Hunter's Strike

Gabriel woke to the tinny ping of metal hitting metal. He turned his head towards the sound. A dark-skinned vampire stood over him, a pair of pliers in her hand. "Welcome back." she said wryly. "I was just finished taking silver bullets out of you." She gestured to the pan next to his head with her wrist. She had no other hand, her arm simply ended with a bandaged stump.

"I'm just glad I managed to save someone today." She pointed with her pliers. Gabriel turned his head. On the two beds next to him were bodies covered head to toe with blankets.

"That's mean, Fiona." Mint said from the bed behind her. "You haven't even gotten to me yet." She gasped, putting her hand to her stomach. "It burns SO MUCH."

"Then stop talking." Fiona turned to her and started to work on her wounds. "There's some refreshment there." She said over her shoulder. "You must be dying for a drink."

"Puns, Fiona? At time like this?" Mint asked.

"There's no better time." The doctor waved the pliers through the air. "Puns are my defense mechanism."

Gabriel grabbed the bottle of cow's blood next to him and downed it quickly. His wounds started healing right away. "Where am I?" he asked. His throat was hoarse, like he'd screamed it raw.

"You're on the Saint Mary." Fiona answered him. "Or what's left of it. My medical room was destroyed in the fire." She frowned at her pliers. "I've been forced to use unconventional equipment."

He felt a sense of urgency, like something was missing. "Where's Evangeline?" Wouldn't she have insisted to on being beside him while he was injured? That was something she would definitely do.

"Who?" Fiona asked.

Mint put a hand on her arm. "He means the dead human girl."

Gabriel's pupils dilated quickly. "What?" He didn't wait for an answer. He slid off the bed and headed for the door.

Donovan was on the other side, apparently waiting for him. "Whoa, hold on. You need to sit down."

"Where's Evangeline?" He tried pushing past, but Donovan blocked him with his body.

"She's gone, Gabriel."

"Gone where?" Why was no one answering his questions? Didn't they know that he needed to find her, right now, more than anything else?

"She's dead." He held onto Gabriel's shoulders like he might fall.

Gabriel shook his head. "That's not possible. She-" Memories trickled back to him. She'd been shot, her heart had been beating so fast. Her eyes were glassy and unblinking.

He shoved Donovan hard, knocking him into the wall. "Evangeline!" he shouted. She had to be on this tub somewhere. "Evangeline!" Donovan grabbed his shoulder. Gabriel tried to pull away but the pirate had an iron grip. "Evangeline!"

"She's dead, Gabriel. She was shot by a hunter and she died."

More memories surfaced. The bullet punching through her back before burying in his chest. Her legs giving out under her.

"Stop saying that!" Gabriel pushed Donovan again, but could not move the bigger vampire. He still hadn’t regained his full strength.

"It's the truth." Donovan's gaze was sympathetic. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded handkerchief. "It breaks my heart to keep telling you." He opened the cloth, revealing the silver charm bracelet Evangeline had been given earlier. Had it been earlier that night or days ago? How long had he been unconscious? "She's really gone."

"THEN WHERE IS SHE?" Gabriel roared.

Donovan closed his eyes in obvious discomfort. "They took her with them. The hunters got away after taking her body."

"If they took her, then she might still be alive." Gabriel insisted. "I just have to find her."

"They could be anywhere in this city. Are you going to search all of it?" Donovan asked reasonably.

"No, I don't need to. I just have to-" He closed his eyes, focusing on his inner compass. It had led him to Evangeline in the past. He would follow it to the ends of the Earth if he had to.

He was overcome by dizziness. He fetched up against the wall, his head pounding. He tried again and nearly passed out.

Donovan caught him, supporting his weight. "You need rest." he insisted.

Gabriel opened his eyes. They were blood red. "No, I know what I need."

xxxXXXxxx

Gabriel entered the apartment without knocking. All the lights were out. The only illumination came from the weak light bulb in the hall. "Calypso?" He called urgently.

She was lying on the floor in the kitchen, her phone in front of her, one arm reaching out.

Gabriel knelt down next to her. He picked up the phone and turned on the screen. She had been trying to call him. "Gabriel..." she groaned softly. "You have to.... get away... Please... get her away..." She tried to lift herself up, but lacked the strength.

"Calypso, what happened?" He lifted her hand and noticed the long cuts in her wrist. "What have you been doing?"

He realized then that someone else was in the apartment. The shadows in the next room shifted, a figure creeping forward. A low growl emanated from the shadow.

Gabriel stood up quickly. He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight function. He shined the light into the room and was rewarded with a horrifying shriek. The shadow retreated.

He knelt back down next to Calypso. He didn't have time for this new turn of events. "Calypso, where's Evangeline."

Calypso let out an anguished sob. "Gone."

"I need you to use your power to tell me where." He was getting frustrated again. He needed to reach Evangeline soon. He had to bring her back.

Calypso whimpered weakly. She was no use to him like this. He reached over and opened the fridge. The sudden light made the shadow in the next room hiss dangerously.

He reached into the fridge and began pulling out bottles. He opened one and put it in Calypso's hand.

She drank it clumsily, too weak to lift her head. More of the pig's blood splattered on the floor than into her mouth. He lifted her head up for her and forced her to drink a second bottle.

She managed to pull herself into a sitting position. The third bottle she drank on her own, red dripping down her chin. The wounds on her wrist closed.

She reached for another bottle but he pulled it away. "Tell me where she is."

She started trembling. "I don't know. I can't see her. She's gone." Her trembling turned to uncontrollable shaking.

He put his hand under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. "Find her."

Callie's face scrunched up with pain and sadness. "But she's dead."

"Then locate her corpse."

"Why? You're not planning to-"

"No. It's because her mother deserves to lay more than an empty coffin to rest."

Calypso looked to the floor. "I'm trying, I really am, but she's just not there."

"Then I'll have to do it myself." He moved his hand from her chin to her hair, pulling it tightly. He exposed her neck and sank his fangs into her flesh.

As soon as he began drinking her blood, her power overcame him. Information that he couldn’t understand, flashing by too quickly for him to make sense of it. There was no elaborate spider's web, just an infinite number of cracks in a pane of glass. He reached out for something, anything, and a vision overcame him.

He was in a church. Rows of empty pews lined up before him. Bright white light flooded in from the high windows. A woman in white stood facing the altar.

She turned but he could not recognize her. Her long white dress fell to the floor. White gloves went up her arms and disappeared under her sleeves. Her veil was full and opaque.

She held a bouquet of dead roses at her side. She lifted it up and pointed the blackened flowers at him.

"Who are you?" He tried to take a step forward, but was frozen in place.

The woman did not answer. She stood as if frozen in place, floweres offered to him.

Gabriel found his back against the wall, looking at two rows of sharp fangs. Bright red eyes glared at him, inches from his face. The growling was louder.

"I'm okay Sybil. Let him go."

The hands holding him let go and he slid back down to the floor. "Who was that?" Gabriel asked.

"It's Sybil, I turned her." Calypso answered. "She doesn't know how to talk yet, but she understands me."

"No, the woman in white." He helped Calypso to her feet. "Who is the woman in white?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Gabriel was at the end of his rope. Why was he not getting any answers? "I saw her when I drank your blood. I had a vision and she was there. Who is she?"

"We're not going to see the same things." she replied. "You snatched a bucketful out of the ocean. Your brain is going to interpret what you see it's own way."

Gabriel grabbed her shoulders. "I need her, Calypso. I need to know where she is."

"I know, sweetie, but I don't know anything about these hunters. I've never met them, or held any of their possessions. I could trace them through Angie, but I can't because she's gone."

"What about something one of them touched?" Gabriel reached into his pocket.

She held her hand out. "I will try my best."

Gabriel dropped something into her hand. It burned her skin. She hissed between her teeth and dropped it onto the kitchen counter. It rattled against the granite before lying still.

Calypso peered at the lump of silver on her counter. There were flecks of red on it. Blood. "Is this a bullet?"

"It's the one that killed her." Gabriel's hands were clenched, his voice as hard and dead as a gravestone. "It passed through her and went into me."

Calypso tried to swallow down the lump forming in her throat. "Then this blood..."

"It's hers. And mine."

She took a second to brace herself, then she picked up the bullet with two fingers. The silver bit into her skin, making a small sizzling sound. She held it for as long as she could bear.

She dropped the bullet and pitched forward onto the counter, just barely catchig herself with her hands. "Green." she gasped.

"Green what?" Gabriel asked, his voice urgent.

"It's a name. Green was the one who fired the bullet." Callie winced, her head felt like it was going to explode. "Paper. I need paper."

Gabriel snatched a pad of sticky notes off the refrigerator. He found a pen in a drawer. He handed both to Calypso.

She began writing furiously, symbols in a language he didn't understand. She pulled off one sticky note and continued writing on another.

She pulled the second one off the pad and handed it to him. "That's the address."

"What's on that one?" he indicated to the first note.

"It's Korean, I think. I can't translate Korean, but I know what it means." She held it up and showed it to him. "It says 'Humans can also be monsters'."

Gabriel put the note with the address in his pocket. He turned to leave. "Thank you Calypso."

"You can't go to that place, Gabriel. What's waiting for you there isn't what you want."

"What is waiting for me?" He asked from the doorway.

"Death. Nothing else."

"Then I had better prepare myself."

xxxXXXxxx

Green stood in the hallway outside the break room. Arthur sat at the table silently, the only person in the room. A beer was on the table in front of him. He kept playing with it, but had not taken a sip.

Green couldn't bear her guilt any longer. She walked into the room and cautiously took the chair opposite him. She watched him silently as he stared ahead, not looking at her.

This was a man who hunted monsters his whole life, and only now was broken. He had forced down every awful thing he had ever done with a shot of whiskey, and only now he could not drink.

"I met her mother at college." he said. "She was a student, I was just a substitute professor." He knew Green couldn't understand, but he felt like talking. And she listened intently anyway. "I put myself into her life so I could get close to Katrina Riley, her aunt, and the best hunter there was. She fell off the grid in the sixties, so I thought maybe I could find her through her family. Obviously I didn't."

He considered the beer again, but left it on the table. "After Evangeline was born I considered going to see her. I almost did a few times. I was only ever brave enough to slip some money in the letter box." He ran a hand through his graying hair and sniffed. "I couldn't bear the thought of holding her, knowing what my hands had done. I told myself that one day I would see her, really get to know her. But there was always another job, another creature in the night. I convinced myself after a while that I was doing it for her, so that she would be safe from them."

He looked at Green for the first time since they got back. "I know you don't understand. You didn't know who she was." His hand gripped into a fist. "I'm trying so hard to understand that, because I don't want to blame you."

Green reached out and put a hand over his fist. She stared at him wordlessly, trying to communicate something important to him. There was something she had to tell him, but she didn't know how. She risked so much just in trying.

She got up abruptly and ran out of the room.

Arthur opened his hand. There was a bullet nestled his palm. It was silver in a copper shell. It was for a caliber rifle. The tip was a sharp point.

Arthur put the bullet in his pocket and stood up. He carried the full beer over to the sink and dumped it out.

xxxXXXxxx

Arthur found Red in the main office. He was sleeping with his feet up at an empty cubicle, his nose bandaged. Arthur nudged his foot and he woke with a start. "What? What's wrong?"

Arthur handed him the silver bullet Green gave him. "Ever see something like that?"

Red turned it over in his hand. "It's a silver bullet, I've seen a thousand of these." He handed it back.

"Why is the tip pointed though?"

Red shrugged. "It's an armor piercing round?"

"Since when have you known one of those monsters to wear armor?" Arthur scowled at the bullet. "It's bugging me. If an angel was shot with one of these, then it would just go through them. Regular silver bullets are blunt, this way they enter the body and burn them from the inside. They would just heal otherwise."

"I don't even know." Red said, his eyes drooping again. "Maybe these are SUPPOSED to go through something and THEN hit the angel."

Arthur's face cleared, then his eyes narrowed. He turned and marched towards Harris' office. He didn't bother knocking. Harris was on the phone, but he hung up right away. "Arthur, what's wrong?" he asked in concern.

He felt a fury inside that he couldn't quite grasp. It built up inside of him, but he didn't know how to release it. "I'm done." he said. "I'm out of here. Today."

"What's going on? Arthur, just tell me what's wrong." Harris got to his feet and put a comforting hand on the hunter's shoulder. Arthur pushed his arm away.

"You planned this whole thing, didn't you?" Arthur's voice was low and menacing. "Your target was never the Angel of Death. You staged the whole thing, making Green think she had no choice but to shoot Evangeline." He held up the silver bullet. "That's why you gave her these."

Harris held his hands up in a placating manner. "If Green decided to use these rounds, then I-"

"No, she wouldn't do this on her own. She NEVER does anything without your say so." He brought his face close to Harris's. "You don't think I've been paying attention? That earphone constantly in her ear? I know that's your voice on the other side, controlling your very own puppet."

"This is absurd Arthur. Why would I want to kill your daughter?" His voice was amused, and it made Arthur want to knock his lights out.

"I don't know everything yet, but don't think I won't find out your scheme. I am done with you. I am taking my daughter's body and I am leaving today."

Harris shrugged. "You can leave whenever you like, but the body isn't here anymore."

Arthur grabbed the front of his suit in one fist. "What did you say?"

Harris looked down at Arthur's fist. "The body is on its way to Saint Vincent's as we speak. They'll declare her dead when she gets there and then you and her mother can make arrangements for a small, respectful service."

"We'll just go and see then." Arthur released Harris and stormed out of the office. He marched down the rows of cubicles and into the hallway. Harris hurriedly followed him.

Arthur turned when he hit the hallway, walking past the break room and to the medical bay. He threw those doors open as well.

He headed right for the operating room. He flipped on the lights. The table in the middle of the room was empty. "See? She's not here." Harris said behind him.

"We'll just see if she makes it to Saint Vincent's Hospital then." Arthur said.

"Come now, Arthur. Surely you wouldn't be so unlucky as to suffer TWO tragedies in forty eight hours." The corner of Harris' mouth lifted.

Arthur lifted one arm and pointed out the door and to the hallway. "I'm taking those kids with me, Harris. I only ever signed on with you because of them. Something is going on here, I've felt it for weeks now, even before this mission. Whatever it is, you'll have to do it without hunters." He walked past Harris and out the door.

Harris watched him go, his expression darkening. He reached up and adjusted his tie. "Fine then." he said spitefully. "I don't need you anymore. Not as long as I have Black and White."