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Title: Let Sleeping Vamps Lie
Author(s): Jaina
Fandom: The Hollows aka Rachel Morgan aka that series by Kim Harrison
Time frame: Post-Outlaw Demon Wails
Characters: Rachel Morgan, Ivy Tamwood, Jenks, Skimmer, etc.
Genre: Romance, action, drama
Summary: Rachel is forced to confront things that she'd prefer left undisturbed.
Beta: Many thanks to my both of my betas:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
infinitlight and racethewind10. They both contribute a lot to this story and I'm grateful for their help and their patience.
Disclaimer: All characters, and the universe that they go with belong to Kim Harrison. I'm just playing in the sandbox. No infringement is intended.
Prompt: #6 Dread
Notes: Some of the formatting on here is a bit wonky. I worked with it for a while and couldn't get it to do anything different so my apologies for the weirdness.
Part Nine
My heels rang on the pavement as I walked towards the fountain. I swiped angrily at my eyes, wiping away what I hoped was the last evidence of tears. The pinkie ring that had been one of my Dad's last gifts to me would actually come in handy today, covering my reddened skin. Puffy eyes would completely ruin the badass runner look that I was working at the moment. I would need every bit of that look if the person who'd contacted me was every bit the dumb cookie that I expected them to be.
Even as distracted as I was, I couldn't help but smile as I stepped over the circle around the edges of the square. I had raised this very circle in the ever-after, and I'd done it without the help of a half-dozen other witches. Yeah, I was a kick-ass witch.
Looking around, I realized that Jenks had never told me anything about who I was supposed to be meeting, other than that they were human. That narrowed it down, but at least half the people walking through the plaza were human. It didn't help that much. Then again, I was pretty hard to miss. How many other people with untameable red hair, wearing a full set of leathers, would be standing here at this specific time of day? If he knew anything about me, I wouldn't be hard to identify at all.
That thought brought with it the first hint of nerves. Call it a habit leftover from being hunted by I.S. assassins, but I hated not knowing what people looked like when they knew what I looked like and they were looking for me.
A hand touched my shoulder lightly, and I spun too fast, my hand automatically diving into my bag for my splat gun.
"Ms. Morgan?" The man inquired lightly.
He was tall. I suspected he would tower over even Ivy, and his dark hair was spiked up with gel. Definitely human then. Witches favored other hair-care products. The line of his jaw looked as if it were chiseled from marble, and his eyes were a dark blue that was completely different from the shade of Kisten's eyes. I could get lost in them. He might not be a witch but that didn't stop me from reacting to the sheer magnetism of his presence.
"Yeah." I grimaced mentally and tried again. "Yes, I'm Ms. Morgan. You would be my 1:30?"
He took my hand firmly in his. I didn't even remember holding it out. He ran his fingers across the back of my hand with his other in a practiced gesture that spoke of a man who knew exactly how to get what he wanted.
"Ms. Morgan. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Brian Rafferty."
I yanked my hand back, barely resisting the urge to wipe it against my pants.
"What can Vampiric Charms do for you, Mr. Rafferty?" I asked, trying to get this meeting firmly back on a business footing. Surely this wasn't another guy who thought we were running an escort service, was it? Jenks would have at least made certain of that. Another hot flush of anger surged through me at the thought of him and I pushed it to the back of my mind to focus on business.
"I think someone's trying to kill me."
"Ah...isn't that more a problem for the I.S. or the FIB?" I usually didn't deal much with murders unless I was assisting the FIB. Both agencies frowned on civilians taking things into their own hands.
"The I.S. won't help me and the FIB can't!" For the first time his smooth facade started to crack. A faint sheen of sweat stood out on his forehead. "Look, Ms. Morgan, my last girlfriend was a witch. I'd never dated a witch before, and I was crazy about her. What I didn't realize was that, she was just plain crazy! She was dabbling in black magic and I didn't realize it until way too late. When I wanted out, she told me I was in too far and she wouldn't let me go. When I tried to leave, she threatened me." His voice was full of disbelief. "I didn't believe her until she blew up my car."
And I thought I had problems. "Weren't the I.S. willing to take action after that?"
"She convinced them it was an accident! The FIB were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, but they couldn't do anything against that crazy witch. She should be locked up." He was getting more and more worked up as he spoke. It was time to take control of the situation before it got out of hand.
"Okay, Mr. Rafferty-"
"Brian, please." In an instant his anger was gone and his charming smile had returned.
"Okay, Brian," I said, startled by the sudden change in his mood, but determined to get back on track. "You need to let met handle this from here. Give me her name and address and I'll go talk to her. Maybe I can talk some sense into her. If that doesn't work, I should at least be able to gather some solid evidence that you can take to the I.S." There was no way I was taking evidence back to them. I didn't need to bring myself back to their attention. I had enough trouble in my life at the moment, thank you very much. "I'll know what to look for, better than you would have."
The I.S. didn't always boast the sharpest cookies, but even they would have a hard time dismissing an exploding car. If they were it mostly likely meant that someone was paying them to look the other way. Yet another aspect of the I.S. that I was all too familiar with.
"Thank you, Rachel." His relief was obvious. "I don't know what else to do."
"The best thing you can do right now is lay low." Death threats I definitely knew how to handle. "Go to a hotel, somewhere you wouldn't normally stay. That way she won't be able to have spells waiting for you. And when you do get there don't leave. She won't be able to get at you that way. Also leave some salt in front of the threshold. It will interfere if anyone tries to use a disguise spell to get inside." It was the best advice I could give for someone who didn't have their own living vamp bodyguard.
He nodded anxiously. "Of course, I never would have thought of that."
I smiled confidently. "And that's why I'm the runner, Mr. Rafferty." I cleared my throat. "Now we need to talk payment." This guy had problems and I would take care of them, but it was going to cost him.
*** *** ***
The drive to the address that I'd been given wasn't long, hardly giving me any time to stew over my fight with Jenks. He'd been gone when I got back in the car, or at least I hadn't seen him and it wasn't like Jenks to hide out without saying anything to me. He wasn't afraid of a fight.
Whether I liked it or not, Jenks' opinion mattered to me. Not more than my own, but he was my friend and my partner. The time he'd spent away from the church when he was angry with Ivy and I had only showed me how much I needed him and missed him when he was gone. There was no way I would let that little pixy dictate how I felt, though.
I liked Ivy. That was plain, simple and without doubt. It also seemed that I liked the new, physical side of our relationship. My heart sped up just thinking about being close to Ivy again. What Jenks was saying - that Ivy and I didn't stand a chance - wasn't something I was willing to hear. I needed Ivy; she needed me. How could that be wrong?
I pounded the steering wheel with a fist. "Turn it!" Why did Jenks have to be so stubborn? I hissed. Why did the damn steering wheel have to be so hard. It hurt!
The address belonged to a small house on the left side of the street. I circled around the block once and then settled in to watch the place for a little while before I approached the house.
For over an hour, I sat there and didn't see anything unusual. No one approached the house. There were no animals out in the yard being prepared for sacrifice as part of a black curse. All in all it looked like a nice house in the middle of a nice, normal neighborhood. The yard was perfectly manicured, with flowers growing here and there with no weeds to spoil them.
I wrinkled my nose. It all looked a little bit too neat and tidy for me. I liked some disorder to keep things interesting.
Knowing it was time to quit stalling, I got out of the car, and went up to the house. I knocked on the door, almost not expecting an answer. It was the middle of the day after all, and whether she kept witch, human, were or vamp hours, she would likely be out now.
The door opened to reveal a middle aged witch with blond hair and a pretty smile. "Hi. Can I help you?"
She had that vaguely disoriented look that people always had when they'd been pulled away from whatever they were doing to get the door for someone unexpected.
"Patty Johnson?" I inquired. It was the name Mr. Rafferty had given me for his ex. There was always a chance that Mr. Rafferty was using me to cause trouble for this woman, of course, but that's why I was being discreet and going in to observe the situation before I made any accusations.
"Yes?" She still looked puzzled about why I was on her doorstep.
"My name's Rachel Morgan," I introduced myself just as politely. "I was hoping to talk to you about an incident involving your ex-boyfriends car. I believe it blew up?"
"Of course. Come on in." She hesitated just inside the door. "I'm sorry, Ms. Morgan, but I don't understand what that has to do with you. The I.S. has already been by."
"Oh, I'm not with the I.S. I'm just here about the insurance." Surely I'd been on enough runs with David by now that I could fake it long enough to get a look around the house.
"Oh, right." She gestured to the couch in the living room. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Sure." I waited a heartbeat until she'd drifted into the kitchen and then looked around the living room. I got up to take a look at the fireplace and froze as something caught my eye through the window. I caught a quick glimpse of a man as he slipped around the corner of the house towards the back. He wasn't holding any weapons that I could see, but then a witch wouldn't look armed unless, like me, they carried a splat gun. Assuming he was a witch. None of this made sense and all of it was starting to make me nervous.
Speaking of splat guns, I took mine out and made sure that it was still fully loaded with sleepy-time charms. There was no way to know what I'd walked into the middle of, but whatever it was, I knew I wanted to walk out of there in the same condition I'd gone in.
I turned to go find Patty in the kitchen and tried to duck as something rapidly filled my vision just before everything exploded and my world went black.
Author(s): Jaina
Fandom: The Hollows aka Rachel Morgan aka that series by Kim Harrison
Time frame: Post-Outlaw Demon Wails
Characters: Rachel Morgan, Ivy Tamwood, Jenks, Skimmer, etc.
Genre: Romance, action, drama
Summary: Rachel is forced to confront things that she'd prefer left undisturbed.
Beta: Many thanks to my both of my betas:
infinitlight and racethewind10. They both contribute a lot to this story and I'm grateful for their help and their patience. Disclaimer: All characters, and the universe that they go with belong to Kim Harrison. I'm just playing in the sandbox. No infringement is intended.
Prompt: #6 Dread
Notes: Some of the formatting on here is a bit wonky. I worked with it for a while and couldn't get it to do anything different so my apologies for the weirdness.
Part One || Part Two II Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight
Part Nine
My heels rang on the pavement as I walked towards the fountain. I swiped angrily at my eyes, wiping away what I hoped was the last evidence of tears. The pinkie ring that had been one of my Dad's last gifts to me would actually come in handy today, covering my reddened skin. Puffy eyes would completely ruin the badass runner look that I was working at the moment. I would need every bit of that look if the person who'd contacted me was every bit the dumb cookie that I expected them to be.
Even as distracted as I was, I couldn't help but smile as I stepped over the circle around the edges of the square. I had raised this very circle in the ever-after, and I'd done it without the help of a half-dozen other witches. Yeah, I was a kick-ass witch.
Looking around, I realized that Jenks had never told me anything about who I was supposed to be meeting, other than that they were human. That narrowed it down, but at least half the people walking through the plaza were human. It didn't help that much. Then again, I was pretty hard to miss. How many other people with untameable red hair, wearing a full set of leathers, would be standing here at this specific time of day? If he knew anything about me, I wouldn't be hard to identify at all.
That thought brought with it the first hint of nerves. Call it a habit leftover from being hunted by I.S. assassins, but I hated not knowing what people looked like when they knew what I looked like and they were looking for me.
A hand touched my shoulder lightly, and I spun too fast, my hand automatically diving into my bag for my splat gun.
"Ms. Morgan?" The man inquired lightly.
He was tall. I suspected he would tower over even Ivy, and his dark hair was spiked up with gel. Definitely human then. Witches favored other hair-care products. The line of his jaw looked as if it were chiseled from marble, and his eyes were a dark blue that was completely different from the shade of Kisten's eyes. I could get lost in them. He might not be a witch but that didn't stop me from reacting to the sheer magnetism of his presence.
"Yeah." I grimaced mentally and tried again. "Yes, I'm Ms. Morgan. You would be my 1:30?"
He took my hand firmly in his. I didn't even remember holding it out. He ran his fingers across the back of my hand with his other in a practiced gesture that spoke of a man who knew exactly how to get what he wanted.
"Ms. Morgan. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Brian Rafferty."
I yanked my hand back, barely resisting the urge to wipe it against my pants.
"What can Vampiric Charms do for you, Mr. Rafferty?" I asked, trying to get this meeting firmly back on a business footing. Surely this wasn't another guy who thought we were running an escort service, was it? Jenks would have at least made certain of that. Another hot flush of anger surged through me at the thought of him and I pushed it to the back of my mind to focus on business.
"I think someone's trying to kill me."
"Ah...isn't that more a problem for the I.S. or the FIB?" I usually didn't deal much with murders unless I was assisting the FIB. Both agencies frowned on civilians taking things into their own hands.
"The I.S. won't help me and the FIB can't!" For the first time his smooth facade started to crack. A faint sheen of sweat stood out on his forehead. "Look, Ms. Morgan, my last girlfriend was a witch. I'd never dated a witch before, and I was crazy about her. What I didn't realize was that, she was just plain crazy! She was dabbling in black magic and I didn't realize it until way too late. When I wanted out, she told me I was in too far and she wouldn't let me go. When I tried to leave, she threatened me." His voice was full of disbelief. "I didn't believe her until she blew up my car."
And I thought I had problems. "Weren't the I.S. willing to take action after that?"
"She convinced them it was an accident! The FIB were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, but they couldn't do anything against that crazy witch. She should be locked up." He was getting more and more worked up as he spoke. It was time to take control of the situation before it got out of hand.
"Okay, Mr. Rafferty-"
"Brian, please." In an instant his anger was gone and his charming smile had returned.
"Okay, Brian," I said, startled by the sudden change in his mood, but determined to get back on track. "You need to let met handle this from here. Give me her name and address and I'll go talk to her. Maybe I can talk some sense into her. If that doesn't work, I should at least be able to gather some solid evidence that you can take to the I.S." There was no way I was taking evidence back to them. I didn't need to bring myself back to their attention. I had enough trouble in my life at the moment, thank you very much. "I'll know what to look for, better than you would have."
The I.S. didn't always boast the sharpest cookies, but even they would have a hard time dismissing an exploding car. If they were it mostly likely meant that someone was paying them to look the other way. Yet another aspect of the I.S. that I was all too familiar with.
"Thank you, Rachel." His relief was obvious. "I don't know what else to do."
"The best thing you can do right now is lay low." Death threats I definitely knew how to handle. "Go to a hotel, somewhere you wouldn't normally stay. That way she won't be able to have spells waiting for you. And when you do get there don't leave. She won't be able to get at you that way. Also leave some salt in front of the threshold. It will interfere if anyone tries to use a disguise spell to get inside." It was the best advice I could give for someone who didn't have their own living vamp bodyguard.
He nodded anxiously. "Of course, I never would have thought of that."
I smiled confidently. "And that's why I'm the runner, Mr. Rafferty." I cleared my throat. "Now we need to talk payment." This guy had problems and I would take care of them, but it was going to cost him.
*** *** ***
The drive to the address that I'd been given wasn't long, hardly giving me any time to stew over my fight with Jenks. He'd been gone when I got back in the car, or at least I hadn't seen him and it wasn't like Jenks to hide out without saying anything to me. He wasn't afraid of a fight.
Whether I liked it or not, Jenks' opinion mattered to me. Not more than my own, but he was my friend and my partner. The time he'd spent away from the church when he was angry with Ivy and I had only showed me how much I needed him and missed him when he was gone. There was no way I would let that little pixy dictate how I felt, though.
I liked Ivy. That was plain, simple and without doubt. It also seemed that I liked the new, physical side of our relationship. My heart sped up just thinking about being close to Ivy again. What Jenks was saying - that Ivy and I didn't stand a chance - wasn't something I was willing to hear. I needed Ivy; she needed me. How could that be wrong?
I pounded the steering wheel with a fist. "Turn it!" Why did Jenks have to be so stubborn? I hissed. Why did the damn steering wheel have to be so hard. It hurt!
The address belonged to a small house on the left side of the street. I circled around the block once and then settled in to watch the place for a little while before I approached the house.
For over an hour, I sat there and didn't see anything unusual. No one approached the house. There were no animals out in the yard being prepared for sacrifice as part of a black curse. All in all it looked like a nice house in the middle of a nice, normal neighborhood. The yard was perfectly manicured, with flowers growing here and there with no weeds to spoil them.
I wrinkled my nose. It all looked a little bit too neat and tidy for me. I liked some disorder to keep things interesting.
Knowing it was time to quit stalling, I got out of the car, and went up to the house. I knocked on the door, almost not expecting an answer. It was the middle of the day after all, and whether she kept witch, human, were or vamp hours, she would likely be out now.
The door opened to reveal a middle aged witch with blond hair and a pretty smile. "Hi. Can I help you?"
She had that vaguely disoriented look that people always had when they'd been pulled away from whatever they were doing to get the door for someone unexpected.
"Patty Johnson?" I inquired. It was the name Mr. Rafferty had given me for his ex. There was always a chance that Mr. Rafferty was using me to cause trouble for this woman, of course, but that's why I was being discreet and going in to observe the situation before I made any accusations.
"Yes?" She still looked puzzled about why I was on her doorstep.
"My name's Rachel Morgan," I introduced myself just as politely. "I was hoping to talk to you about an incident involving your ex-boyfriends car. I believe it blew up?"
"Of course. Come on in." She hesitated just inside the door. "I'm sorry, Ms. Morgan, but I don't understand what that has to do with you. The I.S. has already been by."
"Oh, I'm not with the I.S. I'm just here about the insurance." Surely I'd been on enough runs with David by now that I could fake it long enough to get a look around the house.
"Oh, right." She gestured to the couch in the living room. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Sure." I waited a heartbeat until she'd drifted into the kitchen and then looked around the living room. I got up to take a look at the fireplace and froze as something caught my eye through the window. I caught a quick glimpse of a man as he slipped around the corner of the house towards the back. He wasn't holding any weapons that I could see, but then a witch wouldn't look armed unless, like me, they carried a splat gun. Assuming he was a witch. None of this made sense and all of it was starting to make me nervous.
Speaking of splat guns, I took mine out and made sure that it was still fully loaded with sleepy-time charms. There was no way to know what I'd walked into the middle of, but whatever it was, I knew I wanted to walk out of there in the same condition I'd gone in.
I turned to go find Patty in the kitchen and tried to duck as something rapidly filled my vision just before everything exploded and my world went black.
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From:
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but this? Does not need it. Spot on! And omg I can't believe you left it there!!
You SUUUCK! ;p Awesome chapter, I can't wait for more
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From:
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Heh, I'm smelling a rat here. Methinks someone set her up! *grin* And she does have such a long list of people who are out to get her, doesn't she?
Oh, Ivy is going to be so frantic and Jenks is so going to be kicking his own ass, isn't he? *grin*
*bounce* I eagerly anticipate the next update!
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