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The Vampire's Apprentice	By : Evilida44 Category: G through L > House Views: 1787 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own House or its fandom nor do I make any money from it.

Chapter List
- 23
- 24
Pieces of the Puzzle

“Eureka!” said House.
Have you located Thirteen?” asked Wilson.
Wilson was sitting beside House on the couch, struggling with the last obstinate corner of the New York Times crossword puzzle. He stood up and leaned over his friend’s shoulder to look at the screen of his laptop.
Wilson winced, “I didn’t need to see that.”
The image on the screen was of a nude male sporting a large and incongruous set of antlers. He was reclining in a forest glade. His head lolled on one arm while the other arm draped over his torso, subtly directing the eye towards his over-sized manhood. His half-shut eyelids and coy smirk were probably meant to be coy and alluring, but Wilson’s medically trained eye saw a severe case of Bell’s palsy. The angle of his shoulder suggested a painful dislocation, and he seemed to have rather more ribs than were strictly necessary. Instead of resting on the grass, he appearing to be hovering above the forest floor, as if reclining on an invisible sofa.
“It’s awful,” Wilson said. “I don’t know whether it’s more of an insult to art or anatomy.”
“Doesn’t he remind you of someone though? Those boyish features, those soft brown eyes... it could be you with a bad wig and a pair of glued-on antlers.
It’s obviously not drawn from life though. You’re adequately endowed, but this guy has to carry his tackle in a wheelbarrow.”
Wilson blushed.   It was clear that the artist’s inspiration had been a scene from “Feral Pleasures”. House didn’t know about the porn movie that featured his face and another man’s body, and Wilson hoped that he would never find out. Eternity wouldn’t be long enough to live that down. He tried to grab the mouse from House’s hand to banish the offending image from the screen, but House was too quick for him.
“I’m going to bid on it.”
“You aren’t. I don’t want that monstrosity hanging on the wall, where I’d have to look at it every day.”
“Like the hotel/motel art that came with this place is so much better.
This masterpiece is being auctioned off to benefit the Rainbow Haven Foundation, which is raising money to open a hospice for the GLBT community. The head of the Rainbow Haven Foundation owns the gallery where the auction is being held. The auction is a sneaky way of unloading a lot of unsellable paintings and getting a nice tax write-off at the same time.”
“Since when do you care about tax dodges?”
“I don’t. But I am interested in meeting Carissa Rasmussen, the head of the Foundation. She’s Thirteen’s girlfriend.”
House opened up another window which showed Carissa Rasmussen attending a fund-raising gala. Carissa was identified in the caption, but the stunning brunette at her side was not. The unidentified brunette was Thirteen. He opened another window to a photo of Carissa and Thirteen sitting in the front row at a fashion show. Thirteen was bored; the glazed blank expression on her face made her look like one of the runway models.

“The auction is tomorrow night. With any luck, Thirteen will be there. If she isn’t, Carissa will know where she is.”

House was filling in for another musician, playing the first set at a jazz club called the Beat Box. Few of House’s jobs gave him the opportunity to play real music, and not even the prospect of getting answers from Thirteen was enough to make him give it up. He had arranged for Wilson to meet him at the club after the set, which would end around midnight, and then they would head for the charity auction. The auction was planned as the final event of the evening, after everyone had had a chance to down few glasses of free wine to put them in a generous mood. House and Wilson could skip the party and get there just in time to be fashionably late for the auction.
Wilson was half a block away from the Beat Box when he spotted the young man standing near the entrance of the club. It was raining heavily; the streets where almost deserted and the few pedestrians caught in the downpour were taking shelter under awnings or rushing to get out the rain. This young man made no move to get out the rain; he just stood there, letting it soak him to the skin.
The young man was about fourteen years old, and the light dusting of pimples on his forehead told Wilson that he was human.   Still, even without that human imperfection, Wilson could never have mistaken him for one of his own kind. There was something wholly human about his the slope of his shoulders. No vampire could possibly feel quite that sorry for himself.
He was a look-out, Wilson decided. Probably just part of a drug deal or a robbery or some other human enterprise that was none of his concern, but he couldn’t be sure. Out of an abundance of caution, he circled the block coming round to the Beat Box from the opposite direction. The employees’ entrance was to the rear, through the alley. There was normally a forty Watt light bulb directly above the entrance, providing just enough light to enable the barman to put his key in the lock. Wilson noticed that the light bulb was missing.
Wilson walked past the entrance to the alley without stopping. He’d seen enough to know that someone was waiting in the shadows, ready to ambush whoever came out the door. The Beat Box was a trap, and House was caught inside.
Wilson reached for his cell phone to warn House. Then he remembered that he had lost his phone and hadn’t had time to get a replacement yet. Wilson was in a blind spot, where he could not be seen by the lookout or by whoever might be hiding in the alley. Wilson scaled up the side of the building, finding toeholds in the slippery brickwork. His healing ribs protested, but Wilson ignored the pain.
Once he was on the roof, he crouched to peer over the ledge of the roof to the alleyway below. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a shape in the shadows. A woman. Thirteen? Fox girl? Or just his own imagination?

Retreating from the edge, Wilson went to the locked trapdoor that gave access to the roof. He wrenched it off its hinges and descended into a dusty storage area covered with cobwebs. He heard the wail of a trumpet. Three storeys below, the band was playing “When the Saints Come Marching In”, the last song in their set. He was just in time.

  “Did they see you?” House asked.
House and Wilson were sitting in a booth at the back of the bar, far from the windows.
“I’m sure the boy didn’t,” Wilson said. “He was watching everyone coming in or out the front door but he wasn’t paying any attention to passersby. I’m not sure about whoever was in the alley; it’s possible she spotted me.”
“So whoever was in the alley was a woman?”
“I’m not sure there was anybody in the alley. I thought I saw a shape...but I can’t be certain.”
“So if it is Thirteen or fox girl, there’s a chance they know about that exit now, and they’ll be watching it.”
Wilson nodded.
“Good thing, then, that I know another way out,” House said.
He led Wilson back upstairs to the storage area. The storage area was lit only by whatever rays from the streetlights or the stars made it through the dusty, grimy windows, which had not been cleaned in decades. Moving as soundlessly as possible, House began shifting the piles of cardboard boxes, wobbly old barstools, and other forgotten bits and pieces. He uncovered a door.
“This whole block used to be Mencken’s department store. When the store went under, the building owners partitioned the lower floors and rented them out to different businesses, but the top floor was pretty much left as it was,” House explained quietly.
He put his hand on the door knob, which still turned easily, although the door’s rusty hinges squeaked.
“Not even locked,” House said. “We’ll take a short cut through the attic and come out down the fire escape on the other side of the building.”
Wilson nodded, and followed House as he navigated his way through piles of discarded stock and boxes of ancient, yellowing paperwork.
The fire escape was rickety but instead of either fixing it or tearing it down, the building’s owners had put up a warning sign: “UNSAFE. DO NOT USE.”
“One at a time, I think,” House said, opening a window and stepping out on to the metal structure, which swayed alarmingly.
As lightly as a cat, he ran down the fire escape, choosing to jump the final ten feet rather than risk bringing the whole thing down by trying to unjam the rusted ladder. Wilson followed more cautiously, his injuries slowing him down.
House looked around the corner. The teen-aged boy was still there, looking as if he had jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed, but on duty nonetheless. He was talking into a cell phone. House peered around the other corner or the building to see if he could spot anyone in the alley, but it was too dark.
“Watch the alley,” he whispered to Wilson.
House went over to the cars parked by the side of the road. He advanced down the line of vehicles, hitting each one hard with the palm of his hand as he passed, and setting off their alarms.
Wilson saw a movement in the shadows, as whoever was waiting there turned in response to the noise. He caught a glimpse of red before the figure retreated back the shadows.

“Fox girl,” he said, nodding at House.

House hailed a cab and soon the two vampires were on their way to Carissa’s gallery. The driver took a look at his passengers, and put down a layer of newspapers to keep the car’s upholstery dry. The newspapers crackled every time his passengers moved.
Wilson leaned back in the seat and pulled a plastic bag from the pocket or his coat.
“I brought you this to wear,” he said, pulling out one of his own ties. “The auction is semi-formal.”
“This is a seriously ugly tie. And it clashes with my shirt,” House complained.
“You’re pretending to be someone who would buy works of art that anyone with an ounce of taste would want to shoot into outer space. You have to look the part. I got you something else too. This is to make you look rich and get us in the door.”
Wilson pulled out a blue velvet jeweller’s box from the bag and held it out to House. House took the box from his hand.
“I was walking by the jewellery store window, and I couldn’t resist it.”
“How much of our rent money do you blow on this?”
“None. I told the jeweller who much I liked it, and he gave it to me. It’s a present, from him to me and from me to you.”
“You looked deep into his eyes and seduced him with your vampiric charms.”
“No actual seduction was involved. Open it.”
House looked at Wilson warily.
“This isn’t a ring, is it?” House asked.
“Of course, it’s not a ring,” Wilson said. “Relax. I know that you’re one of nature’s eternal bachelors. If Stacy couldn’t tame you, I haven’t got a chance.”
House opened up the box and looked at the contents. Inside was a diamond tie-clip. The diamond, only slightly smaller than a dime, was a brilliant, icy blue.
“You hardly ever wear a tie so it’s not very practical, but the diamond is flawless and it matches the colour of your eyes exactly. I looked at the diamond in the window, and I thought House can’t see his own eyes in the mirror anymore, and that just seemed so sad.
I must have been a bit drunk at the time,” Wilson confessed.
“More than a bit from the sound of it.”
House held the tie clip in his hand. The word ‘flawless’ resonated deeply with his vampire nature. We’re a flock of glorified magpies, he thought; we can’t resist something shiny.
House pinned it to his tie, and Wilson smiled. He reached out to adjust the tie slightly. House bit him on the earlobe affectionately. He pierced the lobe cleanly and almost painlessly, marking Wilson as his.
“That’s for flirting with the jeweller,” he said.
The newspaper rustled.

“No funny business in my cab!”

The auction had already started by the time they arrived. There was a murmur of comment as House and Wilson took seats at the back of the room.
“That’s him,” Wilson heard someone say. “That’s the guy with the horns!”
Carissa herself was running the auction. She was wearing a white beaded gown with a plunging neckline and her hair was arranged on top of her head in a complicated knot. She looked sexy and regal and frightening, like Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen brought to life. She glared at her unruly audience, her commanding gaze bringing them back to order and silence instantly.
Wilson scanned the room. Thirteen wasn’t there. Secretly, he felt relieved. The last time they had met, she had tried to blackmail him, and he’d tried to kill her. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again. The situation was just too socially awkward.
“The one I’m going to bid on is up next,” House said.
“You aren’t,” Wilson said, almost pleading, as Carissa’s assistant brought up the next item.
“Item 15, ’Midsummer Nocturne’ by Samuel Evans Gracie,” Carissa said. “The artist is best known for his abstracts and for his bold use of colour. This is a rare and powerful foray into the figurative. Who would like to start the bidding?”
House waited until the bidding reached one hundred and fifty dollars before he raised his hand.
“We have one fifty; do I hear one sixty...one fifty five. Thank you, man with a canary coloured tie...I have one fifty five....”
“One sixty,” said House loudly.
“No,” Wilson protested, slumping down in his seat.
“One seventy,” said a voice from the other side of the room.
“We have a new bidder. The man wearing sunglasses indoors. We have one seventy... anyone at one seventy five?”
“One seventy five,” said canary tie.
“Two hundred” said House, “on the condition that the subject of the painting has to sign it for me!”
“Two twenty, same condition,” said sunglasses.
House dropped out of the bidding when it reached two fifty, but canary tie and sunglasses were both committed to the battle. ‘Midsummer Nocturne’ was knocked down to canary tie at five hundred and ninety five dollars, which was, Wilson considered, about five hundred and ninety dollars more than it was worth.
The rest of the auction proceeded uneventfully. With Carissa reminding the bidders sternly that the proceeds were going to charity, every work of art eventually found an owner.
After the auction, while canary tie cornered Wilson, House went to speak with Carissa.
“I wanted to meet you,” House said, “I’m very interested in the charity you founded. My friend Remy told me all about it, and I think it’s a worthy cause. I’m surprised she’s not here for your big fund-raiser.”
“She was supposed to be here,” Carissa said, “but maybe Remy doesn’t always keep her word.”
“I hope she’s not sick. I’m sure she would have come if she could have. Your foundation must be very important to her.”
“If Rainbow Haven meant anything to her,” Carissa said angrily, “she’d be here now.”
“Oops. Have I touched on something personal here? Are you and Remy close?”
“We used to be. Until she met someone named Mia. Suddenly, Mia is going to change her life forever and they are going to live happily ever after.
I’m not bitter about her leaving me – I’m not that kind of person – but she disappointed everyone else. The auction was supposed to be her project, but I end up doing all the work. ”
“It sounds like this Mia is a bad influence. Maybe I should get in touch with Remy and talk to her. Do you know how I could get a hold of her?”
“She’s with Mia, wherever she is. Don’t ask me for any details. I’ve never met the bitch. I don’t even know her last name.”
“I can see how ‘not bitter’ you are. Got to go,” House said. “Looks like my date for the evening needs to be rescued.”

Carissa waved her hand regally, dismissing him from her presence, as she turned to another customer.

The man with the canary tie had insisted that Wilson sign the canvas. Wilson had signed it using his right hand, so his handwriting would not be recognizable. He had signed it “Gregory House”. The man with the canary tie squinted at the signature, trying to make out the scrawl.
“I’m having some friends over for drinks this Saturday, and I’d love for you to come ...um, Jeremy.”
“The picture’s yours, but the real thing is mine,” House said. “Come on, Jeremy, we’re going home.”
The rain had stopped. The night sky was clear and a cool and pleasant breeze idly sent bits of waste paper scurrying down the street. The two vampires decided to walk home rather than take a taxi.
Briefly, House outlined his conversation with Carissa.
“A total bust,” he summarized.
“Maybe not,” Wilson said. “The name Mia sounds familiar.
When we were in Las Vegas, I used to dip into the Professor’s library when you and he were busy doing... whatever you were doing.”
“Learning the tricks of the trade... and not those kinds of tricks, and not that trade.”
“Very funny,” Wilson said. “Anyway, most of his books were dreadful Victorian triple deckers. I only managed to get all the way through one of them. It was about virtuous Lady Clara hopelessly pining after dashing Lord Roderick, who only had eyes for the scheming Italian contessa. Odd reading matter for someone like the Professor.”
“I can imagine him reading ‘’One Thousand Ways to Torture Your Peasants,” House said, “but not ‘Lord Roderick’s Dilemma’.”
“There was a name written on the inside cover of the book,” Wilson said. “Mia Winter. The name could be a coincidence, of course.”
“Or Thirteen’s Mia could be someone from the Professor’s past. A female vampire who likes to read silly romance novels. Your friend the fox girl.”
“She’s coming after us to avenge his death,” Wilson said. “We’re being hunted.”
“She’s after me, not us. If she wanted you, you’d be dead already. She could have finished off what Thirteen started.
I’m going to have to find her and kill her before she kills me.”
- 23
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The Vampire's Apprentice