Lifeblood - Chapter Three
Jan. 23rd, 2021 01:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, Jack and Bobbi talked about sex, Jack and Escott talked about exorcism, and Jack took an important step that will not remotely effect anything later in this story.
We rejoin Jack as he's leaving Chicago for reasons as yet unknown. When he reaches Indianapolis, he gets a little lost and when he gets back to the main road, he realizes he's being followed by a black Lincoln. Vampirism has some perks though, because his night vision lets him actually see the occupants of the car: a hunched driver and a shorter man in a hat.
At some point, Jack pulls over and the car goes past him. He's still on edge though. After all, it's only been a few weeks since this all started. Being tortured to death makes someone jumpy.
So then we get a flashback to how Jack started out on this trip, which was apparently Escott's idea.
Jack wakes up to find Escott sitting in his room. Which is kind of creepy dude. Jack doesn't mind Escott's mid-day drop in visits though, because he always has a good reason. I'd still be creeped out, to be honest.
So anyway, Escott informs Jack that now that he's been paid by Mr. Swafford, he's been able to do some modest home improvements and look into the names on Jack's list. He wants some peace of mind.
Meanwhile, Jack is brushing his teeth. Apparently a diet of only blood makes for unpleasant breath. But "modern hygienic products" help with that.
Anyway, Escott's broken the code, and discovered that the list has two hundred names "with skeletons in the closet". It also has locations of blackmail items, documents or pictures, stashed in bus and train lockers. Escott has apparently started collecting.
Anyway, what Escott's been doing is returning the blackmail items, hand delivery. That sounds dangerous. Anyway, Escott thinks it's not up to him to "judge the follies of [his] fellows". Jack wonders whether the folks will think Escott's the blackmailer, and Escott gets a little flirty:
His eyes crinkled and he shook his head. "Hardly, because I don't look a bit like myself when I return the things."
"What do you look like?"
"Perhaps I shouldn't say, I might wish to try it on you sometime."
I don't want to know your role play scenarios, guys. Or actually, I kind of do.
Anyway, the stuff Escott's discovered so far are the usual: affairs, illegal business and tax fraud. Nothing too interesting, though he does tease Jack that a name of Hoover is involved. ("He looked smug and left me guessing which Hoover: Herbert, J. Edgar, or the vacuum cleaner.")
That's when the bellhop comes up with Jack's newspapers. Escott is surprised by the number, while Jack checks the personal ads of the first one. His notice is gone. And of course, there's no reply. Escott is curious, so Jack explains the whole thing with the ad, and why he'd had it cancelled.
"If she were alive… she would have…" I wanted to pace, but the room was too small. Instead I took the paper from him and shoved it back in the trash. As an afterthought I threw the rest of them on top with it. "I looked for her. I'm no amateur, I know how to look for people, but this was like she dropped off the face of the earth."
"You still have doubts," he said kindly.
"I shouldn't after all this time. I've got Bobbi to think of now. I’ve got a different life ahead of me."
"And an unresolved question in your past. I would like to help, if you'll allow me."
Aw. Escott's the best. He was planning to go to New York anyway, so he's volunteering to check around, noting that whether he finds good or bad news, it'd be better than nothing at all. Jack picks up on a personal note here and says Escott knows what that's like. Escott disclaims that he has an imagination.
Jack clearly isn't fooled, but he goes along with Escott's change of subject.
We get an update on Bobbi: she's doing better. She's quit the club (Gordy, that henchman from the last book that was more neutral than unfriendly, is running it.) Now she's doing local broadcast shows. Next week though, she'll be on her first national broadcast. Jack will be driving her to the studio.
Woo! Go Bobbi!
Anyway, since Escott will be out of town in New York, he asks Jack to stay at his house. He's expecting a shipment and would be glad to have someone receive it. Jack's on board, as long as the delivery is after dark. Escott will have a key made.
...this is rather fascinating in light of my comments last chapter about Bobbi never going to Jack's living quarters. It's not that I think Escott and Jack are closer than Jack and Bobbi. But I think there are different dynamics at play with both. Happily not incompatible dynamics. (OT3!)
Anyway, Escott has something else in common with Bobbi: he's been reading Dracula. ("You have my sympathy." says Jack.) He thinks that Jack having multiple boxes of earth would be helpful. The fact that Jack only has one trunkful makes him vulnerable.
Jack's not opposed, but he hasn't had time recently. He points out that there's no rush. Who believes in vampires nowadays?
"Myself, Miss Smythe, Gordy, and anyone else who might notice your lack of a reflection in a mirror or window and think it peculiar. Consider it a safety measure. Suppose there's a fire, or someone steals your trunk?"
Fair point, Escott. Jack agrees. Escott offers to store the earth in is cellar until Jack can work out a few safe places to stash it. AWWW. He also provides Jack with a few canvas bags, which he'd brought ahead of time, because Escott is like that.
So anyway, that's why Jack's out driving now. He has three dozen empty sandbags (...that's a LOT of earth), a shovel, some rope, and a new, smaller trunk. We're told that the one he originally bought to rest in is now in Escott's basement. This new trunk is a bit more cramped, but a lot easier to carry.
You know, you could move in with Escott. I'm sure Bobbi wouldn't mind.
Anyway, as he's passing through another small town, the black Lincoln appears again. With its headlights off. Ooo. The night's black enough that Jack knows they were deliberately lying in wait.
So, now who are they?
Jack's initial thought is that these are Chicago mobsters, but Jack knows full well that those sorts are shoot first, question never types. It would have been pretty easy to drive along side and shoot Jack. Eventually, Jack gets bored of this game and gets out of the car.
They came over the hill, their lights still off. My estimate of their common sense was less than flattering, but the lack of extra glare was fine with me; their faces were now visible.
The one on the left was a scrawny brown chicken of a man in his late fifties, wearing a hat with a brim too big for him. The driver seemed to be of average height, but looked larger compared to his companion. From the look of his pocked skin and wet eyes, he was hardly out of his teens.
Both men saw me at the same time, and both registered the same expression: wide-eyed terror. Had it not been so genuine I would have laughed; as it was I resisted the impulse to look behind me, instinctively knowing that I was the inspiration for their fear.
I love the thought that Jack still has the urge to look behind him rather than realize he can be scary.
So anyway, the driver freaks out and hits the gas. Jack gets back in the car to follow, leaving his own headlights off (theirs are on now). HE can see fine at night.
Jack memorizes the license plate and realizes these guys are from New York. As far as Jack knows, he hasn't pissed off anyone in New York, so he's befuddled. This part makes me laugh:
There was Escott, but I trusted him. Besides, these two bozos were too amateurish to be connected with him. The same thing applied to Bobbi. Selma Jenks and her large friend Sled came to mind, but first they'd have to break jail or send someone after me—nope, that was too screwy even for Miss Jenks.
The only one left was a mob strong arm named Gordy, but it didn't fit with him, either. If he had a grudge on me, and he didn't, he'd handle it himself and much more efficiently.
I love that Jack's first thought for Escott AND Bobbi is that they'd hire better underlings if they wanted to take him out.
So anyway, the car eventually stops. They're backed off the road behind trees and brush. Jack notes that it's the same sort of hideout cops use to catch speeders. They're plotting an ambush. Jack pulls over as well. Quietly.
So jack creeps over, sabotages one of their tires, and then materializes right by the driver's side window to ask who they are.
We get some very vivid descriptions here:
Close up, the kid looked younger than I thought; his face still had the lingering softness of baby fat.
There was a layer of smooth fat all over his body that didn't suit his years or his sex, and he'd have to lay off the sweets or the problem would get worse with time. Between that and a colorful display of pimples in various stages of development and decay, I couldn't think he was much past eighteen. I'd seen younger thugs, but this guy didn't fit the mold.
His partner looked the age I guessed, past fifty or so. His hat was off now, revealing a thick growth of greasy hair that was too black to be true. His face had two deep scores on the cheeks, which were repeated countless times on the dry brown skin of his throat. He made me think of Boris Karloff in The Mummy , as though all the water had been squeezed out.
Understandably, these dudes freak out. The old guy starts hitting Jack with his shoe of all things, which bemuses Jack and me. Jack punches the old guy out, then knocks the breath from the kid and swipes his wallet.
The kid is Matheus Webber. The old guy is James Braxton, and he owns a Manhattan bookstore. Jack thinks Braxton looks familiar. So once Matheus gets his breath back. Jack starts questioning him. Matheus blubbers uselessly and Jack contemplates doing the same kind of thing to them that he'd done to Selma Jenks. But he holds off. They annoyed him, but they hadn't done any real harm.
So Jack softens his approach and offers a cigarette. The kid doesn't smoke, but Jack's actions seem to loosen the kid up anyway. He gets some answers:
They know who he is. Or at least Braxton did. They want to see where Jack is going for the day. And they know what Jack is. The kid starts freaking out and Jack offers him a handkerchief and gets rather sardonic:
I shook my head. "Van Helsing you're not."
He stiffened again. "You know about that?"
"What, Dracula! Yeah, reading it is one of the requirements for joining the union. Maybe you've heard of us, the International Brotherhood of Vampires. I'm with Chicago Local three eleven."
The kid actually takes him seriously, which says enough right there. Braxton (old guy) is clearly the brains of the operation. Jack urges them to go back to New York, saying that they don't need to be chasing vampires in the wilds of Indiana. Then he asks how they "latch[ed] on to [him.]"
INTERESTING:
"The papers."
"What about them?"
"Your ad stopped."
This was a can of worms I hadn't expected. "Tell me about the ad."
"It stopped and we wanted to know why, so we called the papers and got your address."
So this is unexpected. The kid doesn't know anything about Maureen, but Braxton had. Apparently, he knew that Maureen was a vampire and that Jack had been with her, and there was a chance that Jack had become a vampire.
And more interesting:
"Uh-uh. He said he lost her trail, you were his only lead. When the ads stopped he thought you'd found her or that you'd died…" The realization that he was talking to a dead man must have hit him all over again. He sat with his arms dangling, looking at me with helpless horror.
This sounds like MAUREEN is the target here. Not Jack. Jack is a means to an end. Braxton knew what Jack looked like but they'd expected someone much older. Indeed, Jack is actually thirty-six (...something that seems a lot younger now than when I first read these books) but due to vampiric whatever, he now looks about twenty-two.
Anyway, they followed, and saw that he'd gone to the Stockyards, so now they definitely know he's a vampire. They followed. Jack asks if they were biding their time until dawn, and then he'd get a stake in the heart and garlic.
Jack leans on the kid's discomfort, and emphasizes that he's basically a nice guy with a medical condition. He notes that except for some physical and dietary restrictions, there's nothing bad about being a vampire. He seems to be having an effect on the kid, but that's when Braxton himself wakes up.
"Don't listen to him, Matheus!" It was the mummy, Braxton. He'd come awake and was struggling to pull himself together. He lurched from the car, looking ridiculous as he waved his shoe in one hand like a weapon. After a second he realized a shoe was hardly appropriate, so he dropped it and pulled a big silver cross from his pants pocket.
I stood up, uncertain how to react at this point. Crosses don't affect me unless they're large, wooden, and used as a club on my head. My theory on this is that I'm not an evil creature; the use of a cross against a vampire is primarily an invention of the stage and Hollywood. Having the vampire cowering away from one makes for a good dramatic scene, but in reality, things are far different. If these guys were ignorant enough to rely on one for protection, it might be in my best interest to play along. On the other hand, Braxton might just be trying to test me.
Braxton goes all "Back, you demon!" and accuses Jack of trying to hypnotize Matheus. Jack notes that Braxton was the kind of "dedicated crazy" that Jack used to occasionally interview. He wonders if he'd talked to the guy on assignment.
So Braxton keeps dramatically commanding Jack to leave. Jack continues to be unimpressed, pointing out that THEY were following HIM. He's willing to let them go, but Braxton declares they'll follow him as long as necessary. Jack tells Matheus to talk sense into him, if he were evil, he could have just killed them both. He tells them to stay out of his way, and dramatically exits. Once he's out of sight, he mists up and goes back to eavesdrop.
Braxton is of course confident that Jack was trying to brainwash Matheus. They plan to wait and follow Jack again. For all his dubious information, Braxton knows a few important facts: Jack needs home earth and he's from Cincinnati.
Jack realizes that the guy thinks he's only just changed. (Presumably coinciding with the pulled ad.) To his credit, Matheus DOES try to point out that Jack could have killed them. Braxton says that Jack was lying and that Jack had been the one to give ground.
So Jack drives off. They get ready to follow...only to have a flat tire. Oops. Jack notes that he's got at least ten minutes for Matheus to change the tire, a lot longer "with Braxton helping him" (it's interesting that, as ineffectual as the kid looks, Jack seems to have twigged onto him as the genuinely more competent of the two), and Jack plans to enjoy that lead.
The chapter ends here. Looks like the plot has arrived!
We rejoin Jack as he's leaving Chicago for reasons as yet unknown. When he reaches Indianapolis, he gets a little lost and when he gets back to the main road, he realizes he's being followed by a black Lincoln. Vampirism has some perks though, because his night vision lets him actually see the occupants of the car: a hunched driver and a shorter man in a hat.
At some point, Jack pulls over and the car goes past him. He's still on edge though. After all, it's only been a few weeks since this all started. Being tortured to death makes someone jumpy.
So then we get a flashback to how Jack started out on this trip, which was apparently Escott's idea.
Jack wakes up to find Escott sitting in his room. Which is kind of creepy dude. Jack doesn't mind Escott's mid-day drop in visits though, because he always has a good reason. I'd still be creeped out, to be honest.
So anyway, Escott informs Jack that now that he's been paid by Mr. Swafford, he's been able to do some modest home improvements and look into the names on Jack's list. He wants some peace of mind.
Meanwhile, Jack is brushing his teeth. Apparently a diet of only blood makes for unpleasant breath. But "modern hygienic products" help with that.
Anyway, Escott's broken the code, and discovered that the list has two hundred names "with skeletons in the closet". It also has locations of blackmail items, documents or pictures, stashed in bus and train lockers. Escott has apparently started collecting.
Anyway, what Escott's been doing is returning the blackmail items, hand delivery. That sounds dangerous. Anyway, Escott thinks it's not up to him to "judge the follies of [his] fellows". Jack wonders whether the folks will think Escott's the blackmailer, and Escott gets a little flirty:
His eyes crinkled and he shook his head. "Hardly, because I don't look a bit like myself when I return the things."
"What do you look like?"
"Perhaps I shouldn't say, I might wish to try it on you sometime."
I don't want to know your role play scenarios, guys. Or actually, I kind of do.
Anyway, the stuff Escott's discovered so far are the usual: affairs, illegal business and tax fraud. Nothing too interesting, though he does tease Jack that a name of Hoover is involved. ("He looked smug and left me guessing which Hoover: Herbert, J. Edgar, or the vacuum cleaner.")
That's when the bellhop comes up with Jack's newspapers. Escott is surprised by the number, while Jack checks the personal ads of the first one. His notice is gone. And of course, there's no reply. Escott is curious, so Jack explains the whole thing with the ad, and why he'd had it cancelled.
"If she were alive… she would have…" I wanted to pace, but the room was too small. Instead I took the paper from him and shoved it back in the trash. As an afterthought I threw the rest of them on top with it. "I looked for her. I'm no amateur, I know how to look for people, but this was like she dropped off the face of the earth."
"You still have doubts," he said kindly.
"I shouldn't after all this time. I've got Bobbi to think of now. I’ve got a different life ahead of me."
"And an unresolved question in your past. I would like to help, if you'll allow me."
Aw. Escott's the best. He was planning to go to New York anyway, so he's volunteering to check around, noting that whether he finds good or bad news, it'd be better than nothing at all. Jack picks up on a personal note here and says Escott knows what that's like. Escott disclaims that he has an imagination.
Jack clearly isn't fooled, but he goes along with Escott's change of subject.
We get an update on Bobbi: she's doing better. She's quit the club (Gordy, that henchman from the last book that was more neutral than unfriendly, is running it.) Now she's doing local broadcast shows. Next week though, she'll be on her first national broadcast. Jack will be driving her to the studio.
Woo! Go Bobbi!
Anyway, since Escott will be out of town in New York, he asks Jack to stay at his house. He's expecting a shipment and would be glad to have someone receive it. Jack's on board, as long as the delivery is after dark. Escott will have a key made.
...this is rather fascinating in light of my comments last chapter about Bobbi never going to Jack's living quarters. It's not that I think Escott and Jack are closer than Jack and Bobbi. But I think there are different dynamics at play with both. Happily not incompatible dynamics. (OT3!)
Anyway, Escott has something else in common with Bobbi: he's been reading Dracula. ("You have my sympathy." says Jack.) He thinks that Jack having multiple boxes of earth would be helpful. The fact that Jack only has one trunkful makes him vulnerable.
Jack's not opposed, but he hasn't had time recently. He points out that there's no rush. Who believes in vampires nowadays?
"Myself, Miss Smythe, Gordy, and anyone else who might notice your lack of a reflection in a mirror or window and think it peculiar. Consider it a safety measure. Suppose there's a fire, or someone steals your trunk?"
Fair point, Escott. Jack agrees. Escott offers to store the earth in is cellar until Jack can work out a few safe places to stash it. AWWW. He also provides Jack with a few canvas bags, which he'd brought ahead of time, because Escott is like that.
So anyway, that's why Jack's out driving now. He has three dozen empty sandbags (...that's a LOT of earth), a shovel, some rope, and a new, smaller trunk. We're told that the one he originally bought to rest in is now in Escott's basement. This new trunk is a bit more cramped, but a lot easier to carry.
You know, you could move in with Escott. I'm sure Bobbi wouldn't mind.
Anyway, as he's passing through another small town, the black Lincoln appears again. With its headlights off. Ooo. The night's black enough that Jack knows they were deliberately lying in wait.
So, now who are they?
Jack's initial thought is that these are Chicago mobsters, but Jack knows full well that those sorts are shoot first, question never types. It would have been pretty easy to drive along side and shoot Jack. Eventually, Jack gets bored of this game and gets out of the car.
They came over the hill, their lights still off. My estimate of their common sense was less than flattering, but the lack of extra glare was fine with me; their faces were now visible.
The one on the left was a scrawny brown chicken of a man in his late fifties, wearing a hat with a brim too big for him. The driver seemed to be of average height, but looked larger compared to his companion. From the look of his pocked skin and wet eyes, he was hardly out of his teens.
Both men saw me at the same time, and both registered the same expression: wide-eyed terror. Had it not been so genuine I would have laughed; as it was I resisted the impulse to look behind me, instinctively knowing that I was the inspiration for their fear.
I love the thought that Jack still has the urge to look behind him rather than realize he can be scary.
So anyway, the driver freaks out and hits the gas. Jack gets back in the car to follow, leaving his own headlights off (theirs are on now). HE can see fine at night.
Jack memorizes the license plate and realizes these guys are from New York. As far as Jack knows, he hasn't pissed off anyone in New York, so he's befuddled. This part makes me laugh:
There was Escott, but I trusted him. Besides, these two bozos were too amateurish to be connected with him. The same thing applied to Bobbi. Selma Jenks and her large friend Sled came to mind, but first they'd have to break jail or send someone after me—nope, that was too screwy even for Miss Jenks.
The only one left was a mob strong arm named Gordy, but it didn't fit with him, either. If he had a grudge on me, and he didn't, he'd handle it himself and much more efficiently.
I love that Jack's first thought for Escott AND Bobbi is that they'd hire better underlings if they wanted to take him out.
So anyway, the car eventually stops. They're backed off the road behind trees and brush. Jack notes that it's the same sort of hideout cops use to catch speeders. They're plotting an ambush. Jack pulls over as well. Quietly.
So jack creeps over, sabotages one of their tires, and then materializes right by the driver's side window to ask who they are.
We get some very vivid descriptions here:
Close up, the kid looked younger than I thought; his face still had the lingering softness of baby fat.
There was a layer of smooth fat all over his body that didn't suit his years or his sex, and he'd have to lay off the sweets or the problem would get worse with time. Between that and a colorful display of pimples in various stages of development and decay, I couldn't think he was much past eighteen. I'd seen younger thugs, but this guy didn't fit the mold.
His partner looked the age I guessed, past fifty or so. His hat was off now, revealing a thick growth of greasy hair that was too black to be true. His face had two deep scores on the cheeks, which were repeated countless times on the dry brown skin of his throat. He made me think of Boris Karloff in The Mummy , as though all the water had been squeezed out.
Understandably, these dudes freak out. The old guy starts hitting Jack with his shoe of all things, which bemuses Jack and me. Jack punches the old guy out, then knocks the breath from the kid and swipes his wallet.
The kid is Matheus Webber. The old guy is James Braxton, and he owns a Manhattan bookstore. Jack thinks Braxton looks familiar. So once Matheus gets his breath back. Jack starts questioning him. Matheus blubbers uselessly and Jack contemplates doing the same kind of thing to them that he'd done to Selma Jenks. But he holds off. They annoyed him, but they hadn't done any real harm.
So Jack softens his approach and offers a cigarette. The kid doesn't smoke, but Jack's actions seem to loosen the kid up anyway. He gets some answers:
They know who he is. Or at least Braxton did. They want to see where Jack is going for the day. And they know what Jack is. The kid starts freaking out and Jack offers him a handkerchief and gets rather sardonic:
I shook my head. "Van Helsing you're not."
He stiffened again. "You know about that?"
"What, Dracula! Yeah, reading it is one of the requirements for joining the union. Maybe you've heard of us, the International Brotherhood of Vampires. I'm with Chicago Local three eleven."
The kid actually takes him seriously, which says enough right there. Braxton (old guy) is clearly the brains of the operation. Jack urges them to go back to New York, saying that they don't need to be chasing vampires in the wilds of Indiana. Then he asks how they "latch[ed] on to [him.]"
INTERESTING:
"The papers."
"What about them?"
"Your ad stopped."
This was a can of worms I hadn't expected. "Tell me about the ad."
"It stopped and we wanted to know why, so we called the papers and got your address."
So this is unexpected. The kid doesn't know anything about Maureen, but Braxton had. Apparently, he knew that Maureen was a vampire and that Jack had been with her, and there was a chance that Jack had become a vampire.
And more interesting:
"Uh-uh. He said he lost her trail, you were his only lead. When the ads stopped he thought you'd found her or that you'd died…" The realization that he was talking to a dead man must have hit him all over again. He sat with his arms dangling, looking at me with helpless horror.
This sounds like MAUREEN is the target here. Not Jack. Jack is a means to an end. Braxton knew what Jack looked like but they'd expected someone much older. Indeed, Jack is actually thirty-six (...something that seems a lot younger now than when I first read these books) but due to vampiric whatever, he now looks about twenty-two.
Anyway, they followed, and saw that he'd gone to the Stockyards, so now they definitely know he's a vampire. They followed. Jack asks if they were biding their time until dawn, and then he'd get a stake in the heart and garlic.
Jack leans on the kid's discomfort, and emphasizes that he's basically a nice guy with a medical condition. He notes that except for some physical and dietary restrictions, there's nothing bad about being a vampire. He seems to be having an effect on the kid, but that's when Braxton himself wakes up.
"Don't listen to him, Matheus!" It was the mummy, Braxton. He'd come awake and was struggling to pull himself together. He lurched from the car, looking ridiculous as he waved his shoe in one hand like a weapon. After a second he realized a shoe was hardly appropriate, so he dropped it and pulled a big silver cross from his pants pocket.
I stood up, uncertain how to react at this point. Crosses don't affect me unless they're large, wooden, and used as a club on my head. My theory on this is that I'm not an evil creature; the use of a cross against a vampire is primarily an invention of the stage and Hollywood. Having the vampire cowering away from one makes for a good dramatic scene, but in reality, things are far different. If these guys were ignorant enough to rely on one for protection, it might be in my best interest to play along. On the other hand, Braxton might just be trying to test me.
Braxton goes all "Back, you demon!" and accuses Jack of trying to hypnotize Matheus. Jack notes that Braxton was the kind of "dedicated crazy" that Jack used to occasionally interview. He wonders if he'd talked to the guy on assignment.
So Braxton keeps dramatically commanding Jack to leave. Jack continues to be unimpressed, pointing out that THEY were following HIM. He's willing to let them go, but Braxton declares they'll follow him as long as necessary. Jack tells Matheus to talk sense into him, if he were evil, he could have just killed them both. He tells them to stay out of his way, and dramatically exits. Once he's out of sight, he mists up and goes back to eavesdrop.
Braxton is of course confident that Jack was trying to brainwash Matheus. They plan to wait and follow Jack again. For all his dubious information, Braxton knows a few important facts: Jack needs home earth and he's from Cincinnati.
Jack realizes that the guy thinks he's only just changed. (Presumably coinciding with the pulled ad.) To his credit, Matheus DOES try to point out that Jack could have killed them. Braxton says that Jack was lying and that Jack had been the one to give ground.
So Jack drives off. They get ready to follow...only to have a flat tire. Oops. Jack notes that he's got at least ten minutes for Matheus to change the tire, a lot longer "with Braxton helping him" (it's interesting that, as ineffectual as the kid looks, Jack seems to have twigged onto him as the genuinely more competent of the two), and Jack plans to enjoy that lead.
The chapter ends here. Looks like the plot has arrived!
no subject
Date: 2021-01-24 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-25 11:55 pm (UTC)I stood up, uncertain how to react at this point. Crosses don't affect me unless they're large, wooden, and used as a club on my head. My theory on this is that I'm not an evil creature; the use of a cross against a vampire is primarily an invention of the stage and Hollywood. Having the vampire cowering away from one makes for a good dramatic scene, but in reality, things are far different. If these guys were ignorant enough to rely on one for protection, it might be in my best interest to play along. On the other hand, Braxton might just be trying to test me.
Nice subversion of a cliche I couldn't get behind ever, and the whole thing was actually witty.
Though if the old guy managed to kill a vampire with a shoe, either the vampires are Partially Kissed Hero level of wimpy of he is a complete badass.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-26 02:18 am (UTC)