Dances With Snakes
The 1900s

"'Snakes At Feet', huh...?"

Eyeing him, Katherine felt the weight of the weapon in her hand. North America's natives were never really in need of being 'tamed', but even now, with so many tribes having been pushed into reservations with the duel sympathiser of alcohol and liberal interpretation of legal terms, there were still a few who held true to the old ways. Traditions died hard and never more so among people in need of miracles.

Snakes At Feet was more at home with a gun than bow and arrow, but that did not preclude him from reasoning that sometimes darkness was best fought by its own kind. The old Medicine Man forbade the chosen method, of course, but hard times called for desperate measures and eventually relented.

Vampires... There were written records of them stretching as far back as the Indus River Valley civilisation and almost certainly beyond. America's true children were no stranger to them, either.

The act of summoning one, though... It could be done. Dangerous and foolhardy in the extreme, but it could be done.

"Didn't expect a white girl."

It was spoken with an amused sense of irony, not racism. Brow furrowed and then raising.

"Yeah, well..." Responded Katherine, deliberating. "I didn't exactly plan to go for a spell of 'tomahawks at dawn', either, y'know?"

An observation was muttered from the Medicine Man to Snakes At Feet. Not in English. Too elderly to start learning and too stubborn to see the need.

"What'd he say?"

"He said your shadow was called when your father died."

For a moment, the vampire halted movement with the miniature axe in hand. Jaw clenching at the memory of the day she died. The day her father had died. No, more than that. His murder. Retribution didn't so much come, as see a reason to find her.

Lucky retribution...

"Yeah," she solemnly replied, her grip around the handle tightening for just a moment. "My shadow... You could say that."

Dust in my shoes.

"You could say that, sure."

Dust in my shoes and no way home...

The killer blinked softly back up in the two men's direction. Recollections going through in thought, of a time so recently past. Although she had yet to test the principle, Katherine had now come to realise the entire world was her new home. There was nowhere the sun could shine forever. In so many ways, she truly had died that day. Already, the vampiress standing there was well on her way to becoming the Katherine of decades hence. All she needed was refining and that, too, would come soon.

"So... Who'd you want dead?"

"Dozen men, give or take. When they couldn't take no more horses, they went up and started... Taking some other things."

The phrase was not finished and for good enough reason. It didn't have to be. The imagination could be powerful as both enemy or ally, but Katherine cared little. She needed no justification. On the other hand, there was the undeniable feel that this might not be so different to the same task of vengeance she had put herself to, in pursuit of those who had wronged her so badly.

"Hey, Tom! Think this one'd be purty if she squealed?"
"Ehh... She's all torn up with them riddle-holes you shot 'er full of. Be like fuckin' a corpse. C'mon, leave 'er be... We got elsewheres t'get to."

Not exactly the most Christian of attitudes.

Guess who got to be closer to Jesus, assholes... That's right, you did. Easter-style.

Because on the whole, Katherine felt nailing what remained of those victims to a cross, in the tried-and-true method of crucifixion, would make for an inventive personal touch, considering her new undead nature. As she rode off, the vultures had already begun to circle.

Back to the present, though and the vampiress nodded to the two natives' request.

"I get entitled to whatever I find prettiest," came her only demand. "Just tell me where."

Later that night, the directed location became a slaughterhouse and the very tomahawk within her hand was found buried between the last man's shoulder blades. She had promised to release him if he begged nicely enough. She never said anything about not killing while he ran away.

Especially screaming like a girl.

Then again, considering her ad hoc attempt at castration immediately prior, it was more a wonder of how he even found the strength to try and move.

She made at least one of them confess to a rape they had carried out. Made that one fuck a dead porcupine. Then she made the few other survivors do likewise to him, too. Being in the position of meting out poetic justice, Katherine found, could be rather entertaining as a private enterprise. The future would bring with it even more ingenious ways of execution, but Katherine's ability to keep her fun alive was already quite experienced.

As an exercise in irony, she decapitated the entire gang and roped their heads together outside in a totem pole arrangement.

Snakes At Feet came to see the results of such butchery with an uneasy feeling of queasy revulsion. Thus was the agreement, however and he would cry no tears for these men. It was always better for devils to take their own, after all.

Las Vegas, Nevada, 2010

"Yeah, redhead. You seen her?"

Being informed that Grace was still employed was making Katherine start to wonder if she shouldn't make a start on her first Slayer meal of 2010 with the Richards girl. Had Deanna talked to her? Katherine had no idea, but time was running out and she was already being generous with her temperament.

Well, perhaps the green guy was right and this would degenerate into something larger than expected, but Katherine was fast approaching the 'fuck it' stage of preparation. If everybody just did what she told them to, the world would just be a whole lot easier... But no, nobody ever did. Everything could run smoothly, damn it and if people just realised that, things would be fine.

There was only so long a girl could wait before realising a few messages had to be spelt out in a more direct way.

Then again, perhaps making her mark on Las Vegas was almost precisely what was most required now. She had been none too pleased with Jill's recent telephone message and was now seriously considering paying the lawyer a visit, torturing her into a new level of understanding and then giving her fangs for the hell of it. Then maybe use her to find out who had caused all the carnage at Wolfram and Hart and join up with them.

Or maybe that Mallory girl would make good bait to draw Grace out into a crosshairs. Not average bullets, of course. There were certain concoctions of things to put inside them, when hunting for the undead.

Or perhaps this Blanchard character. A supposed Slayer who worked for the Doughnut Brigade - maybe she'd be worth looking up?

On the other hand... Katherine definitely knew one Slayer who might be useful in a situation like this. Recognising the fact, a slow, cool smirk of darkness began to widen itself over Katherine's features.

Rhiannon.

She would just have to find her, that was all. There was no mistaking just how neatly the solution worked out. Aside from the possible exception of Kris, who she hadn't seen in quite some time, Rhiannon was just about the only Slayer who Katherine could truly be said to have something akin to respect for. The girl wasn't just a professional, she was a veteran, through and through. There was a difference and the vampiress could see it in the younger brunette's eyes.

Until such a time, Katherine resolved to seeing if she could get a handle on the local girl in blue.

Who would have thought a couple of Slayers would provide the answer Katherine was looking for?

Snakes At Feet, the vampire mused, would have been proud...