Under a blood red sky

Buffy wasn't being avoid-y in regards to the Hellmouth in York. Really. The fact that she knew a particular bleached blond vampire had taken to haunting it had nothing to do with her refusal to leave sunny Southern California for the much more frigid and temperamental temperatures of Pennsylvania. Dawn and Giles had both insisted on staying mum on the topic of Spike, which was irritating, but she'd had her own fires to put out back in Sunnydale. She trusted her watcher to tell her if there was something that needed her immediate attention.

Of course, she'd gotten the scare of her life when she'd received the call about Giles a few months back. She hadn't been able to work up the nerve to go visit him in the hospital. Not right away. There was a part of her that was terrified of losing the only stable father figure she had in her life. She'd already lost her mother, and the thought of losing Giles...

Well, it had hurt enough when he'd left for England. Which meant that it had been easier to simply carry on as though he was still in England and not lying in a hospital bed in Pennsylvania.

Of course she could only carry that on for so long before a slight lull in the action in Sunnydale reminded her that she had other places to be and other people to watch out for. She would have to face the now-fully recovered Giles and apologize for not visiting while he was in the hospital. Or worse, she would face him and he would be too British and Giles-y to call her out on her desertion. And she would have to check on her sister and make sure Dawn was okay. She would also have to make sure that her ex-whatever she could call Spike-wasn't secretly plotting to add to the problems at this Hellmouth.

Right now, though, she simply needed to get past the vampires that had greeted her almost as soon as she'd got off the bus into town. The vamps seemed extra-hyped up. Possibly from some leftover Hellmouth energy. From what she'd heard, this one had been especially active lately.

Buffy slammed her fist into one of the nearby vampires and then pulled out a stake.

"This is your welcome wagon? I was at least hoping for a basket of muffins or whatever your local delicacy is."

Things were sort of back to normal for Jo. At least as normal as they might ever be. If one counted having to wear an amulet to keep demons out of your head, having a screwed-up and confusing relationship with your boyfriend, having now met two daughters from your future, one of whom was missing as normal, then sure, things were just fine and dandy.

Jo needed the distraction. And she was starting to think that she needed to get her own place too. At the very least, she needed to do something so that if she and Dean were staying together, it was a choice that they both made instead of him feeling obligated to care for her.

Which was why she'd gone to beg for her old job back. She had apologized profusely and promised to work all of the crappy shifts and was now wearing an apron and waiting for customers. Unfortunately, Tuesday nights were usually dead as a doornail. So she put a song on the jukebox and then started to clean the bar countertop yet again.

She sang softly under her breath along with the words to 'American Pie' as she worked.

Mary had found and rescued her mother, but she was still stuck in the past with no sign of Ellen. Having her parents and her uncle around should have made her feel less alone, but somehow it just made the loneliness that much worse to know her mother was so close and not be able to seek out the comfort of her mom's arms. Or having her dad at her side while she went hunting. Or even having the listening ear of her Uncle Sam. Instead, she was simply trying to figure out how to navigate her relationships with the people she'd cared about most back home.

It was worse not knowing how long she'd be stuck here or even having some sort of lead on Ellen. Right now they had a whole lot of nothing and Mary was getting frustrated and restless.

She'd taken a room at the Phoenix, of course. She was closer to her parents and it was just the type of place that she was used to for when she was hunting.

She was currently at a loss for what else to do, which meant getting ice to go with the bottle of Jack that she had back in her room.

Phaedra thought that, after three hundred years mostly alone, she could return to her state of solitude and being thought of as nothing more than a killer with some degree of ease.

She was wrong.

Harry and Lindsey were gone. Gone somewhere she could not even feel their minds, and she didn't like that. It likely meant dead.

She had cried, briefly. Violently sobbed, more like. And she'd broken several things in what had been Harry's house. A door was ripped off the hinges in her rage, upstairs, and the bathroom mirror was shattered.

She'd gone to Lindsey's motel room and had been sleeping there during the days, not allowing the maid to change the sheets on the bed. They smelled like him. She didn't touch anything. Some of his things were still there. She'd taken to wearing a discarded flannel shirt. A cowboy hat was on the bedside table.

She couldn't feel Saerian, either, but was counting her blessings for that, in the moments when she didn't feel gutted.

Tonight, Phaedra was leaving Lindsey's and returning to Harry's, walking at a human pace the entire distance. She was going to check her messages with the firm. Halfway there, a giant wall of a demon jumped out in front of her, clearly looking for a fight. Feral.

When Phaedra heard the footsteps approaching, she was silently flaying it alive, her face utterly cold. Gone.

It had been a few days since Jo had lost control of her mind again. Those in the driver's seat had used her body to spirit several people away. It was easy to use her trustworthy face to escort potential victims to their doom.

Everything was in place now for the ritual to open the gate. There was just one key component needed. The other sacrifice.

The blood of one ripped out of Heaven by demons and one rescued from Hell by angels would serve as perfect counterbalances to each other and would rip that gate wide open, unleashing Hell on the town of York and the world.

The cell phone that had been turned off for the last few days was now turned on. Jo's fingers dialed the number that would get exactly what they needed and waited for an answer.

So there were changes going on around town and Faith wasn't sure if she liked that or not. She heard through the grapevine that people had disappeared. In her experience that could mean a couple of different things.

One, people got tired of town and all the Hellmouth shit going on and had hit the ground running. Always a possibility but not really the option Faith was going with for what probably happened.

Two, bad shit was coming and the universe, or the bad guys, were rearranging and stacking the deck to make sure whatever happened blew up the most crap as possible.

Faith was going with it was probably some variation of option number two. It wasn't just that she was a pessimist. It was a lot of experience in being around when shit blew up and it was all hands on deck. She'd done it from both sides of the line after all.

Just thinking about it left her rubbing the scar left by the knife in her gut back in Sunnydale. Something bad was coming if she was right and she wanted to be ready for it. Faith needed to check in and see if Dean was still around along with his blonde hunter girlfriend. She trusted him at her back, and she needed to check in and see what other players were left in town.

For now that meant hanging around near the lobby of her hotel and seeing who came and went. If anyone was looking for her they'd start there and she wanted to see them coming.

He'd tried for a long time to get Cas to show. But when the normal screaming and talking to himself didn't work, Dean didn't get the feeling it was because the angel was giving him the cold shoulder.

He thought it was because Cas was gone, too.

Dean tried to call Harry, bout something in that file Phaedra'd given him. He knew about how phones tended to up and fry around the wizard, but he still tried. Eventually, on the 65th try or so, Phaedra answered.

And she told him that Harry... Harry was gone. What was worse? She said she couldn't *feel* him anywhere. Creepy as it was, Dean knew she could hear people's thoughts. And that not feeling Harry meant he was pretty much gone. He didn't ask the vampire about the range of her ability. He wanted to, but something in her voice sounded wrong. He could handle her sounding hard, or scary, or even outright nice at this point.

She sounded broken.

He hung up and called Sam, left a message, and restrained himself from calling his brother 65 times, just barely.

Then he called Bobby. Bobby had no answers, hadn't even heard of anything new going on in York. But he'd look into it.

He was headed back to the Phoenix when he left Jo a message, and with a dull thud in his stomach, Dean realized that he hadn't seen Ellen in a while, either. He knocked on her door, and when there was no answer, he picked the lock. Her stuff was all still there. The bed was unmade. She wasn't there. Looked like she'd been there, recently. He looked around the room, not touching anything, then closed and locked the door.

He couldn't handle this. Harry was gone, and Ellen? What the hell?

He made a second, half-hysterical call to Bobby before ducking into the motel office to talk to somebody about where the pretty blond who was staying in that room might've gone to.

God help the clerk.

"No!"

The TARDIS's computer did not say the correct lattitude and longitude. Not even close. What was this, the United States?

"No. No. NO, that's not what... London. I wanted London! Pick up Rose!"

The numbers on the screen continued to shift and change, and the Doctor furrowed his eyebrows. Just once he'd like the TARDIS to cooperate, just a little. (He didn't know it, not yet, but she always took him where he was needed. And he'd never considered that.) This was like that time not too long ago where he tried to bring Rose back to London 12 hours after her leaving, only to bring her back 12 months later. He touched his face where Jackie Tyler had slapped him, remembering.

"Alright, fine. Don't listen to me. Landing then, yes?"

He manipulated the levers and buttons, the familiar whine of the landing sequence beginning. Once the TARDIS was on the ground, the Doctor's nostrils flared. He scanned the screen in the command center for information on where the hell he'd ended up.

York, Pennsylvania. Something must've gotten bollocksed with the commands he'd given the TARDIS. He'd punched in York recently because of some suspicious activity, but he'd meant to pick up Rose and see if she wanted to come with. Stupid thing. He sighed, and shrugged. And then he stood up and went to the door.

"York, Pennsylvania. United States," he said to no one in particular. "Where did everyone go?"

He opened the door, and stepped out of the TARDIS, ready to find the answer. It had landed just outside the gate on Trout Run Road.

Since being brought back to life in York, Jo had hunted all manner of creatures. There had been a lot of things that went bump in the night to keep her busy.

With all that said, in Jo's experience it was always the humans gone nuts that were the scariest. For one, they were never rational. Monsters behaved in set patterns. In specific ways. There were humans that would do things so depraved that were beyond imagination. And worse than the unpredictability, humans were supposed to be better than that.

Which was why she was caught as offguard as the cashier behind the counter when the Bonnie and Clyde wannabes that had entered the all-night grocery store pulled out their guns and started threatening people to get the cashier to empty the drawers.

Jo had done her best to stay out of sight and had tried to sneak up on the pair in an attempt to help out to make sure no one got hurt. Instead, she'd been spotted and shot. She was able to duck out of the way so that the bullet struck her upper arm instead of her heart, but all the same she was not in any shape to do anything else as she kept her head low and tried to rush through the aisles, her hand clamped over the gushing bullet hole.

The couple was now a little more frantic as the woman kept her gun trained on the cashier, barking orders and the man started to chase after Jo. Jo's mind raced, trying to find a way to get out of the situation and make sure no one else got hurt, but she was coming up blank at the moment.

Sometimes being a hunter was a thankless job.

Who was she kidding? Most days, really.

But some days were worse than others. Like the days when a person was left holding a gun over a downed skinwalker who simply looked human. Which would have been fine if she'd been able to make a hasty exit.

No, instead, the skinwalker was lying in a back alley behind one of the businesses in town. Unfortunately for her, she apparently wasn't alone. Jo heard a car pull up and then footsteps in the alley.

Shit.

She looked around frantically and tried to find somewhere to stash the gun that she in no way had a permit for. Meanwhile, she tried to come up with a cover excuse for why she was standing over a dead body with blood on her pants.

The sound of the motorcycle broke through the sleepy quiet of the little town. Engine roaring as he downshifted and pulled up to a four way stop. He was unused to the streets being so quiet, and it unnerved him. He didn't believe for one moment that any place was truly this peaceful. Yet, here he was seeing what his mind didn't want to believe. Practically empty sidewalks, lights on in only a few windows.

He had been drawn here. Pulled away from Electric City and the crime. Away from his life and who he had once been. Something in his soul told him that there was a great evil here, but his mind was clearly not working on the same wavelength as his instincts. York seemed to him to be a more peaceful than average Eastern town. Nothing standing out to the naked eye.

Johnny had been spending more time with his gut feelings lately, though. Learning to trust them a little bit more. Which is why he'd come, despite finding nothing extraordinary when he did some research. A few odd happenings, but if one really spent the time, that could be found anywhere. Any where at any time. So why the urge? Why the irresistible draw?

He revved the engine of the bike, looking each way at the stop. Trying to determine which way he should go now. What he should be doing first.

The black bandanna round his face was pulled down, and he set his hat in his lap a moment while he thought. Even in Electric City, he'd done this fairly commonly. Not caring about who might see or recognize him. It had yet to be a problem. He doubted that in York it would prove to be more of an issue.

Johnny supposed that first things first, he should find himself a place to stay. Replacing both hat and bandanna, the engine roared to life once more, and he began to cruise for lodging.

It was Ash Wednesday, and Anita was out for her late morning run. She'd actually gotten up early, and gone to a Wednesday morning service--and maybe it was shallow of her, but it made her feel good to have gotten in the habit of going to Church again, on the days she wasn't actively working a case. Sometimes that was Wednesdays, sometimes Sundays, and sometimes she still had to skip, but it was nice to have at least some semblance of normalcy in her otherwise crazy life.

She'd wound up being in York longer than she'd originally expected, but she was starting to fall into a routine. Calling to check in with her people back in St. Louis a couple times a week, going in to the station to work with Murphy. Visiting Justine and Thomas. Having random dinners with Edward to compare notes. Etc, etc.

She had to remind herself, as she kept an eye out on her surroundings while she ran, not to grow complacent in the routine. Life may go on as usual, to a certain extent, but there were still greater forces at work than just the daily grind. Which reminded her, she was probably due to check in with the local spook squad again soon, to see if any new leads had turned up.

She'd finish her lap around the park, and then head back to the suite to do just that.

With Murphy so angry with Harry because of her Molly didn't feel comfortable going back to the apartment, or even going for lessons anymore. It meant scraping for herself again, but this really wasn't the first time Molly has done that. Let's face it, in the past two years she has spent more time on the streets than off. Surviving like that was more familiar than not. She'd waited until she was certain that Murphy had gone out before sneaking back in to get some of her supplies. She kept the key...just in case. Plus she didn't want Murphy to know she'd left for good, and honestly her mind wasn't entirely sold on being gone for good.

She wished Bill were around. He seemed to have this way of pointing something out that made sense and should have been obvious but wasn't until he pointed it out. Stupid reasonable vampire. Sam was a big help, but she didn't want to impose on him too much since he had troubles of his own. Money wasn't getting too low yet since she'd been stashing it away all this time she'd been living with Murphy, just in case she needed it. She needed it now.

She was back to looking a bit rougher around the edges. Living in the elements didn't exactly leave you looking soft and pampered. She knew it so she was keeping on the edges of public life because of that, and not wanting to be seen by anyone looking for her. She took to haunting the back streets, alleys and the woods on the edge of town. Those areas were becoming safer though because of her presence since she took it upon herself to rid them of whatever nasty, creepy crawly from the gates took up residence.

She was about to start her rounds for the night, and had gotten a big bowl of soup to go and a large cup of coffee from the diner to charge her batteries. There was a drainage pipe that used to dump into a small river bed, but it wasn't used anymore from the looks of it. It made a good hidey hole for her so she went back there to eat, sitting on top of it and looking out at the neighborhood a few yards away. It definitely wasn't the Gold Coast by any stretch of the imagination, but that suited her just fine. No one really noticed her coming and going, nor cared if they did. And it was still better than Undertown.

Rhubarb. Where the fuck was he supposed to find fresh rhubarb and ginger at this time of year? Granted he had his suspicions as to why Justine was sending him on the wild goose chase of the year on this particular day but he didn't really have anything else to do. That meant getting in his glorious gas hog of a vehicle (and hoping today didn't actually involve running things over with it) and heading for larger stores to get what Justine wanted.

It took him until about five at night and several texts about was she SURE that was what she needed to get home.

It wasn't like Justine cooked after all so this had to be a diversionary tactic.

Sam's conversation with Molly had gotten him to thinking. He'd told her that not even the devil himself could make him abandon his family, or friends, and as he'd said it, he realized there was something that he needed to do, in order to make good on his word. To make sure that he didn't let anything drive a wedge between himself, and his brother.

So he sat down with his phone that morning, and tried to compose some kind of message, to let Dean know that he was ready to face the world again. He wasn't totally healed yet, mentally or emotionally, but he knew the only way to continue healing was to get out of his head and back into the saddle--so to speak.

Just a few quick words. He knew Dean wasn't one for big, sentimental speeches.

Got any jobs for me? I'm ready to get back to work.

He'd sent the text, then shot off a quick one to Molly, as well:

What's the word?

Then he tucked his phone into his pocket, and headed out for a run. Maybe he'd pick up a paper, or some 'gossip' at the local diner when he stopped for his mid-morning caffeine fix. If not, maybe he'd head back to bother Dean and Jo, anyway.

She had done enough getting out by herself and had done enough brooding. Jo was ready to talk to someone. Or at least, someone who wasn't Dean. She wasn't sure how much, if anything, she would tell Molly. But some company would be awfully nice.

So she'd called the young wizard and asked to meet up for ice cream.

Ice cream always made everything better.

Or at least, that was what Jo was hoping for.

Cavan didn't often return to the scene of his murders if they were outside of a few special places. But it had been a while since he'd seen his would-be-friend, and the last time they'd been together it had been in the cemetery. He was also a little curious to see if the blood stains still remained on the tomb, or if they had done something to get them off.

It had been night the last time he'd been here, so it was easy to find where he'd killed the stranger. Cavan removed a flashlight from his bag that he'd bought specifically for this and clicked it on. The blood had seeped deep into the concrete, and while it seemed that somebody had spent some time scrubbing, he could still see the almost black red in the cracks and deep in the pits. He rubbed a hand almost lovingly over the top.

His flashlight beam played over the expanse of the tomb and then he lifted it briefly in the direction that the man's head had gone when Hearth had removed it. Of course that would be gone by now. They'd likely found it, and even if they hadn't, critters would have dragged it off. He'd forgotten to look in the paper the next day to see what had been printed, if anything. There had been a lot of distraction the rest of the night and the following couple of days, due to the nature of his meeting and the potential it had brought into his life.

He returned the beam to the tomb, bending low to see if he could smell the blood, though he knew he wouldn't be able to. His nose was merely human, and there had been weather between then and now. But he could still fantasize that he could, and he knew the scent of old blood well enough to bring it up with memory.

The past always comes back to haunt you. Always. In Molly's case it never really leaves her alone, but she thought the extent of the haunting stopped at the nightmares, paranoia and insomnia. Wrong. The decision to alter Harry's memories after he had hired Kincaid to kill him came back with a vengeance. Kincaid was in town apparently, and had told Murphy the truth. Murphy, who then confronted Molly about her involvement in it. Understandably, Murphy was upset. VERY upset. But now so was Molly.

She'd left the apartment as quickly and as quietly as she could, even to the point of putting her boots on outside, sitting on the steps to the apartment building. Then she'd ran as fast as she could in a random direction. She didn't care where she was going, she just wanted away. Her mind raced over that night in the office in St. Mary's. Harry's back was broken. His daughter a hostage of the Red Court, and him desperate to get her back. Molly loved Harry. She has for a long while now and not just because he saved her skin. She'd have done anything to help him...and did, even though it could have and possibly still could mean that Doom fell down on her from the Wardens.

She didn't notice the tears that streaked her face until she finally stopped running, breathless from crying and her exertions. A doorstep looked inviting for some reason and she sat down, letting her face fall against her arms with her hands wrapping around her head as she cried, shaking with upset and the cold. She didn't notice the number to the motel room on the door at her back let alone realize why it would have been familiar to her.

It had taken some time, but Phaedra finally got to Germany.

Given what had happened with the dreams, and with Kincaid... she couldn't put it off anymore. She'd made sure Harry'd be alright for a few days, and had just checked on Lindsey when she left. Phaedra herself had never had what some vampires called the Cloud Gift, or the ability to fly... but she did know a wizard who had access to the Nevernever, and ways to and from places that took just minutes.

She checked the address on the slip of paper in her hand as she stepped onto the street where the last living, breathing member of her tribe lived.

It wasn't difficult to find the apartment, which, from the outside, looked decently large. Gathering together all of her emotions and questions, she rang the bell and waited, standing in the glow of a streetlight.

Life was apparently never boring on the Hellmouth. Jo had barely had time to think since she'd arrived here a few months ago. She was burnt out and there was a hell of a lot to think about.

Or to take a break from thinking about as the case might very well be. She really just needed to get out. And not to kill monsters, since that particular attempt at distraction hadn't gone all that well before.

Which was how Jo ended up in the back aisle of a movie theater, waiting for the start of a movie that was tied in with some sort of toy or comic book franchise. She couldn't remember which, but she had happily panned over the horror and romantic comedy offerings at the theater and this was what was left.

Now she just had to hope that Murphy's law didn't interfere with her plans for a night off.