Under a blood red sky

Karrin was righteously pissed off at him and Dresden both. He knew she'd be pissed at him when she found out the truth, but apparently Dresden hadn't told her the whole truth. Nice of him. Kincaid not only wanted to find out if that contract was still active, but if Dresden had set him up to be the fall guy when he got back. Next time he was getting this shit in writing, damn it!

He went back to Dresden's neighborhood. Everything seemed peaceful so maybe Karrin hadn't made it here yet. He'd have bet she would have gone straight here to take a pound of flesh out of the wizard, but maybe he wasn't giving her enough credit. Fine by him. That just meant he got first dibs.

He waited to see if Dresden would actually venture out, not really wanting to go into the lion's den. Dresden wouldn't give him an invitation, he was pretty sure of that, which meant he'd be vulnerable to that damn threshold. As soon as he saw the gangly wizard leave the house he paced him for about half a block then rushed ahead so he could be standing on the corner in plain view. He didn't say a word when Dresden saw him, just gave him that flat, cold expression that could mean anything. His hands were unarmed.

Saerian sat in Jack's apartment, eyes shut, hands moving as though he were directing an orchestra. He was dressed in a nice three-piece suit, once Jack's favorite. His shoes were immaculately shined, his eyes shone in the dark.

A cigarette dangled between his lips, and while he paced, Saerian used his mind to find the people of York that were sleeping. At this hour, it was really most of them. It was shortly before dawn, a time when vampires were settling down to sleep and humans would still be asleep at least another hour.

He could do a lot of damage in that hour. And he intended to.

It'd been over a month.

At first, Dean figured she just needed a little bit of space. It wasn't like being Molly was stress-free, or like the walking dead taking over the town on Halloween night was a barrel of laughs. And then Sam came back. Dean forgot to worry, he was so glad. But once that settled down, Dean tried to track her. He tried checking the GPS in her phone, and looking for her via credit card receipts, and checking motels in an area in York and around.

Jo didn't want to be found.

Cas seemed busy again, too.

So Dean went to Harry.

It was just before noon when he knocked on the door to Harry's house. He didn't want to deal with Phaedra, even if she might be able to help. He was pretty sure her boyfriend was a little bit of a tall glass of crazy, and right now, all he could think about was getting answers about Jo. Maybe she'd checked in with Harry. But if not, he WAS the wizard.

( more )

[ooc: backdated to before When Molly Meets Phaedra]

After what she was calling The Great Troll Incident Molly slept for most of a day. That sunlight trick had taken a lot out of her. It hadn’t really been that hard since it wasn’t that far off from what she already did with light, but picking out one specific light wave had taken a lot of focus, and a lot of concentration. It had been worth it though and Molly was proud of that piece of modern art sculpture she’d left behind in the cow pasture.

She had fallen over on the couch in Murphy’s living room, but woke up in the bedroom she was staying in. She didn’t remember how or when she had gotten there, and sleepy thoughts of the ex-cop having to firemen’s carry her made Molly giggle as she made coffee. In between yawns that is.

A shower and caffeine injection later she was on her way to Harry’s. She had forgotten to leave him a message that she wouldn’t be over the day before so she expected a bit of a talking to when she showed up for more lessons. Hence the bag of Burger King in one hand, and a box donuts in the other. It was mid-day but when could you go wrong with donuts?

She had to put box and bag down to open the door, and work the min-spell to get through Harry’s wards but that only took a moment of letting cold air into his house. She didn’t even bother looking around just called out. “Hey, boss! It’s me, and I have a perfectly reasonable explanation!”
( Read more... )

Against her better judgment, Murphy was waiting in the graveyard after dark with a shovel. She had her badge ready, in case anyone happened by and questioned what they were doing. Of course, that would only buy them some time since she didn't have permission to be out here. And when it was all over with, she would have the badge taken away and most likely be facing jail time.

But hey, it wouldn't be the first time she'd ignored the rules in the interests of solving a case and keeping more people from getting hurt.

Didn't mean that she ever got used to it, or that the part of her that was pure second generation cop ever stopped cringing at the blatant disregard for the laws that she'd sworn to preserve.

All the same, people were dying and she couldn't let that continue.

So she started to dig while she waited on Thomas. Hey, she never had been the type to hang around and wait for the boys to do all the heavy lifting.

Harry still keyed his wards the same way he did in Chicago. That meant that the small charm he'd given Thomas to come and go would still work for him. Which was a good thing. Thomas had seen what happened to people that didn't have the charm and it wasn't a pretty sight. And unfortunately it wasn't like you could tell your wards to discourage every White Council vampire except one.

Even though Harry had said to come over and Thomas had told him they needed to talk about Murphy, Thomas still delayed a little while. It might look on the surface like a petty payback twitch for not being told Harry was alive for as long as he had but it wasn't. Thomas was overjoyed his brother was alive. But at the same time it was hard for him. It was hard to explain even to himself but there it was.

He did finally kiss Justine goodbye...her fingers through a glove since they hadn't found regular assistance for their needs...and climb in his Hummer to drive to Harry's. He left his white monstrosity parked nearby then used his charm to pass up the wards and knock on the door.( Read more... )

[ooc: back dated to before Phaedra's email, a few days before Thanksgiving]

Crap! Crap, crap, crap! She had forgotten her notebook at Harry's. And she really needed it for the potion she was going to try to make tonight! Normally this wouldn't be a problem. She'd just go back to Harry's, get the notebook then head back to the apartment, but she hadn't thought to look for it until after the sun had set. Now she had to go back there while it was dark. While Harry's "bodyguard" was awake.

CRAP!

She stood outside of Harry's looking at the door arguing with herself, her hands in fists at her sides tight enough her knuckles were white. "C'mon, Molly. You can do this. She might not even be there. Probably out...eating...someone." That made her frown and swallow harshly before forcing herself forward towards Harry's front door.

She had a plan. Get through the wards. Slip in. Grab her notebook then flee as if her hair were on fire. The first two parts of that plan went off without a hitch. She crept in quietly, her brows knit down tightly and her lips pressed together. Now all she had to do was creep quietly to where her notebook was on the dining room table.

Once she'd composed herself slightly, Phaedra pulled on a pair of jeans, unlocked her door, and went out into the rest of the house barefoot, pacing and angry. The laptop sat open on her bed, Lindsey's picture still on the screen. Her hair was disheveled, the black tank top she'd slept in was off one shoulder.

She got to the middle of the kitchen before she realized Harry was watching her pace and could fully see her scowling face. She was far from threatening right now, and far from any kind of focused.

She didn't say anything, she just shrugged and put both hands on her hips.

There was a lot to talk about with Harry.

So of course, he was home.

Dean stood at the edge of the maze, mag light in one hand and a bag full of everything but the kitchen sink on his shoulder. He had two hidden guns, a concealed knife, a jacket pocket full of extra salt rounds, a lighter, accelerant, a vial of holy water...and the Zippo lighter the man in the tent had given him. He wasn't going to think too hard about that one.

He'd been hearing accounts of people seeing Freddy Kruger chasing people around the fair grounds. He'd heard more than one person say that Freddy'd gone after one guy, just one guy. And that description sounded a lot like the demon that went after Jo.

Dean figured there was a good chance the answers about this fair were inside this maze. And he wasn't really looking forward to going in.

"Y'know, Cas," Dean whispered. "Now would be a good time for you to stop sucking so hard." He sighed, and started into the maze. "Yippee kay-ay, motherfuckers."

Everything was out of control and Ana felt helpless to stop it. On top of that she felt like she was the only one trying to do anything about all of the chaos. What was worse was having to creep around and go against the people she had worked with, lived with for months. These people had been like family to her since she came to America, and now she didn't even recognize them for as much as they were encouraging the victims onto the rides, winning the demonic prizes, all of it. Ana just did what she could to redirect people and intervene as safely as possible.

She was wandering the midway having just managed to bump into a player at one of the games making him lose when she caught sight of someone she'd seen before. He'd been here at least twice that she knew of. Neither time had she been able to get near him, but this time she was planning on changing that.

She pushed her way through a sudden knot of teenagers that seemed to have come from nowhere, her jaw set and her lips tightened together stubbornly. Once she was through she practically had to jog to catch up with the guy. Damn he was tall and could move like the wind itself apparently! When she finally did reach him, she grabbed a hold of his arm and dug her feet in to stop them.

"Don't you think twice is enough or do you want to get a full taste of everything the fair has to offer? I wouldn't recommend it. For sanity's sake."

Some time after dark, but before midnight, Anita took her slaying kit, and her raising kit, and--making sure she had all the proper items, tools, weapons, and ingredients--loaded them into the back of her rental car, along with the chickens she would need for the ritual. Halloween was always the busiest time of year for Animators, Inc., and just because she was out of town didn't mean that Bert was going to let her get out of working. Yay, out-calls.

She pulled up at the cemetery ahead of schedule, so that she could have everything in place before it was time to meet her clients, and began to step into her coveralls when something prickled at her awareness. She wasn't alone here, was she?

Could things get any worse for Molly? Well, most probably and has been, but this was getting right up there in the top five moments Molly would really like to not have lived through. And honestly? She wasn't sure what was more irritating: being in Jo's body and Jo being in hers or spending yet another moment in a moving car with Bill. It did accomplish one thing. His ability to annoy her managed to make her forget he was a vampire for a little while.

"You don't have to come in," Molly offered in sarcastic sing song. "I know how intimidated you are by magic in general and wizards in specific so thanks for the ride and bye now!" She started towards Harry's front door, pointedly leaving the Twinkie in the car, and not looking back while having the internal mantra in her head of please don't be following me please don't be following me.

There had been another 'suicide.' This time, it had occurred just after the officer had attended the carnival that was in town, and again had been after weeks of erratic behavior.

Something was very wrong, and Murphy was getting extremely agitated that she couldn't quite put her finger on it. There was a strange substance at each crime scene that she'd identified as sulfur. There had to be something about that, but so far she'd tried contacting the paranet and hadn't gotten many hits back that were all too helpful.

So while she was waiting on a break on the supernatural front, she was currently retracing the victim's steps. Standard detective stuff.

Which was how she found herself walking through the midway, ignoring the carnival barkers and trying to ignore the tempting smell of cotton candy as she looked around for any attractions that the victim might have visited.

This fair stuff was bullshit.

That's all they'd talked about, once she'd risen. The fair, how fucking stupid it was that it was here, especially now. Going to check it out had been a no-brainer. There wasn't a choice. They were sure, too, that pretty much everyone else they knew in this place was doing the same damn thing.

Once they were there, both wizard and vampire were on high alert. Phaedra was doing her best not to look... well, like vampire. This meant her investigation was limited to reading minds, not to, for example, flying up to the top of the Ferris wheel and perching there to see what she could see.

Something strange was definitely going on.

After two hours, Phaedra read more thoughts involving love then she ever had before--and they were all coming from fair goers who were walking off the Tunnel of Love ride. She wasn't sure where Harry'd gotten to, so yet again, she broke his rule. We need to find out what the deal is with the Tunnel of Love, she told him, silently. Something's not right.

[ooc: this occurs before the fair comes to town]

Molly had lots to talk about with Harry after her encounter in the library. She wasn’t certain how he would react to some of it. She was still tense and nervous after the incident in the woods with the vampire attack, but she was trying to move past it. She had kept coming for lessons except for the day right after when she hadn’t even gotten out of bed unless absolutely necessary.

Today she showed up with coffee and donuts instead of Burger King breakfast. The coffee was better at the donut place and she didn’t want to make two stops. She went through the usual song and dance of getting through the wards and threshold, quietly closed the door behind her then went to set up their breakfast in the kitchen. Harry wasn’t typically awake at the early hour she usually showed up at and long experience had taught her you don’t poke a sleeping wizard. She always had something she could be reading or trying out if he didn’t rouse from the smell of coffee.
( to be continued in comments )

Thanks to some careful arrangements, Harry had known when Rupert Giles was hospitalized. He hadn't been to see the Watcher since wizards got on so poorly with technology, and in ICU, technology was keeping people alive. So it had been a bit of time before Harry had learned about the girl that had arrived with Giles, and where to find her.

Tracking her by magic had been tricky, for reasons unknown. But a bit of searching had located some receipts from Giles' things. Harry set out to find the hotel, and the girl. He was dressed as normal, jeans and an old t-shirt, with his leather duster and staff; probably no way to look presentable in that, but it'd have to do. His 'presentable' clothes weren't the ones designed for safety.

At the proper door, he knocked, and waited. He had the key card from Giles, by way of a helpful nurse, but he wasn't about to intrude on a girl. Dawn, he remembered. Dawn Summers.

"Miss Summers?" he called softly. "I'm here about Giles."

He'd just have to go get the Jeep tomorrow. At least Murphy could watch Molly for the night. With all the panic the girl was going through, he didn't want to put her in his place with Phaedra. Knowing his luck, Molly would attack Phaedra, then Phaedra would defend herself, and Harry didn't want to have to wake up from his painkiller coma to pull the pair apart.

His goddamn shoulder hurt, his head hurt, and he still wasn't sure what had happened. Molly was good at mental work. She'd wiped part of his memory before, so smoothly he didn't know it. This wasn't as smooth, but her state had been a complete wreck. There had been evocations, his own magic. And his rings were depleted. All of them. ( What the HELL? )

“It was down this road.” Molly had pretty much led Harry by the hand approaching Trout Run Road, but once they started getting closer to it she became less eager she became until she was almost behind him. “I could feel it. Like a trail of darkness that got thicker the longer you walked.” She looked up at Harry curious to see if he felt it too. “I was going to follow it all the way down until I ran into para-military guy blowing demon heads up in the middle of the road. Riley. I told you about him.”

Harry knew this road. The Gates themselves weren't hidden, but out of the way. Unlike most urban legend-type places, there was no gift shop, no guided tours. This was real, and it was old. People didn't like to be at places like this. Deep in their subconscious, they knew something had tainted the earth, the trees, the very air.


"You felt the Gates," Harry said, nodding. "I can't sense it the same way. It just feels... like the air is a bit slimy, muddy ground even though I can feel it's dry and solid." A trail now, that was something interesting. But Molly's senses for magic had always been more delicate than his. Much more delicate.

( Will continue in comments )

Spike sat at the bar inside The Darkside of the Moon. It was about 4 p.m. The bartender was a half-incompetent guy that, the vampire was hearing, should be worried about the cute blonde they had working nights getting his days, too.

He'd ducked in here with the help of a blanket atop his duster. All things considered, he really needed a drink.

And, at present, he was arguing with the bartender about how to make a flowering onion. The kid was telling him onion rings were the same.

They were not. And the kid wanted to serve him those.

"It's a sodding ART FORM," Spike scoffed. "S'not something you throw in the bleedin' fryer and walk away from. What's wrong with you?!"

Alright, it wasn't that late in the day, and there was beer at the house, but Harry needed to get <i>away</i> from that house for a little while. His brain was still swimming with all the things he'd Seen out of Jo, and it was a fair solution to drown the images in some alcohol. "Hey. Billy Idol." Harry rolled his eyes, glancing up from his table at the white-haired man doing all the yelling. "If you want a blooming onion, go find Outback Steakhouse. If you want a bar, take the damn onion rings and shut up about it."

Spike glared.

He turned his attention from the idiot git kid to the guy that was now yelling at him.

Spike looked a little worse for the wear. His blanket was on the bar stool to his right. His hair was dishevelled, both from the blanket and from his pulling at it recently. And his face was borderline tired, if that was possible for a vampire.

"Sod. Off," he said. The tone made what he was saying seem much, much worse.

He took a long swallow of his beer, then glared again at the jerk.

Harry glared right back. It was a careful glare. It took a lot of experience to be able to glare efficiently at someone without looking in their eyes. Harry focused his at the center of the idiot's nose.

(shortly after Molly talks to Harry)

Molly had been asleep long enough to suffer two nightmares before Dean called. Harry had been sitting on the bed, one hand over that of his sleeping apprentice when the phone rang. Dean knew the way to Harry's, of course, so the call wasn't much more than a heads up. Harry let him know Molly was here already, and they were welcome anytime.

He was certain everyone would be in and out before the sun set. That was fine by him, but it seemed a bit unfair to Phaedra. It was all pretty ridiculous - if Harry was willing to trust a vampire, she could probably be a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

He put on a fresh pot of coffee, and walked out to the mailbox. Nothing much in there but some stupid advertisements. The point was the walk, though, and when Harry came back inside, the kitchen sparkled, the living room was picked up and neat, and there was a scent of clean pine in the air. Only Phaedra's room and his work room were left untouched. The cleaning crew had instructions to leave the vampire's room alone during daylight hours, for their own safety. The steel shutters and an iron bolt on the door served as strong reminders.

Harry took a shower and changed into some fresh clothes before waking Molly again. Dean and Jo would be along shortly. Time to get ready.