Title: "Feeling Peckish Pt. 5"
Author: Rebecca Bradstreet
Rated: PG-13
Archive: Sure
Summary: Vachon worries.
Warning: Uneasy vampires.
Disclaimer/Notes: This is an A-Team/Forever Knight X-Over. Well it's an A-Team alternate universe with some FK vampires in it. I don't own Templeton "Faceman" Peck or any other members of the A-Team. I also don't own Javier Vachon, Janette or any other Forever Knight characters. I do own Lorelei "Lori" Remillard, and some of her contacts. I am using // as thoughts, and ** as emphasis. It's not beta'd so all mistakes are my own. ;)
"Feeling Peckish Pt. 5"
by Rebecca Bradstreet (c) 2000"Right. Where do we find these vampires?" B.A. asked even though he had a good idea where Hannibal wanted to start.
"Back at The Fog of course." Hannibal looked at B.A. with an expectant grin.
"Of course." B.A. agreed starting the van up and heading it back to the club.
Neither noticed the young man on the corner who watched them roll away from Lori's house. His brown hair was windblown, and his brown eyes troubled. He crossed his arms in front of him and sighed. //Old One what manner of trouble have you gotten into?//
He had to take some of the blame. He'd pointed out Inspiration to Lori trying to draw her out of her blues. The Old One rarely took any interest in humans, except as clients. Hell she seldom took any interest in her fellow vampires, except as clients. Vachon had taken it upon himself to try to and cheer her up. Something in her had lit up at the sight of Inspiration. Vachon worried what. He'd tried to ignore the light that flared into Lori's eyes when she looked at Inspiration. The Old One had kept her fires banked for centuries. Inspiration made the fires in her soul dance.
He had gone looking for Urs when Lori and Inspiration's eyes first met. Vachon knew Urs had a better sense of people's feelings than he did. He'd hoped she'd be able to tell him Inspiration was good for the Old One. Vachon had missed Lori and Inspiration's move to the parking lot while he was looking for Urs, but he caught back up as they left in the white Corvette. Vachon followed their drive to Lori's house, and watched them go inside. Once they were inside he'd noticed the van. It had rolled to a stop outside of Lori's house, the van's occupants sitting and watching the house much as Vachon was.
//Friends of Inspiration's or trouble?// Vachon wondered as the van rolled away from the house. He doubted he had much time to decide whether or not to follow it. If he was going to catch it and talk to its occupants he needed to move, and if he was going to go tell Lori and Inspiration about it he needed to move. The Old One was 5,000 years old she might not take kindly to his efforts to watch her back. She would be grateful if the van was full of trouble but pissed if it were just some of Inspiration's friends. Vachon decided he'd better follow the van.
*****
Urs wasn't sure where Vachon was, she wasn't sure where Lori was, but she was sure she had the feeling someone was in trouble. She thought about looking for Vachon. He was the vampire who had brought her across. She had a link to him she could follow unlike Lori, but when he vanished on her it was usually because he wanted to. //Vachon where are you, and why do I have this sense of approaching trouble?//
"Ursula have you seen Javier this evening?" Janette asked softly from behind Urs.
"No. In fact I was just thinking about asking you that question." Urs' voice sounded more cross than she meant, her sense of unease sharpening it.
"He was talking with Lorelei earlier. I believe he told her he was leaving her side to look for you." Janette's tone was bland disinterest, but her eyes showed mild curiousity about the discrepancy.
"If he left Lori to look for me he never found me. Janette...do you know what the case is...the case that Lori's working on?" Urs could only guess that all her tension was coming from Lori's case.
"Lorelei has not told me all the details but it is a kidnapping of somekind. She suspects it's one of us setting up a farm." Janette curled her lips in distaste at the thought of a farm.
"Setting up a farm? You mean collecting humans to..." Urs didn't finish the statement. She knew of two kinds of farms ones that kept their humans alive and ones that killed them. Neither treated the humans as much more than cattle.
"Lorelei has photos of the kidnap victim. She says the girl hasn't turned up at the morgue." It was a statement made to ease Urs's fears for the humans involved. She didn't find it terribly comforting.
"If the girl's alive Lori will find her. I wish I knew why Vachon walked away from her." Urs didn't fear for the Old One's safety, but she knew Vachon might take on more than he could handle for her.
"Well in truth I think he left her not so much to look for you, but to give Lorelei space to speak with a young man that came in looking for her." Janette's eyes sparkled with amusement as she remembered the effect the young man had had on both the Old One and young Vachon.
"A young man? Vampire? Human? What was he looking for Lori about?" Urs wasn't sure what more she needed of Janette's story, but something about it seemed to raise her feeling of unease.
"He was human in his thirties dark blond hair blue eyes. I can't say for certain what he wished to discuss with her. They took their conversation outside. I imagine they had quite a lot to talk about." Janette was dismissive of it, but Urs wished she could meet the young man Lori had left with.
*****
B.A. parked the van outside of the Fog and wondered if they'd learn anything in the night club. If the occupants were vampires they couldn't simply be strong armed for answers. He moved to the gun locker in the back of the van for a weapon. Hannibal stopped him. "No weapons. We're just going into talk. We don't want to upset them."
B.A. looked in Hannibal's serious blue eyes and nodded. Hannibal got out of the van and B.A. followed. As they entered the club B.A. found himself studying the crowd for opera capes and fangs, as if all vampires moved about in cape flourishes. Hannibal didn't waste timing studying the crowd. He moved toward the raven haired woman standing at one end of the bar. Though he didn't know for certain that the woman was Janette DuCharme, or if Janette owned The Fog he figured both were safe bets to make. She'd owned a nightclub called The Raven for a time in Toronto and the lady who stood at the bar fit the description he had.
"He doesn't look like he's here for a drink and he's coming this way." Urs whispered nervously to Janette as she noticed the silver haired man cutting through the crowd torward them.
"No, he doesn't look like he's here for drinks, but the question my dear is what *is* he here for?" Janette explained to Urs as she would to any child.
"Janette DuCharme?" Hannibal asked as he got close enough to see that her eye color matched that of his description as well.
"Sometimes. May I ask who wants to know?" Janette gave Hannibal a cool stare.
"An old aquaintance of Nick Knight's?" Hannibal didn't want to give out his name or the vampire he'd met years ago, but if she was Janette it would gain him all the leverage he'd need.
"A friend of Nickola's? Well, well, let's not stand around out here talking. Come with me." Janette stepped away from the bar and head into the back rooms of the bar.
"Should I...shall I wait out here for Vachon?" Urs was torn between a desire to keep an eye on the old man, and her fears about Vachon's safety.
"Whatever you like my dear." Janette said casually over her shoulder.
B.A. followed closely in Hannibal's foot steps but he couldn't help wondering why the young girl was so nervous.
*****
Vachon had followed the van back to The Fog. Somehow it didn't surprise him they'd doubled back to the club. Friends of Inspiration's would want to ask around in the club about Lori. Enemies would want to burn it to the ground. Since he was mostly worried about them being hostiles he was pleased when they went inside without flamethrowers. He moved to study their van. It was black and grey with red detailing. It had an antenna for a mobile phone, and up close he could see the grey carpeting on the floor.
//Now, do I break in to study it from the inside, or do I go into the club and see if they've pulled out some holy water filled squirt guns?// Vachon guessed if they'd pulled squirtguns one of them would have come flying out the door already. Not that it proved they were friendlies, it just meant they were cautious instead of suicidal.
//I could just stay out here and keep the van under guard until sun up.// Vachon didn't like the idea of standing around outside until daylight sent him for cover, but then he didn't like strange vans following friends of his around either.
"Vachon?" Urs called tentatively from the doorway to the club. She thought she saw him in the shadow of a black van but she couldn't be certain.
"Urs? Have you seen a couple of strangers, one taller silver haired gent, and one big black guy with a mohawk?" Vachon knew Urs liked to quietly watch the shifting patterns of people in the club.
"Vachon!" Urs crossed the parking lot to him, feeling better seeing him standing in one piece. When she hugged him he looked surprised, and after she studied him intently for a bit he had to ask, "What's wrong Urs?"
"I'm not sure...something is. I felt it when I realized you'd left the club." She waited for the teasing comment that she'd merely missed him. It didn't come.
"Lori left with some blond guy. They went back to Lori's and this van trailed them all the way there. The guys in it came back here to park it. Did they go inside Urs?" He still hadn't gotten the answer from her and it was beginning to bother him.
"Older man and a black guy, they're talking to Janette. The older man said he's an old aquaintance of Nick's." Urse related what she'd heard before she came outside to look for Vachon.