Miserable night for a flat tire. A week after the first big snow and it was still post-snow cold. Bitter cold.
Mike wanted to talk. Talk! That's what he called it. Might as well add "Bring a box of Trojans and a case of Coors" for all the talking that was planned. Bastard. Two hours down 71 for a knock-down, drag-out screamfest, and then two more hours back up to Willmar. Well, an hour plus switching to the donut. And there's the early shift tomorrow. That's gonna drag.
Must be five below before wind chill, speaking of drags. Add to that pulling out the bag of salt and the tool box to get to the jack, donut and lug wrench.
So dark. So cold. Plus the wind chill. Almost no moon tonight, just a sliver. That doesn't help.
She started loosening the bolts, getting 'em started while the weight of the car held everything still. Is there enough left in this rusted-out bucket to take a jack?
The lug nuts loose, she started cranking the jack. The jack on her dad's old T-Bird was big and tall and didn't require you to kneel and break your back to make it work. It also didn't take forever to lift and drop the vehicle.
Damn it. A car coming. Could be some good Samaritan - like a woman can't change a flat - but it could be anyone. Just pass on.
Damn it. At least turn off the brights. What does he think he's doing?
"This is so X-Files, it isn't funny."
Those were the first non-navigational words Xander spoke since they left the airport.
"Really? You think? I'm getting more of a Fargo vibe off this." Kennedy was sick of his silence and was ready to jump on any conversational bandwagon he chose.
"The traveling out to the middle of nowhere, which looks like somewhere within an hour drive of Vancouver, to start questioning people."
"One, We're nowhere near Vancouver. Two, we're not wearing the suits. Three, we're both believers. Four, not people -- a new slayer. Five, winter -- no bees. And six, we don't have the chemistry. No offense."
"And here I thought we made such a cute couple," Xander deadpanned.
"Well, I'm cute, of course. You ... might have potential, given a wardrobe change and a breath mint."
Xander ignored the taunt. "Fargo had snow everywhere. All the outdoor shots were white. Here we have grass poking out, mostly patches of snow, and you can see dirt in the fields. How do you live with this cold?"
"Never saw snow before, huh?"
"Once. It was a thing." Xander kept looking out the window. It was easy to forget it with the way his glass eye moved, but when he sat in the front passenger seat, if he wasn't turned around sideways, it was like he had his back turned to you. A British car would've been better. She would've driven and he would've been forced to sit toward the left, where he'd have to see her. Three hours of this was just too much. The Blazer was much more practical for the job, but still.
It was either her or Faith, and they decided that it was safer if the Slayer who wasn't a prison escapee was the one to go. That always threw a monkey wrench into planning. It was down to them because the other criteria was that the Slayer had to not have school. Willow couldn't take the time off because of classes, and, well, Andrew is Andrew. Xander had griped, but he packed and went.
They brought some gear - bows and wooden arrows, as bow hunters wouldn't attract too much attention - but had to stop at a hardware store to pick up some inch-thick dowel rods. There was some after-dinner carving in the works. They had also hit a sporting goods store to pick up some tools books, pads and some other things. Calling-warming gifts, or something.
Kennedy squirmed with frustration. Training and sparring she could do, but her big experience was the big war. Hunting down the bad guys was a lot easier when they were hunting you down first. And when you have to work off 'it was a thing....'?
"We there yet?"
"Hon! Your friends are here."
"Mom, they're not friends. I talked to them on the phone once. I don't know them."
"Yes, dear. But still, they're your guests. Go invite them in. The apple crisp is cooling and we'll have supper at eight. Your father's out in the machine shed. He'll want to meet them, too."
"I'll get 'em."
They parked under the house tree, just off the gravel. Well, if you could see the gravel, which they obviously did not. It hadn't gotten warm enough for the big snow from October to melt too much yet. Pretty much where you drove through the snow or walked through it.
She grabbed her coat and stepped out into the garage, where she laced up her boots, and then outside.
Pokey was barking at them, mostly for attention. The guy knelt down and petted her and her tail doubled in speed. Dark hair, dark sunglasses, black jeans and a black coat. That must be Xander. He has a really nice smile.
The girl must be Kennedy. Red sweater and jeans. A green long coat and knit cap. Long curly brown hair. She's one of the Slayers. Gotta be. "Hey, we're here."
"Welcome to Minnesota." Was that as stupid as it sounds?
The guy stood. "Thanks. The signs at the airport said it already. So did the guy at the lumber yard, and I think the guy at the sporting goods store. But it can't be said too often, I think. So, really? Ten thousand lakes? They sent someone out to count that?"
"Yeah." She stepped forward and put her hand out. "You're Beth, right?"
"Right. I'm just so glad you guys could make it out. How was the flight?"
"The flight was a flight. We took off. We landed. We're here. Can we get to this?"
"Way to show patience, Kennedy." The guy laughed. "I've been cooped up in one mode of transportation or another since this morning, and I would love to do something physical before the mental. In a constructive, alone, entirely up-and-up sort of way. You said something about a turkey barn?"
"Oh, yeah. I pulled the straw bales over this morning. It's that big metal building down there, by the road."
"Great. That's great. Why don't I set up, and you guys can ... what? Get your slay on?"
"I think a little bit of training sounds good." The girl pulled out her keys and opened the back of the white Blazer and pulled out a couple of bags, passing one to Beth.
The guy grabbed his gear. "I'm off for the turkey shoot. Wait. That's the easy one. I can do better."
"It's been a long day, Xander. I'll write it up as brilliant and hilarious. Go."
"Gone." Beth started toward the barn with her load, with Kennedy following. Xander took the other path, slipping halfway on a patch of ice.
"I hate snow!"
Beth failed to stifle a giggle.
Kennedy carried the duffel with the pads and the rest. Beth led, carrying long bag and opening the doors to the barn/training area. As Kennedy starts unpacking, Beth looked in her bag, finding six pieces of dark-varnished wood.
"So, what are these then?"
"They're bokken. Wooden training swords. I got some shinai in there, too."
"You beat up vampires with wooden swords?"
"No." Kennedy laughed. "You practice with the wooden swords. You chop up demons with real swords. Although, there are several species of oni that are effectively battered with bamboo."
"OK. How do you hold it?"
"Well, give it a shot. You're a Slayer. Chances are, you'll hit pretty close and we'll tweak it from there."
Beth grabbed the bokken and stepped into a stance.
"OK. That's good. Pretty close to the triangular stance. Very good. Now, with Japanese swordsmanship, you're playing with angular momentum. You don't so much swing it. Small movements at the handle get big speed and control with the end. So you spread your hands. Back hand at the pommel, front hand a bit out. That's pretty much the grip." She stepped into a similar, if perfected, stance and breathed out. "Now, swing at my head. Hard as you can."
"Hard as I can? You sure of that?"
"Trust me, I'm sure. I train every day with people just as strong, or worse."
"Worse?"
"Yeah. There are stories. But first, go ahead."
Beth swung the stick above her head and brought it straight down, meeting surprisingly with Kennedy's lightning-fast block. The crack of wood meeting wood echoed through the large open building.
"Wow, that's fast."
"Not used to fighting fast guys?"
"I've gone through some stuff with my dad, but until now, I've not really found anything. And I'm fifteen. I have my permit, not my license. I can't really chase 'em around."
"I wish I could help you there. Started doing fieldwork a year ago or so. What I can help you with is this sword. The thing is, you're using your arms."
"What, I hold this thing with my feet?"
"No. What you do is do most of it with your hands. The katana is a three-foot-long razor blade. You tap and slice. You don't use raw power. A broadsword is raw power. They're fun. We'll hit them later. Now get into position. I'll just tap your sword. Just relax, hold on tight, and don't move. I won't hit you."
"Oh-kay."
They settled into stances, they met eyes, and Beth was shocked by the pain in her hands and in her ears. She didn't remember seeing Kennedy move.
"Wow."
"That's the thing with Japanese swordsmanship. You see all these movies, see all the jumping and the swinging. That's cool. Some of it works. But for real? You'd see two swordsman face off, watching for weakness, and you wouldn't notice the killing blow until it's past. It's all about control."
"You really like this."
"Yeah. I run through my katas, try to keep it up, but there's really nobody I can do it with."
"Nobody into swords down in Ohio?"
"No. Well, there's one. She loves 'em. Xander showed her the Seven Samurai and she went off. We spar once and a while, but she's really into the wildness. It isn't fun."
"Can't you force her? Teach her? Aren't you the oldest? I mean, besides Buffy?"
"Buffy and Faith. She's the one I'm talking about. Faith. She doesn't listen to me. It's a thing. I don't know what it is."
"Well, this is cool. How do you get that speed?"
"Like I told you, angular momentum." Kennedy stepped beside the younger slayer and started to demonstrate.
Evidently this building used to hold turkeys. Now it holds an 18-wheeler that has seen better days and a.... Xander had no idea what that thing was. What Superman saved the kid from in Superman III. The building was long, it was open, it was pretty much access-controlled, and it kept the snow and wind off when you practiced. It wasn't heated, which he felt was a big lose, but nothing's perfect.
He put up the targets away from the truck, a big enough block to make a sudden downrange howdy all-too-possible. Targets at twenty yards, forty yards, and for him, the grail distance, sixty yards. Work could be done to make this a nicer, safer indoor range, but it would be sufficient for one or two archers, which were all he suspected would ever use this. He picked up his compound bow.
He had tweaked hers, since she was busy with the new kid and thus too involved to unpack it and set it up. She always complained that the draw was too light, but much heavier and he could not draw it, and the arrow is not a kinetic kill weapon. You don't knock your baddie down with an arrow. All more draw weight would do is flatten trajectory some.
He drew 65 lbs. Decent for hunting, he had heard, but not the 150 of the old-time British longbowman. Or at least that's what that guy on Conquest said. He loaded the bolt-on quivers with aluminum shafts and wad-cutter tips. Best to keep the wooden shafts stowed until necessary. Sometimes they break up on launch. It's the cams that do it, not the raw power. Like that guy said, they used to shoot 150-pound bows all the time, and on 65-pound recurves, like the ones they sell where he bought the arrows, there's no problem. He had replaceable tips for them: wad-cutters, for putting holes in paper and sticking into hay; broadheads and spikeheads for putting holes in vampires and other bads. He'd been considering looking into arrow-making, but he just didn't have time to test them. Instead, they'd use the recurve stash.
The targets are too big. The heart's about as big as your fist, and the center ring was much wider. With what they hunt, anything other than a kill shot will just piss 'em off, but that's something to mention later. He picked up his bow. Now that the range was set, he should try it out.
A timer. First addition. Something foot-triggerable would be nice. He breathed evenly, hanging the bow to the left, his left foot range-forward. Eight arrows on the bow. And the time would start ... now.
He brought the bow up and grabbed the first arrow, the closest arrow, by the notch. He brought it to notch-point, drew back, hesitated for the slightest moment, and loosed it at the closest target.
Thwok!He didn't look down as he grabbed the next arrow, noting the placement. In the red, but in a real-sized inner-circle, that'd be questionable. He'd count it as a miss, he decided, as he drew again. Speed is of the essence --
Thwok!-- he could take forever to aim, but in that time, the vamp would be on him and the bow would become a club, at best. That one was better. Solid hit. Third arrow comes off the quiver as he thinks a moving target would be better. Maybe a charging one. Maybe that's it --
Thwok!-- or maybe he'd just seen the first part of Silence Of The Lambs once too many times and loved the Hogan's Alley scene too much. Solid in the red. Good. He remembers to breathe easily as he draws again. This is so much better than --
Thwok!-- a crossbow, because you have better reload speeds. It takes more training, though. Years of Nintendo made him and most of his friends pretty good at point-and-shoot with the crossbow but by this time --
Thwok!-- he'd still be reloading for the second shot instead of having four solid shots in a good grouping and one questionable one. The other good thing is that the bow has been out of the use of military services, except for guerrilla ones --
Thwok!-- for quite some time. He can't remember if his facility with Anya's handgun came from being taught to shoot by Uncle Rory or by his one-night rotation in Uncle Ethan's Misguided Children, floating in and out of his head. Nobody --
Thwok!-- can say that this is not his. Nobody can say the next shot, headed for the sixty-yard target instead of the twenty, is a success or failure by anything other than his skill, his practice. He liked things like that. He let go, holding the bow out as he watched the shot go out, out, out --
Th.-- and hit high and left in the third ring, falling immediately out of the target.
You can't trust a sixty-yard shot anyway. Too much air time. You never know what'll be there when the arrow hits.
They were sitting in the part of the barn Beth had set up for training. Xander sat with his back to the wall, on an overturned bucket and under the makeshift rack for Kennedy's wooden swords. Kennedy sat to his right, cross-legged on the floor. Beth sat on a battered folding chair next to the space heater that brought the room above freezing, barely.
"I don't know what Buffy said to you in the summer when she came, so, before we start in the research stage of this, I'll cover some basics." Xander fiddled with his window-panes. He still wasn't used to wearing glasses except when using power tools. "Vampires and most other things in horror movies are real. You, Beth, have been chosen to slay them. Thus the word Slayer. We've developed a few pamphlets. This first one answers some questions about vampires. This next on contains a few useful spells." Xander passed the stack of paper to Beth. "The first and possibly most useful spell is on the top. Vampires cannot enter a home uninvited. This spell rescinds an invitation. It's a useful thing."
Beth leaned forward. "How?"
"Excuse me?"
"I don't get it. You guys have invited vampires into your homes? And you survived long enough to come up with a spell?"
"Well...."
"Aren't all vampires bad? Isn't that why there are Slayers?"
Xander glanced at Kennedy. She looked away. He knew this joke. Lone Ranger and Tonto ride into a box canyon. They look up and see men with bows and arrows on both sides of the canyon. Lone Ranger says 'We seem to be surrounded by hostile Indians.'
Tonto says, 'What's this We, white man?'
So be it.
"When we're done here, covered in vamp dust and sharing a beer - of the root variety, of course - in celebration of our big win, I'll be glad to start into old war stories. 'There I was, right outside my homeroom class with two of the most notorious vampires in history about to take a bite out of my neck' and all that. But right now, I have two concerns. First is that Beth learn how to be a Slayer. Second is we find the things you called us about and we dust 'em. We should keep discussion on those two topics. And doughnuts." He smiled. "Can't do research without doughnuts."
Beth spoke up. "We don't have any."
"Well then, I guess we'll just start." Kennedy pulled out a notebook and flipped to an open page. "Beth, we heard some on the phone, but could you go through it again?"
Beth stood up. "OK. Let's see. I saw the Marshall paper a few weeks ago and saw this picture. A guy going to Southwest State was found in an alley downtown. Big bite taken out of his neck. Kenny Tolerud. Sheriff said wolf attack. DNR said there's no wolves in the area. Anyway, that night, I saw him in a dream." She waved her hands to ward of anxiety. "God, that's so weird."
"Slayers get dreams sometimes," Kennedy said. "It's part of the deal."
"That in the pamphlet too?" Beth looked away, upset by her biting sarcasm. "Sorry. I'm just ... I don't know. Anyway, I did some looking in other papers. I found a few in other papers. Two over in South Dakota. One in Iowa. Nine, at least, in Minnesota. One in Springfield. One in Blue Earth. A brother and sister in Wanda. Plus some missing persons."
"I don't know the area. Have you mapped it out?"
"No. I didn't think to."
"That's fine. Do you have clippings? From the newspaper?"
"Yeah."
"So, you think there's a vampire at work here?"
"More than one. Kenny's body disappeared."
"So our buddy is making a family. Great." Giles didn't show his frustration so easily. Acting angry under stress doesn't become a Watcher. He took a deep breath. "Kennedy and I will work on that tomorrow while you're in school. There are a few things here we can try to locate these vamps."
"Tell us if you have any more dreams." Kennedy finally joined the conversation. "Those are supposed to provide good clues."
"You haven't had any of these dreams yet?" Beth was shocked.
"I can't explain it. It just hasn't happened yet." Kennedy looked sheepish for the first time he had known her.
Xander stood up. "I never heard Kendra or Faith mention the visions, and what Buffy has said makes them sound like David Cronenberg directing an Ed Wood script ...."
"I think there's something off with the Cleveland Hellmouth, putting out interference or something. None of us have had visions since we moved there. I think time away will bring it out."
"Will you tell me what you see? I'm really curious how they go with other slayers."
"Yeah. Sure. I'm kind of curious myself."
"Well, it was really creepy. I drew out some things that I remember. The sketchbook's in my room. Wanna see?"
"Yeah. Sounds great."
"C'mon."
Exit two slayers, pursued by a bear.
That was a practically useless research session. There's a vampire, we think. He's building a gang, maybe. People are in danger, I guess. Hey, come to my room, I'll show you my etchings.
"So, this is Kenny." She shows the clipping, taken from her folder of clippings, showing the senior yearbook picture from high school, smiling with short jock hair and a pearl button shirt, and the newspaper article about his death.
"And this is him from my dream." She opens her sketchbook. Most of the face was the same, with facial ridges, demonic eyes and fanged teeth. It was the rest that caught her eye. Beth has a good eye for detail. Baggy pants. White T-shirt. Tattoos down his arm. Black backward baseball cap. Will the real Vamp Shady please stand up?
Behind him is a farmhouse. Looks straight out of Children of the Corn or something. She flipped through the pages quickly. Favored subjects are horses, dogs and rabbits. This is not a girl who drew spooky vampires for fun. She closed the sketchbook and placed it on top of the clippings folder.
"So, this guy looks creepy."
Beth sat cross-legged on the bed with a stuffed bear in her lap. "Yeah. Are they all like that?"
"Don't really know. I haven't met them all." She sat on the bed. "The one I met was ... intense. That's the word. Intense."
"What's the deal with that? Is it like, I dunno, compulsory? To make friends with these guys?"
"I hope not." She laughed for a second. "It wasn't my choice, but he turned out all right. Saved us all."
"The heck!"
She took another look around the room. White modern furniture. Posters of rock stars on the wall. Powerpuff Girls on a twin bed. (More details. Perhaps a Tigger or Piglet.) Beth sat cross-legged on the bed, wearing black sweatpants and a pink sleeveless top. Her brown hair was pulled back in a braid. Just a girl. Like the others. Like Chloe.
"Is that a piercing?" This comment drew Kennedy back to Earth. "In your tongue?"
"Umm, yeah."
"My friend, Connie, got her belly button pierced last summer, right before the Evanescence concert at the Target Center. She said it didn't hurt but I know it did."
"Mine hurt for a while. After a while, I had to think about it to notice."
"Do the boys like it?"
Kennedy stopped to think about it, about what she should disclose. "My sweetheart likes it."
"We went right after the Slayer came to visit. She took me to a cemetery in New Ulm, but it was dead." She snorted at her joke. "So I was thinking that this was all a big gag, like Ashton Kutcher was following me with a video camera or something. I still carried the stake she gave me, but I felt like a fool for it." She grabbed her stuffed Tigger and hugged him to her lap.
"But, like I said, I went to see this show, and when we left I felt -- I don't know how to describe it, but I just knew."
"I understand. I've felt it, too."
"Well, I see this guy. Looked like a biker or something. And he's walking with this girl, and they're ducking into the alley. We're walking back to Sherry's brother's car, and I tell 'em to wait at the car and run off after the guy. The girl's screaming and I kick the guy in the head. Jumping kick, just like Jackie Chan. It was so neat. Anyway, he tries to hit me and I'm blocking and hitting back, and he runs. I'm chasing him through traffic and all and we get to this park with all these hedges and such, and stupid me, only now I remember I have a stake. I catch up with him in ... well, it's like a room but out in the open, and it's all these benches. He grabs me and throws me into one, and he's on me, about to bite, when I get my stake in."
She stood and walked to her desk. "Turns out it's all part of an art museum, and all the benches have words on them." She opened a drawer and pulled out a composition book, turning the pages to a point in the middle. "This is what it said."
Kennedy took the notebook and read.
AFTER DARK IT IS A RELIEF TO SEE AGIRL WALKING TOWARD OR BEHIND YOU.
THEN YOU ARE MUCH LESS LIKELY
TO BE ASSAULTED.
Beth sat back down. "I couldn't decide whether that was cool or funny or meaningful or stupid, but I wrote it down. But that's when I knew it was real." She took her clipping folder and gave it Kennedy. "But it's still pretty freaky, right?"
Kennedy thought about it for a moment. "You don't know the half of it."
Damn that Steph. He had called in the morning at the hospital and at her house. At her sister's place in Blue Earth. He had even called her mom.
Where is she?
All he wanted to do was hang out, get drunk and watch some movies on DVD. Sure, he said they'd talk, but they always got messed up talking. That's not what they were good at.
He kept switching between WCCO and KELO, fearing that some word would come in. It had to be twenty-four hours for the cops to care, but he knew something was wrong. Steph would've called up and started the 'Mike, you moron' rant. The two hour drive didn't calm her down, it stoked her up. There was no angry phone call. Something was wrong.
He was on his third MGD when the news switched to Letterman.
He'd call again. And if there was no answer, he'd drive out. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and he was the last person to see her.
Something was wrong and his last words to her were "Fuck you, bitch."
If they found her dead in a ditch, he was as good as convicted.
He almost didn't hear the knock. Between despair, dread and the Top Ten list, he wasn't focusing on reality. He was on autopilot.
It was Steph. Wearing her biker jacket and her black jeans, the ones she hasn't worn since Christmas before last. Out in this weather with just a jacket. She must be freezing. The collision of worry and relief left him speechless.
She dropped her cigarette and squashed it with her high heeled boot. "So, Mikey. You gonna invite me in?"