Greg and Roma locked eyes. Hers a pale, nearly white-blue, his black as night, both wide with shock and panic. The moment lingered, the monster hunter and vampire silently staring at each other while Tyler convulsed on the ground between them with foam burbling out of his mouth, eyes rolled back so only the whites were showing.

After giving Greg a handwritten note with an address on it and a short message that seemed to be intended for Tyler himself, the skinny man bit down hard on something concealed within his mouth. And then the convulsions began.

Only a truly indoctrinated cult member would have the dedication required to take his own life like that - confirming in Greg’s mind that they were in fact dealing with a cult. This guy, Tyler, had obviously been completely bought into whatever nonsense this particular cult was spewing. And now Greg and Roma were facing the decision to either get the hell out of this alley or do something with the body. When it stopped twitching, that is.

“Dumpster?” Greg asked, jutting his chin in the direction of a nearby dumpster with its lid propped open by a slender metal rod.

Roma agreed, lamenting briefly that his blood had the distinct smell of a drug user. “I could really have gone for a late night bite,” she’d said before wrinkling her nose. “Addicts taste funny.”

Greg plucked Tyler’s now-still form from the ground and unceremoniously tossed him bodily into the open dumpster. The impact caused the lid to slam shut, sending a boom echoing out of the alley. He shared a look with Roma, and then the two of them walked away as though nothing at all had just happened.

“That address,” Roma said, looking down at her phone with a speculative expression. “It isn’t far from here. But…”

“But it’s gotta be a trap,” Greg interrupted. “Right?”

“Right,” Roma agreed, her shoulders raised up and down casually. Of course it was a trap. “Should I get us a ride?”

Greg thought about that for a moment as Roma held up her phone, tilting it side to side questioningly.

“No,” he decided. “If it’s nearby, let’s hoof it. Get a lay of the land from the shadows. Maybe get a look at this trap before it springs up around us.”

A creature of the night, Roma readily agreed. They didn’t directly follow the GPS recommended route, instead taking a similar albeit slightly erratic route on parallel streets through poorly lit neighborhoods in the dead of night. Greg slowed his pace as they neared their destination.

They stopped between two large oaks, crouching to observe with their presence hidden by a groupage of tall ferns. The building matching the address on the note did not look like something Greg would ever refer to as a ‘compound’ the way Tyler had when asked about the missing girl’s location. It was a slightly run down church. The poorly lit parking lot was empty.

“Odd location for an environmental and biological preservation organization,” Roma commented curiously. She locked the screen of her phone and slid it into her back pocket. “I just Guugled the name on the gate,” she explained in response to Greg’s questioning look. “This address isn’t listed as a headquarters or anything. Odd, isn’t it?”

Greg was about to agree when his instincts began screaming a warning. The sulfuric scent typical of demons, just a touch on the wind. Silent movement among the shadows. Without even turning to look, Greg knew they were surrounded. They’d walked right into the trap, even knowing it was waiting for them.

Greg didn’t mind that much. He’d take a straight up fight over sneaking around anyway.

The oversized hunting knife was freed from its sheath, its blade gleaming in the pale moonlight. Greg whirled, activating abilities while scanning the trees. Roma must have sensed their mistake at just about the same time Greg had because the hauntingly beautiful vampire vanished in a puff of inky black smoke just before their ambushers came into full view.

Dark figures approached from between the towering coniferous separating the old church’s vacant parking lot from the suburban neighborhood. At a quick count, Greg spotted 9 of them. Each at least his height, all hooded in black, and all moving with silent steps so smooth it looked as though they hovered slowly in his direction.

Greg pulled a firearm of his own design, a Greg-Van-Helsing take on the sawed-off shotgun from his bag and took aim, backing slowly into the parking lot as the hooded figures advanced.

Crouched in a staggered fighting stance, the fingers of Greg’s right hand gripped the knife with white knuckles. His left held the firearm, trigger finger itching with anticipation. As one, the hooded figures charged.

Greg fired one shell into the closest of the ambushers and then the second at another. He tossed the weapon to the ground as both of his targets dispersed into nothing.

Roma reappeared behind one of them and slashed through the cloak, her sharp nails tearing a hole where the head should be. Her target, like Greg’s, dispersed into inky blackness and then vanished entirely. Something impaled Greg’s calf from behind, barely missing his achilles tendon.

Growling in pain and outrage, Greg whirled around. An honest to goodness whaling harpoon was sticking out of his shin. He only had the time to get a single look at the man that fired it before the bastard flicked a switch on his weapon and the harpoon retracted with incredible force, taking Greg to the ground and wrenching his impaled leg in the process.

Even the formidable hunting knife he always kept with him was no match for the thick braided wire connected to the base of the harpoon in his leg, but he still tried. His other idea for dealing with it would hurt significantly more. Left with only the painful option, Greg winced in anticipation.

His teeth ground together as Greg wrapped both hands around the barbed tip of the harpoon and pulled. The horrible grinding of metal against his shin bone was only overshadowed by the ripping pain that followed the harpoon’s butt bursting out of his shin. The chord was still attached, lacing its way through Greg’s lower leg like a needle and thread. And it was still attempting to pull him toward the man that had fired it. Grabbing a handful of the length of chord sprouting from the back of his leg, Greg pulled back.

The man holding the harpoon cannon’s eyes widened as Greg planted his feet and the cannon in his hands began pulling him closer to the very upset Van Helsing. Roma screamed from somewhere behind him and Greg spared a glance over one shoulder. There were more of the hooded figures surrounding her.

A lot more.

Dozens of hooded black shapes were swarming her, piling on one after the other even as Roma shredded as many as she could. She was clawing, biting, and screaming when Greg’s attention was forced back to his own fight as another searing pain shot through him. This time in his shoulder.

Harpoon guy had discarded his cannon while Greg was distracted and shot him with his back turned. The fury in Greg’s eyes burned as he turned them back on the man, who promptly fled toward the building. For a heartbeat, Greg considered chasing him down and paying the coward back for the two holes in Greg’s body. But Roma needed him. Sourly, he let the guy go.

After disconnecting the harpoon from the cannon and painfully yanking the length of the braided metal chord back through the hole in his leg, Greg hobbled back into the trees.

Frantically, he limped along in search of Roma but found nothing. No movement in the shadows. No screams. Nothing.

“Roma!” Greg shouted, his booming voice echoing in the night.

Greg continued calling for her as he searched wildly between the large ferns and towering trees. His leg burned with searing pain with each step but he only moved faster the more desperate he became.

And then the hooded figures were back. He first saw one, and then another. And then dozens. They were everywhere.

***

Peter will be fine… Renea told herself convincingly. I’m pretty sure the god cat is in his pocket. If anything terrible happens, she’ll protect him. Right?

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Two-and-a-half nervous minutes later, Renea watched from behind the open back door of a yellow cab as a mountain of a man wearing the standard garb of a club’s bouncer came out with one hand firmly around Peter’s right arm. Not gently, but not as savagely as he could have, the big man shoved Peter out of the building. Behind them another man far less gently tossed Andy bodily out into the street.

Peter rubbed at his arm where the huge bouncer had him and then looked up. He made eye contact with Renea, nodded, and then looked down gravely at the bloodied Andy. The young man was writhing on the ground, his face a mess of blood and the early stages of some pretty nasty bruising. Peter bent over, leaning close to Andy and saying something Renea couldn’t quite make out. Andy’s expression turned frantic, his eyes bulging.

Andy Reinke accepted a hand from Peter and got to his feet, and then wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulder before the two of them hopped into the back seat of the cab. Renea took the front seat, setting her clutch on her lap. And then she heard a muffled grunt from behind her. She swiveled around to see Andy, now unconscious, leaning his head on Peter’s shoulder.

Renea had been about to ask what happened when she caught Peter’s look. It was a subtle thing, nothing more than his lips pressing together and his eyes widening ever so slightly, but the Mayhews were adept at hearing each other’s silent messages. “Don’t say anything,” Peter said with his expression.

The cab driver seemed to be under the impression that Andy was their dear friend who had a few too many drinks and needed to be taken home. When they were dropped off outside of a hotel only a few blocks away, the driver gave the Mayhews a suspicious look, and then moved right along in search of his next fare.

***

Peter Mayhew was not proud of his actions in Club Clive. He’d never punched someone in their face before in his entire life. The reason he resorted to such an act, logical as it was, didn’t make him feel any better about purposefully causing harm to another living being. And then, in the cab, he’d committed further violence - putting Andy into a subtle sleeper hold until the young man fell asleep.

Despite any reasoning, rationalizing, or justifying, Peter was ashamed of himself.

When Renea pointed Andy out to him, Peter knew he had to get the man out of the club. There was no way Peter would have been able to just talk him into leaving together, not after their interaction at Club de Tac. Even taking his considerable charm into account. And forcibly dragging an unwilling, struggling man out of a nightclub would probably have ended up with an arrest. The only thing Peter could think of to accomplish his goal was to get them both kicked out for fighting.

Despite the throbbing knuckles and burning self recrimination, it had been Peter’s only viable option. And it had gone perfectly to plan.

The room that Peter and Renea rented for the sole purpose of interrogation had two twin beds, a desk, and a television. It was a dive motel, the kind that had probably been around for decades and maintained the same salty old couple managing it for its entire existence. The kind of dump Greg would be staying in if not for Peter’s generous intervention.

While Andy was unconscious on the ride over, Peter spent a minute rifling through his pockets to look for clues or anything dangerous the part-fairy might have on his person. He found a variety of normal things: a phone, wallet, keys, etc. but paused when he found a handwritten note.

Alfonzo,

Meet me just before dawn to get your money. The doors will be locked, lights out. Go around to the back of the building. Text me when you’re here. 509-777-7474

7993 Carter Ave, Portland.

-Dead Eye Ty

The handwriting was neat and, despite being written on unlined paper, it was almost perfectly even. A man’s handwriting if Peter had to guess, all caps and blocky. He wanted to assume that ‘Dead Eye Ty’ was the very same Tyler they had actually been looking for when they stumbled upon Andy, but reminded himself not to come to conclusions based on unfounded assumptions.

Peter put the address listed into his GPS to find that it was only a short walk from the hotel. He then pulled the old brick phone that Greg gave him from his pants pocket and held the power button to activate its GPS function. It was hard to be certain without the convenient display with street signs and landmarks, but Greg and Roma’s old brick phones looked to be at the same location as the address ‘Dead Eye Ty’ left for ‘Alfonzo’ - presumably Andy’s codename or something. As he watched, Greg’s signal practically teleported it was moving away so quickly. A moment later, Roma’s signal winked out entirely. Several blocks from where it had been just moments before, Greg’s signal went dead as well.

“Oh boy,” Peter said, turning a concerned look to his wife. “Greg and Roma’s trackers just went offline. And I’m pretty sure they were at the same address on this note. Close to it, if not.”

Renea scowled, turning an icy glare to the unconscious Andy. “Let’s wake him up. If something happened to them we might not have the luxury of waiting around.”

Peter brightened a bit. He didn’t think Renea would be the one to say it. He thought he would have to persuade her to charge off into the night to save Greg and Roma if they were indeed in trouble.

“Hang on,” he said, placing the note for ‘Alfonzo’ against his right palm.

It was one of the less illuminating info-boxes he’d received to date, but it did mention that the note was not written by the person whose name was signed at the bottom nor at the address listed.

Peter frowned. His magical power was a complete mystery even to, especially to, himself. When he inspected people or things that didn’t matter, it seemed to give him a ridiculous amount of specific and personal or private information. When he inspected people or things with hopes of gaining specific, personal, or private information, he received only useless garbage.

“Anything?” Renea asked hopefully.

Peter shook his head. “Not really. Just that it wasn’t written at the address listed. And that the person who wrote it is not named Dead Eye Ty.”

“Huh,” Renea said, her chin propped up by both hands and looking pensive.

Peter pulled his working, modern mobile phone out again. He dialed Greg and placed it to his ear.

“It’s Greg. Don’t leave a message,” came the gruff, strangely accented voice of the monster hunter after a single ring.

Peter hung up. He quickly typed in a text and sent it to Greg before dialing Roma’s phone. It, too, rang only once before going to voicemail.

“Oooo,” Roma’s voice purred on the voicemail greeting. “I can’t believe I missed you. Try me back when the sun goes down.”

Seated on the edge of the bed next to his wife, Peter put his phone back into his pocket.

“I think their phones are off,” Peter said, brows furrowed as worry began to creep its way into his mind. “You don’t think anything happened to them do you? Like… Between Greg and Roma, they should be able to handle just about anything. Right?”

Renea’s brows drew together as she considered it. And then she responded with a noncommittal shrug. “Probably?”

Peter and Renea looked to Andy, where they had placed his unconscious form on the room’s single chair and tied his hands behind his back. With Peter, Renea, and Omacatl standing by, there wasn’t much chance of danger from this one part-fairy but the rare, almost mythical prudent part of Peter insisted they take the simple precaution.

“How should we wake him…” Peter trailed off, mouth left open as Renea wound up and slapped the man hard across the cheek.

Leaning over in the chair, Andy’s eyes blinked open owlishly. He winced, averting his eyes from the lamplight. Peter didn’t blame him. After a night like the one Andy had so far, he was probably sporting a massive headache. He struggled to free himself for a moment until Renea pushed him back into the seat with one hand on his shoulder. She leaned in close, her expression dark.

“Let me explain how this is going to work,” she said, tone low and threatening. “I’m going to ask questions, you’re going to answer them. Make me upset and you get hurt. Make me happy and you leave this room more or less intact. Got it?”

Peter looked on as his wife interrogated their prisoner, impressed and mortified in equal measure. Andy’s eyes were wide with fear. Renea could be scary at the best of times. Looking into those icy blue eyes in a predicament like Andy’s… Peter could only imagine the fear this part-fairy was experiencing.

Andy nodded dumbly. “I’ll play along, but you’d better hurry. People will be looking for me and they… They’re not the kind to take their friends being abducted very well. They’ll kill you.”

He said it all very seriously, like he himself actually believed the cavalry was already on the way. Peter doubted it. After trying and failing to unlock Andy’s phone on the cab ride over, Peter tossed it out the window several blocks from the hotel. If there were indeed people looking for him, they’d track the GPS of his phone to a sidewalk a safe distance from their current location.

Renea smiled pleasantly. “Then let’s make this quick. Who wrote the note we found in your pocket?”

Andy’s eyes widened slightly and he instinctively looked down at his pockets, wiggling his hips. He scowled upon realizing they had been emptied while he was out.

“The note was signed,” he said. After the briefest hesitation he rolled his eyes like he was speaking to a pair of idiots. “Dead Eye Ty. His name is Tyler.”

“Did I forget to mention that I will know if you lie?” Renea asked, leaning closer and fixing Andy with a penetrating glare. “Lying to me is the absolute worst thing you can do right now. I’m going to ask again, who wrote the note we found in your pocket?”

“What difference does it make?” Andy demanded, brows low in defiance.

Renea turned to face her husband, wincing apologetically. “You might not want to watch this, dear.”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut. Whatever she was about to do, she was right. Peter did not want to watch. What he heard was enough.

“What are you…” Andy’s voice was shrill, panicked. “No! No. Stop. Don’t,” his coherent words trailed off to be replaced by high pitched squealing.

Controlled by horrified, morbid curiosity, Peter opened one eye just a crack. Renea was standing on the chair they had Andy strapped to with one foot, both hands on his shoulders. Peter fully opened his eyes and realized that her foot was not on the chair. It was between Andy’s legs, squishing his delicate bits into the wood. His mouth fell open, eyes blinking slowly as he watched - a fantom pain in his own groin forcing out a wince.

“Alright,” Andy choked out between sobs. Renea removed her foot from his crotch. “Alright, I’ll talk.”

“Who wrote it?” Renea demanded.

“His name is Diggle. I think he’s a cult leader. He runs an organization called ORCA. They say they’re a conservationist group, but I’ve been there. Totally a cult. He sent me out tonight as bait for you assholes. You’re supposed to go to the address on the note. There’s a trap waiting for you.”

Crap, Peter thought to himself. Greg and Roma had almost certainly fallen into that trap.

“What kind of trap?” Renea asked.

“I don’t know,” Andy said. His wide eyes in response to Renea’s raised eyebrow lent truth to that statement. “I really don’t. They didn’t tell me. I’m not part of the cult. I don’t even work for them. Please. I promise. I don’t know.”

Renea relaxed her shoulders, turning back to face Peter. “Anything else you want me to pry out of him?”

Peter thought about it for a moment before speaking directly to Andy. “Where’s the girl? Alyson. Where did they take her?”

Andy bit his lip, wincing in anticipation for the pain he knew would come. “I don’t know,” he said, his eyes darting quickly between Peter and Renea. He spoke quickly as Renea took a threatening step in his direction. “I really don’t. If I had to guess, probably the ORCA compound. The place is huge. They have their own security and everything. They might have taken her there.”

“Where is this compound?” Renea asked.

After writing down the address and Andy’s directions on how to get there, Peter and Renea had what they needed from the whimpering part-fairy.

“We can’t have him calling up this Diggle guy or following us,” Renea had said before doing whatever it was that she did. “And our friends are probably in trouble.”

Peter gave Renea the most convincing pleading look he could manage. He had to go save Greg and Roma. She looked into his eyes appraisingly for long seconds before he shoulders drooped and her dark expression lightened.

“Please be careful, Peter.” She stepped closer and reached into Peter’s shirt pocket, retrieving Omacatl, currently in her tiniest form, by the scruff of her neck. Renea looked right into the dangling god cat’s yellow eyes. “You keep him safe, got it?”