Derek brings the handle Who: Radek & Derek What: Reuniting the two pieces When: 28th October (Before Samhain & Radek/James) Where: Radek’s home/’pool house’ Ratings G (discussion of daggers)
The heist had gone as planned, surprisingly, with very few hiccups. It had occurred to Derek that hovering outside a police station clad in all-black would look suspicious, so the vampire had dressed normally and waited across the street in a rented car while Shimmer did her thing. The ball of light trick worked astoundingly well, and the vampire didn’t want to ask what souvenirs she took on the way. Best not to know too much in those cases.
Now, he found himself at Radek’s, though using the front door of the main house instead of visiting the pool house in a state of disrepair. It was a nice change of pace. He pressed one fingertip on the doorbell. The dagger handle was wrapped carefully in a cloth, nestled inside a bag that Derek held on to with a secure grip. He wasn’t losing it again, this time. And he was glad that the other half wasn’t buried in his gut.
Radek made his way to the front door, glancing at the small screen of the security system and seeing the young vampire standing there with a tight hold on a bag. As he approached the large, old door, he glanced through the stained glass panels on the side and saw the tall young figure, then pulled the door open. “Hello Derek, thank you for coming, please, come in,” he said, remembering he needed to invite the young vampire in. He eyed the bag Derek was carrying with great eagerness, but resisted the urge to take it and look at the handle. Instead ushering Derek inside.
“Hi, Radek.” He gave the doctor a smile as he crossed the doorway. Derek could tell he was anticipating seeing the contents of the bag, and he didn’t want to fill the space with pretense or test the man’s patience. The vampire held it out for Radek to take. “We got it. No hiccups, no gunfights. That’s a big achievement for me.”
The vampire looked around at the amount of house he could see, and it was nice. He figured the doctor lived in comfort, judging from the small house behind a larger house. That was rich people stuff, as far as Derek was concerned. He had just grown up with the one.
Radeks’ smile spread across his face and his eyes lit up as he took the bag containing the rest of the strange dagger. He was already clumsily peering inside as he closed the large door behind Derek, and started walking through to the study, waving to Derek to follow. When he entered the study he crossed immediately to his desk and placed the bag down, reaching inside and drawing out the cloth-wrapped bundle. He placed the bag on his desk and then the bundle on top, glancing up at Derek as his fingers reached for the edge of the material.
“There was no problems? Did they not want to keep it for anything?” he asked, thrilled the rest of the strange blade was now here, but of course curious as to how Derek had managed to obtain it. His fingers started to unwrap the bundle, gently peeling back the edges of the cloth.
“Well, we didn’t exactly ask,” Derek answered somewhat evasively, avoiding eye contact for a moment. “But don’t worry, I won’t get in trouble. Or my friend Shimmer. She’s the one who helped retrieve it. She’s...special.” He shrugged faux-casually. The vampire didn’t have much interest in looking at the handle. He figured he had seen enough of it up close and personal. “Can you tell anything about it? Does it look familiar?”
Radek paused for a moment at the mention of the name Shimmer, recalling the self-confessed nymph who appears as a young woman at the gathering at the diner. He smiled as he remembered the rather odd ‘young woman’, who seemed to be less socially adept than most others in attendance. But he quickly filed that away for the time being, deciding to make inquiries as to how and why Derek had recruited her help to retrieve the item from the police at a later time. For now his attention was fully focused back on the bundle, and his fingers started peeling back the edges of the cloth. “I am hoping so,” he replied, the layers of cloth slowly revealing what was hidden within.
What was revealed was rather stunning, in Radek’s eyes, in that it was nothing like anything he’d seen before. The broken shard of the blade was in fact detachable, indicating the knife was perhaps made for more than one time use, or at least the handle was, as he couldn’t imagine the blade being easily retrieved, once embedded in a victim and left to disperse its poisonous cargo. The savagely barbed edges had indicated it wasn’t meant to be withdrawn once plunged into the body. As he studied the handle and the shard of blade protruding from it, he became a little lost in the galleries of his memory, trying to identify the age and realm of its creation. After what would possibly have been a great length of time, Radek inhaled deeply and exhaled, his wonder overcoming his frustration at knowing so little and being able to confirm nothing about the source of the weapon.
He peered up at Derek, and shook his head. “This weapon is one with which I am completely unfamiliar,” he confessed, shaking his head, but his face still smiling. He beckoned Derek to follow him as he walked across to the door on the other side of the study that led into the training room. As he entered he flicked on the lights of the glass display cabinets that lined some of the walls in the room, the rest of the cabinets having solid doors, particularly those at the far end of the very large room, concealing their contents. The doors of some of those cupboards were in fact concealed behind the array of whiteboards and the two tables where Radek was carrying out the consolidation of the information he was collecting on the occurrences he was researching.
“You see?” he said, indicating four large glass fronted cabinets. Each of these cabinets held an array of daggers, over one hundred examples of the ways humans had used all sorts of materials to create an instrument that could be used for either delivering death, or saving life. He had collected them over many centuries, from all corners of the globe, either first hand from the creator or wielder, or through research and a keen eye from other collectors. “I have never seen anything like it, either in construction, or material used,” he said, waving a hand at the display cases.
Derek took in the contents of the displays. “That’s a whole lotta daggers,” he agreed, glancing at Radek. Honestly, he had never seen that many weapons in one place, before. If he weren’t a vampire and didn’t know the other man, he might have felt a little bit concerned.
“So you’ve been alive a really long time, you’re kind of an expert, and you have no clue about this one.” The vampire nodded slowly. “That’s not a great sign, is it? Wherever this came from, it’s probably not this dimension.”
Radek smiled a little at the comment regarding being an ‘expert’ and having been alive for a long time, thinking of Cassandra, who had been alive for over three millennium, then nodded slowly. “It is the only conclusion I have reached so far,” he admitted, his voice dropping a little. He needed to make the call to the shop, Curiosities, to have the proprietor come and strengthen the wards and protections he had had done when his home was first built, some ten years earlier.
“This one you have spoken of, we will not mention her name, what do you know of her?” he asked, not willing to even risk invoking a being from another realm by the mere mistake of mentioning their name, not without first strengthening the protections. And as he was asking the question he realised it was probably best to remove the dagger handle from his house and out to the secure cabinet in the pool house. As he spoke he beckoned Derek to follow him, heading back into the study.
“Um, pretty much what I’ve already told you,” Derek replied with a shrug, trailing behind Radek back into the study. “She can go through walls, wears a lot of black, and I’m pretty sure she can read minds. Don’t quote me on that, though.” He gave the doctor an apologetic glance.
“Sorry, I wish I could be more helpful about the subject. I’m not really well-versed on these things.”
Radaek nodded as he collected the handle, still inside the cloth Derek had wrapped it in, and carried it out of the study. “It’s OK, I sometimes remember things later, when I have time to recall details. If there is anything at all it might be helpful,” he said as he walked around the pool and to the door of the pool house, turning to check that Derek was with him. “The one who stabbed you with this thing? What can you tell me about them?” he asked, looking for ways to help Derek recall any sort of detail that might help them. He was beginning to get a particularly uncomfortable feeling about the item he held, having discerned some of the engraving on the handle and not recognising any of the symbols. He again wondered if it was something Phanuel would recognise, or be able to identify somehow.
“Her name was Veronica,” Derek answered, and if he sounded a little terse, it wasn’t directed at Radek, but rather the subject at hand. “She was the vampire who turned me. Well, first, she tortured me for hours, then bit me.” The story felt rote by then, having told a few people about it.
“I know she wanted to cause me the most pain, and if she got this from, well, you-know-who...and I believe that she did, then that’s exactly what it was meant to do.”
As Derek related the information on Veronica Radek opened the pool house door and led the way across to the door into the surgery. Once inside he crossed the room, past the surgical table to the counter that ran along the wall, placing the handle down and turning on the lights beneath the overhead cabinets, illuminating the area. Once there he again uncovered the handle, pulled out his phone and started taking photos of it from all angles.
“There is no doubt in my mind she, or the provider of the dagger, meant you harm,” he returned as he tapped the screen, taking more photos as he turned the handle over to ensure he had all angles recorded. “This is a true weapon, created only for the purpose to injure, and cause death” he mused.
He looked up at Derek, peering a little until he pushed his glasses up. “And you have had no after effects? From the poison, or whatever it was? No tiredness, or dizziness, or nightmares?” he asked, his medical side taking control now they were in the surgery.
“I mean, I always have nightmares, but isn’t that normal?” Derek’s gaze was drawn to the metal table, the same one he had laid out on and bled on twice. “Even before she stabbed me. And even after, you know, getting rid of her.” He scratched the side of his neck, looking away from Radek. It was still odd to talk about it, especially to someone as level-headed and ‘together’ as the older man.
Eyebrows rose at the suggestion that nightmares were normal. “You had them regularly before you were stabbed?” Radek asked, sliding his phone back into his trouser pocket before punching in the code and opening the secure cabinet. He reached in and a few moments later had the box which contained the crystal blade of the dagger. “I mean, for you, is it normal you have nightmares?” he clarified, placing the box on the counter-top and lifting the lid.
The vampire nodded, glancing briefly at the crystal part of the dagger. “Yeah, pretty much every night. Well, day. I guess they’re day-mares.” He edged away from where the box was, feeling strangely uncomfortable being in its presence. The handle had been okay, but seeing what had been pulled out of him was odd. Derek had been convinced he was going to eventually die from the wound and the poison dispersed through his system, had in fact resigned himself to it.
Radek saw his reaction to the blade and understood, so turned, shielding the vampire from it with his body. Instead of continuing to reconnect the two pieces he wrapped the handle again and placed it in the box and returned it to the secure cabinet. "I can look at it later," he said, turning to Derek again. "Come, let's return to the house."