Under a blood red sky

Molly was feeling better. Staying with Murphy was helping and forcing herself to go outside for lessons at Harry's did even more. She hadn't really seen anyone other than them, and she knew she should probably go talk to Jo and apologize to Dean. They had been nice to her and she bit Dean's head off. They already probably thought she was crazy. She didn't really want them to think she was a mega-bitch on top of it. She was working up to the idea of finding them though, not really wanting to go into the bar Jo worked at just yet.

For now she'd given herself a homework assignment. It was something she could do that would get her out of the apartment but keep her mind occupied and focused. She figured there had to be a reason these gates and Hellmouth were in York. Something that happened that put them there. Maybe if they found out what if anything had happened they could figure out how to shut them down. So off to Kruets Creek Valley Library she went.

The old lady that worked there gave Molly a critical look and a disdainful sniff for how she looked. Molly just smiled pleasantly in return and asked for the local history section. The librarian apparently didn't expect that but sniffed again and pointed Molly in the right direction. Being the cheeky thing that she was Molly waved cheerfully to the lady then didn't quite skip for her destination.

She knew what she was looking for and found it pretty straight away. Any actual book written about the town would be flavored by the author, publishers and editors. She went directly for the bound newspaper clippings. Pacing down the aisle she decided the best place to start was at the beginning so she found the first heavy binding of pages that were laminated for protection, hefted it from the shelf then went to find a table she could occupy to leaf through the articles.

Harth couldn't help but notice the waitress was getting all over the floor.

Granted, the vampire was well aware this was due in large part to the fact that he had pinned her to the counter of the restaurant with steak knives.

Since his first night in York, Harth had been largely bored with his surroundings. His initial assumption that the massacring of the not-so-great Rupert Giles would bring him followers en mass had turned out to be ill-placed. The only demons Harth had encountered thus far were low-level scum that he wouldn't even employ to attack a janitor, let alone the universe. Sitting at the gates of Hell without a single enthusiastic follower to help him break them open was horribly frustrating.

Harth had wandered into the diner for something to do, not surprised by the fact that besides the staff, it was completely vacant. York was no Haddyn, where activity bustled at all hours of the day. It was a small, uninteresting town that just happened to hold a very important secret. That said, it also meant that the locals weren't usually up when Harth was wandering the streets.

The waitress had been friendly enough, he supposed. She did offer him coffee and told him the "specials." She also didn't scream too horribly much when he was slamming steak knives into her extremities, and he knew those little serrated parts on the blade had to hurt.

Harth held a mug under the woman's dripping body, collecting enough blood in the cup to make an adequate yield to sip on. The place was quiet, save for the slight sound of sizzling from the head of the fry cook that Harth had left on the grill.

Sitting at the counter, the vampire took a few leisurely gulps from his cup. He had to admit, he kind of liked diners.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Harth's peace was interrupted with the sound of the bell above the diner door jangling. Without turning his head to look at the new entrant, the vampire gave a small smile.

"We're closed."

It had been easier than he'd thought to get the Queen's permission to come here. To explore on the caveat that he report back to her everything that he saw and did. She knew as well as he did that once he was outside of her territory, he would do as he pleased, but there wasn't much that she could do about it. She would wait for her information, and he would feed her what little he could and still get by with. He needed to be able to stay as long as possible, and if she got too much too quickly, she might think that the end of it. Call him back. He could disobey to some extent, but in the end, she was still his Queen. There were still politics.

Almost immediately upon his arrival, Eric knew that there was something much bigger going on in this place than he'd imagined. It felt different than any other place he'd ever been in his life. His entire life. It was as if this place crawled over his skin, tugged at him and pushed at him at the same time.

Yet it all looked so absurdly normal. To the point of boring.

Eric looked at the sky, at the moon, he'd seen York from overhead only moments ago. It had not looked any more significant from up there. Now, at street level, Eric was looking for signs of life, and starting to suspect that everybody who lived here went inside as soon as it got dark. He didn't think he'd seen a place so abandoned at night since the middle ages.

Godric had always loved libraries.

There was something about the timelessness of books, an antiquated comfort for intellectuals and weary hearts the world round. He recognized, of course, the absurdity in this false nostalgia. Most of the books in any of the libraries he had visited were centuries younger than the vampire himself. Indeed, even the stacks of Alexandria seemed like fresh print in comparison to the young-faced ancient.

Yet, despite this, there was something calming about libraries that Godric had always appreciated.

After several fruitless searches for Harry, Godric had made his way to York's meager public library to consider the information at hand. The body carving he found on Giles was certainly prophetic, the old script it was written in suggested as such. However, it was no prophesy with which he was familiar. Furthermore, after contacting the Authority, most of the ruling vampiric bodies were drawing a similar blank.

He supposed he could reach out to some of the other vampire elders that had come to town and seek their counsel, but he was yet uncertain if that would be a wise decision. Although they had yet to run into each other since arriving in the sleepy Pennsylvania village, he had heard through his sources that several of Akasha's line were also present. While they shared the rare trait of his immense age, Godric was always reticent to mingle with the other vampire lines until he was clear of their intent.

Wandering the aisles, Godric casually traced a finger along the spines of the dusty tomes, feeling a kinship with those forgotten amongst the rows.

Emerging into an island of study tables, Godric was about to loop back into the books when he happened to glance a page over the shoulder of a young man, vehemently pouring over the text.

Godric raised an eyebrow in curiousity.

Wizard lore.

It seemed more than a coincidence. Godric decided to take a chance.

"I couldn't help but notice you're looking up wizards. Personally, the Half Blood Prince is a better read. What a delightful woman."