Page 2 of Dark Stars

"I want the Innsmouth Triangle."

"Of course you do,"

Harold said with a smile.

"Come on to my house, and I'll give you all the information I have from other cases and various visits. Not that you really need preparing, but I do need this case solved, not just devoured."

Bobby wrinkled his nose.

"Cultists aren't very tasty snacks. They never bathe, for one."

Harold laughed, finished his coffee, and stood.

He scooped up a small pile of books, lifting them in silent query, smiling in thanks when Bobby nodded.

Bobby followed him outside and climbed into his truck, driving off back toward town and then right back out of it to the remote cabin where Harold lived.

It was an old farmhouse, beautiful and sprawling, with additional buildings around it, including a small barn that Harold had converted into what he called his Office of the Weird.

Unlike Bobby, who was only half human, and Sheriff Jones, who was one hundred percent purebred vampire, Harold was completely human.

Not a single drop of nonhuman in him; Bobby had looked thoroughly.

He simply had an affinity for arcana that was nearly unrivaled, and a capacity to deal with the weird and strange that most humans simply didn't.

It made him interesting, and a good friend, and more than a little appealing to the Sheriff, but Bobby wasn't going to interfere there. Yet.

The porch wrapped around two sides of the house, scattered with benches, rocking chairs, and little tables.

The ceiling was painted haint blue, and that was only the start of the many protections laid on the house.

If not for being given explicit permission, even Bobby wouldn't be able to enter, and precious few beings even knew to exclude his kind.

His skin prickled as he passed through the entryway.

Removing his shoes, he left the mudroom and stepped into the kitchen, which always smelled of apples, cinnamon, and all the many herbs that cluttered the space.

Fresh, drying, dried, powdered… you name it, Harold had it, and more besides.

Past the bar that delineated the kitchen, the dining room was cluttered with more witchy paraphernalia: books, jars, bottles, and boxes of various components, a dozen or so Ouija boards stacked haphazardly, pendants of every shape, size, and material dangling from jewelry trees that had been attached upside down to the ceiling, jewelry cases that held still more amulets and talismans…

And right in the midst of all of it, sprawled with the impunity only they naturally possessed, were two cats: a calico Maine Coon and a gray Sphynx in a crocheted sweater that looked like a jack-o-lantern.

They greeted him cheerfully, but didn't bother to move.

Of all the protections that Harold had in and around the house, they were by far the most dangerous.

Bobby returned their greeting with the same, communicating on a level that most creatures on earth couldn't, and even fewer naturally.

Harold rolled his eyes.

"Stop sucking up to my cats, they already like you."

"And I like them, the little darlings,"

Bobby said, wiggling his fingers at them before following Harold through the door that led to his basement, where all his most dangerous work was done.

He caught a brief glimpse of the brownie Harold had bargained with to keep his house tidy, but she was shy and especially intimidated by Bobby, so he wasn't likely to really see her again.

In the basement, Harold had torn out everything that didn't absolutely have to be there and laid down a costly slate floor perfect for writing out arcana.

Bobby cast out idly, feeling out the wards to ensure they were still strong, but Harold's work was as flawless as always.

In the back third of the basement was an office-like area, with a desk, filing cabinets, and one small section of wall covered in drawers of various sizes, from barely big enough to hold index cards all the way up to something that could hold a basketball.

Each one was locked and sealed, and the power that emanated from several of them made his skin tingle delightfully.

Unlocking one of the filing cabinets, Harold pulled out several folders and a single, large spiral notebook that looked like it had been through hell.

"Everything I've got on the Innsmouth Triangle."

Reading it all only took him a couple of minutes.

"Fascinating."

Harold grunted and put everything back.

"Come on, we'll loosen your leash while we're down here."

Like most of his kind, Bobby didn't really have a human form, per se.

But because he was technically half human, his primordial body had a human concept of itself, something between a dream and a memory.

When he'd decided he wanted to live in his father's world for a time, he had taken that concept and given it form, squishing himself down, down, down into it and securing it by way of the collar that his father had made for him.

Unfortunately, humans didn't really like primordial beings, probably because most of them tended to be so overwhelmed they died from the shock or went completely insane.

Fun either way the primordial half of him hissed in pleasure.

That side was why he'd agreed to let the humans leash him, so he was restricted to a certain area and couldn't access all of his power.

Harold hadn't been the one to do the original work, but when he'd wanted to move here, the wizard who had done it had handed control to Harold.

The only thing he really missed was all the snacks he couldn't eat, but if they really were dealing with an old cult seeking to worship one of his relatives, well… he'd be feasting for days, even if cultists weren't the tastiest snack out there.

Harold drew the necessary series of circles on the floor, and looked to Bobby when he'd finished.

"Perfect as always,"

Bobby said.

"Only you would be so agreeable about being on a leash, and actually help with its alteration as necessary."

Bobby shrugged.

They both knew it was because if he really wanted to be free, if he really grew tired of playing human, all he had to do was call for his mommy.

That was a bit like using a nuclear bomb to fix being locked in a closet, though, and as much fun as the ensuing chaos and destruction would be, there was enough of his father in him that Bobby didn't really want that.

Imagining it was fun, though.

He stepped into the middle of the five concentric circles and folded his hands primly in front of him, making Harold snort in amusement.

Harold snapped his fingers, and the circles flared to life, bright red at the outermost, nearly black at the innermost.

Tendrils of spiraling energy twisted and crawled their way up to his collar, like tentacles seeking sustenance, and poured into it, rewriting the necessary arcana so he could travel to and around the Innsmouth Triangle without impediment.

"Tingly,"

Bobby said as the spell finished.

"Your arcana always feels the way carbonation tastes."

"Soda, seltzer, or champagne?"

Harold asked with a laugh.

Bobby cocked his head.

"Champagne. The really really dry stuff that your beloved Sheriff enjoys when he thinks nobody is going to catch him drinking it."

"Sheriff Fuckhead likes brut champagne?"

Harold asked.

"Huh. Wait, stop calling him my beloved Sheriff, you asshole. The only thing I love about him is planting a fist in his face."

Snickering, Bobby led the way back upstairs and into the dining room, where the cats bestirred themselves to come demand pets. The calico was named Dracula, which did not amuse Jones in the slightest, and the Sphynx was named Necronomicon. Bobby tended to call them Fangs and Necro.

"How are my darlings today?"

They purred at him, rubbing and headbutting, whispering in words only he could hear that they were doing very well indeed. They'd had mice for breakfast and fetid shadows for lunch and canned tuna for dinner.

"Splendid. Your cats took care of some fetid shadows."

"Good to know they're contributing rent,"

Harold replied absently as he went through his mail.

"You own this house."

"Whatever. Moochers."

Dropping the mail back into the haphazard pile it had already been in, Harold looked at him.

"Why the hell do I have fetid shadows creeping around?"

Bobby cast out feelers, creeping across the property in leisurely fashion. When that turned up nothing, he kept going, into the fields and woods beyond, until he finally found what he was looking for.

"Dead deer that ran afoul of a redcap. I'll have to find it later. Can't have too many of those skulking about."

"I just cleaned out a nest of those fuckers three months ago,"

Harold said with a sigh.

"Too much work, too few of us to do it."

Bobby closed his eyes, let the stars and shadows and primordial dark whisper to him.

"That might change, soon. It's all down to the choices we make. At least right now there's three of us. Always a good number, three."

"If only one of them wasn't Fuckhead,"

Harold muttered.

"Methinks you doth protest too much."

"Shut up."

Bobby grinned and gave the cats a last round of pets.

"I'm gonna go pack and stuff. I'll call you before I leave in the morning, in case any new information comes along before then. Tonight I'll ponder all the information I just read, and put out some feelers for cults. Surprised any cultists haven't been drawn this way."

"That's probably Fuckhead's work. He's got a knack for wide range wards,"

Harold replied, a look on his face that said it killed him to say something nice about Jones.

"He really doesn't want the sort of trouble your kind draws."

"I suppose that's fair,"

Bobby said with a laugh.

"All right, I'm headed out. See you when I see you, Harold."

Instead of driving home, though, he stopped in town to grab some snacks for the road and at the diner for a late dinner. He didn't really need mortal food, but it was fun to eat.

He'd just gotten his dinner, which was that day's special of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli, when a familiar figure sat down across from him in the booth.

"Take a coke, thanks, Martha,"

Jones drawled as Martha came bustling up.

He was in civilian clothes, jeans and a waffle Henley that matched his eyes, a deep and sultry maroon that most mortals saw as brown. His hair was black as the night around them, his features sharp and lean, softened only by the smattering of pale freckles across his nose and cheeks. He looked somewhere between forty and fifty but, by Bobby's best estimate, since vampires in general tended to be cagey about such things, was at least seven hundred. He had a Georgia drawl that wouldn't quit, but when he got really pissed off, a far older accent emerged, something that harkened to the Carpathian Mountains and the fourteenth century.

After Martha had come and gone with the coke, Bobby said, "To what do I owe this pleasure, Toothy?"

"Stop calling me that,"

Jones said with a sigh of the eternally suffering.

"That cocky dipshit changed your collar. Why?"

"Do you know neither of you ever uses the other's name if you can possibly help it? Fuckhead and Dipshit, that's what you call each other."

Jones's brows rose at that.

"Fuckhead, huh? We'll just see about that. Now answer the question."

"He's swamped with cases. I'm helping him out with something that's several hours away, what he calls the Innsmouth Triangle. Know it?"

"Oh, I know it all right, much as I'd love not to,"

Jones replied.

"Speaking of fuckheads, there's a small werewolf clan out that way. Not many, pack of maybe fifty. Quiet, mostly, but they can be hostile. Ain't gonna like you one lick."

"I'll be careful,"

Bobby replied. For the werewolves' sake, not his own. Steroid wolves with attitude problems were hardly a challenge.

"Call me crazy, but I don't think that's really why you came to see me. You're practically tingling with delicious turmoil."

"Why can't I ever have normal friends?"

Jones grumbled.

"Fine, all right, yes. I think there might be a hunter in town. I smelled him briefly, but now I can't find the bastard anywhere. I was hoping you'd sensed something."

"Nothing that stood out, but you know me,"

Bobby replied with a shrug.

"It's all just noise, and if there is a hunter here, he hasn't done anything threatening yet. Let me poke around."

He wolfed down several bites of his meal, then rested his elbows on the table and curled his hands together, closing his eyes as he focused on all the various threads and murmurs and shadows that composed the 'beneath the surface' of the town. He and Jones were far from the only non-human beings that lived here, but they still comprised only about ten percent of the population, and most lived in rural areas, like Harold.

Bobby knew all their markers, knew the taste and shape of them. Once he'd confirmed all the residents were well and nothing was awry, he went seeking the markers that were strange, discarding them one by one as tourists, other transients, until he came to one that tasted of fresh spilled blood and blessed silver, a hint of smoke and ash.

"Found him. Down by the old warehouses."

Jones jerked back in offense.

"The warehouses? What does he think I am? Some nigh-rabid fledgling who doesn't know better than to skulk in abandoned buildings? I was annoyed before, but now he done offended me."

Laughing, Bobby returned his full attention to his meal and Jones.

"He isn't very powerful, whoever he is. Certainly not powerful enough to be a threat to you. Not sure why he'd try for what's essentially a suicide mission."

He pushed his empty plate away and smiled as Martha returned.

"Can I get a sundae for dessert?"

"You got it, honey."

"Just another coke for me, thanks."

When she'd gone, he said, "So this hunter ain't nothing I need to be worrying on?"

"Nah, but I can go check him out in person if you want, see what's going on. Or tag along with you if you prefer to do it yourself, Sheriff."

Jones sighed.

"Sure, why not. May as well knock out one more problem before I head home for the night. Maybe I'll get a decent meal out of it."

Being a purebred vampire, Jones couldn't subsist on animal blood the way 'mongrel' vampires could. He had to have human, though Bobby's bizarre blood would suffice in an emergency. The last time he'd needed it, though, Jones had been little better than drunk for two days and hungover for three. Nobody had enjoyed that.

Bobby cheered lightly when his sundae arrived, and went ahead and handed over the cash to Martha so they could leave when he was done.

Twenty minutes later they were in Jones' 1969 Mustang Mach 1, which Jones had bought off the lot the day it had come out and had owned ever since. Bobby suspected he had classic cars even more remarkable, but flashing them around town would draw the kind of attention Jones hated, so Bobby had never seen them. Normally he had no idea what make and model cars were, but everybody knew Jones' mustang in its original candy apple red.

"Which warehouse?"

Jones asked as they reached the derelict, rundown end of town that had once been a pretty busy blue-collar area but now was sort of languishing. Warehouses, workshops, other signs of the hard labor that was the unappreciated backbone of so much of society. Everything had moved to a different location, supposedly because of contamination in the soil, but really because there was a nesting dragon in the ground that would make radiation look like a picnic.

Thankfully, the eggs would hatch in six more months, and they'd get her and the children moved far, far away, and this part of town could come back to life.

Jones killed the engine.

"So how do you want to do this? Go in together, or do your skulking thing?"