WAR: No Rest for the Wicked (1/2)
Place: Toronto, Dark Perk Mansion
Time: Saturday the 25th, 1am
By: Cousin Mary (Jenkins)
Two Thugs sat quietly at the long dining room table of Dark Perk Mansion; tending to their chores, drinking coffee (of course) and gossiping.
SC and June had arrived in Toronto earlier that week in order to help prepare for… the War. <dramatic music, maybe bassoons>
They were fresh back from a trip to Bob’s Bargain Bin, where they’d picked up fourteen cases of pink bunnies, of course for their purposes they had to be slightly altered. The Thugs hummed show tunes <Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come up tomorrow!> and carefully snipped seams, easily popping the bunnies’ heads off.
"Just how many of these do we have to do anyway?" June, the Dark Perk Biker, asked.
"Well, we’re gonna leave at least one at the scene of every attack we make, and we’ve already done 30, so…" SC tapped her tongue ring against her teeth as she thought, "a couple dozen more should do it."
June cut a few more heads off before she asked, "So have you heard from Mary or the others down there yet?"
‘Down there’ was South America. A while back the DP had hit upon the idea of becoming coffee distributors (hey, we have to pay for all those bunnies some how!) But being perfectionists, the DP couldn’t sell just –any- beans. No, they needed the best. So with only the vaguest of rumors to guide them, four brave DP Thugs had set forth on a sacred quest, braving the deepest jungles, climbing the highest peaks, forging the swiftest rivers, all in the search for ‘The Perfect Coffee Beans.’ <incredibly dramatic music, almost as keen as when the Emperor visits the Death Star!>
SC shook her head, "Last I heard from them was last week, Mary and Ren were heading towards that village and Jenn and Kristen went off with that tribe."
June sighed, not wanting to admit just how worried she was. She cut off another bunny head, suddenly a mischievous grin crossed her face. "Oh SC?" She called out sweetly, then when the redhead looked up, she launched a head at her.
SC caught it easily, arched one eyebrow at the blonde biker and hurled the head back at her. Soon, a full scale bunny-head battle had broken out.
<GONG>
So involved were SC and June in their battle, they nearly missed the front door bell, luckily it repeated.
"Wait!" June said, she received another bunny to the head before SC stopped to listen as well.
<GONG, GONG, GONG> Along with some rather loud cursing and shouting, came from the front of the house.
Realizing that waiting for the housekeeper, Mrs. Hitchcock, to answer it was pretty much a lost cause, SC sighed and headed for the door. (Leaving June to finish the heads, a fact that almost guaranteed vengeance later.)
SC made her way through the Mansion, passing the two-headed stuffed Nile crocodile and the china cabinet displaying a collection of shrunken heads. She slipped through the Butler’s pantry (carefully avoiding all the white tiles on the checkered floor) and finally reached the foyer.
She threw open the door, revealing four very weary travelers. The returning Thugs looked like they’d been rolled in dirt, slapped around by gorillas and left in a wind tunnel for a week with no sleep. SC just stared at them open-mouth for a minute.
"Are we in time for the War?" Mary asked.
SC raised an eyebrow in surprise, surely their leader should know! "Yeah, it only started," She glanced up at the closest clock, but one of the joys of living in a haunted house was that half the clocks went up to 13, so she just guessed, "An hour or so ago."
Mary nodded, "Next question: What country are we in? Time zone? Habla Inglese?"
The list-mommy looked pretty much dead on her feet (and not in that cool vampire way either) So SC didn’t bother to answer. Instead she asked, "What happened to you guys?"
"Erg, don’t ask." Kristen mumbled and pushed her way inside and headed straight up the stairs. "I need a shower and a 12 hour nap!"
Jenn gave SC a sympathetic smile and told her, "It’s a long story." Then the resident Demon Doctor dropped her duffel bag and headed off towards the kitchen. "Is there any coffee?"
Mary still seemed somewhat oblivious to what was going around about her (sleep depravation effects people in different ways, I get slap happy or just zone completely.) She tossed a couple more duffel bags into the corner and mumbled something about ‘getting the crates from the car,’ and wandered back outside.
As their leader was a bit out-of-it, SC and Ren followed Jenn towards the kitchen. (Where the coffee pots are.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In the kitchen Jenn was already hunched over a cup of syrup thick coffee (plus she had three more pots brewing.) Lack of sleep, however, was still causing Nick-like flashbacks::::
~~~~~~~~~ wavy lines mean FB <g>~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deep in the jungles of some unnamed country (they’d kept track in the beginning, Columbia, Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil, but by now it was all blending together in a coffee-flavored haze) Kristen and Jenn were having a less than grand time.
At first splitting into two groups had seemed like a great idea, with Mary and Ren going to the towns and herself and Kristen searching with the indigenous people, they had twice as much chance of finding ‘The Perfect Beans.’ <insert dramatic, but less obtrusive, music>
When Anthropology major Kristen had expressed an interest in following the Lirpa-may Tribe, Jenn had quickly seconded her, hopes of finding exciting new neuro-toxins dancing through her head. But now she regretted her decision. ‘I should have stuck with Mary and Ren, they’re probably dancing at a fiesta or something.’ She thought bitterly.
Not that going with the tribe hadn’t been fun at first, it just wasn’t too great now. In fact, Jenn was currently in a very large (and growing hot) water-filled pot and Kristen was being turned slowly on a spit.
"Kristen!" Jenn cried out. "I thought you said they were friendly?!"
Kristen spat out the apple-like fruit a tribeswomen kept trying to shove into her mouth, the woman just grinned at her and went to retrieve it for another try. "They are!" Kristen shouted. "They’re very friendly cannibals!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. End Jenn’s FB~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SC and Ren wandered into the kitchen, they spared Jenn a quick glance, but since she was staring unseeingly into her dark pink coffee mug, they offered no comment.
"So what happened?" SC asked. In the distance they could hear Mary dragging in crates and it sounded like talking to herself about how much work she had to do and how ungrateful the Thugs were. (Not that this is true, I’m just very tired <g>)
Ignoring the list-mommy’s whining in the background, Ren shot her a tired grin and helped herself to the coffee, pouring a cup for SC too. "Well, what should I tell you about first?" She asked, rhetorically. "Well, we were thrown into a stinky little South American jail, saved by a vampire and found…’The Perfect Beans!’" <insert dramatic music>
They spent a couple minutes looking for the hidden speakers, then SC asked, "Jail?"
Ren nodded eagerly, (now that it was over, it was quite exciting.) It all started in the small town of El Spinoza…"
~~~~~~~~~~~~. Ren’s flash back. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I’m beginning to think it’s hopeless." Ren sighed, smiling her thanks to the waitress refilling her coffee cup for the countless time.
"Don’t talk like that." Mary said half-heartedly, things were indeed looking bleak. They’d been in South America for what seemed like months, but were still no closer to finding ‘The Perfect Beans.’ <You know very well what goes here <g>>
Seeing that her friend was even more ‘less-than-perky’ than normal, Ren decided to change the subject. Smiling wickedly she said, "You know, in every town we stop in I always look for the Inca, Amaru, God he was cute."
The waitress, who’d until this point had been paying very little attention to the two blonde Americans who drank way too much coffee, suddenly jumped and instead of re-filling Mary’s cup, poured half the pot into the young woman’s lap.
"Ack!" Mary screamed.
"Sorry, sorry." The waitress exclaimed, then bolted in the direction of the kitchens.
"What do you think that was about?" Ren asked.
"I suspect we’ll find out soon enough." Mary said, indicating with her coffee soaked napkin the precession of waitress, cook and owner hurrying towards their table.
All conversation in the small restaurant had stopped and there was an ominous feeling in the air. Mary shot her friend an amused grin.
Ren shook her head slightly, only a philosophy major like Mary would have their good-humor restored by intense pain followed by the overwhelming sense of impending doom. "Mary, I think we’re in trouble." She mumbled. She’d had a bad feeling ever since they’d come to this stinking little town, everyone had been unfriendly…and their coffee sucked!
Mary kicked her under the table to be quiet and the pair pasted on their perkiest-looking smiles. Facing the owner, Mary asked, "Is something wrong?"
But the owner wasn’t interested in talking to the list-mommy, after a quick whisper from their waitress, he turned to Ren and in a demanding voice asked, "You say Amaru?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End FB~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"They knew the Inca?" SC asked wide-eyed.
Ren glared at her for the interruption, but took a moment to get some more coffee, refilling Jenn and SC’s cup while she was at it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Elsewhere in the house, Kristen trudged back down the stairs, she’d gotten her shower but sleep had eluded her (she probably shouldn’t have had those 6 expressos on the plane.) She found Mary in the foyer surrounded by bags of coffee beans and several medium-sized crates. Since it appeared she’d already done the hard part (dragging the stuff inside) Kristen decided it was safe to offer to help. "What can I do?"
Mary gave her a slightly confused look, but after a moment handed her a crowbar. She smiled and said, "Here, help me open these. I can’t remember what they all are."
Kristen took the heavy tool and went for a crate, so what if she’d need another shower? Her curiosity was getting the better of her, there seem to be too many. She could have sworn they’d only brought three of these up with them, but there were four here.
The first one proved to be the pottery wheel they’d bought for one of the Thugs. The second was Kristen’s cup. Kristen and Mary stared at it in awe for a moment, then carefully re-wrapped it in the bubble paper and stowed it safely back in it’s box. The third proved to be the lovely Aztec statue Jenn had acquired as a souvenir.
Finally the pair turned on the fourth crate. "What the heck could this be?" Mary mumbled, wiping the sweat off her brow.
Kristen shook her head; she had no idea either. There was some writing on the box, but it wasn’t English, not Spanish either. Korean maybe?
As they stuck their crowbars between the slates, they heard an odd slapping noise. They dismissed this though as just the contents shifting.
They leaned back and put their weight into it and the nails began to give. Suddenly the crate began to shriek. Mary and Kristen jumped back, but one of the slates was loose and dropped to the floor.
The two Thugs stood there a moment, stunned. Each was unwilling to put their face up to the hole and peer in. The crate had fallen silent again, but it was still scary.
"You look." Mary ordered, hoping that for once one of the DP would recognize her authority.
It didn’t work, Kristen shook her head. "No, you look."
Mary sighed and took a step towards the crate. All at once though the whole crate shook, then the foyer filled with a flapping noise and the room went black.
Bats, dozens of brown-black bats poured out of the small opening and began flying around the foyer, blocking all light.
Mary and Kristen screamed. So did the bats.
After a few seconds it was over, at least for the moment, as the bats flew up the staircase to disappear somewhere in the attic.
The two Thugs exchanged a look.
"God," Kristen mumbled, "I –really- hope those weren’t vampire bats."
Mary nodded dumbly, dropped her crowbar and headed for the kitchen. (Where we already established, is where the coffee is.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Continued in part two.
WAR: No Rest for the Wicked (2/2)
Place: Toronto, Dark Perk Mansion
Time: Saturday the 25th, 1am
By: Cousin Mary (Jenkins)
Back in the kitchen, Jenn decided she’d have another flashback (as she didn’t have anything better to do at the moment.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jenn’s FB~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Kristen! If we get out of this alive, I’m gonna kill you!" Jenn yelled, the water was really starting to get hot now!
Just then the Chief of the Lirpa-may Tribe began to laugh. A deep, loud belly laugh. He just loved messing with American college students! His hut had been with cable since ’91 and every time one of those ‘Lost in the Amazon’ white man movies came on the Turner Classic Movie Network™ he’d laugh for weeks and invite an Anthropologist over to play. With a flick of his painted hand, he motioned for the two Dark Perks to be released.
A sopping wet Jenn was plucked from the pot and Kristen was cut down. They were hauled over to the chief and dropped as gently as a sack of potatoes to the ground before him.
"For being such good sports," The Chief began in his best game show host impression, "I offer you these lovely parting gifts."
A smiling tribeswomen (the same one who’d tried to choke Kristen with that apple-thing earlier) pulled a sheet off of a table with Vanna-like flourish to reveal a table of goodies.
"Pick one," The Chief insisted with a smile. "We’ve got stuff from all over the America’s. We’ve traded all over. Each of you, choose."
Still rather confused about what was going on, but not about to argue lest the Chief decide to really eat them. Kristen and Jenn bent over the table to pick out their ‘prizes.’
Jenn quickly picked an adorable Aztec statue, while Kristen inspected each item carefully. Jenn nudged her to hurry up as ‘the natives were getting restless.’
Suddenly Kristen noticed something half buried under some cloth. Pulling it out, she confirmed her suspicions. Mayan. Jade. A cup. One of –the- cups. "Um, this please." Kristen uttered breathlessly.
The Chief gave them a broad smile and told them they’d made excellent choices. Then he promised to help them meet back up with their friends, if they promised not tell the provincial government about the tribe’s little ‘game.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. End FB .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June, Mary and Kristen all wandered into the kitchen in search of coffee at the same time. Ren was just about to start the second part of her story, but waited for everyone to fill their mugs before she began again. (One has to have priorities after all.)
"So where was I?" Ren asked.
"The owner had just asked about the Inca." SC reminded her eagerly.
Ren smiled at SC’s rapt attention, but was a little put off that the other four Thugs present seemed to be more interested in their coffees than in her tale (but then again, when you’ve gone three days without sleep let’s see how attentive you are!)
Ren took a swig of café la orange and began her narrative again::::
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ren’s Flashback ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The owner leaned over Ren and waited impatiently for her to answer.
Ren shot a look to Mary, but her friend just shrugged.
Not knowing what else to say, Ren took a deep breath and told the truth, "Yeah, Amaru," she paused, "He’s sorta a friend of ours." (Well, okay maybe not –the- truth. But they did –know- him, or at least –of- him…)
There was a beat of silence, in which Ren and Mary wondered just how much trouble they’d managed to get themselves into, but then the owner’s face split into a wide grin.
"Why didn’t you say so before? Amaru is my amigo! You both eat for free as long as you’re in El Spinoza!" He said, accentuating his words with a double clap of his hands, which sent his underlings scurrying back to work and the restaurant back to talking (this time mainly about the two Americans.)
Ren and Mary exchanged a look. Free food? They could live with that!
So it came to be that Ren and Mary began to drop Amaru’s name wherever they went. They got free food, free transportation, and even free lodgings at the fanciest hotel in all of El Spinoza (which admittedly wasn’t particularly fancy, but at least it had indoor plumbing!)
A few days later, after chasing down a few more unfounded leads in their on going search for ‘The Perfect Beans’ <crescendo from B-flat, trombones,> Jenn and Kristen joined them in the small backwater town. After it was made clear that they were with Ren and Mary, they received the same treatment.
While the Thugs were enjoying/abusing the hospitality of the small town, they failed to notice how very annoyed the mayor, a man named Estevez, seemed to be with them.
The Thugs were so oblivious to this in fact; that when the mayor had them all thrown in jail and their passports confiscated it came as a complete surprise.
"What’s going on?" Jenn cried out, but the guard just smiled at the four women behind bars.
Jenn tried again, this time in Spanish. The guard smiled even broader this time and asked if any of them wanted to ‘work on early release for good behavior.’
The four Thugs snarled at him. Kristen chucked her tin cup at him hard enough to raise a huge bump in the middle of his forehead.
When the mayor came in just after suppertime to gloat, he found his four prisoners talking quietly amongst themselves, but also discovered the unconscious body of the prison guard. (That cup had done some damage!) Fortunately, he’d fallen too far from the bars for them to reach the keys on his belt.
"So," Mayor Estevez said, ignoring the fallen guard (he was –so- fired it wasn’t funny) "I guess you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here?"
"Nah, we were just sitting here admiring the lovely cockroaches." Mary said sarcastically.
To emphasize this, Jenn stomped on a couple, making a loud crunching noise.
In truth, these women were scaring him, but Estevez tried to mask this fact by being twice as cruel. He straightened to his full height, (which was still several inches shorter than the Mary’s 5’10", a fact which really irked him) and glared at the Americans. "It is said you are friends of the one who calls himself ‘the Dragon.’" At the women’s blank look, he clarified, "Amaru is Incan for Dragon."
A chorus of "Oh’s." And "I didn’t know that’s." Came from the cell.
Estevez scowled at them, "I don’t have time for games. Amaru is an enemy of the State, as his friends you are also. You have been sentenced to die at dawn. Firing squad." With that, he turned on his heals and marched out with what he considered impressive dignity (which actually resembled a duck’s waddle more than anything else.)
After the Mayor had left, the Thugs all looked at each other in utter shock. Die? Firing Squad? All for not wanting to pay for their morning cups of lousy coffee?!
"I guess we should have found out exactly what the deal with the Inca was huh?" Jenn sighed and sunk into the straw filled mattress, quite aware that it was probably infested with fleas and God-knows what else, but not caring any longer.
"Seems he must have ‘helped free an oppressed people’ or something," Mary mumbled, "That would explain why the people love him but the government hates him."
Ren leapt to her feet, "Come on now! We can’t give up!" She looked around at the dejected Thugs. "Is that what good ol’ Tracy Vetter would do?"
"Tracy Vetter?" Came a questioning voice from the doorway.
The Dark Perks all jumped at once and pressed themselves against the bars so they could see who’d come in. The Inca!
Amaru slowly walked further into the jail, glancing down at the still unconscious guard. He looked over the women in the cell. He’d come as soon as he’d heard of them, but he didn’t recognize any of them. Why had they been using his name? "You said Tracy Vetter? The homicide detective from Toronto?"
"Yes!" The four women crowed.
"You’re going to help us aren’t you?" One blonde said.
"Please? We didn’t mean to drop your name around, we were just talking about how cute you are and the waitress over heard." Another blonde pleaded. Two young brunettes just batted huge eyes at him and tried their bests to look helpless.
Amaru cast another skeptical look at the fallen guard. Well, not –that- helpless. "What is your connection to Tracy Vetter?"
"We’re sorta in a club with her," Mary began slowly, "The Dark Perks."
"I left my brother with her, to learn from her." The Inca told them.
"How to be selfless, save the innocent and punish the evil?" Ren asked sweetly, BB and BB2 were a couple of her favorite episodes, she knew how to push his buttons.
"We didn’t do anything wrong," The 20 year-old Kristen said with theatrical tears, "And now they’re going to kill us."
Amaru looked them over carefully, then apparently decided that they were sincere, or maybe he just wanted to tick the Mayor off again. But either way, he quickly opened the cell door with the guard’s keys and whisked them all off to his hacienda in the nearby picturesque mountains.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. End Flashback ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Wow!" Said the wide-eyed SC.
"It wasn’t -quite- that romantic." Mary said acidly.
SC ignored her and asked Ren, "So what happened next?"
"Well, we spent a few days with Amaru while he got our passports back. He helped us track down ‘The Perfect Coffee Beans.’" Ren paused while they waited for the -dramatic music- to fade. "Then when we heard about the war and we all flew up to Toronto."
Jenn gave an indelicate snort, "Yeah, ‘spent a few days with Amaru.’" She mimicked in a sing-song voice, "Makes it sound like the Holiday Inn." She said sarcastically. "Truth is, he made us dig post holes while we waited, ‘to earn our keep.’"
Kristen growled, "Yeah, I don’t know why we let him come up with us."
"Wait!" June’s eyes went wide. "He came up with you? As in, to Toronto?"
"Yeah," Jenn nodded, obviously not too thrilled by that fact.
"Well?" SC said.
"Well what?" Mary asked.
"Where’s the Inca?" SC ground out slowly.
"Oh, he’s got a faction of his own somewhere, the Incarnates." Ren shrugged, "He seemed quite excited to meet with them, he took off as soon as the plane landed."
SC and June exchanged an excited look. "So there’s –another- vampire in Toronto?" They asked in unison, quite excited at the thought of that.
"Yeah," Mary sighed. "Now who’s gonna make some more coffee? If we’re gonna make it through this War we’re gonna need a lot more than this!"
"More coffee." Ren nodded.
"More bunny heads." June added.
"More neuro-toxins." Jenn added.
"More ammo." SC added.
"More coffee." Kristen added again.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
End part 2. Happy to see us aren’t ya? <dramatic music>