"Always the surprise," Roy mutters, shaking his head.
"I can take you back to see the lady if you wish or would you rather return to your town?" says Hurrn
"We were unprepared and got a chunk tore out of us. We should head back to town and regroup. There are supplies we need that we can only get there. We'll speak to the Shy Queen tomorrow, I promise."
Alisha says, "Indeed. I.. need medical attention. And some rest."
Alisha looks sickly and very jittery at the moment, still shell shocked by the events that occurred.
Hurnn nods "I can do this only once a day but since you helped us I will do you this favor."
He touches Alisha on the arms and sends positive energy into her body healing her wounds nearly completely.
"Come I will take you to your town." he says and starts walking
Alisha's wounds heal almost completely, leaving only some bruising behind. Her eyes widen at this in excitement and she says, "My word. Such is the power of true magic to heal someone with such efficiency. Certainly the word of your race being magical is quite founded. I can only hope that someday I too can learn to harness such energy. Thank you very much Hurnn."
"The power you just felt was not mine, I merely channeled it. It came from nature itself. I asked the tress around us to give you a bit of their life-force and they agreed. The Fane you destroyed worked in a similar manner only it did not ask for the life-force it merely took it, had it been left alone that Fane would have drained every tree in the forest and they would all have withered and died." Replies Hurrn.
You travel trough the forest and he takes you back to the edge of town.
"Rest well, If we are to save your friend and stop my lady's plan you only have two days left to destroy the two remaining Fanes."
If only we knew where to start lookin. Maybe they have a Fane's R' us around here?
"More likely we'll have to do some snooping, ask around, look up what we can. Be easier if it weren't for all the communications being down, which probably means no Internet. In the meantime, let's rest up and find out what we can." Roy nods to Hurnn. "Thanks for your guidance and healing. We'll return to you when we've finished."
"Yes, thank you. We'll meet you here at noon. We have preparations to make."
You leave Hurrn and go back into town. After buying a few things from the shops you head back to the hotel. You find that the FBI presence here is much smaller than it was the last time you visited.
Roy glances around after parking Atlanta and raises an eyebrow toward Dom. "Looks like the Feds have cleared out."
"Which should be a good thing. And, yet, somehow I bet something screwy is going on."
Dom sighed.
"No point worrying about that now. We should all stay in one room tonight, and take shifts. And nobody, under any circumstances, invite anyone into the room after dark. Don't know if the invitation rule for vampires applies to motels, but let's not learn the hard way."
"Oh, and one more thing -- Don't drink the coffee here. Stuff tastes like turpentine."
"Indeed, I am not looking for a cup of coffee after seeing what we did tonight. All I want to do is get some rest and recover my strength for tomorrow. As for the invite aspect with vampires, it would apply to the hotel lobby but not the rooms themselves as those are not open to the public. Still showing precaution is a good idea."
"Now if you do not mind I shall retire for the evening. I think I have had enough excitement for one day."
Alisha heads to her room still uneasy.
Feds cleared out? Maybe they got cleared up? Let's not rule out the idea that they went looking for trouble and found it.
Xannder pauses for a moments and shudders.
If anyone needs me to help look at their wounds, let me know.
Xannder returns to his room and gets cleaned up. After he addresses his wound.
Roy nods. "Got it. No invitations, no coffee, shifts. I'll take first."
As the others start to get some sleep, Roy reloads his guns and brings a chair over to face the door. There, he pulls out his silver bullets and begins to painstakingly carve a small cross onto the tip of the rounds, being careful not to damage them. It's not intended to actually do anything--vampires and other undead aren't necessarily damaged more by bullets with iconography, and any attempt at making the bullet work like a hollow-point isn't going to do much--but it keeps him awake and focused and calm. It's just an old Hunter's trick Roy's picked up over the years.
Xannder wakes up in the morning and heads to the continental breakfast.
The next morning Dom watches over Alisha as she practices disassembling and reassembling her borrowed pistol. They had all pitched in and given her a crash course in firearms training. And Dom had to admit to being impressed with how fast she picked it all up.
"I think our first stop is Mary, to see if she can tell us how to dispose of this creepy relic here. And then we can meet up with our favorite elfen tour guide."
He stretched a little, working some of the kinks out. He blinked when he noticed someone missing.
"Hey, where's Xannder? Oh, man, don't tell me he went to try out the breakfast here. I wouldn't feed that stuff to someone I hated."
You have rested and healed a bit and you head down getting ready to move on to your next goal. In the lobby you come across the girl who was at Mary's house before. She's alone and the receptionist is gone.
"We need to talk, I've been keeping tabs on you lot for a while now and I have a pretty good idea what your up too and I think we can help each other." she says
Roy fights the urge to draw the Beretta concealed in his inside pocket. "And what exactly is it you think we do?"
"Your hunters obviously. Under normal circumstances I'd have you run off or arrested for interfering with us but honestly on this one we could use all the help we can get and headquarters cant spare anyone else right now." she says.
Roy coughs and pulls up his bandana. "We're hunters, looking for some interesting animals we've heard are in the area. Seems like the wolves we first thought to kill aren't the apex predator here, though. Something bigger and badder."
Xannder gets a big smile on his face.
Good to see you again.
Alisha Quinn says to Roy, "I don't agree to be b$&&+$!+ting the agent here. She clearly has investigated us and knows our affiliations. In the current circumstances we need all the help we can get."
She looks to the agent and says, "It is good to see you again agent. Indeed, I knew you were some kind of government investigator the first time I saw you and I indeed wanted to bring you into the loop. But as you know one has to defer to the will of the group and the others were not too keen on your assistance. There is a very serious situation going on and it seems far beyond our abilities to deal with alone. If it is convenient could we meet somewhere private so we can bring you up to speed on the current issues?"
Roy now fights the urge to pull a weapon on Alisha. Dammit, norm, there's a thing called discretion and it's best to keep a little. She obviously knows what I'm talking about. Instead he just grits his teeth behind the bandana and clenches his fists.
The woman lets out a sigh "No need to be discreet, the staff is gone and my people are watching the area...Now I don't know exactly what you're up too but you went right into werewolf territory and out again several times without a fight and you were seen with the one we suspect is their leader...So I decide I should at least talk to you before my people moved in to exterminate the pack."
"Xannder? Alisha? I want you to pay attention. Because this, right here, is why we don't truck with Department 7, if we can avoid it."
"The werewolves ain't the enemy. They're just scared and over reacting. And if you go in guns blazing, as your wont to do, you're just going to get a bunch of innocent civilians killed and remove a potential ally we need. Worse, you'll be playing right into the real enemy's hands and doing his dirty work for him."
"The real threat is a vampire. He's the one who showed up with the McMansion from Hell. He wants the wolves dead because they've been fighting him. Now this vampire is Loony Tunes, but he's powerful. And he's here for conquest. So you guys need to back off and let us handle this."
"Let you handle it? You need to remember that were the professionals and you're the amateurs here. Those werewolves are the ones that have caused the most damage so far; They have killed over a dozen folk including at least 4 hunters like yourselves and they kidnapped like twenty people and you want to join forces with them to fight a vampire? I already sent another team to the castle to deal with it and another to deal with a ghoul infestation in the graveyard next to the church. I just wanted to see if you had any useful intel."
"Then I'm guessing that you've got the blood of two more teams on your hands, lady, because the castle ain't going down and I've met your kind before. Amateurs?" Roy pokes her hard in the sternum, pushing her back. "You've helped track a wendigo for a week through the woods and mountains of Alberta? Wrestled a weregator in its own home down in Louisiana's swamps? Staked someone you loved after a vampire bit them?" Roy's eyes fill with fire and he drops his hand. "No, I don't think you have. You and your Federal buddies just run around covering things up and shooting first. So how about you go shove your professionalism up your own ass and stop getting in our way." With that, Roy walks past her and out into the parking lot.
Alisha says to Ashlyn, "I do agree that the leader of the Werewolves has gone too far but we have to take things carefully. Apparently the affliction on the townsfolk can be lifted but only by the Werewolf leader herself. The werewolf leader has agreed to lift the curse if we take out her vampire enemy before the full moon. If these people are not cured by then we will have no choice but to kill them as well. Do you want the blood of twenty innocent lives on your hands"
"We are not without resources, if we can get those people before they change for the first time we can cure them as well and even afterwards we can still help them but it's far more difficult and dangerous. And no I didn't do any of those things but I did take down a crime organisation led by dark elves and I helped to bring down an adult black dragon the size of a house. We can help each other here, I will have my people hold off on attacking the wolves for now and we will attack only as a last resort to stop those folk from changing...I'm willing to work with you if your willing to work with us."
Alisha nods and says, "I am glad you are reasonable on this agent Ashlyn. The priority is to take down that vampire and once that is done get the leader of the Werewolves to lift the curse. Once the people are freed from the curse and brought to safety you are free free to take whatever means necessary to bring the werewolf threat to an end."
"Now the next question I have is that there is a possibility that the vampire would have converted one or more victims into vampires. Is there a cure for vampirism available? If not can a vampire be "Reasonable" enough to live in peace with the rest of humanity? Sure they need to drink blood but could they just get it from a blood bank or something?"
"Curing a vampire...that has never been done. The person is clinically dead at that point. As for vampire being reasonable it has happened but is very rare and in most cases they eventually snap."
Alisha says, "Well it would be a good idea to stock up on crosses, holy water and garlic if we are going to confront the vampire. But first we need to find the other two fanes to weaken the vampire enough so that he can be defeated."
Roy shakes his head as he hears Alisha's question about vampires. Damn fool norm's gonna get herself killed with her idealistic thinking. No such thing as a reasonable bloodsucker.
"Fanes? That sounds important, what can you tell me about them."
Xannder remains silent, he is still holding out hope that this is all a dream.
Alisha says, "The Fanes as far as I know are objects that the Vampire has placed at various locations that draw upon the life force of the land. This seems to be a major source of power for the vampire and apparently destroying them will weaken him greatly. The werewolf leader said we would not have a chance of defeating the vampire unless the Fanes were destroyed first."
"Strange that sounds like the kind of magic elves use, when vampire use magic its usually more along the lines of summoning more undead. Still this is worth looking into"
Elf magic? Like the lady who supposedly blinds you? Think they are shining us on?
Out in the lot, Roy fumes silently, half wanting to take a gun and head out to the next fane on his own. He knows it's a bad decision, though, so he tries to cool down. He sits down by Atlanta and pulls out his regular bullets and knife, repeating his activity from last night, carving crosses onto the tips. Soon he loses himself in the process.
"Could be...Do you know were these fanes are?"
"We do not know where the other two fanes are. They're somewhere in the forest I presume but that's a lot of ground to cover in two days. We could use more concise directions."
"Ma'am, could you contact your teams? I think they could be in serious danger. If not, well, we got a job to do. You can tag along, if you want, but we're leaving now. We need to see Mary about properly disposing of this relic."
"Teams A and C are out of range at the moment, that magic fog really messes up our communications and limits the range of our handheld transceivers to about half a mile. That leaves team B the four men that I sent to deal with the ghouls at the graveyard."
She grabs her transmitter and presses the talk button. "Frederik how are things going over there?" she says
There is a short pause then a reply.
"Killed a few ghouls, so far no problem. We found what looks like a network of underground tunnels, were going to check it out."
Dom sighed. He didn't like this at all. He was pretty sure that when push came to shove this agent would do something to jeopardize their chance to save Reena.
"Alright, fine. You can come with us. But we're leaving now."
***
When Dom has a moment he approaches Roy.
"Look, Roy, I, uh -- I just wanted to say that I kind of teased you back there at the house about vampires. And I -- look, I just didn't know about you having to stake someone you cared about. And I - I really shouldn't have -- Jesus. Look, I'm just sorry, man. That couldn't have been easy on you."