a tomb actually. Neither of us seems to want that, however, and it would not guarantee the the vampires were all dead anyway. Lucas will be in charge of the explosives, he'll weigh them out to cause maximum destruction with minimum collapse. We have an array of guns as well, I am sure you'll find a weapon you like." I doubt that statement and conclude I will make a trip to buy a baseball bat and crowbar at the first opportunity.

The conversation continues on in this vein for quite some time. We break at one in the afternoon, the Le's check into their rooms and we all scatter to get lunch, vowing to regroup around two or two-thirty. After a brief conversation with MJ, I prepare to go acquire my baseball bat. I run into Lucas, Alejandro and two JAXs on my way out, their room is only a few doors down from ours. When I tell them were I am going, Alejandro elects to come with me.

"I could use some rope." Alejandro says as we climb in the car. "If there is a thing that ever comes in handy in a tight spot it's rope or maybe duct tape. I'll get some duct tape too."

I snort at this. "Where are you from originally?" I am still trying to place him.

A bit of surprise flashes on his face, "Torrance, same as you. I knew your brother. I was at his funeral."

He pauses before adding the last bit, "I wondered where I'd seen you before."

Alejandro shifts uncomfortable, "I would have graduated high school with your brother. I liked him he was a good guy."

I notice he does not say it was a tragedy my brother died so young, but then no one who know my brother has ever said that to me, and calling him a good guy was a bit of a stretch. I take his sympathy for what it is worth and move the conversation on, "So how'd you get in with Le's group. How'd you become a paranormal hunter."

A roaring peel of laughter rips from him, than he sighs and tugs one side of his shirt showing a tattoo. I glance at it guessing what I would see, my brother had the same tattoo. "I tried to get out for a good long while," Alejandro says, "There was never much of a way out for me. It's not like I could go get a decent job, but a few years back we started having problems with, you know, things that weren't human. Anyway, Le's group had always been part of a more organized underground, we got in contact with them to take care of the situation and they tried to recruit a few of us. I volunteered, I'm not exactly out now, but my life expectancy has probably gone up. Nobody really bothers us, Lucas, Sara and me, unless there's a problem back home, and then we deal with that. Occasionally we'll bring in hauls like this one, and that's considered good enough."

I understand, this life is not an improvement for most people, but Alejandro was likely in a situation that could not get much worse.

At the store we separate, I find a baseball bat, crowbar, and a good, heavy hammer. After a minute of debate I pick up a tool belt too. I expect a comment from the cashier, but she does not even give my items a second look. Alejandro is waiting for me with his rope and duct tape.

Upon returning to the car he asks, "You prefer hand to hand."

I nod, "I don't like guns or gunpowder, or explosives for that matter. I've never been on a job that could be traced back to me so easily."

Alejandro grins at that, "I'll tell Lucas to keep the explosives in our room than."

When I return, MJ is the only one in our room even though it is nearly two. "I've been thinking." I say to him, "When this is over I'll take the vampire body and rental car and just leave straight away for Butch's. You get a ride back with this lot, than take the earliest flight out."

"Fine. I'll admit I'm not to psyched about staying with these guys if they plan to have as much illegal crap as I think." MJ agrees.

When the others arrive I run the suggest past Le, he shrugs agreement without insult, and MJ books his flight out and calls the rental car company to inform them of where and when the car will be turned in. We spend most of the evening ironing out the details of our plans. Nobody wants to stay here too long, the attack is set for the next morning, we all agree to leave the hotel at three in the morning to arrive at about five, and we should all be in place by sunrise if everything goes off without a hitch.

Chekhov's Vampire (Act 2 Scene 2)

            We wake up at six am the next day and get started. The continental breakfast is about what I expected, all the baked goods are a little stale, but edible. We go out to the rental car and I decide if we have to go off roading this is not the car to do it in. It is not exactly a sporty vehicle. I slip in the passenger seat and MJ drives out of the lot.

            "Let me know when you want me to drive." It's going to be about a two hour drive. The area we are headed towards is eleven miles south of the Colorado boarder.

            "Why didn't y'all book a closer hotel?" MJ enquires, "could have stayed in Espanola or Carson or something."

            "We don't know if they're watching the nearby towns or anything. We're still not really sure how organized this group is." I respond.

            "Hmpf," MJ snorts, "Should be plenty of tourists there too, aren't we tourists? They can't watch everybody. Besides I doubt somehow this group cares about anyone more than five miles away."

            "In case you hadn't noticed at breakfast this morning, there are not plenty of tourists right now. I won't be surprised if they don't have any surveillance in the area, but it's a chance I'd rather not take." I expect his grumbling to continue for a while, MJ is not a morning person. Instead he huffs himself into silence and we leave town on highway 285, continuing on in silence. Well almost, we stop for coffee at chain with a drive through first, than we continue on in silence.

            The scrub brush and pine trees of the high desert flicks past the window along with ancient sandstone formations. We pass through one edge of the Carson National Forest and pull off at the ranger station to buy an entrance pass for the week. Upon inquiry we learn that most of campsites have open spaces and there's no additional back packing pass we just have to confirm our route with the ranger station and book the campsites. This perks up MJ a bit, and makes me wonder if he does not just want to go camping for fun. He can do that on his own after I leave.

            We continue up the highway and slow down after we spot the turn off for the San Antonio Mountain outlook. A few miles up the road, a sign advertises the unincorporated township of Nueva Paz another sign suggests it boasts a gas station. We make a right off the highway onto a similar road and continue off for a half mile or so before we sight a rundown looking gas station, a rundown looking dinner, and a couple of trailer homes. The site is even less impressive than I imagined it, but conspicuous in that it is likely the only human habitation for twenty miles. The road travels downhill to the town, but a gently rising slope cuts off our view past the trailers.

            "This can't be right," MJ frowns, "There's no way 250 people much less vampires live here."

            "All the tracking points to here and they reference it in their own emails, maybe there's more underground, or some ranches or something nearby were they actually live." I suggest.

            MJ scowls some more and stiffens, he doesn't like the situation and neither do I. Maybe this is a trap, or maybe the vampires we are looking for are a thousand miles away from here, who knows. We pull up in front of the gas station. There's one pump for regular and one pump for diesel, we go to the regular.

            "I'll check inside," I motion towards the station. MJ nods and searches the back of the car for the gas cap to keep up appearances, he curses when he realizes he pulled up to the pump the wrong way and gets back in the car to turn around.

            The door to the station is propped open, but the lights are off. "Hello, anybody home." I call in. The place is small enough I can see no one is. There are two coolers on the back wall and a couple of stands with chips and candy, a cash register and cigarettes behind the counter. "Okay" I say to the air. A window next to the door and one behind the cash register make the place pretty well illuminated despite the grim on the windows. I search the place a little more and notice the coolers are still on suggesting electricity and a small trap door is next to one of them in the back corner, suggesting a basement. The ground is less dusty, but grimier near the door and it has a well-used look to it.

            A small noise catches my attention and I peer through the window behind the counter in time to see the door on the nearest trailer home slam shut and a man dressed in blue jeans, boots, and a baseball cap stomp towards us. He smiles at MJ, who has righted the car, and waves. I return to the door and wave back.

            When he gets close enough he calls out to greet me in Spanish. I do not know if MJ speaks Spanish and have no wish to leave him out of the conversation so I respond in English. The man switches to mildly accented English.

            "We're looking to get gas," I motion to MJ who has begun pumping, "But I think we're lost too, can you give us some directions."

            "Sure," The man says as he walks past me into the store, flicks on the lights and boots up the cash register.

            "We were going to the San Antonio Mountain today, did we miss it?" I ask as I pull a map of the park from my pocket.

            "Sure did, it's about two miles back the way you came on the right." He replies and I wonder if he knows which way we came or just guesses.

            "While we're up here though, we planned to do a couple of the hikes nearby, can you suggest a few?" I start pointing to some of the close by points on the map.

            "Ah, no I wouldn't suggest that one or that one either." The man frowns over my ideas, "The ones by the south side of the park are really the better ones. And it gets real cold up here in the evenings this time of year; you don't want to get caught in this area at night."

            I nod, before I give the man another question, MJ saunters in, "How do you keep this place open?" he blurts before passing the man a credit card.

            The man glances at the computerized cash register, which has not booted up yet, "Ah, the locals mostly, everybody needs gas. Do you have cash by chance?"

            "Nah, we'll wait a minute," MJ dismisses the question, "What locals? The place looks abandoned."

            A more critically study of the town tells me it is abandoned, the dinner is clearly not open for business and none of the trailer homes look lived in. The roof on the one next to the mans might be fallen in and gives the impression of having a missing wall, the windows and door let much more light pass through than any of the other mobile homes.

            "Eh you know, ranchers and stuff," the man waves his hand at the world around us and runs the credit card, but glares at the computer when it does not run.

            "Do you get a lot of people from the park?" MJ asks.

            "No. Like I was telling your friend, all the good hiking is down on the south end. Nobody comes up here much." The man answered, not realizing he had brought us back to the question of how the place stayed open.

            "Seems like the electric bill would be more than what you make." I observe.

            "Solar panels, on the other side of the hill." He chimes, finally convincing the register to take the credit card.

            "That answers it, getting a piece of the alternative energy craze, I see now." MJ responds, pacifying the man. I check my watch by pressing a button on the side that switches it into the paranormal energy detection mode. This mode is a simple dial that has colors from black to red around the outside, right now the needle is pointing to red indicating the highest level of paranormal activity. There's vampire's beneath my feet alright, I think.

            "We better get moving," I move to exclude the man from the conversation, "if we want to see the mountain and then head down here to hike." I tap the map on down near Carson were the man claimed the better hikes are. "There is a five mile hike down there that looked good, I thought we would do it tomorrow, but today might be better."

            "Sounds like a plan," MJ responds as he signs the gas receipt.

            "Thanks," I say to the man as I turn to leave, I notice the man perk up and smile a bit for the first time since I started asking questions about the area.

            "Yeah, thanks for the info." MJ adds.

            "No problem at all, I'm sure you'll be happier down by the south end, much more to do and see down their anyway." The man cheeps as we return to our car.

            As we are getting in he shuts off the power to the convenience store and turns to go back inside the mobile home. I check my watch again and flash it over to MJ who glances at it and nods. He fires up the engine and we pull away from the gas pump, the man walks back across to the trailer home.

            "Oh I forgot to close the gas lid," MJ mutters as he checks his mirrors, he climbs back out of the car. I watch the man return to the mobile home, as MJ returns, I notice shadow movement beneath the mobile home. It looks to me like a trap door being opened and a man retreating into the depths, MJ follows my eyes before pulling out of the gas station.

            "This place is interesting," he says after a moment.

            "Yeah tell me about it," I answer, I glance down at my watch again, than out the window in time to see the sun glint off a bit of metal in the desert. Possibly a camera or another trap door. Shortly after we pass it the dial on my watch begins traveling into the orange region and downward.

            "Looks like it's all underground," I say when we return to the main highway and turn off to the left, another glint from the ground, camera most likely.

            "And they send one guy up when they know someone's coming they must have cameras on the gas station at least." MJ adds.

            "Out here to I think."

            He nods, "how far out is there observation radius?"

            "No idea, so what now?" I wonder.

            "We look at the mountain and come up with another plan I suppose." MJ puts on his thinking face and I begin going over the situation in my own head.

            We get to the look out, and walk around before resting up on the hood of the car to continue our conversation.

            "I think it's fair to say they have camera's on the surrounding area, but probably not too far away." MJ says.

            "Agreed," I respond, "an early warning system most likely. I'm thinking I'll email Butch tonight and try and get more information out of him. There's got to be some digital trace of their activities, the camera's are probably accessible to him anyway, he's inside their network at some level to have the information he's already given us."

            "Won't you need something to trade him?"

            "I'll tell him the layout I've seen so far, maybe that will be worth something. I wonder how they did it?" I add the last enigmatic question without thinking.

            "Did what?" MJ asks.

            "Built it all. Out here." I motion out to the desert in front of me, "Whatever they've got underground took building supplies that had to come from somewhere, and somewhere none to close at that. Not to mention whatever servers and networking they have."

            MJ shrugs back at me with confusion on his face, "I seem to remember Butch has something similar going on. He managed it and he's just one dude that can't even show his face during normal business hours."

            "Yeah, but according to the ITG files on him it's taken him over 100 years to develop that property, and he's still building stuff. This group is only supposed to go back a year and a half, both based on our files and Butch's." I retort, "Who bought all this stuff and moved it out here so quickly? This has to be a part of a larger operation."

            MJ turns to look at the mountain, it's not quite noon yet and still cool at this elevation, but strangely warm in the sun. After a few minutes he continues the conversation, "You think we've bit off more than we can chew here?"

            I look side long at him, "Yep, but I doubt that will stop us."

            He grins back at me, but it fades, "Where did this lot come from?"

            "No idea, I've never met a group half so large or so organized before and what are they eating too? Just the genetically enhanced blood? Seems like rich fair to be feeding all of them." I add.

            "I don't want to end up chasing vampires the rest of my life." MJ sighs.

            "Oh it wouldn't be so bad would it? It would give you purpose anyway." I say lightly.

            MJ sticks me with a hard look before turning away, "It gives you purpose, but it might just make life more miserable for me."

Chekhov's Vampire (Act 2 Scene 1)

                After arriving at the Santa Fe airport, I give MJ a jingle and discover he has already arrived and procured the rental car. I heave my luggage into the vehicle before plopping in after it, grateful to be on our way to the hotel.

                "How was home?" I ask MJ, he works on assignment only taking one or two jobs with ITG a year and typically only big jobs at that, and this is his first job in about six months.

                "Fine." He answers then frowns, "I've been working on a memoir you know? Trying to make it not sound crazy, but it does of course. I want to commemorate them you know, but no one will believe what I say."

                I nod. "Them" is his wife, and young son and daughter. MJ is an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran. He served three contracts in the army, twelve years of active service. He meant his wife in the army, but after her first contract completed she discovered she was pregnant and came home to begin their new family. Their son was born first followed three years later by their daughter, a year after that, while MJ was deployed in Afghanistan for the second time, his wife and two young children were mysteriously and brutally murdered. It was a big deal at the time, even made it onto one of those unsolved murders TV shows. The regular police are never going to solve it either, they were attacked by a Wendigo and if you do not know what that is, just know it means the situation did not go well.

                ITG, in the form of myself intervened and tracked down the Wendigo. Early in the process, I involved MJ, a very good decision as it turned out and together we hunted down the Wendigo and killed it. There's no point in trying to redeem one of those souls. MJ came to work for ITG after that, Jim would never have to ask his motive for this job, it is revenge, plain and simple. Mostly, he comes with me on jobs like this one, really he is one bad day from becoming a hunter himself. Only the fact that he realizes how much information ITG has stored away and how beneficial that is to his goals keeps him beholden to us.

                "Why don't you write it as fiction?" I suggest, not for the first time. MJ deeply desires to write a true account of his families death, but that brings about problems. No one would believe a paranormal cannibal killed my family, and claiming to have personally killed this paranormal cannibal might just bring about a police investigation (not that it would turn up anything.)

                "But it's not. People should know," he insist. His long held wish to inform the masses of our purpose is somewhat problematic.

                "Maybe some of them will believe you. You can claim it's a cathartic, a personal way to deal with the unsolved murder of your family." I try again.

                "It's not unsolved." He growls.

                "I know," I sigh this conversation is never going to go anywhere, "but I don't want to see you tried for a crime you did not commit, and if you claim to have killed someone to avenge your wife and children. Well there's enough unsolved murders out there that one of them might get pinned on you."

                MJ is silent for a moment, "I'll consider it." He says, but I know he will not.

                We continue through the high desert before coming to our hotel. Santa Fe is a small city, but it boasts a unique art seen and outdoor activities that attract a certain kind of tourist year round. Neither of us is that kind of tourist, but hopefully we can fake it well enough, and besides I doubt the vampire enclave we are hunting will be keeping a watch this far away, or at all.

                After checking in to our hotel we go up to our room together. It is a standard chain hotel room with two queen beds and I claim the one near the windows by unceremoniously dumping all my shit on it. I fish out the relevant files and pass them over to MJ before heading off to take a shower. He was emailed most of the contents prior to coming here, but given that was about twelve hours ago, and the level of paranoia exhibited by our tech department in not electronically copying certain things and I knew he would not have the complete picture yet.

                The shower is nice and refreshing; I get out and pull on a clean pair of cloths before returning to discuss the issues at hand with MJ. He is still studying the folder, biased on how many pages are flipped out I guess he's studying maps of the area. His laptop materialized next to him on the wooden table/desk/coffee-making-station, an email account open on the screen.

                He glances up at me and motions to the screen, "I've contacted Le. Whatever Mr Montegue says on the matter, I think we'll end up needing them." MJ was the first member of our group to interact with Le when they both showed up to investigate the same haunting and is still our contact man.

                "What did you tell them?" I wonder if contacting the group is the right move.

                MJ shrugs, "Nothing much. Our current location and an approximate size and description of the group. I asked for weapons too since I doubt we'll be buying anything here."

                I puzzle at this comment for a second before remembering that MJ favors a gun in such situations. Personally, I never learned to shoot and typically use bludgeoning instruments in self-defense. My limited previous contact with vampires also suggests that guns are not the way to go anyway. From a practical stand point, a vampire is a corpse attached to a consciousness that has not decided it is dead yet. The best way, from my experience, to remind a vampire that it is dead is to inflict as much physical pain as possible in a short amount of time. The feet is not too difficult, as the vampire retains many of the features of a corpse and an older vampire, or one that has not feed on blood to replenish itself will have brittle bones and a condition associated with rot. Too old of a vampire is basically impervious; however, as the nerve endings deaden at some point resulting in a lack of pain response. Before I wonder too far, the original point I was getting at is inflicting pain, and how many guns are just not the way to go in this, a through and through shot will do you very little good against a vampire. If it makes MJ happy though, I decide to let the situation go, besides we will need the man power of the Le group if not the fire power, two of us will not be able to win this fight on our own.

                "Do you think they'll come?" I ask.

                "Yeah, they have no reason not to anyway."

                "Why are they hunting? What's the story behind this group?" I want as much information before I meet them as possible.

                MJ flips the papers down on his lap and shifts his attention to me, I sit on the bed across from him, "I don't know. As near as I can tell they used to be, or are," he adds after a second of thought, "associated with some criminal organization. I don't ask about it, anyway they seem to pick targets based on their relevance to that group."

                "Great," I respond, "working with criminals to stop criminals."

                MJ rolls his eyes, "Whatever, Laura, this isn't the Wild West or an epic novel, there are no good guys and no bad guys here, we're all just guys. You know that, better than anyone probably."

                I must have jumped a bit at what MJ said, sure I know that, but I never though he did and it is strange to hear the words coming out of his mouth. "I was more thinking of how to write the report about it. Maybe I know, but I'm not sure Mr Montegue does."

                "Sure he does, better than anyone I expect." MJ anoints. A beep from his computer and he clicks a new email, reading a few brief lines. "They'll be here in four days, so you can ask whatever you want then."

                I nod and frown, "Four days?"

                "Yeah," MJ frowns too, "I don't know what they're up to now, but they must be doing something. That gives us time to do our own recon though, might be a plus."

                "Okay, so let's get a plan for recon down then." I say.

                "Sure thing," MJ responds and points to a map he brings up on the computer, "It seems like there's a lot of hiking trails up near the area we want to go. I was thinking it would be best to get passes for overnight back packing and start here." He taps a spot on the computer screen inside the Carson National Forest. The area we want to get into is a relatively uninhabited area to the northeast of Santa Fe which nearly abuts the National Forest.

                I look at where he has indicated and calculate about how much hiking I think will be involved, the answer is a lot, a lot more than I would really like to do anyway. "Maybe, but how about if tomorrow we just drive up there and act lost. I doubt the vampires will want to jump us outright, and if we go during the daylight we can see how many people are left above ground should give us some indication."

                MJ bits the inside of his cheek and I can tell he does not approve of the idea, "It will give us away though and what they're hostile right out."

                I shrug, "That's why we go in daylight. Look maximum we're dealing with about 300 people here, vampires and live ones, assuming all 250 plus of the vampires are unavailable that leaves us with at most fifty and more likely only ten or twenty people to deal with. Unless they're really cut throat individuals I doubt they'll harass tourists, they probably don't want to draw much attention, and a lot of missing people and unsolved murder's will draw someone's attention eventually."

                His head bobs back and forth as he scowls, but I bet he will concede the point, "It will still give us away."

                "Sure, the two of us or maybe just one if you're that troubled by it, but if we can expect help from Le it won't matter too much, and we can always get a different rental car. Besides, if we do go back later it will likely be to burn the place to the ground at which point we would want to destroy any records of our presence." I retort.

                "What if they email out pictures of us to the cartel I wouldn't want to have them on us or be framed by them for, well something we did do I guess. My point is I'd like to come away from this clean." His aggravated face bores into my eyes.

                "Butch is watching their computers and should intercept anything about us." I intend to continue the thought, but MJ cuts me off.

                "Butch," he snorts, "do we really want to trust that crazy mother fucker. This deal you made with him does not seem weighted in our favor, either. I mean a vampire corpse, I'd rather not."

                Now I scowl with him, "I know what you mean, but Jim was fine with the arrangement. I think he trusts Butch more than is wise, but then he's never double crossed us yet either."

                "Yet."

                "Look the point remains," I press on, "if we need to do the distance recon we can do it with an overnight back packing trip into the desert, but if we can just drive up and get all the information we need why not just do that? I don't think it's an unnecessary risk, no more than covertly sneaking into their territory would be."

                MJ gnaws his cheek and thinks a bit more. "Alright fine." He spits eventually. I am surprised it took this much convincing MJ still habitually follows orders and has always accepted my lead in the past.

                "I'll still look into the back packing solution tonight. It won't hurt to know what trail we're supposed to be looking for." I add, in part to appease MJ, but also because the idea should not be discarded out of hand. Even though sojourning into the wild is not my ideal solution, it is still a solution.

                MJ grunts as he heads off to take his own shower. I return to the hotel lobby to pick up some tourism pamphlets I remembered seeing. Before going back to the room I pause by the front desk.

                "What should I do in Santa Fe while I'm here?" I ask.

                The concierge is younger than me and a bit uncaring, "Whatever you want I suppose."

                "I mean," I try again, "What are the can't miss things?"

                He reacts infinitesimally, "Go see the Alamo like everybody else."

                "Thanks," I impart sarcasm into my voice, not much I imagine as there is not much sarcasm in me, before turning on my heal and marching back to the room.

                When I return, MJ is flicking through television channels from the end of his bed muttering, "Where’s the damn weather." Or something similar.

                I push my stuff off of my bed before flopping down on it and then mess around in the pile to retrieve my own laptop. My upper half is hanging in midair a I flip over my bags before finding the correct one, my lower half still rests on the bed. As soon as my hands hit the computer, the tip of MJ's towel smacks me soundly in the ass. I drop the computer and whirl around on him; he is standing there clutching the towel between his hands, doubled over laughing. My eyes go to the towel, but of course I cannot miss his junk as it jiggles up and down with his laughter half erect. Sighing, I shift to the end of the bed with my legs on the floor in front of him, I have known MJ long enough and well enough to identify this as his juvenile way of saying 'hey let's have sex!'

                We do, but it's a purely physical affair as it has been in the past. I like MJ, but have no strong feelings for him, and the only person he is in love with is his dead wife. After, we stay in his bed for a while, mostly out of habit I think.

                "How's your counseling going?" I ask, maybe out of the blue, but probably not.

                MJ grunts, "I stopped going again."

                I raise an eyebrow at him, we both know Mr Montegue requires MJ to see a psychologist weekly or lose his right to assignments, "Surprised you're here then."

                "Yeah, well if the need is bad enough I suppose." His eyes scuttle along the wall seeing nothing in particular.

                "Why did you stop?" I ask.

                "I'd rather write the book. I can't really tell that woman anything anyway, she wouldn't believe me. It's like you said in the car before, I'd rather not go getting myself in trouble." His answer is logical and evasive.

                "Sure you can, she used to work for ITG in paranormal, I don't know that she ever saw much, but she knows."

                MJ glances sidelong at me, "She thought I might be in love with you."

                This gets me to raise my eyebrow, push up onto my elbow, and stare at him wide eyed.

                "I told here, I wasn't of course," he answers her non-verbal response, "that I didn't want to be in love with anyone but Kari. She said that was the problem, through all the years I won't let myself move on, even after I've had my revenge and everything else."

                He swallows and I watch him. After a silence he continues, "I was never nearly as good of a husband when she was alive. We broke up the day before she found out she was pregnant because I'd been cheating on her, and got married the day after. I decided to change my ways after that, I never did cheat on her again, but I still wasn't as good to her as I could have been."

                As he speaks different shades of guilt chase each other across his face. There's nothing I can say for him so I don't, and his speech created a physical golf between us, even though our bodies are only inches apart.

                "The truth of the matter is I don't know what to do with myself. Ten years ago I had a livelihood and a family, now I have nothing." MJ peeks over at me, "The work for ITG is okay and Mr Montegue has really helped me out and given me a leg up on a lot of other returning vets. I don't really want to work for him though, not forever anyway."

                "Go get another job" I say, "When you get back."

                "What job? You think the military skills will be great for when you get back, but they're not that helpful. I couldn't be a trauma nurse again; I don't like the site of, well trauma much anymore." The ripples of movement as his body shudders at some old memory travel through the bed. "And my bedside manner was not the best ever. Probably much worse now, I've talked with less than ten people in the last six months, and I don't even know half their names. The grocery store clerk and stuff, they mean something to me, but I mean nothing to them."

                "You could do it if you tried, maybe get a part time position. I'm sure there are more then a couple of local doctors who would be willing to give you a shot at getting back on your feet, and Mr Montegue would likely cover any extra costs. He cares about you probably more than he cares about anyone else." I sooth.

                "He does care, but he still gives more of a damn about knowing random facts then the people around him." MJ breaths, "But whatever, we should get some work done." He flips the covers off him and pulls on some shorts before sitting at his computer. The whole transition takes less than thirty seconds, but effectively slams the door on any more delving into MJ's personal problems. We speak little for the rest of the night and continue our research into the area surrounding our target. I go to bed early, and MJ is not far behind.