Under a blood red sky

In the darkness, the blips and hisses of the various machines that littered the room composed an intriguing symphony of mortality. It was a sound that Godric found both slightly amusing and extremely bittersweet.

Humans called such equipment "life support." Precious devices that kept their fragile lives from ebbing away. For vampires, the concept of having a machine sustain your existence was slightly mystifying. Godric had no beating heart for a computer to maintain, and his only life support was blood.

In that way, he was envious of the man laying in the bed before him. Although the battered shell of a human was struggling for his very existence, he was still clinging to something Godirc had lost so very long ago.

The patient in question, one Rupert Giles, had always been of interest to the Authority and the governing bodies of the various vampire nations. He was, after all, a Watcher. More importantly, he was the mentor of this generation's Slayer, one of the most celebrated and feared warriors in the Chosen line's history. But, by and large, unless you were a certain type of vampire, you generally ignored both the council and the Slayer. Details of their exploits were more cocktail banter than something one regularly kept up with.

But the discovery of Giles' mangled and beaten body had gotten the attention of more than one important ear. It wasn't the matter of his beating, per se, but the news of what was left behind.

When whispers had reached Godric's ear, he knew he had to come see for himself.

The hospital room was, of course, under very heavy surveillance. However, security guards posted at the door really didn't pose much of a threat to the ancient vampire. In fact, he hadn't even come in through the door, and once he saw what he needed to see, they'd never even know he had disturbed the room.

Drawing near the bed, Godric saw the scarring on Giles' chest immediately. With a gentle hand, he pulled down the collar of the man's hospital gown, and tilted his head to take it all in. The scars were a curious amalgamation of lines and dashes. To the untrained eye, it would likely appear to just be a cluster of various lacerations.

Godric knew better.

It was a language. An old one.

A form of very early Arabic, a regional dialect of a desert tribe...it would take someone with extensive knowledge or a very, very long memory to know such script. Luckily, Godric had seen his share of languages coming and going.

Standing back, he studied the message as a whole, translating it for himself:

"The one who will lead," the vampire said softly.

Godric wasn't quite sure what this meant, but he knew it couldn't be good. Walking to the window, the vampire leapt into the air.

He needed to consult the wizard.

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.

Remote in hand, Dawn was propped up on the bed when Giles entered the hotel room. The lights from the TV flickered across her face, and something with a laugh track played. She wasn't paying much attention, and looked over at Giles with something like relief as he shut the door behind him and rubbed his temples.

"Long day?" she asked sympathetically. Giles just shook his head, hand over his eyes.

By virtue of luck and some very, very sensitive information that one particular Slayer did not want shared with the world ever, Dawn had managed to wheedle her way into accompanying Giles on his trip to York, the new Hellmouth. Buffy had been rather reluctant to let Dawn out of her sight, but even the Slayer had her limits (and her pride) - and the dirt Dawn had on her was good. Besides, she'd argued, she'd spent the summer studying ancient Sumerian and updating manuscript translations on practically prehistoric portals to hell, and this was a prime research opportunity where for once she could be useful. Everyone knew she wasn't exactly handy with a bow and arrow.

Giles didn't seem too pleased either, but sometimes seemed grateful to have a buffer against the Council in the form of the Slayer's little sister and besides, he was gone most of the day anyway while Dawn waited in the hotel room. Now, he wandered into the bathroom and turned the tap on, splashing his face with water. Dawn hopped off the bed.

"I ate the minibar so I'm going out for dinner," she announced. Giles looked up, blinking amid the drops, glasses in hand. She shrugged. "We're staying on the Council's dime and they didn't exactly splash out for the Four Seasons so I figured might as well make it worthwhile."

"Don't go far-" Giles began, but Dawn cut him off. "Giles, come on. I have a stake and pepper spray in my purse and my cell phone in my pocket. There's a diner just across the street. I'm like, dying for a burger. Okay? If anything, text me."

She was out the door before he could protest further, skipping down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. She wasn't really going to the diner. She'd picked up a few tricks, namely lying, from Janice, and she was going to put them to the test. She was exploring this new Hellmouth on her own, and to hell with the Slayer and the Watcher and the Council. Feeling strangely exhilarated (and foolishly invincible) Dawn floated through the hotel doors and set off down the street, hands in the pockets of Buffy's new leather jacket that she'd packed at the last minute. A Hellmouth required the right look, after all.

It was a gathering that had not been seen in recorded history. Every council leader, every being of power was gathered in the clearing that had been declared Accorded Neutral Territory for the duration of the meeting. Leaders from various nations, packs, clans, courts. Some Harry could recognize immediately. Others, he had only known through rumor. The clearing swelled with power, and Harry himself was distinctly uncomfortable. As the representative of the Unseelie Court, it was his job to ensure the Accords were followed, as well as representing his Queen in this matter. Mab might have had the power to control this lot, but Harry wasn't entirely certain of his own ability to do so.

Still, he took down the names of all those present. And when Fix, the Summer Knight, arrived and stood beside him, Harry was relieved. Fix had been the Summer Knight for several years now, and had more knowledge than Harry would admit. Winter and Summer were perpetually at war, but in this matter, they were united. It was enough of a shock to everyone that Harry suspected many here now had come simply to see what would make the Queens of the Sidhe set aside their eternal struggle and work together.

Arthur Langtry, the Merlin of the White Council, gave Harry a dirty look. He'd never liked Dresden, and fully believed the young wizard to be a time bomb waiting to explode and destroy them all. The fact that this upstart youth had maneuvered his way into power as the Winter Knight did not pass his attention, nor his suspicion. He filed the information away, giving the Knight a barely respectful nod. This answered the question of where Dresden had been the last several months, after being presumed dead.

Mavra, the eldest vampire of the Black Court, avoided Dresden. She loathed the wizard and was determined to see him dead. But at this meeting, he was untouchable. She scowled as he was approached by Lara Raith, who had arrived in proxy for her father, the King of the White Court. Raith flirted openly with Dresden, but the wizard resisted her charms and she moved on through the crowd to take her place.

Harry waited until all the dignitaries were in place, keeping his expression neutral. This was the very last place in the world he wanted to be, but it was his Queen's order. Well, his Queen and Fix's. At least the changeling was in the same boat as him. Before anyone could start to get impatient (and for immortal and semi-immortal beings, they could be damn impatient), Harry nodded to Fix. The changeling quickly drew up his will and closed the circle. Trees surrounding the clearing groaned and shifted, closing the physical circle at the same time a magical barrier was erected. The air immediately began to swell with the pressure of those contained within.

There were plenty of beings who could easily break it and leave. But the matter was ceremonial, traditional. The circle ensured privacy, and no magical communications or scrying could penetrate it. Any technology to do so would have burned out by now, given the magical energies moving about.

"Thank you all for coming," Harry announced, his stern baritone ringing clearly through the clearing. "On behalf of Mab, Queen of Winter, I bid you all welcome. This conclave has been called to address an issue of utmost importance, and one that has attracted the attentions of both Summer and Winter alike." That said, he turned to face a woman in a crisp, cream-colored business suit. "I now open the floor to the representative of the Senior Partners, the Wolf, Ram, and Hart, to give us this most pressing news."

"Thank you, Mr. Dresden," the woman said, her voice very pleasant, like nothing at all was wrong. She rose from her spot at the U-shaped table and began to pace, high heels clicking on the floor.

"Ladies and gentlemen, higher beings," she began, with a nod to a section of the table where, sandwiched between an angel and a demon, a hunter from South Dakota sat. The hunter was incredibly uncomfortable. He scowled.

"I realize that this meeting is... unorthodox at best, but it's to the advantage of everyone here to discuss something that's come to the attention of both the Senior Partners of my firm and Queen Mab. Lights, if you please?"

At the back of the room, a young man in a suit--another lawyer from Wolfram and Hart--hit the lights. The woman turned on a lap top, and a screen on the back wall sprang to life.

"I know we're all familiar with the Hellmouth in Sunnydale," she said. "Some more than others." She offered a smile to Rupert Giles, who sat at the end of the table, nearest the door, just next to a vampire named Nan Flannigan, head of the American Vampire League. "In all of my time at Wolfram and Hart, in all the meetings we have held, all of our plans, not a single employee was aware," she said, clicking a button, "that this existed."

Behind her on the screen, there was an aerial image of an expanse of land.

"Now, I know that looks like just a piece of land in the middle of nowhere," she said, offering everyone a beautiful smile. "And it is. You'd be right to think that." She waited a beat.

( Until it opens. )