[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.]

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.

The joys of backstory bits...

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

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