The Taste Of A Warrior

Part 15

Posted: October 2003
Author: Dhvana

*****

We take one step onto the sidewalk outside the airport and Liv nearly runs us over in her excitement at seeing us again. Well, it's either from her excitement, or her poor skills in acclimating to driving on the left hand side of the road. Either way, we're in London only a few minutes and have already come within inches from sudden death. Breathing rapidly, we stand there, stunned, trying to get our hearts to start beating again.

With one tire on the curb and the entire Volvo at a somewhat inelegant angle, Liv jumps out of the car and throws her arms around Elijah. "I heard about everything that's happened! I'm so sorry! Are you all right?"

"If you weren't trying to smother me, I'd be fine."

"Sorry," she says, jumping back. "Damnit, Lighe, I should have been there! Paul!"

The poor man is the next victim of her bone-crushing embrace. "Liv, sweetie, it's okay," he says, awkwardly patting her back. "We're alive. You're alive. Everything's fine."

"But everything isn't fine! Colin!" I miss my chance to escape and find myself with my arms full of a remorseful Liv. "How are you holding up? I'm so sorry I let you down. Karl and Stuart. . . I just can't believe they're gone!"

She would have to mention their names. Paul and Elijah have been gracious enough not to talk about them, and I've been doing my damnedest not to think about them, but at hearing her speak their names, my eyes instantly fill with tears. I wrap my arms around her, accepting the comfort she's offering me. Paul and Elijah quickly join us and I am suddenly standing in the middle of Heathrow caught up in a group hug.

I am not a group hug kind of bloke, but it feels good being surrounded by my friends--nice, solid folks here in the real world who don't try to bite me or fuck me or make my dreams a living hell. They're a support system I never really had before. It's kind of reassuring. Perhaps I should think about enjoying group hugs more often.

Except that now, instead of being the only emotional one, Liv, Paul, and Elijah are also crying, and knowing the others are crying only makes it worse, so everyone starts crying even harder. Too much more of this, and we'll be wading through our own tears.

Okay, that's it. From now on, skip the group hugs. I can't deal with this much unrestrained emotion. It's awkward, and it's exhausting.

"All right, everyone, break it up!" I say, struggling to free myself from their hold. "We can't stand here bawling all day. Let's get the fuck out of here."

Paul gives Elijah an exceptionally tender kiss, wiping away his tears, and then helps me load the bags into the trunk.

"Liv, give me the keys," I say, holding out my hand.

"What? Hell, no. This is my car!"

"And believe me, darlin', we're all surprised it's managed to survive this long in one piece. Now, give me the keys."

"You don't even know where we're going!"

"You can give me directions. But, if you want, we can take a vote. Everyone, look at Liv's wonderful parking job and tell her you don't have enough risks in your life, so you'd like to add her driving to the list."

"Sorry, Livvie," Elijah says, sliding an arm around her waist and kissing her cheek, "but Colin's driving."

"Fine," she grumbles, handing me the keys. "But I'd like everyone to note my official protest."

"Protest noted," Paul says, sliding into the back seat and pulling Elijah in after him.

Once we've managed to comfortably maneuver away from airport traffic, Elijah immediately begins questioning Liv on what's been happening--who's alive, who's dead, what buildings survived, was anyone outside of Europe attacked, and most importantly, what's the next step.

"Marton is on a video conference call right now with all the heads across the world trying to decide what to do. The one thing everyone seems to agree on, though, is that George and Angelina have to go. They're the most powerful vampires, the unofficial leaders--from what we can tell, they're the ones responsible for keeping the others in line, so getting rid of them will hurt the most. Turn right here."

"But won't that hurt us as well?" I ask, steering the car to the right. "I mean, if they're the only ones controlling the vampires, won't they all just run amok once their leaders are gone?"

"The thinking is that without anyone to control them, they'll grow careless, which will make them easier to find, which in turn will make them easier to kill."

"That's a lot of speculation," Paul says, shaking his head. "Getting rid of Angelina and George, if it's even possible, might not change a thing."

"Except, at the very least, to bring about the destruction of two of our greatest foes. Take the next street. I don't see how we could go wrong."

I arch an eyebrow, meeting Elijah's blue gaze in the rearview mirror. He looks like he feels as uncertain about all this as I do.

"Livvie, don't you think they're overreacting a bit? I mean, yeah, getting rid of George and Angelina would be great, but the odds of that happening are pretty much nonexistent. They've haven't been around this long because they're easy to kill."

"Hey, don't start in on me. I'm not the one making the decisions here. This is just one of the ideas they're bouncing around. They're also considering a concentrated sweep, gathering together all the hunters from each section and then move city from city to city until they're all dead."

Even I have to roll my eyes at that one. "Considering the speed of modern day travel, I doubt that's a possibility. Once the vampires realize what's going on, they'll either leave, or fight back. Not to mention, there's a lot of cities out there, and a whole lot more places beyond the cities for a vampire to hide. None of this is sounding terribly logical."

"Thank you, Spock, for your input. Be sure and pass it on to Marton. I'll bet he'd love to hear your opinion." Her face then softens and she sighs, shaking her head. "Look, we know that, for the most part, none of this is feasible, but we have to try. We can't just keep letting them win."

"As long as we continue to fight," Elijah says, his voice hard, "then they aren't winning. We're only defeated if we stop fighting."

You gotta love the little guy's spirit, I think with a grin. He truly is the strongest of us all.

"But we're not even making a dent," Liv protests. "They keep on killing, and for every one we kill, it seems like we lose one of our own."

"So we've got to fight smarter," Elijah says, banging his fist on the seat. "We find better ways of killing them, ways to get to them before they can kill us. We shouldn't be focusing on who to kill. We should be focusing on how. The exploding bullets are a good start, but they're not enough. There've got to be better ways to kill them from a distance so we don't place ourselves within their reach."

"Damn, Lighe--maybe you should be in that meeting," Paul says, blue eyes shining with pride. "Talk to Sean and Marton. You're making a lot of sense when everyone else is planning for extremes."

"Maybe I will," he says, a new purpose filling his voice. "I'm tired of losing people I care about. I just want the vampires dead."

"Anything you come up with, Lighe," I say, glancing back at him, "you know you have my support."

"Thanks, Colin," he smiles.

"Okay, here it is," Liv says, and I pull into a parking spot in front of a block of Victorian row houses.

"All of you fit into one of these?" I ask, giving the house in front of us a skeptical look.

"Don't be ridiculous," Liv laughs as we all get out of the car. "We own the whole block, front and back. Wait till you see the gardens--Sean went absolutely nuts with them."

"Bloody hell," I say, feeling somewhat awed as I glance up and down the block. "This must have cost you a bleedin' fortune!"

"Actually, we built them, so it really didn't cost us too much. Well, we didn't build them, but the organization did, back in the eighteen hundreds."

"No fucking way," I say, echoing a familiar Elijah sentiment.

"Come on," she grins, "let's get you settled in, and if they're done, Marton and Sean want to talk to all three of you."

I grab my bags from where Elijah and Paul have piled them up on the sidewalk, then follow her inside. There are too many other hunters in town for me to get my own house, so I share one with Elijah, Paul, and two new hunters--a Welshman name Christian and an American named Peter. Absolutely stunning, the both of them, and they both have me wondering--hoping--whether or not they follow in the footsteps, or rather, the bedsprings, of many of their fellow hunters.

"Pleasure," Christian says as we shake hands, then nods to the other hunter. "Peter here's relatively new also."

"Cheers," I say, taking Peter's hand in mine. His green eyes are etched with grief as he looks at me, making me feel extremely self-conscious. When he looks at me like that, I can't help thinking I've only been here a few minutes and I've already managed to fuck things up. I'm not even sure how, but this does seem to be the pattern of my life lately.

"Hey," he says, and the grief is evident in his voice as well. "Come on, I'll show you to your room."

"So, how are you at shooting a gun?" I ask, following him up the stairs. I feel a strange need to reach out to him, make him an ally.

"Getting better every day."

Hmm. . . There's that now-familiar hunter determination. I'm becoming an expert at it myself.

"Good. Because according to Lighe, I'm crap at it, and can use all the practice I can get. I take it there's a shooting range around here?"

"Under the houses on the other side of the block, along with the rest of our training gear, a gymnasium, weight room, a massive library, the research lab, and a couple of classrooms. Two of the houses are off limits to us normal guys, and quite frankly, considering our line of work, I have no interest in exploring."

"Fuck. No wonder they needed an entire block," I say, trying to hide my instant curiosity about what's in the other two houses. "Want to go down to the shooting range later?"

"Yeah, that'd be great. I'm always up for a little target practice," he says, holding open a door for me. "Here's your room. If you need anything, I'm just down the hall. Christian's up here also, and your friends are on the first floor."

"What about the other hunters? Who else is here?" I ask, throwing my stuff in a corner and flopping down on the bed. I wave my hand around the room. "Make yourself comfortable."

He sits down at the opposite end of the bed, his back against a post--an excellent sign, I can't help thinking. Maybe things won't be so uncomfortable between us as I imagined.

"The crazy Texans are next door--Luke, Owen, Matthew, the other Christian, and Brad. Though, technically, they're not all Texans. Chris was born a Texan, but grew up in Oklahoma, while Brad was born in Oklahoma, but grew up in Missouri. In order to keep them from feeling left out, the other three declared Texas's borders too small to begin with, and decided to include Oklahoma and Missouri as part of their state. Personally, I believe the Texans need to start thinking a little smaller, but try telling them that. Everyone over there's family, unless there's a game on and their teams are playing each other. Best to avoid all five on those days. Also, they tend to get a little loud at night, so if they're keeping you up, just pound on the wall. They'll either shut up or invite you over for a kegger."

"And just how many ‘kegger's do they have?"

"The beer is always flowing over there, right under Marton's nose but never in his eye line. He knows they drink, he can just never catch them at it. Not that Marton has anything against drinking in moderation, but those five don't know what the word ‘moderation' means. You can often find Sean over there, usually to sneak in a cigar. That way, he never has to lie to Marton and can honestly say he hasn't touched a cigarette."

"Tricky bugger. Always knew I liked him," I grin, and he nods.

"Yeah, Sean's the one you go to if you want reason. Marton's just around to kick ass. Which he does well, so I guess we can't complain. Speaking of, our illustrious leaders are on our other side, and the house next to them is currently occupied by the Tin Men."

"The Tin Men?" I echo, arching an eyebrow.

"They're actually Australians, so the whole Oz thing got bantered back and forth until it was pared down to the Tin Men."

"Cute," I smirk, and he gives me an actual grin.

"Don't say that till you see them, and ‘cute' won't even begin to cover it. Right now, it's just David, Hugh, and Guy over there, plus Craig, but seeing as how he's from Fiji and that's sort of the same neck of the woods, he's included also. The next house down is filled with more of my fellow Americans--the Brits refer to it as the Colony, we call it the White House. Next down is a house filled with just Brits, or Pondscum."

"Are you referring to the house, or them?"

"It's interchangeable," he smirks.

"I can live with that," I chuckle. Not that, as an Irishman, I have anything against the British, but I have a feeling this rivalry could be quite a bit of fun. "And the Pondscum refer to their house as. . . ?"

"Camelot."

"Typical. So, why divide the houses up when we're not divided when we fight?" I ask. "Why not just keep everyone to their own country to begin with?"

"The vamps don't stick to their own countries, why should we? Besides, learning each others' different backgrounds and styles only helps to defeat them. And as for the division in the houses, being with people from our own countries keeps us from getting homesick. Not to mention," he adds, giving me a mischievous smile, "between all of us, we've got more holidays to celebrate than we would if we were stuck in our own countries."

Shaking my head, I laugh softly to myself. "Listening to you, hearing about all of this, I can't help feeling as if I'm part of something a lot larger than I'd ever imagined. Everything's been so scattered since I joined, I don't even know which way's up anymore."

"It would have helped if they'd placed you here right after you joined, but Elijah likes you, so Marton allowed you to travel with them. He'll never admit it, but Marton has a soft spot for the kid. I've been here ever since Karl found me, and it's helped me a lot."

"Karl?" I ask. I'm so surprised at hearing his name, I practically choke on the word. "You knew Karl?"

Peter nods, staring down at his hands. "For about a month. He's the one who found me and brought me in. He and Stuart were helping to get me settled before they had to leave for Italy."

Ahh, so that explains why he seemed so sad when he met me. We have something in common other than vampires, though I have to wonder just how much in common.

"Do you miss them?" I ask, and he nods.

"Having them around was a great comfort to me. When Karl found me, I was trying to hunt vampires on my own. I was going after the son of a bitch who killed my sister, and not having much luck. He brought me here, introduced me to Marton, then he and Stuart started teaching me everything I would need to know in order to kill those blood-sucking bastards."

"So how much did they teach you?"

He gives me a searching look. "You're wondering if we slept together."

Feeling a blush creeping up my face, I nod.

"Their form of comfort came by taking me out to the park and having me teach them baseball."

"Seriously?" I ask, my eyes growing so wide, they nearly pop out.

"Absolutely. It was my favorite pastime at home, so they thought playing it here might help me feel more at home."

"Wow. Shite, I'm sorry. God, I'm such a complete wanker."

"Nah, don't worry about it. Especially since after a long afternoon of trying to teach them the intricacies of baseball, we'd come back here and fuck."

Giving him a startled look, I can only laugh. "I can see why they liked you."

"I was thinking the same about you," he says, but before this can get any more uncomfortable, he quickly changes the subject. "Want to go see if Sean and Marton are ready for you? If not, we can go fire off a couple of clips, see just how bad you are."

"Sounds like a plan," I say, hopping off the bed. "And I'll have you know, I'm not that bad."

"Stuart said you had the worst aim of anyone he'd ever seen."

"He what?"

"But then he said you were forgiven because your true talent lay elsewhere."

"Did he mention what that talent happened to be?" I ask, holding the door open for him.

"Do you really want to know?" he winks, walking down the hall.

I stand there, once more left in a state of shock. I don't know what to think, at first, but then I start to grin. Maybe Peter is what I need to help me get my head back on straight, relatively speaking, and maybe, along the way, I can help him overcome his grief.

But no matter what happens, I'm definitely going to have to ask him to teach me how to play baseball.

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