Perfect Match

[Trillian]

Mick accepted the boots with a quiet thanks and sat on the floor to pull them on. Shock rippled through him at the question and after he pulled one boot on he ended up gaping at William. Because Mick had more or less sat at the tall vampire's feet, he had to look all the way up his body to his face. The man looked like a giant and Mick found himself even more intimidated.

But first, "Werewolves are real?" he asked, horrified. Oh, fuck no. He'd seen An American Werewolf In Paris as a little kid and been freaked out by werewolves (and wolves) ever since.

His mouth went dry. "Just what the movies say. Silver bullets and the full moon." He could hear his speech was impeded by his dry mouth. He sounded oddly Elmer Fudd-ish. Give that guy a glass of water.

I'm hunting wascally werewolves

[Ehcorn]

William clasped his hands in front of him and took a breath to begin educating Mick about werewolves, but after the night he'd had – the earthquake, the loss of his only source of nymph blood, and the time he'd had to devote to disposing of the creature – he instead gave Mick an order to follow him upstairs.

When they reached the first level, he took a route that made it seem like he meant to escort the human out for the night, but before he reached the front door, he took a turn into the lounge area. Past a leather sectional the warm reddish-brown of cognac, there was a wall lined with bookshelves. William went to one in the middle, plucked a red, cloth-covered book gilded with a gold illustration of a half-man, half-wolf creature on its front, and turned with it.

"The Book of Werewolves," he said, passing the book to Mick, "will tell you everything you need to know." 

He walked past Mick and to the sectional, where he removed his blood smeared suit jacket and tossed it onto a far cushion before he took a seat. With his back ramrod straight and his hands loosely held together in his lap, he regarded Mick steadily. "Going forward, I require you to reside here and be available to me at all times. A room has been readied for you."

And it'd been ready since he'd cleared out his last assistant's belongings and tossed them into the furnace along with the mangled remains of his body.

[Trillian]

Mick followed dutifully, not thinking about where he was going or what he was going to face. He'd faced the worst of it already. His stomach did a flip-flop and growled at him, letting him know that he needed to put something in it soon. He wasn't really in the mood just yet.

When they got to William's swish living room (everything was fancy with this guy) and he was offered a book, Mick hesitated for the tiniest moment before taking it out of William's hands with a dubious expression. A fucking book. Did he have to read this now? Was there going to be homework? Had somebody made this into a movie yet?

He didn't voice any of his concerns and he switched gears after tucking it under his arm when William mentioned living here. He opened his mouth to say he had a place but then he closed it again. The job needed him here, if he wanted the job then he had to stay. Alright, then, he would stay in the fancy house where two rooms was bigger than his whole apartment. Since he owned his apartment he could rent it out and make even more money on the side. That would be alright. Visions of him partying hard with a wad of cash in his wallet made him feel a lot happier than he'd been all night.

"Okay," he agreed. "Should I go back right now and pack, or...?" He set the book down onto the nearby coffee table. If he was going to live here, he could come get this book whenevs.

[Ehcorn]

William glanced at the book after Mick set it aside, though he didn’t remark on it. The mental net he’d fashioned and cast over Mick’s mind made him aware that the human didn’t intend to abandon the book entirely. Its resting spot on the coffee table would be temporary. Just as he knew that the same reason Mick had removed his boots was the same reason that he'd read the book: William had ordered it. The Consort had failed to supply him an assistant who possessed more than rudimentary knowledge about the supernatural world, but they hadn’t failed to give him someone who obeyed.

"Yes," William said, but before he could say more, Mick's stomach gurgled again. He raised an eyebrow. Humans were worse than fledglings, always eating in order to function properly. "Bring what food you need. The kitchen is yours to do with as you will, as is the van in the garage. The keys are by the door."

William looked away from Mick and took the book from the coffee table, sliding his hand over the cover and his fingers into the groves of each individual letter that made up the title.

"That is all," he said. He flipped open the book and settled in to reread a text he already had memorized.

[Trillian]

Mick didn't know his way around but it was easy to find the front door. Fuck knows where the kitchen was though.

He clumped his way back down the driveway without helmet and jacket because he'd parked his bike at the bottom of the driveway and couldn't be bothered putting on all his gear just to ride up the driveway. He spied the garage on the way up and parked his bike in front of it. He had to go back inside the house to get the garage door up. The van wasn't one of the extra tall kind

nondescript van

so he couldn't transport his bike in it

to grab nondescript people

but he had a suspicion that he'd mostly be using one or the other anyway

to bleed them dry

so it wasn't like William was going to be needing the van anytime soon. He checked the back (for bodies? who knew what the fuck Fancy Pants was keeping in there) but there was nothing inside and it was very clean. He wheeled his motorcycle into a space in the garage and then after the van trundled out he clicked the remote and watched the door roll down.

It took him a couple of hours to make himself a meal and to get whatever things he needed. He wasn't sure if Fancy Pants (William, gotta keep thinking of him as William) had cutlery or pots and pans so Mick boxed up what he needed to eat and drink with, and took all of his groceries (mostly dry store) and four boxes of alcohol off his shelves. He'd have to list his place with a realtor or something so they could manage the rent and stuff and he wouldn't have to do anything.

Three hours from the moment he'd been sent away to get his things, he was back. He drove the van into the garage and parked it without putting the door down because he needed to get stuff out of the back. The next half hour was spent ferrying his things to the kitchen after he found it, and also his clothing to his bedroom, which was nicer than his old bedroom. He dumped his bags onto the floor rather than putting everything away and sought out William to see if he was needed. He hoped not. His eyes felt grainy and he was having trouble staying awake, yawning every five minutes.

[Ehcorn]

As Mick roamed through the house, making all the noise that accompanied settling in, William remained on the couch in the lounge with his eyes closed, his face slack, and his chest unmoving. Combined with his pallor, William looked like a body that’d been arranged with props for an impromptu postmortem photography session. Even when Mick located him, he didn’t move to acknowledge the human. He sat stock-still with The Book of Werewolves balanced on one thigh, his hand spread on the cover to hold it in place. Balanced on his other leg near the knee was a stemless wineglass, half-filled with liquid that could be dismissed as dark red wine to those unfamiliar with vampires.

He’d flung his awareness as far as he was able, then stretched himself farther and farther until his edges began to fray and split. He gathered as many threads as he could and pressed on, intending to push himself until he had nothing left to push with. He had no purpose beyond testing himself — not at first. Eventually, another presence, one as familiar to him as his own reflection, danced and twined around him. There was an impression of sweet perfume, petal soft lips, a gasp.

Does this mean you’ve finally forgiven me? Katalin’s delight thrummed through the link he’d created the night he’d made her.

She’d reached out to him? That wasn’t the way and she knew it. He was the sire, she was the fledgling. He slammed into her with a wave of displeasure and pulled away at the same time, but she darted after him.

No?! It’s been half a century, William! How long do—

Leave me, he commanded, pushing her away again as he began the journey back to his body.

For the moment, William remained as unresponsive as the corpse he resembled.

[Trillian]

Mick approached William without hesitation, figuring he was just 'resting his eyes' like old people did. Vampires were older than they looked and William looked old so he must need a lot of extra eye resting.

"I'm all set up," he said, his stare falling to the book that William suggested he read. Man, he hated books, but maybe this one wouldn't be so bad if it was going to teach him about werewolves. A shudder passed through his body at the idea that people could change into monsters on the full moon. He thought about that one time he'd gone out to drink and smoke weed at the skate park with his friends and they'd spied a guy in the shadows at the edge of the park walking around on all fours. One of Mick's friends had thrown a beer bottle at them and it had smashed against a tree. The guy had stood up, kind of hunched over, and growled at them before running away. Mick and his friends had laughed. Fuck. It seemed very much like a werewolf sighting to him now instead of some high junkie.

William didn't move. "Do you want me to take the book now?" he asked. He figured William had it with him because he hadn't wanted to put it back on the shelf. Mick wouldn't have remembered where it was. Those shelves were packed.

Still nothing. He waited a long time before deciding to leave.

"I'm going to go sleep now, I need to, uh, rest my eyes." Mick smiled at his own joke but it disappeared when William didn't even react. He turned and made his way back to his new bedroom (after a wrong turn), stripped out of his clothes and crawled into bed, naked. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

[Ehcorn]

William returned to himself and stirred like a snake coming out of hibernation. His movements were sluggish, and it took several long blinks for the familiar surroundings of the lounge and its book-filled walls to swim into focus. His lips thinned as he further cemented himself in the space he physically occupied and caught the scent of sweat and human musk. Mick had returned, but long enough ago that when William extended his awareness within the boundaries of his home, he could sense the human already in bed, his mind caught in the quiet space between wakefulness and dreaming.

He’d left himself vulnerable again. His next test would have to focus on splitting his awareness, leaving enough of himself behind that he’d be aware of what happened around his physical self.

William sighed and took a sip from his glass. Even cold, the blood had a pleasant taste — crisp and sweet like apples. Dryad blood was more difficult to obtain than nymph, but because it offered no high, it never sold for as much. While he continued drinking, his mind wandered to their next scheduled difficult-to-obtain extraction. One that Mick was in no way prepared for.

He polished off the rest of his blood, stood, and set the red book on the coffee table. He regarded the werewolf on its cover with narrowed eyes, then moved to gather writing material and crafted a note to Mick that emphasized the importance of reading the entirety of the book before night fell the following day. After he folded the note in half and left it on the book, he checked his watch and turned to make his way towards the basement and his makeshift crematorium.

It was time to grind some bones.

***

When he woke the next night, Willam dressed in a dark blue cable knit sweater with a shawl collar, gray slacks, and black loafers. It wasn’t a suit, but he appeared no less distinguished than he had the night before. No doubt Mick would still find the name ‘Fancy Pants’ appropriate when he thought of him. As he considered the human, he sent out several threads of his mental self throughout the house in search of him, wondering if he’d remained there or ventured out.

[Trillian]

Mick had ventured out twice before William had got up. Technically it was just the once, but he'd intended twice.

When Mick woke up it was one hour off noon. He'd brought from his apartment the few groceries he'd had and made himself some cereal to start his day. Afterwards, he'd found the red book that he was supposed to read and was appalled by the note on top of it. A whole book? In a day? And the morning was over already! It was impossible to read a book in a day! Even a couple of chapters would've been a stretch.

He left the book there along with its note, wishing he had a pen so he could scrawl 'nope' across it, and he stormed out to the garage where his motorcycle was kept. In the moment between grabbing his helmet and putting it on, he reconsidered. He could at least try. It seemed rash to leave without opening the book at all. Maybe it was an easy read. It was about werewolves so at least it wasn't a book about some dusty old guy.

He set his helmet back down and went back. Glancing at the clock, it was quarter past twelve. He had around six hours before sundown. Maybe Fancy Pants wasn't an early riser. He returned to the room with the book in it, picked up the note that had wafted off the table onto the floor and set it back onto the table before he took the book, sat down on the comfiest looking chair, and started to read.

It wasn't dry but it wasn't wonderful, either. Whoever had written the book had done so without any personality. It was the kind of technical writing that were found in school textbooks. What was up with that? Didn't they realise kids were reading them? Why bore them to death with the information? Sighing, he resumed his focus and did his best.

Hours passed as he struggled with the book, constantly finding himself staring into space and having to force himself to read more. He shifted position countless times. When he finished the chapter he was on he was surprised to find he was only on chapter three. Chapter three? Was that all? After how many hours? He looked at the clock. It was half past one. Barely over an hour had passed. Shocked, Mick stared at the clock as its sweeping hand glided past numbers in yet another circle. This torture had felt like forever and it had barely been over an hour? While it was good news for him being able to read a lot of the book, the suffering wasn't worth it. He'd had enough. He wasn't cut out for this; murdering people and reading books.

Mick tossed the book onto the coffee table and it slid perilously towards the edge before stopping. He hadn't stayed to watch its landing though, for he was heading to his room. He grabbed his backpack and shoved all of his clothes into it. He put on his leather jacket, shouldered the straps of his bag, and took long strides towards the garage. Once there he shoved on his helmet, did it up, opened up the garage door, wheeled his bike out, closed the garage door behind him (but couldn't lock it from the outside) and then took off.

He rode hard towards a mountain in the district, taking the winding roads aggressively before he reached the peak. It had taken him half an hour to get here in what should've been a forty-five minute ride. Pulled over in the carpark of a lookout, he was a lot calmer when he got off his bike and stared out at the view. He gripped the railing tightly, white knuckles betraying his leftover tension.

He weighed the pros and cons of going back or just splitting. After twenty minutes of debating, he hopped onto his motorbike and headed back down the mountain road at a much more sedate pace. It took him forty-five minutes before he was opening the garage door again and wheeling his bike back in. He put everything away except for his backpack full of clothes, which he dumped at the foot of his bed before looking for the werewolf book again.

And that was how William found him, sitting on the comfy armchair and only just reaching halfway in the book he'd been assigned, miserable and studious.

[Ehcorn]

William could’ve inserted himself into Mick’s mind from where he stood at the opposite side of the house, but he didn’t. He rolled his awareness back into himself and returned his attention to securing the golden-faced watch around his wrist — the finishing touch for all of his outfits. After tugging his sleeve back into place, he conducted a monthly phone call that lasted only as long as it took for him to listen to an abbreviated question and respond with an abbreviated answer: Yes.

When he left his room, he closed and locked the steel-framed and rune-warded door behind him, then took a path that led him to the lounge and the chair Mick occupied. His gaze went immediately to the book held open at its center. He might’ve concluded that Mick was revisiting a vital chapter, but the human’s expression said otherwise. William pierced the aura of misery that surrounded the human and watched Mick flee from his task, riding to a mountaintop to contemplate a vista displaying a swath of warm, sun-kissed colors he hadn’t seen with his own eyes in over a thousand years.

The view wasn’t enough to chase the deep frown from his face.

"Were my instructions unclear?" he asked — though not in a manner that begged a response — and snatched the folded paper from the table. "I required you to read the book before nightfall. Not a quarter. Not half. All of it." The edges of the note fluttered as he gestured sharply at a nearby window, curtains drawn to show off an immaculately kept garden kissed by silvery blue moonlight. "It’s the full moon and you went on a joyride instead of preparing."

[Trillian]

His instinct

Fuck you

was sharp and clear and at the forefront of his mind. His lips parted slightly to almost let that little gem out. He pressed down on it, hard, and his lips pressed together firmly as well. If this asshole knew he'd gone out then he also knew that Mick was having trouble with it and had tried his best. One extra hour of reading was not going to be the difference of him finishing this double-speak ridiculous fucking book. Maybe one and half more chapters up his sleeve and that was all.

"I can either finish reading it, or I can read and understand it," he snapped, unable to control himself completely. "I'm not hunting a fucking werewolf after reading a fucking book. These bastards are strong and they can smell me coming, so whatever you have up your...

Fancy Pants

...s-sleeve, it's not enough."

He didn't know why William couldn't just use his fancy vampire powers and just read the werewolf mind and tell it what to do and where to go.

[Ehcorn]

Mick might not have spoken the insults out loud, but William heard and reacted to them as if he had. He jerked his chin up and sneered down at the human. Fuck him? He wasn’t the one who’d been given ample time to complete a task and squandered every second. The clock’s little hand had traveled ‘round more than once while Mick sat and bemoaned how impossible it was to read a book over the course of an entire sun-filled day. Any human capable of turning a page should’ve been able to finish. Likely with enough time to compile a list of questions for him to answer when he woke. Instead, he’d been greeted by an insolent little shit who was under the misimpression that he had any right to dictate terms to him.

Displeasure in every rigid line of his body, William stepped close to the lounge chair Mick sat on to yank the book from the mortal’s hands. "We leave now," William said, stepping back and shutting the book with a snap. "You're driving."

To act as encouragement, William deposited a series of images in Mick’s mind. They started with his refusal to obey and ended with his lifeless body eaten by flames until there was nothing left except bone.

William raised his eyebrows. "Well? You’ve got the keys. Get a move on."

[Trillian]

It was stupid, really. His instincts had battled his ability to see William as his true new employer. Thinking about him as Fancy Pants had fucked up his perception and having his... new-job-crisis or whatever the hell it was, had screwed him the rest of the way.

William's mental rebuttal was in no way misinterpreted but it did leave him with too dry a mouth. He felt like he'd been sucker-punched, the wind knocked out of him. He blinked at the vampire in shock, the book torn from his hands not the thing that he was reeling from, (though ordinarily his instinct would be to hang onto whatever it was that was being grabbed away).

Death. His death. He was either going to upset his new boss so much that HE was the one that was going to be mind-controlled straight into the furnace, or he was going to fight a goddamned werewolf and maybe turn into one himself. He hadn't read that chapter, it was the next one coming up.

He regretted his jaunt more than ever. He regretted coming back even worse.

But he was here now so there was no use fretting over things that hadn't happened. This had been his choice, might as well keep going forward. Standing on legs that felt like sticks, he walked brittly across the room and to the garage, the keys for the van left on a nail there. Looks like William couldn't know everything about everything after all.

He grabbed his leather jacket on the way for extra protection, not wanting to go up against a werewolf without some form of protection. He wondered if William was going to pacify it with his mind after all and just needed Mick there to open the van door and lock it in chains because William would be busy keeping its mind locked up. Could he do things when he was doing brain battles with someone? Mick didn't think he could, because he hadn't even moved when the scalpel had...

Don't think about that. He shivered, becoming aware of how badly insulated the garage walls were in comparison to the rest of the house. He was glad for his leather jacket for a different purpose now.

Climbing into the driver's seat, he waited for William to get in as well.

[Ehcorn]

He’d demanded that Mick get ready for their immediate departure, but several minutes passed before William opened the van’s rear door and loaded the things he’d gathered from his basement office and extraction room. There was a blue cooler with a white lid, a length of coiled knock-off wizard-string that — unlike the original version Wardens carried — had a tendency to break when used to restrain more powerful species, and finally, a black duffel bag filled with chains and manacles that clinked and clanged when he set it down.

Once everything was situated, he closed the door and made his way around the van to slide into the passenger seat and attach his seatbelt — not because he was concerned he wouldn’t survive a crash, but because he knew the vehicle would scream beeping complaints at him if he didn’t.

In the center of the dash was a touchscreen, and after Mick turned the van on, William activated it so he could bring up the map and input an address. One press of a green go button later and he sat back in his typical posture-perfect fashion.

"It’s a building at the edge of the district," William said, casting a sidelong look Mick’s way. His eyebrow was raised. "Do follow the directions this time."

[Trillian]

Mick pressed his lips together firmly, biting back his comment and doing his best not to think insulting thoughts at William. He mostly had it, though there was mental grumbling about how he wasn't used to being treated like he couldn't find his own butthole with two hands and a flashlight.

He turned the van down the driveway and followed the directions spoken to him in a sedate voice. As Mick drove through affluent suburbs, he thought about how crime actually did pay because William did criminal things and he lived in a big old mansion, and his ex-boss had lived in a flashy city building on the top floor, and he'd been given millions for putting the screws to his brother. If only he'd known what to do with the money other than to buy stuff. He didn't know how to invest and he didn't know which companies were legit and which were con-artists so it seemed safer just not to do the whole shares thing.

His thoughts came to a stop when the GPS system announced 'arrived' in a voice that should've sounded satisfied, but wasn't. He looked for somewhere to park.