Dawn nodded as well. That sounded about right, given what Nika had said at camp and what Dawn herself had seen in her vision.

"Alright, thanks, Terese," she said.

"No problem," Terese replied. She hesitated, looking at the bow and sword, then added, "it's really just for the camp thing?"

"It's for the camp thing," Dawn replied carefully. Hey, it wasn't a lie. Technically. Terese accepted it, though, and nodded.

"Alright."

Nika led the way back out of the store. "I think we need to leave," she said quietly. She was getting a little nervous, since the mortals could see their weapons and things. They needed to retreat a little ways and think of what they could do.

Dawn nodded and led Nika back out of the store.

"Come on, let's go to my place," she said. "It's not far, and it's warded, we should be safe for a bit there."

Nika nodded and followed her, heading back outside to get in Dawn's car again. She was still vaguely uneasuy. She'd feel better once she was behind some wards.

Dawn's apartment wasn't all that far away, so it didn't take long to get there. She parked the car as close to the entrance as she could, and fished her key out of her emergency bag as she got out.

"It's not busy this time of day, thankfully," she commented to Nika. "We'll be able to get upstairs without anyone really seeing us."

Nika nodded and followed her upstairs to her apartment.

"Well, if we can trust what the girl said, apparently I wasn't the only one. And maybe not even the first." She frowned. "If it started a few days ago. Because I killed that harpy a day and a half ago."

Jamming the key into the lock, Dawn finagled it for a moment before the wards parted and the door unlocked. Opening it, she gestured for Nika to go in.

"Make yourself at home," she said. "Fridge is off and empty, but there are non-perishables in the pantry that we can throw together."

"That's fine. I might just go for a pizza run later on." Nika shrugged, unstrapping her sword and leaving it next to the door.

"Well. What should we do now?"

"We can order pizza in," Dawn commented. She slipped off her quiver, setting it and her bow down near the coffee table. She didn't like it being too far away. "For now... If things like this are happening in other places, it'll be on the news, I'm sure. We can turn that on and keep an ear on it. I'll make a couple of calls... See if Aaron has heard anything. Maybe shoot an email off to Panderson." And to her father, but she wasn't so sure how that would work out, yet. She still wasn't sure if she wanted anything to do with him.

Nika nodded. "I might do some research." She didn't have many contacts besides her father, and a group of centaurs she occasionally had to haul out of trouble. But they wouldn't be helpful for this.

"Go ahead," Dawn replied. "I have an internet connection here through a LAN line. No wireless, so it's slow sometimes, but it's reliable and won't act as a monster-attracting neon sign."

Nika nodded. "Very good thing," she agreed. Then she sighed and rubbed her temples. "This is going to be a pain in the ass."

"No kidding," Dawn agreed. Already it was a pain in the ass, and that wasn't counting the paranoia that was building. Going over to the TV, she turned it on and flipped to the local news station. If anything was happening in town, that was where it would be reported first. She often used it to keep track of monsters, although most of the time, regular people had no idea that some of the 'strange occurrences' in town were really monster attacks.

This time, though, the reporters knew exactly what they were talking about.

"...and there have been reports of some sort of flying monster attacking people in the park..." the reporter was saying. Dawn's eyes snapped to the report, and she nudged Nika, pointing to the screen.

"Wasn't that your harpy?" she asked.

Nika groaned quietly. "Yeah," she grumbled. "That is. Hell." She growled and leaned back against the couch.

"This is freaking ridiculous."

"I thought you said you killed it," Dawn said, standing up and reaching for her quiver again. If there was a monster in her town, she was going to get rid of it.

"I did," Nika growled. "I killed it. I made sure it was dead. That thing was not coming back."

She paused. "Unless... Unless something else is wrong."

Dawn paused as well when that sank in.

"Oh don't even say things like that," she said. "They have to stay dead... The world can't be that cruel." She strapped on her quiver again and grabbed her keys. "Come on, the park isn't far."

Nika left her sword, since that would be a little too obvious, knowing she still had access to her magical black hole of weapons. This was going to be... interesting. And not necessarily good.

Dawn had no such magic weapons stash, and had to make do with her arrows. Thankfully, she had her usual assortment. She got the feeling she would need to make something explode. She led Nika back out to the car, and they headed towards the park. They had a harpy to exterminate.

Nika was tense and silent on the ride there, her eyes out the front windshield. She did not want it to be true, but at least she was prepared this time.

Dawn's heart sank a bit when she saw a few police cruisers at the park.

"That's not good," she said, pointing them out to Nika. "They have no idea what they're doing."

"No, they don't," Nika said, her voice grim. "You may have to distract them for a while so I can kill the harpy."

This was not going to be fun. In fact, it was perhaps one of the stupidest things she'd ever done.

"I can shoot it from here," Dawn replied, stopping the car. "I've got a clear shot, especially if I get up on the roof of the car." And hey, why not abuse the distinct advantage of being a long-range fighter? If Dawn shot the harpy from a distance, neither one of them would have to run head-on into danger again.

Nika gave up after a moment and nodded. "Sure, go ahead. I'll cover you." She got out of the car, just in case someone came running over or she had to bash some heads for some reason.

Dawn nodded and got out of the car as well. It only took her a moment to get up on top of the car to line up a good shot at the monster. She sighted down her arrow, making sure it was a normal one instead of any of her specialty arrows, and then fired. She knew she hit the harpy, now it was just a matter of seeing whether or not she would need to take another shot.