"Who are they? They want something, don't they?"

Jordan followed his sister's strident cries up the stairs, down the hall, and into the kitchen. She was pacing at record speed, around the island counter. Her cute, pink cellphone was plastered to the side of her face, and her eyes were red with tears. Once he stepped into the room, she rounded on him as though he had caused all of this.

"YOU!"

"Sylvie .. " Jordan spoke softly, " .. Sylvie. Hang up the phone. Listen a second."

Any other day, she might have crabbed at him for calling her 'Sylvie.' That name -- in her own words -- had gone out with her Barbie dolls.

But, again, today was not any other day.

"There's a lot of stuff happening downtown, at the Conklin Center. Which means this all has something to do with mom's work." Jordan dropped his gaze to the floor. "And it's everywhere, too. All over the world. Did you try to call dad?"

Their father was the weekend DJ at WSKY, a classic rock station for most of the tri-county area. It was cool, but usually meant that Dan Renar never stopped singing 'all-time favorites' under his breath. Jordan glanced rather urgently at the radio by the sink, but he knew if he were to turn it on, he'd hear the high cold words of Thaddeus Farcry instead of -- "Fly high with double-yewwww sky!"

Sylvia slowly snapped her phone shut. "He's not answering the station line, or his Blackberry." She swallowed, and blinked baleful eyes at her brother. "You really think this has something to do with the Conklin Center?"

"I don't know, Sylvie."

"But do you really think this is about mom? That, like, they're using real magic?"

"I don't know, Sylvie."

"Ashley said there are fires downtown." Sylvia collapsed into a chair, as though all her will to stand had left her. She set her phone aside, and stared ahead blearily. After a breathless pause, she curled her arms together, and buried her head in them. "I'm scared, Jordan. And nothing's really even happened."

" .. I know, Sylvie."

What was he supposed to do? They were usually at each others' throats; everything was upside down. Jordan took a few steps forward, and patted his sister stiffly on the shoulder. She looked up, face now even more red and weepy.

"What are we going to do?" She asked in a delicate, quavering voice. Jordan just stood stock still, stared back at her, hating that he had no answers. "How will we live?"

"You're getting way ahead of yourself." Jordan said in his usual, sensible tone. He sat down at the table, trying his best to sound encouraging. "We're gonna just, like, stay inside. That's what we're gonna do. And not run around. Or jump in front of things."

Jordan glanced at the phone, which winked innocently at them from across the room.

" .. But mostly just hope mom or dad calls."

Sylvia didn't seem entirely impressed with Jordan's words of comfort. She brushed her hair out of her face, dragged her phone closer to her again, and began to scroll through her contacts list once more. Her body shook with an odd hiccough.

"I'll call Nikki." She was no longer crying, and her voice was dark. "S-she'll know what to do. You - you're no help at all, Jordan, did you know that?"

No help at all. He felt his stomach clench. What was he supposed to do? Outfit them in pots and pans, arm them with hockey sticks? Lead them downtown to die like idiots?

"You call Nicole, then." Jordan gave up trying to help her. He scooted his chair back, and stood. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, and tried to sound like he didn't care."You call her, she'll tell you exactly what I just said."

Probably not. He was willing to bet not at all. Girls were always better at this sort of thing. Jordan stared blankly at his sister as she dialed the number, and brought the phone -- trembling -- up to her ear.

Luke stared down at the dead man, and thought he could use a bigger smile.

Having finished draining and embalming the body, Luke was for the most part finished here. All that remained now was to move the body back upstairs. It was just the smile that worried him. He didn't want to make it too large, for the sake of the family .. but dimly, in the back of his mind, Luke maintained that humans were the only creatures who had reason to smile. Luke couldn't remember the last time he had smiled of his own volition.

Ben Arlowe, forty-four years old. Died of a heart attack at his daughter's softball game. Luke didn't even need to check the sheets anymore. The body told as much of a story as the loved ones did. The funeral was in just two days. The man's death had been sudden, and all the arrangements done fairly last-minute.

Hiding death, making it look pretty. Brushing away flaws, tucking stiff corners into a smile. That's really what his job was. Having faced death innumerous times in the past, this new career did not sway him. Maybe it was because he was already dead, because he had passed that trial.

.. or maybe it was because he really needed the blood.

Not like he could handle a normal 9 to 5 anyways. It was almost better, this way. He never slept, so constantly being on-call did nothing to ruin his schedule. His weeks were full of sudden body removals and death calls, not to mention wakes and vigils. During normal office hours, he could be found upstairs fighting his way through stacks of paperwork. Floral arrangements and locating pastors also chipped at his agenda, and -- of course -- that first sad, somber meeting with clients.

Humans were such curious, delicate creatures. Luke dealt with them when they were in their barest state of sensitivity, when they needed the most comfort. That morning, Ben Arlowe's widow had paced aimlessly, the son looked rather lost, and the daughter would not meet his eye. Truly a sobering sight. Luke had done his best to assure them, but the human heart is a fragile, fickle thing.

The routine was otherwise dull enough to calm his inner sociopath. Oh, there were times he'd give anytyhing to burn his black suits and wear color for a day -- but such was the duplicity of his nature.

Still smelling of formaldahyde, Luke finished up and ducked his head quietly from the embalment room. Things were silent upstairs, a bit too silent for his tastes. Luke knew he wasn't the only one in the office today -- a living man named Alec who had a last name and a family must have been somewhere around. The vampire padded up the thick, carpeted stairs and into the main receiving room.

"Alec?"

The stiff scent of human fear met his nostrils. Luke heard the low murmur of the radio from behind the closed office door. He stepped up, and rapped his knuckles against the lattice-work glass. "Is everything alright?"

"Luke? Luke!" Alec's voice was thin, strained with fear. "Come in here a second."

Luke obliged, and found Alex flushed red with worry, flushed red with blood and standing behind his cluttered desk with his arms stuffed tightly over his chest. The vampire wore an expression of polite puzzlement and closed the door behind him, even as he struggled not to wrinkle his nose against that awful stench of fear.

"Listen." The man with a last name and a family commandered, pointing a finger at the coffin-shapred radio.

Alec twisted the gravestone, and the volume rose. It was a high, cold voice that came to Luke's ears. A voice he never thought he'd hear again.

"It's on every station, Luke. Every single station. All over the internet, too. Something's going on, even just downtown." Alex turned another gravestone, this time changing the channels to demonstrate his point. "Sarah just called and left a message. She's at the mall with her friends -- she said that men came. She said men came to the mall, and have kept everyone there and are making threats -- "

Something snapped in Luke's mind, like a green light switching on, giving him permission to be himself. He stood a little straighter, and the vampire's eyes glittered softly. This may have been the first time Alec saw his business partner as anything but 'human'. Luke did not bother explaining himself.

"Go home. Now." Luke ordered. He crossed to the radio, and twisted the gravestone so that there was a click, and no more Thaddeus Farcry. "Be with your family. They will not hurt Sarah, Alec."

"But -- "

"They will be looking for me soon, for better or for worse." Luke patted his thigh, checking for his keys. "Besides, they don't want to cause injuries. Not yet, anyways. They want the takeover to be as painless, and as quick as possible."

"What .. Luke! Wait!"

The vampire paused with his hand on the doorknob once more. He turned, and saw the man with a last name and a family staring at him, bewildered. Humans got so lost, so easily.

"What's going on?"

"Dark things." Luke pulled the door open, and stepped though. "Very dark things .. "

Logan Kikkert looked so cute in his Smoothie Shack uniform.

All the CSHS girls knew it, and every Saturday afternoon a hefty percentage of them made pilgrimage to Silversun Crossings to give their homage in the form of their breathless patronage. They prowled the food court like lionesses, making passes at each other every once in a while -- but mostly focused on Logan as he bobbed around behind the counter. His huge grin and bouncy curls were made all the cuter thanks to that silly white hat, and the bright blue of his uniform.

To put it simply, Logan was more than just the boy you wanted to bring home to mom. He was the boy your grandmother pointed out when she flipped through your yearbook, the one who made her stop and go -- "Well, who is this?" With his charming, harmless disposition, he came across rather like an enthusiastic puppy. An enthusistic puppy with great hair, and a perfect smile.

For the most part, Logan wasn't entirely aware of his thronging worshippers. He just did his own thing every Saturday -- coming in cheerfully for his shift, no matter the spectators. It was just the right brand of 'painfully oblivious' that made Sheri, who ran the register along with him, want to grab him by the collar and shake him. Hard.

Yeah, like that would go over well. Sheri was fully aware of the dirty looks she garnered from Logan's weekly fan club. None of that really mattered to her. They were all ten years younger, and forty pounds lighter than she was.

Anyways -- the more he smiled, the more they tipped.

Bring it on, Casanova.

The Smoothie Shack had the false feel of a 1960's diner, complete with odd-colored tiles slapped here and there, not to mention framed photos of classic cars no teenager could name anyways. To finish things off, there was a fake red barstool next to the register. Although it wasn't actually for sitting on, when Logan had his Saturday shift, that simple accent piece beacame a coveted spot -- a Holy of Holies, a Siege Perilous, if you will.

If a girl could wedge herself in there, she'd have an excuse to stay and sip her smoothie -- attaining for herself a larger portion of Logan's innocent attention. As the stool was for decoration and hidden mostly under the counter, that was no simple feat in itself.

Nicole Trawley -- (or "Nikki with two ks'" as she so often insisted) -- was petite enough that she could manage it without even needing to suck in her gut. She sat there, now, legs uncomfortably bunched as she finished off her third Appleberry Blitz. Despite the pain, she felt herself laughing inside, in victory. Her blue eyes were wide, every fiber of her being focused on Logan, nodding, nodding, nodding.

Competition for the Siege Perilous was fierce on any Saturday, but this particular one held even greater bounty. Across the food court, the Lockes Theater was showing a handful of high-profile premiers. Shiny posters glinted against the skylight, advertizing a remake of an 80's thriller, a few off-beat comedies and lastly -- a C grade slasher flick on 'limited' release that Logan was chomping at the bit to go see.

There would be Facebook drama about it later, but Nikki had picked the best weekend to claim Siege Perilous as her own. With all his pent up cinema excitement, Nikki was treated to a few long monologues about how awesome the film was going to be. She kept waiting for the right moment to slip in and ask him if he wanted to go with her -- but the chance hadn't come yet.

"Oh man!" Logan whirled from the juicer to the ice machine, an elegant and effortless dance. "So what happens is the zombies take over the town, right? And the main characters are all -- 'holy crap! Like, what are we gonna do?' And the zombies are all trying to eat their brains, right And there's only one kid who really knows what to do, because he's made so many zombie plans in the past, right? And he brings them to this place where they, like, they find the secret origin of what the zombies want and stuff. But you don't know if he makes it out or not because there was this scene in the extended trailer where you saw him all looking like a zombie, and that'd be awful for the rest of his friends, right? Since he was the only one with any sense. But you know, if it were me I'd pretend to be a zombie, use makeup and stuff just to get away from them. You know? Oh man, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be so freaking awesome. I'm just waiting for them to go pew pew to Mickey Rouston's head. He has a cameo, you know." Logan snapped a cap on Nikki's fourth Appleberry Blitz, then slid it across the counter.

To her credit -- when the pause came, Nikki didn't miss a beat.

"That movie sounds fascinating!" She gushed automatically. "Do you think you'll, um, go to see it with anyone?"

"Jordan, probably."

"Oh." Nikki's voice became brittle. "Jordan."

Her phone rang. She didn't answer it.

"Sounds like quite a film." Sheri spoke up dryly from the counter. She nodded at Nikki. "That'll be another four dollars, sweetheart."

Nikki fished for the crumpled bills, defeated, and slammed them on the counter. "Keep the change."

At an oldies-themed Smoothie Shack, it was appropriate to have oldiest-themed music. Logan usually had WSKY playing in the background for his shift, but for the past twenty minutes or so, all he had been hearing was some weird monotone commercial.

Thinking vaguely that it must have been some paid programming, Logan reached behind him and switched the radio off.

As though they could sense Nikki's failure, more girls swung in for the kill, sliding up to the counter batting their eyelashes, and snickering behind their hands.

"Oh, hey! Welcome to Smoothie Shack!" Logan beamed, tipping his hat as Sheri rolled her eyes. "May I take your order?"

Dawn was not amused.

This wasn't an unusual situation; everyone who knew Dawn was well aware that the girl quite often sported an irked frown upon her forehead. It was general consensus amongst the male friends that this was, rather than off-putting, in face quite appealing, and looked somewhat cute upon her pretty features. It was also general consensus that telling her this was something along the borderline of suicide. And so Dawn remained single, despite the long line of admirers - they were all a little too intimidated by her to speak to her, by and the large, let alone ask her out anywhere.

Dawn was, however, unamused for a particularly specific reason this time, and this reason was the large gaggle of Kikkert-watchers in front of her that were impeding her objective of obtaining a deluxe strawberry and vanilla smoothie with added sprinkles. Standing towards the rear of the rapidly forming queue, Dawn maintained by sheer force of will a small area of personal space, into which none of the Kikkert-watchers dared penetrate. There was a shared understanding between them that Dawn was a) not here to gawk at some pretty boy in a silly uniform, and b) quite ready to step on the toes of any half-wit harpy that tried to insinuate such, or in fact engage in conversation beyond that which was necessary for practical proceedings such as establishing queueing order.

Whilst the male associates of Miss Keating had a wary respect and shared liking for her, it was quite the opposite amongst the majority of her female compatriots, such as those that now mingled about her like a herd of gazelle surveying a lightly restrained lioness. Most girls had a seething dislike for the pretty redhead who commanded the attention of the boys via merit of having no time whatsoever for them herself, a seeping jealousy for the way in which she trod all over their devious matchmaking plans by distracting a boy's fancy, or pointing out the obvious set-up before the net had time to close, and a burning desire to see her put in her damn place as she bulldozered her way through social etiquette. This was not all inclusive, of course, Dawn had plenty of friends that found her manner likeable - but they were exceptions to the norm.

Becoming increasingly frustrated by the dithering and fawning of the girls up front, who obviously had no real intention of purchasing themselves a smoothie, rather prolonging their time in parley with Logan for as long as possible, Dawn decided that enough was enough.

Stepping from the line with pointed determination, the redhead paced her way along past the line of gob-smacked girls and directly to the counter itself. This was in itself sacrilege, queue jumping was something that you just didn't do, and because it was one of those things, people were powerless to do anything about it when you did.

Mind, in Britain, she would probably have been shot. Or at least, told to jolly well bugger off, or get a bit of the old one two, quite rightly so if I do say so myself, bloody skipper.

"Afternoon, Sheri." Dawn said, smiling to the larger woman, dropping her frown for the time being.

This was a tactical move, diplomatic. The girls behind, currently frozen in horror at the breach of 'what was done', would not begin to fear that their arch-nemesis had taken a shining to their idol, and suddenly evidence more womanly wiles than any girl had a right to possess, due to a debt of seduction built up over years of remaining entirely nonchalant about men in general. It only made sense in their movie-brainwashed minds that the girl who commanded the boys' attention without seeming to notice, and the boy who commanded the girls' attention without seeming to notice would inevitably end up leaping into each other's arms after merely moments of conversation. This was what happened in the movies, therefore it was akin to law in their heads.

The redhead did, then turn her head to Logan, and offer another smile, perhaps a little sweeter, just to strike fear into their hearts. "Logan." she continued, "You have smoothie on your collar."

This, a casual observation that to most would mean absolutely nothing more than a friendly pointer, but to teenage girls would send alarm bells ringing and klaxons wailing, was to remind them that she was still in charge here, she had the attention of their precious Logan, and she was going to get her smoothie with absolutely no interference.

"Just a regular strawberry deluxe with sprinkles, sweetie." she finally, after a nail-biting moment, came out with.

There was a heart wrenching moment where every girl in the line suppressed a screech (and one particularly fragile individual let out a quiet, and swiftly hushed squeak), when they believed that she was still speaking to Logan. Sweetie? Sweetie? She dared call their idol, sweetie? Thankfully (for them) the redhead then turned her head towards Sheri, indicating that she had been speaking to the other woman instead.

All of these devious and twisted mind games happened over the course of three sentences. Nobody but teenage girls could possibly understand the veritable odyssey of drama that had occurred in those seconds, that could only be surpassed by whatever momentous news would inevitably reach them tomorrow.

Or, you know, by a cult of mages taking over the world.

That might do it too.

In that elapsed timeframe of ten, maybe fifteen seconds Nikki's facial features kaleidoscoped through the whole spectrum of human emotions. Surprise, anger, fear, and a flicker of sadness sort of swirled around into one general jaw-dropped expression as Dawn blew up to the counter. Nikki watched helplessly as Dawn did the unthinkable -- eclipsed the power of Siege Perilous, and addressed Logan as though he were just some hapless slob.

The roving hyenas still in line couldn't do much. They were in a similar paralytic state. Sheri couldn't hide her smirk as they wisely wandered off, a bit shell-shocked, throwing a dirty look over their shoulders every few paces.

"Bless your heart, angel. Regular strawberry deluxe with sprinkles coming right up." Sheri could barely contain her glee. She shook her head in wonderment.

Meanwhile, Nikki was in an uncomfortable position, both physically and socially. She had wedged herself in against the fake barstool and the counter with such fervor, that her plan -- which involved quietly slipping away -- was rather thwarted. Short of dislocating her hip and leaving Silversun on a stretcher, the girl was fairly well stuck. Nikki sat there and tried to bear it as best she could, resting her chin on her arm, trying not to let her eyes water from the pain.

Even though Nikki felt vaguely like a piece of meat strung up in front of a vengeful lioness, she played it cool and offhand to the end. She took the time to examine the nails on her left hand, even though her eyes were really following Logan as he filled Dawn's order.

"You seen Zombpocalypse yet?" Logan asked Dawn, wide-eyed, as he shook out a generous amount of sprinkles. "Limited release. We're one of the few theaters that gets a copy. It's showing right now." The youth craned his head to the side, peering across the food court at the gaggle of patrons around the Lockes ticket booth. "Oh man, it's going to be so awesome. Jordan and I are planning on seeing it tonight. Kyle might come too, if he's done being a d-bag. Did you hear about that? No, of course not."

It was just the usual prattle Logan went off into. He capped the smoothie and slid it across the counter to the girl. "There you go, red."

There wasn't a man at Cedar Springs High who would dare to call Dawn by the color of her hair. Logan wasn't being coy or rude or cocky about it. It was just what he called her, once in a while -- his genuine demeanor, and the fact that they had a mutual best friend was probably the only thing that prevented him from getting socked in the mouth right then.

"Hey, who turned the radio down?" Sheri tisked. She crossed their small work space, and cranked the radio back up. "I wanna listen to my man Dan. Play me some Skynrd, white boy .. "

Upon hearing that same high, cold monotone commercial as before, Sheri ducked her head to the speaker with her nose wrinkled. "Never heard that before."

"It's just some infomercial!" Logan called over his shoulder. He turned back to the girls in front of him.

"Okay." He said, holding his hands out as though he were about to say something really important. "Listen up. So you know the Appleberry blitz, right? Well, I'm gonna do this thing where every time I hand one over to a customer-- " He groped behind him for an empty cup to mime this action, " -- I'm gonna be like, 'Hey! When is an apple not an apple?'"

He paused. They did not provide a punchline.

"When it's .. oh, come on. When it's a pineapple!"

Logan practically staggered against the counter, bent double laughing so hard.

Nikki gave a few sharp titters. "Aha. Ha. I get it. Oh my, you're funny Logan."

"Logan. So help me -- do not start telling customers that joke." Sheri straightened, and rolled her eyes.

"I thought it was a good one." Nikki offered helpfully.

"Know what that's from? That's from the Zombpocalypse trailer they released in Sweeden." Logan was suddenly serious business. He pointed a commanding finger across the food court again. "Kevin Costner has all sorts of great fruit-based one-liners in that movie. He's a grocer when the zombies come to take over the world and eat his brains and stuff. You know what's interesting about that? There are some leading scientists who think that zombification is just the advanced stages of scurvy. Which, I'll have you know, can be deterred by eating fruit, or something. Trust me. I found it on the internet."

Logan mimed pulling a price-check gun. "Paper .. or plastic?"

Sheri kept scrolling through radio stations. Slowly, she began to realize that that same odd infomercial was on KWV, LAV, B-94 ..

"You know what, angelbabies?" Sheri glanced behind her again. "I'm starting to think that -- "

But they never got to hear what Sheri thought.

Several things happened at once. A sound like rushing wings filled the food court, accompanied by a handful of blinding flashes -- split between half-second intervals. Logan cursed and dropped behind the counter on reflex, dragging Sheri with him.

There were screams and shouts in the air, now -- the general sound of alarm.

Logan slowly got back up to his feet. He wished he hadn't.

It was a jumbled scene before him. All Logan saw, mostly, was the blur of people running, panicking. He squinted beyond the churning mass of humanity to a few tall men in billowing robes. Others stood near them, normal-looking people except for their tall blue hats.

There was no real way to explain how Logan knew what he did. Maybe it was the product of watching way too many zombie movies, or maybe he was just bored -- but Logan understood in an instant that this wasn't normal, this wasn't right, and they had to get out of there.

"Here!" Was all Logan said. He gestured to Dawn and to Nikki, indicating that they should get behind the counter. "Come on!"

Nikki managed to finally break herself free from Siege Perilous, just as a high cold voice echoed through the food court, magnified a thousandfold.

"REMAIN CALM."

Logan heard Sheri curse. She was still crouched on the floor near Logan's feet. He glanced down. She held up her phone. Though it appeared to be off, the bright red words on the LCD screen were clear.

"DO NOT RESIST."

They changed before his eyes, just as the booming voice continued. Logan dug for his own phone. It felt warm in his palm. The block letters traced themselves against the black, arranging neatly.

"PLEASE."

There was something mocking about the word 'please'. Logan felt his heart thumping in his chest. He set his phone on the counter, then lifted his gaze pleadingly to Dawn and to Nikki.

"Let's go." He whispered. "I don't care who they are."

"WE WILL USE FORCE, IF NECESSARY."

Though it was hard to tell in the din of low murmurs and still-echoing shouts, Logan thought he heard someone crying.

"REMAIN CALM."

Sheri crawled the length of the work space, and unlocked the storage room door.

"WE COME TO BRING A MESSAGE .. "

Like hell ..

Dawn smiled, quietly enjoying the girl to her left's discomfort. Dawn disliked Nikki -- she was one of the worst of the simpering idiots that trailed around after Logan like a disease, and there was hardly a moment when she didn't want to slap the cow. However, there were social precedents in place, and on the odd occasion Dawn felt that she should meet them -- the very odd occasion. And after all, Nikki hadn't done anything to provoke it at this particular moment.

Yet.

Listening to Logan start to go on about 'Zombopocalypse', Dawn couldn't help but smile at the boy's childish enthusiasm. "Honestly, Logan. You know that I can't stand silly movies like that, it's such a... boy thing. I mean, Zombopocalypse? That name is just ridiculous!" she said, rolling her eyes. "I don't mind the more serious horror ones, but when it's just an excuse to throw a bunch of zombies onto a screen... it's not really my thing."

There were very few girls who would ever tell Logan Kikkert that he was being silly, for fear of upsetting or in anyway putting him off talking to them. Dawn, however, didn't do sugar coating. If she didn't like something, she pointed it out. If that outfit did make you look fat, she would tell you.

"And what's Kyle done now? Honestly, I need to give that guy a slap. Can't go five minutes without doing something stupid." she muttered.

There then came a tense moment, when Logan slid her smoothie over. A long silence, as Dawn internally worked over the possible responses to the nickname. You could have cut the tension with a knife -- even though in reality, when there is a lot of tension in the air, the last thing you want to do is to get a knife out. After a long moment, Dawn finally raised an eyebrow and looked up at Logan. It was the moment before the Judge, having deemed the defendant guilty, stated their sentence.

Dawn smiled. It was a faint, wryly amused smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. "Thanks, and by the way - you still have that smoothie on your collar." she said, reaching over the counter to flick it off with her finger, flashing him a look that spoke of narrowly avoided wrath.

As Logan proceeded to go on about his new plan for the Apple smoothie, Dawn went between varying degrees of curiosity, and utter disbelief. "You... I can't believe you just said that." she stated, facepalming most pointedly. "Honestly Logan, don't make me knock that head of yours on the counter. Don't want to dislodge what little sense you have left in there." she muttered, rolling her eyes. She flashed Nikki a glare, containing within it tales of simpering bitches being mutilated in various interesting manners, conveniently transcribed into a moment looking into those bright blue orbs.

"Fruit based one liners? Good grief..." Dawn muttered as Logan went back off into his raving about the film, paying very little attention. When Logan began miming with the price check gun, she lifted a hand up to gently lower it, shaking her head. "Just... no."

Dawn was in the midst of exchanging an amused look with Logan, hand still firmly pressing the price check gun down onto the counter, when things started to go to hell. The redhead swore, dropping the gun and her smoothie to bring her arms up over her head to hide her eyes from the flashes, blinking to try and restore her vision as lights danced across the backs of her eyelids. She stepped backwards hazily, shaking her head before uncovering her eyes to behold the madness that filled the shopping centre.

"What the..?" the redhead began, gaping at the oddly dressed men in the distance, before Logan commanded her attention from his position behind the counter. Her head snapped around to look at him, her blue eyes wide in a mixture of panic and confusion. She was in mild shock, and Logan's quick words snapped her from her daze, returning the stoic girl to command. The girl hurried over to the counter again, sliding over it relatively gracefully (at least managing not to fall over) to land into a crouch on the other side, wincing as the loud shouts began to echo through the air.

In the cramped space, Dawn could get a clear view of what Sheri was showing Logan, and it sent shivers down her spine. "They're in.. everything." she whispered, not bothering to root around for her mobile, instead lifting the headphone to her iPod from her front pocket -- she'd not bothered turning it off, intending only to pause briefly at the smoothie store -- and surely enough, the same words echoed from it into her ear as she lifted it.

"Fuck..." she muttered, nodding to Logan, the normally fierce air about her replaced with a harrowed and afraid look to her eyes as she crawled after the two. High school drama was one thing...

End of the world drama was just a few steps up the scale...

Traffic downtown was bad enough, barring the end of the world.

Everyone was trying to get away from the city, where most of the trouble was. All Luke wanted to do was get back to his South Side apartment. He should have taken the exit at 52nd, instead of riding the interstate all the way across town.

Bit late for that now, though. The silver Taurus crawled along, approaching an underpass inches at a time. Luke drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as cars roared past him on the shoulder, sending gravel spraying everywhere. These panicked folks were likely to rip his mirrors off. The highway narrowed here, and Luke kept waiting to hear the shriek of metal on metal.

When the messages had started appearing on his phone, the only thing Luke did was set it quietly to the side. It buzzed in his cupholder, now, plagued by great block letters of some apocalyptic message. In a way, he had to commend Thaddeus. People these days were more dependent on technology than ever. At least the Grand Mage had most of his bases covered.

If he craned his neck and wedged his gaze under a few billboards, Luke could see smoke rising from the city. The white dome of the Conklin center reared tallest out of all the buildings, seemingly untouched. Luke would have reached down to turn the radio on in hopes of hearing some sort of news, but he knew that if he did so, all that would fill his vehicle was a high cold voice. They were everywhere. He tapped his fingers again on the wheel ..

The tapping wasn't a nervous habit. In fact, Luke wasn't feeling much of anything at the moment. Music did not move him anymore; rhythm owed him no interest. The tapping was just a learned trait, a tick that kept him looking happy, healthy, and human.

Not that it mattered much anyways.

How many were not aware of what was happening right now? Maybe they wouldn't realize what was going on until things had settled. And how long would that take? Taking over the entire world was no small feat, even for Thaddeus and his rather bountiful resources. Luke had lived through enough revolutions and takeovers to know how these things worked. He ceased his tapping, and simply gripped the steering wheel firmly.

A car behind him gave a sharp blast on its horn. Luke was broken out of his trance. The path ahead of him was clear. He could take a right and head downtown to observe the brunt of the damage, or he could take a left, follow the curve south, and make his way to his apartment complex.

Oh, Luke didn't even think twice about it. He pressed his foot on the gas, and the Taurus shot forward.

The door snapped shut a little too hard as Logan crawled in after the others. He was scooting along crab-style, impeded by the strings on his apron every few feet. Fed up, he suddenly rushed to his feet and ripped it off. The hat went, too and he ran his fingers through his hair three times in quick succession.

Sheri had risen as well. She quietly picked her way past the stacks of supply boxes until she found the door leading out to the service stairs. Logan heard her jangling her keys. He also heard that high cold voice, muffled but echoing from the next room ..

Nikki and Dawn were close. Only one of them was breathing hard, he couldn't tell which. Logan felt his own heart thumping in his chest, and had to make a conscious effort to swallow.

"Hurry!" He breathed.

There was a slight rattle as Sheri tried to force the door. It did not slide open. She cursed softly, and tried to throw her weight against it. No luck.

"Hurry!"

Logan crossed the room in one bound, brushing past the girls as he did so. In his haste, he clipped a package of plastic snap-on lids, and they spilled to the ground. Just as Sheri opened her mouth to protest against the noise, Logan waved her aside and drew back his arm. For a second it looked as though he were going to strike the door -- savagely, too -- but all he did was pluck the keys from Sheri's grasp, and rifle them until he found the correct one.

"The blue one, Sheri. The blue one."

Light spilled into the room, a welcome shaft of freedom. The service stairs hugged the side of the mall with plenty of wide-paneled windows to let in sunshine. Logan kept the keys in his fist. He wasn't sure what to do with them. He turned slightly, and saw the girls behind him still standing in the relative darkness.

"My truck's in the west lot." Logan murmured, dismay causing his heart to skip a beat. "We're nowhere near there."

Sheri was shaking her head, looking pale. Logan didn't need to see the girls clearly to bet they had probably parked where everyone usually --

"My car's out front." Nikki spoke up in an unusually bright, clear voice. She stepped forward, and there was an odd moment where she looked almost cheerful. "Don't worry!"

That settled it. They took care to shut the door quietly this time, making their way as stealthily as possible down the narrow and bare staircase. It was bright, hot, and everything seemed to echo. Nikki's pink flip-flops kept snapping against her heel, against the tile. Sheri -- dressed more practically in worn walking shoes -- wanted nothing more than to strangle the girl.

It was a tedious and a breathless journey. When they were about halfway down, there was a resounding crack that seemed to shake the building. Logan stopped and almost slumped against the wall. What the hell was going on? He didn't want to know.

Finally, the stairs widened to the main landing. Here there was an annex to Wetzel's Pretzels, and the Abercrombie outlet, but things seemed more or less deserted. Logan looked up and once more felt his heart sink.

"It's alarmed." He blinked at the red EXIT letters, and the notice sign underneath them. "If we go out, we'll have to run and not stop. They'll hear it up there. They'll hear it everywhere. Nikki, are you ready to go?"

"We're not going anywhere." The voice seemed to suddenly change.

Logan turned and saw a flash of blue. Nicole suddenly had a tall and pointed wizards cap planted on her head. The rim was wide and the entire thing the brightest cyan. Her eyes glittered dangerously. Logan stared.

"And my name isn't Nikki."

Before them, before God and everyone Nicole Trawley -- (or the girl formerly known as Nicole Trawley) -- raised her hand and it was suddenly engulfed in flames.

"My name is Charmena Harrow, and I'm terribly sorry, Logan." She said sweetly.

She gave him a wink, and then turned her attention to Dawn. There were no words needed, no explanation to give. The feeding chain of Cedar Springs High School had suddenly and unexpectedly changed. The Wizard curled her fist, gave a high shriek and loosed the burst straight at Dawn's head.

_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: They're hitting the northwest harder for some reason.
TwoShooter4Lyfe says: It's Cedar Springs. Miles Conklin is finally going to have to come clean. Maybe this isn't a bad thing.
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: Where's Pistis? Isn't he from Cedar Springs?
TwoShooter4Lyfe says: Dunno. Hope he's okay.
SansAvro says: The Prime Minister is a Wizard.
TwoShooter4Lyfe says: WHAT?
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: Well, that blows. If there are more world leaders involved, we're in for a shitstorm.
SansAvro has left the chatroom.
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: Man I hope Pistis is okay. I hope Avro is okay. This is heavy stuff, man.
TwoShooter4Lyfe says: I just checked out the forum thread Pistis made. He thinks the Wizards will come for him first.
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: Of course he does. At least he's prepared, right? It's finally happening.
TwoShooter4Lyfe says: I hear something downstairs.
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: Be careful.
TwoShooter4Lyfe has left the chatroom.
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: ....

________________________

Nate Perrine, otherwise known as Pistis to his fellow bloggers, crouched on a moth-eaten sofa across from his own door. He had a broom clenched firmly in one hand, and a bright blue costume hat in the other. His expression was wild, and if he had a chin it would have been jutting.

There were shouts and yells coming from out in the hall, and from the street below. The entire apartment building was under siege. Some residents had tried to flee the scene, unsuccessfully. Others were lined up outside, their sharp voices playing against sirens and general clamor. Through it all, Nate kept his eyes on the door.

If the Wizards knew the state of the apartment they were about to storm, they might have thought twice about doing so. It had the unpleasant smell of perpetual mold, cheap cologne, and (oddly) ginger. The shades were drawn on all sides, plunging most of the room into gloom. There were piles of newspapers, comic book, and article clippings everywhere. For some reason, there were four television sets scattered around in one room, all turned on differing directions, none larger than eighteen inches. Shadowy pictures dotted the south wall, strands of bright red yarn tacked here and there in a complex crisscrossing pattern -- leaps of logic and insight that only Nathan Perrine, 24, of Cedar Springs Washington would know.

His computer blinked and beeped at him from the other room, pleading to understand what was going on.

"It's alright, baby." Nate murmured soothingly. He shifted position slightly, kneading the cushions for better hold.

He spared a half-glance over to the modem, and saw chat messages filling up on the screen. Bless his userbase. They'd fight hard in the coming weeks, that was for sure. Nate took a deep breath and brought his attention back to the door. Any time, now. Any time they'd come bursting in after him, and he'd be able to show them how he was smarter, how he had known about it all along. How he wasn't fooled. How he was right.

Finally, the door swung open. It did so like magic, flying back on its hinges with an almighty bang. The Wizard entered with a swagger, wielding a fist of fire. He lost his swagger upon noticing a hulking figure crouched like a child on the sofa, with a broom held over its head. The Wizard's eyes widened as this mountain of a man gave a fierce bellow, and sprang.

Nathan was quicker than he looked, and swung down hard. He caught the bright blue wizard's hat, and it thudded to the ground. The Wizard gave a cry of alarm, a cry of pain as though this had physically wounded him. The fire in his palm suddenly flickered out.

"You thought you'd come for me, huh?" Nate kicked the hat further out of the man's reach. "No way, Jose. I'm ahead of all you guys. Way ahead."

Nate still had his own hat clenched in his fist. It was just slightly a darker blue than the others, and the rim was a bit stiffer, but it would pass. He snugged it over his head as though he were putting on SWAT armor.

"It's go-time."

Nate was gone and out the door before the Wizard had time to collect himself. He slowly reached out, and felt the folds of his hat under his fingers. That was all he needed to give him comfort, despite not knowing what sticky substance he had collapsed into. Just when the Wizard was about to sit up -- he was met with a terrifying sight.

Though it was nearly buried under reams of paper, its few monitors glowed softly with a keen and commanding light. The modem hummed, the fans whirred. It was a computer, and it was a large computer. The Wizard was suddenly filled with a fear.

Technology ..

Bing!

_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ says: Save yourselves! Stick to the Code!
_Y2KWUZNOTOK_ has left the chatroom

The man grabbed his hat, scrambled back and excited the apartment on all fours with what was left of his dignity.

Dawn Keating was afraid.

This was a novel feeling for the young woman, so used to inspiring such in others, (a low-level, playground based fear, but fear nonetheless) and so seldom experiencing the other end of the pointed stick of intimidation. Her fear didn't freeze her, though, nor truly impede her progress - no, by and the large, her fear annoyed her. She was annoyed that she was being intimidated and forced to crawl about like a rat in a trap, annoyed that these people had forced her to abandon her expensive phone and iPod, and annoyed that she was being put through an emotion that was so alien and stupid; sure, in primeval days fear might have been necessary to let cavemen know when to run, but surely by this point people were intelligent enough to figure this out through logic rather than have a quickened pulse and butterflies in the stomach have to tell them.

Sadly, despite her theoretical protestations against the very concept of fear, the fear refused to bugger off.

Score one to primeval instincts, nil to Dawn Keating's logical reasoning.

The jingling of Sheri's keys distracted Dawn from her pondering of deep psychological concepts and returned her to the reality of 'running away'. The girl practically held her breath while Sheri fumbled with the keys, and was at the point of snapping rather unfairly at the woman when Logan intervened. Thank god for Logan -- who would've thought the dopey, oblivious idol of many would prove to actually be capable in a stressful situation? Dawn certainly wouldn't have accepted any sort of supposition he'd do better than her, and yet the proof was in the pudding. Or rather, in the swift unlocking of the door.

However, circumstance promptly failed their new figurehead leader, as it was discovered that his grand escape didn't really stretch much further than this door. Dawn was about to suggest making a break for it on foot, when to her total, utter, pure horror, the day was saved by none other than Nikki.

This was just demeaning.

"My car's out front, don't worry!" The girl spoke in an annoyingly calm and optimistic voice. It was rather odd as well, Dawn noted, that the fragile and easily cowed pretty girl would suddenly display such a blase attitude towards being fried. Very odd. But rather than dwell on this, Dawn filed it away for later brooding, as brooding at present was ill advisable and bordering on suicidal, speed and efficiency necessary to survive in the wilds of the shopping mall service corridor.

As their second unexpected leader began to slap down the corridor, Dawn developed a strong desire to slap her, but again this was suppressed and filed away alongside all the previous irritations to simmer away into a ball of anger in the back of her mind - but most importantly to not impede her progress.

The disturbing crack echoing through the building only held Dawn's attention for a moment, for right now she was focused. The redhead had the singular goal of 'live', and wizards or no wizards, nobody stopped Dawn Keating from achieving a goal she set out to do with this level of determination. Bulldozers had tried and failed, as had concrete walls. Metaphorically. Too bad these weren't metaphorical wizards.

Throughout the walk, Dawn's minor irritations seemed to enlarge themselves to disproportionate sizes. Everything became a source of irritation, but most prominently, that thrice damned slapping. Flip, flop, slap, slap, flip, flop, slap. Dawn wanted to punch something. This was not helped as yet another obstacle was reached. As Logan spoke Dawn muttered something about how 'alarming a fire escape is pointless, it's a flaming door like any other flaming door, and sticking a big 'ALARM' sign on it is only going to mean that intruders break your nice shiny front doors instead, and why the hell do they care if we use the fire door anyway, surely every door becomes a fire door in the event of a fire.'

"We're not going anywhere."

The abrupt flash of blue caught Dawn's attention, drawing it away from her irate mutterings in time to witness 'Nikki's' transformation. Rather than gape in shock, a single string of thought passed through Dawn's mind.

'I knew she was too much of a bitch to be anything but bad work. There's bitch, but then there's Nikki bitch. Like the difference between a bomb and an H-bomb. She's going to go for me first, isn't she? Just because I trod on her toes at the smoothie counter earlier...'

"I'm terribly sorry, Logan."

Then the girl turned to Dawn, and for a moment it seemed that the tables had turned, and the gazelle was about to gore the lioness with its horns. But as we are all aware, in nature this does not happen -- and if Dawn had anything to say about it, it wasn't about to happen in Cedar Springs either.

The Wizard curled her fist, gave a high shriek and loosed the burst straight at Dawn's head.

And then Dawn's fist impacted her squarely in the nose, breaking it well and truly, with a sickening crack. 'Nikki' would have barely a moment to register this, horror in her widening eyes as she clutched at the wreck of her 'darling' nose, blood beginning to flood down her face, before yet again Dawn's fist impacted her, this time directly on the temple with a satisfying thunk, and the Wizard dropped like a sack of potatoes.

"I always knew there was something off about that girl..." Dawn murmured, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Quite how Dawn had avoided the fireball was something of a mystery. Perhaps her mounting anger at the girl had led her to want an excuse to lay into her, and her mind had been running over the possible scenarios and laying out appropriate physical responses. Perhaps she just had good reactions. What was certain, though, was that she was very much not on fire.

"...I think now would be a good time to start running. Don't you?" the redhead went on. "They'll probably know that one of them just got knocked out. I don't think the alarm is a concern any more. Do you reckon we could all squeeze onto a motorcycle? Because I have mine out front... it seemed pointless to note that when miss flaming fingers had her car in the picture. But maybe we could all try and squeeze on? Might not be comfy, someone might have to sit in someone else's lap, but I rather think we have more pressing concerns than passenger comfort to deal with right now."

With that, Dawn promptly barged the door open, gestured to Sheri and Logan to follow, and started to run, rummaging through her bag for the keys to the bike as she went. "Fucking things are never where I want them to be..." she muttered. Then she was at the bike, and Logan and Sheri were approaching behind her, and all of them were panting because it had been a long way to run that fast - but none of them cared because; shit, that was a cyan hat, and shit, they had to get the fuck out of there.

Slinging her leg over the bike seat, Dawn barked "Get on!" at the pair, shoving the keys into the ignition and praying that the engine started first time. Apparently there was a god, or Dawn's bike could tell that something was up, because it did.

"Hold on!" the redhead yelled over the roar of the engine, not really noticing whose hands it was that clenched around her waist like a vice grip, too focused on the collection of cyan hats swiftly approaching their position to care. Then she twisted the handle, and the bike moved.

It was a relatively sporty vehicle, a birthday present a couple of years back from her parents jointly. And hell, when she told it to go, it went. Someone behind her squeaked. A fireball passed about a metre to their rear, and then they were picking up speed. The wind tossed Dawn's hair out behind her - the helmet still happily clattering away within the 'trunk' beneath the seat - threatened to toss them back with its ferocity, but somehow it didn't, and somehow they were careening through the carpark at breakneck speeds, and cars were exploding all around them as fireballs showered where they were supposed to be but weren't.

"Holy. FUCK!"

Dawn felt that this summed up the situation quite well.

All of a sudden, there was the arm -- the barrier to getting into the car park, black and yellow striped in its hazardous and suddenly life threatening manner. There was a brief moment where Dawn honestly believed they were about to die, to go sprawling over the barrier and land in a mess of blood and gore and bones and teeth on the concrete beyond. And then she went momentarily insane.

See, to the right of the barrier, there was a truck. This truck had no obvious purpose, but obviously people had been in the middle -- or towards the end -- of unloading it, because the back was down and it was nearly empty. There's an odd thing about driving at high speeds on a motorbike whilst escaping from a nasty horde of fireball flinging wizards, where you see things such as this with big neon signs beside them, screaming 'RAMP' at you.

"Shit. We're going to die." the redhead noted, even as she wrestled the bike to the right, and pointed it at the truck. "We're going to die, because this doesn't work in life, and we aren't James Bond, an- fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"

The last part of Dawn's sentence was swallowed by nonsensical cursing as they took off. And they did take off. They didn't go crashing into the cabin of the truck, or flip over backwards, they took off, and flew over the barrier. Time seemed to slow down to allow viewers at home the chance to observe the sheer insanity of what was occurring.

And then they landed, and they were still moving, and they hadn't fallen over.

This went against the laws of physics somewhat, Dawn noted, but perhaps the Wizards had fucked that up too.

Whatever. She wasn't going to complain.

"Okay... we're a live. I think. We are, right?" she breathed after a few minutes, having slowed the bike down to a more reasonable pace as they progressed through quiet, empty streets, avoiding main thoroughfares.

"...where do we go now?"

Logan yelled when he saw the burst of fire. He yelled as he hit the wall and fell back, he yelled when he felt a flash of heat. There was a war-like shriek, a sharp crack, and then a dull thud. Logan was done yelling, now. He opened his eyes and saw Nikki Trawley -- sorry, Charmena Harrow -- sprawled there on the floor.

She twitched just a bit, and then was still. Then there was Dawn, rubbing her fist idly and observing her kill, not a single hair out of place.

"I always knew there was something off about that girl .. "

Damn. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Logan had to admit he was a little turned on by --

" .. I think now would be a good time to start running. Don't you?"

What a glorious understatement. Dawn slammed the door open, and Sheri yanked Logan by the elbow. He barely had time to pick his jaw up off the floor before they staggered out of Silversun Crossings to the strident sound of wailing sirens. They left Charmena collapsed there at the bottom of the stairs.

The next few minutes were pretty hectic. They pounded across the pavement towards the few front lots where the motorcycles were held. Logan was quick to take the lead. Four years of football conditioning and long-distance track pulled him ahead.

Logan skittered to a halt in front of Dawn's cycle. There it was, sleek and gleaming -- the desire of just about every guy at Cedar Springs High School. Logan had never, until now, realized how small it was.

Sheri and Dawn were about four seconds behind. Logan looked from one to the other, and before he could audibly observe that the three of them wouldn't fit -- Dawn shrieked something desperate, probably obscene -- and they were crammed onto the seat. The engine was thundering --

"Woah .. helmets .. " Logan kept his hands chastely at Dawn's sides. "Should we be wearing -- ohhh SHIT!"

The acceleration jerked them back and Logan felt another flash of heat. His stomach whirled and he felt himself sliding backwards -- the youth wrapped his arms around Dawn's waist and pressed his head into her back. Ohhh shit --

-- he heard Sheri sort of hollering, sort of praying in his ear. Her arms were around his waist, now, too. This marked the first time Logan had been pressed between two women, and not found it enjoyable. He grunted as they picked up speed, and tried to find room to breathe.

Dawn wound through the legs of the parking garage. Logan kept his head turned and watched the backsides of cars scroll past. Without warning, something very loud and very bright exploded into being. The cycle wavered, Logan hollered. For a wild second his first thought was dragons? but as the aftershock ripped through the garage, Logan thought he had a pretty good idea of what that noise had been.

Explosions. The cars. Were. EXPLODING.

The shouts and flashes faded. Hunks of metal clattered to the ground behind them. How large was this parking garage? Logan dared to open his eyes. They were still alive. Ohhh shit. They were still alive.

"Go, go, go!" He felt adrenaline surging. "We -- NO! WAIT! NOO! STOP! DON'T -- "

There was a truck, a ramp, and little men in blue hats waiting for them. Why weren't they slowing down?

Something carried them up the ramp and through the air. The now-familiar flashes of heat dotted the air all around them. Logan felt his stomach stay on the ground even as they met some crazy arc, some crazy landing --

Dawn's helmet scraped the ground as they slammed back onto the pavement. If the wizards were watching, they were too surprised to pursue any faster. They blazed away from Silversun Crossings, and none of them talked for a while.

Once they were about fifteen minutes away from the mall, Dawn pulled in to Wedgewood Park. It was nicely tucked into a copse of old, old, old oak trees. Most West Side kids used to hang out here at some point in their youth. Logan wasn't sure why Dawn chose this place for them to stop and collect themselves, but it sure looked deserted.

Dawn cut the engine, and Sheri practically rolled off the bike, retching. Logan delicately stepped out and onto the grass.

"That .. "

He took a few breaths.

".. was awesome!"

They couldn't stay here forever. There was a small playground with rounded, colored and very safe equipment about twenty paces away. Logan had a sudden urge to go sit on the swings, and just --

"Hey!" He pointed. There was a payphone by the edge of the woodchips, near two newspaper stations. Probably for the parents who stayed there to supervise their children. Logan tilted his head to the side. "Look! That's one of those .. those .. "

He couldn't think of the word. "You know! Like in Phone Booth with Kiefer Sutherland? You put .. money in it? And you .. "

"Payphone." Sheri wheezed. "Probably hasn't been used in ten years."

"Yeaaaah!" Logan snapped his fingers. "Those old things. We should call Jordan."

Under Sheri's tutelage, Logan picked his way across the playground and started to fiddle with the payphone. It looked lonely. Sheri dug around for some quarters, thinking rather wistfully of the days before wireless internet, cellular phones, mp3s, and wizarding takeovers.

"Put the money .. no. No, Logan. Put it -- "

Logan finally worked out the strange contraption. He put the black handle to his ear, and leaned against the dark red newspaper stand. Actually -- Wedgewood offered decent cover. They couldn't be seen from the street, here. In the future, that might come in handy.

Jordan picked up on the second ring.

Things only seemed worse on the South Side. Luke drove quietly, avoiding what catastrophes he could.

Anyone born within the last century wouldn't understand why the Wizards were pushing so hard to capture this part of town. In fact -- Luke was quite sure that most of those doing the capturing weren't entirely aware of what was happening. He came to his building at 182 East Clark, and pulled into the tenant garage.

Luke just sat there for a few minutes, hands on the wheel. He could hear muffled shouts and explosions from outside the safety of his vehicle. The engine was off, there was nothing but a driver's side door separating him from what he had been trying to avoid for so long.

The vampire finally slid out and away from the leather seats, slamming the door shut with finality. There it was again, the same old smell of fear, magnified by a thousand. Luke wrinkled his nose. This was why he didn't want to leave the car.

Or maybe that was just the smell of burning plastic. Luke tilted his head to the side. Sirens were wailing to the north. It didn't matter. He locked his Taurus and put the keys in his pocket, turning on his heel and walked slowly, calmly towards the front of the building.

Privacy. That was all he wanted anymore, these days. Having lived so long in the meddling company of others, Luke appreciated the time he spent with himself. Maybe that was another reason he loved his job so much. There wasn't much conversation with the dead.

At least he found privacy when he was at home. The building was one of the oldest in the city. Luke had been there since the early 1900's, in the same room on the seventh floor. He had seen a number of 'rennovations' happen over the years. The ceiling was gutted and peeled in places, but contrasted by new trimming and soft white carpet. These days, it smelled like new paint and rotting pipes.

Luke was two steps away from the door when it suddenly flew open, and a mountain of a man in a dark cyan wizard's cap practically barreled into him.

"Sorry, man!" Nate hissed. He grabbed Luke's arm and dragged him away from the door, back to the alley down which the vampire had just come. "It's alright! Look! I've got this, i'm not one of them! Come with me!"

Luke allowed himself to be shuffled along more out of surprise than a lack of strength.

"Of course you're not." Luke said thinly as he was jerked into a crouching position behind a garbage bin. "Your hat is darker, and the rim isn't quite floppy enough."

"Right, right, but they don't know that!" Nate stuck his head out. A trio of Wizards jogged past. He withdrew, glanced back at the vampire, ripped the hat off his head and extended a hand in a cordial manner. "I'm Nathan."

Luke stared at the hand, then back up at the man. "Yes. I know you. You're in the apartment two floors before mine. You have a last name, but no family."

There was something interesting about this man. While he stank of dollar store aftershave, there was one element missing. Fear.

"Your name is Nathan .. " The vampire tilted his head to the side. "And you're not afraid."

"Of course I'm not afraid!" Nathan breathed. He was still crouched there, an odd-looking position for a man of his size. "I know all about these guys. I've been waiting for this for ages. You're lucky I ran into you." He tapped his right temple. "I got this."

Luke felt his curiosity pique, even squatting there by a rather full dumpster. "You're a normal human. What experience do you have with the paranormal?"

"Oh, plenty." Nathan waved his hand, trying to look offhand about it. He changed the subject. "So what's your name?"

"Lucas .. "

Except it wasn't Luke who said it. The vampire recognized the voice. He turned --

A Wizard with a red stripe on the brim of his hat and a swagger in his step had found them. He had thin blonde hair parted in balding wisps, stood with both hands on his hips. Too cocky. Too confident. Luke frowned. The man had probably come from the back alley on Monroe Ave. There was nowhere to go.

"So nice to see you again." Sneered the Wizard. Luke felt Nathan tensing, and he hoped feverishly that the man wouldn't do anything stupid.

"My name is Luke." The vampire in question raised his eyebrows, slowly getting to his feet. "What do you want from me?"

"The Grand Mage wishes to speak to you.

"I'm sure that he does."

"He gave me orders to come and fetch you."

Luke smirked, despite himself. "And I'm sure you'll try your hardest."

Nathan watched all of this with wide eyes. The Wizard, however, was not amused.

"I will not hesitate to use force." He warned. "Do not be difficult, monster."

"Monster?" Luke tilted his head to the side. He slid his hands in his pockets, looking casual, quite bored. "You would call me a monster?"

As if on cue, there was a tremendous BANG from out in the street, followed by screams. Luke's mouth was drawn thin. "Taking over a country by figuratively smashing it in the skull. What do you call that?"

"That, my dear friend, is business." The red-rimmed Wizard raised a suddenly flaming fist. "And this is goodbye."

Just as the Wizard was about to extend his arm, Nathan gave an oddly garbled warcry, threw his dark cyan hat to the ground, leaped and smacked the man's hat right off his head.

The fire did not fade. The Wizard sent a blazing look to Nathan, who suddenly looked very, very foolish.

"I knew something was off about you!" The red-rimmed Wizard sneered. He took a step towards Nathan, who had no choice but to stop back. "I wondered why you took off your hat. You are defying an order. You have been deemed hostile. Do you understand?"

Luke became a blur of motion, just a smudge against the alley's backdrop. The next thing they knew the Wizard was on the ground moaning, and Luke was straightening.

"You think you know everything?" Luke said acidly to Nathan. "You know nothing. The hat trick works only on entry-level Wizards. Apprentices. I have just attacked one of their generals."

There was no fear in the eyes of the man with no family. Nathan looked from Luke to the Wizard, and then back to Luke. He slowly smiled.

"Awesome. Can I have his hat?"

"No." Luke stared down at his hands. He hated violence. "You had better go find a place to hide. Things will settle soon, and that will be the time to resist. Not now."

"Can I come with you, man?"

Luke frowned. "I work alone. Besides -- they will come after me again."

"Come on. I saw you. I saw you move that fast. You're not human, but you're not one of them. There's no one better to have on our side! What are you, a vampire or something?"

"I .. " Luke hadn't felt this flustered in a few decades.

"You do your thing, I'll do mine. We'll be a great time. Hey!" Nathan held his hands up. "If you ever need a blood tithe or something, too, I'll help you. Just so long as I don't have to see any of it. I'll -- "

Luke scowled. "I will not be needing those services, thank you."

Like witches and their wands, wizards and their hats, you never asked a vampire anything about feeding. It just wasn't done, and was considered taboo. Luke gazed steadily at Nathan as the world around them collapsed, and felt an odd mixture of pitying amusement.

"You think you know so much about us .. " Luke bent, picked up the dark cyan hat and handed it back to the mountain of a man. "But you're going to get yourself killed."

"At least I was right, though, eh?" Nathan snugged the hat back onto his head. It was still a bit too small, a bit too stiff. "About magic and stuff. And as for getting killed, with you around I won't have to worry about that."

Nathan beamed at the vampire. Luke didn't quite know what to say.

"Just .. don't be a hero."

"Why not?" Nathan windmilled his arms expressively. "Come on! It's, like, everything you've seen on television! This is big, bigger than me. It'll be fun!"

"This is a world takeover. It's not supposed to be fun."

"Well, it'll be an adventure, anyways."

This man was a headache waiting to happen. The sirens were getting louder. Luke looked down at the red-rimmed Wizard at their feet. Things were about to move fast. Luke resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands.

"I'll go with you, if only to stop you from getting ravaged."

"Partners then?" Nathan asked excitedly.

"Not a chance."

"Right, then."

The Wizard gave another groan. It might have been easier to just kill the man, but Luke had made promises -- promises he was intent on keeping. And if that meant teaming up with a fearless human ..

.. it looked like he'd have to do it.

"Where to?" Luke asked in a low voice, and Nathan grinned.

"I know just the place! But .. uh .. dude?"

" .. yes?"

Nathan fiddled with his hat. "Do you have a car? I'm between jobs, like. So we'll have to, uhh .. "

Luke dug in his pockets for his keys, turned and started to walk away.

"Hey! Wait up! So you are a vampire, then? Cool. That's cool. So you're okay with garlic? Or crosses? What's the deal? Sorry .. "

"Hello, Renar residence." Jordan clamped the phone between his ear and his shoulder. He needed both hands to fumble with the fire extinguisher. "This is Jordan speaking."

Logan would have heard a whoosh as Jordan sent a blast of foam onto a merry blaze feeding off most of their living room table. The thing had cracked and collapsed like kindling.

The Renar's pleasant three-story home was in shambles. What wasn't smoking had been toppled over and smashed. The china cabinet had its innards sprawled out, dangerous and glinting shards. Jordan took care to avoid that part of the room. Having taken care of the larger fire, he scrambled over the up-ended sofa where he thought he saw something else burning.

While Logan breathlessly explained what had happened to him in the others, Jordan ambled through the ravaged home in a sort of stupor, dousing smaller fires here and there. Though the dining room and living rooms had taken the most damage, the kitchen was in fair disarray as well. There was a faucet running, and all the plates had found their way out of the cupboards -- onto the marble floor in bits and bits. That wasn't even mentionining the cutlery. There had been quite a scuffle.

Sylvia was in the kitchen, now, screeching. She was sitting on the chest of a thin man, pounding at him with her little fists. A periwinkle hat lay alone and crumpled under what had once been their ceiling fan. Sylvia shrieked and shrieked, and the man cried and cried. Jordan plugged his pinky into his spare ear.

"What? Yeah, Logan. I can hear you. No, this isn't a bad time. My sister is only about to commit murder."

"Who the hell do you think you are? Coming in here, throwing your fucking FIREBALLS at us?"

"Should I stop her? It's really good for her, I think."

"If you and the rest of your CULT BUDDIES think we're going to have ANYTHING to do with you .. HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU, WALTER KRONKITE .. "

"Definitely clearing out some bottled up aggression. Might just let her go on for a while."

"I should rip your THROAT out, and stuff your EYEBALLS up your -- "

"Yeah. Yeah, good point. Let me get her a second."

"Sylvie?" Jordan stepped back into the kitchen, waving smoke from his eyes. "Hey. Hi. Busy? No? Okay. It's Logan."

Sylvia turned, looked around. Some of her curls had fallen in front of her face. She smiled at him lovingly. "Jordan, sweetie, may I borrow the extinguisher?"

Jordan covered the reciever of the phone. He looked down at the petrified Wizard, who was frantically mouthing -- 'NONONONON -- '

"Are you going to bludgeon him?" Jordan asked fairly.

"Of course not."

"Do you know what 'bludgeon' means?"

"Give it!"

Jordan brought the phone back up to his ear just as Logan asked for an account of what had happened up in Cedar Heights. Jordan was only too happy to oblige.

Literal seconds after the call to Nikki had gone to voicemail, a fireball had slammed through the Renar's kitchen window. This didn't speak particularly to any sort of marskmanship skill, considering how large the thing was. Still, Sylvia had shrieked and fallen to the ground. Jordan went the route of a more manly-type shout, and wasn't too far behind joining his sister.

They had crouched there, breathing heavily while their house alarm and smoke detectors wailed. Sylvia rolled to the keypad on the wall, while Jordan went for the round white thing above the sink. Soon, there was silence. They stared at each other.

While their ears rang and their hearts pounded .. there came four polite raps on the front door.

Things had picked up speed from there. There was a lot of shouting about 'Where Mrs. Renar was!' and how the kids 'Didn't know and wouldn't tell anyways.' Of course, there were a lot more adjectives thrown in, and a lot more fireballs. Eventually -- after most of the house had been trashed -- the Wizard learned not to piss off a hundred pound female. Sylvia went for the cutting board and cracked the man in the head, knocking his hat off as she did so. He wasn't shouting so confidently, now. In fact, he was doing much more whimpering these days.

Their phones had quickly been jammed down the trash disposal once the block letters started scrolling. Just to be safe, Jordan had turned the water on, too -- filling the entire sink to short the circuits. He crossed the kitchen, now, and shut the faucet off. The sink gurgled wickedly.

By now, the siblings had reasoned that their mother's work at the Conklin Center downtown had everything to do with all this madness. Jordan pointedly avoided mentioning this to Logan as he finished the story.

" .. so, yeah. Sylvia got mad fast. Things are under control, more or less." Another whoosh; Jordan had missed the sink towels smouldering. "Where are you guys again? Wedgewood? You need a ride? Well, how did you get there?" Jordan frowned. "Wait. How in the heck did you fit three people on .. "

"They need a ride?" Sylvia looked back around. She observed Jordan with a curious expression. "Well, Jordan. Go get your keys, and we'll get them!"

"We are not going to pick them up." Jordan covered the receiver again.

"It's what mom would want us to do!"

"Dad wouldn't want us leaving the house."

"Mom wouldn't want them out there by themselves."

"Dad would tell us to not be idiots."

"Mom would say it's too late for that."

Sister and brother stared each other down. Jordan pretty much knew he had already lost. After glaring the glare to end all glares at Sylvia, Jordan uncovered the phone and returned to the conversation.

"Logan? Yeah, bro. Stay put. I'll come and get you in the truck. Tell Dawn to chill out. I don't wan you cramming three people on that bike again."

Jordan ended the call, stepped to the side, and carefully set the cordless phone back in its cradle.

"So." He cleared his throat, shifted his hold on the fire extinguisher, and looked down rather awkwardly at the wizard. "What're we gonna do with Mr. Chuckles here?"

"I don't know, Jordan." Sylvia raised the cutting board, and the wizard started to whimper again. "What do you think he was gonna do with us?"

"We'll take him along." Jordan decided. He set the extinguisher down, and reached for his CSHS lanyard that had his keys. "He shouldn't be too much trouble after the thrashing you gave him."

Sylvia absently hummed a Taylor Swift song as she seized a handful of the Wizards hair, and hauled him up and towards the door. She hefted the cutting board in her hand as a sort of cattleprod. While the two left the house, Jordan took the time to look around, let it all sink in.

This was his life. This was his life, smashed to bits and burning. No more rich lake-front houses for him anymore. Everything had changed. The world had changed.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Jordan grabbed a Klondike bar from the freezer before joining his sister and her hostage in his truck.

"Seatbelts." Was all he said as he climbed into the drivers's seat.

"Are you fucking kidding me." Sylvia poked her head out from the back. The Wizard was cowed neatly as far against the window as he could physically go. "What, you think we're gonna get a ticket for -- "

"I think if we're gonna be doing any evasive driving, I want you buckled up." Jordan jangled the keys, turned the engine on. He never thought he'd be so glad to hear his baby's V8 in his entire life. "Do it, Sylvie."

She scowled at him. "The end of the world trumps your five-star crash test rating." and she sprawled out, one foot on the Wizard's chest just to let him know, again, who was in charge.

"Your funeral." Jordan said, shrugging, as he backed them out of the driveway.

"You know .. " Sylvia poked her head out one more time. "Given the circumstances, that was a really poor choice of words."

Wedgewood Park had seemed like a good place to stop the bike. It was totally empty when they'd rolled by -- everyone probably run home to their families or been taken by the wizards already...

...wizards. They actually were, weren't they? They even had the freaking pointy hats. Dawn was almost embarrassed to be associated with an apocalyptic event that revolved around people in pointy hats. It was like some nerd kid's...

"That .. was awesome!"

...like one of Logan's wet dream fantasies. Not literal-- ew, bad thoughts. Moving away from that...

"Awesome? Logan... we just almost died, like a dozen times in a row! If things had panned out even a modicum differently, we'd be.. just.. splatters!" Dawn protested, turning to face the boy with a scowl. "You're an idiot!" she snapped, prodding him in the chest with an accusatory finger, "Now stop being an idiot, because if you being an idiot means you end up dead, I'll kill you!" Because that made sense. Dawn's mild Scottish accent was more pronounced when she was angry, and ranting, and it came through rather prominently here.

Dawn let out a growl of frustration as Logan was distracted by a payphone, obviously not taking anything of her raging in mind. "Are you even listening to me..?" The redhead sighed, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes with her palms. Calm, Dawn. Calm.

Whilst Logan and Sheri went about trying to figure out the phone -- or more, Sheri tried to convince Logan that a payphone couldn't read his mind, or something equally stupid - Dawn paced back over to her bike, to assess it for damage. Landing from an insane, impossible ramp jump with three people on it couldn't have done the suspension any good, or the wheels or... any part of it. The redhead ran a hand over the metal, crouching down to get a better view. That was scratched. Yup, that was broken... she wasn't even sure what that was, but it was safe to assume that it really shouldn't lodged in there.

"Good grief..." she muttered, shaking her head. This was beyond her capabilities to repair: the bike would run, as it had demonstrated, but it wouldn't be breaking any landspeed records, and there was a distinct possibility of a sudden unexpected breakdown -- something you didn't want when you were on the run from... wizards. Damn, it was still embarrassing just to think that.

The sound of talking from over at the payphone indicated that Jordan had picked up, and so Dawn straightened out of her crouch and wheeled the bike over with a sigh, muttering irritably about the state that her baby was in. Not literally - she didn't call it that, but the concept was the same. When Logan asked for an account about what had happened at Jordan's end, the redhead was sat to the side, leaning on her bike and staring up at the sky. She could gather a little of what was being said from here, by Logan's responses and reactions; it sounded pretty much as expected. Wizards, fire, rampant destruction. The important part was there weren't any gasps of shock. Nobody had died.

When the call ended, Dawn lowered her eyes to meet Logan's. "So. I guess we just... wait now, eh?"

The redhead frowned. "And I meant what I said. No. Being. Stupid. Kapeesh? Sheri, help me make sure that Logan stops being stupid, and realises that this isn't like his stupid zombie films, where he always thinks he could do oh-so-much-better than the characters in it. It isn't... much, and people always die on those anyway. This is serious, and I don't want your... enthusiasm getting you, or us, or anyone else, in trouble." she instructed, righting herself to prod once again at Logan's chest, glaring at him menacingly in the drastically close proximity. "Get it?"

"You need to settle down." Sheri frowned, catching the bare end of Dawn's tirade. She took two steps closer to the girl, and while she barely made it up to Dawn's nose, Sheri planted her head on her hips -- unwavering. "That's what we're going to get straight, first of all. You can call him stupid all you like, but the way things look -- we're all we have, for the moment."

Sheri pointed over at Logan, who was still finishing up his conversation with Jordan on the phone.

"That boy could end up saving our lives." There was no fear in Sheri's eyes. Her jaw was set, and it was clear she was talking down to the fiery redhead, no matter the consequences. "The sooner you quit with namecalling -- if that's really your mechanism with coping then I think the better of we'll be." The older woman brushed past Dawn without another word. "Let's move the bike, hide it."

Sheri shifted the kick stand and began to walk the wounded cycle down the curved path to where the ditch opened up, near the forest line. As she did so, there were a few dull thuds as Logan tried once, twice, to unsuccessfully end the call -- jabbing the receiver at the phone booth itself.

"Sheri! Shereeeeeeee! I think I broke the latch thing."

Sheri ignored him. There was a slight bump as the front tire hit the curb. The woman walked it over the woodchips getting closer and closer to the drainage ditch, a black hole for frisbees and kickballs and other things of childhood. This was not a safe place to wade or go fishing, many health notices had been sent out about drinking from the crick, and the CSHS Honors Bio class had even found a strain of E. Coli ..

And closer, closer came the bike.

"It's marshy. It'll sink." Sheri stood with the bike at the edge of a precipice. One good push, and it would rattle down the bluff and into the water. The woman stood, staring levelly at Dawn. "This is your test, dear. Are you going to risk the cycle being found and our trail being followed? It's all cute games when you're slashing necks in high school, but things are getting really real, really fast."

Sirens wailed overhead -- they were just below the underpass. The two ducked instinctively as a few emergency vehicles whizzed past, the doppler effect creating an eerie backdrop as the noise faded ..

.. it was just the gurgling of the crick that could be heard, now.

Sheri tapped her finger on the handle.

"Guys!" Logan came bounding back over -- having swerved low to avoid detection -- "I've got news. Jordan says some dude came to his house, but they've taken care of it. They're attacking all over, their cell phones aren't working either. He's coming to get us, I told him where we are." His story started to jump ahead of itself. "I didn't tell -- I didn't tell him about Nikki. I mean Charmena. I hope that's, you know. I mean -- sounds like something we should say in person .. "

Logan glanced from Dawn, to Sheri, and saw the bike in between.

"What's going on?" The good-natured youth did not wear 'worry' well. It just didn't suit him. He reached up, scratched the back of his head. There was still a wrinkle in his shirt where Dawn had so savagely, frantically stabbed at him not moments before. "Jordan should be about ten minutes way .. were you saying something?"

Dawn scowled. As much as she would die thrice over to admit it, her outburst had not been from anger -- or at least, not malicious anger -- but from concern. She was worried, and she hated it. The redhead was not very good at all at expressing concern, and the only way she could do it without brooding was through a rant. But obviously, she couldn't explain that to Sheri, for the same reason that she couldn't have simply said as much to Logan in the first place. As such, something of a pained expression came upon her face as she attempted to combine anger, brooding and irritation with exasperation, surprise, and even apology.

Even as Sheri did as none would have likely dared prior to the current circumstances, Dawn did not rise to the challenge. She could not communicate to Sheri that the only reason she had let loose was because she cared for Logan -- cared for them both -- and so the only thing that she could do to even come close to it was simply to nod in a manner that almost approached meekness. let Sheri think it was her determined and dismissive manner that had done it, but in truth it was a small whisper of her true feelings. Dawn grimaced just to be thinking anything that soppy...

But then the bike came into question, and Dawn's eyes widened.

She followed after the larger woman hastily, opening her mouth to protest, but not quite getting around to it as she was distracted by Logan's shrill whining. Dawn spared him a glance, blinking at his apparent incompetence, before turning back. And widening her eyes further. Was she... no. Surely not...

Dawn practically ran after Sheri then, drawing alongside her after a few bounds. She opened her mouth for a second time to protest -- this was her beauty, her prized possession, her cherished birthday gift from two years ago, more so than any of her other expensive things; the one possession that she never let out of her sight for more than an hour at a time. She'd always imagined riding it all the way through life, doing everything with it... okay, maybe not quite that dramatic, but the gist was there. She couldn't just let Sheri dump it in a marsh!

Before the redhead could speak, however, Sheri did so herself.

"This is your test, dear. Are you going to risk the cycle being found and our trail being followed? It's all cute games when you're slashing necks in high school, but things are getting really real, really fast."

Dawn blinked, mouth left open as if ready to speak, closing for a moment before opening again. No, this wasn't necessary -- they could hide it! And... come back to it? Yeah. That. The sirens passing overhead granted Dawn another moment to procrastinate with her response, inwardly scowling and outwardly staring.

.. it was just the gurgling of the crick that could be heard, now.

"Guys!"

Logan's approach snapped Dawn out of her thoughts to glance up at him, looking incredibly bemused, entirely unfettered in his naivety and, she had to admit, somewhat sweet in his wide-eyed innocence. Wait... what? That hadn't been her thought, had it? If it had been, it was going to get a beating later.

"What's going on?"

Pushing her stray thoughts away, Dawn frowned. "Nothing." she said simply, walking to the bike and giving it a hefty kick. The bright red, shiny cycle rolled forwards down the small slope, looking its most expensive in the few moments before it landed in the sludge with an unpleasant gluuuummmp. Dawn tossed the helmet in after it, sighing and giving Sheri a pointed glance before brushing past Logan to walk back a few paces and stare upwards at the sky.

"Nothing at all. Just cleaning up.." she murmured, letting out a second sigh. She wasn't entirely sure what she was sighing about, really. Perhaps the end of the world was catching up to her...

The ride over to Wedgewood was, in short, awkward as hell.

"Honestly, Jordan?" Sylvia sneered as they came to a respectable halt at the four-way stop on Bloom and North Clark. "If the Death Eaters come shit-storming after us, are you gonna, say, use your turn signal? Maybe -- I don't know, stop for a yellow? You're acting like you're on your damn learner's permit!"

"Sylvie .. " Jordan glanced both ways before pulling out slowly. "If we floor it to Wedgewood, how many Wizards do you think will be on our tail? Droves. Droves of them. If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to drive like we belong out here -- not like we're fleeing for our lives."

"Who -- who says droves?" Sylvia shook her head. She glanced back at the Wizard, who had mostly kept his comments to himself for the duration of the trip. "Do you say droves, Mr. Chuckles?" She nudged his chest with her foot, the cutting board resting comfortably in her lap. "Do you?"

Mr. Chuckles responded with something vague and dreamy, most of his words lost to severe blunt-force-trauma. Jordan gave a sigh.

" .. For the hundredth time, would you please put your seatbelt on?"

Sylvia responded eloquently with a middle finger.

Jordan's grip tightened on the wheel. A few miles passed. He spared a mournful glance at his Klondike bar wrapper, tossed into the passenger seat.

What would you do for a --

-- "JORDANOMIGAWDLOOKOUT!"

Sylvia's screech came out in one high-pitched, high speed missile. Jordan yanked his gaze back to the road. Nothing -- but then a blur in his rearview --

-- a logging truck from Ramble with a full load barreled past them, cargo leaning treacherously. The backdraft sending even their hefty F-250 wavering. Jordan fought for control -- he swerved, swore, and came to a shuddering halt in the gravel. He smelled smoke. What --

-- Sylvia gave a choked sort of gasp, the sudden stop leaving her tangled up in the backseat. She sat up, pushed her bangs out of her eyes just in time to see the semi rattling along at a terrifying pace.

The truck careened back and forth at eighty-plus miles an hour, uppermost logs not used to this deadly rhythm. There were at least four short-bed pickups dogging each of the trailer's moves -- Jordan didn't have to squint to see what was going on. Clear as day, he saw the figures in the back crouching against highway speeds. He saw pointy blue hats, and he saw fireballs. The Wizards were chasing the logger, and his load had caught fire. That's where the smoke smell had come from. Burning cedar.

Dust mixed with ash still rolled past them, reminding Jordan of the trailer's incredible mass. The driver must have been in some sort of panic, but there was no way he could outrun or outmaneuver those smaller trucks. Loggers often took these back roads to avoid weigh stations, stacking their payloads way over the legal limit. This meant --

"Oh my God." Jordan paled. " Oh my God. They can't -- that's gotta be 90-thousand tons of .. "

Sylvia whimpered as the truck made too sharp a turn. The pickups darted away, already sensing the danger -- the trailer began to jackknife. There was no chance for correction, not at that speed, not with that much weight. In horrifying slow motion, the fetters gave out, and with a heart-stopping crash -- the semi rolled. It rolled, and it rolled, and it rolled.

The logs snapped like toothpicks, tumbling off the carrier in a savage free-for-all. The rig itself buckled and skittered along the cement, sending sparks. Jordan closed his eyes.

"No .. "

When he dared to open them again, the pavement was covered in splintered cedar. He could make out the truck's dark underbelly through the haze; one wheel spun, almost lazily. Death, for the driver, would have been immediate. The pickups veered away. Their job was done. The smoke rose, the fire picked up -- they left the carnage to smolder.

Sylvia fumbled for her seat belt.

Click.

At the sound of latch meeting buckle, Jordan pulled back onto the road. Both lanes were completely blocked, so he turned at the first sidestreet he could find -- about two-hundred yards from the spill. A promotional billboard for Zombpocalypse leered down at them as they passed, demanding in harsh red letters: MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR GOD!

Neither he, nor Sylvia said anything for a while.

"Is this it?"

Nathan squinted into parking garage.

"The Taurus? Is that your car?"

The vampire kept walking in way of response, his footsteps taking him down the alley and away from where Nathan stood. "Yes."

"What -- really?" The mountain of a man scratched the back of his head. "Then why .. aren't we getting into it?"

"Easier to get out on foot, this way." Luke stopped. He didn't like stopping. If he was going to be on the move, then he liked to be on the move. He turned back to the man with a last name but no family -- he turned back to him with a slight frown. "One thing that must be said about vampires is that we are consistent, dangerously so. The Grand Mage keeps dutiful notes; my appreciation of Ford sedans hasn't escaped him over the years."

"The Grand Mage .. you mean .. "

"Thaddeus Farcry. Your constant commentary needs to stop."

"Right-o." Nathan jogged the thirty feet to where the vampire stood patiently. The man doubled over, wheezing. "Hang on, brother. Hang on a second .. you sure we can't take the car?"

Luke took a half-step to the side, and dropped the keys down a storm drain.

"Ahh .. "

Things may have quieted downtown, but this was the South Side. There were still Wizards in the street when the people began to fight back. As the first gunshots cracked, Luke gave a sudden glance to the man with no family.

"Time to go."

"I don't see them."

Though Jordan often struggled with the concept, there were some things about Sylvia that could be considered 'useful.' Her attention to detail rivaled that of any practicing mentalist, and she pulled it off with a damning certainty. No fleck of dust, no crooked hanger, no unsorted drawer was safe with her around. Jordan suspected that the talent had something to do with all the I-Spy books that had systematically vanished from his room during their childhood ..

So if Sylvia didn't see something, then it usually wasn't there to be seen. As Jordan coasted past the gate and into Wedgewood, she unglued herself from the window and tapped her brother on the shoulder.

"Jord, what if they're .. gone?"

"Nah. They're here, they gotta be." Jordan said it more for his benefit than anything.

Fingers crossed even as he nudged the steering wheel, Jordan followed the path west to a thicker alcove of trees, near the under-twelve playground -- the only place he could remember a payphone being. So there they sat, a cherry-red Ford F-250 out in the open -- three humans may not have been visible from the road, but their truck sure was.

Come on guys ..

Mr. Chuckles chose that moment to emit a low moan -- a more coherent-sounding moan than the other ones before. The excitement faded from Sylvia's face, and she turned slowly back to the Wizard, eyes filled with a sudden fire. Mr. Chuckles swallowed.

"Jordan -- "

"No, Sylvie."

" -- can't we just -- "

"I said no."

"But there's so many nice places to bury him around here .. " Sylvia clucked her tongue in disappointment, and Mr. Chuckles decided to go back to not saying or doing anything. "Jordan -- THERE THEY ARE!"

This time, a shriek from Sylvia yielded good tidings. Jordan raked the treeline with his gaze, and there was a flash of cyan -- Logan being the first to step out of the clearing --

"Still in his Smoothie Shack uniform, minus the hat and apron, thank God!" They were alive, they were alive! Jordan was out the door and bounding away, the engine still running before the truck could know what was going on.

Sylvia was just a second behind.

"Up." Lovingly as ever, she shouldered the Wizard, cutting board once again in her fist. "Out."

________________

"Hey."

"Hi."

Jordan and Logan met up, breathless.

"Good to see you."

"Same. Stayin' alive, bro?"

"Workin' on it."

"Where's your sister?"

Instead of answering, Jordan simply jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the truck. As though on cue, there was a ding! ding! as Sylvia opened the door, a sharp crack, a low moan, and then a cheerful -- "Oh hey Logan!"

Judging from Logan's expression, Jordan bet he didn't want to turn around.

"Yeah." The elder Renar scratched the back of his neck. "That's our friend. He made a great first impression, destroying our home and trying to kill us, like"

"Good Lord, I think she knocked him out .. "

"We call him Mr. Chuckles. Real conversationalist, he is -- "

"You brought him with you? You didn't mention that on the phone .. "

"There are a few things I didn't mention on the phone. Anyways, I figured if we're gonna be sharing the world with the Wizards, we might as well get to know them."

"Your sister is a raging psycho."

"I know."

Jordan stepped to the side, finally seeing Sheri and Dawn. They had been hiding near the creek. He lifted a hand to them in greeting, and it turned into a gesture, pointing to the truck. His message was clear -- there would be time for group hugs and singing later.

"Pack it in, Sylvie." Jordan returned to the truck with Logan in tow. Sylvia was trying her hardest to lug a newly-unconscious adult male back up into the back seat. "Logan -- give her a hand or something."

"Why do I have to -- "

"You think Dawn is touching that guy?"

Within about fifteen seconds, Logan was wedged uncomfortably in the backseat between a sleeping Wizard and a smirking Sylvia. Sheri fit herself in there somewhere, too, and Jordan had politely offered Dawn shotgun.

"Why does it smell like smoke in here?" Logan sniffed, and Jordan frowned.

"Never mind that." He threw the truck into gear, and they crawled back out towards the main gate. "Someone figure out where the heck we're going, because I think my house is busy burning to the ground."

Dawn really wasn't sure what it was with boys and monosyllabic greetings, but it seemed that no matter what the situation, that was all they did. Sometimes they didn't even bother with 'Hey', and just exchanged a 'Man Nod' with one another, stoic faced and gruff. Perhaps it was some sort of masculine delusion that caring about seeing your friends alive after the strong possibility of death was a weakness. Good grief, it probably was that, wasn't it? Dawn felt like smacking them, but that wasn't going to help things, really.

The redhead remained remarkably quiet as the group bundled into the truck, still somewhat sore over the loss of her bike, and Sheri's little dressing down. She did, however, glance at 'Mr. Chuckles' over the course of this, note his current state of 'beaten up', and offer Sylvia a respectful grin.

Wizard Count:

• Girls: Two (Mr. Chuckles and not-actually-called-Nikki)
• Boys: Nil

And so it was when Jordan spoke after the truck was full, that Dawn spoke again for the first time since their arrival in the cavalry-truck, turning to face him with a faint frown.

"I want to check on my Dad. Our house isn't far from here, you know where it is, Jordan."

If there was one person who was more successful at intimidating the boys of Cedar Spring High than Dawn Keating, then it was Andrew Keating. Everything about Dawn that was scary, angry and undeniably Scottish, came from him. There might have been one or two boys who dared to approach Dawn with anything other than friendship in mind were it not for his overshadowing presence -- every male visitor to the Keating residence always found themselves getting a 'talk' at some point, where they were (not so) politely informed of exactly which of their orifices Mr. Keating's prominent, wall-mounted shotgun affectionately dubbed Annabel would be shoved into were they to try anything with his precious little flower.

Now anyone in their right mind would know that Dawn was not someone you would describe as a 'precious little flower', unless you counted venus fly traps as flowers, and even then you didn't exactly get 'precious little' venus fly traps. But then again, it was questionable whether Andrew Keating was in his right mind. The same could be said about most angry Scotsmen, but Andy was perhaps a particularly angry man, even for a Scot.

It was easy to imagine then, that Mr. Keating would definitely be very much alive at this point, gunning down wizards in the dozens from his porch, Annabel in hand, bright red hair and beard glinting in the sunlight dramatically while he shouted incomprehensible Scottish swear words at the top of his very, very loud voice. Perhaps he would have scared the wizards away just by shouting at them. Wizards had orifices too, after all.

"We'll probably be able to hear him before we see him." Dawn smirked as this image of her father came into mind; perhaps he'd have put on his ceremonial kilt, just to look particularly movie-like. The redhead sat back and clicked her seatbelt on, having none of the rebellious 'it's the end of the world, screw health and safety' ideas like those of Sylvia.

"Well..." Deciding that this would be a good time to acknowledge everyone's state of breathing-ness, Dawn gazed out of the windscreen up at the sky. "It's good to see you two are alright. Like, not on fire or anything."

As the truck moved, the redhead noticed an awkward silence attempting to blanket the group, the weight of the 'end of the world' rather heavy on conversation.

"Oh!" Dawn sat forwards, an amused grin coming to her face. "You'll never guess who turned out to be a wizard..." she said, leaving a gap for the obligatory 'Who?' "Nikki Trawley. The little beauty-queen. Little bitch tried to spring a trap on us."

It was easy to tell, just from Dawn's expression, that that hadn't ended well for the other girl.

The truck drove on....

"Wait," Sylvia's nose crinkled as she tried to work out what had just been said, "Nikki's a Wizard? So you mean -- she's part of .. of them?"

Despite the age difference, Nicole Trawley and Sylvia Renar had been close friends since both girls went to cheer camp in the summer of 2004. In the six years since then, the two formed one of those devil-may-care bonds complete with sleepovers spent gossiping viciously over anyone slightly overweight or slightly different, lots of re-touched facebook photos edited with things like -- "bffs 4 life!" in curly bright letters, and various failed attempts to snare Boys Of Outrageous Behinds (or BOOBs as they, giggling, liked to call them) into that elusive, desired trap of love.

All of that was gone, now. Nicole was a Wizard, and had betrayed her best friend.

Everyone watched Sylvia, now, with a measured amount of sympathy. Even Jordan, who had been victim to both the girls' late-night sleepover scheming, looked up from his driving and glanced into the rearview. Sylvia was staring down at her lap, twisting her hands around the handle of the cutting board. Logan almost reached out to put an arm around the girl.

"Listen, Sylvia -- "

And then Sylvia's head snapped up. Her curls sparked with electricity, and her teeth were clenched. Logan retracted his hand rather quickly.

"That .. fugly little hugslut!"

"Oh, dear," Jordan returned his eyes to the road.

"I will rip out every single fake-chestnut hair on that skank's head! Do you know what she said to Sally Carman once, in seventh grade?"

"I couldn't even begin to care."

"She said my curls were fake. She said that. About me!" Sylvia seized a handful of her hair, her curly-twirly locks, leaned over in her seat and practically stuffed them up Logan's nose as she screeched -- "DO THESE LOOK FAKE TO YOU?"

"Nohmygodthosearesoreal!"

"Fuck that skank-ass bitch. I am not kidding," Sylvia made claws with her hands, and Logan (who, to his credit, thought he was doing pretty well so far) leaned away and into a sleeping, slightly bleeding Mr. Chuckles, "because you know what she did almost a week after that? She got a fucking perm! Trying to be like me! Not to mention she got all pissed when I didn't say how gorgeous it was."

Sylvia paused. She heaved in a few breaths of air.

"Because it wasn't!"

"-- yeah, I got that Sylvie."

"It wasn't gorgeous."

"Right."

"And then when Lacey Miedema -- "

The rules for dealing with a wound-up Sylvia were keep engagement at a minimum, and just nod along so that she doesn't think you're ignoring her. God and all his Saint's help you if she thought she was ignoring you. For now, however, Sylvia had a Logan and a Sheri trapped with her in the backseat. The burden of pretending to care was on them -- so long as Jordan kept nodding vaguely once in a while, he could tune her out.

And so Jordan glanced to the side and nudged Dawn in the leg with his free hand.

"Hey. You're not a Wizard too, are you?"

He let a few beats pass; sometimes his humor was a hit and miss. Jordan continued.

"Look, we'll find your dad. Don't worry. He's probably beating the crap out of those Wizards with his bagpipes, anyways," Jordan grinned, and when he grinned you believed everything was going to be alright, "and then maybe we'll find mine humming Aerosmith kicking equipment up at the station trying to figure out what went wrong."

What Jordan wouldn't give to hear -- "fly high with double-yewwwwww sky! coming from the truck's radio right now ..

" -- but then even though she made it her facebook status, she said it didn't matter! And I was like -- you're such a poser! Everyone can tell it was you! I mean, who the fuck cares about the photo in the first place, but noooooo! She had to make a huge deal about it, all because she knew that Daniel liked me more than he liked her! And that was always one thing she could never really grasp, never wrap her stupid little mind around. I -- "

Sylvia, apparently, wasn't done. Her voice rose and like a roller-coaster of thrilling scorn, ripping along a track of disgust and pent-up hatred.

"-- and then when Logan asked Kimberly to the Winter Formal, everything was suddenly --"

"Woah, woah, wait, what? Hang on, stop, back up -- red light, hold the phone!" Logan flailed his arms a bit. He leaned up off of Mr. Chuckles and stared, "when did I get involved with this?"

Jordan, despite the seriousness of their current predicament, snorted into a fist.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Sylvia's rant had been knocked off track. She sat hair frizzed and fingers still clawing imaginary throats in the air, and she just gave Logan a look, "are you telling me you had no idea she's been stalking you since middle school, just like every other female specimen in the tri-county area?"

"Wow, really?"

Sylvia made a final, general all-around sound of frustration at the matter, grabbed for her cutting board, and turned away to stare out the window past a rather amused and smiling Sheri.

In a way, Jordan was glad that Sylvia had decided to fly off the handle. It covered anyone asking him questions about why he had chosen all the back roads to get to Dawn's house instead of taking the usual interstate. Logan in particular would have wanted to take that particular route, if only for the Zombpocalypse poster on the 8th street billboards -- but the last thing Jordan wanted to do was go anywhere near the scene of the wreck.

And so when things finally settled down, they were about five minutes from Dawn's house. Jordan turned onto Clark Drive, and couldn't help noticing smoke rising from over the first hill.

This was dark and coiling smoke, the sort of smoke that came from things that weren't supposed to be burning. Jordan knew this from summer weekends full of 'experimental bonfires' and he couldn't shake the grim, nagging feeling that he was going to be learning a lot about fire in the next dew days.

Jordan observed the speed limit of 25 miles-per-hour, and the truck crawled along closer to whatever the hell it was waiting for them over the next rise.

It wasn't pretty.

Dawn's house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac and had always, to Jordan's overactive imagination, seemed alive. Its doors and windows stared smugly -- surrounded by arms of wide brick that wrapped low and laced its iron-work fingers as the gate at the end of the drive. Now as they crested the hill, Jordan hated the fact that he saw the house this way because it made the unfolding scene all the more horrific.

The 'fingers' were broken, half of them cast to the side and mangled. Up the hill, past 'rounded shoulders' the old house no longer had eyes, and the 'mouth' of its door was blown open, lips stained with soot.

But it was still standing, mostly. The fact that the foyer and west wing had held their ground spoke volumes of the skill of the initial builders -- the house had been built back when people actually knew how to lay brick. It was the roof that was causing problems -- even from this distance all they could see were patches, bare bits of latticework here and there; the rest had collapsed in on itself, probably crashing down onto the first floor or even the basement.

Here, too, was where the fire found its hold. There was a sinister glow from the eastern part of the house -- a glow that quickly turned to thick, black, twisting smoke whisked away into cheerful white clouds by a pleasant southwest wind.

Jordan felt his eyes watering and his nose stinging. He didn't glance at Dawn as he brought the truck to a stop not ten feet away from the mangled front gate -- but when his eyes saw that the Keating crest had been tossed away like a used tissue, he knew he had to say something.

"Dawn --"

But the girl had already flown out of the truck, slamming the door with a passion behind her. Jordan saw her red hair flying behind her as she made to sprint past the gate, up the hill and towards what had once been her home.

"No!"

What was she going to do? Jordan had abandoned the truck before he could rationalize what they were attempting. This is idiotic. We're running towards a burning house. The fumes alone could kill us in there. I can feel the heat from here. Oh my God. I can feel the heat.

And indeed he could. Jordan was dimly aware of people scrambling out of the truck behind him, but all he saw was Dawn. All he saw was Dawn, charging up her driveway against the silhouette of --

-- she didn't stop, even when the fire seared his face, made him blink through the smoke and confusion. With abandon he made one final charge and managed to catch Dawn around the middle, swinging her to a stop mere feet before she could reach her front walk.

He could feel her fighting him, but he just held onto her tight. If this were an embrace or just an attempt to stop her from plunging into the house and getting killed, Jordan wasn't sure. The tears were rolling freely down his cheeks by now as he half-carried, half-dragged the girl -- though in retrospect, that might have just been a reaction to the acrid, bitter, biting smoke.

Dawn grinned along with Sylvia's rant all through the drive -- of the people in the car, Dawn was possibly the only one not intimidated by the girl. Perhaps that was something to do with a shared state of 'alpha-female'; clearly the two girls were the bosses in this car. Jordan might be deciding where they drove, but that wasn't much compared to what an idle -- perhaps slightly grating word -- from Sylvia or Dawn could provoke. Sylvia and Dawn could take out wizards, they could certainly take inconvenient complaining or resisting male friends down a peg.

In time, however, Sylvia's ranting faded into the background, and the redheads thoughts returned to her father. He'd be alright, of course. He and Annabel. He'd probably have a nice pile of wizards waiting for them when they got there, and he'd meet them on the drive with that wild smile of his, that made it oh-so-obvious that he'd been up to no good. The smile that made his beard curl just like that, and always made Dawn laugh, no matter the situation.

"Hey. You're not a Wizard too, are you?"

Dawn looked up with a blink at Jordan's touch, glancing over at her friend with a slightly distant expression for a few moments before registering what he'd said. The girl chuckled quietly, a single 'heh' and a smile. Hit and miss indeed. But that was alright, because Jordan kept going, and (probably without knowing it, entirely) said just what Dawn needed to hear. At the bagpipes comment Dawn laughed -- a proper laugh, this time, and punched the grinning idiot on the arm.

"I know, don't worry. I'm fine. He'll be fine. I mean, you're alive, and you're a wuss, right?" she teased, returning the grin.

Dawn settled back into listening to Sylvia's little rant, occasionally snickering - none the more so than at her comments regarding Logan.

"Are you telling me you had no idea she's been stalking you since middle school, just like every other female specimen in the tri-county area?"

"Wow, really?"

"Yes, really." Dawn interjected with a smirk, glancing over her shoulder at the boy. "This morning, at the smoothie shack?" This morning? It felt like last month... "Didn't you notice that crowd of gawking nitwits gathered around you, with Nikki Charmeena-balls-of-fire-whatever at their head?" The redhead turned back around, chuckling. "You really are just a pretty face, aren't you? Nothing beneath those curls but bone and air..."

Thinking back on the happenings at the mall, Dawn didn't notice the smoke that Jordan spotted until they topped the rise.

At first, she didn't quite believe it. Maybe she wouldn't let herself believe it -- but for the first few seconds, as they approached the burning ruin that was her home, it didn't register in Dawn's mind that this was her home at all. She stared all the same; a burning building drew the eye after all, and it was only as the truck pulled up outside the gate that she realised just what she was seeing meant.

Flashbacks went through the girl's head of days spent running through the house's gardens, and hallways, playing games of hide-and-seek with her father. Her mother sitting by the fireplace at christmas, one of the rare occasions when the woman came to visit. Dawn sat under the tree opening presents as a little girl, giggling madly as toys and clothes came out of their wrapping. She remembered sitting on the front porch - the one she now saw splintered, charred, with remnants of the door frame scattered over it - on warm summers days with Jordan and her other friends, exchanging stories and licking ice creams, the warmth of the sun on their faces.

The only warmth on Dawn's face now was from the fire, as it vaguely dawned on her that she was running. Moving up the driveway, vague whispers of "No" and incoherent prayers passing her lips without thought. She remembered when she'd first come outside on her seventeenth birthday to find her bike waiting on the drive, her father standing beside it proudly, that smile of proud mischief on his face.

That smile, the one that made his beard curl just like that.

"Oh God no..." Her own voice, again, cutting through the crackling of the fire and bouncing around her head a dozen times over. Where was he? He'd have escaped the fire, of course -- he probably dodged a fireball, and it hit the house, and he had to get out. But what if he was in there? Dawn didn't even feel the heat any more, not consciously anyway. She had to get inside, to get inside and find him, and save the memories -- the box of memories.

Another flashback, her mother smiling down at a still young Dawn as she slid a shoebox into a cabinet. "There! Now it's all safe, for when you miss something in it, or when we want to remember all the best times..."

A time capsule for themselves, not for the future, with photos and keepsakes stowed away within. They'd been put away to keep them safe. But now what? They were probably ashes...

"No!"

Jordan's cry was distant, another world. She wasn't stopping now. Every semblance of the hardened and fiery Dawn was gone now, tears running freely. Her home was burning. Her father nowhere to be seen -- nowhere with that knowing smile, that mischievous grin. The one that made his beard curl just like that...

Then his arm was around her middle, and she was being pulled back. No! "Let go of me!" she screamed, her voice broken through sobs and coughing from the smoke, her face blackened by smoke and wet with tears "No... I've got to find him!" she cried, punching her hands into her friend, over and over, pounding at his arms and chest even as his arms wrapped fully around her and pulled her back, away from the heat and the smoke. Dawn's protests, kicks and punches became steadily weaker as she was pulled away from the house front, until they stopped entirely, and the redhead collapsed into wracking sobs, leaning into Jordan and burying her face in his shoulder.

It was all gone. Everything -- all the memories, the little corners and nooks that nobody but she knew about, the hidey holes where she stowed herself away as a child during hide and seek. The knowing smile when her father found her, that made his beard curl up just like that...

"Oh God Jordan.. it's... it's gone, he's gone, where is he? He should be here, they can't have..." Dawn's voice was cracked and stammering. It just went to show that no matter how hard your outer shell, no matter the prowling, vengeful person you were when you were in your element, some things were beyond shells. This was a world where confidence and strength of will meant very little to the people about to burn your face off, and all the shouting in the world couldn't save a life.

A few hours earlier.

Just as he was about to deliver the 2:05 WSKY weather report, DJ Dan the Afternoon Man heard a low rumble pass over the station and everything -- even the 'On-Air' light above the door went dark.

"Woah! Hey! Wooooah .. "

Dan Renar reached out with a finger to calm Bobblehead-Betty who had been sent into all kinds of tremors thanks to what had been (Dan imagined) a rather feisty gust of wind. He flicked a switch on the receiver next to him -- nothing came through his headphones. Dan's chair gave a squeak of protest as he leaned back, and waved to Henry Meye in the next room.

"What's going on?"

Henry didn't have an answer quite yet. He spared Dan a look, just one hurried look before going back to the age-old standby of all board operators -- just pushing random buttons. Or, at least, that's what it looked like to Dan from his position in a dark, unlit studio.

"Nothing but dead air, Dan!" Henry called back, brow furrowed, once his odd ritual was complete "it's gotta be a transmitter problem."

"That thing again? You have got to be kidding me .. "

WSKY-FM was in dire need of a new transmitter. It had served well back in the 70's when there had been twenty miles of clean, open air from here in Ramble down to Cedar Springs and even as far south as Hatwick -- but since those years the land had been developed and buildings rose into the valley interfering with signal. As a senior prank in the early 80's, the graduating class of CSHS had wired enough short-wave radios from Skipper Point to temporarily throw the station off its Sunday night 'Back-To-God' program. Dan grinned. They can't prove anything.

The transmitter buckling completely, though? That hadn't happened in about six years. Oh, sometimes the signal weaved in and out if the wind from Torch Lake got too ambitious; this was, of course, a perpetual hazard of their location. Generally the signal came back, as though apologetic for wandering off lost amidst all the towering cedar.

But the power had never gone out before! Dan stroked his chin thoughtfully. He slid off his headset, placed it carefully on its designated stand, got up, and strolled out of the studio.

Henry was already making calls, looking slightly comical with a different receiver for each ear. He juggled both of them, cradling them between his neck and shoulders while he punched through each corporate and commercial number he could remember off the top of his head.

"No one's picking up .. not downtown, and not at the Keeler building," the man scowled.

"Maybe it's the phone. Did you try calling on your cell?"

"Eh. Dead, anyways. Forgot to charge it last night."

Dan pulled out his Blackberry to lend a hand, but wasn't surprised to find that the signal was too weak. Being tucked up in the mountains like this had its pros and cons -- right now, it was looking as though the latter outweighed the former.

"It wasn't supposed to be terribly windy," Dan mentioned helpfully, remembering the weather report that had been printed off for him, lying abandoned on its stand back in the studio.

Just then, a door slammed from somewhere down the hall. Dan heard her heels clicking before he saw her -- there was Monica, their secretary, with a pencil tucked behind one ear and a pen tucked behind another, ends lost in frizzled brown hair. She chewed her lip, and stood there looking from one man to the other.

"Whole station is down. Can't get reception anywhere else either, and no one's picking up."

Henry hung up one phone, and then the other, "how long d'ya think it'd take to get someone to come up and look at the transmitter?"

"Oh, about an hour at least."

"Damn," Henry shook his head, and for the first time Dan Renar felt the slightest prick that something wasn't right.

"Maybe it's magic!" Monica joked, and both men had to laugh.

Suddenly feeling better and slightly silly for his misgivings, Dan (who was also station manager as well as the afternoon DJ) gave a shrug.

"Might as well go home, you guys."

"Go home?"

"The last time the transmitter went out this completely, it took three days before we were back up and running. And if by some miracle we do get back in the next hour or so, we've got enough songs lined up to last until Shawn shows up."

Henry laughed, took off his glasses, and began to clean them, "alright, alright. I can go for that. Maybe I'll surprise the wife and have dinner ready by the time she gets back from Memphis."

"Sweetheart, the world would end before you figured out your way around a stove," Monica snorted, and it was just Dan to chuckle this time.

"Okay, you two take care!"

"Bye, Dan!"

"See you later, now."

Dan never wore a coat and so he just walked a straight line from the back room, down the hall, and then out the front door. The towering cedars of Ramble waited for him, waving in the strong breeze and all was well in the world.

Sure, driving got a little precarious in the winter -- but for the most part, Dan didn't mind his lengthy commute. Days like today made everything feel worth-while. Maybe he'd take a leaf out of Henry's book, and make supper instead of ordering take-out. He and the kids didn't expect Lisa home from work 'till late.

Dan jangled his keys in his pocket while humming a lesser-known Beatles tune. He approached his car, his baby -- a bright yellow 1969 Cougar Eliminator with black racing stripes with an almost audible sound of undiluted joy.

The car had belonged to Dan's father, and was now in his loving possession. He had decided belatedly to make the car a family heirloom. Jordan would receive it when he turned eighteen. Sylvia had never learned to appreciate the thing, even fostering such hurtful nicknames as the 'canary-car' and refusing to be seen in something of such an 'audacious' and 'horrific' shade. At least Jordan understood a rare, classic care when he saw one ..

And so Dan roared from the WSKY parking lot with the open road under him, turning left and finding (as was per usual) no traffic meeting him south.

He opened the throttle carefully -- Dan had recently overhauled the engine and if he pushed too hard, he could hear the engine making a few coughs or sputters. The windows were open and the wind whipped around in the car's cabin; the radio was on, but Dan wouldn't have heard anything anyways.

Things went along beautifully like that for about twenty minutes before the Cougar's engine gave a choking sound, and downshifted suddenly. Dan jerked his hands tighter around the wheel as the powerful engine slowed mournfully -- he pulled over in a spray of gravel.

Not ready to be brought down from his good mood, Dan swore good-naturedly and was out of the car at once, unlatching the hood to take a look at the damage. A cursory glance and a few squints told him all he needed to know -- a vacuum line to the carburetor had blown. The new engine had come with new, fancy plastic heads to cover the intake lines so prevent air being diverted away from the engine needlessly -- but in the heat, the plastic had expanded and it looked like the cover had flown off a few miles back. This was why the engine had been running rough. Dan patted the hood in what he imagined was a consoling fashion.

For about fifteen minutes Dan tried a few variations of switching covers and starting the engine. This only resulted in a weak, rasping rumble to the vehicle. It was still sucking air where it shouldn't have been -- there was no way around it, he'd have to find another way back home.

Though it pained him to leave the car there it had to be done. Now feeling slightly miffed, Dan reached for the phone at his belt. The last thing he needed was for this dumb thing not to --

-- thankfully, his phone had enough signal to make a call. Dan tried ringing Jordan, then Sylvia, then called home. Dan waited four rings before the answering machine clicked in, and Jordan's dry voice could be heard saying -- "here comes the beep! You know what to do."

Dan grinned, "cute, Jord, but we're gonna change that, right? Okay, anyways -- transmitter at the station's gone down and I was on my way home when the Cougar's engine went out. I'm about twenty miles north on the W5; looks like I'll need a ride back in. It'd be great if you guys picked up your phones once in a while, as often as you both seem to .. "

Dan turned when he heard the low growl of engine brakes rolling up from somewhere up the road. Ah! There was a Hoyle Logging truck coming his way from the north. It had just crested the last hill, and was it pulling over? Huh. You'd think those guys wouldn't want to slow their route, but Dan had known the Hoyle brother's since college, and they were good guys. maybe one of their sons had see the instantly-recognizable canary-colored Cougar, and were stopping to see if he were okay.

"Hmm .. "

The truck was definitely pulling over, and it was definitely carrying a hefty load of cedar. Dan lifted his arm in greeting to the driver; he had recognized the face, "Yeah. Actually, funny thing! Sam Hoyle's son just pulled over, looks like he's going to bring me back in, even if he just drops me off at the corner station. Make sure you kids do the dishes, and Sylvia, I know your mother wants that living room vacuumed. I don't want the house a mess. Love both of you kids -- will talk later when I get home. Buh-bye."

Dan Renar ended the call, and re-clipped the phone to his belt. He took a step towards the truck, trudging back to where it had come to a stop.

Maybe that one step was the step he needed, because even though he couldn't see it -- suddenly, red block letters began to scroll across the screen ..

Dawn half-collapsed, and Jordan was quick to bend with her. This left his knees smarting on the pavement while Dawn folded into him. She wasn't making sense anymore. Her words had just turned into a tumbled series of vowels all swelling together from the shock. Jordan wrapped his arms tighter around the girl, feeling the wetness of her tears against his neck and smelling the strawberries and smoke in her hair.

The house still burned as freely as ever, and even though they were a 'safe' distance away from the blaze its heat was unforgiving. Jordan wiped sweat from his forehead before it could drip into his eyes. He knelt there with Dawn for what must have been ten minutes; thankful she wasn't hitting him anymore. From the base of the driveway, Logan looked on.

Not that he really saw them. Logan was the picture of emptiness. He stood eyes hooded, fists jammed in his pockets, jaw set. Something coppery filled his mouth; he spat to the side. Blood, from chewing the inside of his lip too hard and not noticing. His entire body felt numb.

’Make Peace With Your God!’

Strange. Even though he had been in the mall when the crisis broke, even though he had watched Nikki -- sorry, Charmena casting fire with her own hands, even though he had lived out an escape scene straight from the Bourne films .. Logan realized it was only in this moment that everything clicked, that everything felt real. Wizards were taking over the world. Funny, right? No one was laughing now.

In contrast to Logan, Sylvia couldn’t seem to stand still. She tried pacing one way, then another – hands snarled in her curls, eyes red and puffy. The girl’s expression was drawn somewhere between horror and disbelief. She had to move! But where? Back to the truck? Over to where Jordan and Dawn?

Sheri stood even further back behind the kids. Her mind was somewhere else completely – thinking perhaps about a fiancé who was a volunteer firefighter, or a mother who lived on the East Side. Her gaze trailed from the flaming house to the crest of a hill where only blue sky could be seen. Perhaps she was wondering what was beyond that hill.

None of them could have known that the Keating’s backyard (once so richly manicured, full of luscious green) was now crisscrossed with swathes of charred black from low-flying fireballs as though a child had angrily taken up a black crayon on paper.

None of them could have known that there were four bodies of four very dead Wizards crumpled here and there like lawn ornaments -- Wizards who had discovered that fire magic was not very good for deflecting bullets.

None of them could have known that a fifth body was not wearing a robe and a hat.

Mr. Keating had made his final stand in the garden about a stone’s throw from the house itself. Flowers had withered from the heat, stone from marble statues was blasted away. Andrew’s body lay half submerged in the fountain, as though he had crawled there in a panic once being lit up like a stuck pig. None of them could have known this, which was almost for the better. The smell of burning flesh would have made them sick.

They couldn’t have known, but somehow they did. Dawn, Sheri, Jordan, Sylvia – even Logan. They knew, but didn’t see. They didn’t want to see.

“Jordan,” Sheri spoke up, now, loud enough to be heard over the roaring and hissing of the fire. “We have to go.”

At these words, Logan was jerked from his trance, Sylvia turned her head blearily, and Jordan gave a small little frown.

“Not every house on the block got burned like this,” the woman kept talking. “And from what you said happened at your house, I can already paint a picture for you. The Wizards came here looking for Dawn’s mother, like they did looking for your mother. Whoever these people are, they’re tying up loose ends and the last thing we need is to give them a sitting set of hostages. We have to go.”

Jordan breathed in, breathed out. It seemed such a simple thing to do, but nothing was simple anymore.

“She’s right. They – we’re not safe here,” oh, shit. His voice was shaking; he had just realized that his own house was probably now in a similar state of disrepair. “We could head up to Ramble. Maybe bog down at Logan’s house. I doubt the Wizards know where that is.”

Sylvia unstuck her throat.

“Are you stupid? Ramble is made up of solid trees,” she tugged at her hair, harder. “Trees that .. “ her voice cracked at the memory of the logging truck, “ .. that burn.”

"What do you want to do, then?" Jordan yelled, and he immediately regretted it. He still had Dawn in his arms. He quieted. "Dawn. Look. Sheri has a point. I don't know how safe it is being here right now. But .. w-what do you want us to do?"

"Guys!"

It was Logan's voice croaking, now -- his first words in the last half hour. He had wandered back down to the truck (maybe more eager to leave than the others) and seemed to be charging back up the driveway towards them.

"Mr. Chuckles is gone!"

Dawn didn't really hear much of the conversation that was going on between the others. Her sobbing had quieted to heavy breathing, the occasional tear still rolled down her cheek, but something was passing. A second shell; tougher than the last. It was one thing to make a shell to not care about high school, another thing entirely to be able to keep your head in a situation like this. Dawn remained buried in Jordan's arms - thoughts in a tangled mess, not knowing what to do, think or say - until his shout at Sylvie snapped her back to the present.

For the first time, Dawn noticed the heat of the blaze, the sweat and faint charring on her face, the crackling and splintering of the house's wood. She registered what was happening -- the words passing between her friends; Jordan comforting her, holding her. She loved him to pieces in that moment, for not trying to say anything, for not trying to 'make things better', for just... being there. Dawn didn't need to be patronised. It was when she caught her name that she fully tuned into what was being said.

"Dawn. Look. Sheri has a point. I don't know how safe it is being here right now. But .. w-what do you want us to do?"

The redhead lifted her head from Jordan's shoulder, hair dangling limply down over her eyes before she tentatively brushed it aside. Face wet with a mixture of sweat and tears, Dawn inhaled deeply -- a mistake, because that immediately inspired a brief coughing fit from the smoke -- before replying.

"Jordan, I..." she whispered, lifting a hand up to rest on his arm, "I need to... I need to see him."

There was no way that Dawn could walk away from her home without finding her father's body. Only then would the sense of finality fully settle over her. Only then would she be able to accept it, accept that the man with the jolly smile and the air of utter invincibility about him could be dead.

Breathing in again, Dawn closed her eyes for a moment to gather herself fully, drawing in on herself and suppressing the desire to burst out in tears again. "I'm going around the back... there might be another way in from there that's less dangerous." she said quietly, probably audible only to Jordan. He'd have to explain to the others. With a forced, fleeting smile, Dawn pulled away from her friend's embrace and stood, glancing at the others briefly as she walked backwards a few steps. With a sense of determined stubbornness, Dawn turned away and strode around to the side of the house.

Her hands clenched and unclenched as she walked, and her breathing was ragged. She squinted her eyes against the smoke, and raised her hand as if to ward off the heat as she passed close to the side of the house. Her expensive boots crunched in the gravel of the pathway leading to the back yard. Dawn was alone when she first emerged out onto the scene, and her breath caught in her throat.

The wizards were the first thing she saw, crumpled bodies with bloody holes torn in their chests, blue hats comically skewed on the floor. Dawn paced further into the garden, passing close to one of the men's bodies. His eyes stared lifelessly at the sky, but Dawn recognised him as... their dentist. The dentist was a wizard. Jesus...

If Dawn was planning on musing on the oddness of that combination of professions, the sight of her father quickly dismissed them. She froze in mid-step, eyes locking onto the figure in the fountain; his characteristic red hair just visible. Anabelle lay helplessly on the grass a few feet away. Hesitantly, nervously, Dawn moved forwards. Her legs shook, and tears once more found their way to her face. Kneeling by the side of the fountain, Dawn extended a hand to gently lift that of her father's from where it dangled out, clutching it tightly.

"Dad..." she whispered to the air, blinking the wetness in her eyes away. "I'm sorry..." What for? Dawn didn't really know. "Mum would be proud... you took those bastards with you..." a heavy sob cut her words off, but Dawn suppressed it again, suppressed the tears. She couldn't collapse into a teary wreck. Not now. Not in the middle of all this...

Mourn the dead when you know that you won't be one of them soon. But she couldn't leave him like this, either.

Jordan watched on from the entrance to the garden, hesitant about joining Dawn at Andrew's side. There were some moments to be shared, and others that were... well, not.

Carefully, Dawn reached into the fountain to hook her hands under her father's body. She half-lifted, half-dragged him towards her, straining at the man's greater weight as she pulled him from the water and onto the grass. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, but by this point she seemed unaware of them. They weren't her tears any more. At this point, Jordan stepped forwards and made his presence known.

"Dawn, can I... help?"

Dawn looked up in surprise. She hadn't noticed him follow her. Wordlessly she nodded, and her friend joined her. Dawn hooked her hands under Andrew's arms, and Jordan lifted his legs, and together they carried his body away from the wizards to the top of the picturesque garden, where they lay him gently on his back. Dawn knelt down and rested his arms on his chest, folded.

"Goodbye, dad..." she whispered, kissing her father gently on the forehead before pulling away. Her tears had faded, and her breathing was calmer. She would mourn later. Grieving would not keep her -- and more importantly, in her eyes -- her friends alive through the rest of this shit. The redhead stepped away from Andrew, and with a nod to Jordan they began to make their way back to the side of the house, but something caught her eye, and she paused.

Dawn turned and took a few steps back, reaching down and closing one hand around Anabelle. She lifted the weapon, testing its weight. Half full, she judged. There were more shells in the shed, though.

A few minutes later, Dawn re-emerged from the little wooden shed with her handbag bluging full. She'd discarded most of her things, makeup, and other unnecessary accoutrements. Instead, she now had a nice few boxes of shotgun shells. The redhead looked up to Jordan and cocked Anabelle on her shoulder, taking a deep breath.

"C'mon." she said, smiling faintly. "Mr. Chuckles has a head start on us."

And back around to the front of the house she strode, leaving Jordan somewhat dismayed.

Dawn with a shotgun. Dear god...