Hunter Session 34

Previous: Hunter Session 33

The day after the vampires' failed yet tremendously damaging attack on the apartment building, all of the hunters called in sick to their various jobs to touch base with everyone who'd been at the apartment building that fateful night and make sure that they were all okay. The media was having a field day with the night's events; the near-destruction of the apartment building was being attributed to "terrorist activity," and the whole Twin Cities metro area had gone on alert while city, state, and federal law enforcement started combing the city trying to find the responsible parties. (Of course, they never would.) In addition to the dozens of hunters and unaware residents who'd been injured by the collapsing building or caught in the crossfire with the vampires, 17 completely innocent people had been killed when the top two floors were taken out by the crashing helicopter. Randy was devastated even though he knew that the repercussions of his actions had simply been an unexpected miscalculation, and the rest of the hunters did their best to comfort him. Even Arie had the decency not to make fun of him for it after a few half-hearted initial jabs.

The first item on the agenda was to make sure all of the hunters were present and accounted for. The news said that the building had been evacuated for a thorough investigation that would be followed by remodeling; though the police and the contractors planned to move as fast as they could to minimize the inconvenience for the hundreds of residents who'd been displaced, it was unlikely that anyone would be allowed back into the building for a month or more. In the meantime, a number of area churches had opened their doors to those who had been rendered homeless and were providing for all of their basic needs. The hunters started making plans to lodge any hunters who wanted to get out of the church shelters at either Charlotte's house or Paladin's house. To deal with the additional overflow, Randy also made his biggest impulse buy yet: a spacious but ridiculously expensive house in Edina, just a few miles from Paladin.

While Charlotte and Randy coordinated lodging, Melba went back to the apartment building to check things out. She hoped to find out who was investigating the incident, to get some of the baby items they'd been forced to leave behind to make things easier on the people providing baby care at Charlotte's house, and to remove a few sensitive items that hadn't quite made it out in the first wave (for example, Twitcher's remains and some well-hidden C4). At the apartment building, Melba looked around with second sight and noticed that there were a number of supernatural beings involved in the investigation, including one zombie who seemed to be running the show. Melba approached him to ask for permission to get into the building and get the baby equipment, and after a few tedious hours' worth of paperwork he let her in (where she reclaimed a bunch more illegal stuff and stored it in Charlotte's basement). Apparently this zombie was as bound by bureaucracy as anyone, but Melba still made a mental note to look into it later on.

Also, as far as news on the Chet and Saria front went, Chet told the hunters that Saria had been conscious and stable (though relatively non-communicative) for the past few days, and had remained lucid enough to avoid hospitalization when the paramedics arrived at the apartment building. The hunters took them to Paladin's house and urged them to keep a low profile. Saria wanted to help heal some of the wounded, but she was still so weak that Chet refused to allow her to leave. It looked like the hunters were on their own this time around.

Charlotte and Randy worked their way from church to church and established that all of the hunters were scraped up and shaken up but otherwise okay. A number of them wanted to get out of the church, however, so most of the day was taken up with driving people to the three houses (Charlotte's, Paladin's, or Randy's) and moving them in for what promised to be a long stay. Kurt, Steve, and Pam had all been injured severely enough to require hospitalization, and Charlotte and Randy went to visit them as well. The only person who gave them any cause to be concerned was Kurt. Not surprisingly, the police had found out that he had some past crimes on his records, and the number of weapons he'd had when the paramedics found him (and, apparently, some of the things he'd said to his rescuers) made them suspicious of his role in the entire fiasco. He was in intensive care, under 24-hour guard. Charlotte managed to get in to see him by pretending to be his sister, but he was still unconscious and thus unable to tell Charlotte whether his hotel room contained any incriminating corpses that she'd have to get rid of. She resolved to come back later.

After all of that, the hunters established that the only people still unaccounted for were Witness1 and Shaker. Melba was able to shed some light on at least Witness1's absence. When she'd gone down to the basement of the apartment building to retrieve Twitcher's remains and the C4, she'd noticed that while the contents of the computer room was still intact, the door had been blown off its hinges and there were signs of a struggle. When they thought about this, they remembered Witness1 saying that he'd put up a fight if anyone tried take him away from his work on Hunter-Net. The hunters looked more closely at the news and discovered that one resident of the apartment building had indeed been forcibly removed from the basement. He put up quite a resistance - so much so that two members of the SWAT team sent in to retrieve him had, in fact, been killed. Without some serious intervention, it looked like Witness1 was going to be spending a long time in prison.

The hunters were horrified and more than a little ashamed by this oversight on their part. They knew that they had to get Witness1 out of jail; the only question was, how? Randy suggested a jailbreak under cover of night, an idea which was immediately shot down by Charlotte and Melba as impractical and overly difficult. Instead, Melba suggested talking to Saigow. He'd said that even though the pact had ended, he wouldn't be averse to completing further business propositions with hunters, as long as he stood to gain something. The only question was, what did the hunters have to offer him that would make a worthwhile trade for their friend's life? They didn't have enough money to make an offer he wouldn't dismiss out of hand, and no valuables to speak of. Most of their weapons were either used up, inaccessible, or not valuable enough. The only other thing they could think of that Saigow had shown definite interest in was information about hunters - but what could they afford to give him that wouldn't jeopardize their own position? Melba wondered if he might accept the meanings of the common hunter code symbols that Haji had wanted, but Randy was unsure and Charlotte refused even to consider that option.

Then Charlotte remembered something Charlie had said to her a few nights before...about how a lot of things that mattered to humans became irrelevant when a person became a vampire. How in the end, all that really mattered was blood. In a flash, she had the solution. The hunters would organize a blood drive amongst all the people staying in the houses, and then trade the proceeds to Saigow in exchange for him arranging for Witness1's release. If everyone donated a pint of blood, that would give them almost 30 pints of blood, which would surely be enough to get whatever they wanted. Of course, the hunters had to argue about this, too, since Melba wasn't sure if the other hunters would be receptive to this idea. Charlotte replied that they'd simply call it a voluntary blood drive and only explain the particulars if anyone asked. ("You can either say, 'Do you want to give blood?' or 'Do you want to give blood to vampires?' I wonder which one hunters will go for.") (Summarizer's note: this is possibly the best idea I ever came up with in gaming and it wouldn't have occurred to me if Charlotte hadn't banged a vampire, so there. ;P )

With that, the group swung into action. As Charlotte borrowed and/or stole medical equipment from the university, Melba and Randy brought all of the other hunters over to Charlotte's house to begin the blood drive. As luck would have it, everyone agreed to participate, and no one asked too many questions. Kai even managed to get a bunch of his friends to participate. When all was said and done, the hunters had managed to gather 38 pints of blood, which they mixed up and otherwise cross-contaminated to make it difficult for people like Haji to use it for blood magic. Then, Randy used the vampire P.O. box to set up a meeting with Saigow for the next night.

After that, all that remained was to wait...and, also, to tie up one other loose end no matter how reluctant Randy was to do so. The nature and extent of Sarah's involvement with the vampires was still unclear, but the hunters knew that they would have to confront her eventually. First thing the next morning, Arie, Charlotte, Melba, and an extremely nervous Randy made their way to Sarah's apartment.

Not surprisingly, Sarah was delighted to see Randy. She was sure that the fact that she was coming to see him meant that they were going to get back together. Randy snapped and chewed her out for what she'd done. At first, Sarah didn't understand; sure, she'd been stalking Randy and gathering information on him and his friends ever since he got back to Minneapolis, but she did it because she loved him, not because he wanted to cause trouble. She said that she'd gotten to know a person named Birch and had given him the information because he said he was going to use it to help Randy get himself out of some trouble. She had no idea about anything relating to hunters or the supernatural, and absolutely no conception of all the trouble her "helpful act" had caused. Finally, Randy's temper was running ragged and Arie was starting to make some not-so-idle threats, so Charlotte took Sarah aside into the bedroom to explain what her actions had caused (leaving out the supernatural aspect, of course). Ultimately, Charlotte convinced Sarah to quit dealing with Birch and his friends and leave the group alone. It was a little more difficult to convince her that there was no longer a future for her and Randy, but the ugly truth finally broke through, and Randy could leave feeling satisfied that he'd finally shaken Sarah for good.

That night, the hunters met with Saigow to make their offer: 38 pints of hunter blood in exchange for Witness1's freedom. Their offer was met with a reaction they'd never encountered from any vampire - uncontained greed. Saigow accepted immediately. By the next morning, Witness1 was free and the hunters were well on their way to reconstructing their damaged yet still standing network.

Next: Hunter Session 35-40