Snowblind Chapter 3

It's her.

The one there, in the hip-huggers and the tank top. Dark hair hanging down her back. What a rack, too.

That's the one for tonight.

He sat back, watching as she danced. The DJ's been hitting a slow groove, surely watching her as intensely as he had been. The lights bounce off her necklace and her belly chain. He knew that, with just a few words he could have her exactly where he wanted her.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror above the bar, ran his hand through his hair, and stalked across the club.


"Then what happened?"

"He crawled into the back seat, poured rubbing alcohol on his arm, and did his best rock impression until we got back to the hotel."

"His Fred Durst?" Willow sat, her homework spread across the bed: the math, at her feet and on her lap; the Lit, at her side, on Kennedy's pillow; her programming project -- highlighted printouts, dog-eared and bookmarked texts on Java and TCP, Powerbook running the editor and compiler -- set on the corner, where Kennedy's feet would be, if she wasn't on the other end of a cellular connection. "He does a great ... no, not even good, but energetic, with the enthusiasm and the smiling, and it wasn't Fred Durst at all, was it?"

The laughter sounded canned through the small cellphone. "No, it wasn't that. He was just quiet and brooding." A sigh. "I miss hearing you talk."

"Most nights, you're trying to make me stop talking." She clipped her pen to the collar of her gray tank top and dried her palm on her striped boxers.

"First I try to make you forget to use words. I like to hear you babble."

"So that's your game, huh?" The words played across her mind. "Game. Oh, yeah. Game! Do something for me."

"I'm kinda far away."

"No. Not that. Andrew said he gave you some stuff?"

"It's after midnight. I am not going to play Andrew games after midnight. No way."

"This will be fun. I have the core code compiling and functional. C'mon, this will be cool."

"I think your thermometer needs adjustment."

"Just do it."

"Alright." She heard shuffling. The magic number is ..." She read off some numbers.

"Global positioning isn't magic. Magic is much more precise, and the Army can't turn it off when they feel like invading somewhere. But I can't find drivers to make my computer accept it, and if I write 'em, I won't have time to read my lit, and we're just starting To The Lighthouse." She typed in the numbers and clicked submit.

"I'm afraid of Virginia Woolly."

"First, no, you're afraid of Elizabeth Taylor, and second, no, you're not, I am." The monitor flashed once, then again, then it was filled with information. "You are on the east side of town, your local sunrise is at 6:54, and tomorrow you'll have clear skies, with snow expected before the end of the week."

"Made some progress, huh?"

"The interface to the USGS maps was the hard part. I've been having Andrew test it, looking up different cities. I'm looking into mobile data channels so I can tie it into the Bug. I found the cutest little case on the internet that'll fit right into the dashboard. There's already MP3 players coded, so I just work out some interfaces."

"Then you rip your three Sleater-Kinney CDs instead of keeping them in the CD changer?"

Willow put on her fake pout. "I don't thing you're taking me seriously."

"I think of you driving with a computer anywhere near you and experience open-mouth-of-hell levels of fear. That is serious." A yawn came through the speaker. "I'd talk more, but I've been on all day. I'm wiped."

"Would it help if I told you I was wearing that silk teddy?"

"It wouldn't even help if you told me you weren't. Call you tomorrow?

"Of course. Good night, Wonder Woman."

"Good night, Sabrina."

Willow closed her phone and put it down on the bed. She put her pencil in her math book and closed it. She's never get back to dif eq's after that.


The bite was closed. It wasn't even that deep. There was just a sting and a slight ache whenever Xander tried to move it, so he didn't. He kept the zapper on his chest and the beer on the bedside table next to the phone.

He was watching a particularly confusing movie on cable where Johnny Depp was doing the Giles thing, tracking down evil books. Maybe part of the confusion came from the beer.

The clippings folder and the maps were on top of the TV. The laptop was in its bag, next to the door. He didn't want to research. He didn't want to think about it.

He thought about switching to another channel. The other choices were health infomercials, Girls Gone Wild infomercials, a lack of music from MTV, and Fox News. Somehow, a worldwide search for satanic literature seemed the most comfortable choice.

There were three dead soldiers already, with one in terminal condition. He hadn't thought about the case in hours; they hadn't died in vain.


Kennedy was beginning to miss the heavy bag. Yes, she's swimming again, after nearly a year away from the pool, and yes, running in a chilly morning felt good. Even better when she could set her own pace and not have to deal with the chatter and gossip of the younger Slayers.

But sometimes there's just no substitute for hitting something.

She had wanted this trip, the first real action since Sunnydale. She had wanted to come back with solo kills. Not related to the group and not minimized by assists. Like Buffy and Faith had. Hell, like Beth had. And hey, an averted apocalypse wouldn't be bad, either.

Xander had given her the research this morning, dumping it on her at Shays and then going back upstairs. One eye was bloodshot and the other wasn't, which was such a weird thing to see.

She had caught Beth's dad on the phone and told him that they wouldn't be there to pick her up this evening. He didn't sound remotely happy to talk to her.

Now she was digging through Xander's notes, trying to figure out the next step. The messily-annotated map was spread out on her bed, and a notebook half-filled with Xander's scrawl. She was beginning to fit the problem into her mind, but there were still questions, like what did Xander mean when he wrote "Following - Not Leading" across the top margin of the first page?

It was so much easier when you can punch something.


It took a few minutes for Xander's eyes to adjust to the darkness. He patted his pockets to make sure he had everything. Stake. Cross. Holy water. Cell phone. Wallet.

He steeled himself as he surveyed his surroundings. The pale white faces of the denizens. The dank and underlit pit they gather in. The disgusting things they ate and drank.

The greasy happy hour tacos and cheap tap beer were hardly the worst things he had seen in his life, though, and the music on the bar's stereo was recognizable. "In The Club" by 50 Cent. One of Faith's favorites. There was hardly a decoration, from the light over the pool table to the posters on the walls, that didn't advertise an alcoholic beverage. Pretty typical for a campus bar.

There was a small group gathered around the pool table. He stopped by the bar to get a pitcher of Killians, then put his coat and a pitcher down at a table near the group. He didn't have a Cardinals baseball cap on backwards, or a dark hoodie, or a wallet on a chain. Not that this didn't sound increasingly like a good idea.

Good ideas abound elsewhere, but the plan is here.

He put a stack of quarters down on the edge of the table. "I got next."


This one was an easy pick. Only about an hour east. A stand of trees overlooking a lake. Lots of dead leaves, which made it a good test of her sneakiness.

Kennedy found tracks by the lake, which had already frozen over. Lots of small animal ones, plus some hoofed ones. Deer? Elk? Buffalo? Wildebeest? Hell if she knew. But that one? That one she knew. Hamat.

She tracked it into the woods. She considered going back, since this was not the cause of all this, but a Hamat on the loose was bad news.

She got as close as she dared. It was getting close to dusk, then all her light would be gone. Eighty yards or so. Closer than that and she'd get drawn in.

She unscrewed the tip to an arrow, replacing the head with a silver-plated one. Xander had packed two, just in case. Then she stood, holding her breath. She held her breath, drew the arrow and took aim. And then let it fly.

The Hamat is light green with a torso about the size of a football, ten spindly, hook-footed legs and an extendable tube for a mouth, which it extends through the back of the head, through which it sucks the brains of its victims -- in this case, a three-point buck. The deer's knees were shaky and almost buckled once, but its will is no longer its own. Friedrich's Folio says that a host can 'live' for up to three months under the control of the Hamat, after which it leaves eggs in the host's desiccated ribcage and tries to attract a new host. And they can only be killed by ...

Thwok.

... silver.

She didn't notch another arrow, despite her training. No point. These things were solitary creatures, so there wouldn't be another one around.

Besides, she only had the one silver arrowhead.

The old host was a dog, a grey-speckled brown mutt with a pus-covered eye and matted hair. It, like the deer, still had basic life signs, heartbeat and breathing. She didn't find the characteristic H-shaped wound on the dog, so she was sure it didn't lay eggs.

She took her hunting knife and slit both animals' throats.

Kennedy then back-tracked her way back to the lake, where she pounded out a small hole into the ice, which she used to clean the blood and ichor off her arrow and blade, then replaced the original head and pocketed the silver one.

This is a win. OK, not a big win. Hamats were, as demons went, small-brained and animalistic, and they weren't known for working for or with other demons. This, then, had nothing to do with the deaths she was investigating, but she had killed the demon, so she was satisfied.

Until she heard the chink of a pump-action shotgun behind her.

"You know what trespassing is, missy?"

She raised her hands above her head, her bow loose in her left hand.


The friends you buy with a pitcher of beer are not quality friends. Nobody will go to the wall for you for a pitcher of beer. They will talk, though, and they control the topics. This group? Pool, beer, weed, girls, rap, sports, and combinations of those five.

Which was enough to want to make 'em shut up.

After about three hours, during which he had consumed one glass of the five pitchers he had bought, his new-found best friends had told him what girls do what under the influence of what organic compound, what three teams had a lock on winning the Super Bowl, that Eminem was the bomb, and that his pool table english was shit.

"It's the altitude. Get me on a California table and I'll wipe the floor with you."

"Bullshit."

"I'm telling you, I can be good at this."

The shot he took showed nothing of his skill, bouncing balls off bumpers and sending the cue ball into a side pocket.

"Just not today."

He checked his watch. Just after six. His challenger, a pasty thin white guy with the beginnings of a full sleeve tattoo running down his right arm, placed the cue ball and shot, sending the two into a corner pocket. He had a Yankees cap on backwards and a cigarette in his mouth. The smoke made Xander's prosthetic eye itch and water.

The place was beginning to fill up, causing him to lose track of people, of positions. He bumped into a table while lining up a shot, knocking over one guy's drink. He felt himself start moving his head back and forth, trying to compensate for for his restricted field of vision. Didn't want to give that secret up until necessary.

After that, he stuck close to the wall when he wasn't shooting, breathing deeply and gripping the pool cue.


The guy was still too far away to hit. The voice was back some. No way she could rush him before he shot off.

"Yeah. I've heard of trespassing."

"You know, you're supposed to ask the land owner before you hunt on it?"

"That's on the licence or something, right? I should've known that. Sorry." She supported her left hand with he right, holding both, and the bow, above her head. "Didn't take a shot at anything. Still have all my arrows."

The voice doesn't answer. She hears some shuffling behind her, and the light of a flashlight bounces around behind her. It isn't trained on her back, so whoever this was, he had one hand holding the shotgun and the other one holding the light.

"We're gonna take a walk now. Go forward."

They made a few hundred feet before she worked the plan. A slight spin with her hand and the bow dropped behind her. She stopped walking.

"Go on."

"That's my bow. It cost me almost a thousand bucks."

"I'll take care of it."

"I don't want to leave it here."

She felt a push against her back, and she moved. She swung her left behind her, connecting with a face as she grabbed the barrel of the shotgun with her right. Kennedy was between the person and the dangerous end now, and the gun went with her as she spun around again, driving out all his air with a knee to his gut. The flashlight went flying as the man went down.

She tried one-arm pumping the weapon, like Sarah Connor in that Terminator movie, and the first shell flew out, so she pumped it again and again until it was empty, then dropped it on the man at her feet, grabbed her bow, and ran.


They came in as a group, but split apart. The one in a backwards baseball cap, listed as "Kenneth Tolerud, Beloved Son" in his obituary but affectionately called "K-Dog" among those who don't get the paper, swapped high fives with half the pool table crowd. Xander looked for reflections in their glasses, wanting to confirm what he pretty much knew.

The group around the pool table treated him like a great friend. Buttmonkeys. Either they're in thrall or in denial. Either way, a fight with this one would mean a fight with the others. A twelve-to-one fight could be fun, but that's not strategy. A scout can't report if he doesn't make it home.

The other two sat at a table near the bar, watching the evening crowd as they walked past. The male one has a John Stossel moustache and a black turtleneck. The female has curly shoulder-length black hair, brown eyes and calf-high stiletto-heeled boots. Xander poured the holy water into a red plastic cup and walked up to the pair. One? That he could probably handle. Two? Maybe.

The plan came to him as he walked up. He put on his smile.

"Hi. I was just noticing that you were the hottest girl in the whole place. Really. What gets me is who you're hanging with. I'm sure I'm much better company."

The turtleneck started to stand. Xander looked right at his face. That's right, remember the face, buddy.

"No. I'm amused. What do you have planned?"

"Doing something to you that Roger never would."

She smiled. Roger didn't. She grabbed her purse.


The shot drew Kennedy back.

She had spent an hour of darkness circling around, trying to make sure nothing was behind her, and from the sound of the shot, she must have done a pretty good job. The bow was even back in the bag when she heard it.

She took a far straighter path toward the shot. She didn't know firearms that well, but she thought the guy found his bullets. Or at least one of them. And he must've bumped into something he hated or feared.

She was almost 50 yards away when she saw him. He was on his knees, his hands at his side and his parka off his shoulders. She saw him shaking, but still not moving. She moved through the wood, around his left side, until she saw behind him.

Another Hamat. Hooked claws ripping into the parka, climbing up his back.

She crouched behind a tree, reaching into her pocket for the silver arrowhead and pulling an arrow out of her quiver. Her breath slowed and she focused on the threads of the arrowhead, turning it slowly onto the shaft. She glanced out to the moonlit clearing and saw it climbing, crawling into the hood of the parka. She slid back behind the tree, nocked the arrow, drew and held a breath, and stood to draw.

He had turned.

He was picking up the shotgun.

Her aim went from the man to the shotgun to the hooked claws peaking out from behind his head, and back to the man.

Her Watcher had drummed it into her head back when she turned 12. Bladed weapons are most dangerous when you're close. Projectile weapons benefit from distance. Therefore, run from knives. Rush guns.

Kennedy crossed into the clearing before the man picked up the shotgun, stepping on the barrel and knocking it away from his hands. Her left hand, holding the bow and, with her index finger, holding the arrow, was lifted up for balance as she knocked him down with a boot to the head. She leaped, turned, and fired in the air, catching the parka hood from the bottom and pushing the Hamat out. Its blood looked black in the moonlight. She whipped the arrow, sending the bleeding body flying, then found a clean spot on the parka hood to use to drag the guy out. She was already composing the note she'd leave on him, ready for him to wake up after that hit, "use silver bullets" being a key phrase.

This wasn't why she was here, she knew, but sometimes there's just no substitute for hitting something.


The deal with vampires is that they're predators. They're hunters.

Her left leg was hooked around Xander's right. Her hands ran through his hair as she kissed him. His cup sat just out of reach on the lid of the dumpster, next to her purse. He was forceful but careful as he moved his hips. He didn't want to play his hand too soon.

Predators choose the time and place where they attack. They choose their prey, looking for the sick, the weak, ones that separate themselves from the herd.

Her breasts felt cool in his hands. He thought they'd be colder, but room temperature in the bar was pretty warm and it takes some time to cool down. She took off his cheater glasses and dropped them. He heard the clacking sound as they bounced off concrete.

They want their prey to only recognize the danger when it's too late. Just watch Animal Planet.

He closed his eyes and concentrated as he got close. Not thinking of her. Thinking of someone else. Someone who was warm inside. Her grip on his hair tightened and she moaned and jerked against him. He opened his eyes when he heard her laughing. The ridges were up across her forehead and her fangs had come in.

They don't expect their prey to fight back.

A quick jerk forward knocked down his cup, pouring holy water down her back. She shrieked as smoke enveloped her shouders. She pushed forward, knocking Xander down and throwing him across the alley. She was at him again, pushing him down and going for his neck when he pulled his cross free of his jacket pocket. He could hear it burn her as he put it to her side. She grabbed at his neck head for a second before rolling away, coming to her feet.

Xander slipped his hand in his pocket as he tried to get to his feet. His left hand, still holding the cross, supported his weight. She was on him again, knocking him down again. She was on his neck when he worked his stake free of his coat pocket. He brought it down on her back and she was gone.

Xander stood up slowly, zipped himself up and dusted himself off. He picked up his stake and cross and replaced them in his pockets. He saw his glasses, smashed and lying below her purse on the far side of the alley.

Then he leaned against the wall until the stars left his vision, stood and started limping back to the motel.


Kennedy had her bow bag and spare arrows spread across her bed, and was drawing over and over again, listening to the cams. After a few draws, she layed the bow down on the bedspread and took a small bottle of oil out of the carrying case. A few drips, then she drew it again and again until she was sure there was no sound.

She was pulling out the bowstring wax when she heard a knock at the door. A quick peak through the peephole and she opened the door.

Dust stood out on Xander's black jeans and shirt, and a bandage peeked out of the collar. His glasses were gone. She knew why he wore them, with the tint and the shatterproofing. He wouldn't have just forgot them. "Looks like you found something to do today."

"Yeah. Took an idea and ran with it. You hungry? I hear they have this new thing here, where you call up and they bring you food." Forced humor.

"Yeah, that would be good." She sat crosslegged on the bed with the bow on her lap, proceeding to rub wax into the bowstring. "So, you going to tell me about your day, or will you just leave me hanging? Because, going out without backup? Not the safest move."

He started toward the chair in the corner. "Followed a hunch. It payed off, and it should pay off more tomorrow night." He sat down, sitting with his back forward and elbows on his knees. "We're going to have to start thinking of a plan."

"Why do you think this is going to work out better than last night at the factory?"

"Because I think I've made an enemy."


"We're here."

Beth sat up, turning off her flashlight and closing her English book. Her father buttoned up his Pendleton jacket and pulled his knit cap over his ears. Beth pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and on her tan fleece-lined denim jacket.

"Should we do it?"

"Let's go."

Beth lead the way, with her father following. Their car was hidden from the highway by a row of green John Deere combines, and they made their way to an anonymous gray tin building behind it.

"Cold night."

"Yup. Winter's almost here."

Dad pulled a small black case from his pocket, unzipped it and pulled two slim metal bars and knelt down before the door knob.

"Are you sure you can do this?"

"I did it for your Aunt Jillian, remember?"

"She didn't have half the lock they have here."

"Honey, Milt Tollufson doesn't need you coming in here breaking down doors. He did right by the family when Grandma Ludwina died. We don't need to do wrong by him."

After a few minutes, lock clicked.

"We ready?" Dad got off his knees and put the lock picks back into his pocket.

"It'd be nice to have sunlight behind us right now."

"You betcha, kiddo. Can't have everything, I guess."

The door swung open and they entered. It was colder inside.

No bodies would be buried until spring around here. With winter, the ground was just too hard to dig into, so they were warehoused until spring.

This one was found outside a bar in Marshall, laying behind a dumpster. Official cause of death is hypothermia aggravated by alcohol. The huge bite on his neck, clearly visible through the plastic, clearly had nothing to do with it.

"So, how's school going?"

"The usual. Math is tough. We're up to Napoleon in history. Nothing too unusual."

"And how was last night? You stayed out pretty late."

"I told you. One kill. Did my homework in the car."

"And you slammed the door on the way in. Woke your mother. And you didn't touch your soup at dinner tonight. Is everything OK?"

She sighed. "I don't know. It's just ...."

The body sat up. Dark hair fell limply over his yellow eyes and bulging forehead. He threw the clear plastic across the room and stood naked on the cold cement floor.

Beth was across the room before her father even moved, swinging her right leg into a roundhouse kick and following it up with an elbow-hit and a right jab. The newly-risen vamp dropped back, then lunged. Death, coming at her with great speed. Beth met him with her stake, and the vampire's remains scattered and fell to the ground.

"Do we have to talk about this? Can't we just go home?"

"Sure, honey."