| Title: Blood and Water Author: Ruth Hanna Prologue: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep My first memory is of my mother, kneeling beside my bed, clutching her cross and her rosary and praying for me. I remember being woken by the sound of her voice, soft and pleading. Her eyes were closed and she held the crucifix to her lips, as if to bless the words as soon as they left her mouth. I stared at her, seeing how the tears ran down her cheeks and fell from her jaw on to the white linen collar of her best Sunday dress. I had never seen her so upset before, and I wondered what I had done to make her cry. I tried to reach out to her, but my arms were strangely heavy and wouldn't obey me. My skin burned; my head felt as if it had swollen to several times its normal size, and my ears were filled with the rushing of my blood, driven by a feverish fast pulse. "Holy Mary, mother of God, please not my son. Please not my son. Holy mother, I entreat thee, thou art a mother as I am, and thou knowest the pain of losing a son. Please, holy mother, not my son." I was no more than six or seven years old, but I understood. I heard the note of sorrow in my mother's voice, the anticipation of grief, and I knew I was going to die. I didn't mind. I was sleepy, and everything hurt. I didn't have enough of a past to regret, and the future was so vast, so blank a canvas, that I could not conceive enough of it to fear its loss. Sometimes I think if I had died then, I would have died content, and perhaps even found the loving arms of my mother's God, and known His son's forgiveness. Too late for that now. It feels like a long time ago, but it can't have been, because my mother is here again. She's beside me now, talking to me. Or maybe she's praying. Her voice is faint and growing fainter, and I can't make out the words. It doesn't matter. I've been playing out in the fields, Mother, under the sun, all day long. It's been a long, long day, and I'm tired now. I want to rest. I don't want to hear the blood in my head any more, singing to me. Now I lay me down to sleep I give my soul to thee to keep And should I die before I wake I give my soul to thee to take And should I die before I wake... And should I die... Title: Blood and Water Author: Ruth Hanna Chapter 1: Crossbearer "This is Dustbuster to Crossbearer, do you copy? Over." The street in downtown LA's business district was wide, well lit by streetlamps and, at this time of night, almost completely empty. Nevertheless Gunn made his way to a pool of bright light under a neon shop sign before dropping his guard long enough to unhook the radio from his belt. Still keeping half an eye on his surroundings, he flipped it to 'send'. "This is Crossbearer, I copy. Over." His deputy's voice was fuzzy with static- the radios weren't exactly top of the range or even, for that matter, legally obtained- but the words were sufficiently clear. "We lost him, but he's heading your way. It's weird. He's slow, like he's injured." "I could take him, then." He could hear the disapproval in her voice. "It could be a trap. False sense of security." "They don't think like that. I'm on the corner of Grand Avenue and Second. How long for you to reach me?" "Three minutes." "Check. Don't worry, Cloud, I won't do anything reckless. Crossbearer out." A police car was making its way along the boulevard. Gunn hooked the radio back on to his belt and adjusted his jacket, hiding the impressive array of weapons attached to the inner lining. The cop in the passenger seat glared at him on the way past. Gunn glared right back, almost able to hear his thoughts. Young African American male loitering on the streets in the early hours. What's he doing? Making trouble? "Making the city a little safer," said Gunn quietly. "More than you're doing." He heard a noise from behind him, and turned. An alleyway, unlit and narrow, led off the boulevard. With a single, easy movement Gunn stooped down and freed the sharpened stake nestling inside his boot. He straightened up, and listened. A distant siren. The wind between the buildings. And then it came again... He grinned. "Oh yeah. Come to Papa, baby. He's got a brand new stake for ya." At the entrance to the alley, he paused long enough to shuffle the stake upwards between his fingers, so that the thick end brushed his wrist and the tip pricked his palm. Then he walked into the gloom, with slow and measured steps. "Come on. I know y'all's in here." The alley was silent. A faint rustling from behind the dumpster to his left made him look, but it was only a rat. Gunn walked on. He lifted his left arm, tilting up the heel of his hand and exposing the veins on his wrist to the night air. "I know you want some of this. It's good stuff. The very best. Packed full o'vitamins and...." He heard the roar from behind a pile of discarded boxes and braced himself for the vampire's charge. "Come and get it!" The vampire ran- no, wait, lurched- towards him and Gunn feinted to one side, avoiding its grasping arms with ease. He hopped backwards several paces, and waited for the counter attack. And waited some more. The vampire stared at him, as if unable to decide whether pursuing its meal was worth the effort. Gunn looked about, suddenly wondering if Cloud had been right. Dammit, what if this was a trap? He'd walked right into it and he only had himself to blame if... The vampire fell over. Gunn hesitated, then approached it and stood straddling its chest. The vampire groaned and made ineffectual attempts to wriggle out from under him. "Hot damn," said Gunn wonderingly. He leaned down until he was nose to nose with the demon. "What is this? The least I expect is a fight. If you can't even be bothered putting in the effort, do you know what that does? I'll tell you what it does." He extended a finger and prodded the vampire's chest on every syllable, for emphasis. "It takes all. The. Fun. Out. Of. It. All the fun! And that just gets to me. It more than gets to me. It makes me angry. And tense. It makes me angry and tense and I stay angry and tense until I work that aggression right out." He dropped the stake down from his wrist to his palm, and in the same movement lifted his arm to shoulder level. Then he thrust the point down with all his strength, finding the soft flesh between the ribs with practiced certainty. The vampire gasped at the force of the blow, and shattered to powder. Gunn sighed happily, and dusted himself down. "There. Inner serenity regained." "Gunn? Everything okay?" At the far end of the alley, Cloud and her team were heading towards him at a run. He waved at them. "I'm fine. All done here." She skidded to a halt and nodded, taking in the dust and his bloodied stake. Her expression remained unsure. "We heard the fight..." "It's sorted," he told her. "It was easy." "Too easy," said Cloud. "That's four in one night. It's like they're... dead on their feet." "They are dead on their feet." Gunn grinned at her and, when she didn't respond, tugged lightly at one of the long dark curls which had escaped from behind her ear. "Cloud, chill, okay? We're getting on top of our game. This is a good thing." "It's a weird thing." Gunn glanced back down the alley. A stray dog was sniffing disinterestedly around the spot where he had dusted the vampire. He would have preferred not to admit it, but Cloud had a point. To defeat an enemy, you had to understand it completely. Anticipate it. If the vamps were capable of surprising him, of behaving in unexpected ways- even getting unexpectedly killed- that meant he didn't understand them. He didn't like that possibility one little bit. "Gunn?" "Yeah. Just thinkin'." He shook his head, and lifted his radio. "Stakeholder, this is Crossbearer. Theo, are you out there, man?" "Stakeholder. Yeah, Gunn, we're good here." "How many you get tonight?" "Oh, man!" Even through the radio's hiss, the excitement in Theo's voice was evident. "We dusted like five or six. We're talking world record territory here!" Despite himself, Gunn smiled. "I'll call the Guinness Book of Records in the morning. Listen, I want you to round up your team and meet us back at base." "No problemo. Be there inside the hour. Stakeholder out." The radio went dead, and Gunn looked up to find Cloud watching him curiously. "We done for tonight?" Gunn grinned. "Sister, we are just getting started." |