Easter Six and the Vile Vampires
#5 of The SBI Cases
The series of Easter Six continues, this time with a small break from our sexual obsessions with the rabbit to allow him a little time to do his job...even though he really hates dealing with vamps.
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Easter Six and the Vile Vampires
For bbbuuu
By Draconicon
"Ugh, Hollywood...stop making our jobs fucking harder," Easter muttered under his breath. "That is not how you fucking deal with a poltergeist..."
The rabbit shook his head, sinking deeper into his armchair as he stared at the old movie. Old, but not old enough for SBI to not have been around at the time. Not old enough to be excused for this level of bullshit.
Everyone thinks that they know how to deal with the supernatural because of movies like this, and they're all wrong. You try to force a poltergeist out with a cross and belief, all you're going to do is give it something to shove up your ass when it swaps hosts.
Still, it wasn't like he had anything better to do besides watch bad movies. He was on leave after the events of the foxhound fuckery, and he wasn't going to pick up the phone for work unless it was a goddamn emergency. In which case, he was only picking it up because his superiors wouldn't give him a choice on the matter.
A glance outside told him that it was pretty unlikely that anyone would be called in soon. The night shift was going to be coming on, and he had long-since opted out of that. Mostly because of the Vamps.
He hated psychics, and on night-shifts, Vamps were your biggest problem. Two guesses what one of their major powers were.
Yeah, and you're not on night-shift, are you? Easter reminded himself, tapping the remote to change the channel. You made a damn good case to get off it, and all they can do is send you on emergency missions. Like that werewolf.
He was just in the process of getting ready to complain about the next movie - which just so happened to be a werewolf flick - when there was a buzzing sound. Not a phone buzz, but the sound of wood beating against the wall at a high speed.
...Shit.
The rabbit got to his feet, pulling his bathrobe that much tighter around his middle as he walked down the hall. If this was what he thought it was -
It was. The floor to ceiling mirror just across from his closet was glowing, thudding against the wall in tune to a ringing sound. Easter slapped a hand across his face, muttering under his breath.
"One night...One fucking night..."
SBI had many ways of getting in touch with their agents. Usually, they just used a phone, but during an emergency, or if they wanted to be sure that they weren't being tapped, they would use some of the more magical methods. There were quite a few things that those spells could tap into to chat with someone. Mirrors were the most common, but it could theoretically hit anything, turning any device into a means of talking to someone else.
He pitied the mage that tapped into a sex toy by accident. Everyone knew that story.
Grumbling, the dark-furred rabbit stepped in front of the mirror.
"Confirmation Identity: Easter Six. Natural Agent. Accept call."
The mirror suddenly shimmered, no longer vibrating but becoming incredibly cloudy. It resolved after a few seconds to Skyline, his red-tailed hawk boss, leaning over a table and chatting into a phone.
"Easter? Am I coming through?"
"Yeah, I see you."
"Good. Didn't know what you'd be doing on a Friday night, so this is audio only on my side."
It was a temptation to moon his boss for that, but there was always the possibility that Skyline was lying. Besides, the last thing that he needed was to look like he was offering himself to someone. Everyone always assumed that he got where he was with his big ass, and he didn't need to feed that particular rumor.
"What do you want? It's my day off, and I'm on leave. Why are you calling me?"
"Only reason I can. There's an emergency."
"Of course there fucking is. What is it? Vamps causing problems."
"Yes. To one of our SCIs."
"..."
Easter took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. This night was getting better and better. SCIs were Supernaturals that had been vetted and naturalized into society, allowing them to live a more or less normal life among the mundanes out there. He had seen more than a few werewolves go through with it, at least after they'd been given many different drug treatments and therapies to handle the stuff that they had to deal with. Vamps were the other big species that applied for it, and more often than not got it a bit early, mostly due to the fact that they had a better handle on their other instincts.
They also had more power, and he wondered just how many slipped through the SBI nets before they were ready to be put on the streets.
"You want me to be the NA assigned, or backup?" he asked.
"No. Now before you get mad -"
"You better not be telling me to meet up with him myself."
"I know, I know, it's a breach of protocol, but we're in a bind here."
"You're in a bind? You're double-breaching. You're asking me to come back off of leave - leave that you fucking insisted on, by the fucking way - and you're asking me to do, alone, what should be at least one SA and one NA. What the hell is going on? What kind of problems are we looking at here?"
"It's a death threat on an SCI that has brought us extremely reliable information on multiple occasions."
"Doesn't tell me why it has to be me. Again."
"Because you're the only one that hasn't clocked out yet, okay?!"
Easter arched an eyebrow as he looked at the red-tailed hawk. He wasn't surprised to see the stress lines running up and down the other guy's face, but he was surprised to see the slight panic in Skyline's eyes. Usually, that wasn't anywhere near so obvious.
Okay, so the guy means something to the bureau. Guess that it's legit on that front...
"Are you saying that everyone's gone? Everyone except the in-house staff?"
"I'm saying that everyone clocked out early before the night shift signed on. I need someone over there to keep an eye on him until they can get to him."
"...Fine." Easter shook his head. "What kind of SCI is he?"
"...A Vamp."
"ARE YOU FUCKING -"
"Name's Schiff. He'll be waiting for you at a bar off of 8th and Martin. Make sure that you're there as soon as possible."
Click. Or, well, hum. The mirror fogged over again before going blank, leaving nothing but the rabbit in it wearing his bathrobe.
Without risk of being seen, Easter strangled the air in front of him, growling under his breath for a few moments in a very un-rabbit-like fashion before finally getting himself under control.
Much as he hated it, he had to be professional. He couldn't ask the agency to pull it off if he couldn't.
Throwing the bathrobe to the side, he got dressed. A pair of thick leather pants, a white, buttoned up shirt, a long coat. They were all the classics for him, and all well-sewed with various protective runes. He dragged a box out of his closet, flipping it open.
"Which one tonight..."
He lingered over his usual six-shooter, then sighed. Much as he preferred its familiarity, more than likely he would be dealing with Vamps tonight. They didn't go down with silver, not the way that werewolves did, and they had an insane regeneration factor. If he was going to be dealing with them, he needed something bigger.
So, he went with the second gun. The Paladin.
It was a large revolver, one that had a barrel one and a half times as long as his usual revolver, and the chamber for bullets only housed four. There was a reason for that.
As he flicked the silver and black gun open, he popped out two old casings from last time, polished the chambers, and then slid four new ones in. Each bullet was twice as wide as his thumb, and stuffed with who knew what. The alchemists back at SBI were constantly revising the formula to make sure that it did what it was supposed to do, and the Vamps were constantly looking for ways to alter their feeding patterns to get new immunities.
These bullets were pretty new, so he was sure that they'd be fine, but he'd have to keep an eye out just in case.
"Fucking Vamps..."
They were always causing trouble. Unlike werewolves, who only had an issue once a month, Vamps were always fighting their urges for blood. There were substitutes, but it was like trying to get a super-carnivore to accept the vegan substitutes on the market. You always had to keep an eye out for the cheaters, and there were a lot of cheaters.
He just hoped that this wasn't going to be an all-night gig. Skyline better not be hanging him out to dry.
#
The bar on 8th and Martin was called the Red Fiend, and had a devil sign over the neon name. Somehow, he wasn't feeling particularly good about it.
His long coat swished as he walked through the door, his hands back in his pockets after proving his age and ID to the bouncer. There was no reason to be bothered by that, but he was still bothered anyway. The fact that he had to delay himself that little bit more for some bit of petty official...
He grunted, making his way to a seat at the bar, tapping the wooden surface to get the attention of the barman. Not much there. Just a bit of a grunt from the elephant behind it before taking his order for a cranberry juice.
It hadn't arrived yet when a fox walked up behind him.
"Love the coat. Positively enchanting, I have to say. Looks simply...magical."
"Schiff, I'm guessing."
"Oh, lovely, they finally did send someone. I'm glad that they took me seriously. May I take a seat?"
"Help yourself."
The rabbit gestured to his left, wanting to keep his right side clear in case of emergencies, and the Vamp did as he was told.
It was a bit surprising to see a fox, he had to admit. There had been a lot of different species to take to the whole Vamp thing, but they were usually the big, the tall, the lanky. The ones that could stand over anyone else and just look deep into their souls, pulling out their authority from their lofty heights. Birds loved it, and so did the taller wolves and coyotes.
Foxes, however...
The smirk that the guy pulled proved that he was a Vamp, at least. Hard to hide the fangs that looked more like a snake's than anything else.
"Pray tell, do you have something that might whet my thirst? I'm positively parched."
"Not in the mood for donations."
"A pity. You certainly look like you're flush at the moment."
"I'm here to keep an eye out for you. Nothing else."
"Well, at least there's that. The bureau's will most certainly need what I know."
"Yeah? What do you know?"
"More than is entirely healthy for me. The other children of the night will likely be looking for me before long, if they aren't already."
So, other Vamps would be tracking him. Already knew that was a possibility, but having it confirmed went a long way towards making his night worse. He took a deep breath, let it out, and sipped at his cranberry juice when it was delivered.
As he did, he looked out of the corner of his eye at the fox. He was fit enough looking, he supposed, dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting t-shirt. If anything, he looked like he'd just come out of a rave, which said something for his character. Not quite the up-themself vampire that he was used to dealing with.
And definitely someone that could do some damage if he needed to fight, as far as he could tell. Then again, he had seen some incredibly aged vampires do some seriously horrible things, and they'd looked like they had one and a half feet in the grave at the time.
Easter was just thinking about moving them to a different location when he had the familiar tingle down his spine of something not-right coming near, and he subtly looked over his shoulder.
A tabby cat and a sheepdog. Neither of them were dressed particularly flashily, maybe a little bit understated in the case of the sheepdog. The feeling remained, however, and he didn't like the way that they were panning their eyes across the room.
"Friends of yours?" he muttered.
"Fellow...siblings. I don't suppose you are one of those agents that can light people on fire with their minds?"
"Ain't your lucky night. I'm NA, not SA."
"...What the...you mean...Oh, we are fucked."
"Not yet."
Easter had noticed that there was a basement door behind the bar when he'd come in. Not much of one, and it would require getting by the bartender, but it would at least get them out of sight faster than running out the door would. And less conspicuously.
"How good's your glamour?"
"Good enough for me. Why?"
"That waitress."
He nodded at a bunny that was passing by, collecting an order from behind the bar.
"Make her spill the next order on your friends over there. Then get ready to move on my signal."
"An NA telling one of us to use our powers. How novel."
"Just do it."
"If you say so."
As the fox called the girl over, meeting her eyes and forcing his powers into her mind, Easter glanced at the newcomers again. They were being held back by the bouncer, who insisted that they show their IDs. That wouldn't last for much longer, he knew. They had glamour, too, which meant that the orca was going to have his brain warped around before too much longer.
But if it would last for long enough...
The bunny girl left, and Easter forced himself to go back to taking a drink. Schiff leaned over.
"What's the plan?"
"There's no plan. Not yet. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to start making a scene."
"But...what's the plan if this does work?"
"You just do whatever the hell I tell you, and I'll make sure that we get out of this alive."
Crash!
Just the sound that he was waiting for. The vampires were sputtering, shouting, making a scene of their own, and the sheer noise was pulling the elephant from behind the bar. Easter waited for a count of five, letting the manager of the whole place start shouting at the vampires, too, and then circled around the bar. A gesture pulled Schiff along behind him.
Thankfully, the basement door was little more than a wooden plank over the ladder down. He yanked it up, shoved Schiff down first, then followed after. He left a five dollar bill behind, then shut the trap door.
"I didn't know there was a wine cellar down here," Schiff said as they hit the bottom of the steps.
"It's not wine. It's beer. Lots of micro-brewing around here, and not much place to store it up above." The rabbit shook his head. "Should have a way out to the alley behind the place, too, if we're lucky."
"You come here often, then?"
"No, I just know how this works."
He wasn't thinking too much about his responses. The whole thing was starting to go pear-shaped, and the night shift still wasn't here. They should have been signed in over twenty minutes ago. Where the hell were they?
As the shouting up above started quieting down, though, he knew that they weren't exactly great on time. They needed to get out of the underground quick, before the Vamps realized that they were not in the bar anymore. The second that the flock started looking for them in the sky, any chance of avoiding a firefight would be blown.
Thankfully, he was right about there being a door out to the alley behind the bar. He knelt down by the lock, pulling out a pick and setting to work.
Schiff, unfortunately, wasn't taking to the whole 'leave him alone' aura that he was putting off, and the fox kept talking.
"With how much your kind seems to dislike mine, I half-expected you to tell me that my powers were off-limits."
"Trade-off. If I shot one of them, yeah, it'd die. But the other one would start fighting seriously. That means hostages, at best, and probably a lot of dead or converted people before I could get another shot off. And that's if I hit the first guy to start with. If I missed, then we'd be dealing with two vampires in a very tight space.
"Telling you to put that girl under a glamour meant that we could start a scene pretty harmlessly, they'd have to keep cover for a bit longer, and we could sneak out."
"...Practical."
"It worked."
Click.
"Now, what the fuck are they planning that makes them want you dead?"
"Two words. Blood farm."
"...fucking hell."
Those were not words that Skyline or anyone else higher up in the organization were going to like hearing. It meant that the Vamps were taking their whole need for blood to the next level. The lawyers on behalf of the Supernaturals and their rights would be up in arms about it, too, and that would cause a whole other problem.
There goes any chance of me having ANY time off for the next year...
They stepped into the alley, and Easter tilted his head a bit further out, looking across the street. Nobody over there. To the other side, deeper into the alley, he could see his car. Nothing around it...yet.
"Let's get over there. Fast."
"You have a ride? Good. Hope it's fast."
"Very fast."
They left the building and were halfway to his vehicle when the soft crunch of a footstep caught the rabbit's attention. He stopped, turned, looked up.
Another Vamp had been on the roof, and now he was looking down at them. This one was more stereotypical, a vulture, and had the blur to him that meant he was at least a few hundred years old. Not someone that Easter wanted to take in a hand to hand fight, that was for sure.
"Fresh meat...and a traitorous drink," the vulture hissed, spreading his wings before hopping down between them and the car. "You'll feed us well."
"Yeah?"
Easter's right hand was on his gun, but he knew better than to draw. Any older vampire had a pretty good chance of being faster than the bullets shot at them. Thankfully, there was a way of slowing them down, and the vulture had thankfully provided it.
He pushed the activation button for his car.
Suddenly, the headlights in the front turned on. The vulture Vamp shrieked, throwing his arms up as he started smoking from behind. Easter pulled Schiff behind him, the fox shaded behind his back.
Thank fuck for SBI gadgets, he thought. Every SBI agent had their vehicle's headlights upgraded with 'canned sunlight,' as the techies called it. It blasted anything that had a sensitivity to the day with a huge burst of pain, and on weaker things like ghosts and young vampires, it could obliterate them entirely.
Of course, this guy wasn't one of the weaker ones, but it still injured him, slowed him down, which was just what Easter needed.
The Paladin came up, the massive weapon requiring both hands despite being a pistol. He didn't even need to aim.
BANG!
He fired, and he nearly went tumbling over the fox. Schiff caught him, stabilizing him against the recoil, giving Easter the perfect view of his shot taking the vampire center mass.
As the creature fell, gasping, shaking, the canned sunlight from the car faded, as well. It had burned itself out, unfortunately; that stuff never lasted for long. It was only a way of getting the fuck out of dodge.
"Let's go."
"That was...very impressive."
"Not my style. But sometimes, you have to be."
They passed by the vulture, who was still 'alive.' Easter pulled the trigger as they walked by, the blast back up his arm nearly knocking it out of its socket, but the vampire finally went to dust as he passed him.
"Get in."
"Um...we might need to think of a different strategy," Schiff said.
"What? Why?"
"Look inside."
Easter finally did...and immediately started swearing.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
There were three bats hanging from the rear-view mirror, each and every one of them swaying slightly as if they were mocking him for having gotten in. It was almost a guarantee that each one was a Vamp, just waiting for him and Schiff to step inside so that they could be glamoured and taken away.
With that escape fucked up, they didn't have a lot of choice. Calling for a ride wouldn't get them anybody faster than the back-up getting there would do, and he doubted that Skyline would excuse him for putting a taxi driver in danger.
That meant that they had to find a place to hold out, and if they couldn't...
Well, find a place to make sure that they weren't brought back.
"There's a garage across the street," Easter muttered. "Let's get there, see if we can fortify it."
It was empty, thankfully, and better yet, it had a heavy steel garage door. It would force anyone that came after them to come through the front office rather than anywhere else, so they could funnel the Vamps into a firing line.
As soon as they got inside, Schiff had taken to finding every mop, every stick, everything wooden in the building. The fox snapped each one into chunks, making makeshift stakes. Easter arched an eyebrow as he watched, and his charge shrugged.
"If they're after me, I need to be ready to defend myself."
"And what if they turn it on you?"
"At least it'll be quick."
"Well, at least you got a brain."
Easter spent his time scattering fuel cannisters around the room. Vamps weren't quite as weak to fire as legends made them out to be, but they still weren't keen on it. They would go out of their way to not walk through it, and they could still be injured by it if you kept them in it long enough.
That didn't mean that he wanted to burn down the building, but he had to be ready.
He also set up a few cage traps. The whole garage was set up with narrow passageways, places where people could only go in single-file. If the Vamps decided to try their luck with shapeshifting and getting ahead, then there were plenty of places for their bat bodies to get stuck and trapped. Transformation back while in a cage was generally seen as a very bad idea for people that could shapeshift; usually, it meant that they got squished.
They didn't have time to do more than that. It was a miracle they had even that much.
The flutter of wings and the crackle of footsteps outside told him that the Vamps had tracked them down. Hushing Schiff and pointing for him to go to the back of the garage, Easter ducked down behind one of the vehicles that had been left behind for repairs.
"Are you sure that they're around here?"
"Completely sure. There's nowhere else they could be hiding."
"Except the restaurant, or the strip club."
"SBI wouldn't take a witness in there. Too many casualties waiting."
The Vamps rounded the corner, coming through the office. He could just see them through the window.
Three vampires, three bullets.
There was the sheepdog and the tabby cat, as well as a cheetah. They were all black-caped, now, probably something that they had picked up at a Hot Topic shop, in his opinion. He shook his head, keeping down and waiting.
"You ain't got any proof of that," the cheetah said. "Could be some rival clan or something. Getting in on our action."
"Think a rival could have taken out Gorderion?" the sheepdog asked. "Besides...There's a very specific smell when a gun fires...and particularly one of SBI's vampire killers. It's here."
...Shit.
He'd hoped that maybe, maybe, if they kept down, they would be able to avoid a full-fledged fight, but they had already tracked him down by his own gun. Feeling slightly betrayed - and more than a little annoyed - he jumped up and fired.
Not at the vampires, but at the fuel cannister right next to the door.
BOOM! The fire spread almost immediately, and it caught the sheepdog right in the face as it geysered up from the bullet hole. The canine Vamp screamed in pain, clutching his face as he fell backwards, already turning to ash.
The other vampires jumped back, though the tabby was throwing his cloak aside, screaming as he was injured. The cheetah, on the other hand, was smarter than his colleagues.
He went back, and jumped through the window.
As the tinkling glass hit the floor, Easter whipped around, tracking the fast feline with his pistol. He was a blur, much like the vulture, but there was less space for him to run. If he could just track it properly...
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh -
CRACK!
Easter grunted as he took a punch to the gut, the cheetah upon him without any warning. He went flying backwards, slamming into one of the tool chests that were lined up against the wall, the breath knocked out of him.
"So, you're the asshole that killed Gorderion, huh?"
The cheetah blurred, suddenly in front of him, and Easter took a kick in the side, the hit sending him flying over two cars and slamming into the steel garage door. Through it all, he barely managed to keep a grip on The Paladin, but he had no chance to sit up and aim. Hell, he barely had the chance to breathe.
"You son of a bitch. You wanna fuck with us? How about we fuck with you?"
"Mmmph...better men than you have tried, ass..."
Once more, the feline jumped towards him, and this time, Easter was ready. Instead of shooting, though, he just leaned forward.
BANG!
Heh...even Vamps can't just jump through solid steel.
The rabbit groaned, rolling to his feet as he looked down at the big guy. The cheetah had his face bashed in, his muzzle just about flattened back into his face. He was slowly regenerating, though, even though he was unconscious.
BANG!
Not anymore, though. Not with a hole that big going from the front of his face to the floor.
Outta bullets...damn...
He tossed The Paladin to the side. No real use for it without a reload, and he'd left those in the car. Not his brightest move, that was for damn sure.
Last guy's injured. Might be able to get past him, if we're quick. Night shift can't be that far off. Gotta get -
"Nnngh!"
Easter gasped as he was suddenly grabbed from behind, lifted off the ground and away from all leverage. The hand turned him around, and he found himself face to face with a very crispy cat in the middle of regeneration.
"Mmmph...that hurt..."
"It was...supposed to..."
He hadn't been squeezed by someone with super strength for a while. It was not an experience that he would particularly like to go through again. Breath came with great effort, and as he was slammed back against another cabinet, his spine rattled in complaint against the metal.
"You killed three Vamps tonight. Three. Including our elder sire." The tabby smirked as he started to grow his fur back. "But that's fine. You will be the first to replace them. I've often wondered how it would feel to have a fledgeling of my own. I imagine that I'll enjoy the perks of controlling you...though you certainly won't."
Slammed against the cabinet again, Easter groaned, but not entirely in pain. Something smooth, wooden, had been pressed into his hand.
You're hiding in there? You can't hop out and help? he thought. Gotta do everything...myself...
"Tell me. Have you ever been fucked by a Vamp?" the tabby asked, leaning in, grabbing Easter's head with his free hand. "You will - Nnngh!"
Easter twisted the makeshift stake in the tabby's chest, the splinters at the end digging into flesh that probably hadn't been alive for centuries. The Vamp stared at him, then burst into a cloud of dust and ash.
"You..." He coughed. "First...Christ...Schiff, where the hell were you?"
"Hiding. You do that when there's a hundred-plus years of difference in your powers," the fox said as he poked his head out. "That was very impressive. You have a knack for this sort of thing."
"I'm lucky...my partners usually aren't, but I am."
He groaned, taking the fox's hand as he got back to his feet. Schiff looked him up and down, but before the fox could open his mouth, the rabbit held up his hand.
"Don't even. I got a half-decent opinion of you, and if you so much as ask about fucking, I'm jamming one of The Paladin's bullets up your ass like a suppository and letting you deal with the consequences."
"...Shutting up, then. But if you ever change your mind about consensual vampire sex..."
"Ain't happening." He slumped back, sighing. "Where's the fucking night shift?"
The End