Liberté Foncée

Get the kids and bring a sweater
Dry is good and wind is better
Count the years, you always knew it
Strike a match, go on and do it

-- Shawn Colvin, Sunny Came Home

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: CWUCIO!

"I'll just be going then, shall I?" Ayden asked cautiously, and took a step.

With lightning speed, the vampires had moved, blocking the door. "We were hoping you would stay," a short, squat figure said.

"Yes," the head replied, "the night is young, yet our supply of drinks is dry."

Ayden sighed. "Are you really going to make me do the fight scene thing? It's been a long day, I really would like to go home without having to hurt anything."

"So confident," the blond that had first acknowledged his presence said. A sinister grin played her features. "That's the problem with you mortals, you think you're invincible just because you're still alive." Ayden gave her a bored look, and she continued. "The truth is, it makes you all that more vulnerable."

There was a moment after she said this during which no one moved. Then, all at once, the demons moved, lunging at him. They may have stood a chance had they not been rather drunk as far as demons came. Two bumped heads and feel to the ground, momentarily stunned. As they did so, another tripped over them landing face first on the floor.

Ayden dodged one, reaching inside his robes and grabbing a stake and a small vial. The blond tried to grab him from behind, he spun around wildly and she lost her grip on his robes, tumbling to the floor. Ducking to avoid another of the monsters, he bent over her and shoved the pointed bit of wood through her heart. The creature screamed and promptly turned to dust.

The others were clambering to their feet, surrounding him again. In one movement he smashed the small bottle to the ground.

For a brief moment, it was as if a bomb had dropped. There was a blast like thunder, and then for several seconds, the room filled with light. Ayden was blinded, squeezed his eyes shut, and waited for the dark to return. He heard screams as the vampires went up in flames, and then all went dark.

He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness again. He barely had time to catch his breath before a tall figure grabbed him from behind with crushing strength. Missed one. Damnit.

"There are ways to keep that from happening, you know," a voice growled into his ear. The next second, a pair of fangs sank into the skin of his throat.

Ayden yelled, struggling but achieving nothing. He felt his strength leaving him inch by inch. He'd read somewhere that some people got off on this type of thing... Nutters.

In a last ditch attempt, he gripped his wand tightly, and stabbed randomly at the figure holding him. The thin piece of wood met its mark. The remaining vampire vanished with a high-pitched scream.

Ayden stumbled but managed to stay upright. He put a hand to the wound on his neck and winced with pain. He felt dizzy and weak, and he barely made it onto the front steps of the theater without collapsing.

*

Ayden was never quite sure how he got out of Knockturn Alley that night. He vaguely recalled coming to with an old crone standing over him, prodding him vigorously with her broom, and then running like hell.

As Adrienne would later point out in a sorely misguided effort to ease his mind, he was lucky no one on the nighttime streets of the alley had taken advantage of his weakened state and turned him into human bacon for selling to ogres.

Somehow, he had managed to get himself to the Muggle street just outside the deserted Leaky Cauldron.

In retrospect, he was lucky it was a Muggle who found him there and not a wizard. A wizard would think to contact the ministry, check for identification tags, all that jazz. The Muggles had long since stopped asking questions. Their numbers had severely depleted since the Wizarding world had become known, and they all knew that too many questions could lead to nothing but trouble. Nice people.

*

"I," he announced dramatically to Cal, "am finished with vampires. Done."

"Aw, poor baby," she said sympathetically. "What happened?"

"That's the second time one of them's had a go at my neck," he grumbled. "And the bastards got it this time." He pointed to the now-healed wound.

The redhead inspected the scar. "Eek," she said finally.

"Damn right," Ayden said bitterly. "Anyway. Where's Adrienne and Conlon?"

"They're out on some assignment." Cal shrugged and flipped a page of her book. Anne Rice. Interview with a Vampire. How appropriate.

"Christ, what happened?" Apocalypse said suddenly, her gaze fixed on the entrance to the Dead's sitting room. Speak of the Devil.

Adrienne and Conlon were just walking in. Conlon didn't look particularly well. He was pale, bleeding slightly, and limping, but apparently refusing any help Adrienne was offering. Adrienne herself looked fine, if a bit unnerved and angry.

"Stop being so brave, damnit. You'll hurt yourself more," Ayden heard her saying, clearly annoyed.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," was the reply.

"What happened to you?" Cal asked anxiously, practically throwing herself on top of Conlon, looking extremely concerned.

"Ow, Cal, that hurts," he said weakly. Cal looked to Adrienne for an explanation while Ayden walked toward the group to join them.

"Someone attacked us in an alley," Adrienne snapped.

"Two someones," Conlon corrected. With Cal's help he eased down onto a sofa, groaning.

"Two," Adrienne agreed. "Wands, knives, guns. Bastards."

"Guns?" squeaked Cal.

"They missed us," Conlon said.

"Just barely. The other one got him." Adrienne nodded to Conlon. There was a small cut on his forehead, but it looked as though it had already closed. There was a smear of blood on his cheek.

"Before she jinxed his ears off."

"Ears?" Ayden glanced at Adrienne, smirking.

"I was aiming for the eyes, for your information. But it was chaos. I missed."

"You don't say."

"Watch it, Ryan. Do you want to get to comfort me after such a traumatic experience or not?"

"That's no fair," Ayden protested.

"Life isn't fair."

"Is that so?"

Adrienne gave him a look somewhere between amused and annoyed.

"No need to look so concerned for your old buddy Conlon here," Conlon interrupted lazily.

"Or you could be considerate and go flirt elsewhere, since we really can't," Cal suggested.

"Gone," Adrienne agreed, grabbing Ayden's arm and dragging him away.

Cal and Conlon watched them go.

"So, who were they?"

"No idea." Conlon tried to make room for her to sit down. "Prolly Fighters. Coulda been anyone, though."

"How badly are you hurt?"

"Eh, just my leg. Nothin' to worry about. S'not even broken. Anyway, Adrienne reckons they wouldn't've attacked us if I hadn't've talked."

"What? Why?"

"She decided they didn't like the accent. Can you believe it?"

"I love the accent!" Cal protested.

"Know you do." He smiled. His fingers traced the line of her cheek and nose and he brought them over her lips. As he did, they parted just slightly.

He grinned more broadly. "You're gonna hafta lean down if you want a kiss, Cal. I'm still a wounded man."

Apocalypse happily obliged.

*

Ayden slept badly that night. His dreams about vampires and wooden stakes that floated around in mid air spelling out things like, "Armageddon is almost upon us!" and "Turn not from the Savior!" made certain his rest was not fulfilling.

It must have been sometime around three or four in the morning when the dreams changed to something that, in retrospect, really was much more terrifying.

It was an ordinary day care center, well-lit, and full of kids running around and disobeying the teacher. From Ayden's perspective, the teacher was just a pair of high heels, just like the owner in old Tom and Jerry cartoons.

He blinked several times. There were several unanswered questions here: A) Why was he here? B) Why was he this short? and C) Why wasn't he taking advantage of this height and looking up the teacher's skirt?

The answer to two of three became apparent as two small figures dashed past him.

Conlon and Adrienne, aged approximately four years each, raced by, waving paper wands at one another and yelling pretend curses. "Abada Kedabwa!" MiniAdrienne said cheerfully, waving the paper wand vigorously. "Abada Kedabwa!"

MiniConlon retaliated with a "Cwucio!"

It was almost cute, actually. Until the point where they ran right into the pair of heels that was the teacher and knocked her to the floor, making her send them to separate corners of the room.

Ayden watched, stunned, as MiniConlon took a seat in his corner and crossed his arms, sulking. That was when MiniCal entered the picture. She sat down beside him, and after a moment, put her arms around him and gave him a hug.

Aww, thought Ayden. Then, No! Not aww! Scary! Bad Minis, bad!

He turned away from MiniConlon and MiniCal, to see Adrienne poking a beetle on the floor with her paper wand and stubbornly repeating, "Abada Kedabwa!" She stopped every so often to smack the wand against the floor as if to ensure its proper operation, then attempting again.

At one point, she looked up and to her left, made a face, and stuck out her tongue at the person standing there.

MiniMark did not look all that different from Mark-Mark. Granted, he was two feet tall and the book he was carrying was only around twenty pages, not eight hundred, but it was still Mark. He gave Ayden a wave, then settled in a bean bag and opened the book. Ayden shook his head. This dream was getting bizarre. Okay, he told himself. Time to wake up.

Nothing happened. He pinched himself. Again, nothing.

Why was it that when you really wanted to wake up from a dream, you couldn't?

He sat down in the middle of the floor to sulk.

*

"Ow," Ayden said. He opened an eye to see Adrienne standing above him, wand poised for poking, a frown on her face. "I was sleeping," he informed her bitterly.

"I can see that. Why here?"

Here? Ayden blinked a few times to clear his vision. Ah. Here. Demonology lounge. How pleasant. "Haven't got a clue," he admitted.

Adrienne rolled her eyes, and handed him a bit of toast wrapped in a napkin. "Breakfast."

"I feel loved. What's the occasion?"

"Honestly?" Adrienne sat down on the table. "You're probably going to want me dead in a few hours."

"That sounds serious." Ayden took a bite of toast. "What're you going to do that'll make me want to kill you?"

*

"You," said Adrienne flatly, "are pathetic."

Ayden scowled. "Thanks ever so much," he said calmly. He leaned his back against the wall of the abandoned dungeon, which Adrienne had chosen to use as a classroom for teaching him the proper way to perform the Unforgivable curses.

"So what if I can't hurt something without physically making contact with it?" Ayden grumbled. "Most of the stuff I'm up against is pretty immune to pain anyway. It's easier to just off it."

"If word gets out that I'm shagging someone who can't even perform the Imperious curse on a frog, someone - probably you - will be losing a head."

"Knowing you," he said darkly, "they might lose something else."

Adrienne didn't pay any attention to him. "Try it again," she ordered.

Ayden pushed himself off the wall. "I still don't see the point. And you are a very, very sick and twisted person, you know that?" He glanced distastefully at the House Elf lying unconscious on the floor some ten feet away.

"Well, have you got any better ideas?" Adrienne asked. "If you're going to practice, at least practice on something that'll react in a human way."

"How about not practicing at all?" Ayden muttered under his breath.

If Adrienne heard him, she didn't care or speak. She pointed her wand at the elf and muttered, "Enervate."

The elf blinked three times, looking up at them, terrified. It stood up, shaking, ears flopping backwards as it did so.

"Concentrate," said Adrienne softly. "You've got to want to do it."

Ayden nodded grimly. But I don't. He raised his wand. "Crucio!"

The elf collapsed, falling the short distance back to ground. It let out a loud squeak of pain and twitched twice, then lay still.

Adrienne snorted. "For Christ's sake, Ryan. That's how I did that spell when I was twelve."

"So sorry I wasn't a pre-teen psychopath. Look, Cassada, I've got to -"

"No excuses. You're an embarrassment. You're not leaving this room until you can hold that curse at least ten seconds."