Episode 18
Rescue
As Arie took a nap in the bushes across from the house where Haji was partying, blissfuly oblivious to the danger he was in, Charlotte and Charlie were sitting next to the Mississippi, having their most in-depth conversation yet. As they talked, it became obvious that the differing natures and experiences between a vampire and Visionary were not going to be easy to overcome—but it was also apparent that their feelings for each other were growing so quickly that these barriers might soon become irrelevant. However, their discussion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a large black bird who seemed to talk to Charlie for a minute, then flew away. Charlie looked at Charlotte and explained that the bird had brought a message from his friend Simon, who said that one of Charlie’s friends was in trouble and that he might want to help. Though he wasn’t sure it would be anyone Charlotte knew, he said she could come along if she wanted. She agreed, and they both got in Charlotte’s car and followed Simon’s directions to the place where the trouble was.
Of course, the directions took them to the same street where Arie had been earlier in the night. Something out of the ordinary was indeed going on there—three men clustered around a clump of bushes, poking at something unseen inside them. Charlotte drove by slowly, peering into the bushes, and saw a very pale-looking, kind of beat-up kid sprawled on the ground inside them—a kid with the “hunt” symbol tattooed on his neck. It was Arie, and another glance with second sight soon revealed that all three men were supernaturals.
Charlotte and Charlie parked at the end of the street and nonchalantly walked up to the bushes. Pretending she’d just noticed the activity there, Charlotte asked the men what they were doing. They explained that the guy in the bushes was their friend, and that he’d got plastered at a party that had just broken up, gone out to the bushes to throw up, and passed out. They were just in the process of picking him up so they could take him home to sleep it off. Knowing that would spell doom for Arie, Charlotte pointed out that their friend looked like he had a pretty serious case of alcohol poisoning, and that they didn’t look too sober themselves. In the interest of safety, she offered to drive their “friend” to a hospital. The ringleader said he hadn’t been drinking and that they could take care of him, wrapping his words in a none-too-subtle suggestion to get lost. Realizing this approach wouldn’t get her anywhere, Charlotte decided to back off and walked to the end of the block with Charlie.
Charlotte and Charlie watched from behind a fence while the three men loaded Arie and his backpack into the backseat of their car, then stood around in the house’s driveway as if discussing what to do next. Charlotte, frankly, was at a loss and said as much to Charlie. He replied with, “I’m going to take care of something. Stay here, but call for me if you need help. I’ll be back.” She started to ask him for more information, but when she turned to look at him he’d completely disappeared. She stood behind the fence for a few minutes, completely confused. Eventually, she heard the sound of a car door opening nearby, though the three vampires near the car didn’t seem to notice anything. This freaked her out a little, and she started calling softly for Charlie as she backed away toward her car.
Suddenly, Charlotte saw Charlie—he was a little way away from the vampires’ car and had the unconscious Arie slung over one shoulder. It appeared he’d been using some sort of vampire invisibility power, and Charlotte had inadvertently blown his cover. The three vampires by the car noticed him immediately and began chasing after him. Charlotte jumped up from behind the fence and started yelling, trying to draw enough attention to herself for Charlie to make his escape. However, only one of the vampires took the bait. The other two were closing the distance to Charlie. Realizing she needed a faster method of escape, Charlotte noticed Arie’s car parked nearby and looped around toward it. The vampire chasing her tried to cut her off, but she Cleaved him across the knees with a stick she’d picked up, which slowed him down enough for her to get to Arie’s car. Fortunately, he’d left his keys in the ignition. Charlotte started the car just as the vampire was beginning to get up, peeled out to the end of the street, screeched to a halt, and motioned for Charlie—who was now running at a truly superhuman speed, though not fast enough to fully outpace the others, and holding Arie above his head—to get in. He slid across the hood just in time and jumped into the passenger seat with Arie in his lap. Charlotte floored it and left the three vampires in the dust.
Once out of immediate danger, Charlotte started heading for the hospital, but she didn’t get very far before Charlie started acting very strangely. He became very nervous and antsy and soon demanded to be let out of the car—it didn’t matter where, just as soon as possible. Charlotte immediately pulled over. As Charlie opened the door, he said hurriedly, “Thank you for a lovely evening, and I’m sorry to make such a sudden exit,” and took off through somebody’s backyard. (He would later attribute this behavior to “self-control issues.”) Utterly confused but knowing better than to investigate at a time like this, Charlotte drove Arie to the emergency room claiming not to know what had happened to him, and called the rest of the group in the morning to let them know what had happened. They immediately came to the hospital to hear the story, though Randy was frustrated because Arie’s injury interfered with his plans to buy a new car.
After reassuring themselves that Arie would indeed recover from his injuries, the group continued to go about their business as usual, meeting the members of the network one by one and slowly acquainting themselves with the rest of the hunters in the city. During this time, they came to a realization: Their group, as collectives of hunters went, was actually incredibly “soft” when it came to monsters. When it came to monsters, the first reaction hunters on the bus, as well as Dana and Samantha and most of the others, was to kill them. They usually didn’t try to find good in them, and they certainly didn’t befriend them the way the group had befriended Charlie. Everyone filed this away under “things that are good to know about other hunters”—and agreed that it would be prudent to keep their interactions with Charlie on the Q.T. Then, to celebrate the strong growth of the network, they threw a dinner party—in Melba’s apartment, without her approval, and to her somewhat disgusted surprise when she returned from work to find that her home had been commandeered by approximately twelve people.
The next morning, Arie awoke in the hospital, feeling much better thanks to the well-timed intervention of Saria’s healing powers. While trying to escape from the hospital, he discovered that (among other things) he had a catheter in, and decided that his nurse had a crush on him after he asked her to remove it. Realizing he wouldn’t be able to escape on his own, he called Randy to come pick him up, which he did. Afterwards, Arie agreed to accompany him on his search for a car. Randy, thanks to his incredibly luck, found the exact car he wanted in the exact color he wanted (lime green) at the first lot they visited. Always one to give in to peer pressure, Arie bought a car as well (an Explorer, for use specifically on the hunt). The salesman was somewhat taken aback when both of them paid in cash.
When the boys finally wandered back to the apartmen building, Melba called for a meeting at which she effectively had a major freakout all over Arie. She thought his unauthorized surveillance mission had been the epitome of stupid, and that it had also been very disrespectful of him to do it after he’d expressly promised he wouldn’t. Ari, on the other hand, didn’t think it was a big deal as long as he’d survived. Plus, he added, he’d almost certainly found one of Haji’s hideouts, information that could certainly proved to be very useful. But what had already been a heated discussion was made even worse when Arie suddenly realized that his backpack—which contained his Uzi, a pound of ‘shrooms, and Will’s tracking device—had not made the trip with him and was apparently still with the vampires Charlotte and Charlie had fought. Immediately he announced he was going to follow the signal from the tracking device and go back to get it. Melba completely flipped her lid over this and announced that in no way was a backpack worth the danger Arie’s plan entailed. When the rest of the group agreed with her, Arie grudgingly promised not to go. However, he began planning how to do it on his own—and the rest of the group began pondering the kind of damage they could do with a tracking device most likely pointing them directly to Haji’s haven.