Under a blood red sky

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.

There was a nest of vampires on the outskirts of town. Jo knew this because people had started to go missing. Some of them turned up, drained of blood. That, and there were a lot of nasty rumors flying around.

She wanted to find Ellen. Wanted to talk to her, but she was still working up the nerve to do so. How did you say to someone "Hey, I just found out that I'm your Mom."

For that matter, what did you say to someone when in that situation?

So, hunting vampires. Great distraction. Jo had already gotten some dead man's blood from the funeral home. The syringes were capped and in her pocket ready to go. She also had a rifle and her silver knife. Neither would do a whole lot of good beyond slowing them down, but they were both sort of her security blanket.

Armed and ready for a fight, she slipped up to the warehouse where she suspected the vampires were hiding out and keeping their victims.

That whole dream thing had been screwed up. Slayer dreams were always weird things but Faith's were just a little bit more weird than most.

And now that she'd shared a dream and kicked a bunny for the goal she was spending the next day drinking and being surly. Some girl who was 'sort of' a slayer said she was famous. Well she knew B was still all in one piece since she'd checked so she had no idea how there could be yet ANOTHER slayer.

But she'd told her in the dream where she was staying so Faith hoped she came to explain at some point.

After screwed up dreams, and Phaedra being taken off the job, Lindsey was in need of a damn drink. He didn't know how long it would take for Phaedra's replacement to get to town, but he wasn't going to sit around and wait to die. Given the choice, he'd be getting the hell outta Dodge already. But he couldn't leave Phaedra, even if he wanted to. Saerian would kill him if he left town, this assassin would kill him if he didn't. It was all kinds of fun, being him right now.

So here he was in the bar, again, nursing a beer and trying not to brood.

Cavan had been a busy boy. Since his night with the vampire - Cavan was sure now that's what he was - he had done as planned. Ruined the safety of the daylight hours with horrors normally only seen during the night. He hadn't restricted himself, of course, but he'd been sure to place more of his focus on destroying the peace of one more.

He made sure to start early, so that when found, his corpses would be obviously fresh. There was a certain joy in his work that hadn't been there before. Something new. Maybe just knowing that the people of this town wouldn't feel safe anywhere, at any time, because of him and his new... playmate.

To make sure that things were extra gruesome, Cavan had taken apart a couple of his victims and left them in pieces in various points, very obviously. Nothing hidden. Which meant he'd had to be extra careful with trace evidence. It would not due to draw attention to himself. It wouldn't help the plan work. He was careful anyway, making his clean up just a little bit tedious, but he didn't want a single mistake. He wanted to see this through to the end. See how far it would go. See this thing that he'd been told about.

Today he was watching. Trying to find a new victim for tomorrow. That was one thing that he had not given up. The way he did things. The following, the knowing. The trinket he rewarded to himself at the end. The two deaths he'd created on the night this had all started had left him feeling itchy and irritable. He didn't like that. He liked feeling happy when it was over, complete maybe. Satisfied. Unless forced, he didn't plan on doing a slapdash job ever again.

The bus stop wasn't exactly hopping at this hour. It was good news, and bad. Luckily, Cavan had a book with him. He'd picked it up at a convenience store on his way here, to blend better. The book was absurd, something about sparkly vampires, he was pretty sure he was going to set it on fire as soon as he didn't need it anymore. Maybe before then.

Christmas was coming. Molly could feel it in the little warning throbs of pain in her head. They weren't bad yet, but with every carol that she heard, every decorated tree in a window, every fat flake of snow that drifted on the wind around her added a thump to the inside of her skull. The bad days would come the closer they got to the holiday. She was preparing for the worst.

She tried to hide it from Harry and Murphy whenever she was around them. It was easier at Harry's since she had whatever project or puzzle her mentor would give her. Her studies were distracting from the things that upset her. They helped. Back at the apartment was a different story. She didn't have as many distractions. Murphy would talk to her, make sure she ate and tried to sleep, but it wasn't the same as trying to decipher runes, Old English or Sanskrit.

Then there was this evening. It was still early but the sun had gone down thanks to the approaching solstice. It wasn't full dark, but dark enough to border on creepy in places. Molly had wanted some Christmas cookies so took a detour on her way home from Harry's to grab something at the grocery store. She ended up with eggnog and milk along with a couple of boxes of different cookies, learning the eternal lesson of shoppers everywhere who intend on going in for just one thing and ending up with a whole mag of stuff. Goody.

Stepping out into the cold she hitched her coat higher on her shoulders and bundled it as much as she could in the front. Something throbbed inside her head and she cringed with a grimace. That had been different than the usual headaches and it made her glance around herself. All she saw, however, was a little old man ringing his little bell beside a Salvation Army bucket. She glowered but he wasn't looking at her and she didn't get anything from him...until he turned a smile to her.

"Merry Christmas!" His smile didn't change but to Molly it seemed a bit more menacing and each ding-a-ling of his bell seemed to resound inside her head. She frowned a bit more and started off away from the store at a faster walk than she had originally intended.

Faith was never the sort to sit around one place for too long. The only real exception to that had been her time in prison but that was sort of the whole point to prison wasn't it? So one day when the frustration and boredom got too much Faith snagged someone's keys in a bar fight and took off to look for more action.

One town with a nest of bumpy faced blood suckers later Faith roared back into town on a stolen bike. Her hair flying behind her and her face and hands totally numb in the cold air she laughed as she opened it up to make it feel like she was flying.

For now the huge fight and the ride had her in a good mood. Faith wasn't crazy enough to think it would last but she wanted to stretch it out as far as she could. Which meant dumping the bike and heading out for some drinks and ripping off some people at pool or darts to keep herself in spending money.

Faith sat on her bed, unsettled and irritated. Boredom never sat well with her and tonight she was bored. “Guess it’s just the bottom of a bottle again.”

She heaved herself up and grabbed her jacket, hauling it on as she left her room. The liquor store wasn’t far but Faith dragged her heels as she made her way there. She didn’t actually feel like getting off her face tonight but she didn’t know what else to do. Patrolling wasn’t even a viable option; this close to Halloween it was way too easy to kill a demon only to find it was some kid out trick or treating. It had been much easier back in Sunnydale where the real dangers stayed off the streets at this time of year. As it was, within a few minutes, she’d already seen countless ‘vampires’. There were demons too, and some things that she couldn’t even find names for. She shook her head and carried on down the street, till a tattered flyer tacked to a fence caught her eye.

She swiped it off and did her best to smooth it out, grinning as she saw what it was about. The fair! Of course. She’d forgotten all about that. There was bound to be some fun to be had there.

Pushing the flyer into her pocket, she changed direction and began walking in the direction of the fair. She heard it long before she saw it and smiled at the sudden sense of childish excitement. Once she was standing at the entrance, the bright lights and noise and smells cheered her up. Now she just had to find someone to enjoy it with.

the evening after this, presumably while jo's at work at the bar

Dean really needed a little bit of time to himself after the superfun black magic fiasco the night before. Much as he wanted to keep an eye on Jo, and make sure she was okay, he was glad when she was off to work.

Since arriving in York, he'd met a wizard, got beaten up by a vampire who doubled as a professional killer, found out Jo was alive again, found out Jo was brought back using black magic...

This was a lot, even for Dean.

He hung around the motel until Jo was off to The Darkside of the Moon, doing a little bit of York research on the laptop and a little bit of creative Google-ing here and there on black magic. But he'd never been the researcher, even if he could handle research. Hunting was much harder without Sam.

Dean left around 7, once it was starting to get dark. He thought about going to find Harry, but he really wanted some kind of semi-normal evening. Well, Winchester normal, at least. Which might mean hunting in some capacity. Dean would love to be able to shoot something, just to feel slightly better about how goddamn helpless this situation was making him feel.

He didn't exactly go looking for trouble, but he didn't avoid it. He took the Impala and drove out to the other side of town, closer to the Gates, where he hadn't been yet. He parked, grabbed some supplies, and went for a walk, shotgun loaded with salt in his hand.

There was nothing really going on out here other than creepiness. But there was a path up to the first Gate, and he followed it. He heard sounds coming from further down, growls and fighting. Growls? What the fuck growled?

He ran up the path a little bit just in time to see three... were those vampires? They didn't look right. Not like Lenore, not like Phaedra. There faces were... wrong. Contorted. But they had the teeth. And they were all advancing on one girl.

"Hey!" Dean yelled at them. They stopped and looked right at him. "Don't you guys have a curfew?"