Welcome to Gaia! ::

The dark figure crept along the edge of the roof, then leapt down nimbly and with almost no sound. It’s prey slid across the ground, looking for it’s enemy in every direction except the one it was in. The dark figure pulled a sword from the depths of it’s cloak and brought to the other figure with a slight cry. The prey screamed in the most masculine way he could manage and fell back, pushing away the second figure with a sword he similarly produced from nowhere. The dark figure parried effortlessly, then stuck the second further back. The second firmed his stance and drove the dark figure back a pace himself. The dark figure found himself backed into a barrier, but in a single movement, held his sword to his chest and did a one-handed backflip over it. His opponent leapt onto the counter and then leapt down on the dark figure, who stuck him three times before the other could raise his sword. The first let out a cry of pain and dropped to his knees, releasing the sword. The dark figure grasped the second by the hair and pulled his head back so he could place his blade along the loser’s throat. The dark figure breathed vehemently, victoriously, then suddenly panic filled his eyes. He turned his opponent head to face his own and stared deeply at him. The pair breathed vehemently staring at one another, neither moving a muscle. Suddenly, a look of panic entered the eyes of the dark figure as they faded from grey to blue.
“Kiss me, you fool!”
“Tom!” screeched his opponent, throwing himself from Tom’s grip.
“Cut!” snarled the director, leaping towards the pair.
“I forgot my line...” moaned Tom, his head in hand.
“What’s the line, Tom?! What’s the line?”
“You fool... uh...”
“ ‘You never should have crossed me, you fool!’ ‘You never should have crossed me!’ Dammit, Tom! That was a good fight and you ******** it up!”
“Then don’t have me act.”
“Dammit! Like anyone else could do that damn flippy-thing!”
“Then cut it out of the fight. He can leap over it or duck under it or anything.”
“That is a ******** brilliant move! You choreographed the damn scene, you should have a little goddamn pride in it!”
“I messed around with my brother and said, ‘That’d look cool’! It’s not like this is my goddamn life’s work!”
“Dammit, Tom, you can act! You were in ******** renfair!”
“I fought in renfair.” he clarified snidely.
“Well, at least ya got your banter right at renfair!”
“This is not my magnum opus, okay? This is a TV production project. In three weeks, no one will care.” Tom replied coolly. He wasn’t a terribly emotional person. Tom took out his long black ponytail and redid it slightly neater.
“Quit messin’ with you hair, pretty boy, and get back on the set.”

Some guys are very attractive without ever knowing how attractive they are. Tomas Hart was never one of those guys. He was best described as a skinny little b*****d with femmy hair, being the only male student at Wilton-Lyndebourgho Cooperative with lustrous wavy black hair which reached his mid-back. He was of a fair complexion and had large ice-blue eyes which turned gray when he was concentrating. He had the rare and happy talent few seventeen year old boys have of being flamingly heterosexual without being a homophobe. Possibly this was why he allowed himself to skip around the woodshop from time to time. Despite this, the distinguishing characteristic of the young man was not his pleasant smartass nature, nor his uncommon appearance, but his fascination and skill with swords. He owned more swords than many museums, and he was known to use them with a skill and grace best befitting a figure in Japanese animation. Indeed, with his long coat and ponytail trailing behind him, almost in slow motion, as he worked with his katana, he looked very much like a manga reject.

“Hey, Meow-meow!” Kat met the eyes of the person who called out to her coldly, but made no reply. The taller girl with frankly bizarre eyebrows ran to the redhead’s side.
“What, didn’t you hear me?”
“I was attempting to convince myself that was the case in order to salvage this morning.” replied Kat, clutching a duct-tape clad sketchbook to her chest.
“Where were you A block? Did you skip gym again?”
“I don’t skip classes.” Kat replied austerely. “I just... got up late.”
“Meow-meow, the class is an hour and a half long.” she smirked, bouncing her brown ponytail lost entirely in highlights as she walked. “And I notice you made it here in time for B block.”
“I’m taking an AP Metaphysics course from Miskatonic university. You miss one class and you’re dead.”
“Really?” Sarah asked with surprise.
“Well, you would be...” Kat allowed, “If they offered that here.” Kat put her back against a door to open it.
“Whoa~!” Tom leapt back to keep Kat from bowling him over. Kat stumbled and tried to hide her face behind the book before the change in shade was noticed.
“Oooh...” Sarah grinned, “Great class, I see. Betcha don’t ever miss it...” Kat, eyes still affixed to the floor, and quite an interesting shade at this point, flung her books at the ground and leapt over them towards Sarah.
“Oh, Kat, did you drop your books?” asked Mrs. Contorino, who happened to teach Creative Writing, not AP Metaphysics. As she approached her classroom, she continued, “Do you need help?”
“No.” Kat muttered, dropping to her knees, “A few more minutes and I’d have been just fine.” she added beneath her breath.
“Sarah, get to class, Tom, back in the classroom, and Kat-” Kat looked up as her name was mentioned, “I’d like a word when you’re done.”
“I was just leaving-- and it’s my fault, I should help-” Tom protested.
“No, you shouldn’t.” Kat muttered barely audibly.
“Fine, then, work it out yourselves, just everyone in their respective classrooms before the bell rings.” she turned her eyes to Tom and Kat. “For you two, that means with me.”
“I’ve never missed your class!” Kat defended. ”And I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s always here.”
“Hard to miss.” the teacher admitted, “But let’s not forget who was ten minutes late every day for the first month.”
“I kept forgetting where the class was!” protested Kat. Both Tom and Sarah chuckled. Sarah twisted the beads in her hemp necklace as she turned away.
“Hey, before I forget, Duche is looking for you.”
“Caitlin Ducharme?” Kat asked. “Whatever for?”
“Don’t know. She won’t either. I just made that up.” the taller girl laughed, naturally at first, then when no one else joined in, she leaned her face next to Kat’s and shouted the words, “HA HA HA!” Kat pulled her face back, and Sarah returned to her normal laugh.
”See you ‘round, ‘kay meow-meow?”
“Not really.” Kat muttered, accepting a sheaf of paper from the boy.
“Wait a second-” Tom pulled it back to have a look at it. “Did you draw this?”
“Why on earth does everyone ask that? Of course I did.”
“It’s very good. Prince of Dolls.” he read off the edge of the drawing. “He kinda looks like a lady, though.”
“Well, so do you.”
“Hey!”
“I’m sorry-” she stuttered, “And- and it’s not a bad thing! It’s- I mean, uh...” Kat dropped behind her hair again. “You really, really didn’t need to help me. It’s just books. It’s not like I don’t drop them every single day.”
“Don’t worry about it. I just wanted a few minutes out of that crazy woman’s sight.” Tom looked over his shoulder. “I’m a white catholic male, is that such a crime?”
“Yes, Tom. Yes it is. You shall burn for your crimes.”
“Aw, man.” he sighed with a smirk. “There go my weekend plans.” Kat stood up.
“You going in?”
“When I can blow off a few more precious seconds? You really need to review your teen-ly-ness. I think you missed something.”
“It was probably in the chapter with the sex and the drinking, I just skimmed that.” she smiled weakly, opening the door with her elbow so she could still face Tom’s retreating back as he talked.
“Watch where your going. You’ll back into someone again.” Tom warned as Kat stumbled over another young man.
“Careful! I like my sight, such as it is, I don’t want my eyes burned out by seeing up your skirt!”
“Nerd-boy... I’m wearing jeans.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to see your man-ties.” the round-faced boy replied, straightening his glasses.
“I’ll bet there not unlike yours.” Kat replied as calmly as she could, having thrown herself halfway across the floor when she made contact with the boy. She stood and brushed off her duster. There was a poient pause before the Kat asked, “So which one of us is going to accuse the other of wearing a thong first?”
“Let’s not and pretend we did it at the same time.”
“Hey, Lavelle, you could always check!” offered a girl in an orange hoodie. Kat made a hand motion as if the idea had given her a sudden, painful migraine. Lavelle gagged.
“Alica...” Kat began, “No. Just no.”
“Yeah, I intend to eat sometime in the next millennia.”
“Then feast on her flesh.” suggested a nearby gamer, looking up from his gameboy.
“...Kevin...” Kat leaned on his desk in the most intimating way she could manage to someone twice her size. “Tell me that wasn’t an innuendo when you started saying it.” Kevin tinted slightly and muttered something about orcs.
“I’m an orc? Can I at least be an Urk-hai? At least then I’m half elf.”
“Legolas still wouldn’t want you.” Lavelle interrupted.
“But don’t you see? I’d lead a raiding party to Mirkwood and hold the princes for ransom.”
“Or maybe just hold the princes, Sean.” Kevin amended. Lavelle twiched, then faced the ceiling.
“Dear god, thank you for making me ugly, and saving me from the horror of fangirls!”
“See? It’s all in the plan.”
“So, no Legolas for me, no Sham Pu for you.” Kat continued, and Sean’s eyes widened slightly as if with tears. “But I’m here, to make your life miserable, so that you understand the pain of fangirls without ever having one.” He threw himself forward onto his desk and faux-wept, “Why is the world so cruel!?”
“Because god hates you and he wants you to kill yourself.”
“Admirable put-down, Maggie.” Kat complimented with light applause.
“I’m a seasoned pro.” the other girl commented blankly, fixating on her coffee. At this point, Tom reentered, bouncing his head from side to side. He leapt unto a nearby desk, walked across it, leapt to the next one, crossed it, leapt to his own seat, dropped to the ground and started the computer.
“Tom...” the teacher sighed exasperatedly, “Do you really need to do that?”
“No.” the boy replied, dropping his leather trenchcoat across a desk. Kat smiled and crossed back to her seat.
“Gods, I love this class.”
“Do you mean the classroom, or the subject? That is platonic, right?”
“Shut up, Tom.” the room chorused.
“Kat?” Ms. Contorino asked from her desk. “Could I see you for a minute?” Kat crossed the room with unnecessary speed. “Is this about my grade? I left my assignment on your desk, I swear! I would have handed it to you directly, but you were busy!”
“No, your grades are fine... it’s just your just about the only senior I know without any after-school activities-” Kat awkwardly looked away, “And I was wondering if you could help me with something this evening?”
“What?”
“I need some help setting up benches in the soccer field. The little one? There’s going to be a poetry thing there tonight.”
“Oh.” Kat replied. “And you need a help with the bench?”
“Benches. This will be really big, as big as any team sport here.”
“Which I’ve never witnessed, but I’m given to understand are smaller than normal.” Kat blushed after saying this. “I’m sorry, that was impolite.”
“Don’t worry about it, Kat.” Ms. Contorino soothed. “So, you think you could help?”
“No problem.” Kat replied.

“So did we learn our lesson?” Willow asked.
“Until such time as I can dig myself out of any crap I can get myself in, I should stop offering assistance to anyone who asks?”
“At least until you can drive yourself around. On pain of vampire attack.”
“Yes, Willow.” Kat sighed dejectedly.
“Where are we?” Sean asked, wiping moisture off the window nearest himself.
“Four Oaks Farm.” Kat answered, pointing to a nearby tree.
“Home.” Willow clarified, pulling into the small driveway. “At least, that’s where we are. You, on the other hand, are on a remote mountain surrounded by crazy people.” She turned off the car, and turned around in her seat. “Okay, I’ll get you home in a bit, but first we’ve got to cross stories to make sure that what I think is happening is really happening.”
“And what do you think is happening?” Sean asked. Willow growled and rolled her eyes.
“You said it yourselves, you both did: You were attacked by vampires. Not only that, but the vampires were people you knew.” As she unbuckled her seatbelt, she muttered to herself, “But that means the reverants haven’t come out yet, or at least they shouldn’t have.”
“The what?” Sean asked.
“I’m understanding even less of what you’re saying than usual, Willow.” interjected Kat.
“The reverants.” Willow repeated, hopping out of the SUV. “C’mon, Kat, you’ve heard me talk about this before, I’m sure you have.”
“I’m sure I haven’t!” the redhead protested, throwing herself after her sister.
“Even if she did, I still have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Good.” Willow replied. “One less person to think I’m crazy.” Sean ran up to where the blonde woman was standing at the foot of rough-hewn stone doorsteps.
“I was just attacked by vampires! What could you say to make me think you’re crazy?” Willow sighed and turned around.
“I’m a vampire slayer. I’ve been hunting them for almost ten years.” The two high schoolers behind her stopped dead in their tracks.
“...But... vampires don’t... I mean, obviously, they do... but- I don’t know... I don’t know...”
“But were you hunting or slaying? You mixed up the verbs in-”
“That doesn’t matter.” Willow growled. The round-faced boy turned disbelievingly towards the upperclassman.
“How can you think of syntax at a time like this?”
“Simple: I’m Kat.” she replied folding her hands behind her head. Willow half-sighed, half-growled. She knew this behavior in her little sister. She was scraping together what little confidence she had into being an a**. It was going to be incredibly frustrating until she calmed down. Of course, telling her to calm down would send her into hysterics. This happened all the time, though usually, it was a social thing. Willow swung open the front door and stepped into a half-finished conversation.
“...and I’m still a little shaky as to why, but they’re coming at us, fangs bared, and naturally, I’m not liking this. So I turn to Jake and say, ‘Throw it and run.’ He nods, throws it right at their faces, and we’re out of there. Of course, he’s like, ‘Tom, I thought you could fight’ and I say, ‘Yeah, a very important part of my training was changing a situation so you can win.’ Being against a wall, surrounded by twelve people with pointy teeth is not a good situation.” a soft rambling continued. “It’s like any other situation, you have to have a plan. And I think avoiding a fight is a damn good plan, it’s not like it’s hard to tell when you’re overpowered, people!” the small figure sitting at the kitchen table paused in his rant, which somehow managed to be slow and pleasant, but entirely without the prospect of getting a word in edgewise, to take a sip of tea and smooth back the characteristically long dark hair. Across from him, a brown haired young man with a beard, but a very young look about the eyes sipped some tea and said nothing. Behind a counter separating the kitchen, a plump woman with silver streaks in her frizzy brown hair fussed with a teakettle and a woodstove. The three from the car entered this amber-tinted scene with some confusion. It was loud, but it was always loud in the Taylor kitchen, in a comforting way. Bundles of drying herbs, garlic, copper pots and cast iron pans hung from the ceiling, shelves lined almost every wall, and every other flat thing which was not a shelf was being used as one, lines of jars with unnamable herbs and mortars and pestles surrounded the room completely. The three from the car nervously stepped in from the hall. Both of the sisters Taylor asked the same question in their native tongue.
“Ish kabibble Tommy wha?” Kat blithered incoherently.
“Tom, what are you doing in our kitchen?” Willow repeated in english.
“Willow!” Tom answered, turning around in his seat. “I’ve discovered a small problem recently. Thought you might be the one to go to.” He looked rather calm, amused if anything.
“Vampires?” Willow asked. Tom half-smiled and bounced his chin slightly. Looking past Willow, his eyebrows came towards one another.
“Lavelle?” Tom asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Vampires.” Sean replied with a curiously high voice. He cleared his throat and clarified, “I was attacked. At the school. Jumped in the first car leaving the place I could find.” Tom did his accepting half-nod and turned his eyes to Kat. They dilated with surprise and his head actually moved back on his neck.
“Kat-” Tom began, slightly shocked.
“I live here.” Kat interrupted coldly.
“I was just gonna ask why you had blood all over your face.”
“Oh.” she replied, touching the affected area and feeling rather foolish. A red tint that had nothing to do with the blood began to spread. “Uh... I’m gonna go wash my face...” she muttered, barely coherently behind her hand. Willow shot a kind of appalled look at her sister’s retreating back.
“What did I say?” Tom asked, looked around the assembled.
“It’s not you, Tom.” Willow reassured him, hanging her trenchcoat between the two of the guests'. “Okay, well, maybe it is you, but in that case it’s not your problem, anyway. I think I’ll have some tea. Are we out of blueberry green?”

“Anyone care for a second cup?”
“No, that’s okay, Mrs. Taylor.”
“Please, call me Tchipakkan.” she smiled. Tom blinked a few times, rather slowly.
“As soon as I figure out what it is you just said.”
“Is she still in there?” Willow muttered, looking into the hallway, “How long does it take to wash your face?”
“Do you think she’s meditating?” Tchipakkan asked.
“Do you hear it?”
“How can you hear meditating?” asked Tom, dropping the teabag he was playing with.
“Have you heard of the whirling dervishes?” Tchipakkan began, “They enter a trance by spinning rapidly around in circles. Kat tends to do every night before she sleeps, or more often if she’s stressed. It’s very interesting.”
“Hm.” Tom replied. Willow threw down her cup. “I can’t start till she’s here...” the elder sister swept into the hallway, past the unusually long line of trenchcoats, to the door of the downstairs bathroom. She rapped smartly on the door. There was no response.
“Kat?” Willow asked, pushing gently on the door. Kat had her hands braced on either side of the sink, facing the mirror. She hadn’t yet washed off the blood.
“Oh, Kat...” Willow muttered, stepping into the tight bathroom to hug her sister, “You aren’t alright, are you?” Kat didn’t say anything, but leaned into Willow’s torso. The elder took a washcloth from a hanging basket and doused it in the sink.
“I’m sorry, Kat.” Willow dabbed at her face. ”You should have told me...”
“...I was just gonna use my hands for most of it...” Kat muttered, “Try not to get a washcloth too bloody.” Kat shook her sister off. “I’m sorry.” she replied. “Seventeen.” she took the washcloth from Willow’s hand. “Perfectly capable of washing my own face.” She turned the sink back on and rinsed what little blood was in it out. As the water ran, she examined the smear her sister had put in the blood on her face. There was noise in the hallway, people coming towards the bathroom, where the sisters stood near an open door. Kat quickly wiped away the rest of the blood on her face, but looked at the red washcloth in her hand for a few seconds. Rather than rinsing it, she spoke.
“I can’t believe it...”
“Believe what?” Willow asked.
“Willow!” Kat whispered importantly, “I just killed a girl.” She waved the washcloth towards her sister. “This blood isn’t all mine. I just killed someone, who I’ve lived near for years... someone who was trying to kill me! No one has ever been directly violent to me before!” somberly, she reiterated, “I’ve got scars, but this is the first time I’ve bled.” She threw the washcloth into the sink.
“I was just attacked by a vampire.” Kat squeaked, growing closer to hysterical than brain-crashed.
“What part of that is hard to believe?”
“Sounds like my first date.” Tom added. “A tonsil, in the wrong place, can kill a man.”
“Shut up, Tom.”
“I think I need to get my medication adjusted...” Kat breathed, “Either I’m taking too many drugs... or not enough.”
“You aren’t taking drugs.” Tchipakkan interjected sharply.
“Leave a straight line alone, mother.” Kat growled.
“Calm down, calm down... now what’s wrong? You don’t believe in vampires?”
“No, I believe in vampires, it’s just... vampires kick more a** than Mollie Gendron! She was such a... blonde!”
“But you’re blonde, too.” chided Willow. Kat grabbed the end of her hair and held it straight out. This required a full extension of her arm.
“Red!”
“That’s henna.” Kat dropped her hair and muttered exasperatedly, “Oh, she wasn’t natural either.” He eyes dilated. “Was. Past tense. I killed her. I killed-” Kat voice was beginning to sound like a dog whistle. There was a loud cracking sound and suddenly Kat’s face was turned far to the left. Round, insulted eyes turned to her sister.
“You hit me!” came the unusually clear, if indignant response.
“I’ve known you all your life, Kat,” Willow muttered through half-grit teeth, “And indignant beats the hell out of hysterical.”
“Well, seeing as you’re back to a relative, if unfortunate, normal,” Tchipakkan called as she returned to the kitchen, “We do have a slightly less commonplace problem than Kat having a nervous breakdown.” she turned back towards her daughter with a soft expression on her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Would you like to be alone again?” Kat shook her head.
“I’ll get you some rescue remedy.”
“I’m loved.” Kat muttered, standing perfectly still. There was a pause, then she mousily announced, “Um, I’d like to get out of here.” which was followed by a general retreat back to the kitchen. Kat, by dint of skirting around the long way at top speed, made it into the back corner before anyone else was in the room. She was fiddling with a rather small spoon as the rest of the company figured out which, disturbingly refilled, cup of tea was theirs. Meanwhile, Tchipakkan had placed both what appeared to be a large, funny-smelling glass of water and a cup of reddish tea before her.
“So, for those of you just joining us...” Tom began, looking meaningfully at Willow.
“Right.” she sighed. “I believe everyone in this room has noticed a similar problem?”
“Vampires.” Kat replied obviously.
“Vampires in Lyndebourgho.” Tom almost laughed as he spoke. ”Didn’t see that coming.”
“Well, actually, I did.” Willow corrected with a sigh.
“What?!”
“Well, maybe not originally... but that was years ago...” Willow sort of retreated into her sweater. “Now it’s kinda a fact of life... but before we get into that...” she looked around her kitchen. “Who am I talking to? None of you are even out of high school yet, are you?”
“Hi, Wilbur, was it? I’m Frank, and I’m a tennis instructor...”
“Shut up, Tom.” Willow growled, “We all know you.” Eyes fell onto Sean, who seemed to be more interested in what this funny greenish stuff he got when he asked for non-red tea was.
“Uh, hi.” he muttered awkwardly, looking around. “You guys know me-” he ran his finger in the air before him, running along the strange line of students. “-but you don’t. So, I guess the best way to-”
“This is nerd-boy.” Kat cut off.
“Kat!” her mother scolded.
“You shall die in a cave, slain by a second-level cleric with a plus two electric sap!” Sean replied snidely.
“And you will die a virgin in your parents basement. You shall die of old age!”
“Wait, I thought I was going to drown in six inches of water.”
“... That’s a common symptom of old age.”
“Children!”
“Mother, calm down. This guy’s a friend.” She leaned back and lifted her tea. “Sorta.”
“With friends like these...”
“And you?” Willow turned her gaze to the silent gentleman.
“He’s Jake Hutchinson,” replied Kat for him, “He doesn’t speak much. I used to have art class with him. Mostly he did self-portraits. My lesbian friend used to date him.”
“Wait...” injected Sean.
“Well, so did I.” muttered Tom.
“Well, that’s different,” argued Sean, “She could have mistook you for a woman.”
“Well, unlike you, she would have figured it out once she got my pants off.”
“Pretty boy.”
“Nerd.”
“Bishonen!”
“Children!” snapped Willow.
“And he’s part of the... “ continued Kat nervously, in attempt to change the subject back, “uh, ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ of Wilton.”
“ ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ ?”
“Yep,” replied Kat, striking a pose, “ ‘Wilton’s Trenchcoat Mafia: You’re just jealous ‘cuz we’re pretty’!”
“Uh-huh.” commented Tom, “Okay, judging by the manifesto, I am the godfather of this supposed mafia. What do ‘we’ do as a mafia in Wilton?”
“I dunno, contemplate the destruction of the school?”
“How dumb do they think we are? Everyone knows you plot without accomplices that could testify against you.” fumed Tom.
“You see these people in school?” Willow asked her sister.
“Yeap.”
“And you’re always like this?”
“That’s a yes.”
“How do you ever learn anything?”
“We don’t.” Tom interjected with a too-innocent smile.
“And there goes the subject again...” Kat muttered, indicating the flight of something invisible.
“Okay, Willow, you seem to be the only one who knows what the ******** is going on.”
“What else is new?” she replied. The group paused a moment to glare
at Willow, who smiled sweetly in return.
“What’s going on?” asked Sean.
“I thought we figured that much out.” replied Kat, “We were just attacked by vampires. Separately, but simultaneously.”
“So there is, and always has been, vampires in Lyndebourgho?” Sean asked slowly.
“Didn’t see that coming.” Tom commented into his tea.
“There’s always been vampires in Lyndebourgho. And in Wilton.” replied Willow.
“Okay, if that’s so, why do we never hear of vampire attacks?”
“Don’t you know a government cover-up when you see one?” Sean asked.
“How would we?” Kat shot with frustration.
“Okay,” began Willow, with a note in her voice as if she was teaching a class, “We all know the three things that vampires can change into, right?”
“Bats... and... two other bats?”
“Bats, wolves and a red mist.” corrected Willow. “Well, that’s the traditional things. Around here they turn into foxes, mink, and raccoons. As animals, they are able to use their powers in the daylight.”
“That’s another thing- there isn’t exactly alot of people who don’t go out in sunlight around here.” Tom pointed out. His eyes fell on the redhead. “Except for her.”
“And Mollie definitely went out in sunlight.” added Kat, “That tan, and she was in a couple of sports-”
“Okay,” said Willow, “Has anyone read Dracula?” There was a long pause.
“I’ve seen, like five of the movies.” offered Kat.
“Okay, Bram Stroker’s Dracula, that follows it the closest- it shows Dracula out in the daylight, but without his powers.”
“So-”
“Daylight doesn’t kill them, it just makes them-”
“Normal.”
“What were you saying about the foxes?”
“I was getting to that- that’s why we don’t hear about vampire attacks. They turn into animals--usually mink-- and attack farm animals.”
“That’s why people get so upset if you kill a mink.”
“Yeah, the mink farm is just a cover for the vampires. Any other questions?”
“The graveyards- are they safe?”
“Ah, the revrents... vampires that rise from the dead... you don’t have to worry about them, really. They, for the most part, are caused by when a vampire is not given proper burial rights. They rise from the dead and feast on those who ******** them over at their funeral. What’s bad is sometimes those guys are just so pissy that when they are done with their vengeance thing, they go and join groups of vampires.”
“Groups?”
“Blots, covens, kisses, it doesn’t really matter. You can make up your own word for all I care.”
“We’re ********.” sighed Sean.
“Exactly, so there’s a weirdfuk’d of vampires in Lyndebourgho?” continued Kat.
“Kat, you’d know, you remember me going out hunting them!”
“I thought you were just kidding! Going out to graveyards for fun!”
“For fun!?” spat Willow, appalled, “I’d go into freezing creepy places for fun?!”
“Um, yeah.” muttered Kat, “You have come into my room from time to time. Besides, there’s always the ghosthunting aspect.”
“How does one hunt ghosts?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, is the blue lady a vampire?”
“The blue lady,” Willow fumed, “Is a local legend, a simple haunting blown far out of proportion by New England tourism and stupid new age hicks.”
“Yo!” Kat answered, raising a black-tipped hand.
“Ghosts and vampires are completely unrelated phenomena, which I admit I would like to study closer, but-”
“Then you have to hunt them?” Tom finished. Willow opened her mouth to continue the banter, but was cut off by someone in the basement screaming, “SOMEONE TURNED OUT THE LIGHT!!”
“John’s done with the milking.” Kat announced, turning away from her sister. The house rattled slightly as a wide, growling gentleman with light brown hair growing in patches across his entire exposed body flung open the basement door and stormed into the kitchen. He seemed to forget his anger, slightly, as he looked at the assembled group. Even so, he retained an intimidating, “Hulk-smash” demeanor.
“Are we having all these people for dinner?” the large boy asked, setting down a funny-smelling bag with an old clanking noise.
“Not unless there’s part of this story I’m missing...”
“Nope, no vampires in this house.” Willow offered.
“Vampires?!” the boy squawked.
“Don’t worry about it, John.” Kat soothed. “I don’t think they’re staying for dinner...”
“Or course they are!” Tchippakan protested.
“How can you think of food at a time like this?” Sean shot. Tchippakkan blinked a few times before she replied, “It involves being hungry. Besides,” she continued, pulling a tray of something out of the oven, “In most cases, if you feed, bathe, and loan a bed to a problem, it’ll sort it’s self out by morning.”
“Not sure that’ll work in this case...”
“It always works.” she insisted, “It just solves the problems which create other problems. Of course, this is disallowing other nutritional deficientcies and allergies...”
“Is this lady for real?” Sean shot to Jake. Jake shrugged, and accepted a madoline from Tchipakkan.
“I say it explains more than it doesn’t. Thank you.” Tom ever so delicately proceeded to eat madolins in the manner associated with twinkies.
“Wait a minute...” John began, “Don’t you think this guy looks a little bit that that guy in that comic... y’know, the Sailor Moon one?” Tom cocked an eyebrow.
“Sailor Moon?”
“Uh, John! You know Tom, he-”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yeah... I pulled you off of Ashley at Trevor’s wedding...” Tom offered. John gurned and dramatically stepped back.
“Oh, that Tom!” he chuckled in a way that sounded oddly false. Those who knew him knew that’s just the way his laugh sounded. He had a mannerism that made him appear as if he was being played by a very bad B movie actor. He patted Tom’s back rather forcefully. “How’ya doing, buddy?” John guffawed. Tom narrowly avoided shooting madoline out his nose.
“Fine. Fine.”
“Anyway-” Kat desperately attempted to change the subject, without a sure idea of what to change it to, “Uh... vampires?”
“Basically, yes.” Willow answered. “It’s rather odd for them to be acting like this, though. Normally they just attack livestock, and then you only hear about it once a month or so.” She rubbed the back of her neck and her eyes unfocused. “It’s like they’re stampeding.”
“Stampeding?” Sean repeated.
“And what are we going to do about it?” Kat asked nervously.
“We?!” her sister whirled around. “Do?!”
“...yeah, I mean...” Kat shrunk into her seat and quailed, “You said you used to hunt them...”
“Yes, used to. My chronic fatigue has gotten alot worse since then, and they pretty much fell into line a year or so after I graduated...”
“Obviously not anymore, though.” Tom corrected. “Did anything happen then?” Willow looked like she was trying to remember.
“Well, I staked a reverant...”
“Wouldn’t you usually?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, but this one was really old. It was like the guy in Nostforato.” she shrugged. “Anyway, all the other vampires in the room then flipped out and tried to kill us. But since we got away from them, I haven’t heard of any vampire problems for ages...”
“Isn’t that a little weird?”
“Hey, when the gods give you a good harvest, you don’t waste your time looking for rocks.” Tchipakkan warned, putting out another plate of baked goods. Sean blinked rapidly.
“What does that mean?” Kat rose a finger to indicate she had an answer, chewed rapidly, and swallowed.
“It means my mother’s a new age Giles.”
“Newage,” Tchipakkan began.
“Rhymes with sewage.” her children finished. They’d heard this before. Jonathan chuckled.
“Hey, Tom. You’re gonna go hunt vampires?”
“I dunno. Maybe.” he looked to Willow. “Should I?”
“Tommy the vampire slayer. Vampire hunter T! Victor Tom Helsing!” Jonathan patted the thin boy’s shoulder vigorously. Tom’s eyebrow twitched. Kat had a full doom glare aimed at the hairy gentleman.
“Alva Johnathan Taylor...” Kat growled menacingly at her brother.
“Your name’s Alva?” Sean asked suddenly.
“Alva! Sounds like Vulva!”
“Shut up, Tom.” Willow and Tchipakkan recognized when to chime in for the full surround-sound effect.
“Anyway...” Kat cued again.
“Do you want to hunt vampires, Tom?” Willow asked.
“Well,” he bounced his head from side to side slightly. “When I surrounded before, all I could do was run.” his eyes looked past the floor. “I’d hate to have that happen again.”
“Then you come prepared and hunt them down.” Tchipakkan pointed out. “Duh.” Tom looked up rapidly.
“With what?”
“I dunno...” Willow mused thickly, touching her lip, “Ask the professional slayer!” She hopped up and lead the way out of the kitchen.
“You guys have just been waiting for this, haven’t you?” Tom directed this question to Kat as the assembled group set down their teacups and processed through the front hall. Kat started, then drew herself in and nodded mousily. Tom’s brows met and his mouth fell open.
“Insanity is a family trait...” he touched his temple. “I hope to die before whatever’s wrong with Kim gets to me...” Kim was his elder sister, and the fastest way to explain her was to mention that she weirded Kat out frequently.
“What? ... Sorry!” Kat exclaimed. “I was just agreeing automatically, I didn’t actually hear what you said...” she blushed.
“I’m still holding you to the fact you agreed to sell me your soul and firstborn for nachos.” Kat stopped walking and the full group pasted her entirely before she regained the ability to talk.
“What?!”
“So,” Sean began as the group milled into the living room, “We’re going to charge into the Weirdfuk’d headquarters with a Buffy wannabe and shaolin bishonen leading the way?”
“You know what,” Willow answered, picking up a boken that for some inexplicable reason was in the umbrella stand between an aluminum cane and a striped bumbershoot, “I like that plan.”
“Mind if I stay here?” he asked sardonically.
“Fortunately, you’re standing on one of the best fortified hills in New Hampshire.” Tchippakan soothed, opening a thin closet off of the living room. A pike, a cavalry saber, and a pair of boken fell into direct sight. There was something behind them, but it was terribly dark in that closet.
“Wow. Look at all those weapons.”
“Those are just the ones we keep downstairs.” Willow extended the sword to the dark boy. “Tom? Can you use a katana as a thrusting weapon?”
“That’d kill a vampire.”
“That’s a boken.” He accepted the weapon. “But don’t worry, I am king of thrusting wood.”
“Shut up, Tom.” the room chorused again. They seemed to have a unique harmony starting. Willow, for example, was looking at the ceiling when she spoke. “I think... yeah! I just remembered where my stakes are.”
“Stakes?” Tom and Sean asked simultaneously.
“She is the slayer.” her mother shrugged. “But still... It’s rather uncomfortable sending all you children into hand-to-hand combat... I rather wished it was over when she killed the Blot leader. And Kat...” she turned to her youngest, “I wish you wouldn’t go... you aren’t as good a fighter as Willow...”
“You’ve never even seen me fight!” Kat squawked defensively.
“Which is precisely why I don’t think you should go into-”
“I already bagged one.” she cut her mother off. This was clearly a rather odd occurrence, because Tchippakkan stopped talking entirely.
“I held my own by myself, and now I’ll be able to watch Willow’s back. It’s what minions are for.”
“She’s already got a lackey.” Tom pointed out. Turning her attention from her mother, the small redhead faced Tom. She raised an eyebrow.
“I was here first.”
“But I’m a better fighter.”
“Not going to deny that,” Kat answered, sticking her thumbs defiantly in her belt loops, “But I will be able to do more than draw out the monsters.”
“You’re clever, yes, but this is a fight.”
“I swear I’ll be able to pull my own weight.”
“That won’t be hard.” Tom muttered. Kat cocked an eyebrow.
“Won’t it?”
“You’re tiny.”
“Try it.” Kat defiantly placed her hands on her hips. She mostly looked as if she was bracing for being touched. It tended to make her scream if she didn’t know it was coming. Tom sighed and took a step towards her. Placing a hand firmly on each hip, he lifted. The only change in her position was a smirk. Greatly surprised, Tom’s eyes widened, and he dropped to a knee as to get both arms around her waist. Tom strained and managed to get her to bend slightly at the waist. He panted, bewildered.
“Would you like to pick me up?” Kat asked, smirking. He frowned slightly and panted, “I should be able to.”
“Fine. I’ll let you.” she answered calmly. Then something five hundred pounds and nailed the floor was suddenly one hundred twenty and quite mobile. The two flew across the room and landed sprawled. Kat, the git that she was, got a faceful of couch for showing off. Tom wearily raised his form from the floor.
“How’d you do that?” asked Tom, rubbing his neck. Kat smirked widely.
“Magic.”
“Are you two quite done?” Willow asked to their sprawled forms, returning.
“That was fun...” Tom chuckled, and Kat hid her face in a slight, blushing giggle. Tom cocked his head.
“Can you do anything else?”
“Anything useful...” she strained, placing a finger on her lip and looking away.
“Well,” he muttered, turning away and rubbing his neck. “Get that blood off your clothes. The vampires will smell it a mile away.”
“I’ll just change, it’ll be faster.”
“I still wish you’d at least stay to the back...”
“Wait!” Kat suddenly looked up. “I have just the thing!” she ran upstairs with a series of loud thunking noises.
“Enthusiastic about killing people, isn’t she?” Tom muttered. “You wouldn’t think she’d be the same girl who was hysterical about it half an hour ago.”
“Well,” Willow sighed, “She’s nothing if not distractible.”
“Quick,” Tom offered, “We can sneak out while Kat’s getting out of her bloody clothes.”
“I heard that!” an offended cry retorted from somewhere upstairs.
“She’d focus in the fight.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Well, I’ve seen her study.” Sean pointed out. “She’ll be alot more useful out with you guys than in with me and Mrs. Taylor.”
“What about you and Mrs. Taylor?” Tom asked, whipping around.
“Willow’s given us the basics on what she’s noticed,” Tchipakkan pointed out, her arms full of books. “And she knows alot about vampires.”
“She should, having collected all these.” puffed Sean, setting down a large pile of hardcovers. They all seemed to either have the word “vampire” or “night” in the title.
“Uh, some of those- most of those-” Willow began.
“I know.” said Tchipakkan, “We will, of course, check anything we learn against what we already know.”
“And pretty much ignore anything that doesn’t have to do with our situation.”
“Ready for a Giles-type vampiric cram session?” Tchippakan glowed to the young boy. He smirked and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Hang on,” Tom asked, “Situation?”
“Willow put it best,” Tchipakkan laughed, “The ‘Stampeding’-” She was cut off by her youngest child galumphing down the stairs at top speed.
“-Kat.” Sean finished dryly.
“I’ve got it!” Kat announced brightly, bounding down the stairs. In her hands was a small, crossbow-like object. It was roughly as wide as her outstretched hand, and not much longer. The handle was made of a light-colored, new-looking wood, and the cross was of black metal. It was as inoffensive as a weapon could be.
“What is that?” asked Sean, ”A peashooter?” It was a sudden action, but suddenly a makeshift bolt flew from Kat’s small crossbow. Tom and Jake made sharp movements to avoid it, Tom’s considerably shorter than Jake’s and Sean ducked outright.
“No. It’s a pencil shooter.”
“Kat, don’t fire that in the house!” Tchipakkan scolded sharply. Looking rather cowed, Kat began to mutter, “I changed the string for something a bit shorter, therefore tighter, and stronger.” Lifting the crossbow limply to face level, she continued, “This was actually designed for shooting mini marshmallows at people, but I think it’s effective with the pencils.” She hid the pencil crossbow in her voluminous coat. As she did so, most of the room noticed that her costume change to go fighting involved switching her jeans for a miniskirt. Who knows what logic lurks in the minds of Kat?
“Aaanyway,” Tom said with an unpleasant jerk of his head, “What were you saying about stampeding vampires?”
“Something’s spooked the cattle, as they say.” Willow began. “But our cattle has fangs.” John’s eyes got really wide.
“You think it might have been you, Alva?” Tom asked with a smirk, dropping into a strangely, for him at least, languid position on the couch.
“Jonathan!” John snarled, baring his teeth like an animal.
“John, stop overreacting, Tom, leave John alone,” Willow interjected with an air of frustration, “Of course, we don’t know what it is that has upset them.”
“So do we go out and pump them for information?” John asked shrilly.
“Am I the only one who thinks that sounds really stupid?” interjected Kat.
“Hmp. No.” John replied smugly. “I said it because it was stupid.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Good. Run John, before she catches up.” Willow urged.
“Huh?”
“Anyway-” Kat prompted.
“Vampire hunt.” Willow mused, “I used to do it, when I had more energy.”
“So it’s possible?” Tom asked.
“Routine.” Willow agreed.
“And how is it for getting information?”
“Well, I don’t know...” Willow rubbed the back of her neck. “I didn’t do that much besides kill them.”
“That’s useful.” Tom rolled his eyes.
“Yes Tom, keeping vampires from killing people is very useful.”
“You’re just a regular public servant, aren’t you?”
“That’s me.” Willow stuck out her chest proudly. “Willow the Vampire Slayer!”
“Anyway,” Kat attempted to nose into the conversation.
“Wait, you said, ‘much’,” Tom began, with an expression as if he was trying to read the limerick taped to Willow’s forehead. “Did you do anything?” Kat sighed frustratedly.
“What is it?” Willow asked.
“I was trying to say that for three minutes.” she muttered glumly.
“Well,” Willow looked sheepish, “There was that one time, when they tried to get Avi for a virgin sacrifice.” Tom and Kat stared intently, if disbelievingly, at Willow. Meanwhile, John had gotten distracted by the prospect of anime on Sean’s laptop. Jake had gotten another cup of tea and was sitting rather calmly in a corner.
“You two never heard this?” Willow was taken aback. Kat and Tom shook their heads slowly, and almost in unison, like cats distracted by a swaying string. “Well, basically, they wanted to imbue their chosen next leader, some little kid, didn’t really see him, all hooded and stuff, didn’t talk, someone ran off with him as I came in, y’know, with Ernie and...” a dark cloud fell over her face. “...Amanda.”
“So then what happened?” Tom asked with great interest.
“Tom-” Kat warned.
“What? She’s in the middle of a story!”
“I think storytime’s over.” Kat warned.
“I’ve never heard of Dragon Half. What’s it about?” John asked.
“Anyway, that’s not the point.” Kat pleaded.
“Maybe later, okay, John?” Sean soothed.
“What do you mean, ‘fanservice’?” Tom gaped.
“One of our first hunts. Amanda barely ever came with and always wanted to be bait...” Willow wistfully muttered, mostly to herself.
“Anyway, that came out the exact opposite way I meant it...”
“But I don’t get it, is it shojo or shonen?” John asked.
“Stop that. Did you know you talk about vampires every time you want to change the subject?” Tom asked a very embarrassed Kat. Tchippakkan walked into the room, hands on her hips.
“Jake, are you listening to me?”
“Guys.” Tchipakkan snarled. All talk stopped dead and the full room turned to face her.
“Are you guys serious? You are going to fight the vampires?”
“I’ve done it bef-”
“When you’re done killing each other. If a vampire came in right now and started killing you off one by one you wouldn’t notice unless it was the person you were arguing with at that very moment.”
“It was mostly me.” Kat offered.
“I. Don’t. Care.” snarled the badger-haired woman.
“I should have stopped it, I’m sorry.” Willow sighed. “I was too depressed to stop the three-way fight.”
“It wasn’t three-way.” Tom defended. “I wasn’t even talking to Alva.”
“Jonathan!” he snarled, gripping the air menacingly.
“Tom, cut it out.”
“And it wasn’t a fight.” Kat defended.
“Yes, it was.” Tchipakkan condescended.
“Hey, I was in the discussion, you weren’t. We were just talking.”
“At the top of your lungs.”
“No, THIS IS THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.” Kat shouted.
“I’ve heard you get louder.” Tom commented mildly.
“Shut up, Tom.” the room chorused, and louder than the top of Kat’s lungs. Sean dropped his bag to his side in frustration.
“What are we fighting about?” Sean grunted frustratedly. “I missed something.” There was alot of evil looks in Sean’s direction, but they slowly cooled.
“I don’t know.” John growled.
“I know.” Tchipakkan sighed. “Stress. We’re all really stressed right now. The vampires. I’ll go get some rescue remedy.” Kat rolled her eyes and dropped to a chair.
“Okay,” Willow panted as calmly as she could manage. “This is what I was worried about. This group seems to know only how to distract one another.” she tossed her golden head. “Terribly useful in a fight.”
“Less banter, more slayage.” Tom reiterated. “Got it.” Willow nodded.
“Right, then.” Jake stood and took a few steps forward.
“Get this man a stake.” Tom proclaimed.
“On it. MINON!” Willow bellowed. Kat snapped to attention and dashed to her sister’s side.
“My stakes are under my bed. Fetch them, would you?” Kat bowed slightly and ran off. Just as she exited the room, her mother entered with a red pillar candle.
“Everyone, I’d like you to charge this candle for protection.”
“What?” Tom asked.
“Put energy into it,” Tchipakkan used hand motions here, “About how very much you’d like not to die.” Tom and Sean looked slightly dubious.
“And this will be protective?” Sean asked. Tchipakkan looked him in the face and replied, “Tom couldn’t pick up Kat.”
“Oh, I’m sure he could...” Sean muttered, but to himself. Tom, however, seemed much more open to the idea after that was pointed out. One by one, they passed the candle around, held it to their chests for a moment, in some cases because that is what Willow and Tchipakkan did, and tried to think not dead thoughts. Tchipakkan suggested some imagery, but used runes herself.
“Armor, dragons, being encased in flame which harms all but you...Tir.” She drew what looked like an arrow in the air before each of those about to go into battle. “May you not harm those who have done, and would do, no harm.” At this point, Kat thundered down the stairs and rather broke the feel of the magic and blessing. Sean rather had the look of someone who felt silly for getting caught for a moment. Tchipakkan whispered a few words to her youngest, which seemed to sober her, and she nodded. The crone drew an arrow above her daughter’s forehead and had her hold the candle. Kat obliged, and even went so far as to unloop her thumbs from the holes in her sleeves and dribble wax on her wrists. Somehow, the red dribbling down the inside of the pale girl’s arms didn’t do much to inspire confidence, and Tom and Jake shared a stare communicating that they doubted they’d all get out of this with their sanity, let alone lives. Kat smiled weakly.
“C’mon, Willow, let’s kill something.” Kat offered, throwing an arm around Willow’s neck, “Nice, family bonding experience.”
“Will you-”
“I think I’ll be okay if I don’t recognize anyone.”
“You shouldn’t.” Willow reassured her, throwing on her own trenchcoat, “Before it was mostly reverents.” She pulled her thick flaxen braid out of the back and turned to the two young men.
“Shall we?” Willow asked. Jake nodded, and Tom said something stupid.
“It’s not robbing a bank with a monkey, and it’s not making out with a supermodel, but fighting vampires is pretty fricken awesome. Now, if they were ninja vampires...”
“Shut up, Tom.”
“Oh, and take Creepy with you.” Tchipakkan reminded Willow, “We’re going to keep looking for vampires suddenly becoming more active.” Willow nodded and went into the kitchen. Tom looked over at John and smiled. John grunted in a way that one might expect steam to come out of his nose.
“JONATHAN!” roared John, picking up the significantly smaller Tom by his shoulders. No one quite saw what Tom did, but suddenly Tom was standing over John’s sprawled body.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Alva.”
“Bad ninja!” Kat shouted, pointing at Tom and dropping to examine her brother.
“You ‘kay? It’s alright, it’s- oh, you stupid ******** git.”
“Did Tom knock him out?”
“No, he fainted.” Kat offered. “He saw the blood on the floor.”
“Crap!” Tom gasped, clearly very embarrassed, “I didn’t mean to make him bleed.”
“Oh. Guess he’s staying here, then.” Willow shrugged, placing her cell phone in her coat. She gave Tom an extremely laconic look.
“We all deal with stress differently. I’m just a b*****d when it happens.”
“Wow, Tom,” Kat muttered, “I had no idea your life was so stressful.” She opened the door.
“Now you guys be careful, and come right back.” Tchipakkan reminded, “This is just to figure out what’s going on. I love you.”
“Love you.” Willow returned automatically.
“Love you.” said Kat.
“G’bye, Alva!” Tom called to the unconcious boy. Willow whapped him smartly in the back of the head.
“Shut up, Tom.” she muttered, pulling her top hat over her eyes.

Six
Dancing in the Streets

“Okay, so who’s asking what question first?” Kat asked.
“Obviously, you asked that question first.”
“Shut up, Tom.” Travis answered. Now fully in light, there was no difficulty at all in recognizing the wide red haired man. Though he was only in his twenties, his hair was already fairly high from his brow, and he wore it in a small ponytail. He wore a pair of glasses in which one lens was quite thick and the other was ordinary window glass. Beneath a checkered shirt he wore a tee that proclaimed he was a dungeon master. However, as this was written in klingon, no one paid it any heed. His beard and mustache had not been trimmed recently, but obviously were trimmed at some time.
“Yes.” Kat said suddenly. Everyone looked at her very strangely. “I answered a question, now someone please ask it.”
“Does Tom think that’s the stupidest way to move a conversation ever?” Tom offered.
“Signs point to maybe.” Willow mused.
“Did the vampires run away from Travis,” Kat asked slowly as ever, “Or were they-”
“They were already retreating.” Tom replied. Kat flashed him an offended look.
“What?”
“I was getting to that...” she muttered, almost hurt. She hopped onto the hood of the red SUV still parked in the blocked road, and examined her feet.
“...So why is no one talking?”
“You said you were getting to it!” Willow snapped.
“But he did!” Kat defended weakly, staring up at her sister with the look a crippled orphan gives a homicidal manic.
“So do you have anything else to say?”
“No, ma’am.” Kat whimpered.
“Alright, moving on.” Willow muttered, pushing back a sunshine-yellow lock. “I think the major question that needs to be answered first is did it work?”
“Did what work?” Tom and Travis asked over one another.
“Going out and finding out what is going on!”
“What what is going on?” Travis asked.
“Good question.” Tom replied, laying the boken across the hood of the car as he stretched.
“It’s rather what we’re trying to find out.” Kat agreed meekly. “And failing...”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, nice reconnaissance that was! Neat fight, but we learned nothing!”
“Hey, Kat, clean the wax out of your ears.” Willow retorted. “The girl told us pretty much exactly why the vampires are acting up. The blot leader told them that humans fighting back is nonsense. Therefore, there’s a new one, and there’s been some aryan-esque meetings about how great it is to be a vampire, and how humans are less then prey.” she tossed her braid over her shoulder. “At least you aren’t surprised when prey fights back.”
“Willow, if a bunch of rabbits got oosies and chased you down, you’d be a little surprised.” Tom pointed out laconically.
“Either way,” Kat sighed, “Kat’s oblivious, no news there.”
“Kat, if you go off again on how much you suck one more time,” Willow growled menacingly, “I swear I’m gonna slug you.”
“Hey, wait a second, you guys-” Travis began.
“Hey, Tom...” Kat muttered, paying particular attention to the young man yet again, “Did you notice that Omega didn’t really sound like herself?”
“Yeah,” Tom agreed with some interest, “I mean, she slipped up when I killed Zach, but the rest of the time, it sounded like... like she was playing pretend, you know? Dress up as a vampire?”
“Yeah, like, have you ever seen Buffy?” Kat asked, hyperfocused, “Didn’t she sound like Druscilla, a little?”
“When she said, ‘my master’, it kinda sounded like she was doing the accent, even!” he seemed to be trying not to laugh. He’d just killed the girl’s boyfriend. He had to show a little respect. Kat openly grinned.
“And another thing...” Tom began, holding the boken up to an examinable level. “Look at this blood. Wouldn’t it vaporize when they do?”
“Well, they don’t really vaporize, they just turn into corpses, like they would be if anything else bit them in the neck. Some corpses are just really old.”
“But it doesn’t even look like blood... it looks like-”
“Pomegranate juice.” Kat finished. The two looked at each other.
“I’ll give you five bucks to taste it.”
“Don’t be an a**.” Kat growled.
“Hang on,” Travis asked, “What were you trying to do?”
“We were trying to figure out why the vampires suddenly started attacking just about every time someone looked like they could be taken down.”
“Oh.” Travis replied. “I can tell you that.” The hunters fell silent.
“How would you know?” Tom asked slowly.
“Ah, yeah...” Willow nervously scratched her head, “There’s something about Travis that never really came up while we were gaming...” Travis closed his eyes for a moment, then opened both eyes and mouth. Fairly clean fangs lengthened from his gums as they watched.
“Travis? You’re a- a-” Kat stuttered.
“Didn’t see that coming.” Tom smirked, lightly thumping her shoulder. Kat leapt away.
“Didn’t you?” Travis offered, surprised, but slightly slurred. “Avoids sunlight, unnatural strength, feeds off of practically uncooked meat, y’think?”
“So, bitten or born?” Tom asked.
“Born. I think.”
“What do you mean, ‘you think’?”
“Well, when you’re a born vampire, it takes a while for the, eh, symptoms to show.”
“Wait, so are you a half vampire, or what?”
“I don’t actually know which side it comes from. What, do you think my dad was-”
“No, but the way he talks about your mother, she might have been...” muttered Kat.
“Well, if I was born, I’m glad for it. Most of the bitten ones are ******** nuts.”
“That would make sense,” Willow supplied. “Post traumatic stress disorder.”
“Post traumatic stress disorder doesn’t make you a homicidal manic!” Kat defended indignantly. The rest of the room gave her varying looks of disbelief as she realized what she said.
“...except when it does.” Kat amended awkwardly.
“If you’re a vampire...” Tom asked, his hand moving slowly toward the boken, “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to help you. The new Blot leader... she’s an uppity little b***h. Flexing her claws and stepping out of line. Alot of people who shouldn’t have been staked have because of her.” He looked around at the group. “No offense to you. I understand completely. But I’m really pissed, and I was thinking of revolting. When I found out there was a group of hunters forming, I decided I should lend them my strength, and now that I know that it’s you guys, I feel kinda honor-bound to help out.”
“We appreciate that, Travis.”
“Of course, with the human hunting, the numbers have raised exponentially.”
“Not to mention the reverants.” Willow pointed out.
“So you’re saying we’ll have alot to fight?” Tom asked.
“I’m saying they’re idiots!” Travis exclaimed. “Numbers is pretty much all they’ve got going for them. But they do definitely have those.”
“Any idea what to do about it?”
“I was thinking attack. They’re stupid, and they’re way not expecting it. They were just talking about getting a new meeting place when I left.”
“So we wait for them there?” Tom asked.
“We trap ourselves in a strange place where we know vampires are going to be soon.” Travis translated. “No.”
“So what’s in your pointed little head?” Kat piped.
“They won’t all be there,” Travis began, “That’s good. We can’t take them all at once. But the master should be there, with a minimal guard.”
“What about the rest of the vampires? Won’t they hunt us down when we kill their leader?”
“I said that most of these people are reasonable, and shouldn’t have to die.” Travis glowered. “If we can overthrow that little b***h, then the rest should return to normal.”
“We’ll still have vampires.” mentioned Tom.
“We always had vampires in Lyndebourgho.” Willow responded, crushing his face into her side to prevent further commentary.
“And you didn’t even know about it until recently.” Travis grumbled, “Which means the Blot was doing what it was supposed to: keeping the vampires away from the public, and safe.”
“Are there others that agree with you?” Willow asked.
“Yeah,” Tom managed to get his head free, “If we take out the the leader, won’t the rest come after us?”
“You seem to forget it’s a corrupt leader.” Travis continued. “We get the leader out, get someone a bit more human-friendly in, and they go back to hunting wildlife and small animals, as small animals.”
“So our plan is to overthrow the government and put in a puppet head ruler?” Tom asked dubiously. Travis considered a moment, grinned and nodded. Tom then grinned as well.
“I like this plan. There’s no way to improve this plan without ninjas, monkeys or high explosives. Let’s do it!” Travis threw a glance around the assembled, grinned, and started towards the car.
“Kat, backseat.” Willow commanded. “He’s navigating.” Kat’s eyes grew large and pathetic.
“Put that face away!” Willow snapped. Kat drew tiny, impotent fists to her mouth.
“What face?” Willow pursed her lips and imitated her.
“I’m sorry, I’m trying to stop...”
“Stop the eyes!” Willow snapped. “Stop the eyes! You always make me feel like I’m drowning kittens whenever I’m upset with you!”
“Then don’t get upset with me...” Kat explained, the puss-in-boots face remaining. “I’m sorry... I’ll be good...”
“What’s wrong?” Travis asked.
“Nothing!” Kat said quickly.
“What sort of nothing?” Tom asked. Willow grit her teeth in frustration. “Kat... has touching issues. She tends to react... violently.”
“She’ll hit me if I touch her?” he asked.
“No.” Willow responded. “She’ll scream like a banshee getting raped and throw herself into a corner, sobbing.” There really isn’t a response for this, even for a smartass.
“I solved the problem.” Kat shouted from inside the car. The rest of the party turned around to see her sitting as delicately as she could manage with her coat folded neatly around her, in the trunk area of the SUV. She held the edge of the seat with one hand and a jesus bar with the other.
“Hey, if we get pulled over, we have alot of worse things to worry about than a minor without a seat belt.” Kat pointed out. There was a silent consent, and Willow and Travis climbed into the car. Jake was standing rather uncomfortably at the edge of the light. Tom came towards him, slightly concerned.
“Something wrong, Jake?” Jake’s eyes flashed towards Travis, and he gave Tom a look of “I’m talking to someone stupid.” He shrugged in the stout man’s direction.
“Vampire!” Jake muttered.
“Travis!” Tom defended. The pair followed the others into the car. Acuma tore off, packed with hunters and weapons.
“So, to review the plan is...” Willow prompted.
“Not get killed!” Tom cried.
“That too!” Willow responded.
“Yeah, if there’s anyone in a black robe, kill them.” Travis instructed. “Unless you hear ‘robe’ and think ‘trenchcoat’. Most everyone here is wearing a trenchcoat.”
“Black robe equals pointy death. Got it.” Kat reiterated.
“Actually, black robe equals pretentious git. Only the head vampire and the closest minions have the authority or inclination to run around like cultists. Turn right here, Willow.”
“What right? There’s no-- oh for christ’s sake!” Willow turned sharply and Kat tumbled across the cargo area. “Friggin blind drive...”
“What do you expect? It’s a hidden, secret lair.”
“Okay, children,” Willow sighed, “Anyone who needs to pee, pee now, we won’t get a chance while we’re inside.”
“Oh, Willow, be serious.”
“I am serious! Have you ever tried to fight vampires on a full bladder?”
“I don’t think most people have.”
“Shut up, Tom.”
“So, back to the plan,” Travis began, “Since we are basically storming a keep, we should have some sort of formation.”
“Hey, Kat,” Willow asked, turning around in her seat. “Do you have enough ammo?” Kat grinned and pulled out a large, unopened box of number two pencils. Then, suddenly her face fell.
“Um, Willow...” she asked meekly. “Do you have a pencil sharpener?” The entire car started laughing.
“Sure.” Willow sniggered. “In my purse. Should be beside you.” Kat started looking.
“That’s artillery.” Willow nodded to Travis.
“Our artillery is pencils.” Tom repeated. He flashed a pathetic look to Jake.
“Are you sure it’s back here?” Kat asked.
“It should be.” Willow responded. “And where are we putting these two?” she tossed her thumb at Tom and Jake.
“Well, what weapons do we have?”
“Kat’s got a crossbow, I’m got a couple of stakes, Tom’s got a boken and Jake’s on staff.”
“I can’t find it.” interrupted the small voice from the back.
“It’s back there, I’m sure it is.” Willow muttered with annoyance. “Wait, does that mean you’re unarmed?”
“I’m a vampire. Why would I carry stakes?”
“s**t!” Willow sputtered. “Oh- okay. Okay. I’ll loan you one of mine. I like to carry a spare, that’s all.”
“I’ll just rip up part of a tree, that’s alright.”
“Doesn’t it need to be sharp?” Tom asked.
“For the fresh ones, yes, but not the reverants. Well, not as sharp.”
“It won’t be a problem.” Willow soothed. “Kat! When you find my purse, get out my pocket knife!”
“But I can’t find your- Oh! I was sitting on it.” announced Kat.
“I should probably sharpen my stakes between fights anyway.” Willow shrugged. “The fresh ones are just as tough as a normal human, which means it takes alot of pressure to get something dull in.”
“Where in your purse?” the small girl asked. Willow sighed, turned around, reached past the boys and grabbed it. She then reached directly in, grabbed a small folding knife and tossed the bag back.
“Y’know, I’d probably get my pencils sharper-”
“Front pocket, it’s faster.” There was a short rustle, and then the distinct scratching sound of a pencil being sharpened.
“Park here.” Travis instructed. “Let’s get this together quickly. Speed is key. Stakes in front, reach weapons to the sides, and crossbow in the back.”
“I feel like I’m Larding.” Willow muttered, climbing out of the car.
“Wait, wait, wait-” Kat blithered.
“Just stretching.” Willow defended. “I’d like to know where you are at all times. Not going to leave you right in the path of a bunch of running vampires.” There was a distinct stricha-stricha-stricha noise coming very rapidly from the car.
“Halfway through the box!”
“Halfway?!” Tom gasped. “Do we have time for this?” Travis tapped at several trees, testing for a sturdy wood, then broke of a fairly thick branch.
“Like to see you... sharpen ten pencils... in thirty seconds.” she paused slightly as she switched off pencils.
“Okay, gents,” Willow began, handing her knife off to Travis. “Plan is, we’re in, our wood’s in the people in black robes, we’re out. Nothing simpler.”
“I like simple plans.”
“I prefer Blink 182.”
“Shut up-”
“Hey, that was Travis!” Tom defended. Travis hefted his stake, examining it, and smiled. He folded the knife and handed it delicately back to Willow. With all the grace of a wounded duck, Kat clambered out of the car, stuffing a large supply of pencils into her coat pocket. Fastening the toggles, she gave an austere look to the group.
“...What’s that about?” Tom asked.
“What?”
“That.”
“What that?”
“Thank you for filling our stupid quota for the siege.” Willow interrupted. She turned to Travis. “Where is it?” Travis pointed his stake down the road they had parked on. At the end of what was now clearly a driveway winding it’s way downhill, amongst old stone fences separating dead and dying trees from more dead and dying trees, there was an old house, clearly majestic once, but it didn’t seem to have been inhabited for long enough for all the paint to chip off and ivy to grow over the walls. The ground around it was broken and furrowed and covered with leaves. The moon would not have been visible at all were the trees not skeletal, their leaves slicking the ground.
“Third floor, second window.” Willow mentioned suddenly, pointing with her own stake. Kat was the last to fixate on what Willow had indicated. The copper glow of coals being banked flickered, then extinguished as if someone was covering them.
“Well,” said Kat a bit nervously. “Onward to battle, then?” Travis nodded and began to trek down.
“Quiet beyond here.” he commanded. “Stealth, like you said.” Settling his coat, Tom began after the rest of the group.
“Tom.” Willow grabbed his shoulder and looked at him significantly. “I can probably get most of them, if I’m not distracted by other things.”
“Kat.”
“If I can not stress over her for ten minutes, then I’ll be able to get it done. I always did. I’ll handle the vampires, just-- just watch my sister’s a**.” Willow managed to take two steps before what she said sunk in. “...you know what I meant.”
“I didn’t say a word.” Tom replied. The group reconverged at the crest of the hill, a pale moon streaming behind them. A long line of trenchcoats fluttered in the cold wind as they marched, in various levels of assurity, toward the house.
=^-,-^= I need that as a poster.
“You know,” Kat muttered, attempting not to sound disturbed, “We’re getting dangerously close to a bottleneck.”
“Well, I’m hoping that it’s more of them in a bottleneck than us.” Willow answered. “If they can only come out and die a few at a time, eventually they’ll all be dead.”
“And when they stop coming out?”
“Then we have to go in.”
“Then we’ll be in a bottleneck.”
“Well, yeah, but they’ll still be.”
“We can do it. C’mon, Kat. Think Pacman.”
“Pacman?” Tom asked.
“Story for another day.”
“But this rather depends on the fact they have numbers being canceled that we’re better fighters.” Kat muttered on a verge of panic. “Are we? I mean, I’m-”
“Hey.” Tom almost snapped. “Hitting things very fast and very hard is one of the few things I’m very good at. If you’re saying we can’t take them, then you’re saying that I’d bad at my major skill. That’s fighting words, and since you’re wrong, it’ll hurt alot.” As he talked, he began to smirk wider and wider.
“I-I mean, I know you’re a good fighter, and Willow, and Travis probably, but I’m...”
“You handled yourself in a one-on-one fight, didn’t you? Stop worrying.”
“I-I...” Kat stuttered, then sucked her teeth a little. “Vampires.” she said softly.
“That’s the spirit.”
“Uh, yeah, great fluffiness guys,” now Willow was the one sounding strained, “Let’s get in formation.” Now mere yards from the door, they scrabbled into their places, lifted their weapons and pushed forward.
“Oh, yes.” Kat muttered. “Give the short one the range weapon and stick her in the back...”
“Shut up and watch our asses.” Willow grumbled.
“Doing so.”
“Especially Tom’s?” Travis asked. All element of surprise was then lost as Kat shrieked indignantly. There was a sudden rustling inside the house and a large group of figures, none of them robed, came streaming out the front door.
“Travis... if we don’t make it out of here,” Willow began, drawing her stakes, “I want you to know that this is all your fault!”
“Noted.” he answered, charging in what was becoming by the moment a shakier formation. It was sort of eerie, looking about them, since most of them looked pretty much like normal people and the full party knew none of them were. A few reverants with skin tight on their bones were mixed in with the fray, quickly attempting to surround the slayers, but most of them seemed to be recent. As they approached, Kat nervously attempted to get Willow’s attention.
“Willow-” Kat muttered with a panic. “No one’s wearing black robes...”
“Then shoot the ones trying to kill you.” As if on cue, the vampires began to run towards the tight group. Tom lifted his boken over the people to the side like a shield and took half a step forward.
“I think... we’re a little close together.”
“And they’re kind of not in a bottleneck anymore.” Kat muttered.
“Kat! If you have nothing not obvious to say, don’t say anything at all!” Willow snapped. Nodding, Kat pulled a pencil from her pocket and aimed.
“Don’t!” snapped Willow, throwing her arm out. “Not yet.”
“When, then?” Kat half-shrieked, “I don’t think I’ll have very good aim once I’m dead!”
“We aren’t fighting yet.” Willow warned. As the vampires widened their group to circle, one stopped dead and pointed a long finger at Travis. The vampire seemed utterly horrified and disgusted.
“Travis! You trait-” he was cut off by a pole being thrust into his chest.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah...” Travis muttered. “Shut up...”
“Now’s good.” muttered Willow rather noncommittally.
“Willow-” Tom stated with a strange calm. “The plan was good when you made it. Now it’s bad. I’m going to charge now.”
“Okay.” Willow answered. “Don’t die.”
“I’ll kill you if you die!” Kat shrieked. Tom threw a particularly “WTF” glance at her before charging into what he was rapidly making the fray. He skewered one, lance-like, as he charged, and threw off a second with his free hand.
“Note to self!” he shouted, “Get a second weapon!”
“Most people use the katana double-handed!” Kat shouted, vaguely envious.
“It’s a boken!” he laughed, stabbing another.
“We’re going to break formation now, aren’t we?” Kat asked.
“Yeah.” Willow replied, and proceeded to do so. Small fights broke out all around the broken and leaf-strewn ground.
“Hello, my name is Willow,” the blond slayer announced, “and I’ll be slaying you today. Everyone interested in dying please move to the left side of the battlefield.” Willow throw an annoyed look at her sister. “Kat, get back over here.” A vampire wearing red leapt towards Willow, who dove behind a nearby sapling and bent it forward. The vampire tried to stop, but slipped on the wet, decaying leaves, into the tree, and as Willow released it, decaying flesh and bones showered the air. Willow sputtered and coughed and pulled her trenchcoat over her head as she ran both out of the line of fire, for dead vampire bits, and into it, for live ones.
To her far right, Jake had made the discovery that after lunging in and killing one, others are very liable to surround you. His eyes and staff whipped around as he circled in place. For a moment there was something almost akin to a smile beneath his beard, and he pointed his stake at the one directly in front of him. The ones on either side dashed for him, and managed to reach him just in time for him to swing the opposite end out so that he held it flat in front of himself. There was a downside to this, of course, as the two had been dead for different amounts of time and, having a skeleton on one end and a slightly dry corpse on the other rather unbalanced him.
Travis was having his own issues. Even though he’d been the first to attack, since he was until recently part of the Blot, they were still interested in talking to him. The one in question was a lanky, dark-haired teenage girl with a permanent sour expression.
“Did you know they’re calling you ‘the renegade’, now?”
“Yeah, Beth, I’ve been told.”
“But you’d never be so stupid as to side with the prey, would you?” Beth sneered, “You don’t want to kill your own kind, Witty.”
“Not most of them.” he admitted. The girl lunged for him, fangs bared. His response was to catch her by the shoulders as she leapt, then toss her back towards the house and the people coming from it.
When Willow moved left and Travis right, a reverant from about the twenties made it’s way for Kat. The small girl shot and did not look to see if it hit before reloading. This happened to be a good thing, for as she lifted her bow again, she saw that the pencil was protruding from the vampire’s shoulder. As he assailant drew near, Kat ran right, where there were more trees. As it happened, Tom was also to the right, very much engaged in angling his boken up enough so that despite the fact it entered under the ribs it could reach the heart. Kat steadied her arm to shoot again and this time the bolt also hit the heart and the vampire fell. That’s when the Hart hit her. Tom, hearing a twanging noise directly behind him, span around, sword raised, and his elbow caught Kat directly in the solar plexus. And as it happened, when she noticed that the area was more heavily wooded, she did not notice there was an empty stream running to go under the road. Stumbling back, Kat flailed with her free hand for something to keep her from falling. What she found was the lapel of Tom’s trenchcoat, which did not prevent Kat, or Tom for that matter, from tumbling into the ditch. As such, they were equally surprised when Kat found herself pinned to the ground by a body for the second time that night, though this one was alive, and both very quickly removed themselves from that situation. Tom did so with unnecessary acrobatics.
“Enough with the bloody sexual tension, back to hunting vampires.” Willow shouted down the incline. Kat stood up, sputtering, “I assure you all tension we have is purely asexual.” Where the light better and the situation less drastic, perhaps someone might have noticed the lack of usual contrast between Kat’s hair and her face, however, it was dark, and there was a fight going on.
Her blonde braid spinning in the air behind her, Willow faced a new opponent. Kat would be fine. Or Tom would be dead. The blonde woman heaved her shoulders back and grinned. This more than got the attention of the only fresh one she’d seen that wasn’t a teenager.
“Hey, baldy, wanna see a trick?” she asked brightly. As this was mere banter, she did not pause long before she kicked him in the head, which knocked him upon his arse.
“That was a trick.” Willow breathed, pinning the vampire to the ground with her stake like a butterfly on display. “And this is me killing you.”
Trenchcoat flapping, Jake made a further push forward. He had almost made it to the corner of the house when a rather large muscular man cut him off. The vampire grinned, baring his fangs to the youngest member of the party. Jake spared the glimpse of a second for eye contact before remembering what a staff was for. He swung out, catching the man just at the knees and making him buckle and fall. Leaping on the body, Jake thrust the pole into the chest and waited for the flesh to crumble around the bones before removing it. As he turned back to the fray, a completely unexpected sound for a battlefield caught his attention.
Suddenly, a series of electric beeps reminiscent of classical music started piping from Willow’s pocket. She dodged a vampire and pulled out her cell phone. “Mushi-mushi?” she muttered, panicked. “No, mother, just a little busy, kind of. No, I don’t think that’s it, most of these guys were in school with Kat, I don’t think they were hibernating... Look, Travis explained- can I call you back?!” Willow threw the cell phone into the air, pulled a stake out of her jacket and stabbed the charging vampire in the chest. Then she caught her cell phone.
The renegade vampire spun in place. He’d been tossing off the man in a gray suit for almost a minute, and he kept coming back. Someone would have to stake him. The suited vampire circled and Travis began to fear he daren’t take his eyes from him when suddenly someone rolled into his feet. Thrusting his staff into the ground, a rather sore looking Jake pulled himself up. The vampires coming at him began to circle and he placed his back against the older man’s.
“Uh, stake?” Travis asked. Jake held out his at arm’s length. The vampire bent over forwards, rolling the young man over his back. Jake landed, drew up his staff and plunged it directly into the one standing before him.
“Hey, watch the wood!” Travis warned, stepping back from the opposite end of the staff. He then looked oddly at the man in front of him, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him into the opposite end of Jake’s staff.
“Never liked you... hippie git.” he muttered as Jake lifted one end to let the tie-died shirt encasing a shriveled form slide from the end of his staff.
Small fists began to pummel Willow’s back, and she spun around, horrified she’d let someone in that close.
“Hey!” Willow exclaimed suddenly, placing her hand on her opponent’s head to keep him from getting close enough to bite. “You’re... Justin, right? Seventh grade! I subbed your class once, you little hellion!”
“I’m a vampire! Fear me, prey!”
“I do not need preteen bloodsuckers tripping me up. Go home!”
“I’m so gonna drink your blood!”
“Does your mother know you’re here?”
“Shut up! I’m going to kill you!”
“I’m going to call your mother. And I’m going to let Mr. Ebel know. This is definitely not an approved after-school activity!”
“And slaying is?”
“I’m not in high school.”
“They are!” the vampire protested, indicating where Kat had actually scared off a set of vampires with a wild screaming attack brought on by Jake brushing against her. She seemed to be almost back in control, or at least no one was coming near her.
“Well, slaying’s different.” she punched the vampire in the stomach. “Go home!” Justin grumbled and stalked off into the night.
Kat was having while neither less, nor more luck with the vampires, it was very much different. She had come to the realization of two very important facts about her crossbow. After about ten feet, the penetration was not as good as it could be. The other important fact was that it took four seconds to draw the string back and reload it, if she was running, and that most vampires could run ten feet in four seconds. Long story shorter, but not much so, after all, I’m telling it, Kat found herself stringing her bow as she ran backwards towards the trees. While she did stumble a little, it is a small wonder she did not fall on to her a** the first time she tried to move. However, shortly, she found herself unable to retreat any further. Kat chanced half a glance to this obstacle, and found to her dismay that she was most correct in her assumption that it was indeed a tree. One at least as wide around as if two of her were hugging each other for dear life. Her eyes flashed back to the advancing vampire she had not yet managed to get in the heart, whom was laughing.
“What a silly little girl... You’re trapped!” Kat grit her teeth, attempting to mask horror with indigence, and swung around, grabbing a branch with her free hand. As she spun around, physically wincing when she turned her back to the vampire a moment, the man lunged. Through flinging her body up, she managed to get her foot to land on his face so she could push herself fully into the tree. He cursed and touched his face, then returned to laughing.
“Now you’re more trapped!”
“Well, yes.” she admitted, hyperventilating, “But I’m trapped out of your reach, and I have a range weapon.” His eyes widened after the moment it took him to realize what the lisping, panting girl was saying and for her to load her crossbow.
“Clever bit-” he mumbled as his cheeks sunk in. Kat whipped her head which now the loose hairs covered like tiny copper filaments and reloaded.
“Why, look...” a vampire in a torn overcoat laughed, “The cat’s gotten caught in a tree...”
“How did you know-” Kat shrieked hysterically, then winced as if hit, as she touched the kitty ears on the top of her head. “My name.”
His trenchcoat filling the air behind him, Tom tried to hide a bit of his excitement. He was sort of creating a whole new form for the the boken, wasn’t he? It was far too much based off of fencing, yes, but the point work with a foil- he was distracted on this thought by a vampire lunging at his throat. It was a fairly tidy system he had now, he was starting to get surprised that no one had figured it out yet and went for the hole. He’d simply use the flat, or, rather, what would be the flat if it was a katana and not a boken, to bludgeon and distract the vampire until the heart was exposed, and lunge. Look. A hole. Tom turned his body to draw the sword away and the opponent closer, an interesting grappling as the vampire had clearly been in life a rather corpulent Victorian man, but the many, many years in the grave did not fare well on him. He had the look of, more than anything else, a bloated deer carcass you might find by the side of the road. As the sword entered his chest with disturbing ease, everything that was once inside the vampire now took it’s leave. All at once, and in all directions, rather forcefully.
The blonde slayer was about to ask Jake if he was alright, having felled her opponent, when a most peculiar noise made her whip around. It was a good thing that it did, for it explained the one shrieking noise that followed.
“Holy s**t!” Travis exclaimed, dodging something airborne accompanied by a leathery flapping. Willow was forced back a step by the force and the shock of that leathery flapping thing, and what was encased in it, landed in her arms. Tom, smiling nervously, stopped shielding himself with his trenchcoat.
“Uh, do I want to know why you were flying?” Willow asked nervously. Tom shook his head rather vigorously.
“Nah.” Willow dropped the young hunter and turned her attention to the door she and Jake had almost made it to. This was soon interrupted by the renegade vampire muttering “Duck.” and a vampire sailing over the other three’s heads. Two, really, just Willow and Jake, as Tom had flung himself violently backward to avoid being in Travis’ trajectory.
As it happened, Tom was not the only thing flying through the air at the moment. A vampire advanced on the rapidly reforming group, then suddenly, and with great surprise, fell to dust. One to their left looked around to see what had become of the small girl with the crossbow, and rather shortly was answered.
“Hah!” Kat exclaimed, gesticulating triumphantly, “Legolas, eat your heart- AAH!” She found herself unable to finish this statement as she tumbled from her perch, landing rather painfully and ungracefully in the middle of what was becoming another large cluster of vampires. She rolled onto her back, saw one lunging for her, and rolled away into what turned out to be another’s range. Logically, she did all of these things while screaming.
Watch my sister’s a**. Tom whipped his head around, hearing an echo of Willow’s words in one ear and Kat screaming like, well, like a young woman completely surrounded by vampires, in the other.
“<********>...” he groaned, charging in with very little resembling a plan. He was going to be cross with both Willow and Kat. Dropping one got the attention of a few, and got him almost in arm’s reach of the young woman. The second fact seemed to matter very little indeed as two figures launched themselves at him. Attempting to figure out how to do two things at once, Tom’s eyes flashed from Kat lying on the ground, rolling to avoid vampires, Travis, and the reverants crowding around him. Slipping his sword into the belt loop of his trenchcoat, he dove towards her, opposite hand outstretched, and announced the scariest thing she had heard that night, amongst the plotting vampires.
“Kat!” he screamed, almost triumphantly, “I’ve got a plan!” Grasping the girl’s hand, he lifted her from the ground and swung her in a circle, her boots knocking over anyone in range, clearing the area fairly quickly. Unlike Travis, he stopping spinning and lifted her hands above his head, placing her more or less on her feet.
“See?” he grinned. “It worked perfectly.”
“And if it didn’t?” she shrieked. He smiled and shrugged noncommittally. There was an unreadable expression on her face for a moment, then she spun away, muttering, “I hate you so very much.”
“We’re needed.” Tom called, pointing toward the doorstep where the others converged. Willow had the first person they’d seen wearing black at all pressed against the door of the house with a stake at his heart.
“Call them off.” Willow commanded.
“No!” the vampire shouted. Willow shrugged.
“Didn’t think that would work.” she muttered, and staked him. She spun around and shouted back towards the battlefield.
“Now, who wants-” Willow’s words fell dead. “...to tell me where the other vampires went?”
Each member of the group turned in place, searching for anything that moved besides them.
There was none.

Eight
Warm and Fuzzy?

The men who had been left in the room looked curiously around at each other. For a while, no one said anything. Jake looked a bit nervous about something for a moment, though it was hard to tell, and began to start looking around the bookcases in the room. Francis was looking from hunter to hunter with a very calculating look on his young face, but completely silent. Almost as deep in thought, but far more confused, Tom stared intently at the door through which the sisters exited. The steady thump of Jake’s boots pacing around the room, as if to cover a rather annoyed whisper in the next room, was the only noise that originated from them. It is hardly a surprise, however, that it was Tom who finally broke the silence.
“I’m just gonna... out there... for a minute. Just in the hallway, kay?” It wasn’t much of something but it was all that he really had to work with. As he left, Francis’ knowing look turned to a knowing smirk, and he swung his tiny legs over the side of his coffin and hopped down. Travis and Jake watched him as he crossed the room towards the door Tom had exited from. They then looked at each other and sighed. Travis leaned back a bit and closed his eyes. This was definitely going to be a very long night.
Jake started and took several steps towards the second man. Travis’ eyes flashed open to see Jake staring past him, and he whipped around in his seat. Outside, the wind rattled the dry and brilliant leaves, making soft, hollow noises. Jake shook his head and sighed.
“Nothing.” he muttered, moving back to the center of the room. Travis turned away from the window and began to hum “Wild Man from Borneo” over the excited mutters from the two rooms to either side of him.
And outside, something deep in the shadows moved deeper into them.

“What?” Willow smiled dangerously, “Was that all about?”
“What that?” Kat asked.
“During the fight.”
“Hey, did you see me?” she squawked, “I was getting them right and left! But all in self-defense...” she added nervously. “It was so surreal, it was like a video game...”
“I meant grabbing at Tom all the time...”
“Twice!” she defended. Willow gave Kat a look that would not have communicated quite so much had they not been sisters. Unable to meet her eyes for long, Kat turned away from her sister. Her body language seemed to melt and simper in apology.
“I tried to stay out of everyone’s way, but he kept showing up exactly were I was going, just like a cat...”
“Oh!” Willow exclaimed. She rolled her eyes and muttered, “That explains so much.”
“What?” Kat asked.
“I asked Tom to keep you from killing yourself, and you try to keep out of his way... no wonder...” she waved her hand vaguely. “...antics ensued.”
“Antics?” Kat repeated. Willow met her eyes, then Kat grimaced and nodded bashfully.
“You know, it wasn’t just the fight.” Willow continued, “When we were talking, you seemed to only respond to correct someone or talk to Tom, all without acknowledging him. Quite a feat, actually.”
“No, Tom’s a nice guy... well, actually, he’s an a**, but still...” confided Kat, “When he opens his mouth, I just want to grab him by his ponytail and slam his head into his desk a couple times.”
“I’ll be sure to keep my hair out of your reach, then.” Kat made a rather interesting face as all the hairs across her body stood up.
“How long have you been there, Tom?” she asked as calmly as she could manage, which happened to be rather strained.
“I think I missed world domination, but I think I can get the notes up to the part with Willow thinking you’re grabbing at me.”
“Okay, I’m going to go slit my wrists now.” Kat announced awkwardly, and ducked around the doorjam, careful not to make eye contact with anyone in the room. Out of sight, she announced, “We have filled our ‘talking about it’ quota for today.”
Willow sighed and gave Tom one of the many meaningful looks of that night. This one in particular was, “I did all I could, and she’s hiding again.”
Tom mutely replied, “Let her.” Willow sighed and retreated into the room with Francis’ coffin in it. Tom sighed with not little frustration, glancing at the door which Kat had retreated into. She certainly had a happy talent for running away.
“Slayer problems, little hunter?” smirked Francis. Tom whipped around abnormally quickly, then blinked several times.
“You’re standing on the ceiling.” Tom announced.
“Astute observation. No wonder all the little girls like you, so very clever.” The small vampire began to pace along a beam in the plaster ceiling. His frock and white-blond hair hung from his young form, and he smiled an ancient smile at the dark haired boy. Perfect silhouettes in white and black, they faced each other and for a moment said nothing. Tom sighed with frustration.
“What do you want?” Tom asked. Francis spun in place on the ceiling.
“What I want?” Francis repeated. He looked for a moment at the plaster by his feet. “It has been quite a while since anyone has shown me the deference to ask that.” He sighed and began to pace the ceiling again.
“I want smart children.” he sighed sadly. “I want to lead people I do not wish die. I want my place restored. I managed the vampires so no one had to die. I was good to them. I want to know if I can love.”
“Love?” Tom asked. Francis turned towards Tom.
“Love is a deep form of respect, and I respect no one. Therefore, I cannot love.” Francis walked towards Tom as he continued, “And I respect no one because-”
“Most of the world are idiots?” Tom offered. Francis almost laughed. Eyes softening slightly, Tom continued.
“And you’ve got to deal with the idiots forever...” Bristling, the vampire dashed across the ceiling to the portion directly above Tom’s head.
“If you even think about pitying me,” Francis fumed, “I will sup the blood from your very marrow like a frozen drink.”
“Wouldn’t it be warm?”
“Yes, but it would also have the consistency of half-melted snow.” Tom looked as if he might laugh, then suddenly looked distinctly unsettled. He nervously turned his face to Francis, his expression set awkwardly.
“Are we...” Tom asked uncomfortably, “Bonding?” The vampire and the human regarded each other with looks of great distaste.
“I should hope not.” Francis replied. The vampire straightened, with the result that his smirking face was now roughly five inches from Tom’s. “It would make it very difficult to move.”
“You know what I meant.” Tom grumbled. Francis turned and strode away across the ceiling.
“How frustrating it must be to have someone twist each word you say towards their own humor.” the vampire replied vaguely. Amusement drained from the hunter’s face like color.
“What would you know about it?” he asked with feigned indifference.
“Everything.” Francis replied blankly. “Every thought that has ever created within these walls is there like a book for me to read at my leisure. But you know it annoys them when you do that, and that’s what makes you cool.” His eyes flashed about the room.
“Or so says one. Another thinks it makes you stupid.”
“Stop telling me what people think about me.” Tom snarled, a hint of fear deep in back of his voice. Francis smirked and bowed slightly. This was the man had all the ability in the world, and no power anymore. He had resorted to bullying. The threat about drinking marrow like a slushie repeated it’s self in Tom’s mind.
“One last thing...” Tom asked. Francis turned to face him.
“How do you do that? The is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” he laughed.
“And I dress in front of a mirror.” Francis cocked an eyebrow, dodging that sort of humor entirely.
“I am, quite possibly, the most powerful vampire you will ever meet. I can do pretty much whatever I like.”
“Yes,” allowed Tom, “But how do you do that particular thing?”
“It’s just something a vampire can do, if he cares to learn.” Francis replied vaguely, pushing a single curl from his face.
“I like you. For a human.” Francis smirked. “Once I’ve regained control, you shan’t be slaughtered.” Tom did not respond verbally to this, but cast a glance of amusement and disbelief at the small lad.
“Now do buck up that little slayer. I think she’s capable of more damage than you know. It’d be a shame to lose her before I got my Blot back.”
“What do you care?” Tom asked suspiciously.
“There’s a part left for her to play, and I shan’t be able to return things to their proper balance without her.” he tossed his pale head. “Besides, her nasty little thoughts are hurting my head. Do be so kind as to change the nature of her thoughts for me?”
“Why should I do anything you ask me to?” Tom asked incredulously. Francis sighed, brushed his hair back from his face and opened his eyes wide, clutched his hands nervously, and recited something he seemed to be hearing.
“I’m so useless! Why does anyone ever put up with me? Why did they even let me be here, they’ve gone through such efforts to humor me, and I’ll I’ve even been was a pain, and get in the way. I’m such a nuisance to everyone, I should just go away where they would have to worry about me at all...” As he spoke, Francis fretted woefully, sadly catching Kat’s affect all to well. Tom’s eyes flashed to the door she exited from, then back to the vampire with almost a snarl.
“I’m doing this because her sister asked me to keep an eye on her. Not because you told me to shut her up.” Tom cocked his head. “I’m kind of getting sick of having people telling me to do what I know is the correct thing. I’m really not stupid.”
“Or insecure, like her?”
“Like who?”
“Does the little auburn-haired girl come into it at all?”
“What?”
“Oh.” Francis smiled mischievously. “I didn’t repeat that part aloud...” Tom sighed in frustration and left the room.

Black-tipped fingers worked quickly, nervously, twisting loose red hairs back into the bun at the back of Kat’s head. Her eyes were wide and focused sharply on something that wasn’t there. Meditation probably wouldn’t help at all. Talking probably wouldn’t help either, everyone already knew her problem. At least, everyone who needed to. Talking about her problems would be complaining anyway. She just had to suck it up. Just deal. Footsteps crossed the room towards her. Tom had stopped talking. That was too bad. His voice was oddly comforting. Damn him. Damn him to hell, the little ******** manwhore b*****d.
Footsteps were behind her. A door opened beside her and she scuffled away as quietly as she could. She didn’t want to be in anyone’s way. They obviously had something important to do and she was just sulking, the stupid little brat that she was. A dark figure stepped through and faced her. Obviously, she was in his way.
“Sorry.” Kat mumbled, scuffling away.
“For what?” he asked, walking into the space she had just occupied, proving she was in his way. She scuffled further.
“I’m in your way.” Kat muttered. “All the time. I should just go away.” Tom grit his teeth. She was retreating from him. That was a pretty clear sign of not wanting to talk. But, you couldn’t let a obvious reference to suicide go like that. Why oh why was he stuck with talking down the suicidal person? He was good at hitting things, not so in cheering up the clinically depressed. He moved forward again, and she retreated further. How cat-like of her, always in someone’s way, always right were they were about to go. She really didn’t mean to do this, it just happened, and it happened all the time.
“You sister says you talk about it often.”
“Talk about what?”
“How you’d do it. Which direction is the proper way to slit your wrists, how it would take before they found you in the woods...”
“Tom, if I was going to commit suicide, I would have done it by now.” She jumped up and looked at him. “Look- where are you going?”
“What? Where I’m going with this is-”
“No, where are you going? I keep trying to get out of your way and-”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he replied with no little surprise. “I was just trying to stand next to you, as I was talking to you.”
“But you were talking to me because I was in the way of where you were going.”
“Right, because you’re always in the way.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Uh, that was sarcasm.”
“Oh.” she blushed and hid her face. “I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay! Stop apologizing!” he cried, gesticulating in what was either calming or dangerously close to touching someone with no interest in being touched. She shrunk away violently.
“Please don’t touch me...” she whimpered. He took a step back.
“Not touching you.” he announced. Right, this would make talking her down harder. And this suicidal slayer would really mess up the whole finding the blot and overthrowing it. Of course, leaving her alone wasn’t an option, even if there was some way to make sure she wouldn’t get attacked, which their wasn’t. From what he knew of Travis, garlic wards would not help at all. The girl began to push herself up the wall, still facing the floor.
“Kat- just don’t joke about that.”
“Does miming seppuku count? Because that’s pretty funny.”
“For once, I’m serious. Alot of people would really rather you keep living.”
“Tom,” she said softly, “If I wasn’t one of them, would it matter?” Tom spun around and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Shut up, Kat. We need you to value your life when we attack tonight.”
“Oh.” she replied softly, looking down. He dropped his hands in frustration and walked away.
“And it would matter. It would matter a shitload, cause no one else is going to slit your wrists.” he sighed. “And I’m sorry. I know you don’t like to be touched.”
“That’s okay, Tom. It’s not an attack coming from you. I know you don’t even think of me as female. No one does.” Tom stood there for a minute before turning around.
“Kat, if you aren’t female, then what the hell are you?”
“I never said my paranoid delusions made sense.”
“...and what precisely does being female have to do with being attacked?” Tom asked, full of confusion. Kat’s head, which had come really quite close to actually facing the boy she was talking to, turned violently away. With the resounding crash of a china cabinet being overturned, two and two came together. Having nothing at at to say to this, Tom grinned broadly and tried a last-ditch effort at cheering up the slayer.
“Hey! Let’s kill something!” Kat turned toward him with a look of confusion which might have met a smile somewhere in it’s travels. From her, that was a good sign.
=^-,-^= This scene was brought to you by “Building Fires” by Michael Longcor. C’mon, it was on the VIL soundtrack, it had to get in the movie somewhere. (which is odd, since I was listening to “I Love Little Girls” at the time I wrote this)

Francis was the first person to renter the coffin room. While this did cause Jake to start and spin around, he had been listening intently for any noise which was not a nagging dialogue for the past fifteen minutes. Striding purposefully and soundlessly across the floorboards, the old boy shot frozen daggers of contempt from his eyes at the two hunters who remained in the room.
“Excuse me for being stable.” Travis grumbled.
“And what does stability have to do with any of our business tonight?”
“Shh.” commanded the quiet boy with a vague wave in the direction of the pale elder. Francis looked exceptionally confused. Travis shrugged.
“He thought he heard something a minute ago, but nothing’s happened since.”
“Saw. I saw something.” Jake corrected quietly, edging around a window carefully. Grumbling rather loudly to herself, Willow stormed back into the main room. Jake automatically pushed her away from the window and motioned for silence.
“What is it?” Willow asked. Jake gave her a very frustrated and plaintive look about disregarding his request for silence.
“The Illuminati has told me the silent one believes himself to have seen something, slayer.” Francis explained coolly, standing in the direct center of another window with his hands folded behind him. For a moment, it looked like he was standing on tiptoe, then his feet slowly lifted entirely from the floor as he moved to the exact center of the window. Willow gave out a sigh of frustration.
“Do you have something against names?”
“What? No, of course not. I gave you mine, did I not?” the vampire answered regally.
“Oh, yes. Francis Xander Alexis Pretentious Ducharme.” Willow scoffed. “So you have all the name anyone in the world needs?”
“Xavier.” Francis corrected. “And what do your names matter? You’ll not be using them in ninety years anyway.”
“Maybe, but you’ll use them now. It’s Willow, got it? Wil-low.”
“That’s not a name,” Francis scoffed, “That’s a tree.” Before either of them could make further snide comments, they were interrupted by Tom, and then Kat, desperately trying to enter the room separately. If Tom noticed this, he was politely ignoring it.
Both Willow and Francis regarded the pair with expressions that could have been described as amusement, but very much different from one another. Travis flashed Jake the look of a man who was awkward for the sole reason of an awkward situation he had nothing to do with, and no interest in being concerned with, thrust into his presence. Jake returned it.
“Have we filled our WFF quota for the night?” Willow asked.
“That’s a definite yes.” Tom muttered uncomfortably.
“Yeah, and Tom?” Kat began. She waited for him to look up before she continued, but was distracted for a moment by the sheer size of his eyes. “We- you and me- and overfilled our warm and fuzzy quotient for the rest of... ever.”

Ten
No One Live Forever, Part 2

There were bigger problems than disappearing figures in robes. Tom had screamed. Kat grunted and grabbed trees as she passed. She was worn and sore all over, running uphill amongst very slippery leaves, and Tom had screamed. Tom was never the sort of scream. At all. If he was getting disemboweled, he probably would scream, but Kat had never seen him getting disemboweled. Oh, gods! she thought. Tom’s getting disemboweled! She twisted the metal bow of the crossbow so it was flush with the handle and reached under her coat to stuff it in the back of her pants. I was dangling uselessly over a cliff, only thinking of myself, OF COURSE, and Tom was getting disemboweled! I wasn’t there to take the disembowelment for him! He’s dead and it’s all my fault! I am the worst person in the history of people who suck!
Kat rounded the crest of the hill to find the graveyard comparatively empty. Tom was not disemboweled as of that time, but Kat actually wasn’t overreacting much.

The stringy fighter was, naturally, the first to leap towards these new opponents. His shoulder was grasped by Willow, who pulled him back.
“Wait. They may be ambassadors. We don’t know.” Willow warned. “If they’re hear to negotiate peace, the last thing we want to do is kill them.” She turned her face to the new entries on the field. She smiled broadly.
“May I help you?” she asked in her cheerful shopkeeper voice. This surprised them. The men looked about each other, then the one in the center asked, slowly, carefully, “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, perhaps we could negotiate peace, maybe even a surrender?” Willow offered. The vampires shared a look amongst each other.
“You’ve just killed more vampires than vampires have killed humans in the past year. This seems a rather bizarre time for you to surrender.”
“Actually,” Willow shrugged, “I was kinda hoping you would.”
“It’s not that bizarre.” the vampire snarled.
“Just, uh- making sure...” Willow began, “We can settle this the way we’re handling it now, right? It’s just I don’t think hand-to-hand combat would be alot of fun for either of us right now.”
“On the contrary; I think that I and my associates would enjoy that very much.” he replied calmly.
“So, you like sharp pieces of wood in the chest?” Tom asked mildly.
“We are not like the others you have fought.” the speaker warned. “They could barely kill each other.”
“If I could just bring everyone who was tuning out this pointless banter up to speed,” Willow began, ”You’re threatening to kill us.”
“Not at all.” the vampire corrected. He had the longest hair out of all of them, as his was neatly brushed back from his forehead to the nape of his neck, white-blond, and the rest had buzz cuts. He touched it before he continued.
“We are explaining that you will be dead in all of ten minutes.” he smiled. “And I’m only giving you that long because I’ve heard so much about him.” He smiled at Tom.
“I hear fighting you is like fighting a very large goldfish. It flops around with no apparent bone structure, hopelessly attempting to stay alive.” Tom’s eyes flashed sideways for a moment, as if to decern whether or not that was an insult.
“...no, but that would describe one of the women I’ve had sex with.”
“Thank you, prince charming.” Travis scoffed. The vampire laughed, and motioned for his allies to step back.
“Well then, prince charming, how about a deal?” the blonde man asked, “So that only one has to die tonight?”
“What are the terms?” Tom asked cautiously.
“My allies will stand down, as will yours.” he vampire began, “I will be unarmed, save my fangs, and you will have your wooden sword.” Tom’s eyes flashed to the neatly ranked vampires standing behind his opponent. Suddenly, through the tense air, he was aware of the rustling of someone in the trees beyond the graveyard. And someone else. And someone else. And probably everyone who disappeared at the end of the battles he’d been having all night.
“And if your allies don’t stand down?” the hunter asked, somewhat past calm.
“Then yours are free to kill them.” his opponent laughed, “If anyone interferes, everyone can.” Willow turned to Travis and shot yet another meaningful look. This particular one said, “That’s suspiciously precise. Only an idiot would blindly agree to that.”
“Sounds good.” Tom smiled, cracking his neck as he stepped forward from his dumbfounded allies.
“You’re actually attacking me.” the vampire laughed. “Well, little boy, shall we play?”
Tom did not allow the vampire to finish speaking before he attacked. He was not yet guarding his chest and there might not be another hole like that. The vampire nipped the sword out of the air and tossed it aside like a toothpick. In this second, Tom attempted to stop, and his opponent grabbed his ponytail at the base and flung him into a tombstone. Though Tom had managed to get his arms in front of his face before it hit the stone, when he lifted his dazed face blood was streaming down it.
The vampire grasped Tom by the neck and lifted him from the ground to get a look at him. He laughed again.
“This is your best fighter?” the vampire scoffed, turning his eyes to the horrified slayers. “This-- stick?” he released Tom’s neck just as he lifted his knee, resulting in a swift kick in the chest. Had Tom had any breath in his lungs, he would have groaned. He fell to the ground, shuddering painfully, curled onto his side. The vampire kicked him until he lay upon his back, staring up at his opponent with his own blood splashed into his eyes.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” the vampire smirked. “Oh, you’re hurt... baby... here.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand, and Tom dangled in the air at the vampire’s eye level.
“I won’t touch you anymore.” he promised, then grinned, and waved towards a tombstone. Tom flew into it.
Tom flew about the graveyard, much in the same way he did when he was first fighting. This time, however, he did not propel himself from gravestones and swing around monuments with hyperactive ease. He was being thrown, dangled by a mind, and rolled across sharp stones. His limbs flailed pointlessly as he crashed into the ground, again and again. And again. And again.
=^-,-^=I would like to point out it said at this point in the original story layout: “Tom gets the s**t kicked out of him”
If anyone present could have torn their eyes away from this, they would have seen a small figure pulling it’s self, and it’s coat, out of the woods. Had they seen that figure, they probably would not have seen the expression on it’s face as it viewed the scene before it. But, as a high-pitched scream that was once a name cut the night, most of the area became aware of a very stupid girl in a long black coat running full tilt at the vampire.

A less hysterical person would not have dropped the crossbow as she ran. The allies of this less hysterical person would not have been able to pick up the crossbow and find that it’s owner still had all the shot. This less hysterical person then wouldn’t have had forgotten this, and taken a pencil out of her pocket to stab the vampire with when she was in range. A less hysterical person would never have simply screamed like a banshee and pummeled the man with tiny, impotent fists.
Kat was hysterical.
Being an elite supernatural vampire, her opponent was not at all used to useless attacks by small, hysterical young women. He looked down on her, grimaced at her allies, and dropped Tom. The young man groaned and pulled himself onto his elbows. Blood flew from his mouth as he muttered a word inaudible under the screams of his would-be savior.
“...idiot...” he groaned. The vampire made eye contact with his assailant’s sister.
“We had a bargain.” he grinned.
“Kat!” Willow shrieked. The elder grasped the face of the redhead in one hand and lifted her from the ground. He glared into the one eye visible through his fingers. Tiny boots flailed uselessly.
“You’re not worth killing.” he snarled, tossing the small girl aside. Like Tom had so many times before, she fell onto a tombstone and moaned. The man she had attempted to save pulled himself onto his haunches and leaned towards her.
“...Tomi-kun..?”
“Idiot!” he hissed. “You broke the agreement!” Blood splattered her as he spoke. Perplexity filled her face, these words meant nothing to her.
“Oh, my gods!” Willow shrieked. Tom pulled himself to a kneeling position behind a gravestone. Vampires were streaming out of the woods. He forced himself onto his feet and dragged Kat up behind him.
“Where’s my sword?” he asked her in a fevered whisper.
“Boken.” she corrected with a moan, turning her head. Glancing where she faced, he saw it lying on a grave a few yards away.
“We need to regroup.” he panted. “Go back, I’ll get the boken and-”
“No.” she shook her head as she spoke. “Charge, they’re scared of you, I’ll bring you the sword.”
“Kat!” Tom grinned furiously, “I just got my a** fed-exed to me! I don’t think I’m very intimidating!”
“I do.” she replied cryptically, diving towards the sword. Tom threw himself onto his feet and leapt over the tombstone.
“It’s a bad plan!” he screamed over his shoulder, running towards the rest of the group. They were standing back to back in a tight circle.
“Where’s your sword?” Travis asked with no little panic.
“Where’s my sister?!” Willow shrieked. Tom whirled around and began to back into the circle. Kat was running towards them, holding the sword in her arms like a child. Once she was a few feet away, she tossed it to Tom, and stopped with such skidding that it was clear it was difficult to prevent running into him herself. As such, he dodged and she stopped once she reached the other side of the circle, between Willow and Travis.
“Got ammo?” Travis asked. Kat nodded.
“Got my crossbow?” she asked. Willow thrust the weapon into her sister’s hands and drew a stake. She seemed to be choking on something.
“Willow, are you alright?” asked Kat with intense worry.
“Except for the fact that we’re about to die, I’m peachy!”
“How can we get past them?” Kat asked fervently.
“We can’t.” Willow answered quietly. Her eyes were glassy with horror. “We retreat.”
“We can’t-”
“I need time to think, and we don’t have it!” Willow screamed, “We are outstrengthed, outwitted and outnumbered. We retreat!”
“Okay!” Tom cried. “I like this plan! How do we retreat?”
“Run, screaming, for our lives...” Willow panted.
“That’s specific. Let’s go with it.” Tom muttered, craning his head around for escape routes. Kat made a noise almost reminiscent of a nervous giggle.
“It’s just like getting to classes at WLC... just push yourself through the crowd, diving at holes when they come.” Everyone able turned and stared aghast at Kat.
“That plan sucks!” Willow snapped. “They’re trying to kill us!”
“Panty tank!” Travis exclaimed. The stare shifted to him.
“It’s... you take a ruler and hold it out like the gun of a tank, with another guy behind you to lift a girl’s skirt.”
“What does that have to do with vampires?” Willow asked.
“Besides Kat’s hunting apparel.”
“Shut up, Tom.”
“We rush them, weapons out, they dive out of the way or they die.” Travis’ eyes flashed to Jake.
“We put the spear in front, Kat, get in the center and shoot around us in all directions.”
“Oh, we put the midget with the firearm in the middle, so she can get all of us in the back, brilliant.”
“I’d know enough to shoot around you!”
“Great. Plan. They’re getting closer.”
“Formation!” Willow snapped, and Kat ducked under her sister’s arm. Tom took the rear and put his back at Kat’s.
Kat screamed.
The formation twitched like a blob attempting to keep shape as it charged and Tom whipped around in order to keep up. Hitting those gravestones hurt alot. It still hurt, in several places.
The vampires, frankly, looked surprised at this turn of events, and a good deal of them actually got out of the way. Jake got one on his staff, and Kat was shooting madly every time she had an opening. Mostly, however, the pencils fell uselessly to the ground. Running through their enemies was like running through a large but loose tangle of twisted thorned vines. The fact they charged seemed their saving grace, as none that grabbed at them seemed to realize how fast the hunters were running. In the three seconds before they broke through, Willow alone had a hand wrapped around her arm twice. But, with no other choice but to keep running, the hands slipped away, scratching the flesh like claws, and then it was over. The temperature seemed to drop as they made it past the maze of bodies and into the maze of wood. The group broke and sped up, the screams of the mob behind them dulled only by the fact it had been that way for a few minutes now. The enemies got more furious but less dense as the wood progressed.
“Willow!” Kat gasped. “Acuma?” Willow’s eyes flashed around in search of her car. Suddenly, she pointed. There was the road, just beyond the three foot tall stone wall Tom had hurtled on the way in. Kat made a noise that might have had a touch of relief in that sea of panic.
“In the car!” Willow commanded.
Jake stumbled forward in the dark, broken wood on all sides, screams behind him. The voices welled and ebbed, a mindless throng with no words. Then one cry broke from it.
“Jake!” His body spun around, but his foot continued it’s path, until it was under a log, and unable to move. His body twisted and fell, and before he cried out, he heard something stiffer than wood crack. The hunters stopped running and whirled around.
“Jake?” Tom shouted.
“Keep going, we’ll fix it later!” Willow shouted.
“I can’t stand, why do you think I can run?!” he snapped, trying to pull himself up with his staff.
“Walk with the staff!” Tom suggested, turning towards the boy.
“I’ll carry you!” Travis offered.
“I’ll kill you!” scream a vampire mere yards away.
“Uh... what’s the plan?” Kat asked nervously, turning her crossbow towards it.
“We don’t have a plan!” Willow shouted impatiently.
“Run.” commanded Jake. “Now.”
“But you can’t! You’ve broken-”
“I meant you!” he snarled loudly. “I’m going anyway!” He ripped his collar away from his throat. Blood was streaming down his neck profusely.
“When did that happen?!” Kat gasped. “Will you be-” her eyes flashed to Travis.
“They fed, I killed them. They did not embrace me. I am going to die.” he snarled. “Now, run.” Tom kept his eyes on the other boy a moment as he retreated.
“I’m sorry.”

Twelve
Clarice

The lights were on in the amber-tinted kitchen, empty teacups and half unrolled bandages littered the table. All of the hunters were gathered there, as were those who remained to study. John looked about as eager to talk as Kat and Tom, who, on the part of Kat, at least, seemed unaware of everything in the room that was not tea. Tchipakkan was standing behind the counter, food in her hands again, speaking without sign of stopping, like some supernatural cooking show.
“Well, what can you do, now that this has happened?”
“You have to call the police!” Sean cried. “Someone’s dead, they won’t believe it’s an accident if you don’t call them immediately.”
“But it wasn’t an accident, Sean.” Travis snarled, “And the police will be plenty confused when the corpse moves it’s self.”
“Well, I’m sure they’ll figure out pretty quickly that they were dealing with monsters.”
“They always know that they’re dealing with monsters.” Tchipakkan pointed out, “But how will they react to the fact they have fangs?”
“Monsters are monsters! Arrest them! Handcuff their fangs! Whatever! Monsters are monsters!” Sean ranted. He stopped when he noticed the annoyed doom glare Travis had aimed at him.
“Present company excluded, of course.”
“They are not monsters because of their species.” Willow explained, “They are nothing but predatory humans.”
“That’s it: They’re human. How can we keep killing humans?”
“Because they’ve forsaken their humanity.” Kat offered suddenly. The group turned toward her.
“When a human chooses to act inhuman, they forfeit the right to be treated as humans.”
“And how are we different, then? We went into their home and hunted them.”
“Because they chose to kill. We were fighting back.”
“We went into their home and slaughtered women and children.” Tom hissed. Kat flustered a moment.
“Is not the best defense a good offense?” All subtly of emotion vanished from the dark haired boy as disgust filled his face.
“It’s gray!” Kat yelped as if she had been struck. “It’s definitely gray, but... it is a light gray.” She turned her face away and nervously tightened at the leather bracers she was wearing.
“What are those?” Tom asked suddenly.
“What?” Kat asked. “Oh. My bracers. I just found out why archers always wear them. My forearms are not getting any sorer tonight, I can tell you that.”
“No, not the bracers. What’s strapped to them.” Kat nervously examined the stainless steel daggers whose sheathes where built into the bracers.
“...they’re the only bracers I own...” Willow rolled her eyes at her sister.
“You were freaked because you weren’t carrying a hand to hand combat weapon.” Kat shifted nervously. “They’re still the only bracers I own...” Willow rolled her eyes at the young man.
“Tom, you’re a fricken swordsman. Don’t you know a knife when you see a knife?”

The room was dark. Death had indeed occurred there, for nearly a century. The walls were swathed in black cloth, and there was only light in one section. There stood a wicker chair with high, broad and rounded back, which in turn was swathed in a black, lacy material. The light shone from an unseen source upon the chair and the two figures. In the chair sat a figure, as covered in the black cloth as the rest of the room. Neither hands or face where visible, but it’s shape was very much human, and smaller than it’s companion, young. Beside the chair stood an impressive, wide-shouldered black man. Only his mouth was visible from beneath his black robes, and it’s thick lips were terse and annoyed. He had never seen the light in Lyndebourgho, and was born into darkness like so many other spawn of vampires. Before the makeshift throne, other figures stood in long rows down what was assumed to be the center of the dark room. A cold voice from outside broke the silence.
“Miss Omega Valente, twelvemonth.” The robed figures turned their faces away from their leader and to the skeletal girl, with five men in gray sweaters standing around her. They processed towards the pair standing in the light, quickly as they could while remaining silent. Omega had the deep brooding look of someone between fits of hysteria. The men in grey sweaters adjusted rank slightly so that they now stood in tight rows on either side of her. All six figures dropped to their knees before the throne, and the girl alone raised her face to the leader.
“We’re being hunted.” she stated simply. It was almost a whine.
“We noticed.” the man standing beside the throne replied tersely in his deep voice. Omega’s faced strained as she held off another fit of hysteria.
“They- they killed Zach.” she whimpered. “He’s dead.” The figure in the chair moved then, raising a hand completely covered by a sleeve that would have amply covered the mouth’s arm. He knelt towards the seated figure, his face next to theirs, and the head turned so that the face beneath the hood almost touched his ear. He nodded, and rose.
“Pity. He was not a clever general, but he did have two years seniority over most of the others.” Omega’s face fell, and the figure moved again, beckoning to the mouth. He lowered himself sightly, then continued, “Do not fret so. Though we cannot forget the end plan, you will be satisfied.”
“Yes... never forget the end... my liege.” A strange formality passed over her now, as the pretention mingled with her hysteria.
“The Taylors, was it?”
“Just the girls. And some men. Tom.” Her eyes grew larger, and all control she had over herself melted away. Omega raised her head and began to shriek. “Tom Hart killed him! He will die! I will be satisfied! He will suffer as I have!” The figure in the chair raised it’s arm again, and again the tall man knelt by it.
“You know why we can’t kill her now.” the deep voice resonated in the dark and silent room.
“But-- I could do it just as easily.” Omega fell to a knee. “I would be honored to-”
“If you did it, it would surprise people, they wouldn’t accept it. And you could die. ”
“And Tom?” she hissed. The head beckoned to the mouth again.
“Would you be satisfied if we sent someone to kill him now? Of course you wouldn’t. We’ll save the pretty boy for you to kill all by yourself.” Omega grinned. “But the Blot cannot let this go unpunished.” the mouth smiled. “Don’t you think it’s stupid for the slayer to leave her own mother and little brother alone, with no one to protect them?”
“They could be dispatched by a simple... ki’en.”

Sneakers bouncing off the dark wood of the cellar stairs, Sean did not pause as he spoke.
“Uh, coke. Right. Sure thing, Willow.” Neither Sean nor Willow pretended for a second that he was sent on this errand because Willow wanted a coke. He wasn’t fighting, and he was aware of the fact it was too much to ask those who did to understand his complete lack of social grace on that matter. Standing at the foot of the stairs, he cast his eyes around the room. He had actually forgotten to turn on the light at the head of the stairs, but as he understood it, the Taylor cellar had three rooms, and separate lights for each of them. The vague shadow of a doorway loomed to his right, and he felt around it’s edges for a light switch. There was a click, and a flicker as if of fireflies, then a whisper and the lights came on. Sean froze, hand on the switch, to see if the whisper would repeat.
“...Sean...” the lights flickered off as the word was repeated. He blinked and looked around. It had come from outside the house, and he recognized the voice, but it was too brief for him to tell from where. He stood a moment in the flickering shadows, then, slowly, turned the lights back off.
“...Sean...” the voice repeated, louder, a vague and obvious laughter playing in it, as if the wind could whinny like a horse. It was oddly morbid, and secretive, unusually so, but he was sure of the voice now, and ashamed of not doing so before. As it spoke, the wind blew, and a door across the room opened onto a moonlit scene.
“...Clarice?” he asked, practically silently, moving towards the door. He thought he might of heard water dripping somewhere beyond the cobwebs deep in the crypt-like basement. Suddenly he was filled with a thrill of terror, and wanted nothing more than to be out of there, away from the wet stones and shadows. Reaching the door, he looked beyond as if through the portal to another world entirely. Rather than no light at all, here there was thin, blue light, watering the autumnal colors to almost monochrome, and all rural cliché was laid out before him. A small weathered barn was a distance away, past a tiny, swamplike stream. There was a muddy yard with signs of animal activity, though now all slept. He peered from out of the cold, damp, dark cellar and into the cold, damp, dark farmyard beyond.
There stood Clarice.
A single figure standing on the far side of the stream, long, crinkly black hair folded against her back. She was wearing baggy clothing and a backwards cap. She appeared strangely pale in the moonlight, considering her dusky skin, and stranger, calm. Anyone who had dealt with her before would be far more likely to attach the word ‘hyper’ to her nature. But now she was calm, standing at the edge of a stream.
“Hi, Sean.” Clarice smiled.
“Clarice? What’s going on? You look... different.”
“Really?” she asked. “What’dya mean?”
“I dunno... just...” he shook his head. “I’ve seen some really weird things tonight.”
“Me!” she offered cheerfully. He laughed.
“No, you’re the kind of really weird I like. I mean... a kinda bad weird.”
“But I’m evil.” she grinned. Sean laughed again.
“You’re a good evil.” As he walked further towards her, she made almost no motion.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, taking a few steps out into the moonlight.
“What are you doing here? This is Kat’s house. I’ve been here before. Why are you visiting Kat at this time of night?” Sean tried to find an answer.
“And why didn’t I know you were here? Is there a reason that you wouldn’t want me to know you were visiting Kat?” Sean looked incredibly indignant at this.
“Clarice! Kat’s-- no. I did not mean to come here.”
“You couldn’t help seeing Kat in the middle of the night?”
“It’s- it’s hard to explain.”
“Maybe I should try?”
“I’m not even sure what you think, but it’s not it.” he stared hard at his girlfriend.
“So... do I get to know what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you everything I know, but-” he shook his head. “It sounds ridiculous. I barely believe it.”
“Are there flying monkeys?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Aw... I like flying monkeys.” Clarice smiled. She reached her hand out to him.
“Help me over the stream?” she asked with a smile. The water ran inches across, and was even shallower. Sean blinked a few times, then stepped forward.
“Can’t you do it yourself?” he asked, confused. Clarice shot him a slightly frustrated look.
“You’re a real romantic.” she replied. He almost sputtered and moved forward to correct her, both hands outstretched. She took them and stepped over the water, putting a curious amount of weight in his hands. The pair stood almost toe to toe and began to speak again.
“Clarice, you shouldn’t be out here. There’s- it sounds crazy, but there’s vampires in Lyndebourgho. And Wilton.”
“Vampires?” Clarice laughed, “Do you really believe in vampires, Sean?” He looked uncomfortable, and squeezed her hands, but said nothing. She laughed.
“I’ve seen... some weird things tonight. I don’t think now’s a good time to run around outside.” She smiled at him in a way that made him feel as if he were being incredibly silly about the whole thing. Vampires. Really.
“Hug?” she offered, stretching out her arms. The two embraced contentedly, Clarice’s head snugly on his shoulder. She nuzzled him affectionately, playing with his collar.
Suddenly, there was the thunder of many footsteps, and a cadre of vampire hunters burst into the moonlight, crucifixes blazing. Tom had also acquired a string of garlic from the kitchen, which he promptly flung at the pair. Like an angry cat, Clarice hissed and covered her face.
“Nerd-boy!” shouted Kat.
“Sean, let go and back away from your girlfriend!”
“What-” he sputtered, annoyed, confused, and on a baser level, scared. He flung himself backwards as he suddenly caught sight of his girlfriend’s face. He stopped breathing. Clarice hissed, cat-like, baring her fangs in the moonlight.
“You’re just jealous-” she spat, “Because I am finally stranger than you!” This was directed at Kat, who blinked rapidly.
“Do vampires hiss?” Tom shot at Willow.
“No,” Sean answered, finally aware of himself enough to scuttle backwards. “That’s just Clarice.”
“Strange?” Kat asked, “From what I’ve seen tonight, sucking blood is perfectly normal. Anyway, what difference does it make? You were about to eat Sean!”
“So what?”
“Do I get a say in this?” Sean asked. Both the slayer and the vampire turned their heads to him and snapped, “No, Sean! Shut up!”
“Go on, with your vampire slayering gang, trying to steal my boyfriend.”
“What?” Kat asked incredulously. “Are you mad?”
“Furious!” Clarice snarled.
“You, while living in your alternate universe in which Sean is the prime cut of man-meat on the market, forget the the rest of us are happily in semi-reality, and in love with someone else!” Kat barked. Tom craned his neck back, incredulous.
“You’re in love? With who?” Tom asked. Kat was not the first one to shoot a look of disbelief at Tom. Kat shook her head and stalked towards Clarice. “Clarice--I’m your friend-- we can have stupid fights and everything, just don’t try to kill off my species-” Clarice hissed again and tore up the edge of the stream until she passed it’s source, and from there ran to the woods.
“Git.” Willow snarled. “You just had to help her over the running water, didn’t you?”

Fourteen
Alysa

At either side of the large double doors, a man in a light grey sweater with a dark band across the chest and biceps stood, sedate with boredom. Across the field, a dark, scrawny boy ran as if he was clambering over large rocks, limbs flailing.
“That’s Damian, isn’t it?” asked the vampire on the left.
“Ye-up.” muttered his partner in a thick woodland accent.
“Sure is ru’ing fast, isn’t he?”
“Ye-up. Not much blood on him, either.”
“Piss scared. Don’t figure he kelled her, do ya?”
“Naw. He’s in for some real s**t when they find out.”
“Sure is. Piss scared, ain’t he?”
“Ye-up. Probably ran into the slayers.”
“Bet that boy almost kelled him.”
“Thought they were all girls.”
“Naw, that one with the black hair was a boy.”
“Really? I never got close.”
“Ye-up.”
“The head’s probably gonna eat his heart. Already havin’ ki’ens about the whole slayer thing.”
“Ye-up.” At this point the boy reached the pair, fangs out and panting.
“Move your ********-” he wheezed.
“You know what’ll happen if you talk like that inside, kid.”
“******** you, I’m a ******** general. I could have you both killed.” he gasped, pulling himself erect. “Shitfags.” The two rolled their eyes and each door half of the double door.
“Damian Rivers, twelevemonth.” the vampire on the left shouted, pushing back his half of the door.
=^-,-^=This probably is not as funny to other people as it is to me. But two hick vampires standing in front of a barn and going, “Ye-up.”? Tell me that’s not comedy!

There was no point in worrying about Tom. Tom would handle Tom’s own business without even realizing that Kat was watching, trying to find a place to dive in and help, when no help was needed and interference might be harmful. It wasn’t even that there was someone who needed her help.
Alysa might have needed her help, and she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. She was distracted by something very shiny. This shiny thing happened into be attached to Tom’s head.
Kat racked her brain for the last time at which she had seen her friend. Nothing came to her for a moment, and then she remembered. Wait, wait wait! Not today, but the day before. I think. Or the day before that. It was in between classes, and she’d said something... what was it... Kat covered her eyes to block out all stimulus, everything that wasn’t the image of her friend that day. Laughing about something. I know I was listening, but the light in the school halls, the windows few and far between, it’s like another world, staring into a rippled pool at a young woman carrying nearly her weight in books who for all I know never existed. But not today. She was out today. I don’t know why.
Considering what had been occurring, there was really only one thing that one could honestly believe. That what had happened to so many times before that night alone. If they had come to Janice’s home, then that is how they worked. If they went to Janice’s home, and attacked her sister, and prepared to eat her, only saved by the fact that particular vampire came just as the slayers were passing, and that one slayer was staring out the window to avoid looking at the hunter in the car with her. Though Kat’s social awkwardness had been enough to rescue one of her friends, she had been utterly oblivious, as usual.
But there. No Alysa. Complete lack of her. The kind that happens when vampires kill people.
The last remnants of yet another group of children who called themselves the three musketeers clutched at Kat’s mind in the night, the competent victim, the lost slayer and an unannounced void which was Alysa.

Damian shook himself off hotly, clearly annoyed with everything around him, the robes and blackness, and the chair at the end of a long path of robed figures. The large robed man was sitting on the ground beside the chair, and the figure in it was lying languidly across it, it’s hooded face just behind that of the large man. There was a faint murmur for half of a second, then the Mouth began to speak to Damian in condescending tones.
“Why is it that I have the bizarre idea that Janice Smith is not dead?” the Mouth recited. “I know that you would never disobey me, much less come to speak with me you hadn’t done just as I asked. You’ve been given a very great amount of respect in a short amount of time, because I know for a fact that you wouldn’t possibly come back from an assignment to kill someone if they were still alive, and there you are. If for some reason you couldn’t kill a helpless little girl, surely you’d die trying, for fear of disappointing me. Because you are here, I know she must be dead, but for some reason I have the suspicion that Janice is alive.”
“She ******** had half a monastery in her room, man! I have the virgin Mary branded into my a** because of that b***h!” ranted Damian, “She was hot, though. I’d throw it in her.”
His leader looked sardonically at him.
“Well, I would have killed her first.” he defended.
“Damian, you sick ********.” muttered the head vampire’s assistant.
“That is it, then? The girl fought back, and you ran.”
“Hey, hey, she was almost dead when the slayers got there.”
“The slayers?” the mouth needed no prompt there.
“Hey, I was out armed and outnumbered. Besides, we can kill them real easy anyway, I just work better in a one-on-one setting.”
“How shall we handle this threat now, my liege?” asked a robed figure in the row to the right. The figure in the chair turned quickly to the one that had spoken, and raised their covered hand to summon their speaker.
“The doubt in your voice sounds as if you do not believe me to have a plan at all. Damian, make yourself useful and prove that you are still capable of murder.”
“’Kay.” the stringy vampire grinned, turning towards the second. The other robed figures stepped away from the one who had spoken, and men in sweaters blocked off the one’s exit. One of them had a scythe in their hands which they threw to Damian.
He caught it with a fanged grin, and raised it like a pickax before the robed figure. The vampire screamed before blood splattered the small boy.
“Get up, you ********’ pansy, it’s not like I’ve killed you yet.”

The three teenagers entered the room at about the same time, though Kat was coming from outside. Willow started as she opened the door.
“It’s okay.” Travis muttered, “If she was a vampire, she wouldn’t be able to do that.”
“So, does any of this change the plan we had before?” Travis asked.
“Tom told me what I assume is most of what’s going on.” Janice began. “Personally, I think you should get one of those dumb ATVs people have been screeching down the roads with and crash it into the side of the barn.”
“Where would we get an ATV?” Willow asked.
“This is why it is not a plan.” Janice shrugged. She threw a look at Travis. “Put her in my car.” He slammed his fist into his chest and nodded.
“Hai.” he answered, lifting the small form and carrying her outside.
“Understand, Janice, you have two very important jobs.” Willow began, holding the door open for the full procession. “First, get your sister into a hospital, just say you don’t know what got at her, it’ll speed things up.”
“But I do know.”
“But if you tell them she was attacked by vampires, you’ll probably get committed, and that’s just one more thing to deal with.” Willow explained, “Kat--” She fell short on her attempt to send her sister with the other girl.
“That’s a gun.” the blond slayer noted dully.
“Yes, and that’s a sword.” Janice mentioned, swinging herself into a car. “I armed them. I think I might have left the arms cabinet open, if you need-”
“If we needed guns, we’ve had brought our own.” Willow replied coldly.
“If this is all I can do for the war effort, and if you think I’m not gonna do it...” Janice shrugged, closing the door. “Your stupidity is not my problem.” Willow looked incredibly dubious.
“But Kat can barely handle the kick on her crossbow!” she protested. “I’ve seen her with guns!”
“That’s why it’s a twenty two.” Janice explained. Willow sighed. “Automatic.”
“You’ll note I’ve got nothing against Tom with a bigger sword.” She turned to the others. “Get in the car, guys. The plan still stands. And you-” She turned her body back to Janice.
“Janice, get someone.” Willow commanded. “Get in that car, start driving, and don’t stop until you find someone who believes you.”
“Always remember, Janice, there is nothing faster than a catholic schoolgirl in her pajamas.” The party slowly looked at Tom, as if to check that they’d heard right.
“Sorry. I think what I was saying and what I was thinking mated in the middle.”
“I think it’s time to teach Tom about the handslap game.” Kat muttered to Janice.
“Wicked.” Janice grinned, starting the car.