A Night Hunting

I went back to the William Tallisker House with Erynne. I ordered the meal while she went off to talk to that
woman with the two loud kids. I think her name's Destiny.

Then we settled down down to a pretty good meal, with wine, while Erynne told me about it. Apparently her friend volunteered to be in on search for Nikki Wood right away. (I'd had the impression that she was bored half out of her mind when I'd passed her, earlier.)

Destiny may be fairly steady. When Erynne introduced us she didn't turn a hair (but if I'd cast the mojo she'd have sung that I'd got the ugliest face she'd seen since the lobster thermidor.) Erynne and I had agreed on no human-looking illusions, this time - it wastes too much energy and there's too much that can go wrong.

The three of us got ready to check out the town and the girls started to gather weapons - I felt a twinge of surprise when I saw Erynne taking a silver-washed knife and cross-bow quarrels. Then I remembered that Joshua creep and made a mental note to run my mojo up high, and fast. Not on candy, this time. The real stuff.

We were just going out of the door when Erynne's cell-phone rang and
Giles told us that the two
witches had cast a location spell and found Nikki Wood in some kind of structure underneath a frat house.

So Erynne asked me to smoke over and check it out and I did - but I used my mojo a lot on the way. Something odd is going on. There are a handful of humans missing - and you can only call it five if this Nikki Wood is human. You wouldn't have got either of the Watchers to bet on that. But Destiny had already told Erynne that there are demons missing too.

So I checked with the mojo, right through town. A lot of demons are gone. Males, females, kids - some of the families are worried sick. one Krinnen trio had lost both their eldest and were moving out rather than risk the hatchling, and the Sylvans in the cemetery are frantic but can't leave their trees.

The story is soldiers, and electric restraints. Some of the victims come back, but as vegetarian ghouls or Chaos demons without mucus. (OK, I think that's an improvement, too - but the victims don't.) I've seen something like this in a couple of dimensions already - and it means trouble.

There was no way I was going into the underground complex after some of the things that I've seen in the past, but I didn't have to. There were enough songs about it at the upper levels. The musical interlude confirmed all I'd suspected - Nikki Wood was there, and hating it.

Some of the missing demons were there, too, and a vamp so crazy from hunger and claustrophobia that he burned at a mental touch. (That gave enough energy-boost to find out that if Nikki Wood isn't human she doesn't know it - but she believes she's the Slayer, and that's almost impossible. She may be crazy.)

When I came back and told Erynne she rang the Watcher. He asked us to go over to his place and meet the current Slayer - I have a feeling that we're going to be asked to do more.

Checking Initiative - Something Strange

Something strange.

Earlier I smoked around,
looking for the hidden pit,
where they keep their victims penned,
sterile white and brightly lit,
Dungeon of of a cleanly age,
neither rats nor roaches here,
only mindlights flaring high,
in a fume of rage and fear...
trapped to wait the captors tread,
trapped to wait the surgeon's knife,
trapped to wait the cleasing fire,
freeing them from burdened life..

...........
Whatever they'd done to that vamp seems to have sent my mojo sky-high (it's been too long...)

Afterwards I found us an ally and I think the raid to free their maybe-Slayer can be soon, now.