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Chapter Twenty Five
Just Deserts, Desserts, & Dinner
(With a Party in the Parking Lot)
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Adam started cursing as white smoke suddenly erupted from beneath the front of the RV, curling up over the windshield as the motor home hurtled along the highway through the desert towards L.A.

"What's wrong?" Sally asked from her seat beside him.

"No clue, but I don't think smoke is good. Damnit, we were going to make the flights by this evening. Now I don't know if we will even make L.A."

Adam pulled the RV over to the side of the road, the trailer banging along behind it as he edged off onto the shoulder.

Opening the door, he climbed out, and made his way around to the front of the rig, leaping swiftly aside as what looked like the same Volvo station wagon shot past him on the highway honking the same horn as the one which had herded the stampede of cattle along the highway a few days before, resulting in Patrick and the coyote plummeting to their deaths, not that either one seemed the worse for it now.

Opening the hood, Adam peered in to find a jet of water erupting from a crack in the hose, and shooting onto the left header, where it fizzled into steam.

"It's a leak in the hose," he called around the side to Cassandra who had emerged and was walking up to join him.

"Is there any way we can patch it?" Cassandra asked.

"Not that I know of," Adam replied sadly. "And if we try to drive with it leaking like this, we'll just end up running out of water, and cracking the block."

"Darn it!" Cassandra cursed, turning back towards the door to the RV.

As she entered, she called out to Sue, "Sue, I think you need to dig up the keys to the Geo, someone's going to have to head to the nearest town and try to get a replacement hose."

Sue nodded and turned towards her purse, nearly tripping over the coyote as he suddenly shot out the door and disappeared into the late afternoon glare of the desert sunlight.

"What's up with him?" Sally asked, looking out a window to try and spot the fleeing form of the coyote.

"I dunno, call of nature?" Patrick asked offhandedly.

Adam had come back inside, and was listing to the conversation, but interrupted, "Patrick, if you think your curse is safely neutralized, would you mind helping me remove the cracked hose so someone can take it back into Phoenix and try to find a replacement tonight?"

"Uh, sure. But it's already four. It'll be almost five before anyone can get back there." Patrick commented, "We passed it almost half an hour ago, and we didn't really go through it."

Adam nodded. "Yes. It'll take a lot of luck to get us back on the road tonight. Whoever goes to town had better plan on staying the night in case they can't get the part. At least the rest of us will be able to bunk down here. Good thing this is an RV."

As Patrick and Adam worked on removing the hose from the engine, being careful not to burn themselves on the hot motor, Sue, Cassandra, and Sally worked on trying to get the Geo off it's trailer, but ran into a major roadblock; the engine wouldn't start. Somehow, the battery had died over the past few days. All it would do was whine and make the motor go "clunk".

Cassandra went up to tell Adam and Patrick the bad news, and ask them to remove the RV's battery as well so they could use it to jumpstart the Geo, since there was no way they could push it up even the slight incline the RV was parked along, especially along the edge of a busy highway.

Patrick was looking at the offending piece of hose in his hand, and muttering to Adam, "It's too bad we couldn't use something to just patch this so we could get the rest of the way to L.A. It's only another three or four hours drive, darn it. Sue and I could get the whole thing replaced tomorrow at a dealership, if we could only find a way to limp the rest of the way there."

A muffled "Yip" came from behind him, prompting both Patrick and Adam to turn around.

The Coyote stood there, a smaller gauge radiator hose in his mouth, a pair of hose clamps still affixed on either end, and water dripping occasionally from the still wet inside.

Adam looked amazed, "Where'd you get that?" he asked the coyote, who merely laid it at his feet, then looked at him with a mocking expression.

Bending over, Patrick lifted the hose, and held it up before the one from the RV. "Uh, I don't think it'll fit." he said, holding the two hoses up for comparison. "The one you brought is almost small enough to fit inside the one for the RV, and it's a bit too short as well."

The coyote looked at him as if he had just said the dumbest thing in the world, before replying, "Yip".

Suddenly, Patrick's eyes widened, as he took the new hose, and actually tried to slide the protruding end, up to the hose clamp, into the larger piece of cracked hose. It was a snug fit, but it did fit inside. The coyote nodded and walked off towards the side of the RV.

Taking the screw driver, he swiftly removed both hose clamps from the smaller hose, then slowly edging it entirely inside the larger one.

Sue, Cassandra, and Sally clustered around Patrick as he worked, none of them noticing the faint whine of the can opener coming from inside the open door of the RV.

As he finished centering the smaller hose inside the larger one, he looked up at Adam's disdainful glance, and asked, "What do you think?"

Adam looked at the hoses, then shook his head as he replied, "If we had something to support the center so we could use the clamps to snug the outer hose as tightly as we can against the one on the inside, the flow would be constricted, but it just might work."

"What do you mean?" Patrick asked, perturbed, "The coyote said to do it this way."

Adam just looked at him, before replying flatly, "He said that, huh? Then he lacks a basic education in hydraulics and mechanics. The inner hose will buckle somewhere, and the pressure will once more seek a release through the crack, although now with the added stress of the inner hose, the pressure would be higher. We almost have a fix, but we are missing a key part. Without it we wouldn't get a quarter of a mile."

Another muffled "Yip", followed by a pair of metallic clanks came from the coyote where he stood just below the front passenger's window of the RV.

Turning around, they saw a pair of Red Bull cans, the ends cut off lying on the ground before him. This time, it was Adam who reached out and wonderingly picked up the coyote's latest gift. He then looked at the hose he had handed back to Patrick, then once more at the two cans in his hands, back at the hose, then at the coyote, his eyes somewhat glazed as he slowly shook his head, muttering mostly to himself, "Now, I've seen everything."

About fifteen minutes later, the "mended" hose was back on the engine, and the radiator fully topped up using water from the sink inside.

As they piled back into the RV, Adam grudgingly gave an approving nod to the Coyote, "That was a good job. Though I still wonder where you got that hose from."

The RV pulled back on the highway, and headed along it on towards L.A.

After they had been on the road for about five more miles, they came to a scenic pull out. Parked there in the pullout was that white Volvo station wagon again, the family clustered around the opened engine compartment, and a large puddle of water on the ground beneath it.

Unable to resist his curiosity, Adam pulled in to the pullout behind it, and got out.

"Problem?" he asked the man who had almost run him over earlier.

The balding man nodded his head and replied, "I don't know how I did it. Somehow I managed to blow the radiator hose clean off. Dumped out all the water before I noticed, and cracked the block." The man gestured at the oil leaking from the side of the engine block which was visibly damaged. "We only stopped to take some pictures of a coyote chasing a roadrunner. Then, when I went to start it back up again, Voom! Can't even see what I did to the hose, it's like it just vanished into thin air. I called Auto club, and their on the way though. Thanks for stopping."

Adam turned and climbed back into the RV, then fired up his recently repaired engine.

Looking to his right, he met the eyes of the coyote.

"You have anything to do with that?" he asked the beast.

The coyote's customary "Yip" was his only reply as he drove away.

They had been driving for 4 hours, the past three finally in California, when they finally gave up on the direct push, started after the noontime lunch at Gus's Navajo Tacos.

They were still an hour or more away from Sue's house, but lunch had been far too long ago, and snacks were no longer holding it at bay. Especially since all the frosted pop tarts seemed to have disappeared. Adam suspected the coyote, who merely looked smugly back at him.

"We're someplace called 'Sunnydale' I thought that was in Northern California, up by 'Frisco?" Cassandra asked from her position behind the wheel.

Sue abandoned her own quest for something to hold her over. "No, that's Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is where Silicon Valley is, Sunnydale, is a small suburb of Los Angeles. More or less."

Adam, still glaring at the coyote, added his two cents worth. "It's also a hellmouth. 'La Boca Del Inferno' it was called by the earlier settlers. I certainly wouldn't want to live here. I think it also holds the distinction of having the most murders per capita of any city in the U.S."

"Sounds lovely," Sally chimed in from her place in the front passenger seat.

"The real question," Patrick began, "is does it hold any food? I'm starving, and there's nothing left in this bus to eat!"

Sue sat back down at the table, opposite Adam at the table, and seconded the motion, "I agree. If you see anything that looks like food, please stop."

Sally peered through the window, and spoke up, "How about a double meat palace?"

Patrick suddenly whooped out, causing Cassandra to swerve slightly in surprise.

"Yes! They are great! Stop there! I used to eat there all the time!"

"Double meat?" Adam asked, sounding a bit unsure.

"Chicken and Beef. One burger. It's great!" Patrick tried to reassure him as he twisted on the couch to catch a glimpse of the once familiar sign.

Cassandra swung off the highway, and made her way into the unkempt parking lot alongside the restaurant, with an empty lot on the one side, the back of some building behind, and the side of the restaurant, broken by the drive through window on the other.

Finding no spaces long enough to possibly accommodate both the RV, and the car on the trailer behind it, she opted for parking lengthwise, and blocking an entire unoccupied row of spots, their locations denoted by the faded lines drawn on the cracked asphalt.

Even before she had shut down the motor, Patrick had opened the door, releasing the coyote, who immediately shot off to the side of the RV towards the empty lot, and out of sight.

Patrick followed almost immediately by Sally climbed out, then stood there contemplating the building.

Sally was unimpressed with what she saw, and asked, "Are ye sure it is here ye wan ta be eatin, Patrick? I think the Pop-Tarts would be a safer meal."

Patrick turned to grin at her, and replied, "Yes, Sally. I'm sure; I used to eat at a Doublemeat Palace when I was in college. I didn't know any of them still existed. I thought someone had shut the entire chain down or something. I was never sure, but the Doublemeat Deluxe was one of my staples when I was in school. I can't wait to get a couple. You know how getting killed makes me hungry."

"Yeah, but you haven't gotten killed yet today, so your appetite should be dying down by now." Sally remonstrated.

Sue came out from behind them, followed by Adam and Cassandra.

Just as they were entering the front of the restaurant, all four of the Immortals felt themselves broaching the edge of a Quickening. They all instinctively came to an abrupt halt, Sally unknowingly taking a pair of steps away before realizing no one was following. She paused and looked back.

"Uh, Cassandra, did you feel that?" Patrick asked, realizing that they had to cover somehow for both Sue and Adam.

Cassandra nodded, scanning first the customers, then the employees, until her gaze fell on a blonde teenager standing at the drive through window. Relaxing, she pointed at the girl, she softly told everyone, "Over there, the girl at the window. She's the one, I think."

Sally, impatient to get over with "What is it, Cassandra?"

"The girl at the drive through. Not old, hardly stronger than Patrick here, based on where we felt her for the first time," Cassandra replied, nodding at the girl.

"I wonder where her Watcher is." Sally asked, looking around, while deliberately brushing her hair in a move designed to expose her tattoo for anyone who may be looking, but not seeing any reactions from either the employees or the customers.

"She may not have one yet. As I said, she's new. You might want to make a report or whatever it is you do." Cassandra answered, starting forward towards the counter, everyone else following along behind her now.

Cassandra paused before the menu, allowing the confidant Patrick first chance at the register, "I'd like a pair of Doublemeat Deluxes, with everything on 'em, please. An' a coke."

Sally went ahead and asked for a coke as well, but after asking about the offering of salads, decided she wasn't as hungry as she had thought before coming inside. Taking her soda, she made her way past the still waiting Patrick, and staked out a large table against the side of the restaurant.

Sue next ordered a double cheeseburger, catsup only, and a cup of water.

Adam finally settled on two chili dogs, an order of fries, and a large coke.

Cassandra, bringing up the rear, ordered a single bacon cheeseburger, and fries, with a sprite.

As everyone else sat down with their food around her, Sally's stomach growled it's displeasure at her leaving it out of this dubious feast, so with a bit of reluctance, she got up, and returned to the counter, where she ordered a crispy apple-fry.

Adam, still looking around for the girl's Watcher, asked, "Do you recognize anyone here, Sue?"

"I don't see any Watchers I recognize, no, but it's been a long time since my Dad was the head of the local Watchers," she replied.

"Oh well. Perhaps Cassandra is right, and she doesn't have one yet." Adam replied, turning his attention towards the consumption of his last chili dog.

Cassandra, finishing her own burger, asked Sue, "So, what time do you think we could make it to the airport? I want to call my agent and have them try to get us a flight to Seacouver tonight, if possible. I really am looking forward to seeing Duncan again."

Sue looked at her, and shook her head. "Do you really have to go so soon? I know it's only been a few days, but I've gotten used to having you all around."

Sally looked up at her, and said, "You could come with us to Seacouver, you know."

Sue shook her head, as Adam replied around the last bite of his chili dog, "No, she can't. She has to stay away so she can appeal in person if she looses this first hearing."

"Yeah, that's what Joe told me as well," Sue said, before finishing the last bite of her burger.

Before long they had all finished eating, so they gathered their trays, and dumped their contents into the trash as they headed out door for the RV.

"Any sign of that damn coyote?" Adam asked, as they headed across the dimly light parking lot towards their RV.

"Nope," Patrick replied, "Heh, I think it's my turn to drive, Cassandra, may I have the keys?"

Adam muttered, "Good riddance. At least the beast only wanted a lift to the hellmouth."

Cassandra tossed the keys to Patrick, who grabbed them and opened the door to the RV, before climbing inside, Sally just a few steps behind him.

However, those were a few steps too many, as out of the darkness, a group of hoodlums appeared. The leading one reached out and grabbed Sally by the arm, yanking her painfully back away from the RV and towards one of his friends.

He then dove up the stairs and into the RV after Patrick.

The hoodlum has barely vanished into the dark interior, however, before he fell back out the door, to land on the asphalt of the parking lot, banging his head with a loud gong-like clang on a hubcap which had not been there when they had parked.

The thug's falling body was followed out the door by the lean frame of the coyote, who leapt from the opening to land on the ground and snarl at the still form.

The hoodlum who had grabbed Sally however, was far more active. He had hit her alongside the head with an aluminum baseball bat he had been carrying, but then things got really weird, as his face literally transformed, his brow and nose growing furrowed, and sharp fangs protruding from his mouth.

Cassandra, recognizing the monster for what it was, yelled "Vampyres!" as she drew her saber and neatly chopped the head off of the nearest assailant, his body simply vanishing into a cloud of dust.

Sue, noticing that Sally was unconscious, called out, "Methos, I really don't think we should worry about Watchers just now, it's ten to three!" With that, she pulled her katana from her coat, and turned towards the one holding Sally. She moved in, feinting a stab, which drew a clumsy block from the creature holding Sally, then before it could respond, she sliced down with a curving blow to decapitate it, and as its form turned to dust, the bat and Sally clanged to the ground.

Adam also pulled his bastard sword from his coat, and together the three turned to face the remaining group of nine vertical vampires.

Suddenly, Patrick leapt from the doorway of the RV and launched himself into the melee.

Tripping over the bat, he lost his balance, his inertia carrying him, and his sword forward until he skewered Adam, much like a shrimp on a shishkabob.

Adam looked down at the blade sticking out of his chest, and promptly died.

Patrick looked at the body as it slid off his blade, and murmured, "Sorry," before turning around with his blade again extended to take a wobbly swing at the nearest Vamp.

Once again, he did more harm than good, as his swing managed to miss the Vamp entirely, but brought him and his blade around to slice neatly through the blouse and stomach of Cassandra just as she finished decapitating her third Vampire, spilling a torrent of blood from her torso as her body slumped to the ground by Adam's.

The blood seemed to transfix the remaining Vampires, allowing Sue to score her second kill a moment later, after which she took in the carnage wrecked by Patrick in the few moments since his emergence from the RV.

"Uh, Patrick, you do know you are supposed to kill them, not us, right?" she asked, in a calm voice.

"Uh, sorry Sue. This is the first time I've tried to do anything other than practice swings, remember?" Patrick whined, looking mournfully at the dead bodies of his two friends lying on the ground in separate pools of blood.

The first Vampire, apparently their leader, finally climbed back to his feet, and stealthily approached Patrick and Sue from behind, while the remaining five Vampires continued to stare, apparently mesmerized by the pools of blood surrounding Cassandra and Adam.

"I know. I'm not much of a Teacher, am I? You really should let the Witch take you on, you know. She's been doing this for thousands of years, you know," Sue said, shaking her head.

"No," Patrick replied, swinging his sword wildly for emphasis as he spoke, "YOU are my teacher. If you don't want me, then fine. But I want to stay with you. You are the only thing that I have to steady me anymore." Patrick's wild swing inadvertently connected briefly with one of the stationary vampire, separating his head from his neck, and leaving just the four, plus the still approaching leader.

Sue noticed the movement over Patrick's shoulder as the leader closed on them, and called out, "Pat, behind you!" even as she spoke the vampire reached out, and calmly grabbed Patrick by his neck, jerking him off his feet, and snapping his neck with the same movement.

While the Vampire leader snapped his minions out of their daze, and started directing them to encircle Sue, the lone survivor of her group, Adam's Quickening suddenly spiked, and he came back to life, the hole in his chest fully healed.

Adam looked down and casually straightened his shirt before reaching over and retrieving the fallen sword from the ground then climbing silently to his feet.

Adam quickly analyzed the situation, taking in the corpses of Cassandra and Patrick, the location of Sally's body by the door to the RV, and Sue's position, slowly rotating in the middle of the now closing circle of Vampires.

Suddenly from beneath a parked car, the coyote's head poked out, and it bit viciously into the ankle of one of the encircling vampires. Sue took the distraction as an opportunity to slash out with her sword, truncating the cry of pain from the now severed neck of the bitten Vampire, thus leaving her with only four opponents to track, as she stepped into the sudden hole in their circle and placed the empty car with the coyote coughing up Vampire dust beneath it to her back.

Adam slowly snuck up behind the Vampire leader, even as he felt Cassandra's Quickening spike, and saw her roll over onto her back.

To gain a bit of time for Cassandra to finish reviving and get back to her feet, Adam reached out and calmly tapped the lead Vampire on his shoulder.

The Vampire spun around, displaying his fanged countenance, and froze at the sight the man who stood behind him. "Wha, who are you?" he asked.

Adam spoke softly, telling the vampire, "I am Death, once known as the Pale Rider on a Pale Horse, one of the Four. I am your Doom."

At those words, the Vampire's eyes widened in panic, and his face once again resumed a normal human appearance, as he stumbled a few steps backwards, loosing his step as he tripped in a pothole the coyote had apparently dug in the parking lot while everyone was inside eating dinner.

Sue took his moment of distraction as an opportunity to slash out with her katana again, and the remaining three Vampires found themselves leaderless.

Cassandra had risen to a sitting position, and was reaching for her own fallen sword even as Patrick's quickening spiked as well, and he returned to life with a yell as he also sat up.

The three remaining Vampires realizing they were suddenly outnumbered, and by opponents which didn't seem to stay dead, turned to flee only to find the way blocked by the snarling visage of the coyote.

Turning back towards the four Immortals, who were now moving to encircle them, the Vampires apparently decided to split up.

One ran towards Sue, which was not the brightest move, as with a final flash of her katana she reduced her fourth Vampire of the evening to nothing more than dust on the wind. As Sue started humming the song by that name from Kansas, she saw one of the remaining two had chosen Cassandra as the supposedly weakest link in their circle. It likely had no chance to even learn how foolish its choice had been, as the blade of Cassandra's rapier shot out so swiftly that it was invisible in the darkness, as it separated the Vampire's head from it's body.

As Patrick was staggering to his feet without his sword, the final Vampire decided to charge towards him, and came to meet the most bizarre end. As it charged through the pool of blood left behind from Adam's earlier demise, he slipped, then his foot caught on Patrick's abandoned sword, and he fell forward, right onto the up thrust end of a branch the coyote had dragged out of the abandoned lot next door shortly after their arrival. He shuddered momentarily before vanishing with a soft pfoof sound, leaving just a dissipating cloud of dust to mark his departure from this world.

Adam bent to check on Sally, and finding her merely unconscious, he lifted her and carried her gently into the RV, to lay her on the couch.

Outside, the coyote immediately bent towards the branch which had dispatched the final Vampire, and started dragging it back towards the empty lot next door, its task apparently finished.

Patrick bent over, and retrieved his own sword, while Cassandra quietly surveyed the site of their recent struggle. "I suppose it should not be unusual to find a gang of vampires on some place called a hellmouth. What is unusual is how bold and open they were. Creatures of the night such as they tend to be more circumspect and stealthy, trying to keep a low profile, not attacking in mass on a public street in the full view of the general public."

Adam, apparently having settled Sally on the couch, had already fired up the engine, prompting Sue and Cassandra to hurry inside, followed immediately by Patrick, who started pulling the door closed.

Before the door was even half closed though, the slender form of the coyote came shooting in, knocking Patrick off his feet, and slamming the door closed behind him.

Sally started to stir as Adam pulled the RV out of the lot, and turned it towards the highway.

She opened her eyes, and said muzzily, "The fangs, he had fangs, and his eyes, they were this disgusting yellow."

Cassandra laid a hand over her head, and said softly, "Hush, Sally. It's ok, the vampires are all dead. We took care of them."

Sally groaned, as she tried to sit up. Sue, remembering a vial she had always carried in her purse, turned to find it.

Coming back forward a few moments later, she said softly, "Here Sally, I know it tastes bad, but drink this, it's called Rescue Remedy, and it is the fastest thing I know of for treating pain."

Sally took the proffered squeeze tube, and put a few drops on her tongue. Sue then went over to the kitchen and dug up a paper cup, which she filled with tepid tap water from the tanks filled back in Memphis, then offered Sally a pair of Ibuprofen to take as well.

Turning her eyes to Cassandra, she saw the witch smile, and say, "She'll be ok. It's just a bump on the head. Which is good, since if she were to get killed, she wouldn't be coming back any time soon."

Cassandra picked up her cell phone to start calling her travel agent, as Sue turned to the front to help direct Adam the rest of the way in.

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