Test! ^_^

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Chapter 1 : Tricks of the Light (2,317 words)
Chapter 2 : The Chapter Without a Silly Name (2,334 words)
Chapter 3 : Through the Wild-Wood Green* (4,073 words)
Chapter 4 : Interesting Times (416 words)
Chapter 5 : Insanity Loves Company (2,815 words)

Most likely not in order...

Chapter ?? : Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1,101 words)
Chapter ?? : No, I Expect You to Die (2,309 words)
Chapter ?? : The Secret Lair (1,349 words)
Chapter ?? : It's a Small Small World (4,326 words)

* HAFBUR AND SIGNY. TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH.

Muse: So, lack of constructive writing aside, have you decided if the Dogs talk or not?

Jon: Inquiring minds want to know! *pause* Well, not really--

Writer: It would be easier if they did.

Muse: Not what I asked. *fishes beer from cooler*

Writer: Technically they don't, I mean what kind of common ground would they have for even basic concepts? Much less actual language. *sighs at blank screen* But if they don't talk then--

Muse: Then there's a whole lot of world building the reader won't ever see.

Writer: Well, not anytime soon anyways. In theory the 'uberbond' that Akela's looking for will be more of a telepathic hivemind entity, at which point verbal linguistics are moot.

Jon: That does not sound like fun.

Writer: Magic companion humans don't get a say, sorry.

Jon: I'm pretty sure this counts as fictive abuse.

Muse: You should see how she treats the other Johns.

Jon: Other Jons? *panicked look*

Writer: With an H, with an 'H'! Calm down for for chistsake, there's only one of you! Sheesh.

Jon: *is not comforted*

Muse: My point still stands.

Jon: I'm changing my name to Fred.

Writer: No you're not, now go back to watching-- wait, what is that?

Jon: The Young and the Restless

Writer: ...

Muse: Why don't just go over here and work on what's getting cut while you two hash this out, kthkxbai. *flees*

Jon: I can haz freewill!

Writer: No you canz not. *grabs for remote*

Jon: Canz too. *sits on remote*

Writer: You realize this means war.

Jon: Bring it on.


It was a dark and stormy night...

We've got three worlds to play in here, and I guess I sort of need to start laying out the groundwork for them. *cracks knuckles* Time to put some science in my fiction. ^_~ *grin*


Life
Okay, so Life is the easy bit to define. That's reality (well, fantastical reality, but still). It's the normal everyday world. No magic! None! BWHAHAHA! Erm, yeah, so technically I'm really stretching the definition of 'urban fantasy', but c'est la vie.

Veil
This would be the bit in-between Life and Death. Sort of like a no-man's land between the dimensions (only they aren't really dimensions). Things from the Veil can exists in both of the other planes, but have very very minimal influence over them without an anchor. The Veil critters are actually concentrated Veil-stuffs, so technically the whole darned thing is alive. (Although the bit that isn't critters isn't sentient or even really that aware.) So Life and Death are both actual places and the Veil is sort of a membrane that separates them.

Death
But Death isn't the afterlife so much as a purgatory. Folks only hang around there until they 'let go of living' at which point they vamoose to points unknown. So it's not Heaven, nor Hell, and thus I suppose I should root around and see what I can find about purgatorial destinations in the various religions. Want to keep it as non-religious as possible (which is amusing considering the implications of the basic concepts, but oh well ^_~;) Each person brings their world with them, to some extent, when they die. Thus it's sort of a patchwork of times and places, each group (or individual) have their own little fiefdom. Since folks don't stay permanently there, it's not like you have everyone who ever died still hanging around...

[more rambling to follow]

Because the last one was pretty boring... *pokes it with a stick* Bleh. :P

------------------------------------

Sometimes the last thing the world needs is a hero.

The struggle between the Hinds and Hounds has been going on for millennia. Drawing both the dead and the living into their fight for control of the Veil, the two sides are ratcheting up the violence to the point of full scale war.

Both Hounds and Hinds treat their human anchors as mere tools in their struggle for supremacy, but the bonds weren't always one-sided affairs. Back in the distant ages when the Powers that Be first closed the Veil, the humans were a vital part of both hunt and herd. Now, as the violence reaches new highs, it's up to a small pack of Dogs to try and recreated that bond.

Jon: You do realize moving requires more than simply dumping boxes from one space to another. *eyes mass posts of story-in-progress*

Writer: Meh.

Akela: *sniffs around the piles of world building and sets to gnawing happily on one of the story bones* I have backstory!

Writer: Hey, hey, I need that!

Akela: Mmmm... *gnaw*

Jon: You could at least label them... *pokes one of the boxes with a foot*

Box: *growl*

Jon: ... Please tell me I imagined that.

Writer: Technically, you imagine everything.

Jon: *is not comforted*

Muse: Hey, how's it going? *enters apartment, beers and scooby snacks in hand*

Akela: Beer!

Jon: Snacks!

Box: *mutter*

Writer: *headdesk*

Not sure where this fits; right now Jon doesn't really have a break to think about things (at least not while Hunter's dog is still around). Might have to slow things down a bit to fit it in...

--------------------------

If he listened for it he could hear the Song underlying every breath. Akela's song, bright and coppery; Athen's sharp woodwind's dancing around her chimes, Jenna's soft murmur of low strings, and Tos's bass drums rumbling underneath. Hunter and her Dog were whispers only, echoes of echoes not meant for living ears or minds.

He wondered sometimes what damaged she'd done by binding the two of them in rituals meant for the Veil. He'd tried to ask Tos once, but the dog had just growled at him until he'd given up and left the grizzled mutt to his brooding. Jon did not trust Akela or Athen to answer honestly, and Jenna Jenna avoided him in an almost desperate scrabble and that told him more than he wanted to hear.

He was unnatural, unnatural to things so foreign they had never felt the touch of life or death. It unnerved Jon, the loss of anything to belong to. He was not human, not really, but he was not just Huntsman anymore either. He was life and death and dogs, and he'd given anything just to be human again.

You know, at some point I really need to figure out whether these guys actually talk. *ponders* Most likely will be retconned, but we shall see.

------------------------------

Akela watched them from across the park, ears twitching at each breeze and tail curled morosely around her paws.

"It is not your fault." Athen settled into the grass beside her, draping his head over her back to nip at her tail.

"Feels like it." She rolled with his weight, twisting to pin him against the grass. "Everything I've done, every choice I've made, I've lead us here." She squirmed out from under Athen as he attempted to reverse the pin, nipping at his paws. "It is not my fault but it is my choice."

Athen gave up the fight and let Akela sprawl happily over him in a mishmashed tangle of dog. "You never made the choices alone you know. We could have left you."

"You could have killed me," Akela snorted. "I was waiting for Tos's bite some nights." She turned her gaze back to the Dogs on the far size of the field. "Do you think they'll leave?"

For use at some point, somewhere, maybe... *whistle innocently*

-------------------------------------------

1. "We're fighting the Dead Guy Mafia?"

2. There were no secrets between Huntsman and Dogs, but there were misunderstandings.

3. Jon needed a beer, badly.

4. There were some things Jon just did not want them to explain.

5. "So."

"Yeah." Jon leaned back in the couch and played with the paper on the beer bottle. He waited for Sebastian to react, but after a moment realized he already had. And that was the essence of friendship.

"To burying the bodies." Sebastian raised his bottle as Jon looked up.

"To burying the bodies."

[You know, I really need to figure out if the Dogs talk. Sometime soon. Maybe.]

There was something to be sad for dark and rainy nights, but sadly the night was neither and Jon tried fruitlessly to blend a little deeper into what shadows were left. The full moon had turned most of the forest into something akin to daylight, silver instead of gold, but easy on the eyes. He hissed at Athen as the dog inched forward, misting into near nothingness as he moved into the moonlight.

Beside him Tos rumbled in disapproval, but Jon ignored him for the moment. They had too much riding on this to stop and bicker like, well, like dogs. Tos caught his line of thought and huffed in annoyance, but muted the snarling below Jon's level of hearing. It still ran through the pack song, but Tos was almost always growling there.

Athen reached the edge of the clearing and waited at the edge of the shadows. Beyond that was an open field without any cover at all. The folks who maintained the building hadn't worried about fencing, but had made sure there was not a blade of grass within two hundred yards of the walls. A sea of gravel separated the pack from its target and Jon wondered (yet again) just what kind of opposition they were facing. You did not focus this much security with an eye towards Veil weaknesses without knowing what you were expecting.

"This is a bad idea, a really really bad idea." Jon looked out at the warehouse and then back at Hunter and the Dogs. "I mean, why are all of us going over there again? As I remember, I'm the only person here who can actually be killed."

"He has a point." Hunter looked over at the light side pack, "If he is our only connection to this world why would we be risking him?"

"We can always get another one." Tos sniffed. "There are plenty of them out there."

"Yes, you can get another one." Hunter snapped, "I can not."

"We shouldn't be here in the first place." Hunter's dog sounded like a dying breeze, just loud enough to hear. "Kill him and go home."

"Hey, hey!" Jon cut him off with a slash of the hand "No one is killing me! That was the whole point!"

"We need him close enough to draw on." Athen objected, "Otherwise we'll be useless."

"You're pretty useless anyways." Jon muttered, but they ignored him.

"So we get him close, but keep him hidden." Akela scratched at the ground thoughtfully. "So how do we do that?"

"Well, there really is not any cover." Athen's eyes the wide expanse of gravel with distaste. "I suppose we could try veil walking, but it is really not a good idea with someone so," he paused trying to find a polite way to say 'utterly untrained and useless'.

"He has me." Hunter faded until she was just the faintest hint of a shadow, and a pair of unnervingly in focus eyes.

Tos grunted thoughtfully, "That he does."

"Wait, what?"

Hunter faded back in with an almost audible snap. "If we move you into the veil, away from the light side and closer to the dark than they will be unable to harm you. Unless another dark sider is present, which I do not believe is the case."

"Is it just me or does this plan involve me dying?" Jon looked over at Hunter nervously. "I thought we'd ruled out dying."

"It's not dying, it's just letting go of living a smidge."

"A smidge??"

"This about it as if it was a transcendtal thing. You are ascending to a higher plane of being."

"I'm ascending to a higher plane of dead."

Hunter sighed. "Look, I hate to put it this bluntly, but the more dead you are, the safer you are."

"That makes no sense!"

"Okay, think about it this way. Light side has power over lightside, right?"

"Err, yes?"

"And Veil has power over Veil?"

"Well, yeah."

"And dark side has power over dark side." She gestured in frustration. "Light side veil creatures cannot affect dark side. The chance of there being a dark sider there is next to nil. Which means you'll be the only one there with power over all three."

"Oh, oh." Jon paused thoughtfully. "So I can hurt them, but they can't hurt me?"

"Well, mostly that's not true. You're light side and there will be a lot of light side there. Plus light side veil. But the thing is, you'll be leaning on the dark side, not on the veil or the light. That way they can't affect you. Not so much you can affect them. If you do try and pull on the light or on the veil, you'll be vulnerable to them. As it is, most likely you'll be able to hide safely."

"And you promise I won't stay dead?"

"You won't ever be dead!" Hunter snapped. "You'll be slightly less attached to the light side."

"You know, I'm just going to stop asking questions, because I still have no idea what's going on." Jon sighed. "Okay, lead on; I'll follow."

"Alright, take my hand." She solidified the one she held out in offering. He took it, shivering a bit at the constant chill she wore like an aura. "Now you can hear the Singing, right?"

"Yeah."

"Close your eyes. Now focus on the Singing. Find me in it, focus on me."

And he did, trying to ferret out the soft melody that represented Hunter in the symphonic singing. He found it, then tried to focus in on it, slightly amazed at the more powerful melodies of the dogs faded into the background. He opened his eyes and almost let go of Hunter's hand with a yelp.

The world had gone muted, as if he'd been put into a shaded hamster ball. His own self and clothing looked fine, but everything else was a dull shade of its former self.

"You know, I really wasn't sure it would work." Hunter looked impressed, but maintained a death grip on his hand. "Most people have a really hard time letting go of the light side. You'd almost think you'd been dead before."

Jon gave her a hard look.

"Wait, what?" She blinked. "Are you serious?"

"I drowned once, I fell into a swimming pool when I was very small, but the EMTs revived me a few seconds later. No complications or anything, but I was dead for about a minute before they got my heart started again." He shivered. "I really don't like thinking about it."

"Well that explains a lot." She looked down at the dogs. "Did you know that?"

They promptly denied responsibility.

"So now what?"

"Now we go for a visit." Hunter faded out further and Jon followed, watching the world go dim with a little bit of worry. The dogs followed suit, fading out until they were mere shadows against the forest.

Ready, the six took out across the gravel at a dead run, moving faster than Jon would have thought possible. They were across the expanse and next to the building.


[they sneak to the warehouse and find out it is full of bad guys, time for plan R]


When Tos was the voice of reason, it was time to go home. Jon counted through the rest of the ammo again, but the number remained hopelessly low. Even if he managed to hit something with every shot (and that was a pretty big if) there were just too many of them. And that was only counting the flesh and blood, there were a third as many Hinds and a handful of renegade Dogs to boot. A human, a dark sider and five Dogs weren't going to make a dent.

They would, however, make a nice stain on the rug and Jon was all for preserving other people's decorating choices.


[They decide to send Hunter's dog back to the dark side to warn folks. It leaves and they Pack formally integrates Hunter]

Jon came to slowly, and for the first few moments completely forgot where he was and what had happened. Then, as the world came a bit more into focus, he remembered and started flailing madly. Or at least he tried. He found himself in something resembling a dentist's chair, securely tied with a variety of ropes, belts, and --he tried to get a better look at his leg-- duct tape. Which, while still terrifying, wasn't quite as impressive as if it hadn't looked put together at the last minute.

There was someone moving around in the room off to his left, but he couldn't quite make out who (or what) it was. He though about pretending to be asleep, but he'd always been lousy at it, so he settled for just not making any obvious noise or movements that would alert them to his condition.

Other than being restrained, he was more or less unhurt. He wiggles toes and fingers and other than a faint ache in his left shoulder and a bit of a headache, he felt fine. Terrified (although that was receding with time) and a bit pissed off.

"Oh!" There was a surprised, but not hostile exclamation from the person as they happened to catch sight of Jon. "Sorry, sorry, didn't realize you were awake." The man (apparently) fiddled with something on the workbenches and they headed over, pulling his protective goggled down to hang around his neck. He had thick work gloves on and was covered in what Jon assumed was some sort of soot.

"Didn't mean to leave you hanging like that," the man headed over to a nearby table and started poking at the computer that was on it. "Never been good at dosages, was sort of worried I'd knocked you out for the whole day. Been only five hours, just so you know." He turned back from the computer, pulling his gloves off and eying his captive from what he apparently thought was a safe distance.

"Isn't this really cliché?" Jon wiggled in the restraints, but they were done up tight. "I mean, come on now, can't we just talk things out?" Because if there was one thing he was really not looking forward to it was torture or death. There had to be some way to convince them that he wasn't a threat. Well, at least not enough of one to bother killing.

"Technically the one way Evil Overlords consistently get in trouble is -not- killing the hero." The man shot him an amused look from across the room. "But as far as I can tell I'm not an Evil Overlord and you're not a hero."

"Gee, thanks." Jon made a face.

"Hey, you should be glad that I managed to convince the others of that." He fiddled with something else on the desk. "Although they were coming from the assumption that we were the plucky rebels and you were the ninja assassin."

"I'm a what??" The very last thing that would have crossed his mind was that he was an assassin. Or a ninja, come to think of it. He was really bad at being sneaky. And really bad at killing people. So on the face of it, is was a pretty bad label no matter how you looked at it.

"Okay, so this is what I'm thinking." The man walked back over to Jon, pulling up a chair and sitting down. "You seem to have a different relationship to your dogs than the others and that's a good sign, for us anyways."

Jon didn't bother to deny it, the man seemed convinced he was right and objections probably wouldn't help his case much.

"Now the Huntsmen have probably told you that the Hounds are good and the Hinds are evil and you're in a battle to save the world, or some such nonsense." He pushed his glasses up and frowned in annoyance at the distant enemy.

"Now it is not that the Hinds are bad, per se, just unagreeable with the status quo. After all, Ancestors have been meddling in their descendants lives for centuries." The man sniffed. "Just because the dead outnumber the living (and almost always have) is not a factor. It's not like we're trying to throw open the floodgates or anything dramatic. We're just planning on letting a few choice candidates back in. And not permanently, just for the time they need to put things right again."

"Put things right? What am I, stuck in Quantum Leap?" Jon frowned, "If they had some sort of divine mandate, The Powers That Be would have kept us from stopping you."

"And they don't, that's our whole point. They didn't give us a pass, but they didn't stop us either. You’d think The Powers That Be could at least have set up some sort of system where those with good intentions got a pass, but they don't seem to care about the micromanagement. We think that's why there was no need to just cement a wall between the two planes of existence. Thus it's less of a wall and more of a bramble patch. There were escapees constantly making their way through (and getting sent right back by the Hunts) so they must have meant for travel to happen... otherwise why make it possible at all?"

"Free will?" Jon wasn't overly convinced, but the man did seem to have some good points. "If there isn't a way to break the rules that would make the rules pointless. You have to have the chance to sin in order for not sinning to mean anything."

"That's a religious argument, I'm making a rational one." The man brushed off Jon's concern with a dismissive hand wave. "The Powers That Be were vast barely understood things to start with. Maybe the Hounds had simply misunderstood, maybe they were just supposed to be keeping the bad people out. Not everyone. Not us. We're not here to hurt people, after all, just help them. We're the good guys. Seriously."

"Right, so you're the good guys, what does that make us then?"

"Also the good guys."

"You can't have two sets of good guys, that's not how it works."

"This isn't a fairy tale," the man sniffed, "the world is full of nothing but good guys, depending on how you look at it. There are very very few true evils out there, it's just not in human nature."

"So you think bringing evil into the world is a good way to balance that?" Now Jon was just confused.

"What evil?" The man looked at him, just as confused.

"The demons," Jon answered, "You know, the ones that you're bringing through the Veil. And don't tell me they aren't demons, I've seen them posses people." He was sort of angry that the nameless faceless enemy seemed to think it was engaging in perfectly acceptable behavior.

"What??"

Jon described what he had seen in the warehouse and it took a minute for the man to figure out what he was talking about.

"Hah! Okay, okay," the man grinned in relief. "That looked bad, I know, but it wasn't what you thought it was. Well, I mean, it wasn't what it looked like it was. I don't think anyone could have seen it like that and thought it was a good thing." He leaned over the chair, hands jumping about descriptively as he explained.

"You know that light siders bond to the Veil creatures so they can affect the world here, right?"

Jon nodded.

"Well it's the same thing for dark siders, only they normally bond to a light sider bonded veil critter. Some times, like the time you saw there, they bond directly to a light sider, skipping the veil go between. It's a little more complicated than it would be normally, since it gives both of them the power to exist on the wrong side of the Veil and that sort of twists it a bit." He rolled his hand to mimic the spin it put on the veil. "So the living one's a little bit dead and the dead one's a little bit alive."

Which sounded disturbingly familiar.

"That lasts until the light sider dies, and then both of them head to the dark side." He shrugged. "There actually isn't a way to force them back until then, except maybe throwing the light sider through and seeing if they stick."

"They don't."

The man looked at him oddly for a few moments and then blinked, "Good to know."

"So why am I here?" Which really was 'why am I not dead', but Jon really wasn't about to broach that subject just quite yet.

"You seemed to be the only one we might be able to talk to, so, well," he waved an arm at the warehouse, "here you are."

"So we've talked, do I get to leave now?"

"Um," the man pushed his glasses up with a finger. "No."

"Well then why am I here?"

"You're also a bargaining chip you know," the man shrugged, "at least we're figuring they might want you back unharmed."

"Great." Jon wiggled in the bond again. "Hate to tell you this, but they probably think I'm disposable."

"Ah." The man blinked. "Well then, I suppose we'll have to wait till they decide that and go from there. No point in burning bridges before we have to."

"Where are my dogs?" Because that had been bugging him ever since he woke up.

"Oh that, right," he pointed to the metal cage work that spanned the inside of the warehouse. "Magnetic fields, they can't get in. We're still really not sure why, but it works and you don't fight what works."

"So, wait, that means the Hinds too?" Jon was curious.

"Yup," the man shrugged, "but it only affects Veil creatures, so don't think you've got a fair fight here."


[At which point there is some more talking and then Phil heads off to take care of something else]

[Hunter then shows up, helps him get loose, and the two sneak out of the building.]


"This is where the world ends." Hunter stood, looking out at the empty salt flats.

"Well that's overly dramatic." Jon finished hooking up his pack and grunted unhappily as he shifted it off his shoulder. It still ached from where he'd hit it and he was getting tired of waiting for it to heal.

"You have no sense of history." Hunter frowned and pointed at the line of hills in the distance. "There were people here once, standing where we stand. Without phones or cars or rescue parties." The last was pointedly directed at him.

"I said I -think- there is a rescue coming." He started off down the mini cliff carefully. "I'm not risking my life on 'if'. That's how people end up as a pile of bones some random tourist stumbles across years later."

"I though if you were lost you were supposed to stay put so that searchers could find you easier."

"And once again, we're back to assuming that someone is looking for me. There is a very--" he caught himself as the rocks slipped under his foot "--very good chance that no one is coming."

"You could send one of the dogs."

"Send them where?" He was at the bottom now and he set off towards the hills with a resigned sigh. "At this point everyone is assuming we've gone over to the dark side--" he waved off her objections, "figure of speech, figure of speech. I just mean they think we are on the wrong side now, so there is a very good chance that neither side is looking for us anymore."

"A blessing and a curse, I suppose."

"You suppose correctly."

"You do realize it's going to take a long time to reach those hills."

"Yup."

"And you have limited supplies."

"Yup."

"And this still strikes you as a good idea."

"Do you have a better one?"

There was a long pause as the group walked over the sandy ground, only one of them leaving footprints in the dusty soil.

"Just don't die."

Jon gave her an exasperated look, "I wasn't trying to!"

"Yes, and this isn't a television show or some sort of reality program in which you go into the wilderness to find yourself." She snapped. "There is a very real risk that you could die out here and I would like to prevent that!"

"Then go find me some place to rest tonight, alright?" Jon shoed her towards the distant hills. "I'd prefer a hotel, but I'll settle for dry and snake free."

"I will return when I have found a suitable location." She nodded and then started off at a run, fading as she went. The fainter her shadow, the faster she ran until she had vanished towards the horizon.

He kept plodding along, walking through scenery that never changed. Flat dusty earth that fractured into a spider web with each impact. The dogs faded in and out, adding a few of their own paw prints to the decoration. Jon wondered what someone else would think coming across the trail.

He paused after a while, unsure of how long he'd been walking. Then it occurred to him that it really didn't matter. It would take as long as it took, and nothing he could do would make it faster. Now slower? Slower he could do. He braced his hands on his upper thighs, trying to rest without sitting down. If he sat down, he wasn't getting up again.

The dogs circled uncertainly, the Singing deep and supportive, urging him up and onwards. For a moment he was tempted to let them drag him closer to the Veil. He'd move further and faster, but there was always the chance he'd fall too far.

[Okay, so this is waaaaay too long to be all one chapter, so sue me. :P]


There was a knock on the door, which was completely unexpected and Jon tensed. The dogs had gone into defensive postures and Hunter abruptly headed for the bedroom, fading out to only the barest whisper of a shadow. The fact that none of them had noticed the visitor until the knock really worried Jon, but there was another knock a second later, more demanding.

"Jon, we know you're in there. Open up."

It was a woman's voice, but it was not anyone he recognized. He was pretty sure the cops would have started out with 'This is the police', but he also figured that the Dead Man Mafia would have simply opened fire. Which meant there was a good chance it was not either one of them. It could be a perfectly normal person, but his recent luck made him doubt that.

He got up off the couch and walked over to the door cautiously, garnering another impatient knock. For not the first time, he wished the door had a peephole.

He opened the door to find an older man and a woman and a massive pack of dogs. The dogs flowed around him into the house, rowdily exploring even as he stepped aside to let the two humans in after them.

It was an overabundance of dogs, a wild yelping marking rioting mess of limbs and unexpectedly cold noses and a feeling of 'not right' that shivered at your bones. He was lost for a minute in just the chaos of it all, thirty some odd dogs that weren't dogs that pulled with them the shadows of things that weren't meant to be.

Jon steadied against his own Dogs, trying to hold onto the hear and now while the other packs pulled him away. Tos leaned heavily into him, snarling a rough baseline as Jon's pack weighted their Singing until he was steady again.

That's when the other two Huntsmen finally stepped forward, calming their packs and smiling in a way that set his teeth on edge. He waited for them to make the first move, because they'd cornered him, not the other way 'round. But it was hard not be to nervous when they were so outnumbered and when they'd just come down from the adrenaline of facing off at the warehouse.

He could just faintly hear Hunter in the pack's singing, she'd faded out well past what anyone would be able to hear. He hoped.

"You're Jon." The new woman looked at him expectantly, but it was not a question. He nodded anyways. "Huh." He though she sounded disappointed somehow.

"You'll come with us then." Then man seemed unconcerned with either Jon or his pack, as if he expected them to just come to heal without objection.

"Hell no." Jon felt Akela solidify under his other hand, and the singing took on that sharp echo that it had right before a fight.

"Do you even know who we are?" The woman looked amused, not upset. Their dogs also seemed unimpressed with his pack's sudden defensive shift.

Jon blinked at her, how the hell was he supposed to know who they were?

She laughed, and the man looked nonplussed.

"Well then, better sit down and chat a bit, eh?" She gestured in the direction of the sofa as if she was offering him hospitality. Never mind that it was his house.

Jon leaned on the Dogs, but got nothing back. No obvious threat, but no recognition either. They were seriously outnumber though, even with Hunter to back them up, so he gave in and nodded. It could not hurt to get them talking.

They had him sit on the sofa and the woman sat on the corner of the coffee table, the man standing behind her.

"First off, our names are unimportant," she woman smiled disarmingly, "but you can call me Daisy and him Chowder."

The man look resigned as she named him, "Long story, do not ask."

"Those obviously aren't our names, and we'll get into why in a little bit. You'll get to pick one yourself, so start thinking of something good now or you'll end up getting named by someone else. Think of it as a permanent nickname."

"That never ever goes away." Chowder sighed.

"So you know what the dogs are, or at least you've at least got a grasp on it since we've been told you're the one that provided the intel about the warehouse." She looked at him expectantly and he nodded, uncertainly. "The long and short of it is that the dogs are there to stop anyone the Veil Walkers from coming through the veil and we're there to stop the people who help the Walkers."

Which did not sound quite right, but it did seem to match up with most of what had happened so far. "And the Veil is?"

She blinked, "It is the line between life and death. It is called the Veil because they used to go back and forth through it. Otherwise it'd be the Stonewall of Death or the Really Big Cliff or some such. It was not until the powers that be decided the dead were getting a little too meddlesome in other people's lives that they closed it off. Thus Veil Walkers are people who walk through the Veil. Which used to be everyone."

"Oh." Which meant Hunter was a veil walker? Or did she mean the giant glowing deer?


[more stuff goes here]


"Well I'd need to check with the cops." The two looked at him with disbelief. "You see there was this drive by, then the place I worked burnt down " he trailed off as they shook their heads. "It is not like I did it on purpose."

"That does change things," Daisy had pulled out her blackberry and was busy zooming through her address book. "Ah, here we go." She dialed and walked over to the corner to talk to someone, chattering away faster than Jon could follow.

"She'll get it straightened out, no worries." Chowder yawned and rolled his shoulders tiredly. "We've got a lot of contacts in and out of the various government agencies. Most likely they'll just let us take responsibility for you, we've done transport work for them before, it is more or less the same thing."

"Except I'm not a prisoner."

"Well yeah, expect for that."

Jon was not mollified and waited with a grumpy look on his face while Daisy got things straightened out. It took about twenty minutes, but she finally snapped the phone close with a satisfied grin.

"We'll pick up the paperwork tomorrow morning and you're good to go." She pointed the phone at him, "You ready to head out tomorrow? We've got a bit of a trip and I'd like to get started relatively early."

"Already?" Jon blinked. "I mean, I just said yes and you want me to leave right off?"

"Well there's not much point in waiting," she sniffed, "the other side is not about to cut us a break just because you're new."

"Erm, okay, I guess." Jon really was not sure this was the brightest idea, nor did he completely trust the duo. But they seemed to have connection and did know a lot more about what was going on than he did.

"Good, we'll pick you up tomorrow morning then," she tip an imaginary hat as she left, Chowder following behind with another yawn.

"Night."

He watched them leave and the plopped back into the couch, surrounded by the dogs and waiting for Hunter to reemerge. She did, after a short while, still mostly faded out and solemn.


[Conversation with Hunter]

[Dinner with parents]


"So?" His mom looked up as Jon came in the side door. He'd been expecting the question, after all the Huntsmen hadn't been at all secretive about stopping by. Even without the added visual of the enormous dog pack too boot.

"They offered me a job." He stuck his head in the fridge and rummaged for something to munch on. Sadly his mother shared his older sister's taste in munchies (which meant lots or veggies and fruits and very little preprocessed yumminess.) He finally surfaced with one of the less ornate veggie trays.

"Really?"

Jon tried not to get offended that the honest surprise in his mom's voice. After all, it was not like he was Bethy out running the corporate rat race. Of course when you came down to it, he'd still probably end up with more marketable job skills than she did... just his did not pay as well. He dumped the veggie tray on the counter and hooked a foot around one of the tall stools, dragging it across the linoleum and ignoring his mother's annoyance at the hop skip and jump it made on the way.

"Yeah, apparently they head of me." He waved a celery stick in a descriptive circle, eyes locked on his food. She was pretty good at figuring out when he was lying and there was no way he was giving her any more clues than he had to. "Knack with dogs and whatnot. I think it is mostly contracting work, visiting rich folk's houses and whatnot." It was a lie and it was not a lie, which made it easier to tell. Plus she is always been in at him to try and use his knack to make a living, or to help people, or to help dogs (he supposed). He made quick work of the carrot section of the tray and she sighed across the kitchen at him.

"You fill that up again." She waved the knife she was using to chop broccoli meaningfully.

"Sure, sure." It was a house rule that if you ate it you replaced it, but it was also a house rule that Jon never actually replaced anything. Mostly because he grazed when he cooked (or chopped) and rarely ended up with enough leftovers to make it worth their while. "I'm heading out to some orientation thing tomorrow," He started in on the zucchini. "Might be an overnight thing, not really sure. They apparently have a building a few hours out that they wanted me to see. Probably just to see me in action or something." He abandoned the zucchini for the squash. "Wish me luck?"

"Since when have you ever needed luck?" He mother grinned over at him and for then nine thousandth time he was glad he had such strange parents. "But yes, yes, good luck bobo. Now help your father set the table." With that she shoed him out to the dinning room to help his father fish the appropriate plates out of the cabinets that they'd built into the seats.

It was an odd house.

[the next day]

Jon was not sure what he had expected, but the non descript navy blue passenger van was not it. It was and older van, and there were a few places near the bottom where the paint had chipped and you could see that it had once been an even more non descript white. On the side was the Huntsmen Inc. logo, a stylized motif of Artemis (bow in hand) and her hounds, silhouetted against a crescent moon. The logo on the business cards was simpler; simply the head of a hound against a moon, but Jon liked the full blown version better.

He tossed his gym bag in the back, on top of the other luggage already there and climbed into the middle seat. The bus was empty expect for himself and the two Huntsmen and Akela hopped in beside him, popping up through the floor and onto the seat. She gazed unperturbed at the Huntsmen when they gave her displeased looks, and refused to move. Jon was less inclined to worry about what kind of impression it made and happy to have her with him. He still was not quite sure about the dynamics of the whole situation, but it was nice to have a known variable in the equation.

"So where we going?" He settled back in the seat as the van pulled away from the house, conscious of Hunter and the rest of the hunt watching him leave from the apartment.

"We have a company building in eastern Pennsylvania," the woman twisted in the front passenger's seat to face him. "It is not a big complex, but it'll give us a meeting place for the rest of the local hunts."

"How many hunts are there?" Because up until now he'd sort of though his hunt was the only one for a good long ways. It was rather insulting that none of the others had come to help them.

"Not many, there was an influx of Veil walkers about five years ago and they did a number on the local hunts. Most of the folk that'll be showing up are New York and Tennessee packs." She shrugged. "There are a few smaller hunts that aren't part of the association, so they won't be coming, but we'll pass on any information we learn through the dogs." She nodded at Akela. "Everything we do depends on them."

Which made sense in a way, although Jon was still trying to figure out how they'd switched the power dynamic around. He worked for the dogs; they certainly did not work for him. For the other two hunts it looked like the exact opposite. Then again, that could just be because he hadn't been around them that much. But his was the only Dog in the van, so maybe not.

"So they talk to you?" Because that had been bugging him, Hunter seemed positive the dogs could actually talk but he'd seen no hint of it from his own pack.

"No, why?" She looked genuinely puzzled.

"Nothing, I just " he waved a hand "you seemed like you knew what was going on and I though maybe they'd told you."

"Nope," she shook her head ruefully, "everything we know about them, and about what's going on either comes from the writings or plain old sleuthing. They're just dogs after all."

Which was probably the stupidest thing he'd heard yet, but Akela whuffed at him and nudged her head under his hand for pets. He skritched absently, but he could hear her warning in the Singing. So he just nodded, and let her lead the conversation onto the association and its various benefits. If they did not know about the Dogs, then there must be a reason. But that begged the question of why his own hunt was letting him in on the secret.

"So how do you know all this anyways?" Jon leaned back in the seat trying to get comfortable. He'd unbuckle his seatbelt and lounge over the entire row but he figured that was probably illegal. Yay for seatbelt laws.

"A lot of what we know comes from the lore books. Before that it was all word of mouth. Some one at some point decided it was better written down and made a book out of it. We keep it going, adding things as we learn them, or as people postulate theories. At the moment it's an eBook."

"What, you have it out there where anyone could buy it?"

"Well yeah, but who's going to? It's mostly just gibberish to anyone who doesn't know what's going on. Heck it's gibberish even to the people who do half the time. Besides, it's priced at like one hundred buck and no one is going to pay that much for it except us."

"And the Hindsmen, right?"

"Mm, not if they're smart. We keep and eye on everyone who buys it, so it's pretty easy for us to stop them if they try and they know it."

"You're like the Big Brother I never wanted."

"Bingo."


[More chatter and driving and whatnot]


Daisy turned to look at him. "Now remember, we are the only ones who know your real name. Times being what they are, we want to keep it that way. So it is time for the nickname ceremony." She looked serious, but there was an edge of laughter to it.

Jon grinned nervously, looking over to Chowder then back to Daisy. "The what? You are kidding, right?"

"Just humor her. Otherwise she will pick something herself." Chowder gave him a meaningful look.

"Ah, erm," Jon tried desperately to think of something before Daisy could even start offering suggestions. "Steve?"

Daisy just looked at him.

There was a moment where Jon wondered if Steve had been taken and then-- "Wait, you mean I actually have to pick a non-name name?"

"Yup."

"But Daisy is a real name, that is not fair." He complained.

Daisy crossed her arms and gave him an unrelentingly glare. "Pick or I pick for you."

"Fine, fine, gimme a minute." Jon racked his brain for names that were names, and yet that he could put up being called by. "Spike?"

"Not a chance."

"Dodger, Chase, Angel, K-9, the Doctor, Innocent Bystander," He rattled off the names as fast as he could think of then and she finally waved him off.

"Stop, stop, just-- stop already." She lowered her hands when he trailed off. "Look, you're just really bad at this, apparently. Chowder," she turned towards the older man, "You name him."

"Do I have to?"

"YES."

"Ah, fine, what about Oak?"

"Oak?" Jon looked over at him, baffled.

"You had an oak tree in your yard." There was a pause. "What? Oh come on, I get named Chowder because that's what I had for lunch. Tough it up."

"You named me after a tree."

"You were busy trying to name yourself after TV shows. I at least get points for going for something pre-pop culture."


[arrival at safe house, convo with other huntsmen, discussion of what they face and what they need to do]

[that night Hunter shows up and they chat a bit]

[the next day they head out to the hospital to see what kind of intel they can get]


"Wait, why are we here?"

"People have gotten pretty good about keeping the dead alive, we're just going to go visit one of them. Only true Veil walkers left ah here we go, coma ward this away."

"That is really really fucked up."

"Yep."


[More chatter here with Mr. Not Quite Dead Yet Guy, and then...]


"You have a dark sider? Here??" Daisy stared at him incredulously. "When were you going to tell us?"

"Preferably?" Jon scratched the back of his neck nervously. "Never."


[At which point there is a bunch of yelling and whatnot]


"Wait, just wait" Jon raised a hand to fend off objections. "Seriously, just listen to me for a moment."

Daisy and Chowder backed down somewhat, but both of them were looking very upset. Jon took a moment to try and get his argument together while Hunter stood in the corner, arms crossed defensively and mostly faded out.

"Now as I understand it everyone here is on the same team, right?" There were grudging nods from all parties. "So what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that is that she is here !" Daisy pointed at Hunter angrily, "She is not supposed to be here and she knows it. Who knows what kind of trouble we can get in just because we aren't sending her back!"

"So why do not you ask!" Jon pointed at the coma guy. "He is right there, right? And he can hop on over and ask, right?"

"Well, it is not that "

"It is not his job to go running errands for people, she needs to get back where she belongs."

"Why should I? I can be more useful here than I can there."

"You do not have any Dogs!"

"I do not need any!" Hunter pointed right back. "Maybe I do not have any purchase over the Dogs or the living, but I've got power over the dead and that's something none of you have!"

"Yeah, but all we have to do is take out the grounding and the dead snap right back home." Daisy snapped her fingers threateningly. "And I'd do it to you in a second if Jon was not your anchor."

"Yes, yes, fine, whatever, but I am ." Jon glared at the two of them. "So if she is stuck here until I die or she feels like leaving there is not much we can do about it." He cut off Chowder before he could do more than open his mouth. "And no I'm not dying. Dying is not on the table. Ever."

"achem" the ghost coughed politely, "If I may?" They all looked over at him an the unexpected interruption. "Did it ever occur to anyone that the very fact that she is still here is because the Powers That Be have allowed her to do so?"

There was a confused silence.

"The blood gifting was meant for veil creatures, the very fact that it appears to have worked without one being part of the equation smacks of some sort of interference. If it was The Powers That Be, I do not know who else it could have been."

"Point."

"And I can not just walk over and ask them," he turned to address Jon, "they do not talk to us. Many believe that they do speak to the Veil creatures, but we have no way of knowing for certain."

There was a confirming surge in the Singing, and Jon was careful not to change his expression. It would be easier to hide that the Dogs were communicating with him if they'd stop participating in the conversations.

Akela snorted at him and then turned to pay attention to the other dogs (who were apparently snubbing him). Jon thought something sarcastic and then concentrated on the conversation again.

"So we just go along with it?" Chowder did not seem to think that was a good idea at all. "I still do not think this is a good idea."

"But the other option is killing Jon."

"Yeah, or finding another way to make her leave." Chowder eyed Hunter and she glared back at him. "Do not suppose it is worth appealing to your sense of honor?"

"This has nothing to do with honor!"

"Apparently not then."

"So what are doing?"

"Dark side suggests trying to find the Eastern coalition" the ghost shrugged. "There is not much organization within the Veil Walkers, it is setup much like your own group. Splinter cells, all of you." He made a face.

"Well, then I guess we just continue what we've been doing?" Daisy seemed hesitant to just continue business as usual. "We really do not have enough hunts to cover the whole eastern seaboard. Plus what happens if they catch on and move inland?"

"They're just people," Jon interjected then shrugged when she stared at him. "They have jobs and homes and families, just like us, right?" She nodded hesitantly. "So it is not like they can up and move , that's just not normal."

"Huh, suppose he has a point." Chowder eyed Jon with something akin to impressed. "We might do better just to tag the houses and keep an eye out if they move. We've got traces on some of them, and they really do not move much. Except for the folks who've gone contracting like we have."

"How long have these people been around??" Jon was under the impression that the Veil Walkers had been a more recent happening, unlike the Hounds which seemed to have been around forever.

"As a group? Probably longer than we have, although they're much better at keeping under the radar." Daisy shrugged. "There are a lot more people interested in cheating death than there are in keeping the dead on the dark side. There also do not seem to be as many Hinds and Hounds," there was a sudden surge in the Singing as the dogs disagreed, "but that might change if we keep loosing people in ones and twos."


[So Jon gets assigned to a task group that goes out every so often to hunt down strays from the other side and to gather information. This gives us the chance for a little bit of action and a whole lot of padding, if needed. The task group members are always changing, so it's a little odd. Jon is never sure if it's because they are losing Huntsmen or because they are just short handed and moving people around a lot.

In between this, he does actually get to go on some dog whispering type assignments, because they are trying to earn a bit of money after all. He has a bit of fun with the various dogs, being careful never to quite give away his actual knack.

Along the way he learns some interesting things about the older generation huntsmen and what the bond used to be like. There is a lot of information that indicated the dogs can bond much more closely than they do, but they chose not to. His own bond is apparently much stronger than other peoples and it seems to be because of Akela management of the pack.

He notices that there is some inter-pack tension and that Tos and Jenna often seem at odds with Akela and Athen. He isn’t quite sure what is going on, but it looks interesting. He also learned that both pairs came from separate packs not too long ago. Tos and Athen came from an older pack that had simply grown too large and Akela came from a pack that had been more or less wiped out in an attack.

Of course it's on one of these missions that Jon get's kidnapped by the Bad Guys(tm). Because hey, it's cliché, and darn but we love our clichés. Heh.]

When he returned home from work he found Hunter waiting for him on the couch. He ignored her for a moment, to dump off his tools and change clothes. Thus he was startled when she walked through his bedroom door as he was changing.

"Hey! Privacy!" He shoed her back towards the door, scrambling into his jeans as he did so.

She just rolled her eyes and walked back through the door, leaving him to finish dressing alone.

"Stay out of my bedroom," he complained as he reemerged, "I do not care how long you've been dead, you can not have forgotten that."

She gave him a half way innocent look and then pointed to the pile of random objects on the coffee table. "I have located the Hindsman's location "

"Yeah, well so have I." Jon dropped a copy of the local paper on the table, flipped to the article about the dead teen. "People do not just drop dead without anyone noticing." Although he was really really hoping that the police never connected him to the crime. "So we know where he lived, so what? He'd dead."

"True, but there should be additional clues in his residence." She pointed to two objects he did not recognize. One was some sort of pocket watch that looked older than ancient and the other was a pair of chopsticks with small metal spoons attached to the ends. They were much too small to eat with, even a baby wouldn't get a mouthful from them.

"And those are clues?" He reached down to pick up one of the chopsticks and spun it around between his fingers.

"Those are for the blood gifting ritual " Jon dropped the spoon with a curse, letting it clatter onto the table and wiping his hand against his jeans in disgust. " and this," she picked up the pocket watch, solidifying her hand as she did so, "is not as old as it looks." She popped it open and then pried the face of the clock open, showing him the digital displays hidden behind it. "It seems you have indeed found the organization I had spoken of."

"The Dead Man Mafia?"

She frowned, "Yes, although I wish you would not call them that."


[Hunter heads out into the big wild world to search for clues and leaves Jon behind. The Dogs decide to help him defend himself.]


Jon had a feeling this was a bad idea. A very very bad idea. He looked down at the gun Athen had dropped at his feet and tried not to wonder if it was the same gun from the fish warehouse. Tos growled in annoyance and he finally stooped to pick it up, noticing thankful that it did not seem to have and blood on it. It also did not have a clip, which made the handgun a tad less useful than he'd been expecting. He showed Athen the empty gap where the clip would be and the dog shrugged. Or whatever dogs do when they shrug, the emotion was the same even of the action was not. Tos snorted, having obviously thought it was pointless to even try and arm him. Jon sighed and pocketed the gun, at least he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally shooting himself. Although he'd have a fun time if a cop caught him with it. Somehow he did not think 'I got it from some ghost dogs who found it in the woods' was going to fly.

He'd never actually fired a gun before, but it looked easy enough on TV. Still, until he got a clip and bullets it was not much good for doing anything but throwing at people. He tucked in into a box or random odds and end that he had stashed under his bed. He actually had a lot of stuff under his bed, it was a repository of random things and he doubted anyone would go looking past the first few boxes. Akela made a protesting noise as he hid it away.

"What? I can not use it."

She cocked her head and blinked.

"No bullets." Jon sighed as she just tilted her head the other way, staring in downright confusion. "It throws little rocks." She nodded after a moment of chewing on concept. "I have no little rocks. Therefore it has nothing to throw."

There was another pause and then Akela wuffed in comprehension. However the dog did not leave to go fetch him ammunition, instead she just curled up on the bed. Half solid, she alternately compressed and melded through the piles of bed liens and clothing. He sighed and reached over to skritch her head and the dog eagerly faded her head in for the attention. Which only made her look odder, but Jon was starting to get used to the random permeability of the canines.


[Hunter figures out where the Hindsmen kid had lived, they go to investigate.]


"And this doesn't strike anyone else as a bad idea?" Jon shot Tos an incredulous look but the older dog just looked bored.

"Bad why?" Hunter finished checking her weapon and looked over curiously. She is faded out again, stark and solid only where her hands met the gun.

"Because you're killing innocent people!" He gestured at the surrounding apartment complexes. "There are people who live here; boring, unimportant, every day people."

"So?" She holstered the gun, and solidity rippled up from the hostler as she settled into reality.

"So " he searched for something that might connect 'bad' and 'death' in a more meaningful way. "So, they'd be dead. People do not like being dead."

"True." She frowned thoughtfully, "But they will be dead eventually, will they not?"

Jon looked to Akela for help but the alpha female was giving him the same confused look. Veil creatures had the same nonlinear grasp of death and Jon gave up the argument. "Alright, then do not kill them because it will make me feel bad."

"As you wish." Hunter moved past him to the door of the motel room. Her Dog following behind only slightly heavier than a shadow.

His own Dogs were in various stages of existence, but they bore the same expressions of resigned frustration. He was probably the only Huntsman they'd ever had who'd insisted on minimizing collateral damage. Then again he was the only Huntsman in centuries that had finally completed the blood gift and had been able to exert any control over Pack behavior.

He still was not sure how much it helped.

[More stuff happens here, including some clue finding. Probably.]

[Scene : Jon's Apartment (night)]
[Scene : next day]
[Scene : Warehouse (evening)]
[Scene : Woods by warehouse (day)]

When Jon was woken again in the middle of the night, he was almost expecting it. What little normality he had in his life seemed to vanish when the sun went down. He almost ignored the noise coming from the main room, because if he did not look maybe it would go away. Of course that idea lasted all of a nanosecond because there was always the possibility that it was something less ghostly and more solid and there had been way too many people shooting at him recently.

He carefully slipped out of bed, trying to make as little noise as possible. The dog who'd stayed with him was staring at the bedroom door with a look of shock. Or something akin to shock, she did not seem mad just startled. Then with a soundless bark she was running through the door and into the main room. He followed, much less enthusiastically, but without playing ninja. After all the dog would hardly lead him into danger, in theory.

He did not see anything other than the dogs at first when he stepped into the room. They were dancing about in a mass of faint blue dog dom and he did not see the new arrivals for a moment. Then he did see them, and he took a startled step back. In the middle of the pack of dogs was a shadow dog, an inky blackness in the shape of a dog, with only the faintest details visible. Behind him stood a human shaped shadow, but it did not look threatening. The shadows solidified first into a dog almost identical to his own, with embers for eyes and coat that rippled with every breath; then into a woman, as faint as the echo of and echo with ice blue eyes that chilled the air around them.

"Uh, hi?" Jon was not sure what to do with the visitor.

It turned to look at him, and there was a flicker as it solidified around the eyes until he could see shoulder length hair, bushed back from the face with some sort of cloth binding that reminded him of the fluffy 80's headbands. She was wearing only faint hints of clothing, but they looked like functional work clothes, jeans, vest, some sort of jacket, all rough and tumble and nothing but vague hints. The only thing perfectly in focus was still the eyes. They did not look angry, just amused and Jon relaxed slightly.

The shadow woman said something, but Jon only heard the barest echo of sound.

"What?"

It tried again, looking rather frustrated. Then, fell into a pantomime.

"You want, um, something?" Jon had no clue what she wanted, or why she was here, or why the dogs seemed so eager to welcome her into his house.

There was a nudge from one of his dogs against his knee and he looked down. The dog looked up with annoyance then pushed him towards the fridge. He started at it stupidly for a moment and the dog sighed, then scratched at the door. Jon opened it, suddenly remembering the myth of Persephone and the fact that she had to eat something to remain in Hell.

The fridge, sadly, was mostly empty and he ended up having to offer her Fritos and bean dip. The ghost blinked a few times, said something to her dog and then took a chip from the bag, the rest of her body fading back into shadow as she focused on grasping the food.

There was a short pause while she ate. Unlike the dogs, which had solidified fully, she only darkened somewhat. But after she'd polished off a handful of chips and some dip she turned and handed him the bag back with a smile.

"Thanks."

"So, uh, why are you here?" Because he could not think of a polite way to ask and he really sort of needed to know what the hell was going on.

She blinked, then looked down at the dogs and back up at him. "They did not tell you?"

"Hate to break it to you, but dogs do not talk where I come from." So maybe he had a crazy ghost lady in his living room and that really did not make it any less strange.


[Skip a bit, not sure what goes here, more talking?]


"Then we must find them."

"What, right now?" Jon glances at the clock. It was still early and even though he did not have to work tomorrow he really wanted a rest. The past few days had been pretty draining, all things considered.

"They have attacked you, have they not?" Hunter raised an eyebrow. "These are not the simple villains you suppose them to be; do not judge the whole by what little you have seen."

"Well yeah, but "

"Then we must go." She gestured toward the door imperiously. "Unless you wish to wait for them to come here?"

"No, definitely no." This was the very last place he wanted them to come. He could deal with the dogs and the ghosts and the unreal chaos of the past few days, but only as long as it left real life alone. The instant things crossed over and started messing up other people's lives was where he drew the line. They weren't getting his family too.

Even though he'd been in the drive by, it hadn't occurred to them that the Dead Man Mafia might be able to figure out where he lived. It was down right terrifying thinking of that same brutal (if thankfully ineffective) attack focused at his parents, or his cousin. Bethy was armed and dangerous herself, but she was the only one out of the bunch he though would have a prayer.

He grabbed his coat and his keys and headed for the door. "So let's go."


This was where things started to get messy. Jon was not sure quite how to ask if Hunter had the same ability to travel at high speeds as the Dogs did. He settled for just asking her if she wanted a lift. He was relieved when she said yes, not because he really wanted to be stuck in a car with a ghost, but because it made a little more human somehow. Some times she seemed less human than the Dogs and it was unnerving that something that looked so normal could be so oft. Well, not that she looked normal most of the time. She tended to only solidify the portions of her body that she needed to interact with the world. Which mean he spent most of his time hanging out with a pair of eyes and a few fingers that were just a shade thicker than smoke.

All things considered it was easier than the Dogs which solidified when they felt like it, without warning or reason. Except for Hunter's Dog, Jon has never seen the shadow darken at all.


[They got out to the warehouse, the dogs go looking on their own and Hunter gets to talking again...]


"I am dark side," the ghost said, as if this somehow answered everything. Jon was shifted backwards as she knelt and sifted through the pile of rubbish.

He gave her a moment, hoping she'd elaborate on her own, but she ignored him. "And dark side means what?"

She paused in her search and turned to look up at him. "You are a Huntsman, are you not?"

"A what?"

She just looked at him for a moment, then stood carefully brushing off leaf debris. "You are Huntsman." She touched shadow fingertips to his forehead, "Huntsman here," she touched his chest above his heart with the same feather light caress, "Huntsman here. As you are, so are they." She gestured past him to the faint outlines of the Dogs down by the river. "You anchor them here, light side, as they anchor you to the Veil."

There was a pause, and Jon tried to look slightly less confused. It did not work.

"You know of the Veil?"

"Err, no."

She frowned, then clucked her tongue at the distance Dogs. "Ah, I see now," she brushed back her sleeve to show an oval of silvered scars. "My blood gift was unexpected as well." Jon rubbed his upper arm sheepishly, still wincing slightly as the newly healed skin protested. "But you are not part of the Singing, I think."

Jon blinked.

"This is the simple thing," she chided. "You have gifted them, but have they gifted you? I think not." She frowned thoughtfully. "But this may work for our favor."

Before Jon could react she had fished a slim silver knife out of one of the many half coalesced pockets and drawn a fine red line along her forearm. The blood glistened in the moonlight, heavy and real against the shadows of her skin. "Drink."

"Wait what??" Jon backpedaled from the offered arm. "Are you crazy??"

She frowned, "Do not think I offer lightly. Nor would I give what I would not ask in return." She tilted her arm to look at the cut. "But this will offer me purchase in your world, and give you the same in mine."

"Wait, what world?" Jon trained his gaze on her face and away from the blood. "I do not understand."

"There is the Veil, which cleaves life from death." She nodded towards the Dogs, "They who are of the Veil protect it, guard it from crossings. We," she grinned at Jon, ", we who are of the light and the dark, we anchor them that they might fight in our stead."

Jon was not quite sure what was more disturbing, that the ghost was apparently actually a ghost or that the vampire dogs were contagious.


[Jon decides maybe this is not such a bad idea and pricks his finger with the knife (ow!)]


The dogs all looked over the instant their hands met, Jon's dogs falling into a flat out run an instant later and Hunter's dog simply vanishing an reappearing beside her. Dark side dogs apparently weren't too caught up in obeying the laws of physics.

All five of the dogs were upset, although all of them seemed upset with him and not Hunter and he did not think that was fair. Jon looked over at Hunter, but she was staring at her dog, which stared back and he could hear the faint whisper of clashing notes. It sounded like they were arguing.

His own dogs commandeered his attention, Tos roughly shouldering him away from Hunter and Akela looping a paw over her arm so she could sniff his hand. After a second she pulled away, sneezing and glaring up at him.

"What? What?" He threw up his hands, frustrated. "I thought we could use the help, it is not like I have any clue what I'm doing!"

Athen looked over at Hunter (still arguing with her dog) and then back at Akela with a soundless whine. Tos grumbled, a rumbling snarl that never made it past his chest. Jenna seemed to be the only dog who had taken the blood gifting in stride. She pushed past the other three to look up at Jon, uncharacteristically bold.

"We need her help." He looked down at her, trying to figure out a way to make them see reason.

She snuffed, then stood up, planting her forepaws on his chest and pushed him back against the tree. He opened his mouth to object and before he could close it she rubbed her head against him, leaving him with a mouthful of bloody fur. He pushed her off, spitting out dog fur and cursing the general strangeness off ghost dogs, she had jigged backwards and was looking at him with a big doggy grin, tail wagging.

He was about to complain to Hunter when suddenly the world went a bit sideways and he sat down with a thump. There was a sort of shimmer and suddenly the dogs that he'd finally gotten used to seeing (or at least as used as he was going to get) changed. No longer were they a ragtag group of mutts with no real thematic unity. Now they were a set of four almost identical dogs; long legged and large eared sight hounds with a soft blue glow to them. He started, which in turns made them shy backwards a step. Hunter's lurked in the background, completely uninterested (as normal), and he noticed that it hadn't changed at all. It was still the same inky black dog shaped void it had always been. It took a second for his vision to stop spinning and when it did he found Hunter looking down at him with a bemused look.

"Well that was unorthodox." She offered him a hand up and he took it gratefully.

"What the hell was that about?" He spat out the last of the stay dogs fur and glared at Jenna in annoyance, she grinned back and he heard the faint whisperings of what he could have sworn was a guitar.

"You just got the other half of the blood gift," Hunter to share Jenna's amusement, although the rest of the dogs looked a little taken aback. "It was not a proper gifting, of course, but that should means it'll just take a little longer to settle in."

"Oh," he wiped his hand on his jeans and stared down at Jenna. "So, uh, I really do not feel any different."

"You won't." Hunter was gathering the last of their stuff up and seemed ready to head back towards the car.

"What, do not I get super powers or something?" Jon started to help her gather the gear and stopped as soon as he realized his balance was still off. "I thought that was part of the deal."

"Super power?" She raised an eyebrow.

"You know, like invisibility, or living forever, or running after than a speeding bullet, or some such."

"Hmm, no." She headed back towards the car and he followed. In the background the music was getting slightly louder, and it reminded him a bit of the muted howling the dogs had done earlier.

"So what does it do?"

"You live longer, but not forever. You heal faster, but not immediately. And," she stepped carefully over a fallen tree, "You can hear the Singing."

"Singing?" He took the long route around the tree and she waited for him to catch up. "You mean the music I keep hearing?"

She frowned, "Music? I do not know. Everyone hears it differently. I hear the river when they Sing, bubbling and frothing over calm and rapids."

"Oh." Jon looked over at Akela, and he tried to sort her out of the melody. She looked over at him after a moment and he could hear the bell like theme change tone and focus. "So that's you, hey?"

She sniffed and the bells chimed in unimpressed agreement. There was an emotion to the sounds, although he was not sure if he was projecting it or if it was really there. Either way, it seemed to match the visual cues so he figured he'd trust it for now.

"So now what?"

"Now I find out what this means." She patted the bag slung over her shoulder. "You will continue with your life and pretend you know nothing."

"That won't be too hard."


[So now Jon can hear the singing and he is got a bit of the other gifts as well and he is about a million times as confused as when he started. So Jon ditches them to go hang out with Sebastian, who was always the grown up of the group. If anyone can help him sort out this mess it is Bastian.

Sebastian listens to everything (including the fight and the drive by and all the fun supernatural stuff) and takes it all in stride. He is nothing if not imaginative and he is more than willing to suspend disbelief for a bit. Jon is more or less expecting that reaction (which is why he came) but it is still a relief to have someone else who believes him. After all, he is still not sure he believes it all himself.

This is the point where Hunter shows up (avec Dog) and Sebastian gets a little more involved than he'd wanted to. Crazy things happening are always more palatable when they are happening to someone else.

But Hunter assures them that the Dead Man Mafia and the Dogs won't care that he knows, since he is not really involved. No one is going to believe him anyways, so there's no risk. So yay for friend's safety and boo for the hunt's general disinterest in anything other than Veil business.]

[In which normality attempts to reassert itself.]

[Scene 10, car/worksite (morning)]
[Scene 11, Sebastian's dorm room (day)]
[Scene 12, apartment/house (day)]
[Scene 13, apartment (night)]


[Jon had almost gotten a handle on the situation. True, he was being followed around by a sometime solid pack of ghost dogs, and he had almost probably maybe sorta killed someone. He was actually less okay with the killing than he was by the whole ghost dog business, and what did that say about his psyche? Still he though he was adapting to the situation pretty well, all things considered. Everything would be okay. Somehow.

And then he was attacked on his way to work.

That was not okay.

Jon's driving to work in the Frankencar and the dogs are running alongside like normal. At least three of them are, Akela has taken to riding shotgun because she is amused with the whole 'running around in a metal box' concept. The others are mostly phased out, which means it is easier for them to run through things, and generally avoid detection.

A normal looking sedan pulls up beside them and someone leans out the back window and shoots into their car. They miss but do a good bit of damage and scare the bleep out of Jon. The dogs go into battle mode, but as there is not a Veil creature to contend with they are mostly useless. Akela does a good job of slowing some of the bullets so that they do less damage, or just lose momentum altogether.

Jon escapes (mostly by chance) and drives to work where everyone else marvels over the bullet holes while he has a small meltdown. The cops are called and a report is filed, but all they can really do is put out an APB for a white sedan with Wyoming plates. Since he can not really give them a reason for why anyone would be out to get him the cops write it off as a one time random things. Jon stays at work and basically hides inside the entire time (which no one can blame him for).

The car is not too damaged so Jon figures he'll just have Todd patch it up later. Someone from work follows him home (just for safety's sake) but nothing happens. The whole pack of dogs crashes in his apartment that night which doesn't help his peace of mind.

The next day is a more or less normal day and he sort of relaxes.]

[In which any semblance of normality goes right out the window.]

[Scene 6, garage apartment (night)]
[Scene 7, woods (night)]
[Scene 8, warehouse (night)]
[Scene 9, car/apartment (night)]


He woke to the sound of not howling later, and there was a short bit of cursing (and invoking of divine protection). He tried to ignore it, but he could not get back to sleep with the song playing in the background. This time it was not just woodwinds, but a series of musical themes, nothing loud enough to actually hear, but loud enough to register as noise.

He got out of bed, and snuck over to the window. There was nothing there. Confused, he went back to bed. There was a noise from the side of the building, but it was the opposite side of the house and he could not see over there. He felt around under the bed for the baseball bat that he'd stuck a bit of holly on (and an old iron nail and a bit of salt) and tried to talk himself into heading into the main room to check it out.

Then it got quite for a bit, and he got up the courage to go exploring. He opened the door carefully, bat in hand, but saw nothing. He started over to the side window and was halfway across the couch when the dogs walked through the door. He hefted the bat, but they did not look threatening. All four of them flowed into the room. The two Sheppard like dogs were in front, the rotwieller and the hound like dog hanging back behind them.

"Shoo!" He waved the bat threateningly. "Go home! Leave me alone!" Pause. "Rar!"

The dogs looked at him for a moment then the dog from the worksite stepped forward. He raised the bat, preparing for an attack, but the dog just wagged it is tail slowly, ears up and a slightly wary look. The bat dipped slightly as he hesitated and in that instant the dog sprang on him.

The dog knocked him back against the sofa, whomping his elbow against the coffee table and accidentally disarming him. For a moment he was surprised, not just by the attack but by the fact that the ghost had weight to it. Still, it felt much lighter than a dog it is size should have and Jon struggled to get leverage against the animal. They fought for a minute, the dog using her weight to pin him against the couch and Jon trying to grab a hold of the bat. During the struggle the bat wedged itself under the coffee table and Jon gave up trying to reach it. Instead he grabbed one of the game controllers, but it passed through the animal harmless. Although it did feel a bit like pushing his hand through water, the dog did not seem to notice.

While he was distracted by the sensation, the dog bit down hard on his upper arm. Jon yelped, more from shock than pain, as a feeling of ice spider webbed its way down his arm. As the cold shot through his system a thickening effect spread through the dog. Starting with its nose and working backwards, the dog coalesced, suddenly very real and very heavy.

Jon twisted, trying to throw her off his chest, but she was braced against the couch and had him pinned to the floor. She seemed to have much greater strength than should be possible for a dog, and his flailing got slightly more desperate as she solidified. She released his arm after she had finished, and the other dogs, still shadows, came forward to touch noses with her. Each one solidifying in the same seep of reality.

Jon at up as soon she as she let him, pulling the sleeve away to check the wound. Instead of the ragged bite mark he was expecting, there was a small smear of blood and a set of silvery scars in the familiar half circle bite pattern. He poked one of the scars experimentally and cursed as the newly healed skin ached a bit. But the pain was nothing worse than some of the bruises he'd gotten while playing rugby. In fact if he was not poking it, there was only a faint ache from his arm.

He looked over at the dogs, who had arranged themselves around the main room, all looking at him expectantly. None of them were being threatening and he had no idea what to do next.

They gave him a moment to recover and then they started moving towards the door. Three of the dogs walked right through it, but the fourth, the one from the job site stopped and turned to look back at him. [Jon abruptly decided to call her Akela because just calling her 'the dog' was getting really tiring. He decided to figure out later just how he knew it was a she, because he hadn't been paying attention previously.] She looked at him expectantly, which was a little disconcerting because she'd mostly faded out again expect for her eyes.

"What?"

There was another echo bark and she looked from him to the door and back again. It was a classic 'follow me' in canine, but he was not at all interested.

"You want me to follow you? No way!" Jon shook his head, backing away from the door. "Are you nuts? Go away, leave me alone!" He almost tripped over the bat as he backed away, and reached down to grab it.

Akela blinked, then barked again, this time more insistent and much less friendly.

"No." He raised the bat, prepared to try defending himself again. It hadn't gone all that well the first time, but he figured it could not hurt to try.

When she realized he was not going to move the started walking towards him, teeth bared and stiff legged. The fur on her back bristled and her tail horizontal and barely waving. Which he was very much aware in canine meant 'do what I say or I will beat the living daylights out of you'.

"Fine, fine!" He still held the bat defensively. "Just promise me you'll leave me alone once I do whatever it is you want me to."

She stopped growling, but her stance was still aggressive. After a moment she finally relaxed somewhat and turned back to the door. Which was not really an answer to his ultimatum, but he decided silence meant ascent. Because he really wanted them to go away and he'd take any slim hope offered.

He did not feel like it was worth arguing that it was the middle of the night and he had work tomorrow. After all he was pretty sure the concept of 'job' was going to be beyond the reach of a dog, and the dogs apparently could care less what he wanted. He grabbed a jacket, his keys, and the bat and headed out the door, locking it behind him.

The dogs were surrounding the Frankencar and he figured that meant it was time for a ride. The thought of driving the dogs anywhere was not one he was happy with, but when he got in the car they stayed outside. For a moment he thought the metal might be protecting him, but then one of the dogs walked through the car to get to the other side, so apparently not.

The dogs started off down the street and he followed slowly, only to find out that once they started running he was easily going forty just to keep them in sight. Akela paced his car, but the other dogs did not seem to care if they left him behind, slowing down only when Akela snarled at them. Which explained how the dogs had followed him home from the worksite. They seemed to have no speed limit, easily keeping up with him on the sections of road where the speed limit was well over fifty.

Eventually they led him down a side road, stopping by one of the mile markers. He pulled the car over onto the shoulder, and they started heading into the forest.


He sat in the car for a long moment trying to figure out if he was going to follow. It was not as hard to follow the ghostly shadows from the car. Here he was protected, by the steel and plastic of Frankencar's bulk as well as the general sense of 'I can run away'. Of course the dogs could walk right through the car and they'd already shown that they could run faster than he could drive, so it was a false sense of security. But he clung to it anyways.

On the drive over he'd also named all of the dogs, just because it gave a sense of power over them. The leader was Akela, the same dog who had appeared at the work site. The apparent second in command was the other German Sheppard mix, and he decided to call that one Athen. The big bulky rotweiler was Tos and the slightly timed hound like dog was Jenna. He was not quite sure why he'd picked the names he had, but they sounded about right and he need to call them something. Well, something other than 'dammed ghost dogs'.

Now they wanted him to get out of the car, and apparently head into the middle of forest. He peered into the circle of light made by the headlights. There was not even a path. He dug in the glove compartment for the flashlight and shook it a few times to charge the chemical battery. He was still trying to decide what to do when one of the dogs started moving back towards the car.

Sebastian was right, they could not make him do anything, but he had proof on his arm that they could make him regret refusing. He rubbed his arm and frowned at the dogs. The closest one, Tos, snarled at him, a soundless rumbling that he felt more than heard. He sighed and got out of the car, flicking on the flashlight as the headlights went off. The headlights had made a tiny cone of light against the woods, the flashlight made only a tiny circle on the ground.

Tos snorted, and turned back to the rest of the pack. They started heading into the woods, in a 'follow me' attitude. As if he wouldn't refuse. He stopped, a few feet away from the car, just to see if they'd leave him behind. For a moment they did, then Tos was back to snarl at him, and he jogged to catch up.


The dogs were just as submissive of him walking in the dark as they had been in the car. After a while he lost sight of them all together and ended up following the faint movement of the ground cover as it recovered from their passing.

This was where the trail ended. Jon stared at the unmarked ground for a moment wondering where the Dogs could have gone. Unless they could fly there should have been another set of ghost faint paw prints right after these, but he saw nothing. Of course the fact that the Dogs weren't actually dogs took a second to percolate from things Jon knew to things Jon knew. At that point the question shifted from where the trail had gone to why the Dogs had been leaving a trail to start with. It would have been easier on Jon for them to have simply stayed with him instead of running ahead into the forest. The fact that they apparently no longer cared if he could follow them was disturbing.

So he decided enough was enough and he sat down. Leaning up against the trunk of the tree he started upwards into the oblivious canopy. The Dogs had seemed very determined to get him out here, and now they've just vanished. Which either meant that they'd gotten him lost in the woods on purpose (which was not a good sign) or that they'd simply forgotten he was not able to keep up with them (which boded only slightly better).

Either way he was going to wait right here until they came back or the search parties found him. At least he was assuming they'd send out search parties at some point.

After a few moments Akela and Athen came loping out of the forest, but the other two dogs were nowhere to be seen. They stopped about ten yards away and Akela yipped at him expectantly. They looked primed to turn and dash off again as soon as he got up, so Jon did not get up.

Athen barked at him.

John ignored him.

The dogs tolerance for being ignored was apparently very low. Akela gave him about twenty seconds after Athen's barked to repeat the command, this time considerably less politely. Jon was amused how much emotion he could read into the various poses and noises. Dogs were so easy to anthropomorphize, especially when they were acting acutely undogly.

At that point Tos and Jenna reappeared. Jenna stopped a few feet behind Akela and Athen, but Tos continued all the way over to Jon until they were nose to nose. Or almost nose to nose, Tos had to look down.

Yet again reminded of just how large the dog was, Jon briefly considered giving in and getting up. Large and annoyed was not the best of combinations for something roughly the same mass (even if he was phased out) and with much larger teeth.

But no, enough was enough, and he was not budging. Jon glared back up at Tos. It was time for some answers.

"Where are we going?" Jon demanded.

Tos just stared at him. Akela twitched an ear in confusion and Athen sat down with a sigh.

"I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what's going on!"

Of course since the dogs could not talk it was rather silly to ask. The dogs gave him a moment to figure this out for himself, and then Tos gave an exasperated look when he remained firmly planted on the ground. Akela whuffed in annoyance and shouldered Tos aside to take his place a nose length from Jon's face.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Which is really what he had meant the first time, but Jon was still working out what he wanted to know and what he did not want to know. He was not sure if he wanted an answer, but having Akela looming over him made it a rather important point.

Akela blinked, as if she was trying to translate from human to dog, the shook her head. Jon assumed she meant 'no'.

Tos nodded quietly to himself and muttered something unrepeatable.

"Is someone else trying to kill me?"

There was a quick dog conference and then Akela nodded, but in a roundabout way that was half nod and half negation. Okay, so that was not too bad. At least the dogs seemed to be on his side, or not actively trying to get him killed. Jon paused to digest the fact that some other unknown force was trying to kill him, or at least thinking about it.

Jon tried to figure out how to phrase his other thousand question into yes/no answers, but Tos's snarling was getting less muted and Akela was giving him a 'that's it lets go!' look. So he figured it was better to save those for after whatever it was the dogs needed him for. He stood, bushing off the remnants of last years leaves. Gesturing dramatically in the direction they had been heading originally he solemnly intoned "Lead on Mac Duff!" But the dogs missed the reference.


He stepped into the gravel parking lot, the only other sign of life was an ancient station wagon parked haphazardly over the false curb of grass. Jon could see that the door to the warehouse was open, but only barely in the dim light. The flood light over the door had been broken and the generic security camera hung at an awkward angle, sparking every so often. Most of the illumination came from the lights that were on inside the building.

The dogs flowed forward to circle in front of the door. They looked like a movie on mute, baying and howling and snarling without any sound. They flickered in and out of solidity, eyes and fangs hanging solid, imbedded in shadows.

Jon stood for a moment, just outside the flickering pool of light, tying to tamper down the fear that was quickly overwhelming his shock. The world still had a misty quality to it, as if he was somehow separated, watching it from afar. He wished he could just wake up, shake off the phantoms waiting for him at the door and get back to his normal life.

But the dogs were getting impatient and he could almost feel the vibrations of Tos's growl. Maybe being killed by the dogs would be better than whatever was waiting in the warehouse, but he was more inclined to take an unknown doom over a very real certainty.


The dogs flowed through the walls, dim echoes of shadows, and Jon followed behind. The door creaked slightly as he eased it open enough to fit through, but there was no reaction from inside the building. The entry room light was on, but he could see lights on further back as well. The room was chilly, but not cold and Jon saw warning signs for cold storage beside the next set of doors.

He carefully crossed the room, waiting for something to spring out and attack, but nothing happened. The cold room doors were propped open, even though the lock had already been destroyed. There were a series of holes and Jon could see the gleam of shell casings scattered about in the corners of the room. Which meant what ever the dogs were after, it had a gun.

Of course if it could carry a gun it probably was not a ghost, and that raised his spirits somewhat. He might be able to bargain with someone still alive, the dead seemed much less interesting in rational discussion.

There was a loud crash and the sound of wood breaking from the next room. Interlaced was a stream of curses that was impressive for it is volume, although not it is creativity. The voice also sounded young, frustrated, and maybe a little scared. Which meant a freaked teenager, possibly with a gun. Jon waited a second, but there were no sounds other than the boy, and thankfully no gunshots.

Which meant there was not anyone to rescue, and he was not sure what the dogs wanted. Was he supposed to talk to the kid? Stop him? From doing what? And the dogs really did not look like they were out to end this peacefully. And Jon really was not prepared to kill anyone. Although if they tried to kill him, he was not adverse to the idea. He'd rather just incapacitate them. Or just talk them into surrendering. Or

The dogs had solidified into thick mist, and they all stared at him, waiting.


[And then they go in and find the bad guys, who start shooting at him. Fun times, fun times.]


For a fraction of a second Jon was furious that they were ignoring him. Then reality snapped back into focus and he dove behind the nearest wooden crate. The Dogs and the What ever it was were a snarling, baying, braying fury of teeth and hooves and horns. A bullet ricocheted off the box above him and Jon's attention switched from the Dogs to the nervous looking teenager.

"Hey! Hey stop it!" Jon started flinging random objects in the direction of his attacker. Thankfully the teenager's aim was as good as Jon's talent for flinging dead fish. "Why the hell are you shooting at me?!?"

"Make them shop!" The kid was screaming, buy Jon could not tell if he was angry of terrified.

"The dogs?" Jon ducked another rain of splinters, "They do not listen to me!" He searched frantically for more flingable fish...


[And then they kungfu fight!!]


There was something disturbingly peaceful about the aftermath.

The giant deer thing has vanished the moment the kid had Jon's mind skidded away from the reality of the limp body beneath the shattered wreckage of the shipping crates. And now he was left, the only solid thing in the building. The Dogs had faded out again, wisps of shadow against the stuttering overhead lights.

They were waiting, but he was not sure for what.


He looked back at the hints of moisture peeking from beneath the rubble and the need to be somewhere else was overwhelming.

So he left, slowly at first, then faster as he got away from the warehouse, away from the splintered wood and the smell of fish. But he'd never been a runner, rugby was a stop and go sport, a chase, not a flat out run away as far and as fast as he could go.

The dogs ran with him, shadows against shadows, fading in and out like flames. When he finally stopped, coughing for breath and curled against the ground, they ringed him in a whirlwind of nothing.

He was not sure how long he stayed, breathing in the smell of loam and crushed leaves, eyes shut against recent memory. And he could have sworn he heard them then, a sound like rushing water and the echo of belling howls. When the world final rewound itself, he sat up to find only one Dog remained. She tilted her head and smiled, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. Like nothing had happened.

So he clung to that, that nothing had happened, because he was not ready to face anything else.

She led him back through the woods, back to the car, and back to the house (though he knew the way). He left her in the yard, but found her by the foot of his bed. The shadow of a dog with yellow brown eyes watched over him as he slept, and for some reason he was not afraid.


[And we're back to a scene with dogs that may or may not actually talk... arg. *pokes Muse*]


"Well, at least he did not get himself killed." Athen sniffed as they watched Jon stumble up the steps to his apartment.

"And that's impressive?" Tos was busy watching for cars on the street. "That was one boy with a gun. If rumors are true, there is a lot worse out there."

"They're just rumors." Jenna did not sound sure of herself, and had curled up behind Tos so that she was hidden from the noise and lights of the passing cars. "We would have been told already if they were true," she licked a paw nervously, "wouldn't we?"

"I would think so," Tos sighed, "but rumors of that magnitude do not spring out of thin air. There's something there, we just do not know what."

"Or how bad." Athen turned away from the apartment as the lights inside were turned off. "If it is anything like the southern hunts are insinuating, we might need help."

"I do not think we'll get any help." Tos turned to nose Jenna as she tucked her nose under her tail for a nap. "The old hunt is not going to be willing to send anyone to help us, not after the way we left. Akela's hunt won't be much help either. If it even still exists."

"There's always dark side."

"Eh, I hate working with dark side hunts." Jenna muttered from under her tail, one eye open and looking quite put upon. "It is like they think life is corrupting."

"Just let them try that nonsense." Tos's teeth glinted in the moonlight. "I'll show them corrupted. Besides Akela will never go to the Powers, she is too young and too proud."

"I still think going to the Powers That Be is our best option." Athen looked back at the apartment thoughtfully. "If I go now, I can be back before she knows I'm gone."

"It is your choice."

Athen nodded, then turned and ran through the yard, fading out as he went until there was not even a shadow left.

[In which life becomes a little less normal.]

[Scene 3, worksite (day)]
[Scene 4, Keith's Dad's shop (day)]
[Scene 5, Sebastian's dorm room (evening)]


The next morning he woke after a bad nights sleep. He'd had disturbing dreams that he could not quite remember, except for the fact that they centered around the dogs. Thus he was not sure if he'd just dreamed the encounter last night, or if it had actually happened. He took a few minutes that morning to search the area where he had seen them, but there weren't any paw prints or marks on the fence or anything to suggest that they had actually been there. Then again, they had been ghost dogs.

He headed into work slightly less disquieted, but alert to anything out of the ordinary. There was not anything strange on the drive in or in the yard surrounding the house, so he more or less relaxed. Most of the work he had to do was inside, which was a comfort. But when they broke for lunch he caught sight of the dog he'd seen the first day waiting under a nearby tree. Although not the same tree.

"Hey, [coworker], you see the dog over there?" The tree was far enough away that it was not an odd question. Well, not that odd anyways. He pointed in the general direction of the dog.

"Nah, it is just a log." His coworker seemed unalarmed at either the question or the implication that Jon had seen a dog that apparently was not there.

Jon looked over again, and there was indeed a log behind the dog, and that just freaked him out a bit. Because they might be ghost dogs, but they were ghost dogs that only he could see and that was a little creepier.

"Ah, okay, thought I saw something for a minute there. Hey, pass the mustard." And they went back to normal lunchtime conversation. Sullivan provided lunch for the workers, but it was just basic sandwich stuffs. Everyone chipped in and brought various condiments and extras to make the sandwiches more palatable to their individual tastes. Like the guy who loaded everything with sweet peppers.


[Jon steadfastly ignored the dog, and it seemed content to let him. He went back inside and finished off the bathroom plumbing (he was learning the basics of plumbing from [coworker], but only simple things. He still was not ready to actually apprentice to anyone, preferring to do a little of everything instead of committing to a specific skill set.)

When he left the house again for the meeting before everyone headed home the dogs was still there. As he was putting things away in the truck and saying goodbye to everyone a second dog showed up. Then a third. When he looked over the last time all four of them were there staring at him with out of shadowy eyes.

Now suitably freaked out he doesn't head home, but over to his friend Keith's Dad's mechanics shop. Mostly because he knows there will be people there and thus he will not be alone (like he would at the house). Also, Keith is there and he needs some backup because this is really creepy.

The dogs watch him pull out of the parking lot and do not do anything. They just watch him leave from under the tree, intensive gaze, but no indication they are going to chase him.

Over at the shop he explains what's going on to Todd, who really doesn't believe it, but he gets off work and the two head over to see Sebastian at the local college.]


"Hey!" Sebastian's expression changed from annoyance to good cheer as soon as he saw who it was at the door.

"Hey." Jon ducked inside as soon at the door was open far enough, Todd following behind with an overly dramatic eye roll.

"What's up?" Sebastian closed the door (with one last glare towards the room with the stereo with speakers that went to 11) and made a grab for his textbooks before Todd sat on them. "you look sorta freaked."

"I am sorta freaked," Jon collapsed into the futon that served as both bed, couch, and textbook repository. "I'm being chased by ghost dogs!" Which was overly dramatic, if only to avoid the fact that it did sort of demand some sort of drama. It was not every day a person got chased by a pack of otherworldly canine. Not that they had been chasing him, per say, but it was rather stalker ish of them.

"Ghost dogs?" Sebastian looked over at Todd who shrugged and fished a soda out of the mini fridge next to the other futon. "You're kidding, right?"

Jon just gave him an annoyed look.

"Okay, maybe you're not." Sebastian grabbed the computer chair (which was the only other thing clean enough to sit on). "So?"

Jon ran down the story again, this time trying to make himself sound a little less crazy. He really was not sure it had worked.

"I think he is nuts." Todd was halfway through one of Sebastian's random architectural magazines randomly flipping pages.

"But they have not done anything?" Sebastian was looking less impressed, which means Jon might have gotten the level of 'crazy' vs. 'understandably concerned' right this time.

"Well, guess not, but it is still creepy." Jon finished off the soda and though about getting another one, but the futon was comfy and he'd had enough movement for one day. "I mean, they could." He waved the can in a general 'great doom is upon us all' motion.

"Mmm," Sebastian turned to his computer, rescuing the keyboard out from under something that looked like a scale model of the downtown library. or at least a good 40% of it. Jon took the moment to wonder if he could build anything that small while Sebastian puttered about on Wikipedia. He'd more or less decided that he could not when Sebastian make a sort of aha noise.

"What?"

"Per the combined brainpower of the internet... they do not exist. At least none of the dogs in here match." He pushed back from the desk and rescued a bag of half full Doritos from under the futon. "I've got black dogs and fairy hounds and divine dogs, and nothing that matches your pack of mutts." He made an unhappy noise at the staleness of the Doritos. "If it helps, I do not think they're out to kill you."

Jon was not impressed. "And you got this from..?"

"Well, you've seen them, what, three times now? And it is not like they've done anything but be creepy."

"Plus, there is not much you can do to stop them." Keith pointed out, now slightly tipsy and staring at the sky map Sebastian's roommate had taped to the ceiling.

"Keith, stop helping." Sebastian glared at him. Keith did not notice the glare, too caught up in trying to read the tiny constellation names from a good five feet away.

"What? It is true." He blinked and looked over at Jon, waving his beer meaningfully. "They're ghosts, right? I mean what can you do against ghosts? You're screwed." He paused. "Well, I mean, not screwed, screwed, just not much you can do."

"I'm screwed."

"If you were Catholic you could perform an exorcism or something." Keith wiggled his fingers. "Holy water and garlic "

"A, I'm not; and B, garlic is for vampires. Besides I think exorcism's only for places or possessed people. I'm just sort of, um, haunted." He frowned. "Is there a word for ghost stalking?"

"Any reasons why they would be after you?" Sebastian looked up from the keyboard, still poking around looking for anything useful. "I mean, they aren't haunting a place as far as we can tell. And you did not do anything to attract their attention, so why are they here?"

"Maybe you're like the Dog Whisperer, only for ghosts. Err, ghost dogs anyway" Keith ignored Sebastian's eye rolls. "So maybe they need you to right a wrong or save some dog in peril or something. Do not good ghosts normally want you to do something for them?"

"Well, if you are really really general about it, yeah." Sebastian looked over the Wikipedia pages that he had open. "I mean most of the dogs are guardians of something.

"Or signs that I'm about to die."

"Hey, I thought we had to stay positive here," Keith sniffed. "No cheating."

"And that would be a large black dog, these are, what, a random collection of multicolored mutts?"

"More or less, although one looks sort of like a mastiff." Jon shuddered. "I do not think that one likes me much."

"Hey, they could be the four dogs of the apocalypse!" Keith grinned. "War and Death and, um, the other two. Any red dogs?"

"No, no red dogs, and I think I would have noticed a pestilence or a famine. They all looked fine to me. Well, dead, but fine. I mean not starving or anything." Jon leaned back in the couch. "Why can not they go haunt someone else?"

"Well, you do talk to dogs." Sebastian shrugged apologetically, "You were probably the best choice."

"Ugh."

There was the faintest noise of a sound from outside and Jon frowned, looking over at the window. It reminded him or something, but he could not figure out what it was.

"What it is?" Sebastian and Keith looked over curiously.

"Did you hear that?" Jon looked over at them, worried.

"Hear what?"

"Uh," he tried to figure out a way to describe the sound when it happened again, slightly louder. "That!"

"That what? I did not hear anything."

But Jon was already standing and heading towards the window. "That, how can you not hear that?" It was not very loud, but loud enough that they should have heard something. He pushed a pile of clothes (clean, he hoped) away from the window and looked out in to the darkness. There was not anything for a moment and then he saw the shadows move.

The dogs were clustered under the shadow of a tree, outlined by the moonlight into faint echoes of dogs. They stared out, four sets of ghostly yellow eyes and then the first dog started howling again. Only he could barely hear it, and it sounded less like howling and more like music. Woodwinds, actually.

Sebastian and Keith were already moving over to the window, trying to figure out what he'd seen.

"There, you see them? Under the tree." He pointed, but the dogs were already fading again, Cheshire cat like, only point of faint light for eyes.

Sebastian and Keith looked out, but saw nothing. Jon gave up and turned away from the window, frustrated and pretty creeped out.

"You did not hear that? Seriously?"

"Nope." Keith settled back into his seat and gave Jon a thoughtful look. "So you're still serious about this ghost dog thing."

"Yes!"

"Huh." He sipped his beer.

"There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Sebastian quoted thoughtfully. When the other two looked at him he shrugged. "I dated an English major for a while, it is Shakespeare I think. Something about ghosts, seemed rather appropriate."

"Yeah." Jon finished off the beer and tossed it in the recycling bin. "So now what?"

"Well, I guess you go home and see if they come to you."

"I still think they are out to get me."

"No much you can do if they are."

"You gonna come with me?"

"Hell no," Keith shivered. "No way you're dragging me into this."

"I do not see how it would help." Sebastian shrugged." Keith's got a point, there really is not anything we can do to help. Besides, they seem to want to get you alone. Err, I mean talk to you when you're alone."

"Thanks for your support." Jon was angry, but he could also see where they were coming from. They probably could not help and he really did not want to risk his friends lives on something hopeless. "I'm gone then, I guess. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Sebastian nodded, getting up to follow them to the door. "Either way, gimme a call or something, k?"

"Sure," Jon waited for Keith to polish off the last of his beer and hand the empty bottle to Sebastian. "I should be fine, right?"

"Right." But Sebastian did not sound that positive and Jon was not sure what to believe himself.


[They drove back to Keith's place without incident. They did not talk much, but that was mostly because Keith was inclined to be helpful and Jon really did not need anymore help. So they bid adieu and Keith made him promise to try his best to stay safe and in once piece and did the little dance of pretending to be brave when they were both sort of freaked out.

Then Jon got to drive home alone. Nothing happened but he was constantly jumping at shadows. He pulled the car as close as he could to the apartment stairs, which was not that close. Then he ran up them, locking the door as fast as he could. Not that a door was going to stop a ghost, but maybe they were like vampires and needed to be invited in first.

He debated simply staying up all night, but he did have to work the next day and he really was not young enough to try that and then work with power tools. He surfed the internet for a bit and pulled out some of the simple house protection charms from the various websites. He did the ones that did not seem too out of whack and then curled up to sleep.

It took him a long while to fall asleep, but by the time he did he was more or less sure that the dogs were going to leave him alone that night.]

Needs MASSIVE revising

[Scene 1, worksite (day)]
[Scene 2, garage apartment (day)]
[Scene 3, garage apartment (night)]


Jon did not notice the dog at first. He was too busy focusing on how ungodly hot it was and the fact that he'd only gotten four of the six bushes into the ground and it was already two thirty. The bushes were fluffy ungainly things with prickly leaves that jabbed at him though his work gloves. If he did not know better he'd think Sullivan had picked them just for that. But his boss was not that vindictive, Sullivan was focused in on selling house with an almost religious zeal. Taking time out to make Jon's life just a little more miserable was not worth the effort. Not that he did not do a dammed good job at it without trying.

Jon wiped sweat from his forehead with a dirt covered glove and glared at the remaining two bushes. They ignored him with their normal leafy disinterest.

It was at that point that Jon finally noticed the dog lounging under the [species] tree. It was some sort of German Sheppard cross, with the giant ears and the not long not short fur. They stared at each other for a moment than then dog yawned and put its head back down on its paws, watching him unnervily like a lazy lion.

Jon was tempted to chase it off, construction sites weren't the safest places for dogs that might (or might not) be someone's pet. But as the most dangerous object on hand at the moment was Jon's shovel, he figured it was not worth the effort.

If he'd wanted to he could have simply told the mutt to leave. He has a knack for talking to dogs, a little something extra passed down sporadically from his mother's side of the family. Some fanciful tale by way of his great great grandmother blamed the gift on her fling with a mysterious gypsy neredowell. Whatever the cause it had given the less then venerable Black family name yet another smudge. Not that it was that impressive of a knack. It was not like the dogs ever talked back and they really only understood very basic concepts. He could communicate that the construction site was dangerous and that the dog should leave, but he could not explain why. In fact he doubted if the dog would even listen to the warning. Most of the time canine would just give him confused looks and continue on about their business. The well trained dogs of those that were desperate for attention would pay more attention, but only if nothing more interesting was available. From the dusty look of the mutt he doubted if it had ever been an indoor pet, or a pet at all.

But sitting here thinking about dogs and knacks was not getting the bushes planted. And after the bushes he had to frame out the new flower bed. Which he liked a little better than moving dirt. Carpentry was always a reward for the more boring work, and Sullivan knew it. Even if the boss though Jon was wasting his potential, it did not mean that Sullivan still wouldn't try and get his money's worth. With a sigh, Jon shifted the shovel and moved over to the next marked hole to be.


Akela watched the man digging holes and then filling them in again, and not for the first time wondered at how downright strange humans were. Why any being would spend time working on a dwelling and then turn around and abandon it for another made no sense. The fact that none of the men on the jobsite actually lived in the house only made it more futile. But they weren't her concerns, these strange men and their strange habits. Men were men and as such were beneath her notice.

Or at least they were normally. Now she needed a Huntsman, and she could smell it on him. Just a faint hint, a whiff of diluted blood gift flowing through his veins, watered down by generations of humanity. Not that he needed any. The pack could choose anyone to serve, blood gift or not, but those with a hint of service in their veins made better Huntsmen than those without.

Still, she was not ready to call in the rest of the pack just yet. Their patience was thin enough without bringing home false hope. The long weeks without tether to this world made for rough company. She chewed thoughtfully on a paw as the man cursed creatively as he hit the unexpected remains of a brick patio long ago tossed aside by a previous owner. There was no point in picking someone with bad temperament, they'd only have to kill him later.


The dog left sometime between the last touches of the frame for the flowerbed and quitting time, but Jon was not quite sure when it had actually vanished from its spot beneath the tree. It had been unnerving for the first few hours, with it just sitting there watching him. He'd gone inside for an hour or so to help Roy with the tile work just to get away. The yard felt empty now, and he tossed his tools in the back of the frakencar with a faint sense of unease. Not that he was afraid of a dog, no matter how oddly it had been acting. It was just, well, odd, that was all.

Jon spent the ride home half expecting to see it turn up somewhere along the way, but he arrived at the house without incident. His older sister's car was in the driveway which meant she'd come home from college for summer break. For a moment he toyed with the idea of just driving past the house and hooking up with Todd or Keith for a few hours. But Todd was probably still out at the shop working, and Keith's mom had specifically forbade the Quartet of Doom from gathering during weeknights. Keith's grade had been abysmal the last quarter and as he was the last brave soul still in high school, Jon figured they owed him a little support.

Even if that support meant he'd have to deal with Bethany.

He pulled onto the side grass with a sigh, wincing as the frankencar grumbled to itself as it rumbled over the gravel bed. The frankencar had been a Toyota sedan at some point in the distant past. Now it had at least one part from every manufacturer grafted onto it and a copious amount of duct tape. There had been some debate during sophomore year if it was a MacGyver car or a Frankencar, but it had finally been decided that the poor girl was simply too pathetic to be considered a proper MacGyver.

Trish had already abandoned the house to lurk on the steps up to Jon's above garage apartment. He raised an eyebrow and her general aura of 'grump' intensified to accommodate the arrival of an audience. Someday the seven year old was going to rule the world. Or at least as much of the world as she could reach. God save them is she ever made it on TV.

"Bethys here." Trish glared out from under overgrown blond bangs, the combination of cute and gloomy reminding Jon of a goth carebear. "I'm living at your house instead."

Jon declined to comment and fished his tools out of the back of the car, leaning in through one of the side windows (the door had permanently locked about a month ago and he still hadn't gotten around to taking it down to Todd's Dad's shop and getting it fixed). He started heading up the wooden steps to his front door over the garage, but Trish sat stubbornly in the middle of staircase.

"I am."

"Mom won't let you." Jon stepped over his cousin (carefully) and tried to get his keys back out of his pocket without dropping anything.

"Mom's not here"

"Fine then, Aunt Patricia won't let you." He headed in to the Apartment, Trish trailing along behind him. "Besides she is not going to be home for that long." He headed into his bedroom to change clothes. "It'll be fine."

"Yeah, because you live here." She collapsed dramatically on the well loved soda. Then leaned forward to turn on the game console that was sitting on the coffee table. "Besides they won't look for me until dinner at least."

"Only till dinner then," Jon reemerged in an almost identical set of clothes, only sans the dirt. "It is family night again then?" The Black family gathered twice a week for sinner, which was less impressive than it sounded since all it meant was Jon came down from his apartment and Uncle Tony drove a whopping four minutes from his house. The rule was simple, if family was in the area, they came to dinner. Which meant no going out (unless the whole family came), and no claim of 'other plans' would be honored. Jon actually still ate down at the house more nights than not, but as long as Bethany was home, he planned on avoiding it as much as possible.

"You're not leaving me alone!"

"She is not that bad."

"She wants me to be a lawyer." Trish sniffed, as she fended off another wave of incoming alien hordes. "Lawyers are boring."

"But you like Law and Order." Not that he was defending Bethany's drive to make sure her relatives led 'fulfilling lives' (her definition of fulfilling of course), but she really did seem to love the legal classes she was taking.

"She is gonna be on Law and Order??"

"Um, no, she is not an actor."

"But she is gonna be a lawyer."

"She is still got a lot of college to finish, then law school, then a bunch more years working as a paper pusher, but yeah."

"I'm gonna be an astronaut when I grow up," she neatly dispatched another wave of incoming enemy fighters, "and a cat burglar."

Jon rolled his eyes, made a noncommittal noise, and wondered once again why nature had allowed Aunt Harmony to have kids. Or why the legal system had allowed any theoretically sane adult to change their name to Harmony (when their spouse's name was already 'Peace'). But an astronaut cat burglar was slightly better than the vampire bounty hunter that she'd decided on two months ago.

He could not remember what he'd wanted to be when he grew up, but Jon was pretty sure that 'construction' probably was not one of the answers. He flopped down into couch and grabbed the other game controller.


[They played video games until dinner, in which Trish kicked Jon's butt. Repeatedly. Then they all gathered and Jon was forced to listen to his sister point out that he was 'wasting his talent' and he could 'do so much better' if he only tried. Which was pretty much par for the course.

He retreated as soon as he could to his apartment, and crashed for the night.]


Something woke him, but he was not sure what. For a moment he just lay in bed, still half asleep trying to remember why he'd woken up. It was still dark, so it was not his alarm, and there was not the jolt of terror that normally accompanied nightmares. He was just about to give up and go back to sleep (curiosity rarely won out over REM) when he heard a faint noise from the side yard.

He debated for another moment over whether it was really worth getting out of bed to check, but there had been a string of attempted burglaries over by Todd's and that was only fifteen minutes away. So he untangled from the sheets, and plodded over to the window, keeping the lights off so as not to alarm any potential criminals. Criminals tended to be armed (or so the new reports kept saying) and he had no real urge to get shot for something as stupid as turning on a light.

He looked out into the darkened yard, noting that the moon was only half full so he could not see as well as normal. He is have to complain again to the city about the streetlight, but since it only helped three houses he figured they'd just ignore him again. Maybe he could fix it himself if he could get up there somehow.

His train of thought was cut off rather abruptly as he noticed the four dogs hanging out beneath the tree in the side yard. Strays were actually pretty common in the area, but he'd never seen them roaming in packs before. But add to that the fact that all four of them were staring up at his window as if they had expected him to appear was rather creepy. They stared at each other for a long moment and then one of them waged its tail in that sort of wary half wag dogs used when they weren't sure if he could be trusted not to attack.

It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but the dog looked a lot like the one from the construction yard. But the house they were working on was a good half hour away and there was no way the dog had managed to follow him thirty odd miles home. So it had to be a different dog.

There was a shallow bark from one of the dogs, that echoed oddly in the air. Then the pack turned almost in unison and ran towards the back fence. Jon was expecting them to turn, or maybe try and jump it (although it was a good five foot tall) but they just sort of shivered and ran right through.

He stood there for a long moment, starting at the section of fence.

I hate trying to come up with teasers... meh. :P

------------------------------------

Jonathan Black has spent his life fighting for the right to just be Jon. Hounded by teachers, his boss, and even his fast tracking big sister, to stop 'wasting his potential', Jon is bound and determined to reject the corporate rat race and everything that it stands for.

Akela's pack has just lost its Huntsman and with the threat of organized resistance looming on the horizon they've got no time to lose. These ethereal Dogs guard the Veil between life and death, and come hell or high water Jon's going to help them do it.

But the organized syndicate of Veil walkers is not about to go down easily and The Powers That Be think it is about time that light side and dark side Hunts started working together...

Akela isn't a dog so much as the essence of dog. Just as man binds himself to a chosen totem, so is she wrapped in a form not of her choosing. She is the Hound because that's how the world has defined her. It's so overpowering, so forceful a definition that even in her own mind she embraces the term without thinking.

She is a Hound, but she isn't a dog, and Jon's only just beginning to understand the distinction.

The Veil is alive, and it isn't alive. Compressed down into dogs and deer and things that are neither and both (in mind numbing counter-existence), it lives. But loose in the hazy blanket that filters death from live, it simply is.


The inherent problem with a semi-permeable barrier between life and death is that it implies that The Powers That Be must have intended for it to be a two-way street. Otherwise they would have simply set it up as a one-way trip with no possibility of parole.

But this implication then casts an odd light on the divine mandate of the Dogs. Why punish someone for doing what they specifically allowed to be possible?

If, like Jon theorizes whilst talking to Phil, that the flexible nature of the Veil is simply part of the 'free will' aspect of reality, then the Dogs represent a rather tangible manifestation of the punishment for sin. Much like the 'don't eat the apple'->'dammit, I said don't eat the apples! *banhammer*' storyline.

However, as Phil maintains, it could also simply invalidate the mandate. If The Powers That Be willed it closed, it would be closed; therefore that wasn't their intention. Their whole argument rests on the fact that the Dogs misinterpreted their mission.

: thoughtful

Muse: So. *pokes LJ* I suppose you'll be rearranging things a bit?

Writer: Maybe.

Muse: At the very least you could fix the chapter and retcon tags. *eyes jumble of posts* You know this won't make sense to anyone but you as it is.

Writer: Sad, but true. *pokes posts* I do sort of want to leave the NaNo posts, for posterity or something.

Muse: I think posterity would be more impressed if you tried to pretend you had a linear thought once in a while.

Writer: Wild tangents are your friend. *solemn nod*

Muse: Hey, I gave you a plot.

Writer: After NaNo was over.

Muse: Technicalities.

Jon: Wait, we have a plot?

Writer: *shifty eyes* Maaaaybe.

Jon: eep.

Starting Wordcount: 24,387
Ending Wordcount: 25,071

Not quite as impressive a wordcount for today's lunch, but still... I made it to half a NaNo! Woot! ^_^ *does a small victory dance*

And now back to work...

Starting Wordcount: 23,765
Ending Wordcount: 24,387

Miserable, miserable night or writing. *mutters unrepeatable things* Well, it looks like unless a miracle happens in the next few days I'm not going to win NaNo this year. *sigh* However I'll make a half-NaNo, which is better than last year. And if I buckle down and commit to my Saturday write-ins, there's a chance I'll end up winning before December is over.

I think I may take the rest of NaNo and rough out a whole lot of the scenes so I know where I've been and a better idea of where I'm going. At the moment I've added in a Survivor Man scene and a 'I expect you to die' James Bond-ish one as well. No real idea of how these connect back into the main story. Or I do, I'm just a little fuzzy on the details... ^_~;;

"So how do you know all this anyways?" Jon leaned back in the seat trying to get comfortable. He'd unbuckle his seatbelt and lounge over the entire row but he figured that was probably illegal. Yay for seatbelt laws.

"A lot of what we know comes from the lore books. Before that it was all word of mouth. Some one at some point decided it was better written down and made a book out of it. We keep it going, adding things as we learn them, or as people postulate theories. At the moment it's an ebook."

"What, you have it out there where anyone could buy it?"

"Well yeah, but who's going to? It's mostly just gibberish to anyone who doesn't know what's going on. Heck it's gibberish even to the people who do half the time. Besides, it's priced at like one hundred buck and no one is going to pay that much for it except us."

"And the Hindsmen, right?"

"Mm, not if they're smart. We keep and eye on everyone who buys it, so it's pretty easy for us to stop them if they try and they know it."

"You're like the Big Brother I never wanted."

"Bingo."

So Jon gets assigned to a task group that goes out every so often to hunt down strays from the other side and to gather information. This gives us the chance for a little bit of action and a whole lot of padding, if needed. The task group members are always changing, so it's a little odd. Jon is never sure if it's because they are losing Huntsmen or because they are just short handed and moving people around a lot.

In between this, he does actually get to go on some dog whispering type assignments, because they are trying to earn a bit of money after all. He has a bit of fun with the various dogs, being careful never to quite give away his actual knack.

Along the way he learns some interesting things about the older generation huntsmen and what the bond used to be like. There is a lot of information that indicated the dogs can bond much more closely than they do, but they chose not to. His own bond is apparently much stronger than other peoples and it seems to be because of Akela management of the pack.

He notices that there is some inter-pack tension and that Tos and Jenna often seem at odds with Akela and Athen. He isn’t quite sure what is going on, but it looks interesting. He also learned that both pairs came from separate packs not too long ago. Tos and Athen came from an older pack that had simply grown too large and Akela came from a pack that had been more or less wiped out in an attack.

Of course it's on one of these missions that Jon get's kidnapped by the Bad Guys(tm). Because hey, it's cliché, and darn but we love our clichés. Heh.

Starting Wordcount: 22,040
Ending Wordcount: 23,263

And lo, brave Jon has been captured by the Bad Guys(tm) and is now throughly confused. I do so love confounding fictives. ^_~ heh

Starting Wordcount: 21,791
Ending Wordcount: 22,040

Just a little bit before I head out the door... ^_^

Starting Wordcount: 20,039
Ending Wordcount: 21,791

Mostly this is just typing in things I've already written. My allergies are going haywire and I'm having problems focusing on the computer screen. Not the best way to spend my 'free' night playing catch-up. *sighs* Oh well, still have four days left. ^_^;; *vows to do better tomorrow*

Starting Wordcount: 18,556
Ending Wordcount: 20,039

Pretty good lunchtime writing! Actually I think there may be some in there from last night that I forgot to count. Hmmm. *ponders* Should have gotten the laptop working earlier... oh well. :P

: writing

Writing set #4
Starting wordcount: 16,891
Ending wordcount: 18,556

Transcribed some old stuff, copied over the other ramblings. Most of it's been cut 'n pasted into the appropriate date, but there is still a bunch left to type in.

Writing set #3
Starting wordcount: 16,086
Ending wordcount: 16,891

---------------------

The dogs all looked over the instant their hands met, Jon's dogs falling into a flat out run an instant later and Hunter's dog simply vanishing an reappearing beside her. Dark side dogs apparently weren't too caught up in obeying the laws of physics.

All five of the dogs were upset, although all of them seemed upset with him and not Hunter and he didn't think that was fair. Jon looked over at Hunter, but she was staring at her dog, which stared back and he could hear the faint whisper of clashing notes. It sounded like they were arguing.

His own dogs commandeered his attention, Tos roughly shouldering him away from Hunter and Akela looping a paw over her arm so she could sniff his hand. After a second she pulled away, sneezing and glaring up at him.

"What? What?" He threw up his hands, frustrated. "I thought we could use the help, it's not like I have any clue what I'm doing!"

Athen looked over at Hunter (still arguing with her dog) and then back at Akela with a soundless whine. Tos grumbled, a rumbling snarl that never made it past his chest. Jenna seemed to be the only dog who had taken the blood gifting in stride. She pushed past the other three to look up at Jon, uncharacteristically bold.

"We need her help." He looked down at her, trying to figure out a way to make them see reason.

She snuffed, then stood up, planting her forepaws on his chest and pushed him back against the tree. He opened his mouth to object and before he could close it she rubbed her head against him, leaving him with a mouthful of bloody fur. He pushed her off, spitting out dog fur and cursing the general strangeness off ghost dogs, she had jigged backwards and was looking at him with a big doggy grin, tail wagging.

He was about to complain to Hunter when suddenly the world went a bit sideways and he sat down with a thump. There was a sort of shimmer and suddenly the dogs that he'd finally gotten used to seeing (or at least as used as he was going to get) changed. No longer were they a ragtag group of mutts with no real thematic unity. Now they were a set of four almost identical dogs; long legged and large eared sight hounds with a soft blue glow to them. He started, which in turns made them shy backwards a step. Hunter's lurked in the background, completely uninterested (as normal), and he noticed that it hadn't changed at all. It was still the same inky black dog-shaped void it had always been. It took a second for his vision to stop spinning and when it did he found Hunter looking down at him with a bemused look.

"Well that was unorthodox." She offered him a hand up and he took it gratefully.

"What the hell was that about?" He spat out the last of the stay dogs fur and glared at Jenna in annoyance, she grinned back and he heard the faint whisperings of what he could have sworn was a guitar.

"You just got the other half of the blood gift," Hunter to share Jenna's amusement, although the rest of the dogs looked a little taken aback. "It wasn't a proper gifting, of course, but that should means it'll just take a little longer to settle in."

"Oh," he wiped his hand on his jeans and stared down at Jenna. "So, uh, I really don't feel any different."

"You won't." Hunter was gathering the last of their stuff up and seemed ready to head back towards the car.

"What, don't I get super powers or something?" Jon started to help her gather the gear and stopped as soon as he realized his balance was still off. "I thought that was part of the deal."

"Super power?" She raised an eyebrow.

"You know, like invisibility, or living forever, or running after than a speeding bullet, or some such."

"Hmm, no." She headed back towards the car and he followed. In the background the music was getting slightly louder, and it reminded him a bit of the muted howling the dogs had done earlier.

"So what does it do?"

"You live longer, but not forever. You heal faster, but not immediately. And," she stepped carefully over a fallen tree, "You can hear the Singing."

"Singing?" He took the long route around the tree and she waited for him to catch up. "You mean the music I keep hearing?"

She frowned, "Music? I don't know. Everyone hears it differently. I hear the river when they Sing, bubbling and frothing over calm and rapids."

"Oh." Jon looked over at Akela, and he tried to sort her out of the melody. She looked over at him after a moment and he could hear the bell-like theme change tone and focus. "So that's you, hey?"

She sniffed and the bells chimed in unimpressed agreement. There was an emotion to the sounds, although he wasn't sure if he was projecting it or if it was really there. Either way, it seemed to match the visual cues so he figured he'd trust it for now.

"So now what?"

"Now I find out what this means." She patted the bag slung over her shoulder. "You will continue with your life and pretend you know nothing."

"That won't be too hard."

Writing set #2
Starting wordcount: 14,966
Ending wordcount: 16,086

And now we hop around a bit, because I'm trying to lay out what happens a little later on in the plot...
---------------

There was a knock on the door, which was completely unexpected and Jon tensed. The dogs had gone into defensive postures and Hunter abruptly headed for the bedroom, fading out to only the barest whisper of a shadow. The fact that none of them had noticed the visitor until the knock really worried Jon, but there was another knock a second later, more demanding.

"Jon, we know you're in there. Open up."

It was a woman's voice, but it wasn't anyone he recognized. He was pretty sure the cops would have started out with 'This is the police', but he also figured that the Dead Man Mafia would have simply opened fire. Which meant there was a good chance it wasn't either one of them. It could be a perfectly normal person, but his recent luck made him doubt that.

He got up off the couch and walked over to the door cautiously, garnering another impatient knock. For not the first time, he wished the door had a peephole.

He opened the door to find an older man and a woman and a massive pack of dogs. The dogs flowed around him into the house, rowdily exploring even as he stepped aside to let the two humans in after them.

[skip a bit here for the stuff already written]

They had him sit on the sofa and the woman sat on the corner of the coffee table, the man standing behind her.

"First off, our names are unimportant," she woman smiled disarmingly, "but you can call me Daisy and him Chowder."

The man look resigned as she named him, "Long story, don't ask."

"Those obviously aren't our names, and we'll get into why in a little bit. You'll get to pick one yourself, so start thinking of something good now or you'll end up getting named by someone else. Think of it as a permanent nickname."

"That never ever goes away." Chowder sighed.

"So you know what the dogs are, or at least you've at least got a grasp on it since we've been told you're the one that provided the intel about the warehouse." She looked at him expectantly and he nodded, uncertainly. "The long and short of it is that the dogs are there to stop anyone the Veil Walkers from coming through the veil and we're there to stop the people who help the Walkers."

Which didn't sound quite right, but it did seem to match up with most of what had happened so far. "And the Veil is?"

-----------------

Now skip forward a bit...

-----------------

Jon wasn't sure what he had expected, but the non-descript navy blue passenger van was not it. It was and older van, and there were a few places near the bottom where the paint had chipped and you could see that it had once been an even more non-descript white. On the side was the Huntsmen Inc. logo, a stylized motif of Artemis (bow in hand) and her hounds, silhouetted against a crescent moon. The logo on the business cards was simpler; simply the head of a hound against a moon, but Jon liked the full-blown version better.

He tossed his gym bag in the back, on top of the other luggage already there and climbed into the middle seat. The bus was empty expect for himself and the two Huntsmen and Akela hopped in beside him, popping up through the floor and onto the seat. She gazed unperturbed at the Huntsmen when they gave her displeased looks, and refused to move. Jon was less inclined to worry about what kind of impression it made and happy to have her with him. He still wasn't quite sure about the dynamics of the whole situation, but it was nice to have a known variable in the equation.

"So where we going?" He settled back in the seat as the van pulled away from the house, conscious of Hunter and the rest of the hunt watching him leave from the apartment.

"We have a company building in eastern Pennsylvania," the woman twisted in the front passenger's seat to face him. "It's not a big complex, but it'll give us a meeting place for the rest of the local hunts."

"How many hunts are there?" Because up until now he'd sort of though his hunt was the only one for a good long ways. It was rather insulting that none of the others had come to help them.

"Not many, there was an influx of Veil walkers about five years ago and they did a number on the local hunts. Most of the folk that'll be showing up are New York and Tennessee packs." She shrugged. "There are a few smaller hunts that aren't part of the association, so they won't be coming, but we'll pass on any information we learn through the dogs." She nodded at Akela. "Everything we do depends on them."

Which made sense in a way, although Jon was still trying to figure out how they'd switched the power dynamic around. He worked for the dogs; they certainly didn't work for him. For the other two hunts it looked like the exact opposite. Then again, that could just be because he hadn't been around them that much. But his was the only Dog in the van, so maybe not.

"So they talk to you?" Because that had been bugging him, Hunter seemed positive the dogs could actually talk but he'd seen no hint of it from his own pack.

"No, why?" She looked genuinely puzzled.

"Nothing, I just--" he waved a hand "you seemed like you knew what was going on and I though maybe they'd told you."

"Nope," she shook her head ruefully, "everything we know about them, and about what's going on either comes from the writings or plain old sleuthing. They're just dogs after all."

Which was probably the stupidest thing he'd heard yet, but Akela whuffed at him and nudged her head under his hand for pets. He skritched absently, but he could hear her warning in the Singing. So he just nodded, and let her lead the conversation onto the association and its various benefits. If they didn't know about the Dogs, then there must be a reason. But that begged the question of why his own hunt was letting him in on the secret.

Writing set #1
Starting wordcount: 14,267
Ending wordcount: 14,966

This was filler for Chapter 3 in which he is attacked by the dogs, and then they head out to the fish warehouse where his is attacked by the Hind and Hindsman. Not a good night, all things considered. :P

-----------

They gave him a moment to recover and then they started moving towards the door. Three of the dogs walked right through it, but the fourth, the one from the job site stopped and turned to look back at him. [Jon abruptly decided to call her Akela because just calling her 'the dog' was getting really tiring. He decided to figure out later just how he knew it was a she, because he hadn't been paying attention previously.] She looked at him expectantly, which was a little disconcerting because she'd mostly faded out again expect for her eyes.

"What?"

There was another echo bark and she looked from him to the door and back again. It was a classic 'follow me' in canine, but he wasn't at all interested.

"You want me to follow you? No way!" Jon shook his head, backing away from the door. "Are you nuts? Go away, leave me alone!" He almost tripped over the bat as he backed away, and reached down to grab it.

Akela blinked, then barked again, this time more insistent and much less friendly.

"No." He raised the bat, prepared to try defending himself again. It hadn't gone all that well the first time, but he figured it couldn't hurt to try.

When she realized he wasn't going to move the started walking towards him, teeth bared and stiff-legged. The fur on her back bristled and her tail horizontal and barely waving. Which he was very much aware in canine meant 'do what I say or I will beat the living daylights out of you'.

"Fine, fine!" He still held the bat defensively. "Just promise me you'll leave me alone once I do whatever it is you want me to."

She stopped growling, but her stance was still aggressive. After a moment she finally relaxed somewhat and turned back to the door. Which wasn't really an answer to his ultimatum, but he decided silence meant ascent. Because he really wanted them to go away and he'd take any slim hope offered.

He didn't feel like it was worth arguing that it was the middle of the night and he had work tomorrow. After all he was pretty sure the concept of 'job' was going to be beyond the reach of a dog, and the dogs apparently could care less what he wanted. He grabbed a jacket, his keys, and the bat and headed out the door, locking it behind him.

The dogs were surrounding the Frankencar and he figured that meant it was time for a ride. The thought of driving the dogs anywhere was not one he was happy with, but when he got in the car they stayed outside. For a moment he thought the metal might be protecting him, but one of the dogs walked through the car to get to the other side, so apparently not.

The dogs started off down the street and he followed slowly, only to find out that once they started running he was easily going forty just to keep them in sight. Akela paced his car, but the other dogs didn't seem to care if they left him behind, slowing down only when Akela snarled at them. Which explained how the dogs had followed him home from the worksite. They seemed to have no speed limit, easily keeping up with him on the sections of road where the speed limit was well over fifty.

Eventually they led him down a side road, stopping by one of the mile markers. He pulled the car over onto the shoulder, and they started heading into the forest.

[& random stuffs to make snippits meld together]

Well I did get some writing done, but mostly only an hours worth yesterday (forgot how hard it was to write in a moving car! *sighs*). I still need to transcribe some of it, but I'm doing writing in 20min chunks today. As I'm still filling bits in, I'll be posting a starting and ending wordcount and any large chunks that happen.

Onwards! *grin*

Writings from the car trip

----------------------------------

He woke to the sound of not-howling later, and there was a short bit of cursing (and invoking of divine protection). He tried to ignore it, but he couldn't get back to sleep with the song playing in the background. This time it wasn't just woodwinds, but a series of musical themes, nothing loud enough to actually hear, but loud enough to register as noise.

He got out of bed, and snuck over to the window. There was nothing there. Confused, he went back to bed. There was a noise from the side of the building, but it was the opposite side of the house and he couldn't see over there. He felt around under the bed for the baseball bat that he'd stuck a bit of holly on (and an old iron nail and a bit of salt) and tried to talk himself into heading into the main room to check it out.
Then it got quite for a bit, and he got up the courage to go exploring. He opened the door carefully, bat in hand, but saw nothing. He started over to the side window and was halfway across the couch when the dogs walked through the door. He hefted the bat, but they didn't look threatening. All four of them flowed into the room. The two Sheppard-like dogs were in front, the rotwieller and the hound-like dog hanging back behind them.
"Shoo!" He waved the bat threateningly. "Go home! Leave me alone!" Pause. "Rar!"

The dogs looked at him for a moment then the dog from the worksite stepped forward. He raised the bat, preparing for an attack, but the dog just wagged it's tail slowly, ears up and a slightly wary look. The bat dipped slightly as he hesitated and in that instant the dog sprang on him.

The dog knocked him back against the sofa, whomping his elbow against the coffee table and accidentally disarming him. For a moment he was surprised, not just by the attack but by the fact that the ghost had weight to it. Still, it felt much lighter than a dog it's size should have and Jon struggled to get leverage against the animal. They fought for a minute, the dog using her weight to pin him against the couch and Jon trying to grab ahold of the bat. During the struggle the bat wedged itself under the coffee table and Jon gave up trying to reach it. Instead he grabbed one of the game controllers, but it passed through the animal harmless. Although it did feel a bit like pushing his hand through water, the dog didn't seem to notice.

Writings from the car trip

----------------------------------

"Plus, there isn't much you can do to stop them."

"Keith, stop helping." Sebastian glared at him.

"What? It's true." He waved a beer meaningfully. "They're ghosts, right? I mean what can you do against ghosts? You're screwed." He paused. "Well, I mean, not screwed, screwed, just not much you can do."

"I'm screwed."

"If you were Catholic you could perform and exorcism."

"A, I'm not; and B, I think that's only for places or people who are possessed. I'm just sort of, um, haunted."

"Any reasons why they would be stalking you? I mean, they aren't haunting a place as far as we can tell. And you didn't do anything to attract their attention, so why are they here?"

"Maybe you're like the Dog Whisperer, only for ghosts. Err, ghost dogs anyway" Keith ignored Sebastian's eye rolls. "So maybe they need you to right a wrong or save some dog in peril or something. Don't good ghosts normally want you to do something for them?"

"Well, if you are really really general about it, yeah." Sebastian looked over the Wikipedia pages that he had open. "I mean most of the dogs are guardians of something.

"Or signs that I'm about to die."

"Hey, I thought we had to stay positive here," Keith sniffed. "No cheating."

"And that would be a large black dog, these are, what, a random collection of multicolored mutts?"

"More or less, although one looks sort of like a mastiff." Jon shuddered. "I don't think that one likes me much."

"Hey, they could be the four dogs of the apocalypse!" Keith grinned. "War and Death and, um, the other two. Any red dogs?"

"No, no red dogs, and I think I would have noticed a pestilence or a famine. They all looked fine to me. Well, dead, but fine. I mean not starving or anything." Jon leaned back in the couch. "Why can't they go haunt someone else?"

"Well, you do talk to dogs." Sebastian shrugged apologetically, "You were probably the best choice."

"Ugh."

There was the faintest noise of a sound from outside and Jon frowned, looking over at the window. It reminded him or something, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"What it is?" Sebastian and Keith looked over curiously.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Uh," he tried to figure out a way to describe the sound when it happened again, slightly louder. "That!"

"That what? I didn't hear anything."

But Jon was already standing and heading towards the window. "That, how can you not hear that?" It wasn't very loud, but loud enough that they should have heard something. He pushed a pile of clothes (clean, he hoped) away from the window and looked out in to the darkness. There wasn't anything for a moment and then he saw the shadows move.

The dogs were clustered under the shadow of a tree, outlined by the moonlight into faint echoes of dogs. They stared out, four sets of ghostly yellow eyes and then the first dog started howling again. Only he could barely hear it, and it sounded less like howling and more like music. Woodwinds, actually.

Sebastian and Keith were already moving over to the window, trying to figure out what he'd seen.

"There, you see them? Under the tree." He pointed, but the dogs were already fading again, Cheshire cat like, only point of faint light for eyes.

Sebastian and Keith looked out, but saw nothing. Jon gave up and turned away from the window, frustrated and pretty creeped out.

"You didn't hear that? Seriously?"

"Nope." Keith settled back into his seat and gave Jon a thoughtful look. "So you're still serious about this ghost dog thing."

"Yes!"

"Huh." He sipped his beer.

"There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Sebastian quoted thoughtfully. When the other two looked at him he shrugged. "I dated an English major for a while, it's Shakespeare I think. Something about ghosts, seemed rather appropriate."

"Yeah." Jon finished off the beer and tossed it in the recycling bin. "So now what?"

"Well, I guess you go home and see if they come to you."

"I still think they are out to get me."

"No much you can do if they are."

"You gonna come with me?"

"Hell no," Keith shivered. "No way you're dragging me into this."

"I don't see how it would help." Sebastian shrugged." Keith's got a point, there really isn't anything we can do to help. Besides, they seem to want to get you alone. Err, I mean talk to you when you're alone."

"Thanks for your support." Jon was angry, but he could also see where they were coming from. They probably -couldn't- help and he really didn't want to risk his friends lives on something hopeless. "I'm gone then, I guess. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Sebastian nodded, getting up to follow them to the door. "Either way, gimme a call or something, k?"

"Sure," Jon waited for Keith to polish off the last of his beer and hand the empty bottle to Sebastian. "I should be fine, right?"

"Right." But Sebastian didn't sound that positive and Jon wasn't sure what to believe himself.

They drove back to Keith's place without incident. They didn't talk much, but that was mostly because Keith was inclined to be helpful and Jon really didn't need anymore help. So they bid adieu and Keith made him promise to try his best to stay safe and in once piece and did the little dance of pretending to be brave when they were both sort of freaked out.

Then Jon got to drive home alone. Nothing happened but he was constantly jumping at shadows. He pulled the car as close as he could to the apartment stairs, which wasn't that close. Then he ran up them, locking the door as fast as he could. Not that a door was going to stop a ghost, but maybe they were like vampires and needed to be invited in first.

He debated simply staying up all night, but he did have to work the next day and he really wasn't young enough to try that and then work with power tools. He surfed the internet for a bit and pulled out some of the simple house protection charms from the various websites. He did the ones that didn't seem too out of whack and then curled up to sleep.

It took him a long while to fall asleep, but by the time he did he was more or less sure that the dogs were going to leave him alone that night.

Writings from the car trip

----------------------------------

The next morning he woke after a bad nights sleep. He'd had disturbing dreams that he couldn't quite remember, except for the fact that they centered around the dogs. Thus he wasn't sure if he'd just dreamed the encounter last night, or if it had actually happened. He took a few minutes that morning to search the area where he had seen them, but there weren't any paw prints or marks on the fence or anything to suggest that they had actually been there. Then again, they had been ghost dogs.

He headed into work slightly less disquieted, but alert to anything out of the ordinary. There wasn't anything strange on the drive in or in the yard surrounding the house, so he more or less relaxed. Most of the work he had to do was inside, which was a comfort. But when they broke for lunch he caught sight of the dog he'd seen the first day waiting under a nearby tree. Although not the same tree.

"Hey, [coworker], you see the dog over there?" The tree was far enough away that it wasn't an odd question. Well, not -that- odd anyways. He pointed in the general direction of the dog.

"Nah, it's just a log." His coworker seemed unalarmed at either the question or the implication that Jon had seen a dog that apparently wasn't there.

Jon looked over again, and there was indeed a log behind the dog, and that just freaked him out a bit. Because they might be ghost dogs, but they were ghost dogs that only he could see and that was a little creepier.

"Ah, okay, thought I saw something for a minute there. Hey, pass the mustard." And they went back to normal lunchtime conversation. Sullivan provided lunch for the workers, but it was just basic sandwich stuffs. Everyone chipped in and brought various condiments and extras to make the sandwiches more palatable to their individual tastes. Like the guy who loaded everything with sweet peppers.

Jon steadfastly ignore the dog, and it seemed content to let him. He went back inside and finished off the bathroom plumbing (he was learning the basics of plumbing from [coworker], but only simple things. He still wasn't ready to actually apprentice to anyone, preferring to do a little of everything instead of committing to a specific skill set.)

When he left the house again for the meeting before everyone headed home the dogs was still there. As he was putting things away in the truck and saying goodbye to everyone a second dog showed up. Then a third. When he looked over the last time all four of them were there staring at him with out of shadowy eyes.

Now suitably freaked out he doesn't head home, but over to his friend Keith's Dad's mechanics shop. Mostly because he knows there will be people there and thus he will not be alone (like he would at the house). Also, Keith is there and he needs some backup because this is really creepy.

The dogs watch him pull out of the parking lot and don't do anything. They just watch him leave from under the tree, intensive gaze, but no indication they are going to chase him.

When Jon was woken again in the middle of the night, he was almost expecting it. What little normallity he had in his life seemed to vanish when the sun went down. He almost ignored the noise coming from the main room, because if he didn't look maybe it would go away. Of course that idea lasted all of a nanosecond because there was always the possibility that it was something less ghostly and more solid and there had been way too many people shooting at him recently.

He carefully slipped out of bed, trying to make as little noise as possible. The dog who'd stayed with him was staring at the bedroom door with a look of shock. Or something akin to shock, she didn't seem mad just startled. Then with a soundless bark she was running through the door and into the main room. He followed, much less enthusiastically, but without playing ninja. After all the dog would hardly lead him into danger, in theory.

He didn't see anyhting other than the dogs at first when he stepped into the room. They were danging about in a mass of faint blue dog-dom and he didn't see the new arrivals for a moment. Then he did see them, and he took a starled step back. In the middle of the pack of dogs was a shadow dog, an inky blackness in the shape of a dog, with only the faintest details visible. Behind him stood a human-shaped shadow, but it didn't look threatening.

"Uh, hi?" Jon wasn't sure what to do with the visitor.

It turned to look at him, and there was a flicker as it solidified slightly into a woman with shoulder length hair, bushed back from the face with some sort of cloth binding that reminded him of the fluffy 80's headbands. The only thing perfectly in focus was the eyes. They didn't look angry, just amsued and Jon relaxed slightly.

The shadow said something, but Jon only heard the barest echo of sound.

"What?"

It tried again, looking rather frustrated. Then, fell into a pantomime.

"You want, um, something?"

There was a nudge from one of his dogs aginst his knee and he looked down. The dog looked up with annoyance then pushed him towards the fridge. He started at it stupidly for a moment and the dog sighed, then scratched at the door. Jon opened it, suddenly remembering the myth of Persophene and the fact that she had to eat something to remain in Hell.

The fridge, sadly, was mostly empty and he ended up having to offer her fritos and bean dip. The ghost blinked a few times, said something to her dog and then took a chip from the bag, the rest of her body fading back into shadow as she focused on grasping the food.

There was a short pause while she ate. Unlike the dogs, which had solidified fully, she only darkened somewhat. But after she'd polished off a hanful of chips and some dip she turned and handed him the bag back with a smile.

"Thanks."

Now that I have things more or less roughed out, I need to figure out what bits are missing and which bits aren't. While rewriting a scene certainly helps my wordcount, it's better to cut and paste in the bits that I know go together. Hence there will be a new tag called 'retcon' as I go back and pull out the bits that don't fit.

I will not be posting individual bits today (most likely) as most of what I will be doing is writing little bits to hook the larger bits together. Instead I'll just be posting the wordcount as it goes up (both starting and ending). I hope to break 10k today just with the stuff I've already written (the first 10k! ^_~;) and then I'll go from there. If all goes well I should be able to slowly climb up from there as the weekend continues. *crosses fingers*

Well off to import into Q10! (http://www.baara.com/q10) and get writing! ^_^ *grin*

UPDATE: Look like I have just a smidge over 10k in actual story posted on LJ already (11,391 if you could Musefics). Now I've still got a bunch of longhand to get in, so I'll work on that first. Then I'll patch in the missing bits. *rolls up sleeves*

The dogs flowed through the walls, dim echoes of shadows, and Jon followed behind. The door creaked slightly as he eased it open enough to fit through, but there was no reaction from inside the building. The entry room light was on, but he could see lights on further back as well. The room was chilly, but not cold and Jon saw warning signs for cold storage beside the next set of doors.

He carefully crossed the room, waiting for something to spring out and attack, but nothing happened. The cold room doors were propped open, even though the lock had already been destroyed. There were a series of holes and Jon could see the gleam of shell casings scattered about in the corners of the room. Which meant what ever the dogs were after, it had a gun.

Of course if it could carry a gun it probably wasn't a ghost, and that raised his spirits somewhat. He might be able to bargain with someone still alive, the dead seemed much less interesting in rational discussion.

There was a loud crash and the sound of wood breaking from the next room. Interlaced was a stream of curses that was impressive for it's volume, although not it's creativity. The voice also sounded young, frustrated, and maybe a little scared. Which meant a freaked teenager, possibly with a gun. Jon waited a second, but there were no sounds other than the boy, and thankfully no gunshots.

Which meant there wasn't anyone to rescue, and he wasn't sure what the dogs wanted. Was he supposed to talk to the kid? Stop him? From doing what? And the dogs really didn't look like they were out to end this peacefully. And Jon really wasn't prepared to kill anyone. Although if they tried to kill him, he wasn't adverse to the idea. He'd rather just incapacitate them. Or just talk them into surrendering. Or--

The dogs had solidified into thick mist, and they all stared at him, waiting.

He stepped into the gravel parking lot, the only other sign of life was an ancient station wagon parked haphazardly over the false curb of grass. Jon could see that the door to the warehouse was open, but only barely in the dim light. The flood light over the door had been broken and the generic security camera hung at an awkward angle, sparking every so often. Most of the illumination came from the lights that were on inside the building.

The dogs flowed forward to circle in front of the door. They looked like a movie on mute, baying and howling and snarling without any sound. They flickered in and out of solidity, eyes and fangs hanging solid, imbedded in shadows.

Jon stood for a moment, just outside the flickering pool of light, tying to tamper down the fear that was quickly overwhelming his shock. The world still had a misty quality to it, as if he was somehow separated, watching it from afar. He wished he could just wake up, shake off the phantoms waiting for him at the door and get back to his normal life.

But the dogs were getting impatient and he could almost feel the vibrations of Tos's growl. Maybe being killed by the dogs would be better than whatever was waiting in the warehouse, but he was more inclined to take an unknown doom over a very real certainty.

The dogs run ahead, but he finds out that he still remembers the way back to the fish warehouse. This time instead of pulling off the road haphazardly, he drives a bit further to a 7-11 and leaves the car there... only that makes even less sense than pulling over on the side of the road. But he can't just pull in and park in the parking lot because that would be a tad too obvious about returning to the scene of the crime. So he doesn't go into the 7-11, he just pulls over to the side of the road again, only this time he leaves a sign in the car that says 'Gone for gas' so that no one tows it and that folks don't go out looking for him.

"We must find them."

"What, right now?" Jon glances at the clock. It was still early and even though he didn't have to work tomorrow he really wanted a rest. The past few days had been pretty draining, all things considered.

"They have attacked you, have they not?" Hunter raised an eyebrow. "These are not the simple villains you suppose them to be; don't judge the whole by what little you have seen."

"Well yeah, but--"

"Then we must go." She gestured toward the door imperiously. "Unless you wish to wait for them to come here?"

"No, definitely no." This was the very last place he wanted them to come. He could deal with the dogs and the ghosts and the unreal chaos of the past few days, but only as long as it left real life alone. The instant things crossed over and started messing up other people's lives was where he drew the line. They weren't getting his family too.

Even though he'd been in the drive-by, it hadn't occurred to them that the Dead Man Mafia might be able to figure out where he lived. It was down right terrifying thinking of that same brutal (if thankfully ineffective) attack focused at his parents, or his cousin. Bethy was armed and dangerous herself, but she was the only one out of the bunch he though would have a prayer.

He grabbed his coat and his keys and headed for the door. "So let's go."

Plot relevant descriptions, so as to be able to finish off scene once I get home...

----------------------------

The fish warehouse is, well, not really a fish warehouse. It's down by a branch of the local river, and functions as a repository for the game caught by a club of the local hunters. Since the fictional town is sort of in the middle of nowhere, there's a lot of good hunting to be had in the area.

The building is not a giant warehouse, but it's bigger than a generic shed. It's got cold storage for the fish and deer and elk and whatnot that they catch/kill. The hunters do sell off the extra meat, so there is actually an Inc. for the hunting club that owns the property (and the fish). There's a smoker to the side of the building, and a few drying racks and pits for cooking whole animals.

That said, there isn't any real security around the building other than the door locks and a security camera. It's just a gravel parking lot and a good ninety percent of the time there's no one there. It's a good half-mile mile from the road, easy, and there just isn’t' a whole lot out there.

The club has monthly meeting on the off-season, but they tend to hang out at the local bar/pub rather than the storage building.

There are several paths through the woods in the general vicinity of the building. It's not brush-heavy forest in most areas, which makes for easy walking, but hard hiding. This is not the same area where the Dead Men Mafia hideout is, and it's not that far from Jon' house. (20min?)

The boxes of fish which Jon accidentally used to squish his opponent are actually wooden crates with plastic bags full of fish in them. This is in the refrigerator section and not in the freezer! These are bait fish (not fresh caught fish) and were moved out of the freezer to thaw for this weekend's fishing trip. Thus they are still mostly frozen and heavy as heck. (And piled badly since they weren't paying attention to OSHA stacking rules. *whistles innocently*)

Writer: I will not be amused that now you give me a full description of the room. After we've basically left the premises in terms of plot.

Jon: I have no idea what you're talking about. *sips beer*

Muse: That's what December's for. Am I right?

Jon: Quite right. *nods solemnly*

Writer: *sighs*

I will describe something if it kills me... *rolls up sleeves and glares at Muse*

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Jon's apartment had a main room, a bedroom (with a small closet), and a bathroom.

There's a couch and a coffee table in the main room along with the TV and stereo on a really basic stand. A game console of uncertain parentage and a pile of games take up a good portion of the coffee table. There are DVDs, small hand tools, socks and whatnot scattered about. A lone CD stand is half-hidden behind the TV, but it is only about half-full of dusty CDs and DVDs. Most of the rack is filled with other random items (batteries, socket wrench heads, screws, etc).

A well-worn mini-fridge is next to the couch and contains primarily soda, beer, and some snack foods. There's a microwave perched on top of the mini-fridge, but it only works half the time and is a tiny tiny thing. But it works for nachos and hotpockets, so Jon's happy.

There's a pile of tool belts, and loose tools in the corner by the door, as well as the bits of whatever project his parents have working on. He does a lot of barter work to pay the rent during the renovation off season.

Other than that, there's random clothes and clutter, but no real dirt (food/dishes/etc). It looks like the average dorm room, which is about right for his mindset. He'll clean if company is coming over, but if it's family (or friends who count as family), he doesn't bother.

The computer is on a desk in the bedroom, squished in beside the single bed (basic wooden frame ala IKEA). There's a tiny bedside table that holds a charger for his cell phone and the alarm clock. Jon spends most of his time in the main room, so there's more clutter here. The closet has his clothes, as well as a dresser stuffed in it (and some boxes with assorted odds and ends). There's just enough room under the bed to fit another row of boxes, and he's got most of the random stuff stashed there. The bedroom has a window which looks out across the yard to the house and the main room has two windows that look out at the road (over the entrance to the garage.

The door is on the far side of the apartment and on the opposite side of the house. A set of wooden stairs lead up to the door from ground level, anchored to the wall with masonry screws. So it sort of looks like it's floating (which is fun when you're drunk).

The inside of the house is mostly wood and off-white plaster, with a couple of throw rugs to save feet from cold floors in the winter. There aren't any posters or paintings, but there are a small army of photos taped to the wall next to the bedroom door. Mostly it's just the four musketeers and some family photos, but there are still a few of his ex-girlfriend tucked into the chaos. Of course he's just keeping those for the backgrounds or the lighting or as memories of the trip and not because he misses her. Nopenopenope. Totally over her. Totally.

Yay for descriptions! ...and more exposition. >.<;; *attempts to force her Muse to actually describe something for once*

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The house was almost organic, having grown in several visually distinct explosions over the years. There had been some discussion when the family bought it that they might attempt to cover up the growth rings with matching exterior. Jon's Mom was rather in love with the mismatched bits of brick and wood and siding and concrete and Jon's Dad figured it wasn't worth arguing over. So the house remained true to it's history, a visual trek that had apparently spanned almost a century. There were a handful of fireplaces, plus built in radiators plus central air. There were windows of various shapes and sizes, from the carefully hand-blown glass of yesteryear up to the standard cookie-cutter windows you found at Lowes. The electric was spotting places, some rooms having been passed over in a scattershot approach.

The standalone garage and the apartment above it were of an indeterminate past. It might have been a shed or a barn to start, but there'd been significant work done by one of the previous owners to bring it up to the 19th (if not 20th) Century. The wiring worked (mostly), there was a window air-conditioner that had been built into a wall instead of a window, and a pair of radiators that could bring the inside temperature up to 100 in the middle of winter. (Jon had found that out the hard way when one of them had gone on the fritz. Slept with the windows open for three days before it was fixed.)

But it was a good house, sturdy and solid against the winter storms. He hazard it could make it through a hurricane, if one ever made it far enough up the coast. And it was his. Well, eventually it was his. Jon's parents had made no secret of the fact it would go to Jon when they passed on, and the more 'complex' items (stock, bonds, investment accounts, etc) would go to Bethany. After all, she could take care of herself. Which on one hand was sort of insulting, that they thought he'd need a roof over his head, but at the same time it was rather comforting. He liked the house, and, at times it seemed to like him back. All the repair work he'd done had gone without major mishap and the renovation business had taught him never to take that for granted.

The joys of backstory bits...

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Now it's not that the Hinds are bad, per se, just unagreeable with the status quo. After all, Ancestors have been meddling in their descendants lives for centuries. Just because the dead outnumber the living (and almost always have) isn't a factor. They're only planning on letting some of them back in. Not that they're keeping anyone out, it's just that most of them don't feel like meddl-- helping the younger set avoid some of the mistakes they made.

The Powers That Be could at least have set up some sort of system where those with good intentions got a pass. There was no need to just cement a wall between the two planes of existence. Well, less of a wall and more of a bramble patch. There were escapees constantly making their way through (and getting sent right back by the Hunts) so they must have meant for travel to happen... otherwise why make it possible at all?

The Powers That Be were vast barely understood things to start with. Maybe the Hounds had simply misunderstood, maybe they were just supposed to be keeping the bad people out. Not everyone. Not us. We're not here to hurt people, after all, just help them.

We're the good guys.

Seriously.

: writing

I am very bad at description.

Very very bad.

This needs fixing. *resolute* So technically what follows is a bunch of worldbuilding and exposition and not 'story'. But I figure it counts towards the word total since I'll be using the details when I go back to edit the second draft. I won't use it all (of course), but I doubt I'll be keeping that much of the prose either. ^_~;; *grin*

So off we go! *hefts painters tools*

: writing