Blood Ties

 

02/03/2009

 

 

So Carter is still interrogating John Smith, the mage.  Michael is still upstairs with the girl. Daniel is using his "correspondence" ability on John while Steven is watching from the other room with a balaclava scarf, hiding his face. Gordon is hiding in the back yard so his face is not seen by either human.

 

 

 

Suddenly, the mage starts talking gibberish, as random phrases spew from his lips. Unknown to the group, he is trying to thwart Daniels mental assault.

 

 

 

John jumped up off the couch, his hands still zip-tied as he tries to hit Steven. Carter tries to stop him, but he is too fast as he pounds into Steven. Steven does push him with a half-hearted shove, as Carter then moves up and grabs him by the shoulders lifting him off the ground and flings him roughly onto the couch.

 

 

 

Steven shrugs at this momentary stop, and decides to check out the portable computer. It's not password protected as he opens it up. Steven find some documents on spell research and some leads for other spells on forces. He decides not to open the email, and instead just shuts if off and closes the lid for Gordon to look at.

 

 

 

As he turns around, he can see that John has suddenly taken a deep breath, and completely calmed down. He frowns as he wonders what Daniel has done to calm him so easily, but then decides to go looking for any hidden tomes before his vision wears off. He sees nothing on the first floor, and moves upstairs.

 

 

 

Michael can tell by the sound of the footsteps that Steven is moving upstairs, but since Steven says nothing, Michael just continues to stand in the door and let him do whatever it is he's doing.

 

 

 

Steven is searching the spare bedroom/office/library/big mess. Inside, he locates a pen that is somehow imbued with magic. Concentrating, he thinks it has the ability to store up to an hour's worth of conversation and then can later write it out onto paper. Unfortunately, he is unable to make it work.

 

 

 

Michael, hearing his swearing, looks over and sees Steven shaking and verbally assaulting what looks like an ink-pen. He cannot even guess what Steven is trying to do, and decides to continue observing the woman. The woman, watching Michael, asks "What's going to happen to me?

"Possibly nothing, if the others determine you don't know anything. But for now, just be quiet and don't cause any problems." answers Michael.

 

 

 

Downstairs, the guy tries to stand up again, as Carter looks at him and says "Sit back down or I'll shoot you in the knee." The guy ignores Carter and moves over towards the computer, bends over, and is trying to get at a flask on the desk with his mouth. Carter shoves him backwards onto the couch and grabs the flask.

John looks up to Carter and says "What? Can I have a drink?"

"Sure, from the faucet." responds Carter

"Ok," says John and proceeds to stand up and walk to the kitchen.

Again Carter grabs the mage and throws him onto the couch.

"What? You said I could have a drink!"

"No. Now I'm susspicious," Carter yells upstairs at Steven "He says he wants a drink?"

"What? No, let him wait." answers Steven from upstairs, still yelling at the ink-pen.

"I'm still thirsty. Can I have a glass of water?"

"No! now sit down and be quiet for like 10 minutes!" yells Carter.

Upstairs, hearing her boyfriends voice but unable to make out what he is saying, she asks "What are you doing to my boyfriend?"

Michael sighs, and listens to what is going on downstairs. he chuckles, and answers her "sounds like he is being denied a glass of water. nothing serious."

Michael hears Steven stomp downstairs.

 

 

 

"Oh, that's probably for his allergies.  Did he ask for his medicine?"

Michael frowns, "No, he didn't. He just said he was thirsty. If I hear him coughing or sneezing, I'll tell the others. Now just wait, we should be leaving soon."

 

 

 

Downstairs, as if on cue, Michael can hear John cough a few times.

She continues, "he does cough occasionally

Michael smiles. "Ok, I'll listen for coughs then. Now stop worrying."

 

 

 

Gordon has decided to come back inside and has started looking at the computer.

"I can tell you where the tome is, want me to show you?" says John hearing the group talking.

As he walks up the stairs, he stops and leans against the wall a minute in a coughing fit.

Michael lets the others know about the medicine and the allergies as they walk by, but John says he is fine. John then shows them where the tome is hidden, as Steven looks at what seems to be an Egyptian book.

 

 

 

It seems to be a bunch of loose pages carefully held together, and seems to be some sort of Egyptian philosophy about forces.

 

 

 

Gordon looking on the archives of the computer, fines a ton of sudden information like blueprints and other sensitive information. Some of the information is about the Rayne house.

 

 

 

She goes into the bathroom and comes out with a prescription bottle of medicine and throws it to Michael. Michael looks at it, it seems ok, and plans on giving it to Carter as he walks by. "Hmm, this looks ok. I'll give it to them as they walk by."

"Thanks" she says.

 

 

 

"What do you want to do now?" asks John.

"I think I've done all I can with you. We can go downstairs now."

As they walk downstairs, Michael hands the drugs to Carter, and then motions to the girl to follow them downstairs.

 

 

 

Working with the pen, Steven finally gets it to do something, as ink rushes out of the pen and into the form of a large black skull on the paper. He feels that isn't what it is supposed to be.

 

 

 

Hendricks groups shows up downstairs at about this point and start to escort the two away. As they are leaving, Gordon asks "hey, what were you supposed to take from our house?"

"A Stake...crap" says John as he turns and walks outside.

 

 

 

"Ok, I found blueprints of our house on our computer, surveillance photo's, and a picture of a stick with some blood at our house. Have you guys seen anything like that before upstairs in the attic?" says Gordon

"Hmm, there were some there that I saw," says Steven. Some of the photo's are 2 years old, some of them just a few months.

 

 

 

"Well, the guy that jumped out the window had one. I picked it up." says Daniel to the group.

The lead agent, about to leave, moves up and says "Anything else we should take and analyze or look at?"

"Take this computer, I found some information on it, see if there is anything more."

 

 

 

The group decides to leave as it's early morning and the sun is starting to rise. As the group is driving back, the phone rings. It is Julie asking if they want to have breakfast. He says sure, and the whole party shows up.

 

 

 

"Well, I'm glad everyone is here. Did you guys ever figure out what was going on with the blood and the writing on the walls?" she asks.

"No, the last one wasn't blood. Why?" says Steven

"I just had another body show up with the same M.O."

"Did you have any leads? Was it supernatural?"

"have you met these guys?" asks Carter.

"Yes, it was supernatural." says Steven

"You do have him under control, don't you? We still are not sure." she asks.

"Have you still got your bag?" asks Steven to Carter.

Smirks go around the group as Steven continues "we think it had something to do with the los-veratu we found."

"This latest was stabbed about 50 times. It was laid out in a weird way, just like the others. And it had more stabs, but no writing and it was different. Here, look at the photo's," as she passes them around.

 

 

 

The bodies are badly mutilated and bent into unnatural angles. After Daniel looks at all of them, they seem to be in positions like a glyph. It does have something to do with spirits or necromancy. Steven hands them to Michael to look at. Between the three of us, we can tell they are glyphs to potentially bring back spirits, bind them into bodies, and create a zombie or a ghost type. There doesn't seem to be any connection with the wooden stake.

 

 

 

"What does somebody use zombies for?" asks Carter

"Well, bringing back the soul could be used to question somebody. But what we don't know is if this is a long term ritual or if it was a short term one for questions."

" In addition, there was a little less blood at the scene than I would have expected." says Julie.

 

 

 

Julie throws enough money down to pay for the meal, gives Steven a quick kiss, and says "well, I have to go, I just wanted to show you this quick."

Carter starts to get upset about her paying, but with a glare from Julie, he quiets down.

 

 

 

The group goes back to the mansion.

Steven starts researching the pen and the book.

Daniel and Gordon go up to the attic with the picture and try to locate the stake.

They quickly find the stake from the picture upstairs, but Daniel says the guy had grabbed the wrong one. All the stakes there seem to have dried blood on them. But there is no scent to it.

The stake is made from Holly and is old.

Wow, Holly must have been in her 50's?

No, she was a movie star since it was made of Holly-wood.

They take the stake downstairs, explain to Steven it is the one in the picture but not the one the guy jumped out the window with.

 

 

 

Steven can determine this stake was used to stab Vlad Tempus. As he holds it, he can actually see the history in his mind of Vlad the impaler and the destruction he made across the land. He sees him become a vampire, and then see's a group of mages and werewolves attacking his base, using this stake to paralyze him and then suddenly the vision stops. He senses Vlad was not destroyed, but that this group of mages and werewolves did hide his body. As he looks closely, one of the mages look like Ben, an ancestor, as well as people that resemble their parents.

As the vision fades, Steven can tell it was the power of the blood that made the vision so powerful. His magic started the vision, but the blood made it so vivid.

"We need a vault in the basement..." as Steven passes on the information he has just learned from this stake from a small chest, that has been just sitting upstairs unprotected.

"So...what do we want to do now?"

"So is Vlad still around?" asks Carter.

"He is imprisoned, by our family it would seem," answers Steven.

 

 

 

{big reveal}

The Rayne family was powerful and responsible for the imprisonment of Vlad. So vampires that run of his bloodline would be pissed at the Rayne family. There are items in the Rayne family that are leftovers from these early times, such as this stake. The Rayne family fled the old world because they took a contract to kill the vampire. It was the descendants of Vlad that have been killing off the members of the Rayne family, including their parents. From the werewolves side, it was Michaels family line that had assisted them.

 

 

 

Still the issue of the professor; still the issue of the glyph bodies.

There is much discussion, but afterwards everyone just decides to relax and take a break.

 

 

 

Later that day while everyone is kind of napping, there is a knock at the door. Gordon, being the only one moving about, answers the door. A woman is there, smiling. "Are you going to ask me in? My name is Heather Morgan." She kind of pushes him over towards the couch and pushes him to sit down. As he sits there, she opens up her brief case and starts attaching electrodes to his head.

"What are you doing?" he asks, as she doesn't stop.

"Hey! Daniel! Come in here, quick."

As Daniel slowly comes walking into the room, he sees there is a woman sitting there, she is in the process of attaching electrode sensors to Gordon.

"Gordon? What are you doing?" he asks

"This one is the mage, right? Ok, he can stay." as she finally sits down and starts looking at the readings.

 

 

 

Hmm, necrosis is happening a little bit faster than we want. looks like you will be a full vampire a little faster than we anticipated. But none of the items we implanted have been activated yet..." she is idly commenting as Daniel moves up and grabs the wires, as if he is about to rip them off.

"What are you doing!"

"I'm checking up on Dr. Fushe's work. I have a few more tests to run, if you would put back the few that pulled off."

As Michael comes down, he see's Daniel attaching electrodes to Gordon.

"Ok, this is new..." says Michael.

"There might be a slights sting..." she says, as Gordon jerks suddenly.

"Have you made any contact with the cities vampires?"

"No, I haven't."

"Not any?"

"Wait, can you just slow down for a minute. Can you tell me a little more about what is going on because I am just not getting it!"

"Oh...ok." she says, as she goes over and sits down "What are your questions?"

"Who are you, who do you work for?"

"I work with 'The Seven'." she says. "A group of vampires determined to destroy all vampires, including themselves when they are finished. You volunteered for this in New Orleans after you were bitten."

"No, he helped me but was killed. He gave me no information."

"Ah, he was killed by one of the local covenants because they found out he worked for the seven. The seven are the vampires the other vampires are afraid of. If you mention this to any other vampires, they will band together and hunt you down to kill you." she pulls out a phone and start talking in Latin on the phone. A few words such as names and such are recognizable. "Well, it appears you were attacked someone who was caught in the middle of a blood frenzy or blood lust. You were pulled away from there by someone, and in Dr. Fushe's attempts to save you, couldn't, but did this in a different way to save you. He implanted some things that we have been experimenting with to make you a day-walker. Someone who can get them during that day."

"You mean like Blade?" says Carter

"That was an experiment gone awry" she answers.

There is silence as people absorb that.

"You should not have another MRI, they could activate the items inside you."

"What would that do?"

"Well, either they will activate and finish the process to make you human or fail and you become a full vampire."

"Yes, as I thought, these will activate and make you human," she suddenly says after looking at her test results. "If you wait too long, it won't work. But you are not there yet. You have probably six more months. At that point you are going to have to decide because the necrosis will be too far gone and you will become a vampire, or they will activate and make you human. If you become a full vampire, seven will try and recruit you. And the rest of you of course, you understand our needs I take it?"

Michael laughs, "we killed two vampires before breakfast this morning..."

She looks up at him and hands him a card, "Here is my card if you need any resources."

 

 

 

Carter is amazed that she knows his name as she starts asking him questions. And finally says "Well, can you come over and sit down. I need to see how you are reacting to the serum."

"Whaaat?" he yells.

As he is moving to avoid the electrodes, she keeps putting them on. He is looking around trying to figure out if this is some sort of joke, but allows her to keep putting them on. She pulls over Gordon to observe the results.

"What, you don't think task force Valkyrie does nothing to you?"

"What do you mean serum?"

"How do you think you healed over night? How do you think one of the mages didn't react to the medicine right? Oooh, interesting, a little higher metabolism there, blood pressure high, higher temp. Still, it's ok, no bad results like they have with some mages. So, do you still eat with them regularly? Most of your stats have returned to baseline," as she shows him his last medical record.

 

 

 

Carter is totally lost as he looks at his own records and tries to figure out how she has them.

"They are trying to either make a super-soldier, increase strength, etc. It's always something that they are working on with their field agents to see how it works in the field." She eventually puts everything back into the briefcase while the group is talking among themselves.

 

 

 

"Well, if you have not made a decision, " she hands Gordon her card," call me when you have."

As she smiles and gets up and leaves. Steven is constantly harassing Carter about the situation, much to Carters frustration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since everyone is up, Gordon decides to start looking into the visiting professor. He is a specialty in history with a class happening right now for 45minutes and then nothing for a few days. The group decides to all take off, after having Carter dress in civilian clothes to blend in at the college.

 

 

 

We arrive at the university, there is still about 30 minutes left of his office hours. Daniel immediately heads upstairs, working his way to the professors room. Daniel see's the professor in his office as he walks by. As soon as the professor is alone, Daniel walks into his office. He walks up, and shows him a picture of the stake, along with the address of the restaurant where we all first met, and says "meet us here at the time shown, we need to talk." and leaves. The plan then is to watch him come out and get into his car, have Carter tag the car, and then track the car to the diner.

 

 

 

He drives a midsize generic sedan. Carter easily tags it. The group follows him to the diner. As he pulls in, the group drives around the block and then goes in. Daniel and the Raynes go in as Carter watches from out front at the car and Michael gets sent to the back of the building.

 

 

 

The three of them sit down at the booth with the professor as he greets them. "Hello, I am Allen."

"I'm Daniel, this is Gordon and Steven, although you are already aware. So, what is your business with us."

"I think you know," as he throws the picture out onto the table.

"Humor us, you tell us."

"I was hired to acquire a stake that was believed to be in your possession."

"By who?"

"A clan of vampires. Is the item for sale, is there something else you want for it?"

  

{and then we laughed for 10 minutes}

 

 

 

"No. We are not selling it and not trading it."

"Then why are we here."

"We want to tell you that we are not going to give you the stake, and that we want to know who hired you. How you got into contact with them."

"You are not offering me anything. Why should I tell you anything. The people who hired me have already been to your house, so you already know them." then he looks over at Daniel and snarls, "Let us keep this civilized, let us not start using powers on each other."

"We are offering you your life?"

"You do not have the power to take that right now." he says with a smile, looking around at the eight other people around as well as waitresses, cooks, and busboys.

"You are wasting both of our time if you are just threatening me."

"Well, we are doing what it takes to keep ourselves safe."

"I was just trying to recover something, I didn't do anything against you specifically. I can't be held responsible for what people do with items I recover."

"None the less, you took the job..." says Steven

"At most, indirectly, assuming they do it?"

"What would you want for the information we want." asks Daniel

"The book from my TA's for starters, copies of one or two tomes you might have."

Michael says that might work, if they have anything to offer.

"Do you have any Egyptian tomes?" he asks?

"No" says Gordon.

Michael suggests it's either give him his tome and ask him to leave us alone, give him his tome and some others for information, or just say no and wait to kill him later.

"Will you leave us alone for now on if we give you your tome back?"

"hmm. Why did your family take the contract in the first place." he asks.

"Wait, which tower did you two sign?" he says as he looks at Daniel and Steven.

They have no idea what he is asking.

"I don't think I understand the question?" says Daniel

"Wait, you are doing magic without signing a tower?"

"What are you talking about?"

"How can you not know what I am talking about?" says the professor.

"I can't explain the question. As a mage, you should know. I can't believe you are a mage without signing a tower."

"What tower did you sign?" asks Gordon

"Again, it's kind of meaningless if you don't know. This explains a lot about your family. They were a lot more powerful than I was thinking if they did not sign with a tower. The book and the TA, and I will consider our business done. I will not directly nor indirectly help anyone against you and yours."

"Seems fair, we will have to check on your TA."

"You have dealt with zombies before right? The die is cast, you know what I am talking about. I will call you in a few hours when the spell has been dismantled. Let you know when and where to leave the book."

"Sounds good, we will take care of our part of the deal."

 

 

 

We all leave, get in the car and drive back to the house. Carter calls Hendricks and asks about the TA.

"Have you found out anything about John Smith?" Gordon asks Hendricks as Carter passes the phone to him.

"No, we have not. Why do you ask?"

"We found out the person John worked for was a mercenary and we were going to release him to end business with his boss."

"No, he broke laws and because of that we will incarcerate him for his crimes. he is not going to act responsibly with his abilities. Let me ask you, would you want him back on the street? Are you willing to take a chance to release him?"

Gordon then informs Hendricks that this person is the one who is conjuring the zombies and will be releasing them if he doesn't get the TA back. The group proposes we double-cross the professor, offer up the TA and then capture them all.

 

 

 

Hendricks give the directions to Carter of where to pick up the TA. So the group waits there with the TA anticipating the call or an attack by zombies.

 

 

 

Eventually the professor Alan calls. "Do you have my TA?"

"Yes"

"Have my TA take my book to my office." and he hangs up.

 

We give John his street clothes first after changing him out of his prison garb, and then Carter doses him with the drugs again. We drive to the campus, hand him the book, and then release him into the wild.

Once he gets into the building, we drive away. Carter watches on the GPS monitor. After a while, the TA goes to his car and leaves. As we are watching, they both go to where we met Hendricks. At that point, the phone rings, it's Hendricks, "Well, we have them."

 

 

 

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