Timeframe: Directly following "Encounters, Part 1"
Relation to other threads: At this time, Lacroix has not yet ventured over to Archon's place (thinking Archon is still Prince) with his family. This is following the evening in which Julian has received the introductory letters from Thorne Severan about the Tremere's request to settle in San Francisco. Thorne's visit with Daedalus therefore takes place in time during this 3-part series of sessions, which take place concurrently.
Jim and Blair enter their apartment off campus in Berkeley, still maintaining their silence about what happened today until they are safely indoors. Which didn't mean it was safe. It just felt better.
Jim sighs, depositing jacket and keys. "Good to be home."
His lover tosses his jacket on a chair and heading for the kitchen, food in-hand. "I'll dish us up, you get the drinks, Jim."
The Sentinel hangs up Blair's jacket, and follows him to the kitchen. He knows his lover isn't nearly as calm as he seems. Perhaps he's thinking food will help. "Sure thing, Chief." He gets out cups, ice, cans of coke.
Trying desperately for a sense of normality, Blair loads up two plates with Thai food... Mee-Krob, Pad Thai and soup. "You want any extra chili-sauce?" Blair fishes around in the bag for condiments.
Jim purposely brushes against his partner, just to make his physical presence more felt. He can sense the still-racing heartbeat of the other. "No, thanks."
"Okay." He leans into Jim's brief touch, gratefully. "Just soy sauce for me. too."
After a pause, Jim takes the plates from Blair, sets them back down on the counter, and then collects his lover into his arms. Sighing with relief, Blair wraps his arms around Jim and hangs on, burying his head against his lover's chest. Jim murmurs softly, "I'm sorry I took the risk I did, Chief. After this morning, I just felt I had to."
Blair responds quietly. "Yeah... I know. I know you were only doing what you needed to, Jim. Sorry I freaked out on you."
His lover runs a hand up into the long, wavy hair, cradling Blair's head against him tenderly. "Not a problem. This is pretty freaky stuff. I guess..." He pauses, thinking...
The other gives a shaky laugh. "Yeah, no kidding!"
"I guess I'm just realizing that I've simply traded one Great City for an even Greater City, one with greater challenges yet," Jim thinks out loud, puzzling through the whole thing. "Strange... the more we develop the psychic bond between us, the more we seem to find these strange things."
Murmuring his agreement, Blair thinks about the past few days.
"Our powers... mine as Sentinel, yours as Shaman... become even more needed. I really believe we were meant to learn about these vampires, if that's what they are."
Blair pulls back a little to look up into Jim's eyes. "Do you think we're gonna be safe around them, Jim? Honestly?"
Jim looks down into the wide, sincere blue eyes, loving his Blair. "I don't know, Chief, but I'm hoping that we will have an edge that will save us. There are keys here we must pay attention to. For example, I think I may have discovered another piece to the puzzle of our shared spirit walk."
"Oh?" Blair perks up, interested and surprised.
"The silver wolf..." Jim looks within, going still, seeing the images from the dream again. "I believe the silver wolf is this Julian Luna. And after meeting Frank Kouhanek... I'm pretty sure he is the Raven."
Blair chuckles. Yeah, Frank certainly FITS that totem-animal! "What about the other wolves?"
Jim shrugs. "Well, perhaps other leaders of vampires... whatever... around the city. Perhaps even Cash was one of them. The stranger wolves still worry me." He releases his love slowly, his hands settling on his waist. "I got the impression that the Silver Wolf has great power, but also is very wise, even reasonable. Chief, you probably didn't hear this, but I distinctly heard Cash whisper before he left - 'I am not your enemy, Captain.' I wonder."
"Maybe you're right... " Blair's eyes go a bit wide. "Really!? Hey, Jim..." he adds, thinking a bit about their encounter with Cash.
"Yes, love?" Jim raises a finger to caress his cheek, still trying to soothe him.
"Maybe he was telling the truth... maybe... maybe they aren't our enemies."
"But what are they? Frank seems to think they're vampires. But then, the Raven was the Trickster God, wasn't he?"
Blair nods. "Yeah, Raven was a Trickster. Frank seemed very sincere in his belief that they existed... I saw it in him. But ... what if maybe they aren't all evil blood-sucking monsters? Cash was wearing the emblem of a god of light - a sun-god..."
The older man sighs, stretching as he releases him completely. "Yeah... hey, the food is getting cold. We can eat and talk at the same time."
Food sounds like a good idea. Blair nods. "Okay." He follows Jim to collect their plates and drinks. Jim picks up a plate and drink and heads back to the kitchen table.
Blair sits and starts eating. "Mmmmmmm... this stuff isn't bad. Good choice, Jim."
The other is still thinking about the encounter. "Something about Cash... I don't know, he seemed very... compelling..." He digs into his Pad Thai, thoughtful. "Thanks, Chief."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I was fascinated at the dichotomy between his apparent age and his formal manners and old-fashioned attitude. Not very modern at all." Blair shakes his head, munching down some more Mee Krob.
Jim points a fork at his lover. "Don't underestimate Cash, Sandburg. He was riding a Harley, you know."
Blair laughs thru a mouthful. "You got me there, Jim!"
Jim eats in silence for a while, thinking, thinking... he can't leave this alone. He has to find out more. Suddenly he decides. "Eat up, Chief, I want to go to the station."
"Huh?" He hastily finishes up his soup. "Why now?"
The Sentinel gobbles down the last of his dinner, rises from the table, bustles in the kitchen putting food away and washing dishes hastily. "Chief, we've got three names to research!"
30 MINUTES LATER
Jim and Blair flash their security badges at the night desk officer, and head for Jim's new desk, where his new computer was just set up for him this afternoon, or so he was told it would be. Sure enough, there it is. After going through the initial log-in nonsense, they're into the SFPD database.
Unfortunately, there is nothing on file for the three names they want to look up. But that just means none of them were arrested for anything. Jim isn't convinced that this is a promising thing, as these "people" are also apparently in the PD. Like Sonny Toussaint. It might be standard procedure to make certain records disappear for certain people.
Blair peers over his glasses at the screen, sitting next to Jim. "Nothing here, man."
Jim sighs, calling up a different screen. "Okay, Chief, they're not bad guys, but who are they? Let's do a search on the newswire database for Luna."
In seconds, BINGO!
"Oh, my..." The screens start rolling, and they start reading. Nothing personal, all business. A lot of it. The guy owns the San Francisco Times newspaper, for one thing! "Real handy, controlling the major newspaper here, isn't it?" He sits back, mouse in hand.
"Hmmmm... yeah," Blair answers, reading the summary on the screen. "Spin-doctors in your back-pocket... man, this guys' rich. More than rich... I think my earlier comment about being a 'godfather' type figure wasn't too much of an exaggeration!"
"You said a mouthful there, Sandburg. Hmmm, owns all kinds of stuff... and not a personal note to be found whatsoever. Even owns a winery." He continues to scroll through the material.
Blair looks surprised, noting the winery in question. "I've tasted that wine! It's pretty good, too!" He points to the newspaper reference. "Well, since he controls the media, that's not surprising, is it? I'll bet he never allows any bad press."
Jim leans forward, working the mouse. "Let me try something..." He starts up another search on mob action. "Huh..." No mention of Luna here. The most mentioned name is Fiori, but more recent entries have that name conspicuously missing. Jim abandons that search and goes back to the news archives on "Luna". "Let's find some pictures, if there are any..."
"But I thought..." Blair stops himself, embarrassed. The thing about not being able to photograph vampires... "Guess if we find any, that one's a myth too, huh?"
"Wait... here's something... Children's Hospital Foundation, a charity event... look at this!" Jim scrolls to reveal a publicity picture of members of the board of directors for the hospital. The caption indicates that the leftmost man is Julian Luna. Two other men are listed. But more interesting is that Cash is clearly visible behind the board members, hovering off Julian's left shoulder.
Blair, eyes wide, exclaims, "Hey! That's Cash!"
Jim nods. "And that's... Julian Luna." They peer at the photograph of a man of fairly short stature, dark, handsome and Italian, exuding... presence. It's visible even in the photograph. And Cash's stance clearly says 'bodyguard'. "This man is used to power. Very interesting. But if he's like Cash... board member for the Children's Hospital Foundation?"
" I was right. He's the..." He mouths the word: vampire godfather. "That's got to be a front-company for ... whatever... they do."
"I don't know, Chief, I'm thinking this is either reassuring or really sinister."
"Or both.."
Jim sighed. "It looks bad, but I still think we need to reserve judgement. I can tell a lot, I hope, when we actually meet the guy for real."
Blair gulps nervously at THAT thought. "When do you think that'll be, Jim?"
The detective glances around, wondering if THEY are here now, listening in. "I don't know. Let's do the other searches." Jim accesses a database for military personnel records that the PD has access to. He types in "Sgt. Adolph Cash" and sits back to wait. It takes a while.
"Hey Jim... do you think there are a lot of ... them... around?" Blair shifts in his seat, uncomfortable with the notion that these vampires could be anywhere.
"Not in Cascade. I'd never sensed a man like Cash or Carr there."
"Good." Blair hunched down in his chair, shivering, glad Jim can sense these... creatures.
"Here we are..." An Army record comes up on the screen for Sergeant Adoph Cash, 5th Army.
Blair has a sudden thought... not pleasant. "Yeah.. but, what about around HERE?!"
His partner points to the screen, directing his attention. "Here he is... hmmm, in Japan in the Occupation... mustered out in... 1949. Amazing..." They gape at the picture of a young man with close cropped hair, clean-shaven, clearly the same man as the scruffy-looking Cash that they met a while ago on campus. "He looks much younger than you, Chief, yet he achieved the rank of Sergeant."
"Ohmygods... He hasn't aged a day!" Blair finds himself grinning (to his astonishment). "That's amazing!"
"He's got quite a record... purple heart, even."
" Wow..." Blair thinks about the guy they just met today... reading his bio. "He sounds like a hero, Jim."
Jim nods, rubbing his chin. "He had presence, too... I was impressed by him."
"Maybe this one really IS 'one of the good guys after all... despite..." Blair lets the sentence drift off. Jim understands the rest of what Blair might have said.
"Yeah..." Jim goes back to the search engine, selecting the academia database. "Here we are... Dr. Anthony Carr... well, this doesn't look very unusual. How old would you say he was?"
Blair shrugs. "I dunno. About 40, I'd guess."
Another sigh. "Okay.. he got his doctorate in 1986. That sounds about right. Nothing weird here."
"Is there anything more?"
Jim tries a few more things... he doesn't have access to police personnel records, so he can't look up Sonny. Some of his access pathways haven't been set up yet, or, being a temporary detective here, he's not going to be getting access. "Nope, all done here. I think it was useful, though, don't you?"
"Yeah, very!" Blair stands as Jim shuts down the computer and grabs his jacket. "I'm glad you thought of coming here, Jim."
The older man pats his partner on the back, smiles. "Yeah... just so they don't get us on the way out of the building, eh, Chief?"
Blair gives him a light laugh, but... is worried. "Yeah. Don't make me sorry I forgot the garlic and holy-water, Jim."
Jim chuckles. "They probably love garlic, Sandburg. You forgot we saw one in the day time. Three, actually." He grins, opens the door for him as they leave.
The other winces. "Oh. Yeah. I gotta find out how they do that!"
Outside, Jim unlocks the Ranger, climbs in, reaches over to unlock for his partner. "Well, I've had enough of whatever, whomever for one night."
Blair hops into the truck. "Yeah, me too. How about a nice normal robbery or something?"
Jim rolls his eyes at him as he starts up the truck. "I had something more... homey in mind, actually..."
His lover laughs and leers at Jim. "Oh?? What'dja have in mind, big guy?"
"Well, that new bed, now... it ain't proper broke yet, son," Jim drawls in his best bad Texan accent.
Blair fakes a southern drawl. "We gotta mosey on down to that bedroom and break that sucker in, Jim-boy!" He laughs, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Jim drives away, heading for the bridge, chuckling.
(TO BE CONTINUED in "Encounters, Part 3")
