An hour later, Verity, Liam, Rose and Jermaine staggered out of the bar and onto the suddenly silent sidewalk. Verity could dimly hear the parties still raging in the bars to either side of them, and there were people on the other side of the street, happy, laughing, living people with drinks in their hands and smiles on their happily drunken faces. There was no one else on their stretch of sidewalk. ( A black coach, drawn by two equally black horses, was parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant. )

[And we're done! Adapted once more from Seanan McGuire's "The Ghosts of Bourbon Street" with the help and patience of firstofitskind, who I could NOT have done all of this without. NFI, NFB, and Verity and Liam are on their way back home, woo!]

They had left the main highway behind them easily an hour ago, and were now wending their way through dense forest, traveling along roads that could have used some serious repair, and maybe a few closures. The potholes were big enough to qualify as small ponds, at least when they were full of water, and this far into Michigan's Upper Peninsula, they were always filled with water. Michigan might not be on Portland's level when it came to being damp, but it was making a good effort, and Verity wasn't ready to count it out yet.

Liam was asleep in the passenger seat when they crossed the line into Buckley Township - they'd had a late night last night celebrating the new year and he'd taken the earlier shift driving while she'd napped. Verity pulled the SUV off to the side of the road and stared into the imposing tree line that surrounded them on what felt like all sides. The sky was a thin sliver of blue overhead, already trending toward sunset. Chicago and the Carmichael Hotel were eight hours of hard driving behind them. If they didn't want to spend the night in the SUV, she would need to push on, and soon.

She didn't move.

It was strange, being back in Buckley: it was like she was a compass, forever seeking magnetic north, and had just locked on to her target, no matter how much she wanted to go in a different direction. This was where her family's tenure in America had started. This was where, for better or for worse, the majority of their bodies were buried. Her grandparents had met here. Her great-grandparents had died here. It was impossible to understand the history of the Healy-Price family as it currently stood without also understanding Buckley - what had gone right there, what had gone wrong there, and what had gone unbearably weird there.

( Unbearably weird was part of the Price genetic makeup by now. )

[Adapted from "Swamp Bromeliad," by Seanan McGuire and preplayed (and coded, yay!) by the wonderful firstofitskind. NFI, NFB as per usual. Part 1]

They made it back to the hotel many hours and several bottles of champagne later, laughing as they tried to keep themselves from toppling over. Verity's knees gave out halfway up the stairs. Liam scooped her up, slung her over his shoulder, and carried her the rest of the way - and the giant horseman's glaive Al had given her as a wedding present and that she had carried all through the night. The best part? No one in Vegas had cared. Verity unlocked the door while dangling upside down and giggling incessantly. The mice cheered when they entered the room.

"HAIL! HAIL THE RETURN OF THE ARBOREAL PRIESTESS!"

"Shhh," Verity said. Her shushing was somewhat undermined by her giggles, and by the hiccups she was starting to develop. "Gotta be quiet, mice. No pets allowed."

"Verity is very, very drunk," said Liam proudly. "I am slightly less drunk." That he was drunk at all was pretty surprising, considering his usual reluctance. But it was the night before their wedding...

"Because you're bigger than me, you jerk," Verity said, doing her best to punch him in the knee. It would have been easier if his knees hadn't insisted on moving when she tried to hit them. It wasn't fair. She crossed her arms and sulked. "Stupid mass."

"I also drank more water," said Liam. He waved a hand at the mice. "Stay out here, you adorably vicious examples of the genus Rodentia. I am going to defile your priestess like...like..."

"The Normans defiled Lindesfarne?" Verity suggested.

"Yes," said Liam. "That." He raised his chin and carted Verity into the bedroom as half the mice cheered for the God of Distant Stars and the other half took up the cry, "HAIL TO THE DEFILING!" That was going to become a holiday and, dammit, Verity was too drunk to care. She barely remembered to shove the door shut at the last second. Barely. She might have been drunk, but there was no such thing as 'drunk enough to forget that the mice were watching. That was a level of inebriation that implied liver failure and death. ( Which might still be better than having sex while the mice were in the room. )

[Y'all know how this goes by now. Post I of II. NFI, NFB. Taken from "Waking Up in Vegas" by Seanan McGuire and preplayed with the glorious firstofitskind, who manages to patiently keep me on schedule with preplays!]

It was funny. Verity had somehow thought that coming home with news of her engagement to Liam was going to make for a festive occasion. You know, the family coming together in delight to coo and plan, her mother might take some time off from making house calls to ailing cryptids, and maybe even Antimony taking a few minutes to stop being a brat and be happy for her.

( Instead, there was squabbling... )
[Preplayed with the wonderful firstofitskind, who has been a coding CHAMP! NFI, NFB Happy Holidays!]

'Nothing' looked a lot like the glaring white of an active cuckoo's eyes. Verity opened her eyes. The unrelenting whiteness didn't go away, although it did change forms, becoming the overhead lights which were shining directly down into her face. She groaned and tried to block the light with her arm, only to discover that the various tubes connected to her body made that impossible.

( They didn't usually connect tubes to dead people. )

[Adapted from Midnight, Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire! Preplayed with and coded by entire genius firstofitskind. NFI, NFB]

Pain was a powerful motivator. So was panic, and when the panic was extreme enough, even pain can find itself set by the wayside. Verity forgot about the ache in her feet, the distance between her and the ground, and everything else in her hurry to reach the only chance she had of getting to the second floor. Below her, Robert was barking orders to Margaret, who was no doubt figuring out her own route to the rafters. But since neither of them could fly, she still had a few minutes, and she was going to use them for all that she was worth.

The beam didn't run directly under the hatch - that would have made it difficult to use - but it came close enough. She grabbed one of the vertical supports, leaning out as far as she could without losing her footing, and thrust her other hand into the cobwebs until it banged against the ceiling. The wood shifted slightly. She hit it again, harder, and felt it lift up.

( That was all she needed. )

The stress and tension of the last few days was really starting to get to Verity. She found herself grumpy and irritable, snapping at people as she stalked through the Nest. Eventually, she realized what she needed: a quick run, up through the rooftops of Baltimore, just long enough to clear her head. Give her a chance to work through all the thoughts sloshing through her brain hard enough to give her a low-grade headache, ( like a small buzzing at the base of her skull. )

[Adapted from Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire. NFB, NFI]

The hidebehind glamour that had once hidden the true contents of the converted warehouse that held the dragons' Nest was gone. They had been able to see the true structure of the building from the minute they walked through the front door. This had been more difficult than she expected it to be, since the dragons' overpriced bodega was also gone, and that was the only easy ground floor entrance to the slaughterhouse courtyard. Luckily, the three of them had been picking locks since before they could tie their shoes, but it would have been nice to have a little warning.

The power still worked - that made sense, since it wasn't like the dragons had ever been paying for it in the first place - and after flipping a few dozen switches, they were able to get a good idea of what they were dealing with: ( a huge, two-story building with a ground floor that consisted almost entirely of one enormous room. )

[Continuing on the adaptation of Midnight, Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire. Preplayed and coded with firstofitskind, who is the bestest. NFI, NFB.]

Verity and Liam hadn't spoken much on the way back from the docks. He'd been stationed elsewhere, just in case a different angle had afforded them more information, but hadn't come back with much beyond what Verity had noticed. It put her in a mood and Liam was polite enough to respect her need for brooding silence as they made their way back to her - their apartment.

She stomped up the stairs, taking her frustrations out on the poor, innocent banister, which had never done anything bad to anyone. None of the neighbors poked their heads out to see what the ruckus was about - it was Fandom, most people didn't bother checking on a little noise unless it was also accompanied by screaming. That just served to make Verity grumpier. ( Baltimore was about to be a battleground, and the rest of the building wasn't even going to notice unless the Covenant decided to firebomb her while she slept. )

[Preplayed with the wonderful firstofitskind who also coded this all like a hero. Adapted from Midnight Blue-Light Special, by Seanan McGuire. NFI, NFB]

Dominic left the roof and Verity stood there blinking after him for far longer than she really would have liked. She was in a daze, a thousand thoughts crashing through her brain at once while her brain tried to sort through the options she had besides 'panic.' It felt like she was moving in slow motion as she walked across the rooftop to where she'd dropped her bag. Her cell phone was tucked safely into the front pocket. It took her three tries to make the zipper work, and another five tries before she could successfully access her contact list and call ( the one number that had a prayer of helping her find her emotional footing: Liam. )

Liam was right; keeping Dominic close was a better idea than cutting him loose. Only one small problem with that: Dominic didn't pick up when Verity called his cell phone. She didn't have his home number, assuming he even had one; she'd never seen the place where he lived. He could have been emulating Sarah, and just moving from hotel to hotel, keeping a roof over his head without tying himself to a permanent address. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like she'd been deluding herself all along. There was no way he'd ever really trusted her.

Still, she needed to put that aside, at least for right now, and figure out how she was going to deal with the very real threat of a Covenant purge. Verity broke into a run, pushing her phone deep into the front pocket of her jeans, building to a full-out sprint. She needed to find Dominic. She needed to start warning people. And there was nothing saying she couldn't combine the two.

Gravity took over once she stepped off the edge of the roof, and she was able to push other concerns aside in favor of the pressing need to keep herself from splashing on the pavement. That was one of the nice things about free-running; it was very distracting when she needed it to be. She was focused enough on her surroundings that she could usually avoid things that present an actual danger, like pissed-off cryptids or booby-traps (like snares, for example), but she didn't need to think about her faltering dance career, or the fact that the man she'd been starting to think about as maybe being a real friend wasn't really real friend material, or the upcoming Covenant purge. All she had to think about was the run.

Her first destination was a little café called Gingerbread Pudding. Going there wouldn't help her find Dominic, but it would help her begin the process of warning the city's cryptids that they needed to keep their heads down and maybe consider taking that California vacation they'd been dreaming about. She'd been telling the truth when she'd told Dominic that there was no way she could evacuate the entire city. That didn't mean she had to leave the people she considered friends unprepared for what was coming.

Letting go of the last rooftop between her and her destination, ( she dropped down, into the dark beyond. )

[And thus we continue! Taken from Chapters 4 and 5 of Seanan McGuire's Midnight, Blue-Light Special and preplayed (and coded by) genuine lifesaver firstofitskind. NFI/NFB. Previous post. Next post.]