[snippet] Wufei, the Vampire Slayer
It was a chilly night, cloudless, the wind sharp. Wufei crouched by a tombstone and felt a bit like a cliché as his leather coat lifted in the breeze and slapped against stone lightly. He didn't like graveyards. He'd been to too many funerals to feel anything but a distant sort of resentment and age-cold grief standing in one.
Plus, things usually tried to eat him in graveyards.
What had ever happened to the holy protection of the church?
"'Sacred ground', my ass," Wufei grumbled.
"What was that?" The new communicators were really first class. Trowa sounded as if he were standing right beside Wufei, murmuring into Wufei's ear, though he was nearly four hundred yards away.
"Nothing. Are you in position?"
"Yes. Any movement?"
"None." Wufei scanned the yard again, just to be sure. There were marble gravestones peppered with the occasional, more impressive, stone angels, a church in the distance, silent and dark. "It's dead out here."
"Ha ha."
"Like you could do better."
"All right, stop me if you've heard this one."
"Stop."
"That isn't fair."
"I've heard your jokes, Barton. I've heard all your jokes, and none of them are funny."
A new voice piped up on another line. "I think some of them are funny."
"Quatre thinks I'm funny, Wufei."
"Wonderful. Then he can listen to them."
"I'd be happy to, Trowa."
"Thank you, Quatre."
"No, thank you, Trowa."
"Stop." Wufei turned and knocked his head against the tombstone, though not very hard because he was going to need his brains later, presumably. "Just stop. Or I swear I'll kill you both."
"I'd like to point out," Trowa said in his mildest voice, "that I'm the one holding a sniper rifle."
"And I'm already dead!" Quatre added with a bright smile Wufei could hear.
Wufei thought fondly of the days when he'd done this job alone, then promptly remembered how secretly miserable he'd been and sighed. "Are you sure this is the right night?"
"The prophecy said it'd be on the night of the full moon," Quatre said, with a rustling sound that meant he was flipping through his notes.
"Prophecies always take place on the night of the full moon."
"Or the new moon," Trowa said.
"Was it the full moon or the new moon, Quatre?"
"I, er… wrote it down…"
Wufei gritted his teeth. "Because I swear if it was the new moon, I will find a way to bring you back to life so that I can kill you."
"Ah! Here it is! It's the full moon, definitely. Oh! But there's something else. It has to blot out the dog star. Dog star?"
"Sirius?" Wufei glanced skyward.
"Well," Quatre said. "Wouldn't that make it--now?"
One of the shadows reached out and grabbed Wufei's arm.
"Yes," said Trowa.
The ghoul's head exploded seconds before Wufei heard the distant report of Trowa's gun. Wufei stepped back and drew his sword, flicking it toward cold claws still clinging to thick leather. The blade sheered the air above the ghoul's arm, disrupting the threads of magic keeping it there, and it dissolved into torn wisps of darkness that fell at Wufei's feet.
The next few moments were full of shadow creatures with hollow eyes and red gaping mouths, and the thin song of Wufei's sword cutting through frost-cold air, Trowa's sniper shots a staccato backup rhythm.
"Now, Trowa?" Wufei asked, spinning and slashing apart another ghoul.
"Not yet."
Out of the corner of Wufei's eye, he saw a hovering light. A Will o' Wisp lantern bobbing among low branches.
"See it?" Wufei asked.
"I see it."
It would be the puppet master, the one controlling the spirits in the graveyard, absorbing their power as Wufei destroyed them. But you couldn't kill a Will o' Wisp until it was powerful enough to become corporeal. Of course, by that point, it was strong enough to kill you.
"Now?"
"Not yet."
Trowa's device was heavy in Wufei's pocket. Wufei wasn't even sure what it was. Trowa had handed it to him minutes before they'd gotten into the cab, and assured him it would come in handy. Trowa's gizmos generally were useful, if only because they tended to explode impressively. That Trowa almost always meant for them to explode was only small comfort to Wufei.
The ghouls were coming in waves, now. Wufei climbed an angel statue to gain high ground, shielding himself from one attack by ducking behind a marble wing. The ground was black beneath him, writhing with hollow eyes and gaping mouths.
"Now?"
"Now! Hit the red button!"
Wufei whipped the device--which looked a bit like a silver gerbil ball--out of his pocket, and then hesitated.
"The red button?"
"Yes!"
"Will this be anything like the last time I hit the red button, because I don't really want to--"
"Wufei," Quatre's shut-up-you-idiot voice was scarier than any army of ghouls, "hit the goddamned red button!"
Wufei hit the button.
The explosion knocked him off his feet and into a very solid tombstone, bright white light blinding him. When the pain finally faded enough for him to process anything else, he spent several minutes staring up at the sky, trying to find Sirius, before he realized the ringing in his ears was someone yelling at him.
"Wufei! Wufei!! Come on, Wufei, don't be dead!"
"He's not dead," Trowa said. "I can see him moving."
"Oh like that matters!"
"Shut up, Quatre," Wufei said, struggling to sit up. "And for the record, I am never pushing the red button again."
He took a look around, and spotting flaming debris flying straight for him just in time to roll out of the way. His hand touched his sword and he felt better as the hilt settled into his fist, then he struggled to his feet and took stock.
The church was in ruins, but at least the fire wasn't spreading. It just clung stubbornly to a few of patches of grass and far-flung wooden roof bits. The roof itself was caved in, and an impressive hole was punched through brick a wall, stain glass hanging in ragged bits around the arch supports that hadn't collapsed.
"Trowa, what did you do?"