Episode 25
Catharsis
Friday was a day of intense preparations for the group’s upcoming battle with Haji. Realizing that someone needed to tell Chet and Saria what was going on, Arie took that job upon himself (which also meant he bore the brunt of their outrage at having been more or less left out of the preparations). However, he still managed to secure their participation, and that of the other guardians, as well as making contact with one of Chet’s friends who sold weapons and explosives and draining his entire savings stocking up for the night’s activities. He also convinced Melba to let him wait at the park where James would be meeting Haji after all, just in case something went wrong or the situation turned out to be a trap, and spent part of the afternoon finding a perch from which to use his sniper rifle (though the only place with a good line-of-sight turned out to be the roof of a house that was almost two miles away from the park). Melba worked and worried. Charlotte contacted Lisa and Jonas to ask for their help. And Randy went to the hospital to visit Leslie, hoping she could shed some light on his growing confusion. He asked her if she really thought Haji could be redeemed, and she responded with, “Everyone has good in them somewhere.”
Only slightly less confused, Randy returned to the apartment building, where he ran into Charlotte. The two of them began talking and Randy eventually told Charlotte what he was planning to do. Since Charlotte had also been deeply affected by discovering that James was not entirely evil, she told him she could see his point, and that in the interest of exercising all possible options she would go with him to talk to Haji. With that, they went to Charlotte’s house to wait for Charlie to rise at sundown. Just as the sun was setting, Randy got a call from James telling him that they were going to be meeting Haji at 9:45 p.m. in the park. At this point, Charlotte became a little nervous about the time frame of the entire evening, but didn’t back out and simply started letting the other hunters know that the battle would be taking place that night.
Around 7 p.m., Simon flew in with a message from Haji: The meeting had been arranged, and would be taking place at 9:15 in the park. That was when Charlotte realized that she had to make a choice. If she went with Randy, it might result in her not being there when the rest of the group entered the Pleasure Dome, and she knew that if she put them in needless danger (even if she did so to uphold her own beliefs) she would never be able to forgive herself. Reluctantly, she let Randy and Charlie go (possibly to their deaths, she knew)…then called Melba at work to let her know everything that was going on, and began informing everyone else that the battle would take place tonight as well.
Melba got to the apartment building as quickly as she could, but this time it was Arie who saved the day. When he heard what was going on, he immediately called Randy’s cell phone and began trying to talk him out of meeting with Haji. It was a heated discussion, but against all odds Arie finally managed to convince him to turn back. At the house, all the hunters and guardians gathered, divided themselves into three groups (only Charlotte, Melba, Paladin, and Randy would actually be entering the house; the others would wait in two separate cars a few blocks away in case things went wrong), and underwent other esoteric preparations (such as Arie dressing up Charlotte in a bizarre outfit that included a trenchcoat and a stocking cap with an anarchy symbol on it because he thought she “looked too much like a schoolteacher” to blend in). Then, Arie climbed into his sniping perch to watch the park with a radio as the others took up their positions a few blocks away.
Everything was proceeding exactly as planned until 9:15 p.m., when Arie saw a figure entering the park and sitting down on a bench. A glance through his scope revealed that it was Haji, just as expected—but he was carrying Arie’s backpack with him (and thus probably had all of the items the hunters were going into the house to get). The result was a sudden and near-complete change in plans—Charlotte, Melba, and Paladin would hide in the shadows while Charlie and Randy approached Haji to talk to him and thus not make him any more suspicious than need be. Haji was at least willing to talk to Randy, but not surprisingly nothing he said could make any progress. As a last-ditch effort, Randy used Insinuate, showing Haji mental images of the many crimes and atrocities he had committed…and he began to laugh. Randy had his answer. He drew his crossbow and fired the first shot.
That was when all hell broke loose. Charlotte, Melba, and Paladin burst out of the bushes and opened fire, but their guns had little impact. Haji reached into the backpack, pulled out a small bundle of fibers, and began to squeeze it, and Randy suddenly found himself unable to breathe. Charlotte charged forward and tried to sever his arm but failed. Haji then removed three wooden stakes from the bag and threw them to the ground, calling out the names of Charlie, Charlotte, and Melba. Melba ran up to Haji, tackled him, wrapped her arms through the straps of the backpack, and activated Ward to shove him away, which kept him from accessing the other items though he still had power over Randy. Realizing he was too far away from the action to effectively snipe Haji, Arie called for backup only to hear the sounds of a fight over the radio. So he jumped off the roof of the house (twisting his ankle in the process) and ran to his car, planning to drive as fast as he could to the park.
Meanwhile, Haji’s three stakes had inexplicably grown small legs and were moving toward the three people whose names he’d called as if with a will of their own. One impaled Charlie and he dropped to the ground; Randy (who was still suffocating) used his last bit of strength before blacking out to pull out the stake (after which point Charlie continued to be stunningly ineffectual in combat, unfortunately). Charlotte was planning to throw one of the grenades Arie had given her in order to even the score a little, until the stake with her name on it rendered her unable to act (which was probably a good thing). Melba was wounded as well, but managed to maintain her Ward and gather everyone inside of it—which was appreciated even more when a dozen of Haji’s vampire minions suddenly burst out of the ground to surround the group. Realizing they were badly outmatched, the group stood down momentarily, hoping to stall for time until James showed up. It was 9:25 p.m.
At this time, Arie was still driving like a bat out of hell when he noticed Paladin’s utility van (which contained Chet, Saria, and a few others) pulling out in front of him—only to be broadsided by another car. Arie screeched to a halt as Tsao Lo and a number of other vampires piled out and began attacking the van. He was helping out with his sniper rifle until he saw the back door to the van open and an explosion of force shoot out of it and plow into the vampires—undoubtedly the guardian’s doing. Realizing the inhabitants of the van could probably take care of themselves, Arie got back in his car and continued driving toward the park to help his companions.
The other hunters soon found themselves bargaining for Randy’s life. Haji was still suffocating him with magic, and said he’d let him die if the hunters didn’t tell him the meaning of several hunter code symbols he’d collected (namely, “allies,” “nest,” “corruption,” and “they are watching”). After a long and tense debate, the group reluctantly agreed, and Haji did indeed uphold his end of the deal and release Randy. Haji then began discussing other things he wanted out of the group, things they’d be even less willing to give up. With help still a long way away, the hunters’ future looked bleak…until, out there in the darkness, Charlotte and Randy both noticed another dozen figures rising out of the ground. As James crept up behind the still unwitting Haji, Charlotte was unable to contain a devious smile. “What’s so funny?” asked Haji.
“Behind you, motherfucker,” responded James as he bared his claws and tore into Haji.
The rest of the battle was brutal and brief. James and Haji’s minions engaged in combat while the hunters and James turned their attention to Haji. He managed to pull off one more quick spell that set James on fire, but Charlotte extinguished the fire with her trenchcoat (thus saving his life again, and ensuring that Arie’s ridiculous costume was actually useful). Already badly wounded by James’s first assault, Haji hardly stood a chance against the combined strength of the hunters. Then Arie arrived at last, just in time to see Haji lying on the ground stunned and run him over with the Explorer. With that, Haji sank into the ground, barely clinging to his unlife, while the hunters finished off his retreating allies.
As the battle wound down, the rest of the group began to arrive at the park, somewhat injured from their battle with Tsao Lo and the others but still very much alive. Randy marked the spot where Haji was with the tip of a crossbow bolt, and James promised to send some of his henchmen to watch the spot in case he rose again. Meanwhile, Arie took Lisa, Chet, Saria, and a few others to check out the Pleasure Dome and make sure nothing too bad was going on there. They arrived in front of the house to hear the sounds of a party, but concluded the vampires within were still pretty much unaware that anything had happened. Chet urged the group to turn around and get out before anything bad happened, but Lisa couldn’t resist throwing a few grenades through the front windows as she left. Thirty seconds later, a SWAT team and cops were all over the area of the house and the park and the hunters had to hurry back to the apartment building.
With that, the hunters were able to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief knowing their war with Haji was mostly over. Arie reclaimed his backpack and Uzi, Paladin burned the dreadlock, the arm, and the “random Randy flakes” in the basement furnace to ensure that no one else could make use of them. Charlotte and Charlie retreated to her house to once again spend the night together. And the apartment building became a somewhat less tense place when Melba had a long talk with the increasingly introverted and insecure Paladin, convinced him how important he was to her, and the two had sex at long last.