A few weeks back I spent the day with KonThaak and Concrete Angel. When I got home, I planned on chillin' in front of the tube until I fell asleep.

Instead, I got a phone call from work telling me to print out the ticket they e-mailed me and head to the airport. The St. Louis agent reported some unusual events, and I was one of the agents being sent in as backup. So much for T.V. I got my paperwork together, grabbed my suitcase, and headed back out.

I had a plane to catch.

Agents? Who do you work for Willie?

Give St. Louis my regards; I have spent a fair amount of time there myself.

Like I told Loni, I retired from fugitive recovery back in April.

Now I work for Lazlo.

****

I discovered another message upon landing, with info about my contact and the hotel where we'd be meeting. I took a cab over there and checked in. Went up to my room, nosed around, hung up my suit -- got my stuff organized.

I flopped onto the bed, had the T.V. remote in hand, and was about to see what was on when my phone rang. It was Betty, the local agent, checking to see if I'd gotten in yet and if I'd heard from the others.

"Naw, I don't even know who RJM is sending."

"JG and LM."

I'd met them before. Friendly as can be, but when they kicked it into overdrive, you could tell where they'd been. What wasn't destroyed outright was on fire. If he was sending in the king and queen of collateral damage, the problem was worse than I thought.

"This is gonna be one crazy party."

Once Lisa and Jax arrived, Betty briefed us on what had been going on for two months. It was the typical vampire pattern -- bodies discovered, drained of blood; missing people last seen with an attractive stranger -- with a new twist.

It was happening in the daylight.

*Randy Cenkz, 58. Discovered at 4:30 P.M. Died of a broken neck. Autopsy revealed no blood in his system.

*Kyle Thorton, age 21. Found dead on the sidewalk at 11:47 A.M. His throat was cut open, but there were no bloodstains in the area, or on the body.

*Cheryl Aubrie, age 23, and her daughter Tina, age 12 mos., were shopping downtown at 2 P.M. The toystore clerk said they walked out with this Josh Groban look-alike that had never been in the store before. They never made it home.

Betty said the Aubrie disappearance was the break she was hoping for. She explained that under certain circumstances she could track people by tuning in to sympathetic vibrations and showed us the antennas she used.

Whatever.

She said she spoke to Mr. Aubrie and convinced him to give her some hairs from Cheryl's brush. Betty used those to fine-tune her search and told us that earlier she'd finally discovered the vampire's lair and called it in to the office.

"And they called us in."

I got the feeling that neither T.V. nor sleep were in my immediate future.

I seen some things, but I didn't expect the lair to be in the suburbs. Little cookie-cutter house, white picket fence... but Betty was sure this was the place. Not long after we arrived, Betty, LMax, and Jax started acting goofy, all psyched up, like they had way too much pop.

He said, "Ya'll ready to get pumped!?"

"I'm on fire, Jax! How 'bout you, Homie!?"

Homie? "Eh, yeah, Lisa. Pumped," and flexed my bicep half-heartedly, wondering why they were trippin' so hard. We pulled on our ski-masks, left the car, and snuck onto the front porch.

"They're very close," Betty whispered.

I pointed to Jax, myself, LMax and Betty, to set up the entry order, then kicked open the front door. Jax rushed in, gun drawn, and I followed right behind as pieces of the chain and deadbolt hit the floor.

You know that empty feeling houses get when you come back from a long vacation? Despite the light coming from the living room (on the left) and the kitchen (to the right), that was just how it felt. Even smelled empty. But what was that growling noise?

The living room was ransacked. Books and pictures and crap strewn about. Empty liquor bottles on the coffee table. Still, there were people there. An attractive couple bookending this frumpy guy. They were standing in front of the couch, like they'd jumped up when we burst in. The frumpy guy was freaked, but the attractive couple didn't seem too surprised.

From deeper into the house, something shuffled into view. It looked like a dog costume worn by something that didn't know how to put it on. The face was on the side of the head, one foreleg was jutting straight out... it was jacked up, yo. It twitched toward us, growling, working its jaws like it was chewing gum.

Jax emptied his revolver into it. "Stay."

Frumpy flinched at the report from the gun, which Jax reloaded and holstered as LMax followed Betty and her antennae into the kitchen. The couple still didn't seem concerned. I addressed them. "We've come for Cheryl Aubrie, and her daughter Tina...."

Frumpy started stuttering, "Please, y-you have the wrong house, I-I don't even live here, I-"

"I ain't talkin' to you, jack! Hold my coat." I shrugged it off, wadded it up and threw it at him, knocking him onto the sofa. He scrambled to hide behind it as the couple looked at each other and shared a wide smile as they came around the table. Overly wide. Nice, even teeth, though.

"Oh my God!" Betty screamed from the other room. "Th-they're in here! The blood!"

"So thoughtful," the female cooed, "Fresh meals delivered right to our door."

"We won't need to go out for dinner," the male crooned.

I hate it when they try acting cute. Pointing to the guy, I said, "Better leave room for dessert."

I spun away from him, launching a reverse thrust kick into the female's midsection that sent her stumbling backwards, falling over the coffee table. I saw Jax moving up to take care of her and I reversed my spin, catching the male's cheek with the back of my fist and staggering him.

Then they changed. Like a dream, suddenly they looked like... alligator people, I guess. What kind of vampires were these?

I grabbed it and drove my knee into the back of its head. It whirled to face me and lashed out with 'tooth and claw'. I hopped back and kicked its arms out wide before diving in with a right cross to the snout. It came right back at me with those wicked fast claws, so I spun my tonfas out to even the odds. For a time, the only sound we made was the clacking of claws on wood and flesh hitting scales. I abruptly changed styles, dropping the thing with a sweeping dragon kick.

"FEDERAL AGENT! NOBODY M-move?"

I spared a second to glance back. A suit and a cop were standing just inside the doorway with shocked expressions and drawn guns. I looked over to Jax, who had been fighting the second thing. I shrugged, he nodded, and as one we dove away from the two alligator people, rolling to our feet flanking the officers. "Evening, Miss" I said to the suit.

"Uh, they didn't teach us this at Quantico," she explained. I nodded sympathetically.

Jax and I drew our guns as he asked the cop, "Would you mind helping us with these things?" The gator-things stood there and observed, maybe trying to decide which of us to eat first. The first thing started hissing to itself in a sort of rhythm.

Betty called out, "Hurry, it's casting a spell!" Her scream shook our allies from their daze.

The six of us trained our weapons on the gator-things and we opened fire. Unable to find cover, first one alligator person then the other fell before our barrage and burst into swarming mosquitoes that quit the field of battle.

We all just sort of stood around, lost in thought. Then the suit asked the million-dollar question.

Yea, Natasha had the benefit of training before.

I remember Harper after his first up close and personal with a SuperNat, and he was also trained beforehand. He still kind of freaked.

I've had to deal with those Lizard things before. Every year at least a few get lured in by the casinos in A.C.

I still get freaked from time to time.

My "million-dollar question" was "What the heck was that?!?"

The big guy (big guy? Try 'living mountain'!), who I've since found out was Willie Long, shrugged and said "Vampiric alligator person."

Hmmm. Reminded me of Grandpa's stories about skin-walkers.

You're mistaken, little Dancing Water. Those were Da-ro-ta, evil spirits made flesh.

But isn't that a skin-walker, Grandpa?

No, the Yea-Naa-gloo-shee is a witch who can take the shape of beasts.

After all this time, it's still a bit freaky when Grandpa speaks to me. I mean, eleven years later, I still remember his funeral.

I recovered my composure and turned to Mr. Long (who should be Mr. Big). He had interrupted my spiritual communion to tell me they'd come looking for Cheryl and Tina Aubrie. The older lady spoke up: "We found them. They're -- uh -- in the refrigerator."

I shuddered. "I suppose they were meant to be dinner."

"Naw," Mr. Long/Big said, nodding toward the frumpy-looking man who was hiding behind the couch. "I think he was."

I turned to the older woman. "Can you show me the corpsicles?" Granny nodded, looking like she'd rather be home with 12 cats, knitting Aran sweaters. Or maybe knitting Aran sweaters for 12 cats. Instead, the Aran cat-granny led the way to the fridge. On the way, I noticed shell casings.

"Dog-monster," the quasi-biker chick explained. "Turned into ball lightning."

When I opened the fridge, I saw food that was about two weeks out of date. These items had been shoved out of the way to make room for the two upside-down, blood-filled heads on the top shelf.

Finally, something normal.

I reached my hands toward the adult head. Cheryl, killed and pulled apart by... "Wait a minute -- the alligator people were Josh Groban and Paris Hilton?"

I'll never listen to "Remember Me" the same way again. And if I'm ever in Paris, I'll be staying at the Ramada Inn.

This was really starting to creep me out. You'd think an evil spirit would make itself look like Marilyn Manson, not Groban-two-shoes. What next, a succubus as Mother Teresa? An incubus as Barney -- oh... wait... there was that pedophile... never mind.

I returned to reality -- such as it was. "Maybe you should start from the beginning," I said to the others.

They explained that Granny noticed a number of strange murders that she suspected had involved vampires, which she tracked to this house, then she called the others for help.

"You believe in vampires?" I asked skeptically.

"You believe in alligator people?" Point taken.

The other guy asked me quietly, almost timidly, "You're not gonna arrest us, are you?"

I looked at him, then the others. They all looked a bit antsy. "Is there a reason why we should?"

Long started counting on his fingers. "Breaking and entering, discharging firearms within city limits, interfering with an ongoing investigation, two counts of alligatorcide..."

"Okay, then, is there a reason why we shouldn't?

Long's eyes locked with mine in a stare that chilled me to the bone. "Because there are more of them out there."

I thought for a moment. More of those fuzzy-toothy-freaky-things? "Actually, I think we can drop the, uh, 'alligatorcide.' They kinda disappeared into mosquito swarms, so there's no bodies, and therefore no proof that they're even dead."

"There never is," Long said. "As enduring as dreams." Now he was beginning to remind me of Grandpa.

Once I shook off the chill, I looked at Sgt. Herring, who said, "We heard gunshots and broke down the door. Inside, we started taking fire. We returned fire until the shooters fled out the back door, then secured the scene. That sound about right, Agent Kane?"

I smiled. "I'd say you nailed it, Sergeant. No alligators?"

He shivered. "No alligators."

"By the way," I said to no one in particular, "who are you people who were never here?"

"We're Lazlo."

way to go