I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the feedback, guys. I don't even know how to thank you. No, I'm no kind of professional writer, I'm a dog trainer and don't even have a beta or anyone at all to run this stuff by before I post it. So thank you a thousand times over, you made my day.

"That went well." Mick glances into his rear view mirror again.

Andy chuckles, "Surprisingly." She rolls her head against the head rest towards him, a grin stretching her lips, "First thing in a while. Maybe our luck has finally noticed that we're the good guys."

Mick's eyes flick towards her; he stares at the unexpected color of her irises. "What's wrong?"

Andy's brow furrows, "Nothing new, why?"

"Silver eyes?" Mick wrenches his gaze back onto the road.

"Oh. Sorry. I'm pulling energy, it's no big deal." Andy turns her head away, lifting a hand to shield her face from the wind buffeting in from the broken window.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Mick takes a deep breath, finds it useless to stifle his rising anxiety, so he presses a little harder on the accelerator and takes another look in the the side mirror.

"Relax." Andy keeps her face down, "I'm just doing the equivalent of drinking a really strong pot of coffee."

Mick frowns as he adds up hours mentally, "Shit. You haven't had anything to eat since yesterday, have you?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Andy smiles a little wryly, still avoiding eye contact.

Mick presses his lips into a tight line, "Quit that." He changes lanes sharply, and pulls into a McDonald's.

Andy sighs, "This isn't necessary, Mick, I don't..."

He interrupts, "If you eat, will you be more comfortable?"

"Fine." She sighs.

A few minutes later, Andy is mechanically chewing and swallowing some squashy bun-cheese-meat-like-patty-thing, as Mick guides the Mercedes up the grade towards the hills. The thick scrubby oaks pressing close to the edge of the gently winding street are a green one shade away from black in the failing twilight. Mick pulls off the road at a small, unused, and completely overgrown old access gate, and with a wince for the old car's paint eases as far into the concealing brush as possible. Andy slithers out the broken window as soon as he cuts the engine and Mick chuckles a faint, "Thanks."

She shrugs, "Might as well try to keep you in Josef's good graces. Window's bad enough." She pushes her way through the manzanita around to the driver's side and pulls the bush back. "C'mon."

Mick opens the door just wide enough to squeeze through and closes it gently. Andy sets the branch back against the car and follows right up against Mick as he elbows his way out of the prickly scrub. When they are clear, Mick eyes the mostly concealed car critically and yanks a bush out of the hard ground and leans it up against the bumper. Satisfied, he turns towards Andy, "Josef is going to meet us by the south tower."

Andy nods, "Right."

Mick turns and begins walking up the edge of the road.

"Wait."

He stops on his heel, "What?"

Andy's eyes are closed as she takes a few sharp breaths through her teeth, "I need to shift."

Mick takes a step towards her, "But..." He stops as her outline wavers. The mirage-like effect gives him a queasy feeling as he squints at her.

The wavering stops, and she staggers a step before dropping to her knees with a hiss. She holds her ribs and pants shallowly with her eyes closed.

Mick moves to her side and sinks to his heels next to her. He reaches out gingerly, but stops and clenches his hand into a fist before touching her. "It's probably pointless to ask if you're okay. You'll just say 'yes'."

She turns her head towards him, face still pinched but with a halfhearted attempt at a smile pulling her mouth into a twisted grimace. "Pretty much."

Mick shakes his head, "How much more can you take? This is insane."

Andy pushes herself upright with her wings, her arms still wrapped around her chest, "You haven't seen me crazy yet." She takes a few more shallow breaths, then opens her eyes and looks at him, expression serene, her lips quirked up slightly. "Seriously, this is what I'm made for. Let's go." She folds her wings against her back and begins walking resolutely up the hill.

Mick hesitates, then shrugs to himself at her stubbornness. He jogs to catch up to her then slows to match her pace. "Why did you do that?"

Andy continues walking, head down. "Being the only human in this fight is going to suck. Like this, I at least pick up the goshawk's reaction time."

"Oh." Mick mulls that one a bit, "So why not go all the way? Or would that hurt too much?"

"It might. But I'm going to need hands." She sighs and looks up, but only ahead of them as the first of the radio towers comes into view behind the thick bushy trees.

Mick follows her stare, "So, are you sure that going back to the house was going to be a waste of time?"

She continues staring at the towers, "How long would it have taken you to wake up if I cut my hand in your apartment and bled all over your kitchen?"

Mick frowns sharply at the non-sequitur, "I don't know, maybe five minutes, why?"

Andy looks at him, exasperation obvious in spite of her oddly silvery eyes.

"Oh. Right." He shakes his head slightly, feeling sheepish. "So they'll have abandoned the place."

"Or booby-trapped it quite thoroughly." Andy continues flatly, "If these hills weren't so close to the strongest energy flows, I wouldn't even waste my time coming here. If I were them, I'd head just about anywhere else to avoid us." She smiles, "I'm counting on that, actually."

"Huh?" Mick tries to make out the logic in Andy's last statement, but can't.

"Sorry." She chuckles to herself, "I mean that I'm betting on them staying with their plan to be here because they'll be sure that we'll look anywhere but where they said they'd be."

Mick rolls that one around his head, then nods. "Okay. I think I get it. We should be getting close to where Josef said he'd meet us."

Right on cue, the backside of a candy-apple red Ferrari pokes into view out out of some artistically arranged bushes as Mick and Andy round a sharp curve in the road. Josef's head pops out of the scrub, two leafy branches in his fists. He places them on the trunk, cocks his head to one side and pulls a bush in front of his license plate. Apparently happy with the now-well-camouflaged car, he turns back to the two of them, "If this thing ends up scratched, you do know who I'm blaming, right?"

Andy smiles, "The guy that drove the Ferrari?"

Josef folds his arms across his chest, "What else am I going to drive?"

Andy just shakes her head and turns to face the towers. "Let's do this thing."

Mick moves up to her right, intentionally covering her weak side. Josef steps to her left, echoing Mick's position. Andy glances at both of them, then squints ahead towards the towers blinking in distance. "Well, damn. That just went up." She starts trotting forward, surprising both vampires and leaving them briefly frozen behind her.

Mick recovers and hurries to catch up, "What went up? Another shield?"

Andy looks at him over her shoulder, eyes faintly glowing burnished silver, "Big one."

Josef appears next to Mick, and frowns at both of them, "Explain?"

Andy turns towards him, he recoils a little. "Sorry, I can't help the eyes. Anyways, a huge energy wall just went up; it's a really good sign that the bastards are still trying to go through with their plan."

Mick strains to see any change ahead, "Are you going to have a problem getting through?"

Andy's expression turns feral, "Not at all."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Josef growls.

The three of them jog up the road, Andy taking point. She slows as they approach the towers. She steps off the pavement and motions Mick and Josef to follow. She turns towards them, whispering low enough Mick finds it hard to tell if she's speaking aloud or talking inside his head. "From here, follow me exactly. We haven't set off any alarms yet, and surprise is only going to help us."

She heads off at a tangent to the curve in the road, slipping through the bushes with nearly no noise. Josef frowns at Mick, who shrugs and follows the guardian into the brush. Josef drops in behind him, and the trio snake through the low trees and scrubby bushes for what feels to Mick like an hour, but is likely just minutes. Andy stops again and turns to Mick. "Stay here."

Mick frowns and shakes his head.

"Stay." Andy lifts a hand towards him, "I'm going to take down the shield. When the pretty sparks stop flying, you can come, all right?"

Mick blanches, then nods, turning his head to look back at Josef, who shrugs and flicks his fingers at Andy with a shooing motion.

Andy steps out of the bushes into the edge of the clearing. She stands motionless for a moment then raises her left hand towards the blinking tower fifty yards in front of her. To Mick's eyes there's absolutely nothing in the clearing, just a few weeds that have struggled up in spite of the recent droughts and the three towers arranged in a loose triangle. Suddenly, the closest tower begins to glow, like foxfire rippling up the metal lattice. The other two join it, then the air between the three towers ripples with bands of sickly green shot through with clear blue. The blue begins to overwhelm the green then the sheets of color shatter into a rain of silver sparks.

Mick feels a growl start deep in his chest as the outline of two figures are revealed in the center of the area between the towers. The evening breeze carries the scent of stale blood to his nostrils and he pushes his way out of the bushes, Josef less than a half-stride behind. The two vampires arrange themselves flanking the guardian, who hisses, "This ends now," and the trio stalk towards the towers as one.

Mick flinches as he feels Andy take his hand and glances over her head at Josef. Josef's expression is a mixture of annoyance and distaste, but he accepts her touch gracefully enough. Her lip curls into a smile edged with a snarl, "It's the guardian and the demon. We killed the one that was meant to be the second demon's body. There are kids up there, but they haven't been hurt much yet. I'll hold the bastards' attention while you two get the kids out of here."

Mick's jaw clenches, "What the hell is it with the children?"

Andy's eyes flick towards him, "Kids aren't supposed to die, so you get a lot more energy from killing them than someone older."

Josef bares fangs, "I'm going to kill the bitch."

Andy flashes him a wide grin, "I'll do my best to give you the opportunity." Her eyes snap back towards the two in the clearing as a brief flash of reddish light splashes a foot from Mick's face and flickers to nothing. The grin still firmly in place, Andy pulls both Mick and Josef's hands behind her. "Excuse me, boys, could you please take care of keeping in physical contact with me for a second?" She puts their hands on her wings and releases them. She lifts her arms, palms out and bright blue-white flashes against the two in the clearing cause them to stagger backwards.

Andy strides forward, and Mick closes his hand around the sinewy bone sheathed in warm feathers as he follows. He remembers the pain from the night before, and feels no embarrassment from following Andy's orders. He glances at Josef, whose face is all vampire.

His old friend looks back at him, hand clamped onto Andy's other wing, and smiles, "I'm not that stupid, Mick."

Mick laughs at Josef, in spite of the silently deadly light show surrounding them.

Suddenly Andy tenses, "Oh, hell no, bitch." Her hands clench in front of her and she freezes momentarily, eyes closed.

A reddish glow begins to pulse just behind of the two in the clearing, now only fifty feet from Mick, Andy and Josef. It illuminates the terrified faces of five children, arranged at the points of a pentagram drawn with something that shines slickly against the weeds. The red peaks, twisting, writhing, and dissipates with a pop, tearing a snarl from Mick's chest; the children wince from the flash but stare with wide eyes at the adults as the clearing goes dark, the only illumination now from the moon rising above the oaks. The silence is broken by a whimper from one of the kids.

The guardian in the clearing spins to stare at the children behind her. She turns back slowly, "What the hell are you?"

Andy opens her eyes, answering with a smile, "A guardian, like you used to be."

The demon lifts a hand towards the kids, black eyes on Andy.

Mick can see no effect.

Andy lifts her chin at the creature. "Keep trying, it's not going to work."

The demon hisses wordlessly and clenches his hand into a fist. A ripple of red runs around the edge of the pentagram, but nothing else happens.

Andy twitches her wings, Follow. Don't let go, no matter what, until I get you in the middle of the star on the ground around the kids. Then grab them and run like hell.

Mick squeezes the wing under his hand in acknowledgment, his eyes fastened on the kids. Andy walks forward directly at the two standing between them and the children. They crouch slightly, onto the balls of their feet, but Andy doesn't slow or change her stance. Shadows dance in Mick's peripheral vision, but disappear as he turns his head to catch what they might be. From nowhere a rumble of thunder rattles his teeth, and he smells the sharp bite of ozone.

Andy laughs, the sound more like the bark from the wolf than anything that should come from a human, "Are you really that stupid? Lightning in the middle of three giant conductors?"

Mick feels the hair go up on his arms and looks wildly at Josef. Josef's pale eyes meet his grimly, and he shakes his head at Mick. Lightning illuminates the belly of a cloud suddenly straight overhead, thunder echoing the flashes. Mick's eyes widen in panic, these things can call storms? What the fuck are we doing here?

A warm voice echoes in his head, sounding distracted but still amused, I told you I could flatten the city. I'm embarrassed now that Phillip surprised me so badly last night, the bastard isn't anything worse than the usual sons of bitches I deal with. See? A bolt snakes down, Andy lifts a hand palm up and the thing shatters into a thousand small sparks that dance down the invisible barrier around them, the crack of thunder from the superheated air even muffled enough Mick barely winces.

"Embarrassed. Right." Mick chokes.

A wind blows up, ruffling the feathers on Andy's wings and blowing Mick's hair wildly. "You are going to start a brush fire if you're not careful," Andy cocks her head, and the roiling cloud above them seems to melt away, the last bits blowing across the face of the moon now nearly overhead. Andy shifts her approach towards the pentagram, sidling close enough that Mick can identify the marks on the grass as a mixture of the blood from the two children they rescued earlier. Their opponents back away from them, seemingly reluctantly but unable to hold position against the repeated blue-white flashes crashing against them. Mick tears his eyes from the gaudy display and looks towards the children. All five appear reasonably whole, though their faces are white and fearful, eyes so wide as to seem like holes burned in their heads.

"Yes." Josef's voice startles Mick, "We're in. Go!"

Mick blinks in surprise to be within the pentagram, but responds to Josef, darting across the thin grass towards the nearest child. The child is tied, throat, wrists, and ankles to a stake pounded into the hard ground. Rather than wasting time with the restraints, Mick yanks up the stake and runs to the next one. He keeps his eyes away from the escalating fury of the incomprehensible fight at the edge of the pentagram, concentrating on the child in front of him and the other whimpering against his chest. Josef is suddenly at his elbow, three small burdens in his arms, "Go!" Mick frees the stubborn peg from the dirt and sprints after him into the darkness.