Part 8 Kittens... read the notes to get the best out of it*S*Enjoy!!!
Katharyn
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – The Calling III – The Call of Silence II (Part 8)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. katharynrosser@hotmail.com
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited for this entire series. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Part 2 of The Call of Silence started in Part 7. This was originally one part but was just too long to post in one piece. Kick Ass Tara
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the Production Company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: None as yet but the first necessary decision is made.
Notes:The transcript for “Hush” was used for the quote from the news report heard in that episode. I have modified it somewhat to fit my needs but all credit to the transcribers and episode writers.
There is a nod of the hat, i.e. a steal, from the Lost Boys in this. You’ll know it when you see it I think.
This was originally one big part together with what is now part 7. It was just too big to post in one go. The split point is not ideal but neither I nor my beta reader could find a better one. The idea was that you get an update of her emotional state and her capabilities in one package. I personally would rescan Part 7 before reading this one.
It is definitely easier to read this way.
Thanks To: Jo “Wizpup” for all her help. Louise my always. Sass… for noticing the perfection! Kerry… hey you just are the anaesthesiologist’s fave*S*
The Sidestep Chronicle
The Call of Silence II
By
Katharyn Rosser
Tara had been ready to bluff her way into the club. It was something that she had done before… finding herself the loneliest and saddest man or woman who might get her through the door and pay her cover charge. You found vampires in all sorts of places, but the more she came to places like this, the more she found them in there. It was almost as common as cemeteries. They could even feed without worrying about being caught… as long as they didn’t kill. ‘Just another drunk who cut themselves.’ It was insidious.
This time, well she could have managed to pay or attached herself to someone, there were couples of all descriptions. Single people of both sexes and all persuasions too. Women as well as men who had given her a lingering appreciative look – despite her obviously flawed clothing. She wasn't dressed for this place. But there was no need to explain that away to anyone – it was ladies night. She couldn’t have planned this better. She could definitely afford the necessary expenses of the next few days now.
Assuming she emerged from this place alive.
“Ladies Night – Free Before Ten.” Definitely a club lacking in clientele. Hardly surprising. It was also a death trap. The vampires saw to that. Police reports showed it to her… but not it seemed to the police themselves. The deaths never occurred on the premises. Just around it, or to people who had come here. Usually for the first time.
Just as she was a first timer, she admitted to herself with a wry grin and was shocked when a man who saw her smile winked back at her. She shook her head firmly, kept her eyes off him and moved on.
She had no intention of becoming another first time casualty of this place. She intended to try and stop it… or some of it.
The people outside hadn’t been a true indication of what clothes were suitable for this place… It had been discouraging, in the short line, comparing herself to them. She knew that, though definitely more comfortable, she would stick out like a sore thumb. Inside… it was more like a sore arm.
She didn’t own that much in the way of clothes anyway – and nothing that would have been suitable. Even, as she looked the crowd over, her underwear which many of the youngest women, little more than girls, seemed to think was the dress code here.
‘Girls’… How easy it had become to see herself as older, wiser… but then she wasn't one of those prancing around in my underwear was she? They were probably at high-school at the same time. But even Gaynor Bapty in her class… even she wouldn’t have dared to dress like that – and she was a cheerleader.
Acres of flesh on display or barely concealed. Her own skirts and the long coat, flowing as she opened it to the heat, made her look like a nun in comparison. Those ‘youngsters’ were just too extreme - not to her taste at all. And she didn’t have time to worry about it anyway. She wasn't here to find someone to fall in love with – actually she kinda doubted anyone was actually looking for love here… she had something to do.
The music throbbed through her skull and she had no idea how people could find it fun. It made her feel old… serious and stuffy. But how could she do anything but disapprove. Music this loud was here to alter to your mind – to carry you away. The smell of alcohol, burning tobacco and other substances were more tangible ways of doing that. All that and all these people… it was like her very own definition of hell. And a vampire’s definition of heaven – though with their hyper acute senses they should hate it even more than she did. The stench of human sweat was oppressive, hanging in the air amongst those other scents and she could feel it all clinging to her even as she made her way towards the main bar and dance floor. No sign yet of those she was seeking.
She fingered the pendant that was a constant at her neck. Nothing not a twitch but it was a big club… long anyway. It stretched back into the old warehouse a good distance. The volume of humans would make no difference to the incantation sealed into the pendant’s matrix, but there were no vampires in this part of the club at least. But why would there be? It wasn't as if this, alcohol, was what they wanted to drink was it? The crowds gathered heading for the bars. The place was not full, not yet and but there were concentrations that got in her way.
‘E-excuse m-me p-please,’ she started to apologise her way through the queues at the bar, trying to cross them. Surely seeing that she was not trying to get to the bar they would let her through… of course not. Everyone here was wrapped up in their own concerns… or that of the person whose body they wanted to share tonight. Oh the desire… she could well understand the desire… it was just the method of attaining it she had a problem with. Even if she could make herself come to a place like this socially… and dress like that… she wasn't sure that she could ever approach or accept an approach by the women that were in here.
And so she had to work her way through the crowd, drinks spilling, smoke blowing in her face. What did they care about the weird overdressed young woman, struggling through them with a large bag across her shoulder? Nothing at all. The bag was open… no opportunist would find anything but a stake if they dipped into it. Her treasured possessions were secreted about her pockets along with her precious and limited cash. Just in case she lost the bag… plan, re-plan and then wonder what you missed. Yes sir.
The dismissive glances, the sneers, the not at all hidden laughs, often accompanied by being pointed out to others all started to come her way as she tried to move through the throng. Laughing at her voice, betraying her as usual? Or just her dress, her style or absolute lack of it? She wasn't concerned by that. So she stopped asking, reasoning that the magic was in the best interests of all these people – and it wasn't like it was big magic at all.
“Part,” she murmured under her breath and as she moved forward those ahead of her felt a hand on their shoulder, or at the small of their back and just knew that they had to move a little. People coming through. Just step aside. She wasn’t touching their minds, just using the pressure to suggest to them that they should move apart a little. It took little concentration to keep up the rolling effect and the sea of people separated subtly and often without even realising it – though some looked round to see who was disturbing them, confused enough by there being nobody to miss her entirely. Leaving her a path that led her to the dance floor, which was still pretty deserted compared to what it would be like in a few hours. Effortless, she could move with purpose, and the pendant gave her one, starting to itch the skin at her throat. They were here. Something vampiric at least. No knowing if it was her targets. Not yet. But close.
The booths.
Always booths... or a certain bar stool. Or a given reading room in a library for the bookish ones. They established territory and they stuck to it. It made them predictable. But it also made them ferocious in defence of what they believed was theirs… what she had come to take away from them – along with their despicable existence.
She made her way through the throng, preparing mentally. Two stakes in each hand. One in her palm, the other between her fingers, ready to swing back into place when the first two were gone. How many targets? No way to tell yet. More than one the itching told her, but not a horde. That would have burned more than this. But they would be surprised and that would work for her no matter how many there were. They would feel secure here, in their place. She disliked a hunt like this for that very reason… no way to set up. No way to truly prepare as she would have liked. They would arrive at the booth separately as part of the crowds. No way to get a count of them until they were all there. No way, in this crush, to pick them off individually.
She was almost through and starting scanning the booths. People got in her way, but it was all camouflage. Dressed like this she would attract attention in a heartbeat. Better that than attracting attention outside in the city though – and looking like a slut. No sir, I won’t ever dress like that Daddy.
The people in the booth, the people around them. She took them in, looking for the tell tale signs that would give them away. And wonder of wonders… a mirror. They had messed up. With the mirror all along that wall her task was that much easier – and there was less room in here than she had thought. Glimpses from further away looked as if the room extended further – but it ended. She was running out of room. So were they – all it took was spotting which things had no reflection. She might not be able to hear in this mess of noise but her visual senses would be enough for her. All she needed was that lack of a reflection. It was like an arrow above their heads pointing at them. How did the people here miss them?
Because they were not that obvious after all. The booths, when you were seated at least, were below mirror level – that and everyone was too busy looking at whatever body was to their tastes. To use the mirror she needed an angle… or to be closer to them where just being stood up would be enough. Close, though, brought its own risks. She looked up. No upper level. No gantry. No natural angle that she could exploit. The pendant was itching dreadfully now as she stepped over the invisible boundary from dance floor to drinking area, walking the line. Keeping to the edges ready to move back into the thick of the people if she had to do so. Moving along the room and stretching out with every sense that she had. Though all she could really rely on here was her sight. In such a crowd, nothing else would work.
The smoke was almost choking, cigarettes, less legal alternatives, puffs from the hidden smoke machine. The music was throbbing though her, resonating inside her and drumming inside her head. Just sight… and feel.
The pendant started to itch deeper into her flesh, no longer just a surface scratch, and she could immediately see why. The pasty-faced individuals in that farthest corner booth. Even though simply lacking the touch of sunlight was no crime in itself – especially in a deceptively cool city like San Francisco. When was the last time she had spent any length of time out just enjoying daylight? A long time ago. She had too much to do in the darkness to bother about the light and still expect to meet the next night rested as she needed to be.
Without rest there was no concentration and that left her defenceless. She had to be able to concentrate within a split second.
She made her way back into the crowd to avoid attracting attention by so obviously watching them and allowed herself to be drawn into some sort of drunken party that was going on in that part of the dance floor. She did not dance but she did allow herself to be manoeuvred by them. They looked to be people coming out from an office. Was today a working day? It was hard to keep track sometimes. She thought it was Tuesday though. They were harmless enough. But even as they brought her into their circle for some good-natured frolics she saw all that she needed to. Her eyes focussed on the mirrors above the booth. She was close enough now to get that angle she needed.
Six bodies in the booth. Two reflections. Four possible vampires then. No empty seats. No glasses or bottles to indicate that anyone else had absented themselves from a standing position. She had heard there were five though. Five targets. Five bloodsuckers that needed to be dealt with. Where was number five?
There should be five… five minus four left one vampire with a reputation that would be ticked off about losing it’s feeding buddies. And it would lose them.
The pendant was feeling like hot needles against her throat now, the reaction to the presence of the undead almost painful, but she would not scratch it, nor remove it. The pain was another motivation, as if she had needed it, to get the kill done.
No way to get them out of here. No way to trick them, not dressed as she was. They would never believe that she wanted to be bitten. She was in no way looking like the sort of person who came to a place like this. She would just have to be direct. Oh well. She was good at direct.
Tara reached into her pockets, shaking off the business woman’s arm that had looped through her own to do so. Four targets, six stakes – more than she had ever tried before. She found two more, placing them between other fingers, the first two to be used resting between the reserves. It was all a question of balance… awkward in the best of circumstances but she couldn’t be scrabbling around in her pockets when the time came. That would get her dead – fast. Good job she had practiced… feeling ridiculous all the time, thinking of Donny with his toy pistol and holster when they had been small…
Four targets. Stay hidden and take them one at a time, or risk exposure to get all four? She had never tried four at once but the line of sight was good once she stepped out of the throng, she could see them all. They were penned in by the humans at either end of the booth seating so even if she had to leave there would be a delay for them.
She had to get close. It was much too crowded to try and work a stake through the pressing, dancing, drunken throng. She would risk hitting someone to do that and even if she could – there was no way she could do more than one at a time through the crowd. Even if she closed in though… she had never tried four.
Where was number five? Who was number five?
Not here or somewhere around? Somewhere she didn’t know about? Hold one stake back… just in case. One spare then, only one miss allowable. Nothing that presented itself as an obvious source of impromptu stakes either. The fixtures were all metal and she couldn’t have broken them if she wanted to. Not without magic anyway.
Her eyes were firmly fixed on the vampires as she drew the stakes from her pocket and prepared herself. Focusing on the necessary point. The chest of each vampire. The heart. Their weakness and her strength. Funny how their hearts did not beat but they would die if they were staked there. Funny in a morbid sort of way at least.
Holding the stakes loosely in her hands, three now in each. Confident that she could hit the mark four times in rapid succession and still hold two back. So rapid that they would not have time to react. Maybe a second from impact to dust. All four stakes had to be into them by then, otherwise they would be moving – and on her. There was also the crowd’s reaction to consider. If they saw that, what would they do? Ignore it, panic… approach. She might use them to get away or she could be pressed closer to those beasts that might be left.
Curiosity killed the kitty, Tara. Yes sir… it’s just it wouldn’t be her curiosity.
She started to back out of the circle of drunken friends, eyes fixed on the vampires – their chests. The points that she had to hit - and she was spun once more by that woman who grabbed her arm a minute before. She clutched at the stakes desperately where they rested between her fingers but one slipped from her grasp and would have clattered to the floor of only she had been able to hear anything but the music. She made to follow it as the woman laughed at her and she forced herself to smile back, holding the other five stakes carefully and hiding them. The stake was gone, kicked across the dance floor. Lost.
No room for error now. If the fifth one was here then she needed to hit first time. It was the way that she worked… not being able to pull the stake back fast enough it was consumed with the vampire. If she had just been stabbing them she could have kept them, reused them, but then she would have been dead long ago.
Still pressure was her friend. It would help her focus, help her to concentrate. But she had to get away from this crowd. She shook off the linked arm, and moved forward through them and out into the open before the vampires, stakes hidden behind her hands, which were hanging down by her side. She even smiled at them as they looked at her. She would do anything to kill them. Even smile at them for their last few seconds of existence.
And they smiled back the leering smile of the predator. She knew that well. The hungry vampire presented with a meal.
Guess again.
She brought her hands up, palms open and applied the pressure with her mind behind each stake in turn. The first two driving into the chest of their targets and before either of them could even look down their forms started to dissolve. The two other stakes flipping into her palms from between her fingers and also in the air within a second. The other two looking on in alarm, their brains telling them to move but the body so far unwilling to listen to that order. The third, the one in the suit was also staked.
Deep enough? The position was good but the angle, might have driven it across the face of the heart and missed the kill.
But no it was starting to dissolve as time, to Tara, ran slower. It was fatally wounded as was the fourth, the female in the low cut dress finding her a stake protruding from the dipping ‘V’ that revealed more than just the inner curves of her breasts to the world. But it was only there for a second, before it, like the vampire woman was consumed by whatever process it was that destroyed them. She didn’t much care what did it, just as long as they were gone. The fourth one was all gone before the two humans, a man and a woman started to react. And even then it was just shock that tinged their faces. Looking at them she could see that they had been tasted. Their arms bore the scars, tracks not of needles but giving vampires what they wanted.
She’d saved their lives, maybe even their souls and they would just think she had stolen their pleasure.
It had taken only three or four seconds from her leaving the crowd to the point when the last vampire was reduced to ashes, that one exploding as they sometimes did scattering ash over the human male and the table. The ripples in the drinks as the dust landed caught her attention far more than the humans who were shouting for something.
Unheard in the racket of the music.
It was working for her. Whether they were crying out in distress, fear or to raise the alarm there was no point in it. And incredibly no one else seemed even to have noticed. Maybe it was the drink, maybe nobody was even looking. Perhaps people just didn’t want to see.
It had been quick and clean. Maybe not perfect, but better than she could have hoped in the circumstances. Four together!
Better so far. There was always the unexpected. Mr Murphy and his law. Her father had been a big believer in that from his time in the Navy and she had been through far too much to doubt that something you might as well call Murphy could come along and spoil her night.
Where was the fifth one? There were supposed to be five. Five. The informer had been very clear – no reason to lie about numbers when she was just promising to stop the pain of holy water upon its flesh. Mistaken? Had it been wrong? Were there just four? Had she found the wrong group? Perhaps there were still five out there… but the pendant said no. Not nearby anyway. Its reaction had stopped when the last of the vampires had been destroyed.
She spun around, scanning the crowd, fingers clutching around the last of her stakes and gripping the shaft. She couldn’t afford to lose this one. No more fancy tricks. She had to hold onto this one. Plunge and move on. She’d been told that once… and had laughed at the time, it sounded so pompous and stupid. But Mr Zabuto, the late-Watcher, had been right about that when he tried to impart some Slayer discipline into the amateur hunter he had found in New York City. But a hunter that was still way more experienced than his Slayer. Even then.
She couldn’t afford to try and make the trip back to the motel unarmed. Applying the slightest pressure to the crowds once more she started back through them, the pendant still at rest as she moved and giving her no warning sensations. But it was not infallible she had learnt that too. It was just a tool. She couldn’t trust it anymore than she would a pencil not to snap just when she wanted to make an important note.
A bad worker blames her tools. Yes sir. And she relies on herself.
Nothing there or just not detected? Trust your own instincts and senses… not the pendant. It was so constant. Right nearly every time… but it could mislead her too. Give her facts, but ones that she might interpret wrong.
The crowds closed behind her like displaced water, cutting her off from the humans who might pursue her and hiding her presence from any of the more potent hunters that might remain somewhere unseen. She couldn’t see through the people as she moved. But they couldn’t see her either. If there was anyone there at all. Assume there is. Make for the exit, she told herself, walking herself through hard learnt procedures that had kept her alive.
Four! She had staked four without them raising a hand to her… By the goddess. There had been a time when that would have drained her dry, left her head pounding for days. The pain would have been intense. And she would likely have missed anyway.
She was getting better she thought, then corrected herself as someone crashed into her arm with a drink and she felt her sleeve dampen with the sweet smell of spirits rising to her nostrils. She ignored their apology and moved on. She was getting used to it. That was all.
It still hurt. She just didn’t feel it so much.
What price numbness?
This was a dangerous time though. Success could make her overconfident… or it could lead her to draw more heavily on the magic. That couldn’t be. Wouldn’t be.
It was like swimming against the tide making her way to the exit. She had never done that. Swimming was not a speciality beyond what had been required in school and there were no tides where she had come from anyway. But that was what it must have been like. Using the magic to part the way was almost like moving through water. It was like the breaststroke. Her mind thrust out and grasped the fluid continuum that was air, pushing against it and forcing it into the obstructions. It was just like swimming against a current.
Where was number five? She knew that there were supposed to be five of them. What did that mean? Her information had come from unreliable sources, vampires who had believed that she might release them for the right piece of information. She hadn’t but they had still told her. Whilst they might have lied everything else had been proved correct. The location, the human companions that they favoured as prey. The mix of the sexes. Spot on. But there was one male vampire missing.
Could they have been mistaken?
That was a dangerous way to think, to start to believe in the mistakes of others. She couldn’t drop her guard and assume that was the case. She had to work on the basis that there were five. Four were dusted and that left one. One vampire. One stake. Perfect math.
The end of the queues for the bar heralded the end of the struggle. No one was leaving at this early hour. All the traffic was coming the other way, the queues stretching through the doors and past the burly doormen.
It was at that instant that the pendant started to itch, as she stepped through the door into the cool night air, more shocking after the heat in the club. Then she realised her mistake. Exiting. So quickly and alone. That was a guaranteed give away to anything that might have known that something had happened – but not who had caused it. Leaving was foolish. It marked out her guilt and whilst the police would never investigate there were others who might. Who were perhaps doing that right now.
Chances it was a random vampire she felt? She would have said fair… but they were territorial creatures. If some other vampire had arrived here it was obviously either deeply stupid… or fancied itself powerful enough to deal with the five. She couldn’t discount that either. They gained in stupidity and bravado when they rose from the dead – as a rule. No… she had to work on the basis it was after her and she just had to make sure that she hunted it instead.
She could only feel rather than see her pursuer. It was there. Behind her. She could hear the footfalls in the alley that she had ducked into which was surprising as the incessant beat of the music was still rocking through her head, probably would be for hours - but she knew that someone was back there and the pendant continued to scratch. She quickened her pace slightly. Not enough to impair her remaining senses, but enough to ensure that she could draw her pursuer in. Never out in the main streets.
She couldn’t be sure though, it could still be some random vampire attack, on the prowl for inebriated meat? She wanted it to be the fifth of her targets though. There would be no way to know for sure even if she turned and looked. Even if it came for her, unless it got all chatty, she might never know. She slowed and fumbled in her pockets as if checking for her keys or something. It was a distraction though. Any attack would focus on restraining that arm, fearing what it might be grasping. But the stake was in her left hand. Ready up her sleeve to drop into her hand and stab the animal through the heart in one easy motion.
So close. So close. She could hear the breath. The wheezing…
Vampires didn’t wheeze, mainly because they didn’t need to breathe. The vampire was not behind her. She turned to see the old man, a vagrant by the look of him. Certainly not from the club. Dragging his worldly possessions in a plastic bag slung over a broom handle or something over his shoulder. “Evening Miss… this is a bad place for a young-”
She switched off, filtered him out. Focusing on everything but the unfortunate homeless guy. Not listening to him would be doing them both a favour. The vampire was not behind her, but the pendant scratched and itched. It was close. It couldn’t be ahead of her, it had no way to know that she would come this way – unless it was just any vampire… not even searching for her. Just in range of the pendant?
But there was a third dimension. The tiny sounds of scrabbling were from above.
It was above her. Oh by the goddess no… She had assumed. She had assumed. Never do that, never. She knew so much better. She started to tilt her head to check up there.
She heard something strike the ground beside her and that only confirmed her fears. Workmen were not up on roofs at night. There was only one thing that might be. The swoosh as the air was parted by a much greater mass was the next sound she heard. Just like a cartoon. Swoosh. Above her, coming down, closer. Onto her. Literally on top of her. And he smelled of death… blood. Just been feeding. He had taken his meal somewhere away from the table. Just fed.
So he might only kill me – that was a relief. That was the insane sort of thought that came to her mind as the vampire snarled and struck her to the ground. Her left arm was pinned to the ground beneath her, the stake inaccessible to her up her sleeve even if she could get her hand out of the painful contortion it was bent into. She summoned the command to push him off her to mind, but he was too close, too powerful and determined, she knew that before she could apply the force that he would bite. His breath in her face, the stench of the blood nauseating her. It wouldn’t be so bad to die as long as she didn’t have to smell that.
He had seen what she had done. He wasn't playing around. He knew she was dangerous to his kind. She started to push him back, the magic taking hold of him, but it was already too late he was anchored to her. He knew, or had guessed, what she was and he was taking no chances. No jibes. No threats. No pleasure. Just the kill. A vampire after her own heart. Literally perhaps. She’d seen them take hearts when she had no chance saving the victim… when she had just had to watch and try to avoid throwing up for fear of discovery.
There was a clatter and something hit her feet before there was an cracking thud and the vampire twisted its head to look. Plastic bags on her feet? Huh? It turned from her just in time to get a broom handle in the face courtesy of that homeless guy. It snarled, fazed but very much intact. Still on the attack, intending to kill them both now. But it had forgotten what she was. What she could do. Maybe just for a second, it had shifted its focus to the source of the pain. But that second was all that she needed - Tara took her chance.
Reaching out she lifted it off her, holding it above her, unable to grasp her, unable to gain purchase with hands or feet and with the stake freed drove it upwards positioned it and let go with the magical force, closing her eyes and mouth in anticipation of dust.
The vampires weight never hit her.
“Damn vampires,” the homeless guy breathed, spitting and collecting up his stuff.
--------------
Her benefactor was asleep on her bed, his collection of stuff piled in the corner, Tara was watching the TV, the volume down low out of respect for his slumber. The loudest thing in the room was his snoring. The next… her laughter at the toons. It was good to laugh and he seemed oblivious to it.
She had killed and now she could laugh.
She wasn’t worried about having him in her room. He was just unfortunate. He’d lost his family, just like her. He was a wanderer. Just like her. He just wanted to find something that would make his life a little better. Just like her. Besides she was too wired to sleep. She had to ease herself down, away from the magic or she might find herself getting fixated on the sensation. The whispering inside telling her how good she had been. How well she had worked with the magic… what else she would do with it.
She’d been nowhere near her self-imposed limits and still it whispered to her. That was why she had limits in the first place… not to get close to them, where she might stray, but to stay far away from them. Far away.
She was far away from everything… She looked over at the piece of wood on her bedside cabinet… it was still taking shape, but she had locked the knife that carved it away tonight. She couldn’t have that floating around when she had someone in her room. That was begging for trouble. Knives were dangerous. They were not for playing with – no sir.
What made her change the TV channel in the middle of the roadrunner’s ritualistic humiliation of the coyote she would never know – but she would wonder about it a few times in months to come. From the cartoons she flicked at the remote and found herself watching the news. She never, ever, watched the news. The TV never carried any vampire related activity anyway and was just filled with just sound bites. Not so you’d know a vampire attack anyway. Newspapers in libraries were the best bet for tracking them down – much more detail. Much more editorial indignation at the lack of response or arrests. That was always a good clue. So why had she changed from Roadrunner to the world at large? Her part of the world was bad enough without knowing the rest of it. Things were bad all over the world – not all of it, not even a lot of it, was down to monsters and vampires. And that was just depressing… even if she killed them all, would the world be a lot better?
Just a little would do.
"Now a news item from quiet little Sunnydale, California.”
The name of the place caught her attention as perhaps no other beside her hometown could have. Sunnydale. It had taken a long, long time to discover that place. Her ultimate destination. The place where she would see justice. And probably die. But it could all be tracked back to there… the explosion of vampires that had led to the death of her family… and the life she was forced to lead.
“Apparently the entire town has been quarantined due to an epidemic of, as strange at this may sound, Laryngitis. It seems that the town was been rendered unable to speak for a period last night and there's no word yet what might have caused this or what other effects might be seen from this epidemic. Llocal authorities have issued a statement, a verbal statement, I should say, blaming recent flu vaccinations. A few sceptics call it a citywide hoax.
In the meanwhile Sunnydale has effectively shut down. All schools and businesses will be closed for the day as a precaution against further problems and residents are advised to stay home and rest their voices whilst the Centre for Disease Control has ordered the entire town quarantined. No one can go in or out until the syndrome is identified or the symptoms are proven to have completely vanished. If they had stayed silent no one would be objecting – but as they all seem fine now expect some hollering! We'll bring you more on that as it develops.”
Her future lay in Sunnydale. She was sure of that. And this… it was calling to her. It was luring her into its grasp. She was ready now. She had not been before. Not withstanding the ambush and the help the now-snoring guy had given her she was finally ready. All she had to do was to get there and find a way to stay. She couldn’t go just yet… there were preparations to make but…
She was ready to meet her fate – whatever that might hold.
***********
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You hear that baby?
[This message has been edited by Katharyn (edited March 29, 2002).]
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