Savannah Returns (PG-13) Chapter 7

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MickLifeCrisis
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Savannah Returns (PG-13) Chapter 7

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Disclaimer: I do not own Moonlight or any of its characters.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Mick, Beth, Josef and my OCs Kylie Jenkins and Savannah.


Chapter 7


Aaron’s declaration that Isaac Foster was now Josef Kostan took Jason by surprise. If I keep him talking, there will be more time for someone to find me. Surely Savannah has contacted Josef by now, he thought to himself. “How did you find me?”

“How did I find you? Easy. You screwed up.”

“What?”

“You and your little freshie playing house. Got yourself a big write-up in the Chicago Times, didn’t you? Picture and everything. I recognized you from that old drawing of my dad’s. I certainly stared at it often enough growing up.”

Shit! “I don’t look anything like that drawing anymore.”

“True. And I wasn’t sure at first. But I thought it could be you. Still in the U.P. and with the same initials. I figured it was worth the drive Up North to find out.” Aaron began to pace back and forth in front of Jason. “And the whole time in the car I kept remembering what it was like growing up after dad gave up the mine. Always struggling to make ends meet.”

“What struggling? I paid your father good money.”

“It didn’t last long. He poured it into other endeavors and get-rich-quick schemes. He was a failure at those too,” Aaron spat out. “Pretty soon he didn’t believe he could ever be successful at anything, so he gave up trying. He sat around the house and drank.”

“I never would have expected Levi to turn out like that. I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you! You didn’t give a shit what happened to us.” Aaron continued pacing. “My mother kept telling him to find someone to turn him, so he could become powerful and reclaim what was his. But he was too scared. Figured he’d be a failure as a vampire and would end up just as miserable as he was at the time, only for eternity.” Aaron spit again in disgust. “He drank himself into an early death.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason repeated.

“Good riddance, I say,” Aaron countered.


MLMLMLML


Savannah held her tourist map next to Josef’s old mining map. “Here and here are the mines that are currently open for tours. This one is the biggest.”

“It’s pretty deep, too, as I recall,” said Josef. “Lots of places to hide.”

“Except that almost all of the lower levels are now underwater,” Savannah said. “I took the tour and the lowest level accessible is seven.”

“Hmm,” Josef said to himself as he studied the map. “Even at level seven there are a lot of back passages.”

“I thought you never went into the mines?” Beth asked Josef.

“I didn’t do physical labor in the mines…” Josef started to say.

“Of course not,” Mick mumbled.

Josef glared at him before continuing. “But I did go into the mines. I could probably find some back entrances, as well.”

“So we think this is where Jason is being held?” Kylie asked.

Mick sighed. “It’s our best bet. We have to start somewhere.”

“How did Aaron drag a paralyzed vampire into a tourist attraction without being seen?” Kylie asked again.

Josef shrugged. “At night, I guess. Vampires have excellent night vision. And it wouldn’t surprise me that Aaron had some old maps like this of his father’s.”

“Josef, I think you should call that number Aaron Walker wrote on the bottom of the photograph he mailed to you. We need to know what he wants so we can formulate our plan.”

Josef nodded and dialed his phone. The call went to a voice mail where there was a message for Josef demanding $175 million in cash and a location to meet.

“He’s proposing I bring the money to this place here,” he said as he bent over and pointed at the map. “And then he’ll lead me to where Jason is,” Josef told Mick. “Like that will happen.”

“That would work, you know,” Mick told him. “It would separate Jason and Aaron and give us a better chance to rescue Jason.”

“But there’s no way that I would ever agree to something like that!” Josef protested. “He would have to know that, wouldn’t he?”

“Not necessarily,” Mick replied. “He’s from Chicago. I know you have a reputation, Josef, but I doubt this guy’s aware of it. If he were, he would never have tried to blackmail you to begin with.”

“True, true,” Josef said and thought for a minute. “How about if I leave a message for him saying I will bring half the money, and he will get the rest when he turns over Jason.”

“And pick a different location. Farther away from the mines,” Beth suggested. Josef nodded and made the call.

“Now, when do we go into the mine to find Jason?” Savannah asked as she stood up straight.

Josef looked directly at her. “‘We’ are not going anywhere,” he stated flatly.


MLMLMLML


“What happened to your mother?” Jason asked, trying to keep Aaron talking.

“My mother? While my old man was going broke trying all his money-making schemes, my mother ended up feeding every vamp that came knocking on the back door. It made her old before her time.”

“She could have told them no.”

Aaron stared at Jason in disbelief. “Like hell,” he scoffed. “If you were a woman with a kid to take care of would you risk telling them no? Some of them would take have taken her off the feeding list permanently. And she didn’t want to leave me with a deadbeat dad.”

“After your dad died, did she want to be turned?”

“No. Said she was too old and wasn’t pretty anymore. She didn’t want eternity looking like that. She used to show me those pictures and tell me how our family had been cheated out of a fortune. She blamed you, Foster and my dad all the time for her lot in life.” Aaron paused before continuing. “On her death bed she begged me to become a vampire. She wanted me to be powerful. Wanted me to seek revenge. So I promised her I would find someone to turn me.”

“And how did you like your new powers?”

Aaron sat down on the tunnel floor across from Jason and leaned his head against the wall. “It was harder than I thought it would be. I guess I expected to just automatically gain wealth and stature. It was disappointing to find out I still had to work for a living.”

“Eternity wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, eh?”

“Hell, no. I started looking for you and Foster soon after. Couldn’t find a trace. Then I heard you had both been killed in a mining accident. So I gave up. I was turning into a failure, just like my old man.”

“The accident was Isaac’s idea. It was time for us to disappear and start over again with new identities. Which reminds me… how DID you figure out that Isaac Foster was Josef Kostan?”

Aaron let out a sly smile. “I’m in the financial industry. A lousy middle-manager stuck in a cubicle. One night I’m checking the web and I see a news story and pictures about the well-known hotshot hedge fund trader Josef Kostan being involved in some charity scam. Everyone in the business knew about it.”

“So?”

“So shut-up and listen!” Aaron yelled as he jumped to his feet and began once again to pace pack forth. “I didn’t think much about it at the time. Then a few weeks ago I see the story in the newspaper about you and your inn Up North. I drove up and stayed for a weekend. Saw all the pictures on that wall, including the same drawings my dad had. And that’s when I recognized Josef Kostan as the bartender.”


MLMLMLML


Savannah stared right back at Josef. “I am going with you. Jason may be injured and he’ll need me.”

“I am not going to take a young human woman with me. And that includes you too, Kylie,” Josef said as he caught a glimpse of Kylie getting ready to protest.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Savannah said.

Josef glared at her with silvered eyes. “I can and I will.”

Everyone could feel the fear rolling off of Savannah, but she didn’t back down. “I am going. I have to help. I’ll go without you if I have to.”

Beth put an arm around Savannah. “Savannah, be reasonable. You can’t go alone. You won’t save Jason that way and he wouldn’t want you to take that kind of risk.”

Savannah turned to look at Beth and then back at Josef, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her. “Then I’m going with you,” she said flatly.

The heavy silence hung in the air. Savannah and Josef continued to match stares, while the eyes of Mick, Beth and Kylie darted around the room, looking at them and each other. Swallowing hard, Kylie stood up and moved next to Savannah.

“I’m going with you, too.”

Josef immediately broke off his eye contact with Savannah to glare at Kylie. “My personal freshies will do as they are told. You are not endangering yourself this way. You are not going.”

Kylie’s lower lip quivered, but she stood firm. “Mr. Kostan…” Josef flinched at the formality. “You can tell me what to do when at your mansion or when I’m officially accompanying you elsewhere. I realize you gave me time off to come up here, but I did not come with you. And while I will gladly feed you while you are here, I am not here as your personal freshie. And so in this particular situation, I feel you do not have the right to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

“You would defy me?”

“I mean no disrespect. But this is something I have to do,” Kyle answered, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“What if I decide your services were no longer needed at my mansion?”

The blood drained from Kylie’s normally rosy cheeks, yet she still didn’t back down. “Then I will return to work at The Moonlight Club.”

“And if I should blackball you? You’d never work as a freshie in LA again.”

“Josef, you wouldn’t!” Beth interjected.

“Stay out of this Beth,” Josef warned without looking at her.

Savannah grabbed Kylie’s hand. “Then she can stay up here and work at the inn with me.”

Kylie turned and smiled gratefully at Savannah, then looked once more at Josef.

“You would do that?” Josef asked her. “Give up your luxury in LA to move to… to this?” he said as he waved his arm around the rustic surroundings.

“I thought you knew me better than that, Josef. I grew up on a farm. I’ve never been one to crave luxury and I’m not afraid of hard work.”

To everyone’s surprise, Josef smiled. “I do know you, Kylie. And you reacted just as I thought you would.”

“What?”

“Josef!” Beth said in shock. “Do you mean this was some kind of test for Kylie?”

Josef nodded. “I wanted to see what she was made of. And you stood behind your convictions just as I expected.”

Kylie and Savannah were speechless. Mick looked up at the ceiling and drew his hands down his face. Beth looked ready to explode.

“Now,” said Josef. “Let’s come up with a plan that will hopefully keep all of us alive.”



To be continued...
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librarian_7
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Re: Savannah Returns (PG-13) Chapter 7

Post by librarian_7 »

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: That's definitely the Josef we all know and love! :teeth:

Good chapter. And that Aaron is an idiot.
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Re: Savannah Returns (PG-13) Chapter 7

Post by allegrita »

Geez, Josef!! :noway: He had me going for a minute there. I think Mick wants to kick him just a little bit. :winky: And I know Beth does! :snicker: But Savannah and Kylie really proved themselves. I'm proud of them. :hug: :hearts:

Lucky's right. Aaron is an idiot. And a big creep, too. :nonono:
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Re: Savannah Returns (PG-13) Chapter 7

Post by MickLifeCrisis »

:laugh: Thanks Lucky and Alle! I was a little worried about that Josef part. :phew:

And yeah, I don't think Aaron is the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree!
:giggle:
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