Endless Epitaph

Who: Dean and Sam Winchester
When: January 21st
Where: On the road to Nebraska
Rating: PG 13
Notes: Sam and Dean are on a road trip. Trying to stop the seals from being opened and the Devil himself from being released.

The Impala roared down the back roads of some no name town as Dean Winchester rocked out to Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”. His brother Sam rubbed his forehead as Dean sang loudly and off key along with the classic rock band.

“Dean.”

But his brother didn’t hear him. He was too busy rocking out.

“Dean,” Sam said louder this time turning down the music.

“Sammy we’ve been through this. Never touch a man’s music when he’s rocking out. It’s a law.”

“Yeah, I studied law. I don’t remember it.”

“You weren’t looking in the right books then. So tell me more about this case since you’ve ruined my fun,” Dean said turning a small glare to his brother.

“There have been a lot of mysterious deaths up in Lincoln. A couple guys. Married man found a bassinet out on his front door and when he opened it, it turned out to be poisonous snakes. Another guy was bitten by spiders.”

“Sounds like plagues. Think Lilith is some way involved?”

“Possibly,” Sam said flipping through one of his books. “But something about this is kind of familiar.”

“What else could it be?”

“Not sure. Won’t know until we poke around. Talk to the widow and spider guy’s family.”

“Awesome. Until then…”

Dean turns his music back up and speeds up as he the duo head to Lincoln, Nebraska.

A day later the two brothers found a motel in town and got into their suits. The first stop was to the widow of the man who had found a bassinet in his front porch.

They knocked on the front door and a tired looking young woman opened the door.

( More here )

The Players : Xander Harris. (Closed)
Where : Chicago, Illinois.
When : The week of January 19, 2009.
Rating : PG13.
Notes : Who has one eye, two thumbs, and fights evil? This guy! *points to self*

A woman is riding down the streets of downtown Chicago on a red motorcycle. Behind her in hot persuit is a guy on a black motorcyle. The two weave in and out of traffic as she tries to lose him but no avail.

She turns down an alley and skids to a stop crashing into a trash can.

Dead end.

The man on the motorcycle stops at the end of the alley blocking her way out. He steps off the bike and removes his helmet.

"You're pretty good on that thing. Too bad I'm gonna have to kill you. Would like to learn some of those moves," Xander said as he walked towards her.

The woman got up off the ground and stared him down.

"So, you're the local vampire hunter in these parts huh? And we're usually so careful about getting in you people's crosshairs."

"Yes, well, you've only been a vampire for a few months. You didn't learn to clean your messes."

Plus she left a trail. When he read the news reports and saw them on TV he thought he was up against a siren or a succubus. But since the men didn't die of what appeared to be old age succubus was out. The reports obviously left out some of the details...like puncture wounds. It was the one link all the murders had so they left it out. Personally Xander thought it had something to do with those Twilight obsessed vampire imitators.

But eventually Xander saw a pattern in some of the strange deaths. After interviewing some of the family, he discovered they had all dated this woman.

Veronica, the raven haired vampire who took out all the boys who dumped her or did her wrong over the years. She vamped out and stalked towards him.

"They had it coming, all of them did. They left me for younger cheap whores. Now I'll be young forever, don't tell me you never thought about immortality. Fighting us...had to have considered the idea of what it would be like to be turned."

"Once. Turns out I would have been a badass vampire. Feared by everyone. But you know, saving the worlds better than tearing it apart. Now if we're done with the pleasantries...want to get this over with? I'm two hours late making an important phone call."


She growled and ran at him. He grabbed her and threw her against the wall punching her a few times. She blocked one of his punches and kicked him against the other wall. Xander reached behind him and pulled out his small crossbow.

Victoria laughed. "You're gonna kill me with that? Its so small."

"Not the size the counts. But how you use it."

"You just keep telling yourself that," she scoffed.

She moved quicker than he was ready for and she knocked it out of his hand, falling to the pavement. She threw him to the ground and pinned Xander's arms down.

"Shouldn't play with such dangerous toys. You could put your eye out. Wouldn't want that."

Xander tried to release from her grip.

"Love it when you men put up a fight," she leans down and licks his neck. "You're gonna taste so good. I might make you mine forever."

While she was talking Xander was frantically reaching for the crossbow. She bore her fangs into his neck and started to drink. He reached out and grabbed it and put the tip of the arrow to her heart.

"Forever's gonna be a little short."

He fires the crossbow and she falls and crumples to dust. Xander gets up and dusts himself off and reaches into his jacket pocket and puts a handkerchief on his wound.

"Last poke you're gonna get," Xander said as he walked to his bike.

He wasn't as good as the trash talk as Buffy was, but he still tried. Thankfully, he didn't lose much blood. He fixed up his wound with the first aid kit he kept in his bike, then made his way home.

Xander thought a lot about the last six months of his life as he made his way home.

After they saved the world from The First, he and the rest of the Scoobies helped reform the Watcher's Council, everyone kind of went their own seperate ways. Buffy needed a break from everything, well earned. Though it did suck they didnt see much of each other over the last few months. Willow and Kennedy were doing there thing, saw them every so often.

After Anya's death, Xander needed a lot of time away after helping out Giles. He traveled to Tibet, China, and even Japan. He knew with the calling of all Slayers, evil would bide its time before biting back harder.

He wanted to be ready so he could help his friends when it was time. He didn't want his disability to hold him back. So he worked with Shamen, monks, and martial art masters to learn to fight better. After a few months, he was better as a fighter and with a sword.

He came back to the states and radomly picked a place he'd call home. After watching a few John Hughes movies, he picked Chicago.

Was pretty tame as far as evil went. Had its share of monsters, but it was mostly vampires. A few demons now and again.

Finding a job on the side however, was pretty difficult. Eventually, he found a job at a local bar a few blocks from his apartment. It wasn't bad. Not a dive or very loud. A very friendly atmosphere. Felt like the bar from Cheers in some ways.

As, Xander arrived to his complex, he bought a newspaper on the corner and made his way upstairs. He tossed his kes to the table with the paper and took his jacket off. He picked up the phone to make his call, but he got a message instead.

"Hey Buff, Xander. You're probably out on patrol or something, but I just wanted to call you and wish you a happy birthday. Present and card is in the mail. Hope everythings good on your end. Miss you and hope we can mee up again soon. Night."

Being apart from the Scooby Gang sucked the most out of all this. Still did after all this time. He missed not being able to see them every day. Hanging out, watching movies. The Bronze. He made every effort to stay in touch, but it wasnt the same.

After making a late night snack he turned on the TV and fliped through the paper looking for any "tales of weird" hidden in the stories. Not seeing anything weird-esque he layed down watching some show called "Fright Night." He heard some guy talking about evil, but before he heard any more, Xander was fast asleep.

The Players : Father Alexander Anderson. (Closed)
Where : Somewhere on the road in the United States
When : The week of January 19-23, 2009. (Not long after Peter's post.)
Rating : PG13/R (for violence).
Notes : Anderson is from the anime Hellsing where he is a special agent of the Vatican.

Father Anderson breathed a sigh of disgust at the sight of another garishly decorated church. In the darkness of the night he couldn't detect what religion this one was dedicated to.
It was bad enough when the Holy Father, through his divine agency of Section 13: Iscariot, saw fit to send him to the heathen lands of England but this was almost more than he could take. The United States of America? At least in England all he had to deal with were the accursed Protestants but this country was filled with everything from blessed Catholics to Neo-Christians, a goodly people on the right course but not dedicated or disciplined enough for Catholicism, to the fore mentioned Protestants, a blight in God’s eyes. Those religions were at least understandable to him, even if he hated the Protestants, but Methodist? Buddhism? They even had dedicated and recognized churches to Satan in this country!

“Aye, tis a sin that the Holy Father can’t just order a Crusade and purge this country of all the foul and ridiculous religions that fester and multiply here and replace it with the one true faith.” The man mutter to himself, gaining a few strange stares from some of the people sharing the bus with him.
"Not as if I care what were probably more heathens think of me." He thought sourly to himself

Billy Tyson watched the man sitting across from him on the Greyhound bus. Billy was an ex-gang banger from the East Side as they say. Meaning he was your normal young 17 year old, that had grown up in a bad section of New York and had a few brushes with gangs. Billy had never dealt with drugs or drive bys or any of the other things gang members were often accused of, and even more often were actually guilty of. No Billy had managed to lead a fairly clean and lawful life even though all of his friends were deep in the gang scene. Billy’s mother decided it was only a matter of time before he was lead into crime by his ne’re do well friends so she took it upon herself to send him off to relatives on the west coast in the hopes he would have a better life there.

Billy of course hated the idea but he was still a good enough son not to argue with his mother and grudgingly had gotten on the bus when she had bought him a ticket.

Billy was sure that traveling cross country on a bus was Hell on Earth and sought any distraction he could find to keep from going insane. In the crowded confines of the bus, without asking questions of his own, he was able to quickly learn most of the stories of the people riding with him by just listening, everyone except the ‘mystery man’.

The man kept to himself the entire trip and spoke to no one but Billy could hear him occasionally muttering to himself, usually when they would pass a church or a cemetery. Billy quickly decided the man must be a foreigner by the thick accent the man spoke with. After debating with himself for a time Billy decided it was a Scottish accent, that or maybe Irish? Billy wasn’t really that much of an expert when it came to dialects outside of the Bronx.

The mystery man was kind of ominous looking with his wild staring eyes behind round glasses and the long dark trench coat he was wearing. Billy wasn’t sure but at one of the many rest stops the bus made, he could swear he saw a glint of metal under the jacket as the strange man got off and on the bus.

Not like the bulge or the type of glimpse one would get of a gun. Billy was well familiar from his gang friends what that looked like but no this looked almost like… A sword or big knife? And what was up with that strange collar the man wore it almost looked like…

“Are you a priest?” A fat woman that Billy had learned from listening in to her conversations with other passengers was traveling to visit her daughter who never wrote or called her any more. The woman had decided on a whim to travel half way across the country to drop in on this daughter for a visit and Billy thought to himself if the daughter was smart, she would hide in her house and refuse to answer the door when her mother arrived to see her. The woman was loud and annoying.

The fat woman plopped down heavily in the chair next to the ‘mystery man’ and peered at him rather rudely.

“Aye.” Anderson replied curtly and hoped the woman would take the hint and move away. Most of the other passengers had instinctively avoided sitting next to him, a fact the dour priest had thanked God for as he was in no mood to speak with any of them.

The fat woman looked confused for a moment before she realized the man was saying yes not ‘I’.

Anderson instantly bristled as the woman asked if he was Protestant or Catholic but managed to reply civilly. “Catholic.”

“Oh, isn’t that nice?” The woman replied inanely. “I raised our daughter as Catholic but I believe she’s switched to one of those newer more hip religions on the west coast. Sad isn’t it?”

“Usually when someone strays from the true path later in life it is because they were not disciplined or taught better by their parents.” Anderson observed not bothering to look at the woman sitting next to him.

“Well I never!” The woman replied indignantly and moved away from me, which was what the dour man was praying for in the first place.

Father Anderson tried to return to his contemplation of the darkness outside of the bus but noticed they were pulling into another of the filthy bus stations that lined their course and with a barely concealed scowl remembered that they would have to transfer to another bus with a fresh bus driver for the next leg of this journey. Hopefully this bus driver could hold a straight line on the road unlike the current one we had.

As the bus doors opened, Anderson was one of the first to disembark from the bus and start his way over to the station’s doors. He paused, as something seemed not quite right. There were several buses waiting next to where theirs had parked but that was natural. The garish light over the doors was buzzing and blinking slightly but that too was not unusual. It was his experience that the awful fluorescent lights favored in this country did that a lot. Then it hit him, the dead silence only broken by the slight buzzing of the lights. True it was fairly late at night but surely there would be someone who would be joining their next bus out. The place was far too quiet.

As their bus driver pushed past him and the automated doors swished opened to allow him entry to the station, a smell swept out and hit Father Anderson's nose. A smell he knew all too well, the smell of blood.

Anderson could hear the startled gasp of the bus driver and immediately a wet splat noise before he dove through the doors after him, his hands already seeking the blessed holy blades that he carried inside his jacket.

The scene that met the Father's eyes as he entered the station was one out of Hell itself. There were bits and pieces of dead bodies everywhere. The station hadn’t been full when the fiends had attacked but what few people had been there had been ripped literally to pieces and their blood splashed everywhere. His eyes glanced down at the blood coated floor of the station and he noticed almost idly that their bus driver’s body was lying there with his ripped off head resting a few feet from it.

Good. This meant whatever had done this atrocity was still here. Looking over as Anderson heard the doors swish open and saw that the teen boy who had been staring at him for most of my trip was standing there.

“Keep the others out boy. I shall deal with whatever Hell spawn has done this.” He shouted to the boy.

Nodding and looking like he was either about to throw up or pass out, the boy turned and blocked the others from coming in. Anderson could hear the loud and obnoxious woman who had just recently sat beside him trying to bully her way in, not having see the obvious signs of gore past the doors yet.

Hearing the faintest of whispers Anderson spun quickly and brought two of his blessed blades before him in a cross configuration stopping a growling vampire from taking his head off. Throwing him backwards, Anderson quickly pulled more of his blades and threw them faster than the eye could see, pining the vampire to a wall of the bus station.

Anderson watched in disgust as the feeble vermin pawed at the sizzling blessed silver blades as they burned and purified his tainted essence. The Hell spawn growled and cursed as his hand burned as he tried to pull the blades from his body. The creature then began to laugh. “You think you have won? We are legion and we own the night and the darkness!” It shouted at the Vatican agent.

“Nay.” Anderson replied as he moved towards him pulling yet another blade from his jacket. “No matter how deep the dark nor long the night, God’s light will always shine and destroy wee filth like ye.” He growled as he decapitated the vampire’s head with one swipe, Anderson watched as the body turned to ash, falling away from his blades stuck to the wall.

“Is this what passes for true vampires in this country…” Father Anderson stated to himself as he pulled his blades from the wall. “Alucard would laugh himself hoarse and the Vatican has nothing to fear.”

Hearing a sliding noise on the window of the bus station Anderson turned, fully expecting to see the horrified fools he had ridden with in the bus staring in but noticed only one at the window. The boy he had told to keep everyone out to protect them. The boy was pressed against the window with his head crooked at a bad angle as a female vampire fed from him.

“God damn it.” Anderson cried, mentally making a note to seek absolution for taking the Lord’s name in vain later.

Rushing outside the Father found the outside now resembled the inside with blood everywhere, the fluorescent light above the door now a lurid red as the vital fluid dripped from it.

The young man he had told to guard the entrance was hanging limply from the hold of a sleazy looking blond female vampire wearing miniskirt and a halter top.

“He’s kind of cute and it would appear I lost my man. I think I shall turn him and keep him.” The vampire hissed over the boy’s shoulder at Anderson. The boy’s eyes staring at the father begging him to do something, he was so weak he could not even form words. Not that the words would make it past his horribly slashed throat anyway.

“Nay, you won’t.” Anderson said calmly to the female vampire.

“Oh and why is that?” She asked him.

“Cause you are already destroyed.” Anderson replied as he raised his arm and threw one of his blades without even concentrating. The blade flew through the air as straight as God’s judgment, pierced the boy’s throat, and continued onward to pierce the female vampire’s black heart. She only had a moment to throw back her head in a silent scream before turning to ashes. The boy’s body fell to the ground, Anderson's blade still stuck through his throat nearly finishing the job the female vampire had started and cutting his head off completely.

Bending, Father Anderson made the sign of the cross over the dead boy’s body and sought his and the Lord’s forgiveness for allowing himself to be distracted by the male vampire inside and allowing time for the female outside to massacre his fellow travelers.

Getting up from the poor man’s body, Anderson turned and surveyed the parking lot of the bust station with both his eyes and his hearing. Nothing was moving and all that had ridden on the bus with him were now dead. Cleaning his blades before returning them to his jacket he examined the dead once more to make sure they would not rise as ghouls. For some reason unknown to the Vatican, the American vampires didn’t create ghouls from their victims as the chipped mock vampires in Europe did. One of the reasons he had been sent was to find out if the vampires here were a new breed of chipped vampires or ‘true bloods’.

“Now how will I get to my destination? I donna know how to drive. So inconvenient.” Father Alexander Anderson muttered to himself as he turned and started to walk away.

The Players : Buffy Summers. (Closed)
Where : Des Moines, Iowa.
When : The week of January 19-23, 2009. (Not long after Peter's post.)
Rating : PG/PG13.
Notes : Hey look, it's Buffy!

Buffy Summers spun around, the heel of her booted foot connecting to the vampire’s jaw sending her prey stumbling back. In the time it took for him to recover the Slayer had already introduced him to Mr. Pointy on an intimate level. Buffy pulled the stake from the vampire’s chest before the body collapsed into ash and dust, but she took no respite as she was already dodging a fist from the remaining vampire. As the fist went past her, she sidestepped and a moment later the last of the vamps was dust.

Buffy let out a bored sigh and spun her stake in her hand. “That was the kind of fun that isn’t.” She slid Mr. Pointy back into a pocket of her coat and started to take her leave from the cemetery. It was a quiet but chilly night in Des Moines, Iowa. She was pretty sure she’d never get use to non California weather, but at least it was a change of pace. After Sunnydale collapsed and the original Scoobies helped reboot a new and hopefully improved Watchers Council, Buffy had seen her sister off to school and started her own little working vacation. It was easier to catch a break from being one of the two most important slayers of the council than she expected it would be. She had to thank Giles and Andrew’s brilliant idea for setting up ‘doubles’ to pose as her. She was still aware of one in Rome but the other was still underground as far as she knew. It also helped that she’d gotten a phone call from Riley Finn with a tip on something in Iowa that could be up her alley.

Apparently there was a serial killer in the city, one with a knack for skinning a person’s face off. Buffy remembered wondering why Riley would think it was a job for a slayer and then he told her about some of the details of the crimes that the police withheld from the public. Each crime scene lacked any blood trace of any kind and there was no sign of what could have skinned the victims’ faces off. Everything was too neat and clean. Riley’s contacts believed it to be magic or demonic in nature so he called the Watchers Council looking for help. There had been a bit of deliberation on whether or not to follow up on the information, but Buffy had decided that she was going to look into it with or without help. It was partially because she felt she owed Riley that much and partially because she wanted to do something and get out of the land of tweed. She missed the states. She didn’t however miss the cold snap that was apparently affecting the area.

Once Buffy reached the street she pulled out her car keys and headed for her car. It didn’t take long for her to find herself behind the wheel and basking in that invention called the heater. She drove in silence, stopping at a drive through for a very late dinner. When she arrived at her motel, she went inside, locked the door behind her, and set her things onto the table. She flipped the television on and headed for the shower, not paying any attention to what channel it was on.

*******

Buffy settled on her bed with a sigh and began to munch on her fries as she waited for the commercials on tv to die their horrible death. Scattered around on top of the bed with her were a variety of articles relating to the killing spree. Apparently the killings had been going on for over two months and there were already seven murders and there was no real connection to each other that anyone was aware of.

Dramatic yet somewhat cheesy sounding music followed by a creepy cackle and the phrase “Fright Night,” poured out of the tv’s speakers, forcing Buffy’s attention back on the screen. The scene was of a cemetery set that was obviously fake and fog was covering the ground. An older man stepped out from behind an iffy looking weeping angel statue. He had silver hair and a plaid Inverness cloak (how Buffy knew that she still wasn’t sure) over Victorian styled clothing. “Welcome… to Fright Night.”

Buffy sat up straighter and tilted her head with interest. She remembered this show. When she was a kid, before she was called, she’d sneak and stay up late to catch it on tv. The last she remembered of it was that it was an L.A based show. She had no idea it was still on, let alone that it was broadcast outside of Los Angeles. What was the host’s name again? Peter Ishkhans? “No, that’s the stylist guy…” Buffy frowned. It was Peter something, she knew that much.

“The world around us is a terrifying place.” Peter was talking again and Buffy was once again focused on the screen. “Evil lies in wait around every corner, pushed back into the shadows by the few that are courageous enough to take it on headfirst.” He was pacing now, the cameras forced to follow him. “Why just this evening I had a brush with a most ferocious demon… He thought he had the best of me, me!” He was indigent at whatever had occurred. “I am Peter Vincent! The great vampire killer!” He spoke with pride and a dramatic flourish that made Buffy snicker. “I fear no demon and will use all my power to keep this world safe for all of you out there.”

Buffy reached for the remote, her desire to start channel surfing had decided to come out of hiding as Peter spoke about some fan mail he’d received. But before she changed the channel, Peter caught her attention again.

“I received a letter the other day, from an Emily in Des Moines, Iowa.” Peter stared at the camera with morose expression. The name and the location had Buffy’s mind reeling and she started to sort through her articles again. “It would seem that she has suffered a tragic and needless loss, a reminder that we must remain ever vigilant in dark times… But worry not, Emily. Help is coming.”

“Aha!” Buffy pulled out a sheet of paper as she skimmed it. One of the victims was a Meredith Hill, a single mom in the suburbs. “Survived by a seventeen year old daughter, Emily.” Buffy’s eyes narrowed and she stared at Peter Vincent on the television again. How did he know help was coming? He couldn’t possibly be a real vampire hunter, could he? Was he psychic? Maybe he didn’t even mean her. That would mean she’d have to be even more careful. Wonderful.

“Tonight’s film is a torrid tale of deceit and blood as a tarot reading goes awry.” It seemed Peter had finished talking about Emily and his other fans. “Starring the beautiful Annette Wildstrom and Jackson King, I present to you, ‘A Time For Tarot’.” Peter let out a remorseful sigh. “Alas, I do not appear in this film.”

As the movie started, Buffy was frowning. She supposed it could have been a coincidence… But maybe it wasn’t. Still, it was something she should look into. Unfortunately Buffy found herself yawning. It was later than she’d thought and she still had work to do in the morning. She turned the tv off and pushed her research to the side of the bed, her current goal to catch some wanted sleep.