The next day Charley came back to Peters home with a folder of all of the information he’d managed to gather on the Iowa vampire, which was of the police reports on the bodies of men and women along with a report some kid had made stating that his neighbor was the one responsible for their deaths, claiming he was a vampire, and the missing person reports for the kid that made the vampire report, his girlfriend, and best friend. Stepping into the house Charley saw that the inside was even more of a mess than it had been the previous day, nothing, aside from the glass cup that had been thrown against the wall, was broken, but some things had been knocked over, though it didn’t look like it was because of a fight the clutter seemed to deliberate. “Peter?” Charley called out into the house, looking down at the broken glass “Yeah, yeah” Peter said, walking out of the bathroom, looking like he hadn’t slept at all last night, eyes red, puffy, and dead inside, and even though he reeked of alcohol he was holding himself like he was completely sober “I’m here” “There’s broken glass on your floor” Charley said, pointing at the glass “I dropped it last night” Peter said, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger “Anything else happen?” “Not really” Peter said, noticing the folder Charley was holding “what’s that?” “Stuff about the Iowa vampire” Charley said holding out the folder “who’s name is also apparently Jerry” “Huh” Peter said, taking the file along with a seat on his couch so he could flip through the papers “well, Jerry is a very inconspicuous name” “I guess” Charley said, taking a seat as well “I did gave my friend Ed a pretty hard time when he told me who was responsible for killing Amy” “Yeah” Peter said, looking over the missing persons reports “I never would’ve guessed that a Jerry was the one that killed my parents” “Is this everything you could find about this guy?” Peter asked setting down the folder “did you look up his address and see if it’s still occupied?” “Yes and no” Charley said, watching Peter get up so he could grab his laptop “Let’s see what we can find out” Peter said booting it up “what’s the address?” pulling the folder closer he flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for, typing it into the search engine “looks like the house was abandoned a few months after his neighbor disappeared so Iowa’s a dead end” “Maybe you’ll find something with one of the missing person names?” Charley suggested “Already on it” Peter said, picking one of the three names on the missing persons report, getting a hit on one of them for a house that was recently brought up in West Virginia “there’s no picture, but the first and last names for Edward match so I’d say it’s worth looking into” he jotted down the houses address and state A few days later they found themselves driving across the Ohio River, making their way up and down a bunch of hills and around about a bajillion turns until they came upon the sparsely populated and forested area that the house had been built on. “Who ever paved these fuckin’ roads must’ve been drunk off their asses” Peter grumbled to himself as he pulled onto a road that was surrounded by trees The houses along the road were sparse and far between, sizable enough to easily fit at least four vampires along with their victims. Close to the end of the street was a house that, from the outside, looked as if it might have been abandoned, especially considering that some of the windows were deliberately blacked out, but there was a jeep parked out front and it looked like the grass had recently been mowed and raked of fallen leaves. “Are you sure you’re alright, Peter?” Charley asked as he noticed the dead look behind Peters eyes was still very present “Yeah” Peter said, parking the car a ways away from the house, finding a spot where they could hide it from view of the road “I’m fine” “Are you sure?” Charley asked, glancing over at Peter “‘cause you seem pretty distracted” “I said I was fine!” Peter snapped “Alright, jeez” “Just get the shit out of the trunk” Peter said, stepping out of the car and slamming the door shut “Oh boy” Charley sighed exasperatedly, getting out of the car as well Opening the trunk Charley grabbed both of their duffle bags tossing Peters to the older man as he pulled his crossbow out from his and loaded an arrow into it. “So how do you want to do this?” Charley asked “I’ll take the basement and you see if you can get to the second floor if not, then focus on the first and we can converge to search the second together” Peter said, loading up his shotgun “Alright” Charley said, disappearing into the tree so he could sneak his way around to the back of the house With his shotgun now loaded and Charley out of sight Peter pulled his flask out of his duffle bag and brought it up to his lips, only putting it away once it was almost empty. Cocking the gun he also made his way into the trees as well, though he kept closer to the road than Charley was. When he got to the house he quickly spotted a storm door along its side that he could use to get into the basement. Thankfully it didn’t have a lock on it, so getting in would be no problem. Walking down the steps Peter saw that the basement was full of the type of clutter you get when you’ve just moved into a new house, but despite that he could still see movement a couple feet away. Slipping away from the steps he crept towards the movement and spotted Jane sitting on the ground, scooting away from another vampire that was stabbing at the air in front of her with a large kitchen knife. Despite the fact that the knife shouldn’t have been able to do any actual damage to her, she was still holding up her arms to cover her head because watching a knife coming at your face was not a fun thing to watch. Taking aim Peter shot at the spiky haired vampire, hitting him in the back of the shoulder, forcing him to scurry away and take shelter in the clutter of the basement. Running up to Jane Peter saw the cut on her forearm, deep enough that it reached straight down to the bone, an almost black colored blood seeping out of the wound. “Shit” Peter said, getting on his knees so he could get a better look at the cut “he must’ve soaked the blade in holy water, you aren’t healing yourself. Fuck!” straightening his spine, he quickly pulled off his trench coat and ripped off one of the sleeves, using it to dress the wound, hoping that the pressure would stop the blood flow “where’s your brother?” “I’m not sure” Jane started, looking away embarrassed “I fell through a weak spot in the floor and we got separated” “Alright” Peter said, putting his trench coat back on “come on let’s go find him” Taking hold of Jane's hand, which she surprisingly had no objection to, they ventured further into the basement carefully scanning over the coffins and other clutter that littered the room keeping a careful look out for anything. When they got to the stairs, Peter was about to take the lead up them when a vampire with light brown hair jumped out at them from the shadows and pouncing on him, knocking the hunter to the ground. “Fuck!” Peter grunted, pushing his shotgun up against her neck to keep the vampire's elongated mouth and fangs away from his neck “get off of me, you dumb bitch” he used the butt of the shotgun to knock her off of and away from him Unfortunately for Peter, her recovery time was much quicker than his and she was back up on her feet before he could even sit up. Thankfully for him, though, Jane had decided to give him a hand and used her ability on the other vampire as she collapsed back onto the ground and the agony of being lit aflame, minus the actual fire, spread across her nervous system. Finally getting to his feet Peter grabbed one of the stakes on his belt, about to stab it into the vampire's heart when someone knocked over a stack of wooden boxes onto the vampire hunter and Jane, giving the other vampire a chance to escape. “Shit” Peter said, kicking the boxes away “are you alright?” “Yeah” Jane said also kicking away some boxes “Here” Peter said, handing Jane a revolver he had strapped to his ankle as a backup for encase his shot gun failed “it won’t do much but you can at least stall them for a bit. Maybe you can even blind them if you get some lucky enough shots off” “How do I use it?” Jane asked, looking over the weapon “First, grip it with both hands” Peter said taking both of her hands and placing them in the proper positions “keep your arms straight out and then cock it by pulling this back with your thumb” he pointed at the hammer “look down the barrel and through the site and then pull the trigger once you’ve found your target” “Got it” Jane said, looking genuinely excited about the prospect of shooting someone Taking Janes hand again Peter brought her up to the main floor of the house just as Charley ran down from the second, stopping in his tracks when he spotted Jane; who was peeking out from behind Peter, looking at him with such unadulterated murderous hate that Charley found himself more than terrifying, especially considering it was coming from this tiny twelve year old girl. “Have you found anyone?” Peter asked Charley “I think there’re, like, walkways behind the walls” Charley said, not taking his eyes off Jane “‘cause I’ve been hearing people walking around and talking, but I haven’t seen anyone” “Well, crawl spaces behind the wall would explain how those two in the basement got away so quickly” Peter said as Alec rounded a corner “Jane!” Alec exclaimed, running over to his sister “have you seen Dimitri or Felix?” “No. You got separated too?” Jane asked “Kinda, we ran into this guy and they stayed behind to take care of him, but I don’t know how well that fight will go since he’s a ghoul or something else like that” Alec shrugged “What a nice surprise” a vampire that was older than the ones in the basement said, appearing at the top of the steps “I wasn’t expecting visitors” he noticed the Volturi symbols the twins wore around their necks and seemed to hesitate “to what do I owe this honor”“We had received a copy of the report your neighbor had made about you back in Iowa” Jane said “Ah, yes. Amy. Edward come out” Jerry called out into the house “we have guests” the two vampires from the basement stepped out of the living area “what would you like to know?”“What have you done about your neighbor?”“Well, I had given Charley the opportunity to forget about me, but he refused, so when he got his friends involved I had no choice but to turn all three of them” “And what happened to Charlie?” Jane asked“He seemed to have a difficult time adjusting to being one of our kind so my roommate Billy had to dispose of him, and who are these two?” he motioned to Peter and Charlie, taking careful stock of their weapons “They are not associated with us” Jane said There was a tense moment that seemed to last for hours and it was only broken when Ed grabbed an empty cardboard box and chucked it at Peters head. Then all hell seemed to break loose as he began his wolf transformation. Returning Peters favor from earlier Jane held up the revolver and used it to shoot out the large stained glass window at the top of the stairway, creating enough holes for the entire pane to fall away so the sun’s light could filter through. Alec decided to lend a hand as well using his ability on Ed, the numbing ability mixed with the mid-transformation shape shift left him disoriented and no longer aware of his surroundings as he thrashed his way directly into the beam of sunlight. Amy was taken out almost as easily by Charley with a lucky shot directly through her heart with a holy water tipped arrow as she attempted to tackle him to the ground, leaving Jerry as the only one left. Wanting to get away from the sun as quickly as possible Jerry turned into a monstrous looking bat and tried to fly away, only to have Charley jump up and tackle him to the ground. However, the bat was able to quickly overpower him and roll them so that he was on top, biting at the young hunter so he could get away. Unfortunately, he only had enough time to block the attack with his arms. “Ow!” Charley exclaimed, ripping his arm out of Jerrys bat mouth “the fucker bit me!” Grabbing one of the antique lamps Peter whacked bat Jerry in the side of the head with it, knocking him back far enough for his face to be forced into the beams of sunlight. Letting out an inhuman shriek Jerry began to thrash violently until he was able to get away from the hunters, as Charley had grabbed hold of his neck to keep him in place, and make his escape for the basement. Following the vampire down a floor and over to the only closed casket Charley grabbed a hammer and used it to smash out every window he could find down there to allow the afternoon sun to filter in as Peter got to work figuring out how to break the lock on the coffin. Having lost patience with his attempt at picking the lock Peter grab a crowbar and jammed it into the crack of the caskets opening, using the weight of his body as he pushed down on the bar. Fortunately, this was enough to break the lock and have the top swing open as Peter collapsed to the ground. Even though the basement was full of natural light the coffin had been strategically placed so that even with all of the light none of it was touching him. Glancing at each other both Peter and Charley ran to the back of the casket and shoved it over so Jerry tumbled out of it, directly into the sun, his body bursting into green flames. Running back up to the main floor Peter grabbed Jane and Alec and got them out of the building as the green flames of Jerry’s burning corpse began spreading to the rest of the house.
