Unlucky - Chapter 3 (conclusion) PG
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 11:54 pm
Disclaimer: I don't own Moonlight and certainly don't make any money for writing. No copyright infringement is intended. The characters and situations of Moonlight are the property of...whoever owns them. Not me.
Initially, I forgot to credit a kind and brilliant lady around here, one of our fabulous Mods, Llbrarian7 or Lucky, as we call her. She agreed to look over the story and make some suggestions. If the story is not terrible, thank Lucky. If I wasn't able to salvage it, that's my own fault. Lucky, I am so sorry for forgetting to do this when I first put it up!!!
Unlucky - Chapter 3 (conclusion)
Allyn rushed ack to where Eric had left her, huddled beside Mick. She landed beside him on her hands and knees, panting. Mick had put his hands behind his back and lay back down where Eric had thrown him, thinking of his disgarded bonds lying in plain sight by the wall. Their ruse was a long shot, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances. Eric opened the door and looked at them nervously. His sister didn’t have to work very hard to summon a few tears, but mostly she just looked furious and afraid.
He closed the door without a word and they heard the padlock snap closed again.
Allyn smiled tightly at Mick and nodded at the shelf. “Come on--but be quiet, or we’re both dead! Can you help me move this?”
Mick followed her over and moved to one side of the metal shelving unit. He ran his hand over the cold grey metal. He’d seen these before. They could do this.
‘On three,’ he mouthed silently. ‘One. Two, Three!’
They lifted the empty unit, moved it over several feet, and set it down carefully. Behind it was a door, with handle still intact!
Looking at him, she made a motion with her hand at the knob, like she inserting a key and he understood--she was asking if he could open a locked door. Smiling, he drew out what Beth called his ‘breaking and entering’ kit and selected the appropriate tool. Fortunately, Eric never thought to search him for more than a gun.
“What’s on the other side?“ he whispered as he worked on the lock.
“A very light wooden runner for Aunt Sharon’s roses. It’s very light--just one inch pine strips tacked together and painted. The whole thing doesn’t weight more than a couple of pounds but it's large enough to hide the door. Funny, Eric won't go near the roses. He got scratched up when he was a kid and refused to help her with them so I'm betting he doesn't know about this--a little fact that may just save our lives. Unlock the door and we should be able to get it open enough for me to get out and I’ll move the runner so you can open it a little more and get out, too.”
Mick didn’t argue, but under the circumstances thought he could fit thru a very small opening, until he remembered the orgy of eating the night before. Better not do that again.
There was a moment of pure terror when they opened the door and the hinges protested with a loud metallic squeak, but there was no sound from Eric’s side of the door. They both squeezed through space created when the door was first opened and despite a few scratches, in seconds they were free of the roses and running for the Mercedes. Hearing the engine roar to life from inside the house, Eric rushed outside in time to see the green Mercedes screeched away from the curb and disappear around a corner seconds before a white van bearing his associates arrived.
“Damn! Could have I have been more useless?” Mick exclaimed, slapping the steering wheel in frustration.
“I almost got you killed, and I was supposed to watch out for you!”
“Well, maybe--but you also saved my ass. How about we call a truce on the accusations and self recrimination until later?”
“Deal.” said Allyn.
Once back at his loft, he poured stiff drinks. Allyn’s hands shook as she took the glass. The adrenaline rush was fading and her elation at their close call along with it.
“When Eric talked about you not learning the hard way, what did he mean?“
“He meant the time I saw him before today. It was nothing, really.” she looked away.
“Allyn--”
“He beat me, all right?! Most of the bruises were under my clothes. Said he wanted me to remember it and not to come back. I was so…humiliated. I came home with a split lip and a cut over my eye.” she smiled, wryly. “Josef sent me to a plastic surgeon to suture the cuts so they wouldn‘t scar.”
“I’m sorry for pushing, Allyn. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were trying to help him.”
“For all the good it did. Mick, I knew it was dangerous but I thought you were a professional. You could handle it. I'm sorry.”
“Normally I could. You were worried about Eric and wanted help. That's nothing to be ashamed of. When did you last see your Aunt Sharon?” he asked.
“About seven months ago. It was her birthday so I took her out for lunch and gave her a present. We visited for most of the afternoon. I never suspected it would be the last time I saw her alive. Eric was off somewhere and frankly, we were both glad of it. I’ve went back on several occasions after that and while she wasn’t there, Eric always had a good reason why--she was playing bridge with her friends, she was at the market or at some event she enjoyed. The house didn’t look as it did today. It still looked like her house.”
“You may get a call later--from him or one of his associates, trying to get you to return to the house. It is very important that you not go, and that you call me immediately. Can you do that?”
“Yes, of course I can do that! Give me a little credit, Mick. I get it! Eric's not my innocent little brother any more. He probably killed Aunt Sharon and would have killed us today if we hadn’t gotten away.”
“He knows you’re aware of what he’s in to, where you work and probably has told his associates. It’ll be easy for them to get my address, too. We are both at risk at the moment and you need to recognize it. I’ll call Josef and someone will pick you up and drive you home. You go nowhere without an escort until this business is concluded. Okay?”
“Sounds reasonable. Mick, I‘m really sorry.”
“It’s okay, Allyn. Nobody wanted it to go down like this.” he said. “There is one thing that I can’t understand--when Eric opened the door to check on us, you heard the key in the padlock and rushed over to me and I lay down as if still tied up but the cut ropes were in plain sight. Also, you had all but emptied one of the shelving units, but he didn’t see anything. I’m not complaining, but I just don’t see how.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too, and I think I have an explanation. Eric was particularly fascinated with painting with acrylics and he tried to duplicate the style of some painters who painted objects in a darkened room illuminated by a single light source--faces, hands and any reflective objects stood out but everything else melted into black and shadow. He had to train himself to see only what was touched by light. In that room, the light source was much smaller than the room and I think his brain defaulted to seeing only what was within that light source. The ropes and the shelving unit hiding the door were in shadows. It probably saved our lives.”
Maybe, Mick thought. Another explanation is that he did see what they were doing and allowed them to escape, but he didn’t tell Allyn about that possibility. Maybe later, but definitely not now.
Josef picked her up personally a few minutes later.
The aches had returned in full force to his joints and muscles, but there was no time to visit Otto’s gym. So, Mick took two more pain killers.
Josh’s funeral was in a half an hour.
**************
About three hours later, Josef let himself into Mick’s loft.
“So, do you have refreshments for vampires or are you now providing those personally?” Josef smirked.
“Pass.” said Mick flatly, in no mood for jokes. “You know where the scotch is. Help yourself.”
“You’re no fun.” Josef said, pouring himself a drink. “How was the funeral?”
“It was a funeral, Josef. They don't rank high on my list of favorite things, but it nice service. Beth was wearing Josh’s ring and we only talked briefly. She picked up on the cuts and bruises and asked if I was human.”
“She’s bright--you have to give her that. What did you say?”
“’For now.’ How‘s Allyn?”
“Hurting, but acting more like herself than she has in months--when she’s conscious, which isn’t now. She took some sleeping pills and asked that I give these to you.” he passed a foil sheet of pills to his friend. “ I sent Claudia over to check the house and she found Eric in the living room with his brains splattered all over Aunt Sharon’ sofa cover and one of his associates sneaking out the back door. He’d been tied up, beaten and shot through the back of the head. I guess his associates wanted to know how much you and Allyn knew when you got away. The Cleaners checked the rest of the house and found the body of the Aunt in the attic--how very ‘Norman Bates’ of him. Guillermo's doing the autopsy now. At first blush, it looks like she died of natural cuases, but we’ll know for sure later. When I found what happened at the house, I woke Allyn and told her--thought she had a right to know. She took it better than expected. Later tonight, Claudia and a couple of her teams will clean up the rest of that gang. I know--it breaks my rules of not getting involved in human business, but it would have caused us problems later. Besides, this involves one of my girls, and you know I protect what’s mine. Until we get this taken care of, keep your security system armed. I‘ll let you know when it’s safe.”
“Thank you for sending Allyn over this morning to help me, You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t think she’d drag you into a case. Especially not one like this.”
“She wanted to get her brother out before he got in too deep. She didn’t suspect things had gone as far as they had.” Mick sighed. “The minister at Josh’s funeral talked about our mortality being what made life so invigorating. It allows us to love and hurt, and ultimately spurs us to make the most of the time we’re given.”
Josef was silent for a time. “He said that?”
“Or words to that effect, yeah.”
“Good words. For vampires or humans. We’re not really immortal, you know. We tell ourselves that, like an entertainer buying into their own PR, but it ends for us, too. We do our best to influence things in our favor--to protect those we care about, land either eave the world better than we found it or just not worse for our having been here. I wish Eric had heard them, or if he ever did, I wish he’d listened. He told Allyn several weeks ago that he’d burned all his artwork. He lied. Claudia found boxes and boxes of sketches against one wall of the garage and on the other side about fifty mounted pieces. She loaded them up and I‘m storing them. He was really very good--I’ve got a good eye. You know what happens to art once the artist dies? Price goes through the roof. I think I can work up an interesting story about the artist and create a market. I own several galleries in the United States alone. Allyn would probably like for her brother to be remembered differently.”
Mick smiled. “You never fail to surprise me. One minute, you make life sound like a poker game, where you’re just stacking the deck to influence the outcome and then you do something like this.”
“The poker game’s as good an analogy as any, but I don‘t know if I can influence any outcomes. Maybe all I can do is smooth the course of the game a little. Don’t tell anybody about this! You’ll damage my reputation.“ Josef straightened his Windsor knot. “What are you going to do now?”
“Get a bed. Any chance I could get one in here by tonight?” Mick asked.
“I’ll see what I can do. Worse comes to worse, I could just send over one of the new ones from an empty suite. I’ll even throw in the linens, pillows and blankets.”
“Thank you. Allyn will be okay, you know. She’s a survivor. Once she understood what we were dealing with, she kept her head and worked with me. If she hadn’t known about that door, I don’t know if either of us she would have gotten out. I don’t know if I would have died or just become a vampire again. Coraline never had time to tell me all the details. Allyn will adjust and become stronger for this experience, but I feel for Eric. He never caught a break. He got caught in a self destructive spiral and wasn't able to get free. He's the truly unlucky one here. For decades, I complained Coraline stole my life when she Turned me, but if she hadn’t, I'd never have met Beth or (as aggravating as you are sometimes,) you. I thought I’d been robbed of my senses and abilities, but you were right--I came to depend on the ones I gained. Strange as that may sound, I missed them.”
“Wait a minute. I know I’m hearing this wrong! It almost sounds like you said you're lucky you’d become a vampire.” Josef said.
“I guess it did sound a little like that. I want to make the most of my time on the cure, too.”
“You do that. Just remember to avoid vampires when you are smelling like that. Too bad. A-positive is so…ordinary.”
Josef walked out, closing the door behind him.
“Yeah, right. Don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.” Mick said to the closed door.
In the hall, Josef turned and grinned at the security monitor.
On the other side of the door, Mick smiled in return.
fin
Initially, I forgot to credit a kind and brilliant lady around here, one of our fabulous Mods, Llbrarian7 or Lucky, as we call her. She agreed to look over the story and make some suggestions. If the story is not terrible, thank Lucky. If I wasn't able to salvage it, that's my own fault. Lucky, I am so sorry for forgetting to do this when I first put it up!!!
Unlucky - Chapter 3 (conclusion)
Allyn rushed ack to where Eric had left her, huddled beside Mick. She landed beside him on her hands and knees, panting. Mick had put his hands behind his back and lay back down where Eric had thrown him, thinking of his disgarded bonds lying in plain sight by the wall. Their ruse was a long shot, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances. Eric opened the door and looked at them nervously. His sister didn’t have to work very hard to summon a few tears, but mostly she just looked furious and afraid.
He closed the door without a word and they heard the padlock snap closed again.
Allyn smiled tightly at Mick and nodded at the shelf. “Come on--but be quiet, or we’re both dead! Can you help me move this?”
Mick followed her over and moved to one side of the metal shelving unit. He ran his hand over the cold grey metal. He’d seen these before. They could do this.
‘On three,’ he mouthed silently. ‘One. Two, Three!’
They lifted the empty unit, moved it over several feet, and set it down carefully. Behind it was a door, with handle still intact!
Looking at him, she made a motion with her hand at the knob, like she inserting a key and he understood--she was asking if he could open a locked door. Smiling, he drew out what Beth called his ‘breaking and entering’ kit and selected the appropriate tool. Fortunately, Eric never thought to search him for more than a gun.
“What’s on the other side?“ he whispered as he worked on the lock.
“A very light wooden runner for Aunt Sharon’s roses. It’s very light--just one inch pine strips tacked together and painted. The whole thing doesn’t weight more than a couple of pounds but it's large enough to hide the door. Funny, Eric won't go near the roses. He got scratched up when he was a kid and refused to help her with them so I'm betting he doesn't know about this--a little fact that may just save our lives. Unlock the door and we should be able to get it open enough for me to get out and I’ll move the runner so you can open it a little more and get out, too.”
Mick didn’t argue, but under the circumstances thought he could fit thru a very small opening, until he remembered the orgy of eating the night before. Better not do that again.
There was a moment of pure terror when they opened the door and the hinges protested with a loud metallic squeak, but there was no sound from Eric’s side of the door. They both squeezed through space created when the door was first opened and despite a few scratches, in seconds they were free of the roses and running for the Mercedes. Hearing the engine roar to life from inside the house, Eric rushed outside in time to see the green Mercedes screeched away from the curb and disappear around a corner seconds before a white van bearing his associates arrived.
“Damn! Could have I have been more useless?” Mick exclaimed, slapping the steering wheel in frustration.
“I almost got you killed, and I was supposed to watch out for you!”
“Well, maybe--but you also saved my ass. How about we call a truce on the accusations and self recrimination until later?”
“Deal.” said Allyn.
Once back at his loft, he poured stiff drinks. Allyn’s hands shook as she took the glass. The adrenaline rush was fading and her elation at their close call along with it.
“When Eric talked about you not learning the hard way, what did he mean?“
“He meant the time I saw him before today. It was nothing, really.” she looked away.
“Allyn--”
“He beat me, all right?! Most of the bruises were under my clothes. Said he wanted me to remember it and not to come back. I was so…humiliated. I came home with a split lip and a cut over my eye.” she smiled, wryly. “Josef sent me to a plastic surgeon to suture the cuts so they wouldn‘t scar.”
“I’m sorry for pushing, Allyn. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were trying to help him.”
“For all the good it did. Mick, I knew it was dangerous but I thought you were a professional. You could handle it. I'm sorry.”
“Normally I could. You were worried about Eric and wanted help. That's nothing to be ashamed of. When did you last see your Aunt Sharon?” he asked.
“About seven months ago. It was her birthday so I took her out for lunch and gave her a present. We visited for most of the afternoon. I never suspected it would be the last time I saw her alive. Eric was off somewhere and frankly, we were both glad of it. I’ve went back on several occasions after that and while she wasn’t there, Eric always had a good reason why--she was playing bridge with her friends, she was at the market or at some event she enjoyed. The house didn’t look as it did today. It still looked like her house.”
“You may get a call later--from him or one of his associates, trying to get you to return to the house. It is very important that you not go, and that you call me immediately. Can you do that?”
“Yes, of course I can do that! Give me a little credit, Mick. I get it! Eric's not my innocent little brother any more. He probably killed Aunt Sharon and would have killed us today if we hadn’t gotten away.”
“He knows you’re aware of what he’s in to, where you work and probably has told his associates. It’ll be easy for them to get my address, too. We are both at risk at the moment and you need to recognize it. I’ll call Josef and someone will pick you up and drive you home. You go nowhere without an escort until this business is concluded. Okay?”
“Sounds reasonable. Mick, I‘m really sorry.”
“It’s okay, Allyn. Nobody wanted it to go down like this.” he said. “There is one thing that I can’t understand--when Eric opened the door to check on us, you heard the key in the padlock and rushed over to me and I lay down as if still tied up but the cut ropes were in plain sight. Also, you had all but emptied one of the shelving units, but he didn’t see anything. I’m not complaining, but I just don’t see how.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too, and I think I have an explanation. Eric was particularly fascinated with painting with acrylics and he tried to duplicate the style of some painters who painted objects in a darkened room illuminated by a single light source--faces, hands and any reflective objects stood out but everything else melted into black and shadow. He had to train himself to see only what was touched by light. In that room, the light source was much smaller than the room and I think his brain defaulted to seeing only what was within that light source. The ropes and the shelving unit hiding the door were in shadows. It probably saved our lives.”
Maybe, Mick thought. Another explanation is that he did see what they were doing and allowed them to escape, but he didn’t tell Allyn about that possibility. Maybe later, but definitely not now.
Josef picked her up personally a few minutes later.
The aches had returned in full force to his joints and muscles, but there was no time to visit Otto’s gym. So, Mick took two more pain killers.
Josh’s funeral was in a half an hour.
**************
About three hours later, Josef let himself into Mick’s loft.
“So, do you have refreshments for vampires or are you now providing those personally?” Josef smirked.
“Pass.” said Mick flatly, in no mood for jokes. “You know where the scotch is. Help yourself.”
“You’re no fun.” Josef said, pouring himself a drink. “How was the funeral?”
“It was a funeral, Josef. They don't rank high on my list of favorite things, but it nice service. Beth was wearing Josh’s ring and we only talked briefly. She picked up on the cuts and bruises and asked if I was human.”
“She’s bright--you have to give her that. What did you say?”
“’For now.’ How‘s Allyn?”
“Hurting, but acting more like herself than she has in months--when she’s conscious, which isn’t now. She took some sleeping pills and asked that I give these to you.” he passed a foil sheet of pills to his friend. “ I sent Claudia over to check the house and she found Eric in the living room with his brains splattered all over Aunt Sharon’ sofa cover and one of his associates sneaking out the back door. He’d been tied up, beaten and shot through the back of the head. I guess his associates wanted to know how much you and Allyn knew when you got away. The Cleaners checked the rest of the house and found the body of the Aunt in the attic--how very ‘Norman Bates’ of him. Guillermo's doing the autopsy now. At first blush, it looks like she died of natural cuases, but we’ll know for sure later. When I found what happened at the house, I woke Allyn and told her--thought she had a right to know. She took it better than expected. Later tonight, Claudia and a couple of her teams will clean up the rest of that gang. I know--it breaks my rules of not getting involved in human business, but it would have caused us problems later. Besides, this involves one of my girls, and you know I protect what’s mine. Until we get this taken care of, keep your security system armed. I‘ll let you know when it’s safe.”
“Thank you for sending Allyn over this morning to help me, You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t think she’d drag you into a case. Especially not one like this.”
“She wanted to get her brother out before he got in too deep. She didn’t suspect things had gone as far as they had.” Mick sighed. “The minister at Josh’s funeral talked about our mortality being what made life so invigorating. It allows us to love and hurt, and ultimately spurs us to make the most of the time we’re given.”
Josef was silent for a time. “He said that?”
“Or words to that effect, yeah.”
“Good words. For vampires or humans. We’re not really immortal, you know. We tell ourselves that, like an entertainer buying into their own PR, but it ends for us, too. We do our best to influence things in our favor--to protect those we care about, land either eave the world better than we found it or just not worse for our having been here. I wish Eric had heard them, or if he ever did, I wish he’d listened. He told Allyn several weeks ago that he’d burned all his artwork. He lied. Claudia found boxes and boxes of sketches against one wall of the garage and on the other side about fifty mounted pieces. She loaded them up and I‘m storing them. He was really very good--I’ve got a good eye. You know what happens to art once the artist dies? Price goes through the roof. I think I can work up an interesting story about the artist and create a market. I own several galleries in the United States alone. Allyn would probably like for her brother to be remembered differently.”
Mick smiled. “You never fail to surprise me. One minute, you make life sound like a poker game, where you’re just stacking the deck to influence the outcome and then you do something like this.”
“The poker game’s as good an analogy as any, but I don‘t know if I can influence any outcomes. Maybe all I can do is smooth the course of the game a little. Don’t tell anybody about this! You’ll damage my reputation.“ Josef straightened his Windsor knot. “What are you going to do now?”
“Get a bed. Any chance I could get one in here by tonight?” Mick asked.
“I’ll see what I can do. Worse comes to worse, I could just send over one of the new ones from an empty suite. I’ll even throw in the linens, pillows and blankets.”
“Thank you. Allyn will be okay, you know. She’s a survivor. Once she understood what we were dealing with, she kept her head and worked with me. If she hadn’t known about that door, I don’t know if either of us she would have gotten out. I don’t know if I would have died or just become a vampire again. Coraline never had time to tell me all the details. Allyn will adjust and become stronger for this experience, but I feel for Eric. He never caught a break. He got caught in a self destructive spiral and wasn't able to get free. He's the truly unlucky one here. For decades, I complained Coraline stole my life when she Turned me, but if she hadn’t, I'd never have met Beth or (as aggravating as you are sometimes,) you. I thought I’d been robbed of my senses and abilities, but you were right--I came to depend on the ones I gained. Strange as that may sound, I missed them.”
“Wait a minute. I know I’m hearing this wrong! It almost sounds like you said you're lucky you’d become a vampire.” Josef said.
“I guess it did sound a little like that. I want to make the most of my time on the cure, too.”
“You do that. Just remember to avoid vampires when you are smelling like that. Too bad. A-positive is so…ordinary.”
Josef walked out, closing the door behind him.
“Yeah, right. Don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.” Mick said to the closed door.
In the hall, Josef turned and grinned at the security monitor.
On the other side of the door, Mick smiled in return.
fin
And everyone learned something important (well, everyone but Eric, poor lost soul). Mick began to learn that there were positive aspects to being a vampire. Beth learned a good lesson from Allyn's advice, and maybe after a few days it helped her give Mick that call. Allyn learned that sometimes you just can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. And Josef learned that Mick can change his attitude about being a vamp. 
Allyn will be able to remember how her brother used to be, and the whole world will be exposed to a talented artist. 
I love how you included a Mick-Josef conversation in this story.
