John walks his dog through the town, feeling out of place and out of time. After being hunted for the last several weeks, it's strange to be out of his suit and dressed instead in borrowed jeans and t-shirt, a windbreaker slung carelessly over his shoulders. In this small town, he's …safe. The dog – still unnamed – walks at his side, a companion that puts a dent in his maudlin mood. The town is calmer than he remembers from the last time he passed through many years ago, the faces different from the glimpses he caught then.
He pauses, looking across the road to where the Reverend's pet cemetery lies, and thinks about how everyone in this town is so… alive.
Wistful, he turns back to walk back to where he's been staying in Manfred's small bungalow. "What do you think, boy," he asks his dog in a low tone. "Think it's safe yet?"
The dog's tail wags as it trots along side him. Kids.
Creek is shaking her head, slipping on her shoes as she walks out the door, a smile on her lips. Manfred is a sweetie and not so bad between the sheets – a pity she has to hurry home for supper.
What happens if you're late? Your dad comes after me with a shotgun? Manfred had been joking.
Yeah, that's definitely a possibility. Creek had not been.
Stepping from the porch and around the trailer, she startles as she almost bumps into Midnight's newest resident, Mr. Wick. She flushes – nothing makes a walk of shame more embarrassing than almost running headlong into your partner's housemate.
"I didn't mean to startle you," he says softly, the dog at his side watching her with its head tilted curiously. He moves to sit on the porch in a folding chair, the dog following to sit by his side while the quiet man scratches the animal behind the ears.
"…Right," Creek nods, stepping around the corner. "Have a good night, Mr. Wick."
Well, she thinks, that was awkward.
John watches the young woman go, and frowns. He still feels an intruder, an outsider to these people. Manfred has been polite – they all have – but while they know what he is, only Olivia really knows his past. It's a surreal experience to be accepted at face value, to not hear whispers of his own exploits from dark corners, to not see the fear in the eyes of others.
Even Jimmy had feared him sometimes. (Only Helen hadn't. His heart aches with her absence.)
He can hear Manfred inside the house, tidying up. Were he a different man, he might have teased the other as Jimmy had once poked fun at him. But while they share a roof, John doesn't feel entirely welcome. Part of that is the protections Fiji had laid over the home, making it inhospitable to the dead. And while he is a revenant, he is alive enough to pass the warding – but it keeps his guard up.
The distance is only exasperated by Manfred's hesitance with him. It's understandable – the young man is a sensitive psychic, and Wick's hands are anything but clean.
John sighs as the dog rests its head on his knee, whining playfully up at him. He resumes patting it, a small smile tugging its way onto his face. While he's not friendly with any of the locals yet, his focus has begun to shift. "One step at a time," he muses.
There is a scream.
John bolts upright from where he had started to doze in the chair, giving the dog a terse command. "Stay."
Manfred bolts out the door, running past him as he stands up and follows around the corner where some kind of standoff seems to be taking place against the Midnighters who are crowded around a pale and shivering Creek Lovell, and a group of strangers moving with the lithe grace of predators as they exit a battered coach bus at the end of the road.
"I'm fine," Creek says, but the reverend is quick to refute her, even as Manfred takes up a stance to block her from the newcomers.
"You look scared."
"…I didn't mean to scare anyone," a longhaired man says, eyeing the crowd with a tolerant amusement. "If I knew you were a friend of Lem's-"
"Everyone in Midnight is a friend," the dark-skinned vampire interjects, stony faced and uncompromising.
John moves to stand a little way from the confrontation unfolding, watching the others – vampires, but somehow lesser than Lemuel – as they drift around the bus. He can practically feel the ever-present violence thrumming under his skin in anticipation. Perhaps one day he'll be able to echo Lemuel's assertion with one of his own.
He makes a mental note to talk with Olivia later about armaments.
They sit in a circle at the church, all present save for Lem and Olivia who are supervising the town's guests. Fiji and Rev. Sheehan are quick to break down the newcomers' weaknesses, just in case. It's a sentiment John appreciates, to prepare for the worst.
"Vampires usually avoid Midnight," Emilio explains. "Lemuel is different – as an energy-draining vampire he can kill other vampires, so they tend to stay away."
Good to know, John thinks. If he ever gets out of control, perhaps that method might succeed in stopping him.
"So… the question becomes, 'why are they here now?'" Fiji nods at Bobo's question.
"Lem vouched for them, and they say they'll be gone by sunrise… But I don't trust it," the witch frets, looking from one to another.
"They are dangerous," John agrees, speaking up and making the others, save for the reverend, startle. He speaks so seldom that his words (and presence) are something of a surprise. "I've seen their type before – not vampires," he clarifies, "but trouble."
Emilio nods, worried but visibly gratified by the support. "If things go wrong, the town can find refuge here. This place is a Sanctuary, and the vampires will not be able to trespass."
"My house and Manfred's place are also safe," Fiji adds. "I've made them inhospitable to the dead."
The group comes to the decision to prepare – stakes and what silver they can scrounge. Other than sunlight, those are the only weapons that will prove effective.
"…Is everyone in the town…" John trails off, curious, but Bobo is quick on the uptake to understand the revenant's question.
"…In the know? Not exactly. Most are a little aware, but tend to ignore it. But everyone knows to gather here in emergencies, and doesn't ask to many questions about what those emergencies are. Because they know enough to know they don't want to know."
John slips into the diner, taking a seat in an empty corner and watching the vampires play around at being decent. They say it takes one to know one, and he is self-aware enough to recognize that barely hidden if more literal bloodlust in these people. He's killed more for less reasoning than most, even among killers. But this casual evil that permeates the air – it's enough to send Olivia storming out when the female vampire Pia plays with her emotions, and enough to have the lust for revenge and death within him sit up and take notice.
He toys with the knife sheathed in his pocket. It won't kill them, but he doesn't have to kill them to debilitate them. And Olivia had been kind enough to offer him silver edged armaments.
He's had time to catalogue the faces and most of the names of Zachariah's (the long haired Native American leader of the cover) nest two times over when Olivia and Manfred storm into the room, righteous fury trailing in their wake. What he can hear of the confrontation and ensuing explanation before Lem takes Olivia aside sends John towards a side door, moving to catch Manfred on his way out.
"Manfred."
The psychic jumps. "How are you so sneaky, man? Shit!"
"…Sorry," Wick apologizes. "The girl in the bus – the one they passed of as a groupie. Willing. Do you buy it?"
"Why are you asking me?"
Wick shrugged.
Manfred sighed. "I'm going to ask Xylda for advice – you can tag along… Watch me talk to the air, I guess."
John nods an affirmative and follows. He'll use the stop-off to check on his dog and refill the water dish.
It's a quick discussion – and strange to watch Manfred talking to someone whom he can neither hear or see. But the young man is kind enough to relay the information he gets from his spectral grandmother.
"…This nest is bad news," he sighs. "Lem is an exception, not the rule. Basically, the odds are high that these guys want to move in and take the town for themselves."
John nods. This confirms his own observations.
"Then we need to prepare." Glancing out the window he sees several figures moving through the street.
"Right," Manfred agrees, worry tinging his tone.
A quick bout of texts and phone calls paints the picture that most, if not all, of the others have had similar trains of thought. Bobo and Fiji are working on making magical sunlight, Olivia's getting out her gear at home, and Creek is able to fire off a quick text telling Manfred to worry less and that she and her brother are building quite the stash of stakes.
They decide to stop off at the hardware store for some stakes of their own.
Manfred's heading to the check out with a sledgehammer and an armful of garden stakes, John collecting some things from another aisle when the lights cut out. He hears a clatter and a man grunt, even as he slips on the floor and lands in a pool of blood next to the cash. The hardware store owner lies with his throat torn out right in from of him.
"Shit," he curses, scrambling to his feet. "John? You alright-!"
His call is cut off by a bestial snarl as a bald middle-aged looking vampire leaps out of the shadows and pounces, knocking the psychic against the counter. Scrambling and not wanting to die, Manfred reaches for something, anything, to defend himself with. His hand knocks a cup filled with stationary, and before he realizes what his panicked brain has done, he's stuck a pencil in the vampire's pectoral through the thin material of his t-shirt.
The creature backs off slightly, teeth bared, as it looks down at the pencil sticking out of its chest in disbelief.
"…A pencil?" He sneers before advancing with an arrogant crack of his neck. "You got to pierce the heart, pretty boy."
John rounds the corner, the broken haft of a broom in one hand and a scratch on his face in time to watch Manfred brace himself against the counter top and kick upwards, shoving the pencil deeper and exploding the vampire into dust.
"…I guess we have more in common than we thought," he deadpans, lips twitching with dark humor.
Manfred gives himself a shake, open-mouthed and surprised at his own success. "...We need to warn the others."
Notes: I didn't want to just regurgitate MT's third episode – in part because I'd like to encourage you to watch it and give this new show some support. So, there will be some recap and overlap, but for the most part the scenes of the show take place in-between and around those of this fic. That effing pencil. Manfred can now join the ranks of writing implement weapon wielders. Bwahahaha. This covers the first half of episode 3 – the rest will be resolved with a Then & Now chapter before episode 4 airs. John was bit tricky to pin down. He's the type of character that has a lot to say, but tends not to vocalize it unless cornered. Hopefully we'll be able to see him open up a bit more soon, though I doubt he'll ever be talkative