Good stuff, Victor.

Yesterday's Guitars

Part Three

London, 2023: Dawn’s face was expressionless as the Council agents took the still-crying girl away from her. She wasn’t as hard as Faith or some of the other slayers, but she could fake it for a while—if she let the horrors she faced on a daily basis get to her, she thought, she’d crack up, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good. Still, the kid was terrified, and she knew what that was like. When she had been a teenager, it seemed she was in danger every Tuesday.

She got better, though. Stepping away from the din, Dawn cleared her mind. Willow had taught her very little magic: Enough to fight, to hunt. She found a place of stillness in her mind, and when she opened her eyes, she could see traces of magic all around her. The walls radiated a sickly green radiation. She walked toward the glow, extending her hand.

“My God,” she said. “He’s been sacrificing girls here for years.”

“Yes,” said Wesley, over the com. “I was afraid that was the case.”

It bothered Dawn how cold his voice was half the time, how disconnected he seemed. She found the thought hypocritical sometimes, but there it was. Sometimes she thought Wesley was just protecting himself. Other times, she was afraid he really was that cold.

“Do you have a trail?” he asked. Dawn concentrated, and glowing, blood-red footprints rose out of the wood floor.

“Yeah,” said Dawn. “I’m gone.”

Dawn was moving quickly now, lest the power of the killer’s presence subside and she lose him. It was a tough trick, aura tracking. It helped that Pavayne was magical, but she was certain the psychic violence surrounding him alone would be enough to hold the trail for a bit. She was right. She exited the building onto London’s streets, and began to run. He hadn’t gone far, she was certain. His aura was soaking into everything around her. His mind was a forest fire, and the entire city was practically burning in it. He was…

Dawn ducked before she knew what she was happening. The sword sliced where her head had been. She spun and kicked, but her foot didn’t connect with anything solid. It was like kicking mist. She was on her feet in an instant.

Pavayne looked like a leathered corpse. His skin was thick and cracked, and there were only shadows were his eyes should be. Dawn looked into the shadows anyway, her sword drawn in front of her.

“So they sent the infamous Dawn Summers after me,” he hissed, in a voice like crushed glass. “I guess they figured out I was free.”

“You can’t stay intangible forever, Pavayne,” said Dawn, forcing the fear out of her head. “I know you can’t move far like that, and you can’t attack.”

“True,” said Pavayne, who stood idly looking at her, a sneer seemingly chiseled into his face. “But you’ve not been paying attention, girl.”

Dawn suppressed a chill. He was right. She hadn’t been watching, and now that she was, she could see a black-tinged luminescence reaching out to him from all directions, pulling his intangible body somewhere else.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Dawn, leaping at him, sword first. But she wasn’t really thinking about the attack. Instead, the sword became a focal point for her concentration as she tried to synchronize her aura with the killer’s, to be pulled along with him, wherever he was headed.

There was a synesthesia that came with this sort of maneuver, and she knew it was coming, but the sheer toxicity the man emitted felt like swallowing vomit. The world around her began to spin and change color, all of which sounded strangely like off-key carnival music. She swung her sword, but it was no longer in her hand. The two of them were suspended someplace else, and there was no up or down, no depth, just a formless psychedelic wash that extend infinitely in all directions.

Dawn realized she couldn’t feel her hands, then blinked, and realized she could again. She looked up at Pavayne, but all she could see was his static sneer, disappearing like a Cheshire cat. And then everything went black.

And when (continued...)

( continues...) her eyes returned, she was screaming. Her body felt frail and soft, and the light was entirely too bright. She looked around, and realized she was in a bed, and daylight was streaming through the windows. There was an Avril Lavigne poster on the wall, and some old bubble-gum pop song on the radio. The déjà vu came first, the sinking sensation that this was familiar. And then she realized where she was.

“Fuck,” she said, as Britney Spears crooned some song she could barely remember.

Oh. Dear.

here felt like swallowing vomit.

I don't think the "here" belongs.

Dawn’s face was unexpressive

Should this be "inexpressive?"

Fixed and fixed.

or perhaps expressionless?

Still love it.

I like expressionless. It wins. And thanks. I'm having too much fun with my future!Dawn, and I really like Oz's para-Initiative team, so this one should be fun. I hope.

Yesterday's Guitars

Part four:

As far as Oz knew, the bar didn’t have a name, and if it did, he didn’t care to know it. Frankly, he was surprised to be let back in the door—last time he was here, Faith ended up busting up the place. But Riley called, and so he came.

Riley had a Miller ready and waiting for him, and it was obvious he was still sheepish about how the last big mission had gone down. “Not a good quality to show to a werewolf,” thought Oz. He slid in across the booth from the military man. But then, he supposed, he was a military man too these days.

“Hey,” said Oz.

“Good to see you,” said Riley.

The two sat in awkward silence for a moment.

“Not bad,” said Oz. "They’re gelling a lot better and faster than I thought they would.”

“Well, most of them have connections.”

“True, but most of them haven’t actually worked together before, and the connections are mostly ‘hating Wesley.’”

“Yeah,” said Riley, taking a pull off his beer. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?”

“You roped me into working for the First Evil in a mission that nearly destroyed the world and lost us two team members,” said Oz. “It’s not exactly endearing.”

“It was more complicated than that,” said Riley.

“Yeah,” said Oz. “It was.”

“You could walk away,” said Riley. “No one would fault you.”

Oz sipped his beer and said nothing.

“I’ve read the mission reports,” said Riley. “You’re good at this.”

“Maybe,” said Oz. “And you’re still mission liaison, so why the secret spy routine?”

“What,” said Riley, “you don’t like ambience?”

At the bar, a biker who weighed nearly 300 pounds chugged a mug full of Budweiser as his buddies chanted, “Chug! Chug! Chug!” The biker slammed the mug down dramatically onto the bar, shattering it and belching loudly.

“Well,” said Oz. “You could take me somewhere nice for a change.”

“How’s about Europe?” said Riley, handing Oz a file. Inside the slim, manila folder were spectrometer readings and meteorological surveys which Oz could barely decipher, along with red-dotted maps of Europe and several photocopied police reports.

“What is all this?” said Oz as he read.

“Seemingly unconnected phenomena,” said Riley. “An upswing in mystical energy readings, culminating in shifts in weather patterns. They seem to converge on these points,” Riley pointed to London and Venice on the map, “with the third vector being here.”

Riley flipped to a map of the world, and pointed to the far, left-hand side.

“Los Angeles,” said Oz. “So shouldn’t there be something here to do?”

“Maybe,” said Riley. “but the action seems to be in Europe.”

Oz flipped to the police reports—a series of unsolved slayings over the preceding year or so. The first in Los Angeles, then New York, London, Paris and finally Amsterdam. The victims had all been sliced open and flayed alive.

“Flaying seems to be becoming a theme in our lives,” said Oz, his voice even and unexpressive. “What do you think that says about us?”

“I don’t know,” said Riley. “But take a look at the dates.”

Oz scanned over the papers, but had already deduced what he was going to see. The first murder was the same day Angel disappeared. The London murder the day Amy Madison died.

“What’s going on here?” said Oz, putting the papers down on the table. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“When Angel and his team disappeared,” said Riley, rubbing his forehead, “something happened concurrently. Something’s out there and killing people.”

Oz didn’t have to be a werewolf to know that Riley was keeping something from him. But the patterns were clear. He sipped his beer quietly, pondering the repercussions.

he was still sheepish

Hee! funny.

The two sat in awkward silence for a moment.

“Not bad,” said Oz. They’re gelling a lot better and faster than I thought they would.”

Isn't something missing here?

“You roped me into working for the First Evil in a mission that nearly destroyed the world and lost us two team members,” said Oz. “It’s not exactly endearing.”

This made me blink. Could there be a tad more exposition? If not, that's cool. Just made me go "huh".

“Maybe,” said Riley. “but the action seems to be in Europe.”

I don't think he's proven that. Does he have to prove it to get Oz to do what he wants him to do?