Under a blood red sky

Sunday evening, Anita was strolling through the carnival, killing time before the sun went down so that she could get in touch her more nocturnal contacts. She hadn't exactly intended to get in line for whatever attraction was waiting just ahead, but she had been distracted for a moment, and then suddenly became swept up in the crowd of boisterous young teenagers and/or twenty-somethings, and here she was. Had she known it was the tunnel of love, she might have ducked under the ropes and run while she had the chance, but by the time she realized, it was already too late.

So she tried to relax and enjoy the ride. After all, it was just a little harmless fun. Right? Of course, right.

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 was a forest.

Harth had never seen one, but he recognized it almost instantly. His memories were permeated with visions of similar locations, and he had it on good authority that many Slayers of the past had killed and been killed in such places.

That said, Harth's knowledge of forests didn't make it any less mystifying to him. Such environments had been extinct for many decades, and his arrival to the wooded area was equally perplexing. One moment he was sitting amongst his followers, the next he was here. The ripple had been fast and painless, but the effects of its instantaneous transport were jarring, nonetheless.

It wasn't a big stretch for Harth to assume that magic was involved. As the occasional dabbler into the dark and arcane himself, he certainly knew a spell when he saw one. In fact, he wasn't entirely certain that he wasn't responsible for this. Although he hadn't performed any transportation spells, he was well-versed enough to know that a curse or a hex over here might occasionally have a strange side effect over there.

After spending a few moments marveling at the trees and leafy ground, the vampire began moving through the darkened woods. It would become essential to him to discover the genesis of his arrival here. He already had a strong inkling that this wasn't merely a question of where, but also of when, but he wanted to investigate the surroundings a little further before he made a plan of attack.

Harth didn't like being manipulated by magic, but he also saw whatever happened to him as an opportunity. If the magic could rip him out of space and time to drop him here, then it was powerful, serious, and something that could be used to his advantage. It was an essential rule that Harth had always understood: That which manipulates you can always be manipulated right back.

Harth was not one to turn down opportunity, especially if it meant he could kill a lot of people in the process.

Emerging from the woods into the moonlit night, Harth took note of a few edifices that signaled the beginning of a town.

He smiled.

Where there was a town, there would be people.

...and where there were people, there would be answers...and blood.