January 6th, 2020
Interstate 15, Montana

As promised, on their way back from Seeley Lake, they found a secluded spot in the desert and buried the shape shifter's body, leaving nothing to mark that a grave was ever there. It didn't take them long, considering how they were raised, before they were on the road once again in the middle of the night.

"Are we going back to Foghills?" Will asked just as the sun started coming up, rays of sunlight splashing across the passing scenery.

Ash shook his head, tightening his grip around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "No, we're heading to the Lockwood compound."

Will perked up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Really? Nice."

Ash only shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed to the road ahead as he yawned, and his eyes drooped tiredly. "It's time. Hey, Jack, wanna take over?"

"Sure." Jack scratched Keala in her favorite spot behind her ear and grinned when her wagging tail whacked both Ash and Will a few times in a row, before they scooted out of her reach, yelling at him to get her away.

Ash and Jack switched places somewhere in Idaho, just as the sun started to shine strongly in the sky above. Instead of falling asleep, though, like he'd been just about to before, Ash turned up the music and forced them to sing along with him as the morning dragged on.

"This song is awesome, too," he mentioned, after Two Cents Worth, by Kansas switched to Styx's Grand Illusion. "I love this-" The shrill ringing of Will's phone interrupted Ash before he could say anything else as Jack turned the radio down.

"Hello? Mom?" He listened intently to whatever it was she said to him. "Are you sure? I can come back if you need me... Okay... Alright, I'm putting you on speaker. Jack and Ash are here with me."

"Hi, boys," Marcia Pleasant chirped, sounding relieved and tired. "Where's Marley? She's okay, right?"

"She's okay. How are you, Mom?"

The woman sighed heavily on the other end of the line. "Your dad used to send me quite a bit of money every month. Without that check, I won't be able to keep the estate for much longer. Even with Juliet's help."

"What the hell, Mom?" Ash growled. "Why didn't you tell us? I'll send you whatever you need right now."

"Ah... baby, I can't..." She trailed off, and Jack got the sinking feeling she was trying to hide her tears. "It's alright, really. I have Juliet. And Nina and her boys out here helping me right now too. It's not so bad, except that I hate charging people an arm and a leg just to bury their poor loved ones."

"I'll send you whatever you need. You shouldn't have to worry about money," Ash insisted, with echoes of agreement from both Will and Jack.

"Thank you, boys. How's Marley been? How are all of you?" she asked sincerely. Jack loved that about her, no matter how much stress weighed her down, she was always more interested in whatever was going on in their lives.

"Any time. Really," Jack answered fervently. "Marley's good. I think she's starting to break out of her shell a little more."

"Oh, that's wonderful to hear! And what about the rest of you boys, how are you?"

Before Ash or Jack could say anything, Will blurted, "I'm great! Ash has girl trouble, and Jack got shot in the arm the other day and he won't let anyone look at it."

"Jack Slayer! You better listen to your brothers about that. If I hear you're not taking care of yourself, I'll come find you and bring you home. Do you hear me, young man?"

"Yes, Mom." He shot Will a sideways glare and mouthed, 'Traitor.'

"Ashton, I don't know what girl problems you're having, but I do know that you have a tendency to run at any sign of danger, and although that may work in some situations, love definitely isn't one of them. Oh, and don't get mad at me, but happy birthday."

"Thanks. But I'm not running," Ash promised determinedly. "I'm going to fix it."

"Good. I don't want-"

"What the fuck was that?" Jack slammed on the breaks, sending everyone jerking forward. Pain erupted in his shoulder, but he winced more at the sound of Keala's whimpering.

"The fuck, Jack? You trying to kill us?" Will snarled, holding onto his computer as tightly as he could, while his phone flew forward, lodging itself underneath the front console.

"What happened? What's going on?" Marcia's voice drifted from Will's phone, sounding startled, her words dripping with worry.

"Jack slammed on the breaks for no reason." With a judgmental glare, Will reached down and grabbed the phone.

"It wasn't for no reason. I saw someone standing in the middle of the road."

Will rolled his eyes while in the back, Ash remained silent. "It was probably just one of your ghosts. Mom? You still there?"

"Yes. What is going on? Are you boys okay?" she demanded, while Jack started the car again, seeing headlights in his rearview mirror.

"We're fine. You want me to drive, Jacky?" A concerned frown settled on Ash's face.

"No. I'm telling you..." Jack trailed off, trying to think of how to describe what he saw while the road they were on narrowed into two lanes as they started driving through the winding secluded forests of the Rocky Mountains. "There was someone there..." He turned the corner and slowed down when he spotted what looked like a roadblock up ahead, in a spot where on either side of the road the trees were so thick, the sunlight had a hard time shining through the foliage.

"What the hell is this?" Will glanced impatiently at his watch. "Mom, can we call you back?"

"Wait, what's going on, boys?" she asked, the worry returning to her voice in seconds.

"I'll let you know when we do." He hung up the phone, while Jack stopped in front of two cars parked horizontally across the road, blocking their path.

"Did you make a wrong turn, Jacky? I thought we were supposed to stay on the interstate that were on," Ash pointed out, while Jack's heart started to pound, a bad feeling rising in his gut.

"We were. But there was a detour sign. I thought it was kinda weird you didn't say anything about it. This doesn't look good, guys."

"Nope," Ash agreed, when one of the car doors opened and Annabeth stepped out, wrapped in a satin black robe. Her dark eyes sparkled with a dangerous intensity, and her dark red lips twisted into a vicious smile.

"You thought you could elude me forever?" Her voice sliced through the air and infiltrated the car, making Ash stiffen immediately. "Burning down the Westing house was just a bonus. I knew it would take a lot more than that to kill you, Slayers. Where's the little Halfling?" She stalked forward, as four other figures stepped out of the vehicles, flanking her smoothly.

"Somewhere safe." Ash shoved open his door enough to slip through, pushing Keala back so she wouldn't jump out and attack anyone prematurely. They had to know what they were dealing with.

"That's too bad. But not to worry, I'll find the abomination soon enough," she responded bitterly as Will and Jack both got out of the car too, each armed with all the weapons they could reach before they joined their oldest brother.

"You're never finding her. I'll kill you before you get anywhere near my sister."

Annabeth cackled heinously. "You have no idea... do you? You're surrounded. There's no way you're ever getting off this road alive. They're all yours, boys." She motioned to the figures behind her, their faces shaded with the hoods of their robes.

Before Jack had a chance to breathe, the figures disappeared, reappearing directly in front of them, their hoods falling off, revealing pale faces, with their lips pulled back into snarls, showing off their sharp fangs. The four figures' red eyes glowed blankly, not thinking, purely just following the orders of their master, the witch who'd conjured them from the ashes.

"Really? Fangs?" Ash laughed. "You gotta do better than that." He whipped out a silver-tipped wooden blade from his belt and threw it into the heart of the first vampire, standing directly in front of him. The fang dropped to the ground, surprising the other vampires and the witch who stood back, watching on with undivided interest.

The shock that crossed Annabeth's face was fleeting, before she shrugged nonchalantly. "You are surrounded." She watched without qualms while Ash led them in the murder of the other three vampires.

"Ash! Help!" Will called in distress when one of the fangs grabbed him from behind, and nearly sank its k9's into his throat, before Jack plunged Ash's blade into the vampire, sending it sprawling to the forest floor. "Thanks, man." Will and Ash each got the other two, and in just a few minutes they were standing in a pile of dead bodies.

Annabeth shook her head apathetically. "There are still more."

Ash smirked. "More witches? You've seen how we've dealt with your kind before." He spit blood out of his mouth and glared at the woman with hatred in his eyes.

"You think I would be stupid enough to risk the lives of my coven for you humans? I'm through with letting my people be massacred by you Exterminators." More vampires emerged from the forest, surrounding them, followed by a pack of werewolves.

"Shit. Back to the Blazer, we need ammo!" Ash shouted. Jack and Will immediately moved to the truck, meeting at the back where Ash grabbed a bag of weapons and ammo and started tossing them whatever they needed.

Climbing on top of Cheech, Will started taking out the werewolves as they began closing in, while Ash and Jack took care of the vampires with the close range weapons. They almost had a good system except that Jack had his leg sliced by a werewolf, and he was pretty sure he saw Ash bleeding from four or five different areas. Not that he ever would've complained about it, but it made him nervous how vulnerable they were. Especially without Marley.

As they fought, Jack felt his phone ringing incessantly in his pocket, until he finally pulled it out to see who'd called him fourteen times in a row. "Ash! Lee keeps calling me!" he shouted, glancing briefly at his cell, before focusing back on the task at hand. The only reason he could think that she'd call him was because his brother wasn't answering his phone again.

"What? Dude, we're kind of in the middle of being attacked by a psycho witch and her legion of minions!" Ash narrowly avoided the fangs of a vampire, just one of the monsters currently trying to disembowel them.

When Jack's phone started ringing for the fifteenth time, he finally swiped the screen to answer it, while simultaneously dodging a zombie that had started to claw its way out of the trees, aiming for its head and putting it down for good. "Hello?"

"Fuck. Finally, Jack." Lee sounded more pissed off than he'd ever heard her before. "Where the hell is your good-for-nothing moron brother?"

"Uh... Lee..." Jack tucked his phone between his ear and shoulder, shooting a werewolf that jumped at him, almost taking a chunk out of his arm.

"Jack... If you don't give the phone to your brother right now, I'll castrate both of you," she threatened darkly, and he had the sinking feeling she wasn't one to spout out empty threats.

"Ash!" Jack spotted his brother surrounded by a variety of different monsters, while Will finished off the crowd he'd been breaking up.

"Dude... Kinda in the middle of something right now!"

"Lee doesn't give a shit. Says it's fuckin' important!" Jack hit the speaker button and tossed the phone to his brother without waiting for a response.

Ash caught the device easily, slipping it into his breast pocket, with it still on speaker phone, watching grimly as Annabeth stole into her car and drove off into the distance, the other vehicle that blocked the road quickly following after her and disappearing around the bend. "Hello?" Shooting a vampire as it lunged for an unsuspecting Will, he slid the phone out of his pocket, taking it off speaker and pressing it to his ear.

"Ashton Scott Slayer!" Lee screeched into the phone so loudly, both his brothers could hear it, making Ash wince from the force.

"Hey, baby."

"Don't you "hey, baby" me, you little fucker!" she snapped, while Jack and Ash stood back to back shooting zombies in the head and looking out for anymore vampires, though Jack was pretty sure they dropped all the fangs. Ash shot one of the last werewolves in the clearing, simultaneously sending him an annoyed look.

"Honey, you're gonna have to tell me what I did to piss you off so royally this time, 'cause I have no idea." Glancing around, Jack noticed for the first time that the monsters had all been killed, except for the last few Will had in his sights, but they were dropped before either of them could even lift a finger to help.

A heavy silence came from the other end of the line, making Ash so nervous that he fidgeted with his gun and bit his lip a little, trying to avoid eye contact with Jack. The woman said something that had a frown etching itself into his features, as he cleaned his weapons.

"Lee, you're starting to freak me out a little." He turned his back to them, as Will joined Jack in the middle of the road. "Just tell me what's wrong. I've heard rumors you're having meltdowns and refusing to eat. That doesn't sound like you."

Jack watched Ash turn around to face them again as Lee said something to him that made his entire face drain of blood. He froze and his eyes widened as he opened and closed his mouth several times.

"What is it? What's going on?" Will whispered to Jack, who shook his head and shrugged.

"I have no idea, but whatever it is, it's not great." They both stared unabashed at their oldest brother.

"I'm on my way. Everything will be okay, I promise." Saying goodbye, he hung up the phone and shot them a flat look. "Let's get the fuck out of here. We've got places to be." Without another word, he tossed his weapons into one of the bags in the back of the truck and slid behind the wheel.

"That's creepy as fuck, Jack," Will mentioned later that day, as they were just about to pull up to the Lockwood compound.

Jack only shrugged in return, continuing to finish the shading on the figure who was the main focal point of the sketch. "It's Annabeth. There's something about her that... I don't know how to explain it, but I've wanted to capture her image ever since the first time I saw her."

"That doesn't sound weird and horrifying at all..." Ash muttered sarcastically, pulling up to the gates and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel until whoever was manning the guard station let them through.

"Shut up. It's not that bad." Jack brushed off their comments as he shoved his sketchbook back into his pack, getting ready to get out and stretch his legs. They pulled up to the back of the house, near the private garages where only the Lockwoods and members of their family were allowed to park.

"You ever gonna tell us what's going on?" Will slung his bags over his shoulders and stepped out into the cool January air.

Ash shook his head, the color having not quite returned to his features yet. "I'll tell you when I know for sure." For once, Will didn't argue with him, he only shrugged, stopping short trying to dodge Keala and not trip into the snow.

"I'm gonna kill your dog, Jack." He trudged forward while Ash laughed behind him.

"That's my line." His voice was edged with the first hint of humor they'd heard out of him all day. It was gone in a second though when the door in front of the garages slammed open and Lee stood on the porch step with her dreads standing up in every direction, and her red-rimmed eyes focused directly on Ash.

Without a word, he dropped the things in his hands and walked toward her, his eyes locked on the woman staring back at him. The moment he was within reaching distance, he pulled her into a tight embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head as she buried her face into his chest and sobbed sloppily into his jacket.

"Sh... It'll be okay. We'll figure it all out, love."

Lee pulled away slightly, leaning her head back to look into his eyes, wiping away the tears still dripping down her cheeks. "You're not gonna up and leave me?"

"Never. I'm in it 'til the end."

"Are either of you going to tell us what's going on?" Will interjected, before Lee had a chance to respond, and she smiled softly.

"Since you're his brothers, it's only fitting that you know first." Lee twisted around so she could look at them. "I'm pregnant."

To say that Georgia Lockwood was furious was an understatement. Jack had never seen the woman so livid, but when they entered the living room where she had been patiently awaiting their arrival, a look of relief flashed briefly across her face. It was gone as soon as he saw it, though.

"Ashton, you better have been outside groveling for my daughter's hand in marriage." She glared rigidly at him, as he stepped through the doorway with his arm wrapped around Lee's shoulder.

"Shit." A look of surprise flitted through his eyes. "I completely forgot about marriage."

Lee sputtered out a giggle, reaching up and squeezing his hand. "Calm down, Mom. It will all be okay. Ash isn't going anywhere."

"Oh, yes he is," Georgia snarled. "I want you on the road doing as many jobs as you possibly can in this crazy world so you can raise my grandkid properly! And don't you tell me to calm down. I've already heard that from Uncle Gary a hundred times in the past week and I'm sick of it. I have every right to be upset!"

"Mom! You can't-"

"No, she's right, Lee. Besides, we're not finished with the Interstate Blues job yet. I want to provide for you and this kid the right way." His interruption had her scowling at him darkly.

"I make a very decent living on my own, thank you," Lee snapped. "I don't need providing for, this isn't the nineteenth century."

"Maybe you don't. But I want to. And to do that, I have to finish what I've started."

Lee shook her head, while the tension in the room eased, thanks to Jack, though nobody really had to know that. "Alright, fine." Her glare never let up as her gaze switched back and forth between Georgia and Ash. "But we're not getting married until after this kid is born. I don't care if it is a bastard. There is no way I'm gonna try and fit into a wedding dress while I look like a balloon."

"I can live with that. I'm still not happy about this. But if I'm honest, I'm glad it was you who knocked her up and not some other shitty Exterminator."

"Mom!" Lee exclaimed loudly, embarrassment coloring her cheeks with a rosy blush.

"It's alright, I am too, Georgia. But we really have to get going soon. Marley's waiting for us."

"I'll go pick her up," Piper offered from the doorway. "I need to go check up on Charley anyway, see if she needs a break from guard duty for a while."

"Thanks, Pip. Maybe we can spend a few days here." Ash glanced toward both Will and Jack, silently asking for approval.

Jack shrugged nonchalantly. "Your birthday wastwo days ago. We might as well celebrate it here with everyone. Oh, and we needto call Mom back or she'll be pissed."