Plus ca Change: Part 3d
by Tom MacCarrol
"Let her go.", Anne halted her Watcher with a hand on his shoulder. "She's pretty tough, but this has been a really rotten last few hours. She'll be okay, but I'll look in on her in a few minutes anyway. In the meantime, the dead girl."

"Gerrard, I got a good look at her-it had to be a vampire- fang marks, white as a sheet with no blood around, the whole bit. But her mouth, that was partly full of blood. I think she's been turned. How long do we have before she comes back as one of them?"

"Monday night. At the same time she was killed. We know when you were attacked, and if we can find anyone who saw the two of them leave, we can bracket it rather tightly. We'll have to eliminate her as promptly as we can. Vampires tend to be rather territorial- this town will become her primary hunting ground if we allow her to escape. I'll set up a tracking program on the newsnet- it will pick out her funeral details as soon as they're made public, then we'll move in."

"Poor Liz. I'm just glad they weren't really tight, and I never really met her. Heneri was a total stranger and it wasn't real fun. Don't know if I could have...if I'd known him before. Was I as bad as she is, the other night?"

"Just about. That's why I was so determined to get you blooded as soon as possible. Get the emotional turmoil from fright and shock behind you so that we can plan and function effectively, not waste time and effort flailing around."

A more composed, but still shaken Liz emerged from the bathroom. She looked around the main room, taking in the stark emptiness- only a mismatched table and chair for furniture, a computer with VR gear and a stack of data solids for decorations- and then the burglar bars on the one tiny window, and commented, "Real home- like. Who'd you get for interior design- the prison authority? Guys." She smiled weakly at the feeble jest.

"How ya doing? You okay?"

"No. Not okay. But I'm managing."

"Best that can be expected, then. Please sit down Ms. uh..?"

"Just call me Liz, or else you'll sound like somebody from school."

"Alright then, Liz. Please sit, and I'll try to have all this make some sort of sense. Seeing as there's a severe shortage of furniture out here; Anne, if you would step into the kitchenette and make us all some tea, we'll join you shortly- you've already heard this part.

You see Liz, this universe is far older than anyone knows. Contrary to popular mythology....."


* * *
"So that creep was an actual vampire. They're really running around loose, not just in cheesy flatvids.", Liz summed up as the three of them crowded around the tiny table in Br. Gerrard's undersized kitchen.

"Yes.", he replied, "They do exist, and generally go to great lengths to keep the general populace ignorant of that fact. Of course need for secrecy goes both ways; the fewer people that know Anne is the Slayer, the safer they and she are. Ideally, even you shouldn't know. I don't think I have to ask explicitly for you not to tell anyone else, not even your parents, or Anne's mother?"

"Duh. I wasn't planning to post an ad on the net or run to the sleaze papers."

"And as if anyone would believe any of this without getting their nose rubbed in it first.", Anne added. "I know I sure didn't, and anyone we might blab to is gonna think we're nuts long before they believe in blood-sucking freaks outside of storybooks."

"And speaking of stories...", Liz asked, toying with her mug of tea, "What's the sitch with this 'Brother' biz? Do you like, hang out with Friar Tuck, or something?"

"Not at all", Gerrard laughed softly. "After university, I spent ten years in the Regina chapterhouse of the Order of Saint Leibowitz - primarily to develop my research skills and to study in their restricted collections. They have occult source materials unavailable anywhere else. I was a lay brother, took no vows, since we all knew my final vocation was to be a Watcher.

"You lived in a monastery for TEN YEARS?", Anne asked incredulously.

"No need to make it sound like a term of imprisonment. Without the monks' simple, structured, lifestyle I couldn't have devoted as much time to my studies as I did. As it was, I was only able to read up on the essential core subjects. The rest I've had to download onto data solids for later reference."

"One more nosy question-", Liz asked,"Have you got a last name, or is that top secret too?"

'Gee, why didn't I think of that?', thought Anne.

"Not secret. It's Kalderash."

Anne scrunched up her nose, slightly puzzled. "Sounds kinda odd, is that Vilani?"

"No, actually, it's Romany- a small Solimani sub-group. Enough dwelling on my past, we need to do some work on the future around here. Liz, if you're going to involve yourself with this enterprise, there's some background information you'll need - mostly from the vampire chapters in 'Monsters and Their Kynde'. The expurgated version, no need to risk your sanity- yet.

While you're busy with that, I'll start running Anne through some basic close-combat training. There's nothing else we can do until we discover the arrangements for the dead girl's funeral."

Br. Gerrard unrolled foam remnants to pad the far side of the living room while Liz seated herself at the computer and began scrolling through the text files he'd pointed out. Not knowing what else to do, Anne started running through the series of stretching moves the old women had shown her, as a sort of warm- up.

Br. Gerrard was kneeling, facing the other way, as he struggled to get the foam to lie flat. He said, "Actual combat is pretty much a come-as-you-are party, but in training we have the luxury of enough time to reduce the chance of injury by properly warming up. There's a traditional stretching routine I'll show you- it's derived in part from the ancient Terran Tai Chi. It goes..." Br. Gerrard turned, his voice trailing off in confusion as he noticed Anne, eyes closed in concentration, flowing easily from one movement into the next. "...very much like what you're already doing..."

Embarrassed at the sudden attention, Anne fumbled the next couple of movements. After slowly regaining her composure, she managed to finish smoothly.

"Fascinating.", was all that Br. Gerrard said aloud. With a gesture, he steered the two of them over onto the padded area. Their movement was punctuated by a loud 'Ewww' when Liz came to a particularly revolting passage in her text file. "Unsavory habit of theirs, I said something similar my first time through.", he observed. To Anne, he began, "Humans, or any biped for that matter, are inherently unstable along at least one axis at any time.."

His hands pistoned out suddenly, intending to use surprise as well as geometry to topple the young Slayer. This would not only illustrate his theory of unstable axies, but also provide an untrained pratfall as a benchmark for progress toward more skillful landings. However...

The instant Anne's vision picked up the inbound movement, she snapped into motion- without hesitation or even thought. Contact, deflect, and... she was able to abort the potentially fatal reply scant centimeters from it's target. "Sorry!", she squeaked, cringing back.

"Very interesting. And almost textbook perfect. Perhaps I shouldn't have discounted your gym classes so thoroughly. Let me get my pads on, I think I'm going to need them."


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