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maderrI so am already looking forward to the end of the day. I just want to come home and relax and stop dealing with people until coffee tomorrow.
First fifteen pages of Locke & Key. I have no idea how much longer this bastard is going to be. At least another fifteen pages, but I wouldn't doubt it could be as many as twice that to go >_o I think it's a bad sign that I can never write a short story. Ah, well.
"I'm cold."
"Kill the vampire, sweetheart, then you can have a hot shower and a cup of coffee."
Locke smiled, but didn't let it slip into his voice. "Fuck you," he said. "You only call me sweetheart when you think I'm being a baby."
"Whatever you say. Sweetheart."
Rolling his eyes, Locke pulled out his guns one by one and checked them one last time. "Key, stop trying to flirt with your boss and do your damn job."
"Yes, sweetheart," Key replied, and Locke could hear him typing furiously away on his laptop.
Locke made a mental note to administer a beating when he got home. Lightly touching his clothing, his weapons, ensuring all was as it should be and could be grabbed in a moment's notice – or not grabbed, whichever applied – he climbed out of his beat up car, popped a piece of cinnamon gum, and started walking down the dark street toward the apartment building at the end of it.
Snow crunched beneath his heavy boots, clung to his dark brown hair and black corduroy jacket. He grimaced as the wind briefly picked up, making the cold that much more miserable. Ugh. He hated hunting in winter. Well, at least they weren't up New England way this time.
The apartment building looked like it had survived a small war. It was little wonder only broken vamps really lived in it.
Creaky, broken, it smelled positively rank - piss and cheap booze, sweat and sex, cigarettes and mold, and beneath all of it the unmistakable stench of old blood. Locke's nose twitched. Ugh, he hated broken vampires.
"Hey," Key said in his ear, "even the nastiest broken vamps are better than a single top vamp."
Locked glared at the dark, mildewed stairwell he had to climb, wishing Key was present to receive the glare and not a couple miles away. "Stop doing that."
Key sniggered. "I can't help it your thoughts are easy to predict."
"Shut up. Final count, how many would you say?"
"Mmm," Key murmured thoughtfully, keys clicking at a rapid fire rate. It was a familiar sound, soothing in the nasty atmosphere of the rundown building. "Reports seem to indicate three to five. Given the low population density in this area, the lack of crime...the absence of any sort of animals in your prelims, I'm going to say five, possibly six. No one has ever reported so much as finding a body, so they're smart or at least neat."
Locke glanced at a puddle of some questionable substance. "If you say so."
"At least they're not so broken as to ignore that sort of thing," Key said. "Six at most, come on. It won't take you long at all. I'll start the coffee once you're on your way back."
"Shut the fuck up," Locke said. "You do your job, I'll do mine."
"Yeah, yeah," Key replied, then fell silent save for the rhythmic clicking of his keyboard.
Locke weighed his options, touching each of his four revolvers, and finally settled on the Blackhawks. The Smith and Wesson were more fun, but guns meant for 'big game' were hardly required for a bunch of stupid broken vamps.
Unfortunately.
"If you want to play with the Model 500," Key said in his ear, laughter plain in his voice, "we can always switch to hunting top vamps."
"Fuck you," Locke muttered, drawing his Blackhawks and finally approaching the stairs. He didn't bother to be quiet, because any second now the vamps would pick up his scent anyway.
Oh, how they would pick it up.
There were two ways to hunt vamps when it came to smell – hide your scent, or show it off.
Locke's favorite day of every month in school had been show and tell.
He'd barely cleared the landing when a door at the end of the hall flew open and something that looked vaguely human half-lunged, half-stumbled out.
Ugh. He hated broken vamps, but he always felt sorry for the bastards, too. He wondered sometimes which feeling motivated him to pull the trigger.
Raising the gun in his right hand, Locke fired. The Blackhawk was by no stretch of the imagination a quiet gun. Nor a pretty one, so far as results went. The vamp went down like a lump of raw meat, finished off neatly and handily by a .44 hollow-point silver bullet.
The only thing his mama made better than bullets was chocolate chip cookies, and the fact she was due to be sending him both shortly was immensely cheering.
Locke turned as he heard something behind him and raised his second gun, taking down two more. That was three down, about three to go.
He grimaced at the strong smell of blood, which did not go well with the rest of the nastiness filling the old building. Not much remained of the corpses. Broken vampires weren't strong enough to have the regenerative abilities of a top vampire, but even if they did the hollow point silver slugs caused too much damage for that to fix. Even a top would be pissed off for a couple of hours after taking a hit like that.
Four bullets left in the first gun, three in the second. He still had the Smith & Wesson and the semi as a final resort. Whistling cheerfully now, ignoring the pained sigh in his ear, Locke moved toward the first vamp he'd shot, stepping over the mess and into the apartment.
If he was not already long-resigned to the stench of decay and old blood, it would have made him gag. Broken vamps were the worst – converted from humans, which never went well. It always broke them one way or another, creating the repulsive, pathetic creatures he most frequently killed.
Shit, someone turned him into a bloodsucker he'd fucking go psycho too. Well, he'd kill himself, but that was beside the point.
He heard shuffling from what was probably a bedroom and moved that way, carefully moving around the drained corpses and other rot spread across the floor, wanting badly to puke.
"Think happy thoughts," Key said.
"Stop reading my fucking mind," Locke muttered.
Key snickered, then once again fell silent.
Cautiously Locke pushed open the bedroom door, ready to fire – but when he entered, all he saw was a broken vampire lying prone on a bed with stains best described as interesting. A lamp cast orange-yellow light, making everything that much uglier. The vamp moved, lifting its head just enough to look at him with eyes that might have belonged to a drug addict suffering serious withdrawal.
Locke shot him in the head and turned away before the mess really did make him hurl. Didn't matter how many years he did this, he never really got used to it.
He went through the remaining rooms as quickly as he could without being too hasty, then tracked back the way he'd come to explore the apartment from which the other two vamps had come. Nothing but more nastiness.
Frowning, he returned to the hallway. Fuck, he didn't want to have to explore the entire goddamn building and every apartment in it. If there was nothing but vamps around….generally they kept to the same hovel, and the first floor of apartments made the most sense…
Standing perfectly still, he listened, waited. If a vampire was close enough to smell him, it would come for him. He worked hard to make his blood the feast of feasts for a vampire. If nothing showed, he'd go up another level.
A faint creak.
He turned – and swore. "You're not fucking broken."
The vampire before him bared his pointy teeth in something that was part smirk, part grin, part you look really damned tasty, hunter.
In his ear, Key was cussing up a storm.
Locke dropped his Blackhawks and drew the Smith & Wesson even as the average-type vampire lunged for him. The guns roared as he fired, flashing bright enough to light up the dark hallway for a heartbeat. With enough firepower to take down a bear, they were more than enough to put a hurt on an average vamp.
It jerked back, right of its feet, and Locke wasted no time in shooting it a second time.
"Get it?" Key asked.
"Yeah," Locke replied tersely. "None of the research suggested a true vamp might be skulking about."
Key was silent a moment, but Locke could hear him clicking away at a furious pace. Though he'd never fucking admit, he loved to watch and listen to Key type – it should be inelegant, or tedious, or something, but somehow he found it graceful and captivating.
"I still don't see evidence of that," Key said at last. "Maybe he was a not-so-proud papa stopping by like we did. Shitty timing."
Locke grunted an acknowledgment. "I'm going to check the rest of the building."
"Yeah," Key agreed, then went back to typing and listening.
He made quick work of it, exploring every floor – but his searching turned up no more vampires, and even forcing himself to double check resulted in nothing. Tired, cranky, thoroughly fed up, Locked called it a night. "Going to torch it, then I'm fucking done."
"Roger," Key said. "I'll go start making the coffee. Your mom's package arrived."
"If you eat all my fucking cookies," Locke replied, "I'm going to engrave your name on a silver bullet."
Key snickered. "If you kill me, darling, you'll never figure out where I hid them."
"So long as it's not in my mother fucking underwear drawer again," Locke groused.
He pointedly ignored the loud, obnoxious, entirely too gleeful laughter roaring in his ear and trudged back to his car to get what he needed to set the building on fire.
"You stupid son of a bitch," Locke said, just standing and gawking.
Key grinned and added fuel to the fire by pulling down the brim of the gimme cap he wore – black with a detailed bat stitched in silver thread, with brilliant red eyes. Locke loved that hat, he wore it constantly unless he was on a job.
On top of all that, the motherfucker was holding a cup of coffee and had a chocolate chip cookie in his mouth.
"You just love pissing me off, don't you, asshole?" Locke groused, stomping loudly across the cement floor of the workshop to where he kept all his guns. Pointedly ignoring Key, he set to work checking, cleaning, and reloading his guns before locking all but one of the Blackhawks away.
That done, he stripped off his jacket, sweater, and undershirt, then moved to a backroom to finish stripping before he stepped into the shower area. Once this had been a locker room, and it still showed in the benches and lockers, the ugly tile and half dozen shower heads. Cheap rent, though, and by the month – all they really needed. Not much longer they'd probably be moving on further south. He fucking refused to hunt vamps further north this time of year unless it was strictly necessary.
Finished showering, he grabbed a towel from the row of hooks and scrubbed his hair mostly dry before toweling off. Moving to the first row of lockers, he opened the third one down and pulled out clean boxers, socks, undershirt. Opening the next one, he tugged on jeans that were neither too tight nor too loose. Tugging on a long-sleeved red t-shirt, he sat down to pull on his boots, then finally returned to the workshop.
A fresh cup of coffee, a plate of cookies, and his gimme cap waited on his makeshift desk. Grunting, he drank half the hot coffee in one long swallow, then tugged on his cap and snatched up a cookie.
Yummy.
"You're still an asshole," he said eventually.
Key laughed. He had platinum hair, blue eyes, and a pretty face – the spitting image of an angel or a mama's boy. Except for the part where he was a smartass, troublemaking computer nerd with a death wish. "Job well done, sweetheart. Sit back and relax, stop getting so uptight."
"Something about you brings out the uptight in me," Locke replied dryly.
"I can ease that uptight, you know."
Locked groaned. "Don't start with me," he said.
Key just grinned his evil grin, the one that could also be insanely hot at the worst possible moments. Namely when Locke's libido needed an ice-cold shower before he did something stupid.
He didn't know why he kept resisting, because if there was one thing Key had always made clear it was interest in Locke – but he couldn't quite give in. Something held him. A niggling sense that said it would be a bad idea, and Locke had learned the hard and painful way to trust his instincts.
Those instincts said he could trust Key with his life…but weren't fly with fucking him. Which was too bad, because he wanted to see what that pretty but dirty mouth looked like around his cock.
Shifting in his seat, Locke summoned a scowl to counter that damned grin.
"Come on," Key goaded. "We're a regular bad porn joke, obviously it's meant to be."
Locked groaned.
Key just grinned. "Key. Locke."
"Wrong," Locke replied, despite knowing it was always stupid to actually attempt these discussions. "We've got two keys and no locks. So shut up."
The evil in Key's smile cranked up about three notches. "Not if it's a key for the back d—"
"Shut up!" Locke half-shouted the words to drown Key out, mortified and maybe the slightest bit not mortified, which was more upsetting. "Don't you have work to do?" he asked desperately.
"Yeah, yeah," Key said cheerfully, though Locke didn't miss the slight disappointment in his eyes.
He couldn't help it. Something about Key, despite their being partners in hunting for the past five and a half years, nagged at him.
Maybe it was just the lingering foul taste of his last partner coloring his perception and fucking up his instinct. He'd pondered that possibility before. Steven had been perfect – partner, friend, lover. All of it. Until he'd put a knife – literally and figuratively – in Locke's back.
Key had approached him in a bar in California one night, knowing way more than Locke had thought anyone should know. Since then, he'd learned Key was good at knowing shit he shouldn't. Way too fucking good, but at least usually it worked to Locke's advantage.
He'd agreed to cooperate with Key for a job or two. When he'd finally left California, however, Key had been with him. They worked well together, despite the chronic smart ass from which Key suffered.
Despite the fact he was keeping a secret. Locke knew enough about secrets to know Key was keeping one, and that – no doubt combined with his past – kept him from making more than a few enthusiastic fantasies reality.
He ate another cookies as he wrote a report on the night's events.
Five minutes after he emailed it home, a chat window popped up on his screen.
Locke rolled his eyes, and typed to his mother that he was fine, the average hadn't even fucking touched him, the bullets were perfect and the cookies tasty.
An hour later she finally signed off to go to bed – no doubt his father had been yelling at her for the past forty five minutes – and went to get more coffee.
He smiled faintly to see Key had made him a fresh pot, and went in search of his geek.
The bottom floor of the building they were renting had been workshop of some sort, the kind to require a locker room. Upstairs had clearly been living quarters, likely for whoever had owned the workshop.
Key was stretched out on a ratty couch in the living area, something they'd scrounged for twenty bucks from college students desperate to get rid of it. They'd cleaned and de-fouled it as best they could, but Key had still thrown a quilt over it. He lay with his head on the farthest armrest, so he faced the door, and flicked his eyes up as Locke appeared.
"Thanks for the coffee," Locke said.
"Sure," Key said quietly.
"Who are you chatting with?" Locke asked moving to the couch and lifting Key's feet, sitting down before letting them fall across his.
"Old friend in Cali," Key replied. "I was asking him about our average."
Locke grunted. "I'd have asked my folks, but fuck – I'd still be talking to my mother. I'm going to fucking kill Billie for teaching her how to use a computer – and instant chat."
Key laughed and playfully dug his heel into Locke's thigh. "Your mom is cute. At least when she's bugging you and not me. She thinks I'm good for you, by the way. I didn't tell you that."
"Yeah, yeah," Locke said, and took a sip of coffee to avoid saying or doing something stupid.
Key sighed softly. "We've got only the park to investigate, but likely it'll only be one broken. By end of week we can move south. That should make you happy." He closed his laptop with a faint click and set it aside, folding his arms beneath his head. "I called ahead to price places to stay. Nice little thing by the sea. No one wants it 'cause people were murdered there."
"Right up our alley, then," Locke said, drinking more of his coffee.
"Billie recommended it," Key replied. "Your little brother is like a vampire hunter slash real estate agent."
Locke sniggered at the idea of Billie as a real estate agent. "I think it's more that he's good at finding places to hide." He stifled a yawn. "I guess if we're moving soon, we should start packing and shit. What's this thing in the park?"
"Crazy homeless guy, according to the natives, except he likes to attack people – a few have reported that he tried to bite them. Cops have tried to find him, but never have any luck."
"Easy enough," Locke said, finishing his coffee and bending a bit to set the mug on the floor. He leaned back with a soft sigh, resting his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes.
He wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, but that required moving.
The feet resting on his lap vanished, and he heard Key move. Then a warm hand lay gently against his cheek, soft against the stubble of his cheek.
"You're an idiot," Key said, and there was no mistaking the affection mingled with the frustration in his voice.
It hurt, and though it was probably more imagination than reality, it also made the old scar on his back hurt. He didn't want to face another betrayal someday, not matter how much he might care about his partner.
He cracked his eyes open, instantly taken by the goddamn wow of Key's eyes. So fucking blue. His own were a muddy brown color. "You have no room to talk."
"Tell me about it," Key said softly. "You'd think after over five years of 'not interested' that I'd fucking give up."
Locke frowned. "Yeah, well. You haven't quit making your idiotic jokes, either."
"Guess I'm dense or stubborn."
"Yeah, but you're pretty. It's allowed."
Key laughed briefly, then leaned in just close enough to brush a feather soft kiss across Locke's lip. In the next breath he was gone, and Locke was alone. The room was quiet, but his thoughts were plenty loud enough.
Locke shouldered his duffle bag and slammed the trunk closed, then shoved his keys into the front left pocket of his jeans. Turning around, he started to cross the parking lot to the motel room they'd rented for the night.
One flat and a nasty mess of snow did not pleasant traveling make. Fuck it was the unanimous decision; the vampires could wait an extra day to get shot.
He'd taken three steps when he realized that the rather nice looking backside crouched in front of the bushes off to the left belonged to someone he knew. A sinking suspicion growing, he stomped through the snow and ice to where Key was all but buried in the bushes – and Locke could hear all too familiar noises coming from him.
Noises which elicited pathetic mewling sounds in response.
Stifling a groan, Locke dropped his duffle bag and crossed his arms. "No." He nudged Key's lower back with the toe of his boot. "I said no."
"Aww," Key said in protest, slowly standing up and turning around, arms curled against his chest – and a tiny kitten cradled in them. It was the color of soot, with bright green eyes way too big for it's evil, manipulative little face. "It's all alone. No sign of mama."
"No," Locke said again. "We travel too much for pets, and – just no. I'm not arguing about this. You're pretty, but that doesn't mean you can act like a girl and try to adopt every cute stray that stumbles into your path. Come on, be a man and put the kitten down."
Key ignored him, stomping away from the bushes and across the parking lot, stopping only to swipe his keycard before vanishing into his room.
Locke watched him go, and could tell from the set of Key's shoulders that he was in deep shit for the acting like a girl crack.
Sighing, he picked his duffle back up and made for the room.
It was old and dingy, with the same part mold, part too much cleaner smell that all hotels seemed to have no matter how up or downscale they were.
Key sat Indian-style on the farthest bed, back to Locke.
Biting back another sigh, Locke threw his bag on the floor and knelt to dig out the few things he wanted close to hand. He was already wearing the Desert Eagle, but he'd be happier with one of the Blackhawks and he needed to ward the doors on the chance an unwanted guest tried to pay them a visit.
No one gave a fuck if a few or even several broken vamps died – vamps wouldn't kill their own, but they didn't fight too much if certain among them got personal with a silver bullet. Killing an average vamp…fifty fifty. A week and a half later, nothing fanged was bitching about it, so they were probably safe.
Never paid to be sloppy, however. His dad would kick his fucking ass. If his mom didn't do it first.
He glanced up as he finished checking and loading his gun, sliding it into the holster at his hip.
Still being ignored.
Damn it. He fucking hated when Key ignored him.
Heaving a loud sigh, he made certain he had his wallet and tromped back out to the car.
When he returned an hour later he was short a chunk of change he would have preferred to put toward a good steak dinner. Depositing all the stupid crap on Key's bed, he sat down in a nearby chair to remove his boots, then snatched up the TV remote and collapsed on his own bed.
After a moment he sat up to shuck of his jacket and guns, then lay back down in just his lightweight blue sweater. There wasn't much on, and he doubted he'd fucking notice if the Cowboys suddenly decided to start playing football in their birthday suits.
He turned the TV off again. "So what did you name it and how the hell are we going to lug the damn thing around with us? Cats don't travel well."
The silence dragged on, and Locke was about to go back out for the beer he'd almost gotten in the first place when Key finally broke it. "I'm not a fucking girl, you asshole."
"I know," Locke replied with a sigh that part aggravation, part relief. "I'm sorry – but come on, it's just a damned kitten."
"Yeah, well, it was freezing to death," Key replied. "If I'm not going to leave someone as grouchy and foul-mouthed as you to freeze his ass off in the snow, I'm sure as fuck not going to leave a tiny kitten. I'll give it to your fucking cousin when we see her for Christmas."
Locke rolled his eyes. Key would give up the kitten the same way he'd give being grouchy and foul-mouthed. Like fucking hell he'd be giving up the damned kitten – not after Locke had sacrificed his fucking steak dinner to buy shit for the fluffy menace.
Whom Key was still petting, with his back still to Locke, and what a shitty evening this was turning out to be. If a vamp did stop by, Locke was going to offer it a snack.
He turned the TV on again and decided sullenly on watching the news. There was the temptation to order straight porn just to see Key get all twitchy over the boobs, but if he was still being partially ignored then he wouldn't get much of a reaction.
Sighing, he lay down completely on the bed and pulled his cap down over his eyes. It was entirely unfuckingfair that he had to put up with all this shit but didn't get sex.
Of course, that was also his own fucking fault, if he felt like being honest which he didn't.
"Sulking doesn't look good on you, sweetheart," Key said.
Locke didn't reply. See how Key liked being ignored.
He heard movement, then there was a dip in his bed as Key sat down on the edge.
"You suck at ignoring me, Locke," Key said.
Locke didn't say anything – but he did tense when a hand slid over his stomach, warm even through the layers of sweater and undershirt. Still he didn't look up, or otherwise move. Mostly cause if he did the hand would go away, and he didn't give a fuck if his instincts said that secrets meant no sex – that hand felt good.
His cap was pushed back, away, and he didn't need to open his eyes to know Key was way too close for comfort. He opened them anyway, immediately done in by too-blue eyes.
He liked to think Key kissed him, but looking back later he never really knew for sure. The way Key wound up straddling him he also preferred to think of as not his fault, but really he preferred not to think about.
He tasted like peppermint and coffee, a pretty damned tasty combination in its own right and all the better for tasting like Key too.
As apologies for adopting stupid kittens and ignoring partners went, Locke thought it was pretty damned good – even if he suspected Key wasn't apologizing so much as mollifying.
It was the knock at the door that broke them apart. They stared at each other.
The knock came again, and torn between annoyance and relief, Locke twisted so that Key was lying prone on the bed. Untangling their limbs, he grabbed the nearest of his guns – the Desert Eagle – and strode to the door.
He knew it was a vampire before he had the chain undone. Instinct. As he opened the door, he could also smell it.
Coppery. Sharp. Vampire.
Underneath the metal tang, however, he smelled something ever so faintly sickly sweet.
Fuck.
Locke stepped back as the door was pushed open, raising the Desert Eagle as the top vamp stepped into the room. Behind him he heard Key pick up his Blackhawk. "What the fuck do you want?"
"To see your license for one, hunter," the top said calmly. He was a handsome one – for a vampire. Black hair, dark green eyes, features that were the perfect line between handsome and pretty. Perfect, at least, for some smarmy men's magazine that sold twenty dollar deodorant.
"Asshole," Locke said, just on principle, but didn't argue the demand. Still leveling his gun at the top's head, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the leather fold that never left his person if he wasn't naked. He tossed it.
The vampire caught it easily, and flipped it open. He contemplated the license for several long moments. It wasn't really much to look at, so Locke didn't know why the bastard was staring. Him looking slightly too neat and tidy for the unsmiling picture to be a mug shot. He'd worn the blue sweater his mother had chosen 'cause she would have given him six kinds of hell if he'd worn anything else.
He tossed it back, and Locke caught it. Shoving it back in his pants, he returned his free hand to the gun.
"Now, how about your license? The vampire asked, turning to look at Key.
Locke didn't take his eyes off the vamp, watching as he caught Key's license, frown deepening as the vamp started chuckling.
The vampire tossed the license back, laughing softly.
"Let's see your clearance, giggles," Locke snapped.
Smirking, the vampire reached into his jacket and pulled out a wallet. He tossed it over.
Catching it, Locke flipped the wallet open and held it up so he could look at it without taking his eyes completely off the vampire.
Registered level nine. Fuckity McFuck. A top amongst tops. Damn it. "What the fuck are you doing here, giggles?"
The vampire plucked his wallet from Locke's hand and tucked it away. "I have come to have a word with you."
"I don't want a word with you," Locke snapped.
"I want you to do something for me," the vampire said, speaking as though Locke had not. "Word on the street is that your family is the best in hunting, and you're one of the top on offer."
Hearing one of the old vamps say something like 'word on the street' was like hearing his grandmother say 'what up, my homeslice?' Jarring and more than a little surreal. Old school should stick to old school.
"Fuck off and die," Locke said. "The only thing I do for bloodsuckers is introduce them to Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson."
The vampire laughed again. "You are amusing. I'm afraid you do not have a choice; you will help me."
"Oh, I have a choice," Locke replied. "I'm leaning toward pulling the trigger. It wouldn't kill an old bastard like you, but it'd piss you off and that'd make me pretty damn happy."
He almost did pull the trigger when the motherfucker laughed again. Seriously. He was getting real damned sick of that sound.
Then the bastard grinned in that way only vampires could – all fang and menace. One hundred pure I can and will rip out your throat and enjoy every second of it and there's nothing you can do about it.
Which was more or less true. The older the vampire, the more trouble. Generally, though, the really old vamps kept to themselves. They weren't interested in others, except as an occasional meal. Locke didn't think he'd ever heard of one just popping in to ask a vampire hunter to 'do something for him.' What the fuck?
"I want you to retrieve someone for me."
Locke put a bit of pressure on the trigger.
"A human," the vampire continued. "He belongs to me. Another top took him and I want you to get him back."
"Why us?" Key asked before Locke could repeat his desire that the vampire fuck off and die. "You could do it yourself easily."
"Ah, child, if it were that easy I would not be here. I want this matter resolved, and if I go to fetch him back then the problem will only escalate. He is a top in serious violation of the law; no one will take it amiss if a vampire hunter finally puts him down."
The words were said matter-of-factly; like it was par for the course that one vampire would ask hunters to kill another. This was only one reason of many he hated vampires – they made no goddamn fucking sense.
"Which top?" Key asked.
Locke was going to kill him. They did not hold conversations with vampires. They killed vampires. That was it.
"Tremont," the vampire replied.
"Ah," Locke said. "Now this makes more sense. You're Alessandro."
"Yes," Alessandro replied, smirking. "My permit said as much."
"Shut up," Locke snapped.
He heard something that sound suspiciously like a snicker coming from Key's vicinity. Ignoring that, but making a note to come back to it later, he focused on Alessandro. "Answer is still no."
"Get him back," Alessandro said slowly, "or I will see to it that everyone in your vampire hating world knows your little partner there is a half-breed."
Locke froze. What? He unthinkingly turned to look at Key, who had gone white – not pale or sickly, but stark fucking white.
A half-breed? Key? He so was fucking not a…
"Oh, my," Alessandro said with a chuckle. "I see you didn’t know. I admit I had first thought to threaten your family if you did not cooperate, but I smelled him a mile away and realized it was probably a secret between the two of you. I see it was a secret of one. Hmm. Tremont has a young man by the name of Heath. Bring him to me, and if you kill Tremont in the process – all the better. Succeed and I will see to it your secret is kept, child." He tossed a large brown envelope on the bed. "There is all the information you should need."
He turned and left as suddenly as he'd come.
Locke dropped his gun on the bed as he spun to face Key. "You're a motherfucking dhampir?"
Key nodded, still white-faced.
"A goddamn half-bred," Locke said in disgust. "You may as well be a fucking vampire and you never goddamn told me and you were kissing me and I knew you were keeping secrets but I never would have guessed you were a fucking dhampir."
He couldn't think straight. He couldn't think at all.
Key moved around the bed and toward him in what seemed like slow motion. Unreal. Yet now that he knew it seemed so fucking obvious – Key hated his guns, Key loved bad weather, hated summer…so many little fucking things that he should have noticed, except he'd been too busy trying not to notice Key.
He acted without thinking as Key reached him, swinging hard, bitterly satisfied to feel Key's jaw beneath his fist, the grunt of pain as Key stumbled back and crashed into the TV.
"Get the fuck away from me." A dhampir. A fucking half-breed. Maybe he'd been planning to make the kitten a snack.
"Locke, you don't—"
"I don't want to hear it," Locke snarled. Half-breed. They weren't allowed to have hunting licenses. More often than not dhampir turned into broken vamps. He'd killed more than a few of the fuckers. This whole time….he'd just been making out with a more or less vampire. "You're a fucking liar and a fucking vampire."
He turned around and started throwing his shit back in his bag. At one point he felt a touch to his shoulder, but only turned around to punch Key a second time. After that, Key stayed on the far side of the room.
Slinging his bag over one shoulder, he strode to the door.
"What about the job the vampire wants us to do?" Key asked faintly from the far side of the room.
Locke didn't turn around, knuckles white where he gripped the doorknob. "You're the half-bloodsucker who didn't want to share his secret. You retrieve him. It's got nothing the fuck to do with me."
Yanking the door open, he slammed it shut behind him and then stomped across the snow-covered parking lot to his car. Throwing his bag in the back seat, he cleared away all the snow and ice he could, then threw himself into the driver's seat and started it up.
He made his way slowly through the miserable weather, hands unsteady due to the crappy heating in his old car and the rage still coursing through him.
First fifteen pages of Locke & Key. I have no idea how much longer this bastard is going to be. At least another fifteen pages, but I wouldn't doubt it could be as many as twice that to go >_o I think it's a bad sign that I can never write a short story. Ah, well.
Locke & Key
"I'm cold."
"Kill the vampire, sweetheart, then you can have a hot shower and a cup of coffee."
Locke smiled, but didn't let it slip into his voice. "Fuck you," he said. "You only call me sweetheart when you think I'm being a baby."
"Whatever you say. Sweetheart."
Rolling his eyes, Locke pulled out his guns one by one and checked them one last time. "Key, stop trying to flirt with your boss and do your damn job."
"Yes, sweetheart," Key replied, and Locke could hear him typing furiously away on his laptop.
Locke made a mental note to administer a beating when he got home. Lightly touching his clothing, his weapons, ensuring all was as it should be and could be grabbed in a moment's notice – or not grabbed, whichever applied – he climbed out of his beat up car, popped a piece of cinnamon gum, and started walking down the dark street toward the apartment building at the end of it.
Snow crunched beneath his heavy boots, clung to his dark brown hair and black corduroy jacket. He grimaced as the wind briefly picked up, making the cold that much more miserable. Ugh. He hated hunting in winter. Well, at least they weren't up New England way this time.
The apartment building looked like it had survived a small war. It was little wonder only broken vamps really lived in it.
Creaky, broken, it smelled positively rank - piss and cheap booze, sweat and sex, cigarettes and mold, and beneath all of it the unmistakable stench of old blood. Locke's nose twitched. Ugh, he hated broken vampires.
"Hey," Key said in his ear, "even the nastiest broken vamps are better than a single top vamp."
Locked glared at the dark, mildewed stairwell he had to climb, wishing Key was present to receive the glare and not a couple miles away. "Stop doing that."
Key sniggered. "I can't help it your thoughts are easy to predict."
"Shut up. Final count, how many would you say?"
"Mmm," Key murmured thoughtfully, keys clicking at a rapid fire rate. It was a familiar sound, soothing in the nasty atmosphere of the rundown building. "Reports seem to indicate three to five. Given the low population density in this area, the lack of crime...the absence of any sort of animals in your prelims, I'm going to say five, possibly six. No one has ever reported so much as finding a body, so they're smart or at least neat."
Locke glanced at a puddle of some questionable substance. "If you say so."
"At least they're not so broken as to ignore that sort of thing," Key said. "Six at most, come on. It won't take you long at all. I'll start the coffee once you're on your way back."
"Shut the fuck up," Locke said. "You do your job, I'll do mine."
"Yeah, yeah," Key replied, then fell silent save for the rhythmic clicking of his keyboard.
Locke weighed his options, touching each of his four revolvers, and finally settled on the Blackhawks. The Smith and Wesson were more fun, but guns meant for 'big game' were hardly required for a bunch of stupid broken vamps.
Unfortunately.
"If you want to play with the Model 500," Key said in his ear, laughter plain in his voice, "we can always switch to hunting top vamps."
"Fuck you," Locke muttered, drawing his Blackhawks and finally approaching the stairs. He didn't bother to be quiet, because any second now the vamps would pick up his scent anyway.
Oh, how they would pick it up.
There were two ways to hunt vamps when it came to smell – hide your scent, or show it off.
Locke's favorite day of every month in school had been show and tell.
He'd barely cleared the landing when a door at the end of the hall flew open and something that looked vaguely human half-lunged, half-stumbled out.
Ugh. He hated broken vamps, but he always felt sorry for the bastards, too. He wondered sometimes which feeling motivated him to pull the trigger.
Raising the gun in his right hand, Locke fired. The Blackhawk was by no stretch of the imagination a quiet gun. Nor a pretty one, so far as results went. The vamp went down like a lump of raw meat, finished off neatly and handily by a .44 hollow-point silver bullet.
The only thing his mama made better than bullets was chocolate chip cookies, and the fact she was due to be sending him both shortly was immensely cheering.
Locke turned as he heard something behind him and raised his second gun, taking down two more. That was three down, about three to go.
He grimaced at the strong smell of blood, which did not go well with the rest of the nastiness filling the old building. Not much remained of the corpses. Broken vampires weren't strong enough to have the regenerative abilities of a top vampire, but even if they did the hollow point silver slugs caused too much damage for that to fix. Even a top would be pissed off for a couple of hours after taking a hit like that.
Four bullets left in the first gun, three in the second. He still had the Smith & Wesson and the semi as a final resort. Whistling cheerfully now, ignoring the pained sigh in his ear, Locke moved toward the first vamp he'd shot, stepping over the mess and into the apartment.
If he was not already long-resigned to the stench of decay and old blood, it would have made him gag. Broken vamps were the worst – converted from humans, which never went well. It always broke them one way or another, creating the repulsive, pathetic creatures he most frequently killed.
Shit, someone turned him into a bloodsucker he'd fucking go psycho too. Well, he'd kill himself, but that was beside the point.
He heard shuffling from what was probably a bedroom and moved that way, carefully moving around the drained corpses and other rot spread across the floor, wanting badly to puke.
"Think happy thoughts," Key said.
"Stop reading my fucking mind," Locke muttered.
Key snickered, then once again fell silent.
Cautiously Locke pushed open the bedroom door, ready to fire – but when he entered, all he saw was a broken vampire lying prone on a bed with stains best described as interesting. A lamp cast orange-yellow light, making everything that much uglier. The vamp moved, lifting its head just enough to look at him with eyes that might have belonged to a drug addict suffering serious withdrawal.
Locke shot him in the head and turned away before the mess really did make him hurl. Didn't matter how many years he did this, he never really got used to it.
He went through the remaining rooms as quickly as he could without being too hasty, then tracked back the way he'd come to explore the apartment from which the other two vamps had come. Nothing but more nastiness.
Frowning, he returned to the hallway. Fuck, he didn't want to have to explore the entire goddamn building and every apartment in it. If there was nothing but vamps around….generally they kept to the same hovel, and the first floor of apartments made the most sense…
Standing perfectly still, he listened, waited. If a vampire was close enough to smell him, it would come for him. He worked hard to make his blood the feast of feasts for a vampire. If nothing showed, he'd go up another level.
A faint creak.
He turned – and swore. "You're not fucking broken."
The vampire before him bared his pointy teeth in something that was part smirk, part grin, part you look really damned tasty, hunter.
In his ear, Key was cussing up a storm.
Locke dropped his Blackhawks and drew the Smith & Wesson even as the average-type vampire lunged for him. The guns roared as he fired, flashing bright enough to light up the dark hallway for a heartbeat. With enough firepower to take down a bear, they were more than enough to put a hurt on an average vamp.
It jerked back, right of its feet, and Locke wasted no time in shooting it a second time.
"Get it?" Key asked.
"Yeah," Locke replied tersely. "None of the research suggested a true vamp might be skulking about."
Key was silent a moment, but Locke could hear him clicking away at a furious pace. Though he'd never fucking admit, he loved to watch and listen to Key type – it should be inelegant, or tedious, or something, but somehow he found it graceful and captivating.
"I still don't see evidence of that," Key said at last. "Maybe he was a not-so-proud papa stopping by like we did. Shitty timing."
Locke grunted an acknowledgment. "I'm going to check the rest of the building."
"Yeah," Key agreed, then went back to typing and listening.
He made quick work of it, exploring every floor – but his searching turned up no more vampires, and even forcing himself to double check resulted in nothing. Tired, cranky, thoroughly fed up, Locked called it a night. "Going to torch it, then I'm fucking done."
"Roger," Key said. "I'll go start making the coffee. Your mom's package arrived."
"If you eat all my fucking cookies," Locke replied, "I'm going to engrave your name on a silver bullet."
Key snickered. "If you kill me, darling, you'll never figure out where I hid them."
"So long as it's not in my mother fucking underwear drawer again," Locke groused.
He pointedly ignored the loud, obnoxious, entirely too gleeful laughter roaring in his ear and trudged back to his car to get what he needed to set the building on fire.
"You stupid son of a bitch," Locke said, just standing and gawking.
Key grinned and added fuel to the fire by pulling down the brim of the gimme cap he wore – black with a detailed bat stitched in silver thread, with brilliant red eyes. Locke loved that hat, he wore it constantly unless he was on a job.
On top of all that, the motherfucker was holding a cup of coffee and had a chocolate chip cookie in his mouth.
"You just love pissing me off, don't you, asshole?" Locke groused, stomping loudly across the cement floor of the workshop to where he kept all his guns. Pointedly ignoring Key, he set to work checking, cleaning, and reloading his guns before locking all but one of the Blackhawks away.
That done, he stripped off his jacket, sweater, and undershirt, then moved to a backroom to finish stripping before he stepped into the shower area. Once this had been a locker room, and it still showed in the benches and lockers, the ugly tile and half dozen shower heads. Cheap rent, though, and by the month – all they really needed. Not much longer they'd probably be moving on further south. He fucking refused to hunt vamps further north this time of year unless it was strictly necessary.
Finished showering, he grabbed a towel from the row of hooks and scrubbed his hair mostly dry before toweling off. Moving to the first row of lockers, he opened the third one down and pulled out clean boxers, socks, undershirt. Opening the next one, he tugged on jeans that were neither too tight nor too loose. Tugging on a long-sleeved red t-shirt, he sat down to pull on his boots, then finally returned to the workshop.
A fresh cup of coffee, a plate of cookies, and his gimme cap waited on his makeshift desk. Grunting, he drank half the hot coffee in one long swallow, then tugged on his cap and snatched up a cookie.
Yummy.
"You're still an asshole," he said eventually.
Key laughed. He had platinum hair, blue eyes, and a pretty face – the spitting image of an angel or a mama's boy. Except for the part where he was a smartass, troublemaking computer nerd with a death wish. "Job well done, sweetheart. Sit back and relax, stop getting so uptight."
"Something about you brings out the uptight in me," Locke replied dryly.
"I can ease that uptight, you know."
Locked groaned. "Don't start with me," he said.
Key just grinned his evil grin, the one that could also be insanely hot at the worst possible moments. Namely when Locke's libido needed an ice-cold shower before he did something stupid.
He didn't know why he kept resisting, because if there was one thing Key had always made clear it was interest in Locke – but he couldn't quite give in. Something held him. A niggling sense that said it would be a bad idea, and Locke had learned the hard and painful way to trust his instincts.
Those instincts said he could trust Key with his life…but weren't fly with fucking him. Which was too bad, because he wanted to see what that pretty but dirty mouth looked like around his cock.
Shifting in his seat, Locke summoned a scowl to counter that damned grin.
"Come on," Key goaded. "We're a regular bad porn joke, obviously it's meant to be."
Locked groaned.
Key just grinned. "Key. Locke."
"Wrong," Locke replied, despite knowing it was always stupid to actually attempt these discussions. "We've got two keys and no locks. So shut up."
The evil in Key's smile cranked up about three notches. "Not if it's a key for the back d—"
"Shut up!" Locke half-shouted the words to drown Key out, mortified and maybe the slightest bit not mortified, which was more upsetting. "Don't you have work to do?" he asked desperately.
"Yeah, yeah," Key said cheerfully, though Locke didn't miss the slight disappointment in his eyes.
He couldn't help it. Something about Key, despite their being partners in hunting for the past five and a half years, nagged at him.
Maybe it was just the lingering foul taste of his last partner coloring his perception and fucking up his instinct. He'd pondered that possibility before. Steven had been perfect – partner, friend, lover. All of it. Until he'd put a knife – literally and figuratively – in Locke's back.
Key had approached him in a bar in California one night, knowing way more than Locke had thought anyone should know. Since then, he'd learned Key was good at knowing shit he shouldn't. Way too fucking good, but at least usually it worked to Locke's advantage.
He'd agreed to cooperate with Key for a job or two. When he'd finally left California, however, Key had been with him. They worked well together, despite the chronic smart ass from which Key suffered.
Despite the fact he was keeping a secret. Locke knew enough about secrets to know Key was keeping one, and that – no doubt combined with his past – kept him from making more than a few enthusiastic fantasies reality.
He ate another cookies as he wrote a report on the night's events.
Five minutes after he emailed it home, a chat window popped up on his screen.
Locke rolled his eyes, and typed to his mother that he was fine, the average hadn't even fucking touched him, the bullets were perfect and the cookies tasty.
An hour later she finally signed off to go to bed – no doubt his father had been yelling at her for the past forty five minutes – and went to get more coffee.
He smiled faintly to see Key had made him a fresh pot, and went in search of his geek.
The bottom floor of the building they were renting had been workshop of some sort, the kind to require a locker room. Upstairs had clearly been living quarters, likely for whoever had owned the workshop.
Key was stretched out on a ratty couch in the living area, something they'd scrounged for twenty bucks from college students desperate to get rid of it. They'd cleaned and de-fouled it as best they could, but Key had still thrown a quilt over it. He lay with his head on the farthest armrest, so he faced the door, and flicked his eyes up as Locke appeared.
"Thanks for the coffee," Locke said.
"Sure," Key said quietly.
"Who are you chatting with?" Locke asked moving to the couch and lifting Key's feet, sitting down before letting them fall across his.
"Old friend in Cali," Key replied. "I was asking him about our average."
Locke grunted. "I'd have asked my folks, but fuck – I'd still be talking to my mother. I'm going to fucking kill Billie for teaching her how to use a computer – and instant chat."
Key laughed and playfully dug his heel into Locke's thigh. "Your mom is cute. At least when she's bugging you and not me. She thinks I'm good for you, by the way. I didn't tell you that."
"Yeah, yeah," Locke said, and took a sip of coffee to avoid saying or doing something stupid.
Key sighed softly. "We've got only the park to investigate, but likely it'll only be one broken. By end of week we can move south. That should make you happy." He closed his laptop with a faint click and set it aside, folding his arms beneath his head. "I called ahead to price places to stay. Nice little thing by the sea. No one wants it 'cause people were murdered there."
"Right up our alley, then," Locke said, drinking more of his coffee.
"Billie recommended it," Key replied. "Your little brother is like a vampire hunter slash real estate agent."
Locke sniggered at the idea of Billie as a real estate agent. "I think it's more that he's good at finding places to hide." He stifled a yawn. "I guess if we're moving soon, we should start packing and shit. What's this thing in the park?"
"Crazy homeless guy, according to the natives, except he likes to attack people – a few have reported that he tried to bite them. Cops have tried to find him, but never have any luck."
"Easy enough," Locke said, finishing his coffee and bending a bit to set the mug on the floor. He leaned back with a soft sigh, resting his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes.
He wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, but that required moving.
The feet resting on his lap vanished, and he heard Key move. Then a warm hand lay gently against his cheek, soft against the stubble of his cheek.
"You're an idiot," Key said, and there was no mistaking the affection mingled with the frustration in his voice.
It hurt, and though it was probably more imagination than reality, it also made the old scar on his back hurt. He didn't want to face another betrayal someday, not matter how much he might care about his partner.
He cracked his eyes open, instantly taken by the goddamn wow of Key's eyes. So fucking blue. His own were a muddy brown color. "You have no room to talk."
"Tell me about it," Key said softly. "You'd think after over five years of 'not interested' that I'd fucking give up."
Locke frowned. "Yeah, well. You haven't quit making your idiotic jokes, either."
"Guess I'm dense or stubborn."
"Yeah, but you're pretty. It's allowed."
Key laughed briefly, then leaned in just close enough to brush a feather soft kiss across Locke's lip. In the next breath he was gone, and Locke was alone. The room was quiet, but his thoughts were plenty loud enough.
*~*~*
Locke shouldered his duffle bag and slammed the trunk closed, then shoved his keys into the front left pocket of his jeans. Turning around, he started to cross the parking lot to the motel room they'd rented for the night.
One flat and a nasty mess of snow did not pleasant traveling make. Fuck it was the unanimous decision; the vampires could wait an extra day to get shot.
He'd taken three steps when he realized that the rather nice looking backside crouched in front of the bushes off to the left belonged to someone he knew. A sinking suspicion growing, he stomped through the snow and ice to where Key was all but buried in the bushes – and Locke could hear all too familiar noises coming from him.
Noises which elicited pathetic mewling sounds in response.
Stifling a groan, Locke dropped his duffle bag and crossed his arms. "No." He nudged Key's lower back with the toe of his boot. "I said no."
"Aww," Key said in protest, slowly standing up and turning around, arms curled against his chest – and a tiny kitten cradled in them. It was the color of soot, with bright green eyes way too big for it's evil, manipulative little face. "It's all alone. No sign of mama."
"No," Locke said again. "We travel too much for pets, and – just no. I'm not arguing about this. You're pretty, but that doesn't mean you can act like a girl and try to adopt every cute stray that stumbles into your path. Come on, be a man and put the kitten down."
Key ignored him, stomping away from the bushes and across the parking lot, stopping only to swipe his keycard before vanishing into his room.
Locke watched him go, and could tell from the set of Key's shoulders that he was in deep shit for the acting like a girl crack.
Sighing, he picked his duffle back up and made for the room.
It was old and dingy, with the same part mold, part too much cleaner smell that all hotels seemed to have no matter how up or downscale they were.
Key sat Indian-style on the farthest bed, back to Locke.
Biting back another sigh, Locke threw his bag on the floor and knelt to dig out the few things he wanted close to hand. He was already wearing the Desert Eagle, but he'd be happier with one of the Blackhawks and he needed to ward the doors on the chance an unwanted guest tried to pay them a visit.
No one gave a fuck if a few or even several broken vamps died – vamps wouldn't kill their own, but they didn't fight too much if certain among them got personal with a silver bullet. Killing an average vamp…fifty fifty. A week and a half later, nothing fanged was bitching about it, so they were probably safe.
Never paid to be sloppy, however. His dad would kick his fucking ass. If his mom didn't do it first.
He glanced up as he finished checking and loading his gun, sliding it into the holster at his hip.
Still being ignored.
Damn it. He fucking hated when Key ignored him.
Heaving a loud sigh, he made certain he had his wallet and tromped back out to the car.
When he returned an hour later he was short a chunk of change he would have preferred to put toward a good steak dinner. Depositing all the stupid crap on Key's bed, he sat down in a nearby chair to remove his boots, then snatched up the TV remote and collapsed on his own bed.
After a moment he sat up to shuck of his jacket and guns, then lay back down in just his lightweight blue sweater. There wasn't much on, and he doubted he'd fucking notice if the Cowboys suddenly decided to start playing football in their birthday suits.
He turned the TV off again. "So what did you name it and how the hell are we going to lug the damn thing around with us? Cats don't travel well."
The silence dragged on, and Locke was about to go back out for the beer he'd almost gotten in the first place when Key finally broke it. "I'm not a fucking girl, you asshole."
"I know," Locke replied with a sigh that part aggravation, part relief. "I'm sorry – but come on, it's just a damned kitten."
"Yeah, well, it was freezing to death," Key replied. "If I'm not going to leave someone as grouchy and foul-mouthed as you to freeze his ass off in the snow, I'm sure as fuck not going to leave a tiny kitten. I'll give it to your fucking cousin when we see her for Christmas."
Locke rolled his eyes. Key would give up the kitten the same way he'd give being grouchy and foul-mouthed. Like fucking hell he'd be giving up the damned kitten – not after Locke had sacrificed his fucking steak dinner to buy shit for the fluffy menace.
Whom Key was still petting, with his back still to Locke, and what a shitty evening this was turning out to be. If a vamp did stop by, Locke was going to offer it a snack.
He turned the TV on again and decided sullenly on watching the news. There was the temptation to order straight porn just to see Key get all twitchy over the boobs, but if he was still being partially ignored then he wouldn't get much of a reaction.
Sighing, he lay down completely on the bed and pulled his cap down over his eyes. It was entirely unfuckingfair that he had to put up with all this shit but didn't get sex.
Of course, that was also his own fucking fault, if he felt like being honest which he didn't.
"Sulking doesn't look good on you, sweetheart," Key said.
Locke didn't reply. See how Key liked being ignored.
He heard movement, then there was a dip in his bed as Key sat down on the edge.
"You suck at ignoring me, Locke," Key said.
Locke didn't say anything – but he did tense when a hand slid over his stomach, warm even through the layers of sweater and undershirt. Still he didn't look up, or otherwise move. Mostly cause if he did the hand would go away, and he didn't give a fuck if his instincts said that secrets meant no sex – that hand felt good.
His cap was pushed back, away, and he didn't need to open his eyes to know Key was way too close for comfort. He opened them anyway, immediately done in by too-blue eyes.
He liked to think Key kissed him, but looking back later he never really knew for sure. The way Key wound up straddling him he also preferred to think of as not his fault, but really he preferred not to think about.
He tasted like peppermint and coffee, a pretty damned tasty combination in its own right and all the better for tasting like Key too.
As apologies for adopting stupid kittens and ignoring partners went, Locke thought it was pretty damned good – even if he suspected Key wasn't apologizing so much as mollifying.
It was the knock at the door that broke them apart. They stared at each other.
The knock came again, and torn between annoyance and relief, Locke twisted so that Key was lying prone on the bed. Untangling their limbs, he grabbed the nearest of his guns – the Desert Eagle – and strode to the door.
He knew it was a vampire before he had the chain undone. Instinct. As he opened the door, he could also smell it.
Coppery. Sharp. Vampire.
Underneath the metal tang, however, he smelled something ever so faintly sickly sweet.
Fuck.
Locke stepped back as the door was pushed open, raising the Desert Eagle as the top vamp stepped into the room. Behind him he heard Key pick up his Blackhawk. "What the fuck do you want?"
"To see your license for one, hunter," the top said calmly. He was a handsome one – for a vampire. Black hair, dark green eyes, features that were the perfect line between handsome and pretty. Perfect, at least, for some smarmy men's magazine that sold twenty dollar deodorant.
"Asshole," Locke said, just on principle, but didn't argue the demand. Still leveling his gun at the top's head, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the leather fold that never left his person if he wasn't naked. He tossed it.
The vampire caught it easily, and flipped it open. He contemplated the license for several long moments. It wasn't really much to look at, so Locke didn't know why the bastard was staring. Him looking slightly too neat and tidy for the unsmiling picture to be a mug shot. He'd worn the blue sweater his mother had chosen 'cause she would have given him six kinds of hell if he'd worn anything else.
He tossed it back, and Locke caught it. Shoving it back in his pants, he returned his free hand to the gun.
"Now, how about your license? The vampire asked, turning to look at Key.
Locke didn't take his eyes off the vamp, watching as he caught Key's license, frown deepening as the vamp started chuckling.
The vampire tossed the license back, laughing softly.
"Let's see your clearance, giggles," Locke snapped.
Smirking, the vampire reached into his jacket and pulled out a wallet. He tossed it over.
Catching it, Locke flipped the wallet open and held it up so he could look at it without taking his eyes completely off the vampire.
Registered level nine. Fuckity McFuck. A top amongst tops. Damn it. "What the fuck are you doing here, giggles?"
The vampire plucked his wallet from Locke's hand and tucked it away. "I have come to have a word with you."
"I don't want a word with you," Locke snapped.
"I want you to do something for me," the vampire said, speaking as though Locke had not. "Word on the street is that your family is the best in hunting, and you're one of the top on offer."
Hearing one of the old vamps say something like 'word on the street' was like hearing his grandmother say 'what up, my homeslice?' Jarring and more than a little surreal. Old school should stick to old school.
"Fuck off and die," Locke said. "The only thing I do for bloodsuckers is introduce them to Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson."
The vampire laughed again. "You are amusing. I'm afraid you do not have a choice; you will help me."
"Oh, I have a choice," Locke replied. "I'm leaning toward pulling the trigger. It wouldn't kill an old bastard like you, but it'd piss you off and that'd make me pretty damn happy."
He almost did pull the trigger when the motherfucker laughed again. Seriously. He was getting real damned sick of that sound.
Then the bastard grinned in that way only vampires could – all fang and menace. One hundred pure I can and will rip out your throat and enjoy every second of it and there's nothing you can do about it.
Which was more or less true. The older the vampire, the more trouble. Generally, though, the really old vamps kept to themselves. They weren't interested in others, except as an occasional meal. Locke didn't think he'd ever heard of one just popping in to ask a vampire hunter to 'do something for him.' What the fuck?
"I want you to retrieve someone for me."
Locke put a bit of pressure on the trigger.
"A human," the vampire continued. "He belongs to me. Another top took him and I want you to get him back."
"Why us?" Key asked before Locke could repeat his desire that the vampire fuck off and die. "You could do it yourself easily."
"Ah, child, if it were that easy I would not be here. I want this matter resolved, and if I go to fetch him back then the problem will only escalate. He is a top in serious violation of the law; no one will take it amiss if a vampire hunter finally puts him down."
The words were said matter-of-factly; like it was par for the course that one vampire would ask hunters to kill another. This was only one reason of many he hated vampires – they made no goddamn fucking sense.
"Which top?" Key asked.
Locke was going to kill him. They did not hold conversations with vampires. They killed vampires. That was it.
"Tremont," the vampire replied.
"Ah," Locke said. "Now this makes more sense. You're Alessandro."
"Yes," Alessandro replied, smirking. "My permit said as much."
"Shut up," Locke snapped.
He heard something that sound suspiciously like a snicker coming from Key's vicinity. Ignoring that, but making a note to come back to it later, he focused on Alessandro. "Answer is still no."
"Get him back," Alessandro said slowly, "or I will see to it that everyone in your vampire hating world knows your little partner there is a half-breed."
Locke froze. What? He unthinkingly turned to look at Key, who had gone white – not pale or sickly, but stark fucking white.
A half-breed? Key? He so was fucking not a…
"Oh, my," Alessandro said with a chuckle. "I see you didn’t know. I admit I had first thought to threaten your family if you did not cooperate, but I smelled him a mile away and realized it was probably a secret between the two of you. I see it was a secret of one. Hmm. Tremont has a young man by the name of Heath. Bring him to me, and if you kill Tremont in the process – all the better. Succeed and I will see to it your secret is kept, child." He tossed a large brown envelope on the bed. "There is all the information you should need."
He turned and left as suddenly as he'd come.
Locke dropped his gun on the bed as he spun to face Key. "You're a motherfucking dhampir?"
Key nodded, still white-faced.
"A goddamn half-bred," Locke said in disgust. "You may as well be a fucking vampire and you never goddamn told me and you were kissing me and I knew you were keeping secrets but I never would have guessed you were a fucking dhampir."
He couldn't think straight. He couldn't think at all.
Key moved around the bed and toward him in what seemed like slow motion. Unreal. Yet now that he knew it seemed so fucking obvious – Key hated his guns, Key loved bad weather, hated summer…so many little fucking things that he should have noticed, except he'd been too busy trying not to notice Key.
He acted without thinking as Key reached him, swinging hard, bitterly satisfied to feel Key's jaw beneath his fist, the grunt of pain as Key stumbled back and crashed into the TV.
"Get the fuck away from me." A dhampir. A fucking half-breed. Maybe he'd been planning to make the kitten a snack.
"Locke, you don't—"
"I don't want to hear it," Locke snarled. Half-breed. They weren't allowed to have hunting licenses. More often than not dhampir turned into broken vamps. He'd killed more than a few of the fuckers. This whole time….he'd just been making out with a more or less vampire. "You're a fucking liar and a fucking vampire."
He turned around and started throwing his shit back in his bag. At one point he felt a touch to his shoulder, but only turned around to punch Key a second time. After that, Key stayed on the far side of the room.
Slinging his bag over one shoulder, he strode to the door.
"What about the job the vampire wants us to do?" Key asked faintly from the far side of the room.
Locke didn't turn around, knuckles white where he gripped the doorknob. "You're the half-bloodsucker who didn't want to share his secret. You retrieve him. It's got nothing the fuck to do with me."
Yanking the door open, he slammed it shut behind him and then stomped across the snow-covered parking lot to his car. Throwing his bag in the back seat, he cleared away all the snow and ice he could, then threw himself into the driver's seat and started it up.
He made his way slowly through the miserable weather, hands unsteady due to the crappy heating in his old car and the rage still coursing through him.
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Date: 2007-12-21 11:33 am (UTC)Bad bad Locke!
Yes, I'm terribly articulate today. :)
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Date: 2007-12-21 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-21 02:22 pm (UTC)Poor Key!!
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Date: 2007-12-21 02:25 pm (UTC)Very much up to your usual brilliance, and the thing with broken vampires is most interesting. Also liked Locke's edginess around Key - I wasn't expecting him to be a dhampir, but it was a lovely twist. ^^
And then you leave it on that horrid cliffie! It made me well up, you know. ;_;
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Date: 2007-12-21 03:10 pm (UTC)Oh... my... jeez... can't... breathe from laughing...
Perfect!
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Date: 2007-12-21 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-21 05:54 pm (UTC)Hate that Locke's hit Key, though. And am feeling really sorry for the little Dhampir. I hope to read more soon; I'm looking forward to how they patch things up.
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Date: 2007-12-21 06:06 pm (UTC)Good story! Yay.
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Date: 2007-12-21 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-21 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-21 09:57 pm (UTC)...then again, I suppose technically he is.
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Date: 2007-12-21 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-22 12:41 am (UTC)One asks the questions:
Why does Locke hate vampires so much and why is Key in the profession?
Why would a top take another top's human? Is Heath still alive? Why would a vampire keep a human? as lover? pet?
Is Key going to take the case or run for the hills? Is Locke going to come back and help?
Will our trusty author write more soon or is said author being truly evil and going to drop this story right here after garnering all this interest?
Hey it's not there's a holiday in the way of more writing ..oh right, there is a holiday in the way. Embankment!
Chocolate as inducement?
you make me giggle
Date: 2007-12-22 12:47 am (UTC)Locke counted corpses as he reloaded his revolvers.
Seven. There should be nine. Looks like two had gotten away. But where? "Ke—" He stopped himself with a curse, an all too familiar ache flaring to life in his chest. Stupid, lying fuck. Three weeks and Key still had him feeling pissed off.
Or something.
Locking the cylinder of his second Blackhawk back in place, he moved quickly past the corpses spread out in front of him toward the back half of the house.
Somehow he wasn't having as much fun as he usually did. As difficult and unpleasant and smelly and dangerous as the job was – he'd always enjoyed it. No one could hate being a vampire hunter and do it anyway. It just wasn't possible.
He'd always flown predominantly solo. Every now and then his brothers or sister needed assistance and they teamed up then. He'd hired on local help in larger cities…it wasn't until stupid fucking Key that he'd gotten himself a full time partner.
A partner who made bad jokes and never knew when to stop being a smartass. A partner who didn't blink at the idea of killing and burning bodies but couldn't bear to leave a little kitten in the cold…an obnoxious asshole but one who could make a wicked pot of coffee.
Who was also a fucking dhampir and right now was probably laughing at how gullible Locke had been.
That knot in his chest twisted again. Locke banished his thoughts with a curse and kicked open the door to the kitchen.
Something came at him and he dropped it, the sound of his revolver in the enclosed space deafening.
Eight.
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Date: 2007-12-22 02:19 am (UTC)*cough*
Anyway, it's good that Key's secret is now out in the open. I just wish Locke didn't hurt him so. :(
Re: you make me giggle
Date: 2007-12-22 02:31 am (UTC)He misses Key but is he going back...? Did you answer this...NOooooo. We are in evasive author land. Notice that evasive and evil have 3 letters in common.
Wait, you write like I clean. Clean house means I am not a happy friendly person. I got your chocolate right here. mmmmmmm *crinkle of foil wrapper in the background* drooooool 70% cocoa individually wrapped squares.
Don't think they'll be there before Christmas.
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Date: 2007-12-22 03:00 am (UTC)Hm, Alessandro and Heath... I'm curious what is going on there. Can't wait!!
Thanks so much for sharing!!
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Date: 2007-12-22 03:23 am (UTC)...
Okay, now that that's out of the way. Love this story, especially the descriptions. Something about the way they're structured or written makes a very vivid image in my mind--it's cool.
Re: you make me giggle
Date: 2007-12-22 05:55 am (UTC)Is the post office open on Monday?
I need a holiday to get ready for the holiday. Thanksgiving didn't count.
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Date: 2007-12-22 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-22 05:24 pm (UTC)Locked groaned. "Don't start with me," he said.
He ate another cookies as he wrote a report on the night's events.
Also:
One hundred percent? pure I can and will rip out your throat and enjoy every second of it and there's nothing you can do about it.
The little secret that Key was carrying, though...ouchies. Very, very ouchies. For the both of them, really. I mean, I can see how Key would want to keep that a secret, and the longer that he didn't tell Locke, the harder it would be to tell him. I mean, now at least, they've been working together for five and a half years. That's a hell of a long time to keep a secret like that, which is why I'm utterly unsurprised that Locke responded so harshly. Over half a decade, and Key never told him this little bit of information?
Another thing that I'm highly curious about is the question of scent - you make at least two comments about the fact that Locke shows off his scent, does his best to make it as attractive to vampires as possible. What does he do? And does this affect Key as well? Very curious.
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Date: 2007-12-22 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 05:02 am (UTC)I adore Locke...and his mother. also the hat. this is already one of my favorite stories by you and... OH NO A CLIFFHANGER!
(awaits more) poor Key...no wonder he didn't tell Locke he was a half breed, the poor boy. (hugs Key)
Also: ...fifteen pages and you're not done? (is slightly baffled) It took me six hours and the most I wrote was ten pages till i was done with m story. I wish i could write fifteen pages without passing out... (stares in awe)