The Day of the Death

Solomon, MA
Dawn, Nov. 1st, All Saint's Day

Early morning light accompanied by birdsong finds a scene of shock and numbness in the Solomon High School library. Students and teachers alike can't quite believe what they've just witnessed -- a woman turning into a flock of bats, and flying out the window. Ghosts and spirits haunting the halls, attacking stray students... The whole experience is chalked up to drug-laced food and a lawsuit is almost inevitable. All the students and teachers go home to decompress and get some sleep, except for Slayer Club, Juanita, Cora, and the St. Germain's transfer students, who stay behind to discuss what to do next.

Samantha Kessler is pissed. She's all for storming St. Germain's right away and demanding that they turn Bathory over, so Sam can personally ream her inside-out. Kevin advocates a more careful approach. His coven is also threatened, and also the independent spellweavers in the area. Working together, with a month or so of research, he thinks they could perfect a spell to stop Bathory in her tracks, and perhaps even drain the blood-power right out of her. Michael proposes getting the four St. Germain's girls out of town, and out of Bathory's reach, immediately. Sam agrees, since they're too shell-shocked to offer any help at the moment. Michael leaves a phone number so they can get in touch later, and calls a cab to take the five of them directly to the airport. Erik and Kevin go to pick up Ilia and check on Sylvia, and then to contact the coven. Sam, Drew, Joshua, Tori, Cora and Juanita decide to go home, change out of their costumes, and then meet at the Sacred Grounds. Since St. Germain's Harvest Festival doesn't begin until noon, there's time for Sam to calm down, the others to get some rest, and make more specific plans.

Sam and Drew go to the early Mass at St. Catherine's to light candles and pray for the souls of previously departed Slayers. Sam especially prays for Ildiko Galert, the Hungarian Slayer whom Bathory killed -- for hours -- inside an Iron Maiden. That scene has been haunting her dreams for several nights, another reason why she is so wound up. There is no flash of light or spectral voices, but Sam is able to get a handle on her emotions and Drew is able to catch a few zzz's during Father Davidson's homily.

At the Sacred Grounds, jumbo cups of coffee for everyone! Tori says that her father is defending the catering company, but he doesn't like having to take the case. She offers to pump Daddy for information, maybe see if she can riffle the personal files in his home-office. The local news reports that Marcy Lee, daughter of the Sheriff, and her two friends Stephanie Newberry and Callie Marshall, are missing. The police are out in force looking for them. The murder of a 7-11 employee is ascribed to a robbery gone sour, and the deaths of several area families are blamed on the murderess who escaped from McClaren prison. Drew surmises that since the Marcy and her friends went to 7-11 for snacks after they left the dance, they might have been captured by whatever St. Germain's thugs killed the clerk. Juanita gathers ingredients for a locator-spell and casts it to find Marcy. Sure enough, the charm points the way toward St. Germain's athletic field, where the Harvest Festival is set up and getting under way. Not trusting the police to be able to rescue the girls, Slayer Club heads off to conduct a search of their own.

They arrive, and Cora stops in her tracks. There are ghosts here -- lots of them, and they look just like the living people. She tries to talk to them, but the first one she approaches is actually a live freshman. Sam gently steers her away, much to his disappointment. Drew offers to pretend to talk to Cora, so she can talk to the ghosts without looking strange. But when he accidentally steps into the space where the ghost is, he gets a violent vision of being blown up in a chemistry lab, and goes lights-out for a short while. After that, Joshua stands in for the ghost in the apparently one-sided conversations. While they talk to the ghosts, the locator-charm points the others toward the fortune-teller's tent, so Slayer Club gets in line. Tori is told that love is in her future, with a tall, blonde man who is a doctor, or lawyer, or possibly an actor, but definitely comes from a good family. When Sam sits down and presents her hand to be read, the medium gasps -- "your life-line is so short!" Sam nearly laughs. There is a powerful enemy nearby, but also... a knife. The fortune teller claims that she's never seen the signs so clear, but can't answer any other questions. In the back of the tent, a concealed flap opens to another chamber. Sam investigates while Drew is having his tarot read -- the medium says that he's slated to make a billion dollars some day, not realizing that his dream is to be an astronomer. In the other room, Sam spots the Stephie and Callie passing around a joint while a dark-goateed man draws a tattoo on Marcy's back. The design is geometrical, in blue and black, and probably arcane. Sam closes the flap before any of them see her.

Tori and Joshua go to tip off the police as to the girls' location and then talk to her father. Cora and Juanita go with, while Sam and Drew watch the tattooist's chamber to make sure the girls don't get away before the police arrive. Sure enough, they try to leave. Sam and Drew stall them by asking about the "robbery." Callie says that it was a demon -- with horns, red skin and a pitchfork. They also say they were invited to come to St. Germain's, and are transferring at the end of the semester. Drew "opens up" to Stephie's mind-reading to tell them quickly what Slayer Club knows about St. Germain's, warn them about Bathory, and establish a measure of trust. Now convinced that they're all on the same side, they dodge the police and hide out in several hidden "back-rooms" among the Festival tents. One is a clinic for magical diseases (they leave quickly). Another is a purveyor of magical robes, who tries to fit Sam in a gaudy purple and gold cloak, with hidden pockets and symbols of Mercury, Pan, and Janus. Sam politely declines and extricates herself. When the coast is clear, they split up to meet back at Sam's truck and she gives the girls rides home.

At the Clark house, Juanita and Cora chat with Tori's mother while Tori sits down with her father. She tells him straight out what she knows about Elizabeth Bathory, and that she and her friends intend to do something about her. He appreciates her candor, and also tells her some things -- he confirms what the ghosts told Cora, in the St. Germain's class of 1971, Thomas Clark graduated dead last. If Bathory has her way, that description would be literal, and she's working her way backwards in chronological order, so he has an especially good reason to want her dealt with sooner, rather than later. He provides a list of three St. Germain's faculty members who also oppose Bathory's new-old policies. They might not fight her openly, but they could give Slayer Club support and information. Mr. Clark has a present for Tori to give to Sam. He opens his safe and brings out a box containing a blue-steel poniard with black opals set in the hilt. It can cut through any magical defenses, but it only has a limited number of uses. After Tori finishes talking with him, Joshua takes a turn, officially hiring Mr. Clark for half an hour (with an IOU) so they can discuss Sylvia under attorney-client privilege. Joshua offers to set up a meeting between them so they can discuss their conflict and come to some kind of non-lethal resolution. Mr. Clark agrees.

After Sam drives Callie, Stephie and Marcy home, Slayer Club meets back at the Harvest Festival to find the three teachers and for Tori to give Sam her present. Joshua Abernathy, professor of Applied Theology, was in the talent show earlier, and his picture is in the program, so they are able to recognize him when they see him at the fire-eater's show. Sam and Tori open the conversation around general topics of school, mythology, etc. and then Drew asks if the Professor could give him some help on a 'term paper' he's writing on the history of Elizabeth Bathory. The name causes several people in the vicinity to look their way, and Prof. Abernathy gently chides Drew for his lack of subtlety. They leave the show to find somewhere else to talk. Prof. Abernathy stresses that he cannot admit to having this conversation, but he points them in the direction of the St. Germain's graveyard, where they should 'hypothetically' be able to find Bathory 'alone' in her 'laboratory' (she might have some of her 'personal assistants' around, but no resources of the school). With the magical knife in her belt and both hers and Tori's swords under her coat, Sam is more than ready to go.

At the graveyard, the largest crypt opens up into a series of underground rooms -- guarded by a pair of vampires, which Sam and Erik have no problem dusting without raising the alarm, but while trying to be sneaky, Sam knocks her head against a brazier hanging from the ceiling. In the moment of silence following the clang, there's an audible voice from somewhere ahead, and a moment later, a horde of vampires fills the hallway. Sam and Drew wade in, swinging swords with Tori and Joshua just behind. Joshua hobbles on crutches, but they are Sam's crutches -- the ends already sharpened to make fine stakes, once the rubber stoppers are removed. Juanita hits the ground and begins chanting. When she finishes the spell, a wall of flames shoots down the hall ahead of them, burning most of the vampires to instant ash. Slayer Club passes several grisly laboratories which they look into just long enough to be sure Bathory isn't in there. At the end of the hall, the passage opens up into a two-story library. The Countess herself stands in the middle of the room, chanting something from an open book, and a ball of light growing around her free hand. Sam draws her hunting knife and throws it, impaling Bathory through that hand and disrupting the spell. She's saving the special knife for hand-to-hand combat, but Bathory "bats-out" and rises to the second tier, searching for another book. Sam jumps up to join her while Drew and Tori take the stairs. Juanita TKs a whole shelf of books onto the floor and Erik guards the entrance of the room against a bunch of skeletons that Bathory raised from the remains of her lab experiments. Up on the second floor, Sam stabs Bathory with the magical knife. Acute pain takes the necromancer by surprise. Drew attacks her from behind, but she ducks just in time. Instead of her head, Drew only cuts off the top of her upswept 'do, but it's enough to distract her. Sam finds her anger draining away. She'd planned a great speech to finish with, but in the end only hisses "Ildiko wants her blood back" before twisting the knife and sending the Countess to her long-deferred final reward.