The batteries were dead.
The sky was grey, the snow was grey, the trees were grey, and his magazines and the replacement batteries were in the trunk. That meant he couldn't play Golden Sun on his Gameboy. This sucked.
Mom was playing her crappy 80s stuff CDs, too, which sucked even more.
So, he was looking out the window, still in his coat because Mom's heater is crap, because Mom's car is crap, because Mom's life is crap and she'll never let anyone forget it. And he knew the whole route. Every road and intersection to Dad and Karen's place.
They passed the farm with the rusted silo. They painted the barn two years ago, but the silo just looks bad. Before that was the guy who drove an old Eagle Talon. Had two junked-out Talons next to a trailer, probably used 'em for parts.
And then there was that little lake. It still had a goose or two, even this late in the year, when it's already half frozen.
And up ahead, there's that creepy old house with the peeling paint. The yard was always full of weeds and the shed in back is falling down.
Somebody boarded up the upstairs windows. What would that mean?
His mom started singing along with the music. "It must of took a whole hour just to make up your face, baby! Oh yes you do."
He considered popping the door open and leaping out to his doom, then decided that road rash had to hurt worse than Mom's singing.
Beth got out of bed later than usual that morning. She hadn't woken up for her morning run and she dragged herself down wearing holstein-patterned pajama pants and an inside-out U of M t-shirt instead of her normal running outfit of lycra pants and baggy hoodie sweatshirt. She slumped bonelessly into her chair.
"Oh, honey, didn't you sleep well?" Her mother slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. "Your father and you were up so late."
Beth took a sip of her orange juice, then picked up her fork.
"She was in fine form last night, Laura. I tell you, she's just amazing to watch."
Her focus was entirely on the over-easy egg in front of her. She trimmed off the white, flecked with brown from the pepper Mom sprinkled over it.
"I replaced the chain for your heavy bag." Her father took a bite of bacon, then continued. "The guy at the garage says that this one's thick enough to haul a combine, so it should take a while for you to work through it."
Bethany mumbled out a thank you and cut off another piece of egg. The tip of her fork cut into the yolk. The yellow bled out, filling the shallow circle of the plate.
She sinks to her knees and feels the teeth tear into her neck....
"Thanks, Mom, but I'm not hungry. I think I'll go train some." And Bethany stood up and went back up the stairs, forgetting to push her chair back under the table.
The styrofoam cup felt warm against Kennedy's hand as she walked through the alley. A slight breeze blew through the alley, but she could make out certain highlights. Over there, next to the trash can, was shattered optical glass. Some of the pieces were big enough to have recognizable curve, and those also had a little of that rose tint. Xander's in his glacier glasses now, totally covering the eyes. There was a small dusty spot across the alley over there, so the fight ended there. A little blood there, too. The service door for the club was 30 feet down, and they were between a the back entrances of a drug store and a coffee shop.
"So, what's the plan?"
Xander's breakfast sandwich was still steaming, half-eaten. A small piece of egg hung from the stubble on his chin. A pair of Band-Aids stood dark against his neck, scarcely over the collar of his black Carhartt jacket.
"I get the vampires here and we kill 'em all."
She was tempted to slap that smirk off his face. "I'm seeing two parts to that plan. The 'get them here' part...."
"And the 'kill them all' part. Right. So, do you have any thoughts for the Slaying?"
Kennedy looks up, scanning the rooftops for cover. "Someone up there. Somewhere. With a bow. Shoot some, pop down with the stake when she's done. And someone right next to you."
"No." Xander took sip from his coffee. "You do not come in. You stay out here, too. If these things can recognize a Slayer, then the game is up and we're talking Jesse and Severin in the honky tonk. Besides, we don't want to get caught relying on your fake ID."
"What happens if you can't get the vampires out here to the carefully-set trap?"
"All sorts of fun red death, so I guess I'd better make sure they come, right?"
"So, how are you going to make that happen?"
"My wit and charm." Xander too another bite from his sandwich. "I'll cover my end. You just make sure you cover yours."
Beth worked on her combinations. Jab-cross. Jab-cross-kick. Jab-cross-knee. Jab-knee-elbow-headbutt. Steam rose from her body whenever she stopped swinging. Sweat pasted stray hairs to her forehead.
...and she starts her kill swing, then her left side erupts in pain.
Jab-hook-roundhouse. Jab-hook-hook-thigh kick-head kick.
She sinks to her knees and feels the teeth tear into her neck.
She took a moment to catch her breath and stop the rocking of the heavy bag.
"I just have to be faster." And she started again. Jab-hook-uppercut. Jab-cross-roundhouse....
The sky was gray and overcast when they pulled off the state highway onto the county road, and Xander again sat in the passenger seat, real eye facing out again. The plastic wall, up again and in full force. Not a word out of him since the alley.
Kennedy kept trying to jump-start conversation, pointing out the houses and farms along the way. This barn looked recently painted, and paint do they pain them red, anyway? Were all the houses either white or brick? Nothing drew him out.
So she stopped trying. So she didn't comment on the two old wrecks in that yard or the half-frozen lake or the boarded-up windows in the house with peeling paint and the plywood over the windows. Another 20 minutes from Beth's farm. 20 minutes of silence.
Xander didn't like jokes, preferring obscure references and witty comments. Jokes are shticky. They're easy, and they don't flow. But there's this one that Uncle Rory told him once.
Sam Houston was looking over a map in the Alamo when the sentry calls out -- "Santa Anna's army is coming over the horizon!" Sam says to his steward, "Bring me my red coat," and goes out to the mission wall.
Later, the sentry calls out "Santa Anna's army is surrounding us!". Again, Sam calls to his steward, saying "Bring me my red coat."
Davy Crockett sees this and asks Houston -- Uncle Rory does the worst John Wayne ever at this point -- "Wadaya need the red coat for, pilgrim?"
Sam says "Simple. I wear the red coat, and if I'm hit by a bullet, the blood will be the same color as the jacket and my injury will not bring fear to the hearts of the men."
Later, the sentry calls out. "Santa Anya's cavalry is preparing for a charge!" Sam Houston calls to his steward, "Bring me my dark pants!"
Xander sipped his coffee, from the thermos that Laura, Beth's mother, gave him when Kennedy was getting Beth. She asked about the other night, what had happened at the soup factory. Seems Beth's been quiet and withdrawn since then. He had tried to reassure her, tell her that everything would be fine. Wear his metaphorical red coat and be persuasive. By the look on her face as she left, he was unsuccessful. His skills at clouding the minds of Slayer moms was getting rusty.
Kennedy startled him when she got in. He could tell by her giggles. She was in her seat and in his face in an instant, and when he turned his head to see her, the cheap plastic lid spilled everywhere.
Good thing he was wearing his dark pants.
"So, what's the plan?"
Kennedy was in the driver's seat again, but now she had a small female morose person in the front seat. Xander took the back seat after the coffee incident, which served to break nobody out of their mood.
"We create a crossfire. Kennedy from the front of the alley, and Beth, you from the roof. That way, we don't have any pesky backdrop issues. Besides me. Don't shoot arrows through me. I don't think I can emphasize that particular point enough."
"Gotcha. No arrows through Xander." Kennedy looked up into her rear-view mirror. "And how did you say you would get them to go out into the alley?"
Xander leaned back and took a sip from his coffee cup. "Persuasion."
"I'm thinking you've left off a few details. What happens if you don't get the vamps out into the alley?"
"Well, I might just get them to fight inside the bar, which, you two being underage, would mean I have a fight on my hands. Very Near Dark, without a vet around to provide the requisite happy ending."
"Well, I think I'll have to insist on a happy ending here."
"We all want happy endings, Kennedy."
"My morale's lifted. I'm filled with confidence here, Xander." She looks over a moment. "How about you, Beth? You filled with confidence in Xander's plan?"
Beth looked up and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Me up on the roof. The drug store across the street, right? I can do that."
Xander leaned forward, so his head was between the two seats. "I suppose that gets us to the next difficulty."
"Which is?"
"I've only seen three vamps, and I took care of one, so there's at least two. I don't have any way of coming up with an 'at most'."
"So, once we shot our arrows, we should be prepared to jump into the fray, stakes first?"
"Yeah." Xander leaned back, frowning.
"There's more to that 'yeah', isn't there?"
"The star of our Slayer's dreams. I don't think his friends know he's dead."
"Great." Kennedy took a look in the rear view mirror, trying to read Xander's face. "That just makes things real simple."
"How do...." Beth's words fade to silence.
Xander tried to find the balance between an understanding kind response and the volume and edge needed to be heard from the back seat. "How do what?"
She looked down at her black sneakers and the flowers embroidered on her flare-legged jeans. "How do we tell which is which? We don't want to kill people, right? We don't do that, do we?"
Xander took a long time to respond, but Kennedy found herself not jumping in to fill the gap. Not so much with weapons, she found herself thinking.
"Umm. No. We don't. And I don't think we'll need to. I didn't get a 'thrall' vibe off 'em."
"Thrall?" Beth turned to look behind her, into the back seat at Xander. "What's that?"
"You ever see Dracula? Remember the creepy bug-eating guy? It's like that. I've only ever seen it once. It isn't a common thing at all. Chances are, they're just friends. Once they see the other friends getting instant karma, they'll freak."
"And how are we supposed to tell the living people?"
Xander chuckled, which didn't serve to reassure Kennedy one bit. "Because the real Slim Shady's on tour somewhere else, I think."
She walked carefully, trying not to make too much noise as she paced across the black tar roof. It was night and cold, so Beth knew she didn't have to worry about getting tar stuck to her Pumas, but she still tried to keep away from the edges.
The bow was leaning in the back corner, waiting. From there, she had the best view of the back door of the bar, and there was the dumpster she used to climb up. She could also see in some windows in apartments above the main street shops, including one with a large, round man without clothing. She decided to stay away from that corner for now.
She could see down the alley. Two blocks east and everything switched from businesses to houses. Off to the east, she could see Weiner. She knew that's where she'd end up.
That's where Grandma Ludwina ended up.
She stayed in the old house like, forever. Grandpa went before Beth was born, so she never knew him, but she knew that there were always lots of toys at her house from when Mom was a girl, plus her uncle's old comics in a box under the bed upstairs. She had found an old one there with a redhead popping out of the water on the cover. Connie's brother had a poster of her on his door, so she asked about it. X-Men 101. The introduction of Phoenix. It was like $20 bucks in his big comic price book, so she took it and sold it to him and bought a CD or two. She couldn't even remember what she bought.
Soon after that, they found the cancer.
It was pretty advanced. Dad figured out there was a problem when he found her sleeping on the couch. Turns out it hurt too much for her to climb the stairs to get to her own bed. Who knows how long it took, how long she had been in pain?
It was too late, then, to operate. There was some chemotherapy they tried, and they cut out some of her gut to try to stop it, but she lived the rest of her life on the far side of Weiner Hospital. She never complained. How could she not have complained?
She sees the college girls barhopping, talking loud. She wants to scream. She wants to cry, get them to look at her. She knew she couldn't. She dreamed about danger, and she went to find it, and her dad was proud. She dreamed about saving people, and she saved them, and her mother smiled and hugged her. Now she dreamed about dying. Death, coming at her in an alley.
What could she say? How could she complain?
She went back to her corner, hoping the round man had closed his curtains.
People on stakeout in movies always had their windows open, so they could hear. Forget that. She didn't have to hear anything, she just had to see it. Besides, it's too damn cold out.
Kennedy had pulled her favorite NOFX disc out of her case. Skate punk at its greatest. She quietly sang along to the first song, "Soul Doubt", as it hit the chorus, tapping her fingers and her finger-tab on the steering wheel along with the beat. She hadn't listened to it in months. Since Sunnydale, maybe. It was with her stuff back in New York. It used to be her big workout disc. Her Watcher would always blush when "Liza and Louise" came on.
Why didn't she pull it out earlier? It's just so great?
She watched the people coming in and out of the bar they had cased, looking for those who were clearly dead. Hopefully, she could get an idea beforehand who the targets were. Her bow was tucked under a cheap car blanket with the on-bow quiver full, and she had one arrow leaning against the dash, so she'd be ready to go quickly.
Her mind was wandering, trying to to decide whether everyone was dead or just scandinavian. People weren't as oppressively blonde as she'd expect, for sure, but they were pretty pale.
When I look 'round, I only see outta one eye
As the smoke surrounds my head, the sauna
I hear the voices, but I can't make out their words
Saying things, saying things that
I got something sticking in my eye
Damn. She moved her hand to the eject button, shattering the shaft of her spare arrow on the way. The razor-sharp arrowhead made a small slice across the dash board as it fell.
The image came to her mind. In that basement in the vineyard, back in California. Xander, lifting her to her feet, bow in hand. Caleb, the bastard in a clerical collar, thumb out, with her just steps away, powerless.
She cracked the CD in half in her hand.
There's a mirror near the door.
It has beer labels from the time they started making the beer to the time they made the mirror. The same brand that provided half of the cheap crap used to make this bar look pretty. The same brand whose advertisement is showing on the silenced television in the corner across from the door. The same brand Xander's nursing.
There's a blank spot on that mirror, a point where there's no label at all. Just a blank spot. If he looks at it from his seat, he can see the corner table, holding a group of college girls gossiping about guys in their major and drinking mixed drinks. Sex on the Beach. They've grown increasingly louder over the last half-hour, and he knew the reason.
Schnapps. This juice. That juice. The other juice. Ice. And, of course, the vodka. All that is to cover the taste and to hide the fact you're drinking hammer-juice, leading to the Zeta mating call. "I'm so drunk!"
Still, a far better choice than Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear draft.
He kept them on his left. His blind spot. That was fine. Those were the ones he was sure weren't a threat. Pretty much on the 'threatened' list, instead.
He knew vampires drank. He knew they hung around in bars. Did they get anything from blood alcohol? Besides the obvious? Funny that he never thought of that before. .08 is the legal limit, which is pretty small.
"Hi! I noticed you looking at me in the mirror there."
It was one of the girls, wearing a pink tank top and black jeans. He hadn't noticed her, but he was focusing closer, at the traffic running in and out. She had wavy black hair pulled back by a scrunchy, and a small pendant hung from a silver chain on her neck.
He worked to get his voice above the music. "I wasn't really..."
"Oh, that's alright. There's lots of guys that look. I don't usually start talking to them."
"I'm honored." He saluted her with his bottle. "What caught your ... I mean, what made you interested?"
"I'm not sure. There's just something about you, I guess."
Xander laughs. "That's what they all say."
"You aren't from around here, are you? We don't really get too many new folks in town. Well, there's lots, and I do mean lots local farm kids that come through, and a bunch of grad students from like Egypt and stuff." She took a sip from her drink. "You're from California, right?"
"What gives you that idea?"
"Your voice. The way you speak. Nobody talks like that around here."
"And nobody talks like you where I'm from."
"Why did you come here?"
"My health. I came to Minnesota for the waters."
"It is the Land of ten-thousand lakes. Actually, they did a count once. Closer to thirty-thousand."
"Shouldn't they change the license plates, then?"
"You'd think." She has a nice smile and beautiful dark eyes.
"To be honest, it wasn't the mirror. I just saw you sitting there, looking all lonely. You shouldn't aught to look so lonely. Who were you thinking about?"
"A fr... someone I used to know. Back home."
"That's so sweet! What's her name?"
"Her? Him."
"So, are you, like--"
"No! No no no. It's not like that. We just worked together, sorta. His name was Spike."
"You mean, like the dog in Rugrats?"
Xander smiled. "Pretty much."
"So, we know his name. That's a start."
"My friends call me Xander."
"And what do your enemies call you?"
Droopy. Lackbrain. Monkey Boy. He sipped his beer. "If you let your enemies live long enough to know your name, you're not doing it right."
"Really. I suppose I should keep mine a secret, then?"
"Are we going to be enemies?" He tried to avoid looking at her neck. No vampire in his right mind could resist that neck.
"Selene."
"Like that girl in Underworld?"
She almost blushes. "Hey, y'know what? It's a little loud to talk in here. My apartment's just a few blocks from here. Wanna get lost?"
"I was supposed to meet someone...."
"Tell 'em you were tied up. C'mon."
She grabbed her biker jacket and led him toward the door.
People make choices.
The girl parking her Camaro chose to leave her coat in the car, and to wear spike heels you can't run in.
The couple coming out of the pickup with the empty gun rack have identical shirts and Stetsons, to go with their Wranglers and ropers.
Those choices have consequences.
The guy in the alley chose to drink too much, and now he's behind a dumpster, lying down in his own vomit.
That girl chose to let all her friends help her celebrate her birthday. She might end up like the guy in the alley.
The girl in the biker jacket chose to let the big guy in black follow her. He shows up in the reflections off the car windows, so that's something.
The guy staggered to his car and started it up.
A girl in a tank top and black flares ran up 1st Street, heading toward the park. A guy climbed out of his car and followed her. He looked around him, looking for other eyes that noticed her.
She has the vampire down, fear in his yellow eyes....
Beth chose to climb down from the roof and follow.
