by Mac Flynn
I grasped onto his arms as we sped through city blocks like they were standing still. Actually, they were standing still, but we were still going really fast. I did notice we weren't going as fast as we had on our escape from Warehouse Island. Still, by the time Vincent put on the brakes we were several miles from the river, and for me we were several blocks from any familiar area. All around us were old factory buildings, hulking skeletons of industrialization with broken windows for eyes and gaping doors for mouths. The only living things besides me and-well, just me, were a few stray cats. There weren't even any streetlights to help me see into the streets that wound their way around the large structures. The only open spot to see the stars lay behind us, and that was just a large loading and unloading area for all the goods they used to manufacture.
Vincent opened his arms and dropped me onto the road. I yelped when I hit the pavement, and rubbed my sore posterity as I scowled up at him. "Do you mind being more careful next time?" I snapped at him.
"I would," he coolly replied.
"Thanks, I appreciate it."
Vincent ignored my snark and walked over to one of the buildings that actually had a pair of steel doors that were closed. He pushed them open and revealed what I expected, a mad scientist's laboratory filled with crazy-looking machines and bright, flashing lights. Wait, what?
I scrambled to my feet and gaped at the scene. "What the hell-?" I breathed out.
"Follow me," Vincent ordered. He stepped inside and the doors began to close behind him.
I hurried in after him and just barely missed a free, and painful, hip tucking procedure. My mouth was still agape as Vincent led me into the bowels of the science that bubbled, boiled, fizzed, and popped around me. There were vials of questionable goop against the left wall and the right wall was covered with diagrams, papers, graphs, sketches, doodles, and equations. The center floor was filled to overflowing with machines I could only guess at what they did, and others I didn't want to get that far with their purpose.
Vincent was unfazed by the weirdness around us and took me to the rear of the factory floor. In the center against the back wall sat a desk, and at the desk sat a strange little man. He had long white hair that was tied in a tail and ran down his back. The man wore a white lab coat that was stained with all the colors of the rainbow and others that didn't suggest anything that pretty. He had a long white mustache with pointed ends, and heavy eyebrows that covered the upper halves of his eyes. I placed his age somewhere between geriatric and Jurassic. He was hunched over a paper furiously writing away by the light of a simple desk lamp.
Vincent walked up to the desk, but I lingered a few yards back beside a tall spire that was either a gumball machine or a torture device. The old man didn't lift his head when he spoke up. "What are you doing here, and with a girl, no less? Did you take a bite out of your partner and pick up a new bride?" the old man quipped.
"Tim is dead," Vincent calmly replied.
The man's head snapped up and those bushy eyebrows crashed down. "Dead? Then why aren't I dancing over your dust?"
"Because he passed the ring on before he died." Vincent half turned and gestured to me. "This girl now has the ring."
The old man, who I realized must be the legendary Frederick Batholomew, turned his eyes on me. I nervously smiled and gave a small wave. "Um, hi," I replied.
Batholomew stood so quickly that his wooden chair toppled over. He scurried around the desk up to me and snatched my left hand from my side. His eyes looked over the ring on my finger, and his face fell. "By God, it is," he muttered. He turned to Vincent. "What happened?"
Vincent shrugged. "He was killed because he didn't wear the ring. Perhaps he wanted to accessorize."
The old man scoffed. "Tim wasn't that foolish. He must have had a reason for giving this girl the ring."
"He didn't give it to me," I spoke up. The men turned to me with interested expressions, and I shrank from their intense gazes. "That is, he just kind of left it in a box under my bed. He said if something happened to him I needed to take it and go to some warehouse."
"Our headquarters, or they were before this foolish woman led a werewolf to it," Vincent explained.
I glared at him. "I didn't lead anybody to it! I just followed what I was supposed to do on Tim's letter."
Batholomew raised an eyebrow. "Letter? May I see this letter?"
I patted myself down and my face paled. "I think I lost it."
"I have it," Vincent spoke up. He pulled the letter from inside his jacket, but he stuffed it back in the inner pocket when Batholomew grabbed for it. "This is between the two of us," he insisted, nodding at me.
"I think as Tim's closest friend and ally I have as much right to see his last words as anyone else," Batholomew argued. I got the feeling these two didn't get along.
"Um, boys?" I spoke up. They glanced back at me, but this time I wasn't cowed by their eyes. "Could I have my letter back? And could somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on here?"
Batholomew frowned and his eyes dodged over to Vincent. "How much does she know?"
"Enough to survive," Vincent replied.
"And hold a job!" I protested.
"As I said, enough to survive," he repeated.
"What do you know about this oaf here?" Batholomew asked me as he nodded to Vincent.
I glanced at Vincent and stuck out my tongue. "More than I want to know."
Batholomew smirked and set his hands on my shoulders. He guided me over to a dirty chair in front of the desk, set me in the seat, and seated himself on the nearest corner of his desk. A small avalanche of papers fell to the floor, but he ignored them. "We seem to be off on the wrong foot," he commented.
"The wrong body," I muttered.
"Allow me to introduce myself." He slid off the desk, stepped back and bowed at me. "My name is Frederick George Arthur Phillip Bartholomew, but those whom I respect call me Bat."
I raised an eyebrow. "Bat?" I repeated.
"Yes, perhaps because I seem to have a wonderful flight of imagination," he guessed.
"Or perhaps your disposition is more batty than any fictional vampire," Vincent quipped.
Bat shot him a glare, but turned back to me. "And what's your name?"
"Liz Stokes."
"Short for Elizabeth?"
"Yeah."
"A very pretty name." Bat walked around the desk, righted his chair and seated himself. He clapped his hands together and frowned. "Well, now that we have that polite gesture out of the way let's get down to business. Judging by your answer to my earlier question can I safely assume you know nothing of what's happened regarding our mutual friend, Tim?"
"All I know is Tim was my roommate, and now he's dead and I'm somehow stuck with this walking corpse." I jerked my thumb toward Vincent, who rolled his eyes.
Bat coughed to hide a snort. "I see. That isn't much to go off of to understand your current predicament."
"And what's my current predicament?"
"That you've fallen into the thick of the world of the supernatural and are now bound to a very foolish and dangerous fellow."