Categories > Original > Drama > Chibi Vampire: The Selibri's Waltz (Or: The Dream--The Reality.)
Chapter 8
Romulus and Remus spent the better part of the using connections within the realms of their own intelligence people planted within various spots of the U.S. alongside what public record could yield for them, trying to find out who all these people were. Sure, the princess had given them a rough sketch, yet it was incomplete, lending to the fact that this kind of vampires, the living vampires, were so able to cover their tracks. As time went on that day, they got together some kind of a dossier to relay to the princess, but this would not be without issue. The two bats that Anjou left to tail them had done their jobs, and they relayed everything back to Anjou. She then contacted the American Lycanthrope Society about what she had seen. When she said that there were two werewolves interested in what they were doing, they began to wonder who would be doing that. If it was that there were still werewolves that were siding with the undead, they wanted to know about it as soon as possible. They did not want to deal with traitors in their midst. They asked for a description of the two, and she gave it, and now there was dead silence on the other end. They then asked what they were armed with, and then they said, “You may have some problems.”
“What kind of problems,” asked Anjou frankly, but with a lump in her throat, not liking the feel of things.
“We had once thought they were gone, but it looks like your problems may be reaching beyond American borders,” responded the man on the other end.
“To whom do you refer,” said Anjou, all concerned, but with a growing sense of urgency in her quiet voice.
“If they are who we suspect,” said the man, “Then it is just more than their kind of werewolf with whom you must contend. If it is, then your problems may be, once again, vampiric.”
“Are you going to continue to talk in riddles, or are you going to answer me?” she now demanded.
“I speak of the Beowulf,” said the man, quite frankly.
Anjou shuddered, and remembered the tales that had been read to her as a child, but she also figured they had been the stuff of legend…until this moment. The man then continued, “If they are of the Beowulf, also known as a group of werewolves known as the Earth Clan, they are connected with a European house of vampires, and that means that the legends about them are also founded in truth.”
“Let me guess—Romanian?” said Anjou, already anticipating how this was going.
“Very much so,” said the man, “And thus, it seems they are trying to set up here.”
“So, what do we do?” asked Anjou.
“Leave that to us for the moment,” said the man, “Remember: you are a protectorate of Uncle Sam now, so let’s see what they can do first.”
Early in the afternoon, Romulus and Remus were walking to where they were going to make their faxes, each one having a complete copy of all they had learned, as well as placing on a flash drive the same information. However, there was only so long that the bats were going to go undiscovered. Because the Beowulf’s senses are far many times keener than the average human, they began to suspect something was off. Their hearing had detected the flapping of wings often, and they wrote it off to the hordes of pigeons that lived in New York. However, they were in an area where there were not a lot of pigeons, and they heard the flapping again, along with the scent. Because of the many pollutant scents in the city, it was hard to make out the scents of the bats, but they were in a spot with average traffic, and they could now be smelt clearly. Romulus stopped and began to look around. Remus asked what the problem was, and Romulus told him both what to smell and look for. As they did, they finally found in the crack of a ledge two large brown bats. Remus said, “So? I bet all these older buildings have whole companies of bats living within them.”
“Then let’s test that,” answered Romulus, “Let’s walk around a few blocks, but keep an eye out for bats.”
This they did, and sure enough, they were being tailed. They then sat on a park bench as Remus said, “Okay, so what does this mean?”
“Either they are a pair of the most curious bats that ever lived,” answered Romulus, “or this Clan has a way of detecting us through bats.”
“Are you saying magic?” said Remus, now fearful.
“It is possible,” responded Romulus, “We know of the Greater Japan Magical Society, and that is only because they are very open to all that want to peaceably learn of them. If that is the case, and the information we have here is correct, then if there is a similar society here, then the alliance that they have in Japan may well be repeated here. In addition to that, there are werewolves that are not a part of Earth Clan that live in this country in peace with us. If they are protected somehow by the United States government like we suspect, then our security has been compromised.”
Remus first stared at him in silence, and then said, “You know that means we are never going to get out of here with this information. Are our lives in danger?”
“I don’t think so,” said Romulus, “If the perceive us to be a threat, they would have to assume that there is something bigger out there that they must stop. I figure they might try to track us if they could.”
“So, what do you have planned?”
Romulus started to speak in the ancient Transylvanian tongue and told him to start walking. They continued in that language and Romulus handed him a copy of the dossier and a thumb drive upon which the same information was contained. He then said, “Take these and try to lose any bats that may follow you in the subway. Take a circuitous route and keep concealed in case there are more of their little pets waiting in the tunnels for you. While on the train, take a rubber glove with no talc on it, cut off a finger, put the thumb drive in it, squeeze as much air out of it as you can and seal it tight. Then swallow it. Take the file to a post office on Staten Island and send it to our contact in Liechtenstein. Put on a fake return address, but make it real enough not to be questioned, and send it priority mail. Then, meet me back at the Waldorf Astoria.”
“What do we do then?”
“We leave the country.”
“Hold on: they are NOT going to just let us walk out of here! When we head to an airport…”
Romulus cut in and said, “We keep to crowded areas, and ensure that, if they act, all we have to do is shout ‘terrorist,’ and all Hell will break loose. The security people will not know who they are right away, and if it will be who I suspect, they will have no credentials on them to say who they are. They won’t even be wearing suits, so they will be suspected for a while. We then slip out as soon as the chaos starts and get a flight a few days later under another name.”
“It’s better than nothing,” said Remus, “but why do you want me to swallow…”
“Last resort,” responded Romulus.
Remus just shook his head and went off to take care of business.
As soon as they split, sure enough, one of the bats started to tail him. He then hit the subway and melted into the crowed. He watched for and smelled the bat following. He then saw that it was looking to perch on the very train onto which he sought to board, so he took found an empty chip bag balled it up, threw it at the bat, disrupting it, and doing so long enough to allow him to get on the train and take off before it was able to regain itself. On the other end, Anjou winced as if she had been the one so hit, and then, when the bat had regained itself, she saw her mark was gone. Immediately, she called for bats that were indeed living in the tunnel that she controlled to tail the train. Yet, by the time they were on the task, the train had hit the next station, and Remus had stepped off. He then started to use a trick that wolves and coyotes use to throw off anyone trying to catch them—the double back trick. Wolves, who know that they work a lot off of smell, also know that many other creatures that would pursue them would use the same, and thus, they have proven themselves smart enough to be able to double back on their own scent trail and throw off their pursuer. This was much in a similar way. He actually caught the train back to the first station, knowing that they would not expect him to head back to where he started. He then went to another train, made about five changes, and then finally headed to his target.
Romulus was not so stealthy. He went straight to a mailbox and faxing facility and made it obvious what he was doing. He handed over the dossier and had them fax it to two numbers. The bat saw this, relayed it to Anjou, and she then called the contact number to let them know what he was trying. They told her that every exit to the city was covered, the airports were all being watched, and that any move to get out or send information was being traced. She told him where the one was and they immediately spiked the transmission, but sent back to the machine that the calls had gone through. They then copied the information for the investigation. Meanwhile, Romulus began to shred the dossier, knowing that the information was preserved. The agent then asked Anjou what had happened to the other, and she said she had lost him, but that she was trying to get the trail back. While that was going on, Romulus was checking the both of them out of the Waldorf Astoria and preparing them to leave.
At the post office, Remus got another idea. He went first to an office supply store and bought about a quarter ream of paper. He then went to the post office and got two packages that were designed for international priority mail. He addressed one to a contact that used to be in Krakow, Poland and left no return address. If they were watching the post offices, they would be able to peg that quicker, for no return address would cause instant suspicion. He then packaged what he wanted to send to the proper address and with the return address to be the Cavern Restaurant in that tower they suspected to be Bloodsucker Central in the city. He then sent off the packages and headed back to the hotel. However, when he got close, he picked up on Romulus’ scent, and also the scent of others that he really didn’t care to meet. With that, he followed the scent, and then realized that Romulus was trying to lose the bat that had been tailing him. He finally caught up with him at La Guardia and asked, “Did you lose the flying mouse?”
“It really doesn’t matter,” said Romulus, “The place is crawling with agents. The smell of gun oil on some plain clothed agents is clear and obvious, though they didn’t think to counter that.”
“What do we do?”
“Wait to be approached. Go to the check-in.”
As they did, two men came over and said, “Come with us, please.”
Being in plainclothes, and not showing any badges, they resisted as Romulus said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
Remus started to scuffle a bit, and then reached into the man’s jacket and shouted, “HE HAS GOT A GUN! HE’S A TERRORIST!”
Because this was being handled by the NSA, they did not want it to be known that they were there, and what they were chasing, so they did not inform the TSA that they were there. Even if they knew, the common folk started to scream and move like panicked cattle. A few brave civilians came up and shouted, “LET THEM GO!” as one of the agents got a chair across the head for his troubles. TSA were moving in now, and a better picture of chaos could not have been created. In the panic, they immediately headed for the door and past other agents closing in to try to rescue their mates and not seeing their marks go past. Quickly, the pair headed for the subway and for Long Island to stay in a motel for three days under different ID they carried until the heat blew over. They would then contact Wolfgang by another means and get tickets out of there as soon as was possible. Once everything calmed down, the agents realized that now, there was no way of finding their marks again. The only good thing that came out of it was that they were able to intercept the transmissions. However, they were not sure what did get out. They found the decoy package, which meant that another must have slipped through somehow. All they could do now was tell the Clan that they were being watched.
Anjou received the call, and now she was very concerned. Considering what she had been told about these werewolves, there was much at stake. She then went to see Jean-Claude. At that point, he was upstairs with his wife. He decided to look up some music from the fifties while he looked over the files and his wife tended to the housework. Soon enough, she started to move to the music and her work started to perk up. When Why Do Fools Fall in Love came up, Jean-Claude started to sing in a falsetto voice and dance around himself. Then Buddy Holly came up and Rave On started to play, and the two of them began to dance for that style of music. By the time Ritchie Valens came on with Come On, Let’s Go, the twins came down for dinner to see them dancing. Franklin came in at the same time and loved the sight, but the twins just rolled their eyes. They didn’t stop, but Yuriya said, “What’s wrong?”
Sheila rolled her three eyes, (one under the lid,) and said, “You have NO idea how embarrassing it would be to have one of my friends come over to see this!”
While she was saying that, the Four Seasons’ Sherry came up, and Jean-Claude started to sing the lead, just to get under her skin. He was doing the Elvis swivel as he did, and Yuriya was matching him, and then picked up Franklin to bounce around with him a bit. Jean-Claude then said, “And what’s wrong with the music?”
Mickey had to admit that he kind of liked it, but he wondered what his friends would think if they saw him gallivant around like that. He just smiled at Mickey and said, “When you get married, you won’t mind as much.”
At that point, a knock came at the door. Jean-Claude and Yuriya sashayed over to the door with Franklin in-between and let Anjou in. The sight took off a bit of the serious edge from her mood, and she started to sing a bit with her brother. Jean-Claude then said, “You eaten yet? You need food or…you know. You’re welcome to dine with us tonight.”
“Actually, I may ruin your appetite with what I have to say,” said Anjou, regaining her serious mood.
Jean-Claude stopped and said, “What happened?”
Romulus found that the phone, though touchtone, was the old kind where the digits and the receiver were two different parts of the phone. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and replaced it with a transparent one with a light on it that would let him know if the line was being traced. He then called the secure number, and he heard, “This is Vera. I can assume this is either Romulus or Remus?”
“It’s Romulus,” he answered, “The information is on the way to our contact in Liechtenstein, and we were compromised.”
“Where are you now?” she then asked.
“We’re in a motel on Long Island waiting for things to blow over.”
“What happened?”
“They have the ability to see through bats and track targets. They must have told someone government.”
“That means the American Lycanthrope Society knows your there as well.”
“If they do, then they know who we are, and that means that they could trace things back to you.”
Silence was now heard for about 30 seconds, and Vera then said, “Mina said that it may not be so bad. You may now have to introduce yourselves. You have to be wise, because Jean-Claude may not understand.”
“Why should we be worried about him?”
“Um…he’s taken out several master vampires, the entire Inquisition, prevented a war in Japan, and you have to ask?”
“Point taken,” he responded, “Now what?”
“Wait about three days, and then go have a meal. You know where.”
Romulus and Remus spent the better part of the using connections within the realms of their own intelligence people planted within various spots of the U.S. alongside what public record could yield for them, trying to find out who all these people were. Sure, the princess had given them a rough sketch, yet it was incomplete, lending to the fact that this kind of vampires, the living vampires, were so able to cover their tracks. As time went on that day, they got together some kind of a dossier to relay to the princess, but this would not be without issue. The two bats that Anjou left to tail them had done their jobs, and they relayed everything back to Anjou. She then contacted the American Lycanthrope Society about what she had seen. When she said that there were two werewolves interested in what they were doing, they began to wonder who would be doing that. If it was that there were still werewolves that were siding with the undead, they wanted to know about it as soon as possible. They did not want to deal with traitors in their midst. They asked for a description of the two, and she gave it, and now there was dead silence on the other end. They then asked what they were armed with, and then they said, “You may have some problems.”
“What kind of problems,” asked Anjou frankly, but with a lump in her throat, not liking the feel of things.
“We had once thought they were gone, but it looks like your problems may be reaching beyond American borders,” responded the man on the other end.
“To whom do you refer,” said Anjou, all concerned, but with a growing sense of urgency in her quiet voice.
“If they are who we suspect,” said the man, “Then it is just more than their kind of werewolf with whom you must contend. If it is, then your problems may be, once again, vampiric.”
“Are you going to continue to talk in riddles, or are you going to answer me?” she now demanded.
“I speak of the Beowulf,” said the man, quite frankly.
Anjou shuddered, and remembered the tales that had been read to her as a child, but she also figured they had been the stuff of legend…until this moment. The man then continued, “If they are of the Beowulf, also known as a group of werewolves known as the Earth Clan, they are connected with a European house of vampires, and that means that the legends about them are also founded in truth.”
“Let me guess—Romanian?” said Anjou, already anticipating how this was going.
“Very much so,” said the man, “And thus, it seems they are trying to set up here.”
“So, what do we do?” asked Anjou.
“Leave that to us for the moment,” said the man, “Remember: you are a protectorate of Uncle Sam now, so let’s see what they can do first.”
Early in the afternoon, Romulus and Remus were walking to where they were going to make their faxes, each one having a complete copy of all they had learned, as well as placing on a flash drive the same information. However, there was only so long that the bats were going to go undiscovered. Because the Beowulf’s senses are far many times keener than the average human, they began to suspect something was off. Their hearing had detected the flapping of wings often, and they wrote it off to the hordes of pigeons that lived in New York. However, they were in an area where there were not a lot of pigeons, and they heard the flapping again, along with the scent. Because of the many pollutant scents in the city, it was hard to make out the scents of the bats, but they were in a spot with average traffic, and they could now be smelt clearly. Romulus stopped and began to look around. Remus asked what the problem was, and Romulus told him both what to smell and look for. As they did, they finally found in the crack of a ledge two large brown bats. Remus said, “So? I bet all these older buildings have whole companies of bats living within them.”
“Then let’s test that,” answered Romulus, “Let’s walk around a few blocks, but keep an eye out for bats.”
This they did, and sure enough, they were being tailed. They then sat on a park bench as Remus said, “Okay, so what does this mean?”
“Either they are a pair of the most curious bats that ever lived,” answered Romulus, “or this Clan has a way of detecting us through bats.”
“Are you saying magic?” said Remus, now fearful.
“It is possible,” responded Romulus, “We know of the Greater Japan Magical Society, and that is only because they are very open to all that want to peaceably learn of them. If that is the case, and the information we have here is correct, then if there is a similar society here, then the alliance that they have in Japan may well be repeated here. In addition to that, there are werewolves that are not a part of Earth Clan that live in this country in peace with us. If they are protected somehow by the United States government like we suspect, then our security has been compromised.”
Remus first stared at him in silence, and then said, “You know that means we are never going to get out of here with this information. Are our lives in danger?”
“I don’t think so,” said Romulus, “If the perceive us to be a threat, they would have to assume that there is something bigger out there that they must stop. I figure they might try to track us if they could.”
“So, what do you have planned?”
Romulus started to speak in the ancient Transylvanian tongue and told him to start walking. They continued in that language and Romulus handed him a copy of the dossier and a thumb drive upon which the same information was contained. He then said, “Take these and try to lose any bats that may follow you in the subway. Take a circuitous route and keep concealed in case there are more of their little pets waiting in the tunnels for you. While on the train, take a rubber glove with no talc on it, cut off a finger, put the thumb drive in it, squeeze as much air out of it as you can and seal it tight. Then swallow it. Take the file to a post office on Staten Island and send it to our contact in Liechtenstein. Put on a fake return address, but make it real enough not to be questioned, and send it priority mail. Then, meet me back at the Waldorf Astoria.”
“What do we do then?”
“We leave the country.”
“Hold on: they are NOT going to just let us walk out of here! When we head to an airport…”
Romulus cut in and said, “We keep to crowded areas, and ensure that, if they act, all we have to do is shout ‘terrorist,’ and all Hell will break loose. The security people will not know who they are right away, and if it will be who I suspect, they will have no credentials on them to say who they are. They won’t even be wearing suits, so they will be suspected for a while. We then slip out as soon as the chaos starts and get a flight a few days later under another name.”
“It’s better than nothing,” said Remus, “but why do you want me to swallow…”
“Last resort,” responded Romulus.
Remus just shook his head and went off to take care of business.
As soon as they split, sure enough, one of the bats started to tail him. He then hit the subway and melted into the crowed. He watched for and smelled the bat following. He then saw that it was looking to perch on the very train onto which he sought to board, so he took found an empty chip bag balled it up, threw it at the bat, disrupting it, and doing so long enough to allow him to get on the train and take off before it was able to regain itself. On the other end, Anjou winced as if she had been the one so hit, and then, when the bat had regained itself, she saw her mark was gone. Immediately, she called for bats that were indeed living in the tunnel that she controlled to tail the train. Yet, by the time they were on the task, the train had hit the next station, and Remus had stepped off. He then started to use a trick that wolves and coyotes use to throw off anyone trying to catch them—the double back trick. Wolves, who know that they work a lot off of smell, also know that many other creatures that would pursue them would use the same, and thus, they have proven themselves smart enough to be able to double back on their own scent trail and throw off their pursuer. This was much in a similar way. He actually caught the train back to the first station, knowing that they would not expect him to head back to where he started. He then went to another train, made about five changes, and then finally headed to his target.
Romulus was not so stealthy. He went straight to a mailbox and faxing facility and made it obvious what he was doing. He handed over the dossier and had them fax it to two numbers. The bat saw this, relayed it to Anjou, and she then called the contact number to let them know what he was trying. They told her that every exit to the city was covered, the airports were all being watched, and that any move to get out or send information was being traced. She told him where the one was and they immediately spiked the transmission, but sent back to the machine that the calls had gone through. They then copied the information for the investigation. Meanwhile, Romulus began to shred the dossier, knowing that the information was preserved. The agent then asked Anjou what had happened to the other, and she said she had lost him, but that she was trying to get the trail back. While that was going on, Romulus was checking the both of them out of the Waldorf Astoria and preparing them to leave.
At the post office, Remus got another idea. He went first to an office supply store and bought about a quarter ream of paper. He then went to the post office and got two packages that were designed for international priority mail. He addressed one to a contact that used to be in Krakow, Poland and left no return address. If they were watching the post offices, they would be able to peg that quicker, for no return address would cause instant suspicion. He then packaged what he wanted to send to the proper address and with the return address to be the Cavern Restaurant in that tower they suspected to be Bloodsucker Central in the city. He then sent off the packages and headed back to the hotel. However, when he got close, he picked up on Romulus’ scent, and also the scent of others that he really didn’t care to meet. With that, he followed the scent, and then realized that Romulus was trying to lose the bat that had been tailing him. He finally caught up with him at La Guardia and asked, “Did you lose the flying mouse?”
“It really doesn’t matter,” said Romulus, “The place is crawling with agents. The smell of gun oil on some plain clothed agents is clear and obvious, though they didn’t think to counter that.”
“What do we do?”
“Wait to be approached. Go to the check-in.”
As they did, two men came over and said, “Come with us, please.”
Being in plainclothes, and not showing any badges, they resisted as Romulus said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
Remus started to scuffle a bit, and then reached into the man’s jacket and shouted, “HE HAS GOT A GUN! HE’S A TERRORIST!”
Because this was being handled by the NSA, they did not want it to be known that they were there, and what they were chasing, so they did not inform the TSA that they were there. Even if they knew, the common folk started to scream and move like panicked cattle. A few brave civilians came up and shouted, “LET THEM GO!” as one of the agents got a chair across the head for his troubles. TSA were moving in now, and a better picture of chaos could not have been created. In the panic, they immediately headed for the door and past other agents closing in to try to rescue their mates and not seeing their marks go past. Quickly, the pair headed for the subway and for Long Island to stay in a motel for three days under different ID they carried until the heat blew over. They would then contact Wolfgang by another means and get tickets out of there as soon as was possible. Once everything calmed down, the agents realized that now, there was no way of finding their marks again. The only good thing that came out of it was that they were able to intercept the transmissions. However, they were not sure what did get out. They found the decoy package, which meant that another must have slipped through somehow. All they could do now was tell the Clan that they were being watched.
Anjou received the call, and now she was very concerned. Considering what she had been told about these werewolves, there was much at stake. She then went to see Jean-Claude. At that point, he was upstairs with his wife. He decided to look up some music from the fifties while he looked over the files and his wife tended to the housework. Soon enough, she started to move to the music and her work started to perk up. When Why Do Fools Fall in Love came up, Jean-Claude started to sing in a falsetto voice and dance around himself. Then Buddy Holly came up and Rave On started to play, and the two of them began to dance for that style of music. By the time Ritchie Valens came on with Come On, Let’s Go, the twins came down for dinner to see them dancing. Franklin came in at the same time and loved the sight, but the twins just rolled their eyes. They didn’t stop, but Yuriya said, “What’s wrong?”
Sheila rolled her three eyes, (one under the lid,) and said, “You have NO idea how embarrassing it would be to have one of my friends come over to see this!”
While she was saying that, the Four Seasons’ Sherry came up, and Jean-Claude started to sing the lead, just to get under her skin. He was doing the Elvis swivel as he did, and Yuriya was matching him, and then picked up Franklin to bounce around with him a bit. Jean-Claude then said, “And what’s wrong with the music?”
Mickey had to admit that he kind of liked it, but he wondered what his friends would think if they saw him gallivant around like that. He just smiled at Mickey and said, “When you get married, you won’t mind as much.”
At that point, a knock came at the door. Jean-Claude and Yuriya sashayed over to the door with Franklin in-between and let Anjou in. The sight took off a bit of the serious edge from her mood, and she started to sing a bit with her brother. Jean-Claude then said, “You eaten yet? You need food or…you know. You’re welcome to dine with us tonight.”
“Actually, I may ruin your appetite with what I have to say,” said Anjou, regaining her serious mood.
Jean-Claude stopped and said, “What happened?”
Romulus found that the phone, though touchtone, was the old kind where the digits and the receiver were two different parts of the phone. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and replaced it with a transparent one with a light on it that would let him know if the line was being traced. He then called the secure number, and he heard, “This is Vera. I can assume this is either Romulus or Remus?”
“It’s Romulus,” he answered, “The information is on the way to our contact in Liechtenstein, and we were compromised.”
“Where are you now?” she then asked.
“We’re in a motel on Long Island waiting for things to blow over.”
“What happened?”
“They have the ability to see through bats and track targets. They must have told someone government.”
“That means the American Lycanthrope Society knows your there as well.”
“If they do, then they know who we are, and that means that they could trace things back to you.”
Silence was now heard for about 30 seconds, and Vera then said, “Mina said that it may not be so bad. You may now have to introduce yourselves. You have to be wise, because Jean-Claude may not understand.”
“Why should we be worried about him?”
“Um…he’s taken out several master vampires, the entire Inquisition, prevented a war in Japan, and you have to ask?”
“Point taken,” he responded, “Now what?”
“Wait about three days, and then go have a meal. You know where.”
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