No Matter How Dark It May Be, There Is Redemption

A Monster Hunter?

After updating Lafontaine and Perry at breakfast about the situation with The Dean, as well as the new information about Richard, Laura resolved to head to confront her father to ask about said information. Carmilla volunteered to go to the office with her, somewhat for support, but also because the idea of Laura wandering into a monster-hunter’s office wasn’t exactly appealing, even if it was her father’s.

“Oh, and Danny and Kirsh are on their way to the house,” Laura added as they were getting ready to leave. “Our couches in the living room are pretty comfortable if you push them together and we also have a couple down in the basement.”  She bounced up and down with excitement.  “I already texted them the directions.  I can’t wait to see them!”

“Yes, thank goodness they’re okay,” Perry sighed in relief.

Laf nodded.  “And while you guys are dealing with your Van Helsing father, Per and I can start looking up anything else we can find on lophiiformes. And give JP 2.0 some air since he’s been cooped up for the past month.”

“Sounds good,” Carmilla replied.

The office was about a half hour’s drive away, and Carmilla drove while Laura fidgeted the whole time.  Carmilla thought about saying something but she knew Laura’s mind was going a mile a minute and breaking into that would likely just lead to those thoughts spewing out incoherently.  As adorable as that seemed, it wouldn’t actually help Laura, so Carmilla took to just watching her tiny girlfriend wring her hands and pout for the entire ride.

When they pulled up to the building, Laura didn’t move from her seat.

“Is this the building?” Carmilla asked, already knowing the answer, but deciding this was the right amount of prompting necessary.

Laura nodded and got out of the car, took a deep breath, and looked like she was holding it until they entered the building. It was a weekend so the building was unsurprisingly empty as they got into an elevator.  Laura pressed the button to take them to the fourth floor and when they arrived, Laura walked down the hall and entered the fifth room on the left.  The trip had been as silent as their drive, with Carmilla following a step or two behind Laura. Laura knocked but didn’t wait before opening the door.

Richard looked up from his desk. “Oh, hi, princess,” he said, confusion evident in his voice.  “What are you doing here?”  Laura didn’t miss the way his eyes flashed for a second to Carmilla’s.

On the drive over, Laura had considered several methods for the confrontation, including storming in angrily and demanding an explanation, or asking nicely if gee Dad did you lie to me my entire life?, or stupidly gawk at him and ask if Carmilla looked as pretty thirty years ago, or question him if the reason he bolted her bed to the floor was actually because there might be monsters under there, but all these options were thrown out the window when the moment actually came.

“A MONSTER HUNTER?” Laura shrieked.

Carmilla scoffed despite herself. “Wow, sweetheart, it’s nice to see that all that contemplation since we left the house led to A-plus articulation.”

“You told her.”  Richard sighed, having known from the moment she saw Carmilla that this would happen.  He had seen the videos and knew the vampire was more likely to tell his daughter everything, especially something as large as this.

“Yes, sir,” Carmilla admitted. “But to be fair, she knew something was wrong already.”

“A monster hunter?!” Laura’s voice was going up so many octaves that Carmilla was genuinely concerned her head might explode.

“You’re doing great with this confrontation, cupcake,” Carmilla smirked.  She placed a hand on her shoulder.  “But at the risk of you standing here for hours screaming, ‘a monster hunter,’” Carmilla did her best wide-eyed Laura-voice impression, “how about you take a breath and change up your diction choice?”

Laura did as she was asked and took a deep breath. “Why did you never tell me?”

“Oh, honey,” Richard sighed.  “I wanted to.  But I made a promise to myself when your mother died that this life was just too dangerous.  If I had my way, I would’ve left this life, too, but it was too late for me. It was all I had known since I was eighteen years old and, as silly as it sounds, the hours were flexible enough for me to give you more time, and the pay was good.”

“Did mom know?”

Richard stood up from his desk and walked to the window. Carmilla wasn’t sure if Laura could tell that her father was crying, but if she did, it didn’t stop her line of questioning.  “Did mom know?” Laura repeated, even though Carmilla had given her a guess last night as to what the answer might be.

“She was also a monster hunter,” he answered. “Carmilla, you met her.” He shook his head sadly. “She wasn’t supposed to be involved in monster hunting once she was pregnant with you,” he turned around and looked at Laura, “but the case I was working on got complicated, and it put her in danger.  It was a witch that went rogue from her coven and she came after you and your mother,” he continued, swallowing hard.  “I got the coven to do a protection spell and it worked, but not on both of you.”

Laura sat down on the chair across his at the desk. Carmilla leaned against the back of the chair but didn’t touch Laura.

“Were… Were you ever going to tell me?” Laura asked, choking back a sob.

Richard sighed.  “No,” he answered truthfully.  “But then I heard the story about Silas and it sounded ridiculous, especially when I didn’t hear from you for weeks, so we’ve been looking into it.”

“‘We?’  You’re not working alone?” Carmilla asked.

Richard scoffed.  “In this empty building?” he waved his arms to indicate the space around him. At least Carmilla could see where her girlfriend had picked up some of her habits from. “Our front is private security but everyone in this building is in the supernatural hunting business.”

“Ohh,” Laura said quietly in her chair. Carmilla assumed things were slowly clicking into place for her.  Richard abandoned his spot at the window and sat down at his desk to look directly into his daughter’s eyes.

“We had some agents in the area gathering intel about the situation and I was about to head out since, you know, I had a personal stake in it, but I’ve been on another case.”

“So you don’t know anything,” Laura said slowly.

Her father shook his head.  “Why?  Do you?”

The conversation was interrupted when the window was shattered from the outside, as a large wolf-man beast burst into the office.