Chloe is alone in the bookstore, surrounded by burnt matches, candles, & books; a sigil is painted into the table in blood, the candles start falling off the table; she catches one, but another falls and starts lighting books on fire. The fire spreads rapidly, despite her attempts to put it out; the coat rack & all the hanging coats catch. She is cut off from the stairs, the windows are barred, and the door is steel (so it’s not going to burn open) and locked. She tries to get into the basement; can’t make it. She tries to cast a protective circle around herself, but hears a voice saying “It won’t work, you know.” It’s her professor – tells her this is sort of a final exam, but it isn’t going to work; she’s not ready. “It’s not the spell that won’t work, it’s us.” Chloe turns around – Maia is standing next to him and decks her with no warning.

The rest of us followed her out of the Copper Kettle – she suddenly complained of how hot it was and rushed out without her coat – and see her get knocked back into the snow, having been decked by a figure in the shadows. Maia & Gloria head toward him/her; Chloe suddenly finds herself very cold and not in the bookstore, but remembers the fire. She hears a voice saying “Stay away from me, freak.” – it’s Amanda?? Tells Maia to handle her and stomps off. We ask Chloe what she did to Amanda to make her hit her; she insists that it was Maia who hit her. She asks what year it is, asks if the bookstore is okay; we humor her and head to the Antiquarian to check on it.

Chloe feels like she was hit a LOT harder than Amanda could have, and is seeing odd colors & halos around everything. Maia notices Chloe’s hand twitching. Stennit is there & Maia asks if he can give Chloe a lift home; Chloe asks him what sort of final exams there are for wizards, she thinks she’s in her’s. Why? Because he told her so. Who? Her professor. Stennit & Maia & Gloria give each other meaningful looks and Stennit decides he really should get her home.

In the car – Stennit comments that she surprised him by her spellcasting; asks Chloe to tell him more about how she’s learning magic. She tells him that her professor came to her while she was at the Antiquarian and started teaching her – runes, summoning, gestures, etc. He asks if she’s been going into any of the books; she points out that he doesn’t let her look at them. He tells her she really needs to not be doing anymore spellcasting, but she assures him that she won’t make anything else go numb; she called on one of the Sumarian gods because no one was talking to them much – according to her professor – and that’s why her finger is numb and her arm is twitching.

Her mother has been looking for her – demands to know where she’s been, she was trying to call her cell phone, but no answer. She thanks Maia & Gloria for getting Chloe home.

In school the next day, Ashley is hanging out with the “smoking crowd” – Amanda, Rona, & Dalton. They’re discussing the current state of makeup & such, & ask Ashley if she wants to be in a movie. Dalton says he has an idea for making a mockumentary about vampires. They need someone who knows how to fight; Dalton points out that Roland would be really good, but Amanda & Rona don’t want him involved. Rona tells Ashley about a fight she taped that looks really authentic; she hasn’t put it up on YouTube, because she wants to save it – looks like a couple people killing someone with an axe, but there was no blood, so it must have been someone playing a prank, or filming. So, they want to do some filming of their own; need to recruit some people from the art club & the theater.

At lunch – Chloe goes over to talk to Cody about magic stuff, then realizes that the entire lunch room has been staring at them, amused. She joins Maia & Gloria & Roland & Ashley, who are mid-conversation. She sits down and realizes they’ve been talking about her…but they’ve been discussing how to deal with her sudden fear of fire, and their ideas range from walling her up in a brick room in the basement, to implanting Jen’s crystal into her head in place of her brain (but it’s so messy getting all the blood out, and we’d have to replace Maia’s coat again), to cutting off her numb finger so it doesn’t bother her anymore (and it might improve things, since she could get phantom feelings in her hand). She freaks out and leaves. (They were actually discussing homework and plans for the evening…)

elfrhys [8:58:07 PM]: walling her up will keep her safe from fire...
rhifox [8:58:14 PM]: Oh, nice tie-in.
rhifox [8:58:18 PM]: You're on!
elfrhys [8:58:30 PM]: should we be talking when she arrives, and just say "Hi, Chloe" and keep going?
rhifox [8:59:11 PM]: Yeah!. First line, "No, I've got a better idea. What about walling her up in the school basement."
rhifox [8:59:30 PM]: Response "Yeah, that would keep her safe from fire. Much better than the alternative."
elfrhys [8:59:41 PM]: we don't even have to use her name - just use enough references to make it clear
rhifox [8:59:46 PM]: "Yeah, vivisection is so messy."
rhifox [9:00:02 PM]: But if we cut off her finger it won't 'not feel' any more.
elfrhys [9:00:05 PM]: and you never really get all the blood out
rhifox [9:00:09 PM]: Oh yeah.
elfrhys [9:00:27 PM]: hey, would she get phantom feelings? maybe cutting off her finger would actually help!
rhifox [9:00:39 PM]: Oh dear!
elfrhys [9:01:42 PM]: how can we talk over her if she keeps going off with other people??
rhifox [9:01:54 PM]: He'll get her there.


Chloe leaves the lunchroom and feels someone grab her arm; wrenches herself free and goes to hide out in the stairwell till the end of classes. She still is seeing odd halos & lights & such, and is very disoriented.

Gloria catches Cody and asks if Chloe said anything to him that might indicate where she is or why she’s freaking; he says not, but he knows where she’ll be after eighth period – she arranged for a sort of consultation – and he’ll make sure she gets home safe. Maia lets Stennit know that Chloe is freaking out again.

After school at the Antiquarian – Stennit found info on a demon, it’s somewhere between genders at the moment, and will be looking for a comfy place to lair up. It’s likely to be wanting someplace like a house – goody. Small, quick, intelligent.

Maia & Gloria & Ashley go out hunting – first we spot the footprint, then spot it up in the trees; it comes down to land in front of us and starts running away. We chase it, but it’s moving pretty fast. We can’t tell where it might be heading in particular, but it’s headed toward residential areas, so we have to catch it. We go sprinting after it, Gloria slightly in the lead, when she gets clotheslined and then shoved down. Maia is right behind her – manages to get hold of it and get her knife into it, and they go rolling downhill. Ashley comes through the bushes in time to see it standing up again; she runs up and shoves her sword into it’s ribcage…and realizes it’s Eric Weber. Crap. He collapses into a gravestone; she pulls it out, apologizing profusely.

We hear the door from the mausoleum uphill closing, and Rona’s & Amanda’s voices. We exit rapidly, hiding in the thicket until they give up and wander off. We hear them talking about hearing something hit the roof of the mausoleum, then they come around and see the blood and Rona starts filming it. They finally leave, and we can’t catch the thing before it hit road and we lose the tracks. Eric heads home to stitch himself up and change clothes; we head to the nearby B&B, watching for tracks along the way, and avoiding police as we go, but we can’t pick up it’s tracks again.

Cody really couldn’t help Chloe with anything, and the description of her invisible teacher has him very concerned. Tells her not to use any warding or protection spells that her professor taught her – don’t trust him. She needs to put up some strong warding circles at her house as protection; gives her information on how to do it.

Next day at school:

Chloe is still having double vision, still very disoriented. Rowan Hackbury flags her down to talk; they go into the rest room. Rowan tells Chloe she needs her help – someone killed her last night. Chloe tries poking her with a pencil; nope, not there. Rowan thought she hit a dog with her car last night, but she got out and there was no dog, and next thing she knew she was in her own back seat. She didn’t even realize she was dead until after the first couple classes that day. She was driving on Cook’s Mill Road, not sure exactly where, and no idea where her body might be. Chloe suddenly hears a flush and realizes someone else was there hearing her side of the conversation; she starts washing her hair and is combing it out when one of the teachers comes in to see if she’s all right.

Eric Weber joins us at lunch; we discuss plans for tonight, but we’re past the full moon, so it’s probably changed and under cover somewhere. Any vacant houses in the area? Maia goes looking for Amanda later to get her help in finding vacancies; she’s irritated about it, but she’ll see what she can find out. Chloe joins us and hears us talking about how to ‘help’ her again, babbles a brief report on Rowan’s ghost telling her she was killed last night, and rushes off. Huh? We look around and see Rowan sitting at a table off to the side of the room. Maia goes over and asks her if she’s alive; Rowan is clearly stoned and finds this hysterically funny. Maia then asks if she hit a dog last night – huh? Okay, just checking on how far out of reality Chloe currently is, thanks! Maia leaves.

Evening – Maia gets a call from Amanda (via Gloria’s cell phone) with house information; she comes to meet us (well, Maia) at the Noble Bean. They go sit by themselves; she gives Maia a listing of the vacant houses in the center area of town.

Chloe saw Maia talking to whatever was pretending to be Rowan, and knows it’s onto her, so doesn’t want to walk home; she’s trying to find a ride after school when Rowan (the living version) comes up to her. “Do you really think you can see dead people?” Chloe backs away from her, and right into Rowen’s friend Sal Martino; runs away as Rowen is asking her to come to her party. Chloe calls Gloria and tells her not to talk to her, but Rowan is dead and having a party, and it’s not safe. Roland takes the phone, Chloe tells him she’s hiding behind the trash compacter, and please come get her. Roland heads out, Maia comes back, we fill her in. Suddenly Ashley wonders if these demons can take on the form of humans they eat – crap! We call Stennit – no answer. We sprint back to the Antiquarian to research, and Gloria texts Stennit “Urgent – possible shapeshifter!” After digging through some other books, we find a reference that yes, in fact, they can take on human guise for short periods of time. We have to find this party!

Ashley gets a call from one of the smoking gang inviting her to the secret party; he tells her to invite some of her friends. Tells her as soon as he finds out where the party is, he’ll call her and arrange to pick her up. She fills us in, Maia calls Eric Weber and invites him along.

The rave is being held at one of the vacant houses on Maia’s realty list – big house, near the graveyard, no For Sale sign, and surrounded by trees. We all arrive at the party. We go in with a really good plan, which doesn’t survive past Gloria being separated from the group and bitten by the demon; it takes her form while fighting Roland and he has to kill it. Gloria sees him as he slashes at it’s neck with a sword; it goes down, he turns to Gloria, it gets up behind him and is about to kill Roland, Maia yells at him to get down, he drops, she throws a spear and kills it.

Hilary was working on keeping the innocent bystanders out of the way, and ends up doing some really embarrassing stuff to distract everyone…which Rona films. Terrific.

Oretzia: “Let me take you to see my friends.”
She turns around and Tabitha decks her.
Cam: “I’d hate to see your enemies.”


“When’s your bedtime?”
“3rd period study hall.”


“So, how does a girl who died in 2001 show up at school here in Hammer Falls in 2003?”
“Liberal acceptance policies?”


“I’m not bad, I was just summoned that way.”


Ashley – 2 drama points
Jared: “One for running away, one for getting laid.”


Ashley’s uncle: “This is why you were sent here from California in the first place, because you made some poor decisions.”
Ashley: “But I’m making all new poor decisions now!”


Maia: “Don’t say anything, or I’ll touch you.”
Chloe: “You need to never say that again in public. Only in private.”


Slayer PMS: “Permanent Mystic Syndrome”


“I’ve never played Maia as a human being!”


Gloria (to Maia, watching the alternate universe Ashley painting her claws): “You know, if I had to picture Ashley as a demon, this would pretty much be it…”


“Will you turn off the damn silence field already? I’m monologuing and you can’t hear me!”


Pen: “So, Ashley, do you start to ooze pheromones when you change form?”
Ashley: “I ALWAYS ooze pheromones!”



“Don’t get so drunk that you can’t run?”
“You’d be amazed how fast I can run even drunk if I need to…”


Ashley (re Micah): “It would be nice to see him. Besides, I need another pawn, damnit!”


Ashley: “I haven’t lied to you.”
Maia: “But you’ve let us misbelieve.”


Gloria: “No, MY romantic moment is NOT involving blood and beer!”


“I’ve heard the screams of the manuscripts…”


GM: “How is Cam Ross looking in this reality?”
Ashley: “Hot.”


Maia (after not knocking over a vampire): “I have got to put on some weight.” (and how often do you hear that from a teenage girl??)


Pen (about Marjorie): “That would keep the hate focused on Maia, which is really where her hate should be aimed at.”


Cam: “You should pray for guidance.”
Gillian: “It seems cheap and needy to come to God only when you need something, especially when you don’t pray at any other time.”
Pen: “God likes cheap and needy.”


Cam: “You know, when you’re dealing with denizens of the underworld, identity theft takes on a whole new meaning.”
Gloria: “Tell me about it.”


Gloria: “I’ll take care of the picnic lunch.”
Cam: “I’ll bring the drinks.”
“Maia, what are you bringing?”
Maia: “The weapons!”
“So much for the ant problem.”

Morning. Stennit is still processing Ashley’s story.

At school – Maia tells Pen about Blakely’s apparent obsession with their activities, and assigns her to find out what he’s trying to find out. She goes to him with the story of the fire at the toy store over Christmas, so she can try and get access to his computer. She arrives at his office to overhear him talking to another student – Kim – who is giving him tons of info on Gloria & who she hangs out with. Hmmm…

Blakely assigns her to find more information on who found the body at the toy store, and to look into what they might have had to do with it. Also, why would the killer have used a marionette to strangle someone? He seems very focused on the story, very intense. He tells her he’d been comparing her work this year with what she did last year, and doesn’t feel that she’s really pushing herself as much as she could be.

She doesn’t get a chance to look around his office without him before he sends her off to research the story and follow up on some of her leads. She leaves, but lurks nearby; as soon as he leaves his office she verifies that he’s leaving the building and then goes back to try and break into his office. Despite the gym across the hall, she manages to pick the lock without anyone seeing her and gets inside. She carefully looks around – he has lots & lots of info posted on the wall. Unfortunately, he does seem to be investigating the group of us as a whole. He probably doesn’t know the Slayer is involved, though, and probably hasn’t even heard about the Slayer.

She uses her key to get into his desk; looks through it thoroughly. She finds his jacket, and finds a flash drive in one pocket – takes it. Finds nothing else that looks useful, puts everything back the way it was, and leaves.

Maia is just getting home when she gets a call on her cellphone for Ashley, from “Cali-girl”; gives Maia some grief about wanting to talk to Ashley right away. Ashley doesn’t want to talk to her, so Maia gets her to leave a phone number. Whoever it is insists that she have Ashley call her asap.

Pen calls Maia to tell her about the flash drive – we all collect at the Antiquarian. We look at the drive;

Cali-girl calls again; tells Maia to tell Ashley that it’s Tabitha. Ashley takes the call – Tab heard she was having trouble; offers to come pick her up to have Ashley stay with her. Tells her she should’ve taken off months ago. Gives Ashley an address in Cleveland – The Australia Club – and says to ask the bartender where Down Under is; that will get her in. She sneaks off; the rest of us follow. Gloria notices that several females dressed in a specific style seem to be let in with no problem; she takes Pen & Maia & does a quick makeover, they get inside and let the guys in the back door.

The band is not speaking English – lots of animal noises, and latin. Cam translates – lots of screaming about the demolition of the human world. They are wearing demon masks – Gloria recognizes the drummer as being a specific demon type. Crap. And there are no mirrors anywhere inside. Double crap. Behind the bar is a door marked “Down Under” – guarded, with a velvet rope in front. It’s clearly limited access. The band takes a break and takes off their masks – human underneath. We watch the door for a bit to see who is allowed inside; a college guy starts dancing with Pen, and she leans in to talk & try to get some information. Cam is surrounded by several girls dancing with him; he chats with them as well. Gloria asks her dance partners about the Down Under door – room for private parties, probably in the basement. Maia goes poking around looking for access to backstage stuff.

As we’re watching the DU door, a couple people come inside and head straight there. One is a really big guy, huddled inside his coat; a waitress joins him, and the guard at the door opens it up as soon as he spots them coming over. Maia gets past the barricade on the stairs and heads up to the second floor. Locked doors, she avoids the area looking over the dance floor. She punches through the lock on one door and gets inside; there’s a console with lots of sliders & switches, with a window on one wall looking over the dance floor, a fridge in one corner – beer, soda, & blood. Private party room – for very special guests. She takes a couple of the plastic bags of blood and moves onto the next room. Second room is an office; finds nothing helpful, although most of the employee paperwork is very shoddy – sequential SSNs, same handwriting on lots of the forms, etc.

Meanwhile, Down Under, Tabitha met Ashley at the entrance and took her straight downstairs. The door guard has a strange slur to his voice, as if he can’t quite close his jaw fully. The stairs clearly go down more than one floor, and lead into the tunnels under the city. They are filled with artificial stalactites & stalagmites, lots of lighting, loud music. They go over to the bar – the bartender has yellow eyes and tusks. They have drinks, they dance, they are joined by a couple large guys.

Wide range of people are being allowed through the door, many seem to be expected. A group finally comes out from the Down Under door and look out over the crowd. Pen’s dance partner leans in and tells her it’s invitation time – they sometimes come out and invite people to come downstairs. No idea what criteria they look for, other than hot. The invitation group is a mix of male/female, wide age range, dressed for clubbing. One guy joins the group as they come out – he had been dancing – and spreads out into the crowd with the others. Cam is invited by an older lady and agrees to join her, thinking Ashley might be downstairs. Maia intercepts and asks to join them – the lady realizes her strength and believes Maia is one of them, welcomes her downstairs and tells her to invite whoever she wants. Gloria is already being escorted in by a pair of Chippendale-types, so she brings Roland with her. Pen goes in on her own, before realizing that one of them had been heading straight toward her.

Someone comes over to whisper in Tabitha’s ear – she grins and asks Ashley if she’s hungry, puts them in for two. Tells her there’s a group going upstairs to skim off the cream of the group, but it’s sort of a catch & release program, so make sure not to injure any of them. Ashley hasn’t managed to spot any other exits yet, but hasn’t really had much chance to look closely. We get downstairs and are cheered by several of the people already downstairs; Ashley spots Cam being towed along by some older skank – is majorly pissed. Tabitha (although she doesn’t know Cam) insists that they have to get him away from her and they double-team her. Cam’s escort asks him what he likes; he starts talking about the Youth Ministry and his church work. She seems a bit confused at first, then starts to take her to meet some of her friends…just as Tabitha comes up and decks her. Tabitha also shifts to demon form when she attacks – prehensile bladed tail and all. Ashley ducks around her and grabs Cam’s wrist. “Ashley! There are demons here!” Then she realizes the rest of the gang is there. Great. Pen is coming in alone, although a tall, blond man seems to be trying to catch up with her. She steps back at the sight of Tabitha’s shift, and backs into the man behind her. His eyes blink black, then back; tells her that there is about to be a knock down bar fight here, and would she like to get out of there? She takes his hand, he introduces himself as Rase, puts a hand on her waist and escorts her back upstairs.

Maia catches Cam shoulder to get his & Ashley’s attention and suggests they get going – it doesn’t look like their kind of party. Oretzia gets up and backhands Tabitha, sending her flying. She also shifts to demon form, ripping through her dress. She looks like she’s about to head over to kick the snot out of Tabitha; Ashley picks up a chair and decks her in the back of the head – knocks her out. Cam & Maia look around to see how many unsuspecting humans are downstairs – there is one looking completely shocked at the sign of the demons, and one too busy making out to notice anything, even the horns appearing on her kissing partner. Gloria punches the one holding her in the groin and rejoins the others. The second demon grabs at her elbow, Gloria ducks, and both Maia & Roland punch him. They take her arms and hustle her along. Maia lets her go and heads over to collect the oblivious girl, while Roland & Gloria & Cam head to the guy freaking out (Doug); he’s now being held by a tentacle wrapped around his arm, but Cam manages to talk him down from his hysteria. The sea monster demon pops thorns out of another tentacle and starts to swing at Cam, but Cam pulls out his knife and slices off the tentacle. He & Doug are sprayed with ichor; Gloria & Roland reroute for another fight. Maia grabs horns and yanks his head to the side; Gloria pulls the girl out of the way while Maia & the demon face off. He screams at her in fury; she laughs & grabs him by the nose and gets him in a submission hold.

Upstairs, Pen has been taken up to the second floor, where it’s quiet enough to talk without screaming. He tells her that the club – both levels – has been around for decades. He seems to know who she is; asks if he can see her as she really is, but she asks him to go first. He looks almost like a bone sculpture, not bad looking, and he’s clearly very impressed by her looks. Their drinks arrive – she doesn’t recognize it, but takes a taste; it tastes like secrets. She asks him to tell her about himself, and about her. He’s a young one, so he’s only been out for 23 years, and isn’t really toeing the line with the older brothers. He’s surprised to learn how short a time she has known about herself, and fills her in on some of his history. He gives her his email address and they trade phone numbers. He escorts her out of the building safely when she sees the rest of the gang leaving and tells him she needs to join us.

The rest of us are sprinting up the stairs, well ahead of the fight. We stop before charging through the door, then stroll as casually as possible into the upstairs club; Ashley kissed Doug to calm him down. Pen and Rase fall in with us in time to easily get us all outside. We pile into the car (Rase kisses Pen goodbye) and leave; Ashley stays behind.

Tabitha comes running out of the club, collects Ashley (along with Doug), and takes them off to another nightclub. Everyone seems to be in human form, but it’s definitely another demon bar. Tabitha sends Ashley to get a table and goes off to the bar; brings back one pitcher for Doug and one for her & Ashley to share. When that places closes, Tabitha takes them to her place to sleep.

Ashley gets up early the next morning, chases Doug off home, and heads back to Hammer Falls; gets to Stennit’s place just at breakfast time. She refuses to eat anything, though – very hungover. Maia makes sure she drinks lots of water, hands her some painkillers, and sends her off to bed. Despite several attempts, Ashley wasn’t able to get much information on ulamanxr or and of the demon attack plans. Tabitha did tell her that the time is coming soon; a seer told her that, and since this was the same seer who gave her Maia’s phone number to call, she believes him.


We finally look at the info on the flash drive – it is all information we already have, but includes some surprising stuff like Jen Waring’s mother’s obituary. We’ll definitely need to approach him directly for information.

to be continued...

Ashley meets up with Micah – he takes her through a relatively involved ritual to unground her. She’s in a VERY good mood at school on Monday…

Even with warning Roland about her reactions, and trying hard to relax, Gloria is very jumpy and having trouble covering.

Back at school after New Years – Ashley is very…bouncy. We ask how things went – she had a very good date, and made progress. Maia & Gloria ask for details, Cam & Roland leave, Chloe arrives and joins them.

Off to classes for the afternoon. Cam is passing by the gym when Hilary & Liz come out to get water – Liz greets him, but Hilary is fairly abrupt. Passing again after class, Hilary walks along with him & asks if her cousin is acting weird; he comments that she seemed a little bubbly at lunch. Just as he answers, Hilary is taking a drink of water and suddenly spits it out, throws up, and passes out in the hall. Cam sends someone to get the school nurse and keeps an eye on Hilary to try and keep her from choking or anything. The nurse and several teachers arrive running; Stoker follows shortly after and chases everyone else back to class. Hilary is still breathing, although having difficulty; her lips are inflamed, so she clearly had a reaction to something, and didn’t just have her water go down the wrong way. Cam picks up Hilary’s water bottle to keep it from being lost. Stoker takes Cam back to the office and asks what happened; Cam describes. Meanwhile, a note is sent to Ashley’s class to send her to the nurse’s office. Hilary is awake; tells Ashley what happened, that she had a drink of water and then this happened. Doesn’t know where the bottle is. Ashley sniffs around Hilary’s mouth, but can’t smell any sort of poison. The nurse comes back in & asks if she somehow got some cranberry juice; Hilary lies thoroughly about how sensitive she is, and that maybe someone borrowed her water bottle and was wearing cranberry-flavored lip gloss?

Cam has managed to keep Stoker off his assumption that Hilary was taking drugs, although he avoids derailing the idea that someone slipped her something in her water. Stoker finally lets him leave.

Ashley goes looking for Cam to see if he can drive Hilary home, or has any idea of what happened, either to Hilary or to the water bottle; finally tracks him down in the library. Mr. Ross seems flustered, and is clearly searching for something. Cam has the bottle sitting out, and is poking through books looking for information on allergic reactions. Ashley takes a sniff – just water and Hilary’s brand of chapstick. She takes a very small sip; feels like she drank a large spoon of red-hot pepper sauce, but tasted exactly like water. Her lips swell up and are tender, and she is startled into dropping the bottle.

Ashley takes the bottle to meet up with the rest of us at the Antiquarian; Stennit has Cam help him test the water in various test samples. It reacts with one; Stennit takes a look, seems startled, then takes a sip – no effect. He asks where the water was from; when he hears it was the drinking fountain at school, he decides that he needs to head to school and see what’s on the fountain – it isn’t a poison, it’s a curse. It’s a targeted curse, but he can’t tell yet if it’s targeted to specific people or to a type; might be someone’s way of identifying demons at school. If so, Hilary’s just been thoroughly outed… We also suddenly notice that Ashley has some sort of mark on her forehead – what the heck? Must be from drinking the cursed water? She calls Hilary – yep, she’s got one too.

We discuss who might be behind it – Eric Myer? Cody? Mr. Ross? We should go around and ask them and see what they say. Chloe is quietly texting on her phone, and asks Cody if he cursed the fountain – he says no. Stennit goes back to school to check the fountain, Maia goes to ask Eric, Cam & Gloria go to ask Mr. Ross.

Eric denies it – says he knows much better & more direct ways to deal with demons. They chat, then go riding on his motorcycle.

Stennit & Ashley head to the gym; have a brief chat establishing Stennit’s
position on what he’ll do to Ashley if she turns on and hurts Maia, otherwise he’ll be fine with her. The curse seems to be fading from the water fountain. They break into the journalism office, and discover that the journalism teacher is clearly investigating all the activities we’ve been involved in. Have to keep an eye on them…

We walk into the library to find Mr. Ross, Stoker, Maitland and another officer; they are immediately suspicious, we say we’re looking for Cam’s backpack. They go on talking; there’s apparently something that Mr Ross is missing – leatherbound book with latin title: On Manners of Perceptions. Small portfolio, handbound. They want a list of everyone who is a library aid, or was an aid last year and who has a key. (uh-oh, Roland was an aid last year) The cops chase Stoker out; he hassles us on the way, but Chloe tells him she joined the cheerleaders. He leaves. We leave.

Back to the Antiquarian & debrief. Maia calls Pen (home sick) to ask if she has any ideas on how to get access to the journalism’s teacher’s files in his personal laptop. Also need to figure out whether he knows if any of us are involved. Fill her in on the day’s events. We also call Roland to let him know his name will be getting called up as someone with library access last year; Ollie answers at the Able Wrench, Roland’s out on a call and probably has his cell phone turned off. He’s out in Deerfield to drop off a loaner car; Ollie calls Jerry who’s with him. Ollie calls Maia back a few minutes later – Maitland pulled Roland over for a rolling stop, and now is talking to him about some books that were in his duffel bag in the car. According to Jerry, it looks like Maitland will be dragging him down to City Hall over it. Maia hands the phone over to Stennit, who assures Ollie that any old latin books Roland has are from the Antiquarian, and he certainly has permission to have them; he’ll talk to the police.

Ashley finds a reference with her mark – the Mark of the Beast. Great…

Chloe uses the water bottle to make a circle, puts her finger in it, and mutters something; her finger starts glowing, and it brightens or fades depending on where she points. Stennit looks up, shocked, and demands to know where she found the text for that incantation; Chloe simply starts walking and tells us to follow her. Her finger starts tingling; she walks faster. Maia stops her & asks what she’s doing; this should lead us to the book. (assuming the book was stolen by the person who cursed the fountain…) Stennit is about to come with us when the police call – they’d like him to come and identify the book as belonging to him.

We pile into Gloria’s car to follow the finger, which is gradually going numb and the pain extends through her hand. Eventually we reach a destination – a small rental house in North Deerfield, a carriage house to an older mansion. A Volvo with Colorado plates is outside – belongs to Tom Blakely, the journalism teacher. Chloe looks at her finger, tells it “Go home, go to bed, it’s past your bedtime.” It stops glowing (and hurts like hell), the car dies, and everyone’s cell phones ring briefly.

Gloria & Cam go up to the door and ask if they can use his phone, since her car just died. Gloria notices someone peeking out of the curtain; they know we’re there. Maia & Ashley & Chloe backtrack down the driveway to the big house, so we’re clearly splitting up to have a better chance of finding someone at home whose phone we can use.

Blakely’s house: just as Gloria is ringing the doorbell, the porch light comes on and Blakely is standing there. Gloria acts surprised to find him there and asks if they can use his phone; he seems suspicious, but hands her his cell phone. She calls Stennit, tells him that her car died along with all their cell phones. She asks Blakely what street name this is, or what the name of the complex is; he says it’s not the entrance to the housing complex, it’s the driveway for the Rutherford estate. Gloria passes that along, and also mentions that the phone they’re using belongs to someone they know – Mr Blakely. She hands the phone over so they can chat briefly; Blakely is clearly puzzled as to why Gloria called the latin teacher about a dead car. Blakely offers to get out his jumper cables and try to jump the battery, then hangs up.

Big house – Maia knocks, the door is flung open by someone who says “Oh, good, you’re here…oh.” He’s wearing a leather mask, leather straps, etc… Voice in the background: “Is it the Winslows?” “No.” Maia explains that their car died and they’d like to use the phone. “One moment.” He closes the door, and a few moments later it opens slightly and a woman in a bathrobe lets them in and points them to the kitchen phone. Maia calls Stennit, who updates her on a) Blakely trying to jump the battery, and b) Roland is out of trouble for the books, which Stennit identified, but in trouble for the library key on his keychain. Stennit tells her that if he doesn’t hear from any of them within 20 minutes, he’ll come out there.

Meanwhile, Ashley is talking shoes with the lady of the house, who is wearing 5-inch heels with her bathrobe. Just as they’re getting ready to leave, there’s a knock on the door as their expected guests arrive. They are startled to see three teenage girls, but the lady explains that the car broke down.

Maia & the others are nearly back when they hear the car start – the jump worked with no problem. As everyone is getting into the car, Blakely asks Gloria if she ever wears her hair back in the ponytail and with a black band; he’s clearly seen the YouTube video that Rona filmed in the graveyard. We leave.

Great – he’s seen us all in a group, linked Gloria to the video, and linked us with Stennit. Great. As soon as Gloria’s cell phone is charged enough to get a signal, she calls Stennit. They are all leaving the police station now, and he will meet us at the Antiquarian.

Debrief at the store. What to do about Blakely? Should we just tell Mr. Ross to look for the book at Blakely’s? Should we let Stennit deal with it? We pull up the photos Stennit & Ashley took of Blakely’s research and review them – he’s only been in Hammer Falls since August, but has information go back another year. He’s also been looking at data on real estate turnover, number of death certificates issued compared to reported deaths, etc., etc. Lots of info on the fire & alleged mass escape from Franklin in the spring. He’s got a lot of unconnected information that could tie in to us if he finds the links, but hasn’t linked it yet. We table decisions until Pen recovers and can help us figure out whether we can trust him.

Ashley goes home, fills Hilary in somewhat, and has a bit of a confrontation with her aunt & uncle. They are concerned about the people Ashley is hanging out with, and the mark she & Hilary has. They demand information on Maia & the others. Her aunt discusses the option of staging an intervention, and if she should call her sister. She points out that her friends saved her from the vampire that attacked her; they comment that they were very lucky for unprepared mortals. They’re not mortal! Oh, she found some friends to play with? Who? The Slayer.

Pause.

Ashley’s uncle: We have to move. Ashley’s aunt: Tibet sounds good.

They demand to know which one is the Slayer; don’t believe that it’s Maia and not Gloria. The rest of the conversation goes downhill from there, as they don’t want Ashley hanging out with Maia; they’ll find people in other cities for her to text with. Eventually they switch over to the other kind of trouble she can get into as a 16-year-old girl. Ashley sulks. She insists that they’re all safer if she works with the Slayer. They are keeping her home for a few days until the mark fades, then she’s extra grounded and will be driven to & from school.

Ashley runs away that night, before they boost the protections on the house, although Hilary tries to talk her out of it. She goes to Stennit’s house to see if she can stay there, and is very surprised to find Maia living there.

to be continued...

Countdown to Ascension at sunset (5pm) – gotta stop Evangeline! Or even better, get back to our own universe!!

Morning at the church safe house, about 8am. Nate is called home for a while (has to reassure his parents that he is still alive/human). TV coverage from CNN is full of the chaos in New York. Roland heads to his shop to get some equipment, then he & Nate will get Dunnegan’s prepped for meeting the Council. Russell takes Maia to her place so he can scrounge for herbs. Between her supplies and Roland’s, they have everything they need to make explosives. They are loading stuff onto Russell’s truck when Maia’s father walks in. He looks extremely unwell, even compared to how he looked in reality. He hugs her & asks where she’s been; fusses but finally lets her leave with Russell (and lots of fertilizer). As they are leaving, her father tells her that if she sees her sister, to say hello. ???

Back at the church – Fr. Cernak is blessing everything & everyone he can get his hands on, except Gloria. She feels like she’s in the middle of a room filled with radioactivity; VERY uncomfortable. Roland calls Cam to update him; his shop is getting their gas delivery that afternoon, so if they really, really want a tanker of gasoline…

Cody & his group start gathering all the stuff they need and go off to prepare amulets & such. He does some research to see if they can use Gloria’s Key to locate or inactivate the other ones.

Maia & Russell are heading to Russell’s place when they get pulled over by a police car. Maia sends a text message to Cam: “Cop”. Russell pulls out a pile of paperwork then they both put their hands up on the dashboard and wait for the cop to come over. He finally comes up to them and is taking Russell’s ID when a second police car arrives and pulls up facing Russell’s car. They tell him to open the trunk; Russell hands over his keys. They are told to get out of the car; one cop takes Russell to the trunk while the other keeps Maia at the front of the car, asking them separately about the fertilizer. When the cop frisks Maia, she can tell from the body temp that it’s a vampire. Russell explains that Maia works at a greenhouse, and they are transporting the fertilizer for her parents. They don’t seem to be buying the story… Russell tries to signal Maia to run while the police are focusing on him, but she doesn’t feel she’d be able to outrun them in the residential area they were pulled over in.

Maia ducks around the open door and grabs the holy water vials & stake out of the glove compartment. She hears the sound of a fight, several gunshots, and a roar as she’s busy grabbing things. She slides over to the driver’s side door and looks back; one cop is wrestling with Russell for the gun, the other is staggering back with a line of bullet holes across his chest – no blood. Yep, definitely a vampire. Maia throws one of the holy water vials at him – gets him in the face, which immediately breaks out into blisters. Maia grabs the human cop from behind and kicks him, which distracts him from Russell; she grabs at the gun as well to try and help Russell. While wrestling for it, the human cop suddenly sees his partner game faced. “Damn, Chuck, I wish you hadn’t had to see this, now I’m gonna have to kill you.” Maia & Russell & the cop all point the gun at the vampire cop and fires. Russell is thrown back; Maia grabs his flare gun and hands it to the cop – the vampire starts burning. Russell goes after the vampire with a stake, but it hits his trauma vest plate and Russell is thrown to the ground. Maia throws the second vial of holy water, then goes after Russell’s machete in the car and manages to decapitate the vampire. Whew! However, when she looks over to check on Russell, his neck was broken when he landed.

Maia calls Cam to briefly fill him in, then talks down the very confused cop. Chuck is willing to let Maia leave, but decides he’s going with her. Rather than move the fertilizer, they put Russell’s body into his back seat, collect the weapons from the two police cars, and leave the police cars behind. She calls Cam, who arranges to meet them at the other church safe house, closer to Evangeline’s HQ, so they can start working on the explosive.

Pen headed down to Dunnegan’s to get things ready for the council; it’s been closed since Jupe passed away a few months ago. Thorne is the head of the group when they arrive, and they have the new Slayer with them. They know they have till sundown, probably this time zone to match NYC, where the sacrifice (massive attack) was just made. Pen scolds him for the way the council treated the bookseller. One of the council members is very condescending, assuring Pen that the professionals are now here, so they can relax; she politely tells him off, then Thorne comes over and tells him off as well. He & Pen sit down and talk tactics, and also review their set of surveillance photos.

Still no sign of Tina at St. Malachi’s. The police scanner is picking up the reports of gunshots fired, so the cops are all over the town; Ashley wants to go out looking for her, but it might not be safe. The amulet/wish/alternate universe thing is low priority for Cam right now compared to stopping Evangeline, so he won’t let Ashley go. He does try calling Tina, but can’t get a signal.

At First Church – Maia introduced Chuck to Cathy Ross, then fills Cathy in on what happened. They move Russell’s body into the springhouse outside. Cathy mentions that she hasn’t been able to reach her parents, who were on their way home from a conference in Boston. She calls Cam to fill him in, also on the high concentration of police all over the town. Roland calls to check in – Cam sends him to the church instead of to the gym.

Cam & Ashley debate what to do with Gloria; she did save Roland & avoid killing Ashley, but do they really trust that she’s on their side? Do they believe her story? Ashley points out that since they’re pretty well fucked tonight, they might as well let her free to see if she does help them; she can’t make it worse, right? Cam decides to turn her loose and take her along; Ashley goes down to untie her. He does want to take the Key away, so they need a way for her to go outside; Hilary finds a body bag. Ewwww!

Everyone gathers at First Church to plan. Pen stops each of the council people as they come in the door to make them go through the checks – touch the cross, look in the mirror, etc. The first meeting between the council group (including the Slayer) and Cam’s (including Gloria and Ashley with wings out) does not go well. Thorne is very taken aback by his first sight of Ashley, recovers quickly, and turns to warn the rest of his group not to come in shooting. It takes them a little longer to notice the vampire; Lisa (the new slayer) comes in last and immediately senses Gloria. She asks Cam if he realizes there is a vampire standing five feet from him; “Are you kidding? She’d the Vampire Queen’s head lieutenant.” Everyone on the council immediately takes aim at Gloria. Great. They are eventually reassured.

Thorne doesn’t know what happened in New York; they just lost contact. Spend some time working out plans, prepping weapons & armor. Maia calls Graves & Sons – Tina’s not there, Maia leaves a message, saying it’s very urgent and to please have her call Cam. Jordan calls Cam – call breaks up, but he manages to get info through: they should arrive in 20 minutes, and everything should happen in about two hours.

They ask Maia & Gloria how they stopped Evangeline – they used the Vox Magna (don’t do it again), Thorne saved their lives (“It was nothing”), and but they don’t have the spell scroll anymore, and they really shouldn’t use it. According to Luke (the council’s mage), there is a period of only about 9-11 minutes during the ritual in which Evangeline can be killed; during most of the time the ritual itself will be protecting her. Pen gets very thoughtful and phases out for a couple minutes; tells us that her sources tell her that when Evangeline is vulnerable, we’ll have 20-40 minutes in which to destroy her, and it will take something massive. Gloria reminds them of the storeroom of C4 at Franklin House that Chloe mentioned; all they have to do is get inside. Lisa suggests that Gloria bring her in openly – explain her absence by being busy capturing the Slayer as a gift for Evangeline. If we time it right, we can at least seriously split Mother’s forces, and hopefully can pick up some extra explosives.

Thorne describes to Gloria how to set the C4, and gives her a couple detonators to use. Blow it one minute after Evangeline becomes vulnerable – but what time will that be? Right on cue, Cody arrives with the schedule – gives us the exact time, 31 minutes from now. Three attacks – gasoline tanker truck (exploding at the loading dock), Russell’s car filled with the fertilizer bomb (driving into the front door), and the C4 inside. Luke pulls out a fake Ward of Binding amulet – glows. Lisa puts it on, acts like she’s fighting it, she & Gloria head out, taking one of the church vans.

Gloria gets some attitude from the cop guarding the Franklin House gates, but get inside – no one there, everyone’s already up at the main building. We track down the C4, load up, and head back to the van. Plan to go into the balcony overlooking the pool, wait for the car to drive in, set the timer for about 20 seconds and throw the duffel bag right at Evangeline. Roland will set off the tanker explosion when he hears the other explosions, and Thorne’s people will be outside to take down any escaping vampires.

Ashley notices that Russell still has his weapons and takes the useful ones; realizes he has the last of the sunshine cloths – cool! They line up the car on the main doors. Gloria & Lisa get into position at the balcony – can hear the chanting before we even get there. The timer is set for the minimum of 30 seconds. Pen floors the engine, blasting Ride of the Valkyries from the speakers, and plows through the main doors into the rotunda, slamming into the columns surrounding the fountain. Pen, Ashley & Maia pile out of the car. Ashley flashes the nearest of Evangeline’s ritual team with the sunshine cloth and flies up into the rotunda. Gloria hits the timer and throws the bag into the fountain. Lisa sees the book Evangeline is holding and screams “She’s got the book! The council will want that!” Ashley hears her and dives to grab the book; Evangeline was sufficiently distracted by everything else that she can’t hold on to it. Ashley flies as fast as she can up to the balcony, past Gloria & Lisa, and blows through a window, followed by the other girls, followed closely by the explosion. Maia & Pen just barely make it back out the front door before the explosion throws them further. They look back – no vampires pursuing, the building is engulfed, and a moment later the tanker explodes.

Several vampires start piling out of the basement, armed with guns; Thorne’s team starts taking them down. Gloria & Lisa both manage to land fairly well, although Gloria rolls into a car. Ashley makes sure they’re all right, then flies off to the other side of the building to join Cam.

Cam has Cody, Hilary & Nate with him, as well as Chuck the cop. They target a group of five vampires coming at them out of the building; they take four down, two permanently, but the last one tackles Cody. Hilary & Nate go after him to help; Nate slams the crossbow into the vampire, but it had already bitten Cody. Before Hilary can dust the vampire, it stabs Nate in the neck. Another vampire stabs Cam with a crossbow bolt; Chuck jumps in and stakes it. Cam is able to get to Nate in time to stop the bleeding, though.

There are very odd lighting effects in the smoke – Maia grabs Luke and asks him what it is. Random discharge of all the magic in the air; it’ll just take some time to fade out. Lisa & Gloria are strolling back around the building and rejoin the group – no vampires left for them to fight, what a shame. Ashley sees Hilary and flies down to check to check on her.

Gloria hears that no one has seen Roland yet; she sprints off to find him. Sees him leaning against the wall, rushes over and hugs him, babbling how happy she is that he’s all right. He’s startled, and when he notices that her skin is warm from the fire, he kisses her. Asks if it worked – as far as Gloria could tell, we destroyed Evangeline and all her army. Roland asks what now – now we try and get things reversed back to how they were. He just looks at her; comments that it’s so hard to remember that she’s not the real Gloria – she points out that in her memories, she is the real Gloria. He asks what if they can’t reverse it – she wouldn’t want to live like this as a vampire. No, she agrees she wouldn’t, so they have to find the amulet. He suggests they head back to rejoin the others. Gloria turns to start back and sees Maia coming around the corner of the building – calls out to her that Roland’s okay. Just then, Roland draws his sword and decapitates Gloria; she hears it just in time to turn and see the blow coming. Gloria dusts. Maia stares at him shocked. Roland looks miserable, sheaths the sword, picks up the Key, and walks back to the others.

Thorne takes the book from Ashley and hands it off to Luke; everyone scrambles for cars & other exits. Pen is hurrying people into cars, gathering stuff up that can’t be left behind, and making sure anything with fingerprints is not left behind. Roland heads off across the fields, pulling Maia with him, and they meet up with the others at the church. The main group gets there and are missing five people – Roland, Maia, Gloria, Alan, Luke & Lisa. Thorne tries calling Luke – no cell phone service. What happened? They (mostly) know to meet back here; wait for a bit to see if any stragglers arrive on foot.

Cam turns on the news – fire is still burning out of control; the odd effects (the odd colors overhead) make the authorities think it’s linked to the attack in New York. Freya arrives not long afterward – something is going wrong. She & Mr. Ross were finishing up a working, and closed the circle; he wanted to look at something else, but something walked through the circle and killed him. Something happened an hour ago (the explosions were an hour & a half ago), and the effects over the building aren’t going away. Ashley asks how long Thorne has known Luke; could he be doing something with the book? According to Thorne, he’s not that powerful. The effects shouldn’t be taking this long to disperse; Ashley changes into her night flying gear and goes back to check on the site.

Suddenly, a ripple of something passes through the universe. Ashley & Pen in particular sense that something was trying to change the world into a different place, where demons are normal and humans are rare – a reality quake. The last time they felt something like this was when Evangeline opened the HellMouth. A few minutes later, another quake ripples past. Someone is trying to change reality. Someone completed the Rite of Ascension – Luke? What about Lisa – when she was picked up in Atlanta, her watcher had been killed by a demon, according to her. Oh, crap.

Roland & Maia are watching the light show; a column of fire shoots up from the building, with a huge figure in the clouds, semi-human. They may not have succeeded – have to go back and check. He tells her to wait there a moment while he checks things out. After he leaves, Maia notices a figure standing in the shadows – Tina. She seems amused by Maia and is not at all cooperative about reversing the wish. Tina turns to go; Maia tackles her down and grabs the amulet. She takes off running, trying to break the amulet as she goes; Tina catches up and knocks her down. As she’s dragging Maia backward, Maia is trying to smash it on the pavement. She suddenly manages to smash it – and we are back in the graveyard, Gloria & Maia standing face-to-face.

Dr. Valerie D'Arc (Valkyrie) is shown a weapon that the people at Manning are trying to figure out; when fired at a target of cinder blocks, the blocks are shattered by a beam of energy. Cool! They don’t know how it works, but it’s a very handy handheld blaster. They are working on figuring out how it works, how the energy source works, and how they can reproduce it.

Kate is working on a case trying to locate someone who has not paid the fees on a legal junction against him six months ago - Carl Munson. He left his last known address and disappeared; the law firm trying to collect the money hired Kate to find him. A friend on the police force (Michael) calls – thinks they found his body. Head to meet him in the alley – definitely Munson, looks like he was executed. Has several priors on him, still has his wallet with ID – no robbery. It’s a blind alley, and no one saw anyone leave the alley after hearing the gunshot.

Fly up and look around at the rooftops – there are signs of what looks like a skid mark, ending in the shape of a boot; takes a picture. The skid is about 8 feet long. There’s a trap door into the building, but obviously hasn’t been opened in a while. Fly back down & tell Michael about the mark. Talk to the witnesses – nothing really helpful; they heard a gunshot.

Naomi is investigating Valkyrie’s background, trying to figure out if she’s someone they’ll want to work with later. Misc ongoing investigation of other supers they’ve encountered.

Contact Naomi – describe the situation & ask if she knows of anyone with abilities that would match; flight, superleap, etc. There are several with flight, a few with super strength that might allow leaping. None that click as a potential; the combination of super powers & small arms abilities is unusual. Pull up info on Munson’s prior warrants/arrests to look for reasons for his execution – about half a dozen addresses in the past three years, no really serious charges, no obvious enemy. Backtrack through addresses, see why & how he left each; the most recent was 2 weeks ago, then 3 months before that.

Shade comes back to her desk and finds someone lying under her desk – can only see a pair of legs (jeans & sneakers). A hand comes up and starts feeling around for a screwdriver; she asks what he’s doing under her desk – he says he’s installing the wireless card into her computer. She hands down the screwdriver, he finishes and climbs out. Scruffy, college age kid; looks surprised that she’s not Chuck. Who’s Chuck? She went out for donuts; he introduces himself as Vic. He gives her the info on her username, password, etc., chats with her as he’s setting up her account.

Defender calls Shade to let her know he’ll be out of town for a few days, just so no one worries when they can’t reach him. She goes off to teach her self-defense class.

Michael calls Kate, sounding concerned. The coroner found something strange – she goes over to meet him. On Munson’s left arm was a tattoo of a “V” that looked freshly done; they’ve seen it before on captured Viper agents. Probably done within the last two weeks. Other data – ballistics shows the gun is not a standard US caliber, but is European manufacture. No data yet linking it to previous cases. Contact Naomi & update her; a couple of the supers we came up with before have possible links to Viper, but the firearms doesn’t match. However, someone could have jumped in carrying a second attacker.

Suddenly Kate realizes the skid mark matches someone stopping from super speed, rather than leaping/flying. Redo the search – find one that has a record as a mercenary – Mercury Mercenary. Super speed, small arms, theft, assassinations, snatch & grabs. Has an Interpol file, but no name or photos. Description is only a muscular male, mid to late thirties. Wears a cowl, so no idea of hair color. Last known appearance was 6 months ago in Italy. About two years ago he seemed involved with a gang war in LA, but seemed to be working for both sides. However, it’s unusual for him to take a job dealing with such a nobody – tends to go after more well-protected targets. Kate & Naomi decide to call in the rest of the group.

Valkyrie is called into one of her coworker’s offices – he shows her a video on YouTube that he found, of Aegis fighting a criminal (Ramble) with a very similar weapon. Valkyrie calls the Aegis contact number and leaves a message – Dr. Valerie D’Arc. It takes Naomi a minute to figure out what she’s referring to, then realizes it was the person who transported in from another time (10-year jump?). She calls Valerie back…after first researching her online (and finding no information, misspelling the name). Valerie wants info on the weapon, saying that ‘they’ have a similar weapon, but won’t give her any information on who she is or where she got it. Naomi eventually realizes that the weapon Valerie is working with probably is Ramble’s, since he didn’t have it when he transported out. She tells Valerie that she will pass the word to Aegis and get back to her.

Kate, Naomi, Shade & Velocity meet up at HQ & debrief. Do we want to pass any info along to Valerie? Any ideas on the Viper hit? We decide that we need to meet Valerie in person – Velocity will meet her. We get online and verify some info; everything matches that she is actually an employee at Manning. Naomi calls & sets up a meeting for that evening; 9pm at Starbucks. Regarding Mercury Mercenary: there is no real data on his abilities or specific top speed, doesn’t seem to have other abilities (super strength, force field, etc.); is known for getting in, doing the damage, and getting out.

Off to meet Valerie. Shade & Kate & Naomi sit separately at the coffee shop, then Velocity arrives to meet Valerie. They meet up, then decide to leave to avoid the people starting to crowd around Velocity in his spandex. Shade is just getting up to follow them when she is interrupted by Vic & Chuck; they want to chat, but she manages to get away and leaves. Meanwhile, Velocity mentions that he believes the weapon uses fusion, so they can check it with a Geiger counter. It also apparently recharges by plugging into a wall, but it has to be a special outlet back where Ramble was from...but really doesn't say where that is. Essentially spends half an hour being chatty & helpful, but not giving Valerie much useful information. He leaves, Shade follows Valerie home – she does nothing unusual, nobody attacks her.

Research items:
• find date & time of Munson's funeral, to watch for suspicious attendees
• track down info on Munson’s family, to see if there may be a link there

Munson’s funeral – body will be claimed by his mother, who has been notified. Funeral not scheduled yet.

Watch for any large explosions at Manning, in case of accidents while working with Ramble's weapon.

Naomi manages to locate Munson’s credit card records – no activity in the past two weeks, except for last night, when he stayed at a cheap hotel a couple blocks from where he was killed. Pending charge – bought breakfast the morning he was killed. By the location, he was on his way back to the hotel when he was killed. Plan to check at the restaurant in the morning to see if they remember him…

Shade sneaks in to Munson’s hotel room – they call the front desk and manage to identify which room (14), but it’s not under his name, he registered under Jack Farrell. The clerk transfers the call to Munson’s room; Naomi & Shade get inside. They search the room and find a duffle bag with a few sets of clothing, Naomi calls Kate to join them to help search. She finds a torn piece of paper from a steno pad, has address & time, but no date. It’s a New York address in a business area, the time is 2am. We photograph & copy the note, put everything back as we found it, and leave.

Head to the address (it’s currently about 11pm) – series of warehouses, differentiated by letters. Naomi scans the area and locates a few people in Building E. Shade goes to scout out the building first – there are several large bay doors along one wall, as well as a few regular pedestrian doors. She gets in closer and sees light coming from inside of E, while the other buildings are dark. The center of three large doors seems to be where the activity & light is located; we decide to hold off and watch rather than breaking in now.

Valkyrie is out on a relaxing evening flight when she spots someone flying with a jet pack; follows him.

A car arrives at around 1:30am, large dark sedan; we alert Shade so she knows it’s coming. It slowly pulls up to Building E, stops, and four people in suits get out. The two from the front seat stay by the car, the other two go to the back door of the building and call someone on a cell phone – obviously announcing their arrival. The door shortly opens and they are let inside. Shade gets closer to the car, but the windows are tinted. She looks in the windshield; there’s no one else in the front seat, and there’s an opaque divider blocking her view of the back seat. She teleports into the front seat of the car and looks around; finds a gun in the glove compartment and misc. paperwork on the car. She turns the car off, takes the keys, and teleports back out. The two are startled, look at the car, open the door & look around. Another person gets out of the back seat – another man in a suit, stockier than the others. As they are milling around trying to figure out what happened, another car arrives – hummer. Pulls up around the other side of the building and parks facing the sedan. The three at the sedan seem wary of the new arrivals, but don’t immediately attack. Naomi senses four people in the hummer; two get out & stand at the front of the car on guard. Shade can see them holding small sub-machine guns, obviously ready for any trouble. The other two men get out of the hummer and head to the door – they are let in immediately. The third man at the sedan gets back into his car.

Kate works her way around to where she can watch the cars & men, so she can follow them if they leave, and Naomi calls Lt. Gonzales to tell him about the meet.

Meanwhile, Valkyrie has followed the other flyer to the same area (although she doesn’t realize we’re there); sees him hovering, but is too far away to see him pulling out a weapon until he fires it at the ground. He fires at the sedan; Shade sees the beam glitter out of the corner of her eye and sees what looks like a laser beam slice across the center of the sedan. Kate looks up – can’t see anything, but keeps an eye on the sky in case whoever it is fires again. Valkyrie moves in to block any further shots.

Valkyrie flies in, grabs the coupling from the gun’s power pack and yanks it free. The men on the ground are running for cover. There’s not much he can do against her after that… She chases as he flies off and easily catches up with him; gets in a punch that knocks him toward the ground, then hits him again and knocks him out. She catches him and looks around for police lights; the laser gun was dropped and is long gone somewhere.

Shade follows after the men trying to take cover in the building; manages to knock both of their guns away before they can react. We all hold for further developments – since none of the men on the ground appear to be supers, we’d prefer to let the police deal with them. And until we see where that laser came from…

The driver of the hummer is on the cell phone to update his boss inside; the other man got back into the hummer, and they drive closer to the door. Naomi called Gonzales again to fill him in on developments. Kate is watching the hummer, ready to follow them if they leave before the cops arrive. The garage door of the building opens, the lights have been switched off. Shade covers the garage door area in darkness; prevents the men inside from seeing anything. There are men inside wearing paramilitary armor with assault rifles; they have flashlights attached to the rifles, but discover that they don’t help against the darkness around them. She sees two, doesn’t know how many more there may be. Shade moves the circle of darkness further inside and tries to determine the number of men present.

Valkyrie is carrying the man down when she spots his target – a car that clearly was bisected by a laser beam. She spots another vehicle near by with it’s lights on, and hovers to get a better look.

Kate spots someone hovering about 50 feet up; force field goes on and she flies up to check it out. Valkyrie recognizes her from the power effects; Kate recognizes Valkyrie when she gets close. They take the man to a nearby rooftop so they take off his helmet and see who it is.

Velocity goes to watch the other side of the building, to make sure no one leaves that way. The police are telling Naomi their ETA is still a few more minutes, since they have to move in a special crimes unit & helicopter. At 2am, Velocity’s watch chirps. Inside the garage door, there is suddenly a large shimmering effect, mostly blocked by the darkness, but large enough to be visible around the edges. Shade goes in closer to take a look at it; there is a large square area marked off with duct tape, and the shimmer is in the center of that area. As she watches, a couple of human figures materialize in the center along with a large amount of gear – delivery.

Kate & Valkyrie immobilize laser man and head in to help.

To be continued…

Roland is organizing an ambush for the vampires tracking them – they’ll lead the vamps right into a trap. They take Chloe’s dad’s gun & ammo & car and head out asap. Cam is collecting weapons – one of the new toys Cody’s developed is a set of folded cloths that have been absorbing sunlight for several days. Open them up towards the vampire and it blasts hours of sunlight in a second. Cool! Also stocks up on flare guns & misc other fun weapons…Maia makes sure she gets hold of something she can use in her current untrained body. Cody passes Cam a glass bottle – when it’s broken, it’ll block all communications for about 5 minutes, 75 yard radius. It’ll also kill any electronics within a few feet when it breaks, so throw it at the vampire’ car.

They plan out the ambush – Roland’s group will lead the vampires into an alley, then Cam’s group will block the other end and trap the vampires between them. They are able to identify 6 vampires in the car following them. Since Roland & the girls are in an older car, he plans to ram the vampire’s car hard enough to set off their airbags to slow them down. Ashley is assigned to fly Chloe up to the rooftop to keep her out of the line of fire; her weapons will be up there waiting for her. Cam’s team will leave some more weapons on top of the dumpster in the alley. Freya will be holding a silence cone over the area, to make sure the police don’t get called in at the sound of gunfire and fighting.

At Franklin House – Johanna has called in with an update; tells Gloria that Roland tried to ditch them at the house by swapping cars, and it looks like he left a couple of the girls behind at the Melton House. They seem to be driving aimlessly, and probably spotted the tail. She asks Gloria about having some of their police stop them, but instead they send one car ahead to try and cut them off. Gloria sends a text message to Maia while still alone: “Follow cars are separating; third car arriving with me & 3 others.” She heads out with Johanna and a couple other vampires to join the fight.

Maia shows the text message to Cam, who promptly takes the phone away from her.

Ashley takes off her coat in preparation for the fight; Pen starts shifting to her demon form – sharp teeth, scaly, eyes going black, and her voice starts to reverberate with several voices all at once.

*** As in interesting fluke, the ambush site is the same alley in which we found the amulet in our original universe. Hmmm… ***

Into the fight:

Pen realizes the second car is no longer following them, and isn’t sure when it left. She calls Cam as Roland hits the gas; Cam tells her to stick with the plan, but watch for the vampires trying to circle in front of them. Cam spots the headlights of the other car at the far end of the alley, ahead of Roland. Roland turns off the lights, hits reverse, floors the gas and rams the front of the Escalade; then switches to forward and floors it away down the alley. He stops long enough for the girls to get out of the car; Pen jumps on top of the car, guns in both hands, firing in both directions at the two cars. She jumps down from the car just as Roland hits the gas again to slam into the other car.

Cody throws the bottle down into the alley, shutting off all electronics. Freya puts up the silence field.

Maia is up on the roof, loading flare guns for Russ, who is firing at both vampire cars. Ashley flies Chloe up and hands her off to Maia, then heads back into the fight. Cam comes up from the Escalade from behind, just as they accelerate back into him. Eep – Cam manages to dodge out of the way as the Escalade is slammed into wall. Jordan is cut off on the far side of the car, and Cam hears him shattering windows. The passenger door opens; Cam starts spraying the vampire (and car interior) with his SuperSoaker of holy water – the first vampire takes full blast and dives over the door, so Cam manages to soak the vampire in the car as he’s on the radio trying to report the ambush.

Pen follows after Roland to back him up; spots Cody throwing fire at the clumped vampires in time to hold back out of the field of fire (so to speak). Unfortunately, Cody hits the brick wall behind them instead of hitting the group, so they are distracted but not badly hurt. He makes a second attempt and blasts one into a splat on the wall.

In Gloria’s car – they’ve entered the communications blackout field, and start getting static on the earpieces. Roll down the windows – can’t hear anything, but can smell gunfire. Gloria hits redial to try and warn Maia they are incoming – nothing but static. They drive in to join the fight.

Maia spots the third car coming in; she & Russ fire flares at the car. Gloria suddenly feels like she REALLY doesn’t want to be in the car and dives out, just as one flare hits the car hood and another goes through windshield and hits a vampire in the face.

Ashley spots the new targets and flies over with her kukri and motorcycle chain. Gloria looks up just in time to spot Ashley flying in and decapitating vampire Buchanan; she has a “what-the-fuck” moment, followed by recognizing the image from the succubus book, followed by realizing it’s Ashley…followed by realizing that since she can’t hear herself freaking out, neither can anyone else. Which is good…

Pen is facing a vampire with a pipe; she has a machete in one hand and a cross in the other. The vampire tries to knock the cross out of her hand; she manages to dodge his first couple attacks, but finally loses it on the third attack. The second vampire is moving in on her as well, just as Roland gets out of the car and fires into his face; the vampire is knocked down and stunned. Maia & Russ start lobbing holy water balloons off the roof to give Pen some liquid coverage.

Cam pulls out one of the sunlight cloths and flashes the alley; does massive, MASSIVE damage to both vampires nearest him, immolating them. Everyone else is startled by the light, the other vampires flinch away; Gloria (still in normal Gloria mentality) doesn’t even flinch, just wonders what caused the light.

Gloria spots Roland facing down a vampire with no weapon other than his pistol; she rushes in to help with her katana. Ashley lands in front of the third car; Johanna comes up from the passenger car holding a shotgun on her, and Gloria is running in her direction holding a katana. Ashley dives for cover and manages to avoid being shot. Johanna is a bit surprised when Gloria runs past Ashley instead of attacking her, although not as surprised as Ashley is… Johanna manages to hit Ashley once on her next attempt, although Ashley flies straight up and manages to dodge the other shots; she heads up to take cover on a nearby roof and lands.

The vampire grabs Roland and smashes him into the wall; Gloria charges in and decapitates the vampire – drives the katana right into the wall and the blade snaps off. Meanwhile, Pen is fighting off the second vampire and tries to stake him; the vampire manages to just barely block her, then knocks her back with his pipe. Russ throws a water balloon onto the fight, tagging Gloria in the face and burning her terribly. Ouch!

The vampire facing Pen leaps over her body and attacks Cam with his pipe; Cam & his team triple-team him but only manage to knock him down. Jordan & Hilary come in for a second attack & distraction as Cam is catching up to join them; Cam decapitates him.

Hilary throws a stake at Gloria, who catches it. (Whew!) However, there are a lot of hostiles who clearly want Gloria dead, unless she either leaves or convinces them otherwise. She picks up the flare gun on the ground and fires at Johanna…but it isn’t loaded. Damn. Johanna fires back; Gloria manages to dodge part of the attack, but is still hit by three bullets and knocked back off her feet. The crew up on the roof fire on Johanna – Chloe just manages to tag her shoulder, and Johanna is moving to fire at Chloe when Cody blasts her with fire and Maia & Russ shoot her with flare guns. Johanna is injured, but is still on her feet. Cam pulls out the second sunlight cloth and flashes the rest of the alley. Johanna is instantly destroyed; Gloria is blinded, but not injured.

The last car (that Roland hit head-on) suddenly revs up and starts backing down the alley. Ashley fires her flare gun into the hood, which only slows down the car; Jordan flashes the car with a third cloth and destroys whichever vampire was inside. The car drifts into the wall. The humans look around and realize that Gloria was not immolated, despite taking two blasts of sunlight, although she is stunned. Maia realizes she must have one of the Keys of Ophir, keyed to sunlight protection.

Everyone gathers cautiously around Gloria; Maia rushes down from the roof as fast as possible to keep them from killing her. Gloria asks if Roland is okay – Maia checks on him and makes sure he’ll survive. Nate calls from the van to report incoming police; they cover Gloria’s head with a bag, load everyone into the van, and head to their church safehouse.

Gloria is tied & chained to a chair, with crosses on the floor around her, still with her head covered. Everyone else is getting first aid as needed. Maia is keeping Gloria company & sketching the amulet, as best she & Gloria can remember. Eventually everyone falls asleep (or unconscious). Chloe dreams about somewhere that she’s happier, more stable, where she had more friends. Gloria is feeling extremely uncomfortable, plus can hear everyone’s heartbeat and smell everyone’s blood; she spends the evening trying to focus on Maia’s voice rather than on the smell of blood.

Sunrise arrives. People wake up and get breakfast. The priest asks Cam what the story is behind having Gloria in the basement. Cam fills him in briefly – summarizes Maia’s claim of a different reality, describes how Gloria apparently saved Roland’s life, and Ashley points out that Gloria avoided killing her. Maia pulls out the sketch of the amulet to show them; Chloe reaches over with a pencil and fills in the center part that Maia couldn’t remember – looks right. Maia takes coffee downstairs to Gloria while the others discuss the amulet. Cam & Ashley remember seeing it before – Tina Graves of Graves & Sons wears one just like it. Cam calls Tina; before he can ask her to stop by, she interrupts and tells him there is something weird going on in town – the police are setting up a barricade in the center of North Square. She tells him to turn on CNN – something big hit New York, the news is talking possible nuclear strike. She’ll come by but it’ll be awhile.

Maia calls Marston Stokes & asks what happened in NYC – the Watchers’ Council was gathering their forces to move into Ohio, but were hit hard before they could get out of New York, and the Slayer was killed. He asks where they can bring in a large group; she passes the phone to Cam, who recommends Dunnegan’s Gym.

Meanwhile, Chloe has come down to the basement, cut a vein, filled a glass of blood, and makes Gloria drink it. “Drink it so you can blow up Mother.”

Pen meditates on things in the basement, carefully watched by Maia (Pen is in demon form while meditating). Asks Gloria what she knows about Evangeline’s plans – fills them in on her plans to become a goddess. Pen tells them that possibly reversing the wish is complicated; it depends on what sort of being granted the wishes. It’s possible that destroying the amulet will reverse the spell, but it would be the exact amulet the wish was made on. Maia & Gloria describe the girl who lost the amulet in their reality – it’s Tina.

Saturday, December 17th – Hammer Falls is crawling with tourists & shoppers. Maia, Gloria, Cam & Pen get drinks at the Noble Bean, then head out on patrol for the evening. Cam & Pen go one way, Maia & Gloria the other.

Pen spots someone in a Steelers jacket – not breathing, no steam coming out of his mouth. He suddenly starts following someone; Pen & Cam follow him. His target wanders into the Curiosity Shoppe, and he plants himself outside to wait. Pen texts Maia to let her know what’s up; Maia & Gloria head to join them. Pen goes inside to find out who he’s following, watches her finish shopping and goes back outside to join Cam. Cam spotted the lack of reflection on the man and has already started following him; Pen catches up. They are heading north toward Trackville; much less foot traffic around. The girl heads down an alley, and the vampire speeds up after her; Pen & Cam start running while she calls Maia; the girls pick up speed to come at the other end of the alley.

Pen fires her flare gun over their heads, and distracts the vampire long enough for the girl to scream and get away from him. She runs past Gloria & Maia, pausing long enough to warn us “You’d better run, I think this guy’s a vampire!” Um, yeah… The vampire looks after her, sees Gloria & Maia, discounts them as a possible threat, and attacks Cam. Cam holds out the cross and knocks him back; the vampire grabs a pallet and throws it at him, but Cam dodges under it. Maia tackles the vampire from behind, but doesn’t take him down. She hits him in the head and takes him down. He flips over and slams her into the wall. He decides Gloria is the lesser threat and heads toward her to run past; Gloria swings at him with the lovely gift-wrapped sword she’s carrying. He realizes at the last second that it’s a sword and manages to dodge, throwing himself back toward Maia again; she manages to dodge him. She tries to hit him on the way past, but the vampire dodges and lands facing her & Gloria. He taunts the girls…and Cam knocks him down & holds the cross to the vampire’s face. Maia dives in and kicks the vampire in the head; Cam ducks. Gloria runs in and decapitates the vamp; raises sparks when it hits the pavement.

Back where the vampire had grabbed the girl, Maia spots something lying in the snow – an amulet, on a broken silver chain; a filigree 11-pointed star. She looks at it; spots an inscription on the back in what seems to be Spanish, and hands it to Gloria to read. Translates loosely to “Fortune of fate”. We’ll have to see if we can track the girl down and return it. We look around the area, checking out shops, but can’t find her.

Roland calls Gloria & arranges where to meet up with the group – Tooley’s, to have a break & some pie. Ashley manages to get away from her cousin and joins us as well. We show the amulet to the others; Roland thinks it looks like Polish heraldry, everyone just thinks it looks pretty.

We head out on patrol again, split up into groups of three but staying fairly close.

Pen spots a man and two boys heading to get some trees, and a couple vampires watching them; she & Cam & Ashley take on the vampires. They are dealing with those when they get Maia’s alert that Gloria & Roland were attacked, but can’t get there to help.

Maia, Roland & Gloria are out patrolling; Roland & Gloria are chatting & distracted, Maia lets them fall behind figuring they'll yell for her if they need her. However, a group of vampires manage to take them by surprise and knock out Roland before he realizes they're there, leaving Gloria fighting three vampires. Of course she doesn't think to yell for Maia, so it takes a bit before she realizes the noises are from a fight behind her. Gloria & Maia each take out one vamp (split the third?), then get into a fight while Roland is waking up, resulting in Gloria's "I wish you'd see we'd all be just fine if you weren't the slayer!" and Maia's "I wish you'd never gotten involved with me and all this!"

Loud voice: “Done!” Bam - wishes granted!

Now - if they start off the new reality exactly where they are currently, Roland wakes up to see vampire Gloria threatening a fellow student. He grabs Maia & drags her away while shoving a cross in Gloria's face. Why is Gloria flinching from the cross? Why can Roland easily drag Maia away? Could be a sign something's wrong... ;) The girls are separated so quickly that each thinks she's the only one confused by what's going on, so it takes awhile before they can team up and try to gather the troops.




***Wish episode***

Gloria’s World:

You died the first week of school last year (2004) when a vampire named Claude Ogilvie turned you in Jerusalem Wood Park when you were walking home alone from the Noble Bean one night. You were reborn three nights later, waking as a ravenous newbie vampire and one of Ogilvie’s little coterie of children. It seems he’d had a dream that had drawn him to Hammer Falls, and you were going to help him achieve it.
Ogilvie was a second-generation “descendant” of Evangeline DuRoit, making you one of the old bitch’s great-grandchildren. But for some reason, the dreams she was sending out reached you loud and clear (“Five by five”, as the military reads signal strength and clarity…). [Your Psychic Visions quality was kicking in, no doubt.] You knew better than Ogilvie what Mother wanted, and you were determined to get it for her and become her favorite granddaughter!
Your gang clashed with a crew lead by the German Hauptmann a few days later, and in the aftermath of that fiasco, you turned your boyfriend Brad Penn. Brad helped you take down Ogilvie a few weeks later, and by the time Ariella Blades came to town, you were already established as the Boss-Bitch of the Valley. You and Ariella skirmished for a while before coming to terms (a skirmish that cost you Brad, incidentally), and when Tony Vados appeared, gunning for the role of Mother’s Little Helper, you did him in together. Hauptmann, a coward at heart, vanished from the scene a long time ago.
Ariella’s sidekick Johanna was the one who discovered Artemus Green in his coma, by torturing the information out of that bookshop owner with the fake leg. When Green awoke, you helped him arrange for the spell to bring your Mother back to you, and when the time was right, you ended the old man so he wouldn’t be a challenger for Mother’s affection.
Evangeline DuRoit rose again in April of 2005, and by the end of the school year, she’d begun her Great Plan. DuRoit was a sorceress of amazing power and experience. She opened the Hellmouth and managed the opening as a business – all comers who want into the World of Men have to tithe to her a portion of their power and the fruits of their activities. And what activities they’ve been! It’s Hell On Earth, on the installment plan. Global warming, super-storms on the Great Plains, random “fire bombings” that are driving the human government to hysterical distraction – it’s all good.
Of course, the Vampire Queen of Ohio has declared the area immediately around Her Hellmouth a No-Fly Zone for all these demonic visitors – they have to leave her demesnes before unleashing their fell plans. Evangeline regards all of Northern Ohio as her private estate, and its human inhabitants as the deer in her private hunting park. You and Ariella are Mother’s favored daughters – Ariella concerns herself with enforcement of the outer perimeter, while you’re in charge of “housekeeping”. It’s your responsibility to keep affairs inside the perimeter running with a minimum of fuss.
The Resistance has recently started to be a real problem, though Ariella asserts she’s had it worse, having to deal with those damned Brits and their paramilitary “kill-teams”. You’ve known for nearly a year that there’s an active Resistance cell in the Valley – they’ve been sniping at peons and bushwhacking the occasional fool who goes out alone or fails to follow orders, and they were actually helping you keep the Free Agent problem to a minimum by killing non-tributary demons. But there’s been a change since the Autumnal Equinox.
The Resistance has definitely gotten its act in order in the last couple of months. They’re hitting harder and smarter, and they’ve got some serious mojo lined up. Not “Mother-class” magic, but still… It has you worried. You’d be less worried if Evangeline were taking more interest in things, but she’s up to her eyebrows in some serious bad magic, an extension of her “toll booth” project with the Hellmouth – something about becoming the first real ‘god’ on this world, though she doesn’t confide in you anymore.
Gloria managed to get hold of some of the Keys of Ophir – Mother has most, but Gloria kept some for her favorites to use. She takes advantage of one to keep a spy in the police department – she caught a cop on vacation, turned him, and gave him a Key tuned to protect against daylight. He goes back to his job with no one the wiser.
Pen & Cam & Ashley have been working together to help keep their fellow students safe, although they know that some of the vampires have something allowing them out in sunlight, so they’re very careful about who they trust. Cam’s sister Cathy was attacked at the school dance two years ago and her back was broken; she’s in a wheelchair, but does have a special driving permit. They do know that Evangeline has people inside the police department, so the cops are not safe. The Copper Kettle is a hangout for the vampires & demons.

pick up current: Gloria & Maia are in the middle of this argument and glaring at each other. Maia turns away from Gloria, who suddenly feels like she really wants to grab Maia and rip her head off…and can remember doing so. Suddenly Roland wakes up, stares past Maia at Gloria, grabs Maia’s arm and throws her out of the way. “Shit, it’s Gloria!” He thrusts a cross toward at Gloria, who is thrown backwards and goes Game Face (although she doesn’t realize it). He radios to the rest of the gang that the primary target is there, then pulls out a shotgun and fires at Gloria. She dives frantically out of the way as Maia tries to stop him; Maia is asking him what the hell is wrong, when she notices that he suddenly has a long scar across his face. He’s yelling at her for being outdoors at night, that Gloria could have killed her.

Gloria is VERY confused – what the hell is Roland doing, how did I manage to avoid that shotgun blast? She finds a shop window – no reflection. Tries to fog it up – no breath! Arrrggghh!!! Phone rings – Johanna. “Boss? Did you find them?” “Uh, no, not yet. I…ran into some trouble.” “Are you all right, my lady? How much backup should I send?” “Um, none yet, let me check it out some more.” “All right. We’ve lost contact with Eric, two blocks from your location. I’m sending out two groups to his location – you’ll meet them there?” “…okay.” “Do you need anything else, mistress?” “Not right now.”
Looks through the call history & Speed Dial – lots of calls from Ariella, and Speed Dial #1 is Mother. Oh, crap… She tries calling Maia’s cell – not a working number.


Meanwhile, Roland drags Maia into the van with the rest of his group – Nate, Ashley, Cam & Pen. They check both with the cross and in the mirror, and Pen pulls up Maia’s info on her laptop. Roland reports that his initial target was eliminated, but was talking on the phone when he was dusted. However, he ran into Gloria O’Bannon, and this stupid girl (Maia) was standing there talking to her. What the hell was O’Bannon doing out herself? What is going on that would draw her out of her hive? Pen is trying to reassure Maia, who is thinking that this is another switch to an illusion world, and Gloria thinks she’s a vampire. The others figure this either isn’t really Maia, or she’s nuts. Maia pulls out her cell phone – the only numbers programmed in are “Mom”, the shop, and Emma. She is about to call her mother when Cam takes her phone away and asks who she’s calling. They check out her family – Autumn is Hauptmann’s little girl, and her father is insane, but the number is actually her mother. Cam gives back the phone and Maia calls her mother. Asks if everything is okay – everything is fine, Emma and Justin are there. Maia tries calling Roland’s cell phone – not working. Cam – not working. Pen – wrong number. Chloe – someone answers with a scream and hangs up. Maia looks at the phone – “Well, that’s Chloe.” Roland grabs her arm and Cam takes the phone away. The others decide they need to have Maia checked out at HQ before taking her home. Pen turns off the screen but keeps typing. Maia asks where the Watcher is; no one answers.

Gloria wanders around until her face goes back to normal…but now it doesn’t feel normal. A black Lincoln navigator pulls up and several figures jump out of the back as it goes past. A few of the young men split away and check out the area. The passenger door opens and I am gestured inside. “My Lady – we can’t find Eric. He broke off in mid-sentence. Johanna has everything on tape back at the house, and breakfast waiting for you.” “Okaaaay – let’s go, then.” The twins escort me inside. We head inside – the hall is lined with mirrors, and there is someone standing inside with a reflection, trying not to make eye contact – Coach Rutherford. “Miss O’Bannon, may I take your shoes? They appear to be wet.” Gloria starts to take off her boots and is startled when he kneels down to take them off for her. **Please let me wake up soon!!!**

Back in the van – Ashley goes to blindfold her, Maia resists, Roland stuns her with a tazer. Maia wakes up to candlelight & incense, locked in a room with Roland on guard. The others are filling in their supervisors/fellow fighters with her weird behavior. One of them is Cam’s father; when Pen mentions the Watcher, Mr. Ross remembers Stennit the bookstore owner talking about a Watchers’ Council. They’ll need to find out if the girl has a rider – not too invasive for now, but her sister is working with the German, so they need to be careful.

Maia tries to get Roland to tell her what’s been going on for the past two years; she gives him her version, but he stops her when it varies too far from his memories. Andy is dead in this reality, at the Club Fair. Maia realizes that Hauptmann got the Keys; Roland starts to say something about him not having them anymore, stops himself, and leaves the room. Ashley goes in instead. Maia realizes the last thing she said to Gloria was wishing they hadn’t met, which means Gloria was alone when that vampire attacked. Maia asks Ashley if she’s still a succubus in this world – it’s hard not to be. How the heck did she know that? Maia points out that if she knows that much, isn’t it possible that some of the other things she knows are true? Pen is listening in, since the room is wired. Maia wants to know where the Watcher is – Ashley asks who the Watcher is. Artemus Green was killed by Gloria. Stennit was killed by Gloria – he was beaten to death with his own fake leg, then the bookstore was burned down around him. At that point, Maia needs to go sit down…

Cody is asking the others what he should check for – psychic? Demon? Possession? Time shifting? Pen points out that she is obviously confused, and the last two years are different in her mind – are there any spells to check for an alternate reality? None that he knows of.

Maia tries to sit calmly and focus for a few minutes, then picks up the plastic camp chair and starts beating it against the back wall.

Cody and Freya start checking things; they prep everything and go back into Maia’s room, escorted by the others. Maia is sitting huddled in a corner, crying; Ashley tells her they need to do a test, and asks her to take off her shirt. She wants to know what they’re doing first. Cody explains that they need access to her shoulders to draw some runes on her, blah, blah… Maia recognizes the spell as a divination on her. She lets them do this. Freya seems confused by the results; she takes a picture and decides to try again with another set. These results are even weirder than the first. She pulls out a book and starts checking it against the runes. Maia asks Cam to call the Watchers’ Council and gives him the direct line. Pen asks who she thinks she is, but she remembers two years ago she was activated as the Slayer. They’ve heard about the Slayer, but there’s been no sign of a Slayer in this area. Maia gives them the short form of her history. Roland comments that at the Club Fair in their reality, Gloria showed up and kicked Hauptmann’s ass, chased him off, took the Keys from him, and turned several students. Maia tells them what she remembers of what she last said to Gloria just before everything got weird; Freya flips out when she hears ‘I wish’ and demands to know if that is exactly what she said. Freya figures out that Maia’s wish came true, but can’t figure out how she managed to make two wishes in one sentence; Maia realizes that Gloria made the other wish. She’s trying to figure out how everything got so bad all over the world, when she realizes that Mother rose in this world. Oh, crap! She tells them they have to find the Slayer in this world, and to contact the Watchers’ Council. Cam asks Freya what she’s got – serious mojo, confused vapor trails, obviously interlocking spells between two points; she’ll work on it. Maia asks about Chloe – she went insane a couple years ago. Asks Cam to please either call the Council for backup, or call Chloe, who may be insane but is a really accurate psychic.

She realizes that since Gloria also made a wish, she probably also remembers reality…and is trapped in the body of a vampire. Eeeek! Where would she be? Cody tells her if she’s not wandering the town, she must be up at the Franklin House. Cody wants to lure Gloria in to meet Maia…so that they can dust her. Maia flat out refuses, and suggests that instead they work on getting things back to normal so they can switch back to a better reality.

Pen gives up on waiting for Cam and she calls the number for Council; asks for Kit Whitlow, and says she’s calling for Maia Brown. The man asks her to hold, then Whitlow picks up shortly. Pen introduces herself and says she was given the name & number by someone who claims to have been the Slayer. He asks to speak with her – Pen puts him on speaker phone. She convinces him that she really does know him, even if he doesn’t know her; he looks up her information online. As soon as Cam hears “trace”, he grabs the phone and hangs up.

Pen calls Chloe’s number – “I’m not buying anything unless you’re delivering pizza!” “Chloe, do you know me?” “No, I don’t know you Pen! Don’t let demon queens into my house – just go away!” “I just need to know why Maia Brown is here and asking for you? Is Maia the Slayer?” “No, Elisha Dukowski is the Slayer!” “So Maia’s never been the Slayer?” “I didn’t say that. Oh, wait, Elisha isn’t the Slayer anymore. Can we have a moment of silence? Lisa Witherall is the Slayer now.”

Chloe agrees that Pen & some others can come over to her house, as long as they don’t bring Gloria.

Cody goes over to Cam and points out that if they really have a line on Gloria O’Bannon, they need to put together a plan to take advantage of it. He and Freya will work on the runes, but if it’s really big they may not be able to reverse this wish thing, and they’ll need to deal with taking out Gloria. Maia discovers that Autumn is a vampire in this reality, turned by Hauptmann. Pen & Roland & Ashley go to see Chloe; Cam & Nate stay to keep an eye on Maia; Cody & Freya are researching runes.

Back at the Franklin house – Gloria is trying to figure out how to avoid dinner. Evangeline pulls her aside to talk to her; asks for Gloria’s assurance that everything will be calm for the next 26-27 days; Gloria assures her that it will be. She manages to get away and find a quiet spot and tries to call Roland’s cell phone – it works, he answers. She babbles out her confusing side of things and asks what’s going on that he was trying to shoot her and she’s suddenly a vampire. She asks if Maia is okay; Roland assures her that she’s fine. Pen takes the phone and asks her what she remembers last – fighting with Maia. Roland asks if she said ‘I wish’. “Oh, my god, don’t tell me I did this to myself?!?!?” Pen tells Gloria they’re going to figure something out, and she should call them again later.

They get to Chloe’s; ask her to tell them everything she knows about Maia. “I don’t know anything about Starchild Maia Brown.” Asks what she doesn’t know about Maia. “She always messes things up. She can’t stop having stupid fights with stupid people and changing everything to make things worse.” They go down to the kitchen with Chloe with the pizza and beer, and see that she has drawn runes on the table with ketchup & mustard – the same runes Cody drew on Maia. “I think She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would be really upset if Gloria went down to the weapons closet and set off a really big firecracker.” Pen comments that she doesn’t believe Gloria is planning to do that; Chloe points out that Gloria has a soul now, so she might. Chloe warns them about mirrors and water, that Mother can watch people through them; she tells them that the Hellmouth is closed in the alternate reality, and Mother is not there. Chloe tells them they all need to be careful, because Mother’s going to become a god and then we’re all fucked. Maybe they can find the necklace they were holding when they made the wishes.

Back at HQ, Maia’s phone rings – Cam answers. A British voice asks for Maia Brown; he tells him Maia is not available and refuses to give his name. The man introduces himself as Carse; Cam tells him that Maia claimed this number was for the Watchers’ Council. Carse confirms this, and tells Cam that he is living in a small town in Ohio on top of a Hellmouth. Hammer Falls is the center of everything that’s been going on with demons invading. Cam asks why they’re not here, if this is the center of things – they’ve been fighting surrounding battles as they’ve tried to reach Hammer Falls, and have lost a lot of people in the last six months. Carse recommends that even though Hammer Falls seems mostly calm compared to the rest of the world, they get out of town as soon as they can; there are signs of something really huge coming down very soon. Carse tells him that it would be helpful to know when Mother’s lieutenants (Gloria & Ariella) are off-duty, so they can schedule when to move people into the area. They know that the perimeter commander is Ariella Blades, and that the interior commander is much younger; Cam identifies her as Gloria. They’ve been trying to knock out Gloria for a year with no success. Carse says they’ll contact him if they are able to get a team in closer. Maia finally manages to get Cam to let her talk to Carse; somewhat convinces him that she knows him and has been out to Oxford. Tells him that he was her watcher for six months.

Chl