A violent splashing from the water annouced Dren's presence but instead of being at the shore line he was still several yards from the water's edge, his head barely above water. A few kicks and bobs later and he appeard to have found footing in the lakes 5' area. "Lake's n'more than seven feet at best. Th'bird's gone. An she took m'bloody axe wit'er." now at waist deep he looked back and threw angrily, if tiredly, threw his bright yellow glow stick at the area he last knew her body to be "Wench!" he cursed loudly before lugging himself back to waters edge, skewered head in tow.

“Nice accessory,” Raven said as she looked at the demon head attached to Dren’s hand. “It’s sure to be all the rage in Paris. Before you know it, all the kids will be wearing one.”

Dren paused to catch his breath then stood upright and lifted his cranium adorned hand and said "Alas! Poor, Yorick. I knew 'im well Raven. A demon o'infiniate phlem, o'most excellent sticky!" with an encouraging smile he nodded to her and gestured toward the van.

Alex squirted some of the orange goo onto her leg, kicking it back and forth when it became mobile to flick off the demon mucus.  This was part of the reason she had bought such an expansive wardrobe; regular outings such as todays tended to ruin clothing, and quickly.

Handing the super-soaker to Dren, she gingerly touched the side of her face where the demon had planted its fist.  It was already starting to swell, but at least she hadn't had any teeth knocked loose.  Tonight was a night for ice packs and a longing for Slayer-speed healing.

"If we're going to do clean-up, it would be better if Johnny and someone else took the wounded somewhere they can be cared for, while rest of us sort out the demons."  She flicked a finger toward the car she and Raven had pulled up in.  "Its not like we can't get home once the van's gone."

Dren nodded in agreement ad he took the supersoaker and applied sparring amounts around his arm, "Th'good news is, this stuff is flamable. We dinna need t'tie down anythin'. Jus' se'it on fire. But I agree, we can split up from 'ere." frustrated he put the head down and stepped on it while applying small amounts of solvent to the thick, glue like, snot keeping his hand attached to the arrow. It was clear Dren was not planning on using a drop more than he had to.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:44, Fri 28 Jan 2005.

From the front seat of the van, Johnny’s scanner crackled.

“Charlie 12, this is Control. Proceed to Creve Coeur Park. Citizen reported sighting a flare or fireworks rise and fall over the tree line….

Control, Charlie 12, Roger, request you also call out Fire Rescue on this one. It being late fall, those leaves will be dry if it is a flare….

Roger, Charlie 12, Will get Fire rolling on this one as well, Control out.”

"Perfect!" with that Dren wrenched his hand free, only to find it still covered in enough goo to keep the arrow attached to his hand, "Bloody 'ell." ignoring that for now he continued "If we set fire t'th'evidence we'll cover our tracks as well as have a cover story wit' th'firework thing." Dren then started waving his arrow enfused hand hoping the simply shake the silver tipped weapon loose.

“Sounds like a plan,” Raven said to Dren. “One possible hitch.” She dug into her pockets and pulled out one very wet and extremely dead cell phone followed by Dren’s lake-soaked lighter. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said as she held the lighter out to him.

Though he looked upset for half a second he shrugged if off "It'll dry. Really we just need a car lighter," he gestured toward the car "And a cig-" stopping he checked his soaking pocket without removing anything, then started again "We just need a car lighter." he repeated the gesture toward the car "And Alex's pants." he smiled pointing to the soaked leg that would make the perfect catalyst.

"My what?!"  Alex looked over at Dren, not quite sure that she had heard him correctly.  It was then she saw where he was pointing and realised that it was one of those fun lingo clashes.  "My trousers are sacrosanct.  Use your own; I'm sure there's still some of that goo left."

Iain shook his head, setting aside both the images evoked by Dren's request: "Yeah... I'm sure you guys will figure something out."

Resheathing the dagger he'd recovered from the ground, he kneeled down near his wounded companion: "Okay, man, I'm here, just tell me what to do."

Dren shrugged "In New York we called'em pants, but if y'want mine y'jus' 'ave t'say please."

   Assisted by Iain's helping hand, Johnny did the best he could to patch up Pieran's wounds, putting Iona's clothing to use as makeshift bandages. He muttered incoherently by himself meanwhile, a hardly discernable thanks aimed at Iain amidst it all, critically viewing the results with a discontent harrumph.

   "Okay, Pieran, here we go!" Johnny encouraged, tugging him along by his least hurt arm. "Just a few metres," he said, grimacing as the bloodstream resumed, colouring the top red. Suffice to say, their makeshift ambulance was going to need some thorough cleaning by the end of this day.

   "If you lovebirds would get into the van -" he paused a slight moment, glancing towards Jamal, " - yes, that'd be you. Iona, I would like you to get in as well - when the andorphin rush ceases, you'll be left with a head-splitting migraine from the bloodloss and a hellish ache in your leg."

   Attempting to help Pieran as gently as possible into the van, he looked around himself, wiping his bloodied hands on Pieran's shirt in slight disgust. "Any volunteer drivers around? We need to get going."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:50, Fri 28 Jan 2005.

Alex looked at Dren with a critical eye, responding dryly.  "Believe me, I have no interest whatsoever in your pants, in any dialect."  She was having trouble believing that she, a grown woman, was currently bantering about pants.  Maybe the knock to the head had damaged more than a few more brain cells, for the both of them.

She shook her head, trying to get back on track.  "Johnny's right.  Iain, why don't you drive him and the others back while the rest of us indulge our pyromaniac tendencies."  She stopped to looked around, then pointed at the base of a couple of trees.  "Why don't we take dear Charlie Twelve's excellent suggestion and roll them into those piles of leaves.  They should catch fairly quickly."

With Raven's help, Iona hobbled over and into the van. "I think those endorphins just stopped rushing," she moaned. "Could we please do some rushing of our own now?"

Pieran settled into the van and looked up at Johnny. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Sorry about the mess.”

He appeared to be doing a forward job controlling his pain but anyone looking closer saw a different story. A splash of blood on his left cheek was the limit of color in his face and his lower lip trembled from shock, blood loss, or worst.

He took great care watching Iona slip into the van near him and upon seeing her wound, he groaned, three new colors rushing to his face: anger, grief, and worry.

     Iona McLean typed:



“I must agree with Iona,” Pieran said. “She's hurt. Raven, if you could please retrieve my bow. I dropped it...near...” His request was cut short by another wave of pain as he sought to regain control. “Just. Find it. Please.”

He looked over at Iona again, trying to speak, but only a twisted grimace came to his lips as he fell back into his seat, clutching the makeshift bandage against his wound.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:41, Sat 29 Jan 2005.

"Right... Right." Iain sighed and walked to the driver's door, then he turned back to look at Alex: "I'll see you home."

The battered vampire closed the door and looked back: "Alright, here we go."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:59, Sat 29 Jan 2005.

Raven helped Iona get as comfortably situated in the van as she could be with a large gash in her leg. Then she made sure that their two civilians, Jamal and his girlfriend, were also securely seated in the van.



Raven gave Pieran a reassuring smile as she gently took the hand of his uninjured arm in hers. “Consider it done.” As Iain settled into the driver’s seat, Raven closed the sliding side-door on the van. She gave Iain a quick wave as she moved to retrieve Pieran’s weapon.

Iain smoothly put the Chevy Uplander into gear and backed out of the parking slot. Alex and Dren piled up the three demon bodies and the head, covered them with leaves, used up the remaining demucifyer solution from the super soaker, and set the pile ablaze. Raven recovered Pieran’s bow and then scoured the area for anything else that may have been dropped in the heat of battle.

Dren moved to take the wheel of the Ford Mustang but Raven argued that he was not going to be able to drive with his hands all sticky with demon goop. Dren countered and into their squabble they went. The distant sound of sirens approaching indicated that time was running out. With an audible huff, Alex dug into the pocket of her pants _{(ahem, I mean trousers)} and produced a coin. Flipping the coin into the air, she caught it, slapped it onto her other wrist, and announced the winner to drive was Raven. Raven triumphantly smiled as she shook the keys at Dren and then hopped in behind the wheel. They left the park just as the first emergency vehicles arrived. Once again, Raven managed to not hit anything all the way home. Of course, the defensive driving of the local Creve Coeur residents assisted in that fact by clearing the road as she cut a corner or two too close.

Iain had made a quick stop at a local emergence room to offload Jamal and his girlfriend. They promised to tell a story of a car jacking instead of the truth. Who would believe that anyway? Everyone arrived in one piece at Cornerstone.

Iona's mental playlist now featured the Verve:


Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again
                    _{The Verve, "The Drugs Don't Work"}


Although, they were entirely wrong, of course. The medic bay at Cornerstone was marvelously well stocked, and now Iona was well stocked with pain killers. However, before the happy pills took effect, she had helped Johnny patch up Pieran. Well, she'd fetched the sodium bicarbonate from the Science Lab when he'd muttered something about neutralizing the caustic compound in Pieran's wound with a base like baking soda and water. It was a small act compared to the job Johnny had performed, but Iona felt thankful she could contribute in any small way possible.

She also felt slightly disturbed by the degree of emotions the whole situation stirred. There had even been a brief moment when she'd almost grabbed Pieran's hand, to comfort him, when Johnny had been stitching up the cleaned-out wound. But Iona had fought back the urge, and soon thereafter excused herself to go wash up and get rid of her torn outfit.

Now she hopped out into the hallway on a pair of crutches with her leg wrapped in clean bandages beneath her sleeping shirt. The blue cap on her head (the only item that remained unscathed) replaced by a white scarf, tied in the neck beneath her dark hair. A robe completed the evening look.

She knocked on the door to the River Room, hoping Raven would be there. Iona knew the smart thing would be to go to bed, but she also felt the need to go through the events of the day with Raven. Alex might have been closer at hand, but Iona still didn't feel 100% at ease with the Englishwoman. There was something about the way Alex had talked about demons that made Iona slightly apprehensive...

Johnny halfways stumbled through the hallways of Cornerstone, his hair a ruffled mess, as he stumbled upon Iona just outisde the door of Raven's room. There was an almost haunted quality about him as he approached her, his usual semi-retro-fasionable look completely gone beneath a bloodied white laboratory coat.

   "There's a queue?" he asked, not even caring to smile his trademark, unsettling grin. "'Need to talk to demonologist...my studies didn't quite cover wounds made by these kinds of creatures, and Raven tends to..."

   Figuring Iona probably didn't feel much up to hearing a lecture about Raven's peculiar field of knowledge, he changed the topic: "So, burning bird, anybody know what did that?" The question had been haunting him, but got the slightest bit lost amidst the acidic wounds and torn musclefibres.

   He coughed the slightest bit and retrieved a box of pills reading Vicodin; 8 pills á 150 milligrams from a pocket, chugging down the remaining three before he grumpily returned the container.

Raven offered Dren dibs on the shower, since she’d gotten to drive the mustang. That and she tended to take a bit longer in the shower than he did, but Dren caught her shivering. He insisted that she go first to get out of her soaked clothing and into a hot shower to ward off the chill she was feeling. Of course he suggested it would be faster if they showered together. Raven smiled and told him she hadn’t needed help bathing since she was a toddler, but if that ever changed she’d be sure to let him know.

She stepped out of the steamy shower, dried off and slipped into the plush, white Cornerstone robe and slippers. She had just finished tapping on the door that connected their bathroom to Dren’s room and said, “Shower’s free,” when she heard a knock on her own door. She continued to dry her hair with a towel as she opened the door to find Johnny and Iona standing outside. “What’s up?”

   Johnny looked towards Raven - indeed just in the general direction of, his eyes appeared not completely focused. "She be first..." he said, as if that explained everything. "In the queue..."

While Iona helped Johnny tend to Pieran's injuries as well as her own, Alex took the opportunity to dive into the shower.  Washing quickly, she took care to leave the bathroom in a state she hoped Iona would approve of.  She slipped into her nightclothes, a loose pair of pajama bottoms, strappy top and a plain cotton robe, before heading downstairs, noting with some bemusement the apparant queue forming outside Raven's room.

Once on the ground floor she headed to the media room, switching on the television and flicking through the channels until she found something vaguely interesting.  Her head hurt, she could feel the throbbing where the black eye was going to show up tomorrow and she was exhausted, but avoiding sleep was one thing she was good at.

Iona would have shot him a sharp look, but frankly, she was a little too fuzzy-brained at the moment. She settled for a slight frown. "The chanting maybe? Nice rhymes by the way." She had no intentions of sharing her 'special circumstances' with this guy either. He was too... slippery. And too doped up:



"So, what's your damage?" Iona waved with one crutch, nearly tripping over when she lost her balance. "D'you get an axe on ya too?"





But Iona had changed her mind by now. "Never mind," she said, not at all slurry. See, she was still in control. "Wanted to talk about, you know, everything. Buffalo wings and Kentucky fried chicken with a side-order of French fries... And mean voices. And why is Pieran...? Nah, forget it."

She yawned, almost dislocating her jaws in the process. "Sorry. Maybe tomorrow? Too tired now... going to bed."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:33, Sun 30 Jan 2005.