Where the hell have you been?" Robbie said, waving his arms around wildly.

“We was a might worried ‘bout you," Chris added. When Anya materialized completely nude, the big man blushed and spun around while she got dressed.

“We followed . . . followed them for a bit," Jane said.

“We just wanted to see where they were going."

Anya was trying to process what she had seen. She wasn't stupid, but problem-solving wasn't her strong suit.

"So nicely dressed demons in a really sweet ride come into town, seemingly at random, hand out a bunch of this super-drug for nothing and then head out somewhere in the boonies." She looked over her shoulder and noticed that Chris was still facing away.

"C'mon Chris, you don't need to be a prude," she chuckled.

"How many times have you seen me naked?"

“Several ma'am," Chris replied, not changing his position at all.

Anya smiled. She didn't think that there were any real gentlemen left in the world.

“Well, I'm done. Let's get back to the Den."

As they headed out towards the nearest entry point for the tunnels leading back home, Anya leaned against Chris and teased him outrageously, taking great comfort in making the big man blush.

Robbie spent some time talking to Jane about her Talent and ways she might be able to use it. Jane felt something unusual. . . foreign ... deep inside her. Pride. She had done something right tonight, and that made her smile.

Jane was practicing manipulating her Talent, swinging around the Den and perfecting fine manipulation skills with her hair when the hunting party returned. They were dirty, some of them seemed to have been cut and were bleeding, and all of them seemed pissed as hell.

And the most pissed off of them was quite obviously Red. Jane found it harder than she imagined not to run over and hold the beautiful warrior in her arms, but good sense told her this wasn't the time.

So she approached with caution.

But while Jane was a whisper, Tarloh arrived with a bellow.

“What the hell happened?" he asked.

Red was almost growling.

“Apparently, we got too close. We followed Jane's lead and were roaming the woods East of town. We saw power lines leading off, but no one knew of any business out in that area.

We decided to investigate, and apparently we tripped an alarm. We wound up in a fight, but they didn't seem nearly as organized. They were reacting, not attacking, and that means we were close. Damn it Tarloh, we were close!" Red had a wild-eyed look about her.

"If it hadn't been for the wounded . . . I'll go back out on my own and ..."

"No," Tarloh said firmly.

“For crying out loud Tarloh, you know"