Karen is pacing near the entryway of the church. She needs to go to confession. Really, actually needs to go, way more than she usually needs to go. She has KILLED PEOPLE, or at least maybe people, and maybe they were killing people, and also maybe they were vampires, but she really feels like this is still the sort of thing that you're supposed to get spiritual guidance about.

Except, of course, if you try to get spiritual guidance about that, the priest will think that you're insane, and Karen just super doesn't want to have conversations with people who think that she's insane.

She's fully aware that she's going to pace by the entryway being pointlessly anxious until confession is over. She's still going to spend the whole time trying to gather her totally insufficient reserves of courage.

Also waiting outside the confessional, not exactly in line, pacing: a large, sturdy girl in what appears to be hand-sewn clothing, holding a rope bag with twelve empty Gatorade bottles in it and also carrying a sword. 

She doesn't really have good enough English for conversations but she smiles brightly at Karen because it would be unbefitting of a paladin to be annoyed that more people are coming to confession which will help them correct their errors and save their souls, just because if the line is too long she'll probably get eaten tonight. 

Oh NO she might have to talk to people ANYWAY.

- wait, why does this girl have a sword? She supposes that anyone can carry a sword - it's not like she can tell whether it's sharp - but it's also the sort of thing you might do if you knew, right, and the overall presentation is -

- oh, no, she's staring.

"Nice sword," she says, and then immediately decides that this was idiotic of her.

She doesn't actually know the English word but the girl is clearly looking at the sword. 

"Thanks," she says, and then doesn't have the words for anything else she wanted to say, like 'it is a family sword' and 'my father gave it to me when God chose me'. "You know how to sword?"

"Oh! Uh, not well." Not at all, what, where did that come from. - and the girl must be a non-native English speaker, oh no, this is going to be even harder to do without saying something awkward. Why is she having this conversation - "Do you? Uh, know how to use it?"

"I am a holy warrior! I know how use it."

- okay what.

"A holy warrior?" she says, desperately trying not to sound like she thinks the girl is insane - because, you know, she's probably not.

"I serve God, fight evil?" She taps the sword. "I here for holy water. For -" and she makes fangs at her lips.

"Oh! Right! Do they, uh - already know about those, here, then?"

"- two my people eaten. Know now. Not-now, only know bad place, full of evil."

"Right, no, I mean - the priest. Uh. Do you usually come here, to the church, I just wasn't sure if they knew about - you know, the vampires - "

"We here - five days. Not yet Mass. No good priest if no know fight evil. Priests good fight evil."

"Oh."

She glances at the door. Confession's not actually over, yet. 

" - I guess I could go in and ask him. If he knows about - that stuff. I was going to confess something about it, but I didn't know if he knew about the vampires, and I got nervous, and - " She's probably talking too fast, now, for someone who's still learning English to understand. Gotta slow down. "Would it be good if I checked?"

"Yes. I don't have English good."

"Okay." 

That is not actually less terrifying than going to Extremely Awkward Confession for the sake of her own soul or need for life advice, but it's somehow less impossible than going for herself. Maybe it's just that leaving would also be extremely awkward, now, and also kind of make her - well, worse than a jerk, the girl said that some of her associates were dead, so.

Deep breaths. She can wait behind the one person left in line and then go in and then panic once she's already inside and backed herself in.

It's not a divided confessional, but at least it's got a screen. She - really wants to use the screen but maybe actually shouldn't, if she wants to try to read this guy's reaction to the existence of vampires. 

She takes another deep breath, walks around the screen, and plops herself down in the chair across from the priest. 

"I think I killed a vampire, last night," she says, very seriously, kind of not entirely able to remember all of the other stuff that she's supposed to say. "He was attacking someone. I don't actually know whether that's a sin or not. They didn't really cover it in confirmation class. I just thought I'd - I didn't know who else to ask about under what circumstances you're allowed to kill vampires."

"- daughter," says the priest, after quite a long pause, "I am glad of any impulse that drives one to the confessional, in these difficult days, but this is not a place for pranks. Or video games."

"Thanks," she says. "That's very helpful."

She kind of wants to make the rest of a confession, but she's not actually sure that it'll count, if she doesn't actually confess everything? Except - really it ought to count unless she thinks that killing vampires in defense of others really is a sin, and - if she had to guess, she'd say it wasn't, or she wouldn't keep doing it, it's really much more difficult and unpleasant than not doing it -

"Can I confess everything else?"

"Of course."

"I haven't been praying or reading the Bible as often as I should. I skipped mass once without a good reason. I haven't been helping out at home with chores as much as I'm supposed to. I wrote a story last week and it had a sex scene in it and I deleted it later but I probably shouldn't have written it at all. And I skipped doing my algebra homework, I dunno, five times, and I did have a reason but I don't really know if it was a good enough reason and I guess I'm sorry that I didn't take it more seriously and manage my time better."

It was vampires. She was fighting vampires.

" - you should say your act of contrition," he prompts her gently.

"Right." Ugh this is terrible how does it even go. Technically you can literally just say "I'm sorry" but it's kind of embarrassing to need to, isn't it. - Focus. Switch on some kind of autopilot, it's got to be in her brain somewhere. "Uh, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong, and failing to do good, I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with Your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin." There's something after that in that version, probably, but she's so done, and that's enough. "Amen."

"You should come to Mass early this week, so as to be in the opposite habit from missing it, and say fifty Hail Mary's. 

God, the Father of Mercies, 

      through the death and resurrection of his Son,

      has reconciled the world to himself

      and sent the Holy Spirit among us

     for the forgiveness of sins;

Through the ministry of the Church

     may God give you pardon and peace,

     and I absolve you from your sins

In the name of the Father, and of the Son,

     and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."

"Thanks," she says, with absolutely no discernible feeling, because she's never gotten fifty Hail Marys before and she's pretty sure that this priest is personally pissed off with her about the vampires thing, which is kind of understandable even though ACTUALLY that was a GOOD and NOBLE thing of her to do for that RANDOM GIRL OUT THERE WITH A SWORD AND TEN EMPTY GATORADE BOTTLES.

(She's glad he at least didn't ask her if she was sorry about that. She's not.)

Normally she thinks of it as good form to do your penance right after confession, if you can, but she's absolutely not gonna sit around saying the Hail Mary fifty times so that the girl with a sword can ask about holy water for fighting vampires and then the priest can think that there's a conspiracy of badly behaved teenage girls who are trying to personally annoy him. She half-runs out of the confessional, and takes the sword girl's hand and tries to firmly lead her away from the confessional, which she would normally be way too self-conscious to do, but having to watch this interaction play out sounds infinitely more horrible than that.

"He doesn't know about the vampires."

"He does not? Then we tell him! He need fight the vampires with us!"

"Nnnno. He doesn't believe in vampires, and he's mad at me for talking about them, he thought I was - not taking confession seriously, I think."

"He a priest! What priest - 

- will he sell holy water even if mad?"

"...okay, technically the holy water is free, I'm pretty sure you can just take it and much surer that he's not allowed to charge money for it, but also if he sees you trying to fill a bunch of gatorade bottles from the fountain he's probably going to be upset." UGH, did she actually make things WORSE for the sword girl. Probably he would have been concerned anyway. UGH.

"It's free? ...Upset because I - not have holy enough cup? I can buy better cup, if holy water free."

"No - I mean, maybe - honestly right now because it's weird and I just talked to him about vampires and he'll probably think we're doing weird stuff with it." Which they are, but, you know, justifiably. If God didn't want people to burn vampires with holy water he PROBABLY wouldn't have made it burn vampires. "Ugh. Do you need it today?"

"Probably! Maybe they not hungry this night but maybe yes! - is there a church of death, here, those know about vampires."

"A - what?"

"A church of death? Of Pharasma, we say at home, but I far from home."

"Yeah, I don't know what that is," she says, after a couple seconds of blinking stupidly. It occurs to her that she is not entirely sure whether the sword girl is actually Catholic and actually not some weird - she's at this point not very sure what kind of weird stuff is out there, but, you know, some kind of weird cultist or new age person who's noticed that holy water does stuff and is trying to combine it with chakras or voodoo or neopaganism or something.

ANYWAY. 

St Christopher's is, like, fifteen minutes away, but she doesn't have their schedule memorized and she doesn't know if the doors are open right now. St. Mary's is further and she goes there on Sundays and she doesn't want the priests there to think she's insane.

Holy water doesn't even seem like it's the best thing for fighting vampires, but it's not like she's done extensive testing, and the sword girl seems like she might know more about this, and it's important to whatever her safety plans are.

They - could just dip the bottles in the fountain in full view of everyone and risk getting banned from the premises for being creepy and weird and obviously up to no good, but then she can't come back here later -

"...we could hide in the bathroom until the priest leaves, and then get the water and then walk out, but that seems kind of.... adversarial."

"Holy warriors should be obedient to God," she says in agreement. "Even if priest confused. No things that look like make trouble.

...I think I lose fight with vampire, with no holy water."

"I've never actually used it, I just stake them. I think I'm - " she waves her hand vaguely. "It probably wouldn't work for someone else."

"There's another church a ways away, but I don't know if the doors are open right now, and this one might be closed by the time we got back, if they weren't."

"...I can ask priest for holy water, not say vampires? I think that okay, if he not ask."

"...you can try it," says Karen, dubiously.

She will try it. She will go up to the priest when he is leaving the confession booth and say "Father? I am a holy warrior of God. May I the holy water? I think I can save people with it."

       " - kids," he says, exasperated, looking around for Karen, "this isn't some kind of game. No. No, you may not have the holy water."

"Yes, Father. I not take it. May I buy a knife of silver."

       "You may leave. Now. I don't - are you carrying a sword?"

"Father, I am a holy warrior of God."

      "Get out or I'll call the police."

"Come on," sighs Karen, tugging the sword girl's arm in the hope that she can get her to follow her out the door.

She's not going to stay if she's been told to go. 

"Two people dead! Two God's people! They would be at Mass tomorrow but dead! He should care!"

"He just doesn't believe in the things that killed them. He thinks we're making it up."

She walks in what is actually a random direction, for a few seconds, pretending that she knows where she's going, and then sets her jaw.

"Where were they killed, do you know?"

"I found the bodies, I can show you where. I think they died nearer camp, dragged some way. - I not keep you safe. Not fighting vampires. I will try but - not safe, coming with me."

"Oh, I know. I don't do this stuff because it's safe. Can you show me?"

It's nearing sunset, by this point; Karen won't be home before night, this way. But Karen is pretty sure she's a lot safer than the other girl is, sword or no sword. Not positive, but - either way, she's clearly aware of the risks, and they're both going to be safer if they stick together.

" -yes of course.

God is good, I am silly. I think priest not help, what will I do, God send help already. Thank you."

And she will show the other girl down to where she found the bodies. "I bury and stake them."

"That's good, they shouldn't rise, then." She chews her lip. "How many days ago did they go missing?"

"Two nights. I don't know the English. Not today not day before, day before that. I look last night and find them and warn people, I leave work early today to get holy water."

"Mmm." She hasn't worked out how often vampires have to (or prefer to) feed, yet. "Are your friends in - a house, a permanent place where they live?"

"We travel for work. Some have car-house. I say, do not let anyone in, but I don't know if car-house -" frustrated gesture.

"Yeah, I don't think car houses do the - invitation thing."

Which means the vampires are preying on the migrant workers for the same reasons they prey on the very occasional homeless person (homeless people being very occasional because of this very dynamic). Even if they know the rules, they're pretty much sitting ducks. So the vampires will be back, for as long as the workers are here, and they won't have the means to defend themselves.

"Are your friends all in one place? The vampires will come back, if they don't have a house to stay in after dark."

"I know. I need kill the vampire."

"Yeah." Sigh. "Can you show me where your friends are? I think - probably I should go home and tell my sister that I have to stay out tonight, so she doesn't worry, and then I can come back and help try to kill them when they show up. There are an awful lot of vampires around here, though, I'm not very sure whether we can get it to the point where it's safe to sleep outside a house just by picking them off as they come at us."

"There are lots vampires?" 

Sigh. "God give us strength. I show you where we live."

And she will take Karen down to the parking lot in which the trailers are parked and the tents pitched. People recognize her and wave; she chatters to them in Spanish, telling them that she didn't get any holy water but she thinks God has other plans. Do they all have their holy symbols? They do! Good! 

These poor people. They know the right things to do and it isn't going to help.

"I'll try to be back as soon as I can. - I didn't get your name, I think. I'm Karen."

"Iomedae. God go with you."

"And also with you," she replies, almost automatically, even if it's not quite the familiar form of the phrase in English.

She jogs back to her house to scarf down dinner and explain the situation to her sister.

"...you want to spend all night camping out with a bunch of illegal immigrants who you don't know at all, and who you think are going to be attacked by vampires."

"Yeah."

"You do see how this is extremely worrying."

"She said that I had been sent by God, after the priest refused to give her holy water. And she's - probably right? They're going to die, if I don't help them. I'm just telling you beforehand so you know that I'm not dead, and don't start worrying about that unless I don't come back in the morning. I'm not leaving them to die so that I can do homework. - I'll probably bring my homework with me, though."

She's such an infuriatingly good kid.

"All right. Just - be careful, Karen. Not everyone out there is a good person, even the ones who are in danger."

"But the human kinds of bad people are, as a rule, way less capable of taking a hit than vampires are. - I'll be careful."

She's back around an hour and a half later, with three stakes and backpack full of textbooks. 

They've had dinner. She offers Karen some, of course. She has tortillas and rice and beans for both meals every day. She has told everyone to bring the trailers closer and positioned herself such that it'd be hard for Evil to get near anyone without getting into what she thinks is her Evil-detecting range, though it's not as if she's had Evils patiently test its exact limits with her. She has her sword out and is jumpy.

Karen's eaten, but of course she thanks them. She pushes down any thoughts about trying to get them more food than this. Karen has a job, but it's not the kind of job you get paid for, because that would require anyone to know about it. She doesn't personally have a lot of money, or anything. 

She can't decide how nervous she is, or how nervous she wants to look. She's won the fights she's picked so far, but she generally has some element of surprise going for her, and she's not sure how much the huddling together gives anything away. She thinks that vampires will probably go for them even when they're huddled together like this, but it's hard to say. She supposes it's also a win if they don't. The point is for no one to die, not for Karen to have to kill things. But if she doesn't fight the vampires here, they're probably eating people somewhere else, and also it's occurring to her that she doesn't have any way of gracefully extricating herself from guarding these people at any future point, which is awkward if she doesn't want to spend every night here indefinitely.

Probably the workers will move on, eventually. There are vampires in other places, too, presumably, but - it can't be as bad as it is here, there wouldn't be any people left in the world.

Concentrating on Detect Evil all the time turns out to be exhausting but she can sleep when she's in Heaven. She turns and turns and turns and prays and -

- ha -

- it's satisfying even though she is probably going to die now. She points Karen in the right direction and draws the sword.

Karen is off like a shot. Their visitor is fang-faced, no subtlety; there's no point in it, for running up and dragging off people who know you're coming. She starts off by punching him, trying to get the vampire away from his target and away from everyone else. He's going to hit her back, but she can take a couple hits while she works on staking him. She's pretty sure the important thing is just not to let him pin her.

How is she that fast. How is she punching the vampire. Powerful things can be hurt only by smiting them or by magic weapons!! 

She will, herself, smite it, and try to stab it while definitely not stabbing Karen.

Wow, okay, sword. She was honestly kind of expecting Iomedae to hang back once she saw that Karen was kinda sorta capable of handling this, but now that she thinks of it that doesn't really sound like someone who shows up at the local Catholic Church with a sword and a dozen gatorade bottles that she wants to fill with holy water, does it.

The problem with stabbing vampires with swords is that it's not actually that much more effective than punching them, apparently, which isn't actually a thing that Karen was sure of before because Karen does not personally use a sword. She knows that you can behead them, but if you mean to stab them, it's got to be wood, and it's got to be through the heart. If you mean to disable them - Karen has never actually disabled a vampire and honestly has no idea what it would take.

This vampire, she is going to try to stake, now, if she can manage to do it while Iomedae is swinging her sword around.

She can! The sword is mostly only distracting the vampire but it's at least that!

(Iomedae's religious knowledge is not quite sufficient to know this is weird though she is thinking that she kind of hoped her first smite would be more spectacular.)

She rams her stake through the vampire's heart, and it disappears into a puff of dust.

"Well. One down," says Karen, more like she just finished an annoying algebra problem than like she just slew a vampire.

Iomedae doesn't know enough to know if vampires are supposed to do that!

"Thank you! God is good!" Everyone else is watching them a little wonderingly and Iomedae turns around to say more to them in rapid Spanish. Then back to Karen. "I need learn that so you not here always. How you learn?"

Oh that's so reasonable. And awkward. Oh.

"I, uh, sort of didn't? It's, um - I hear that - supposedly, at any given time, there's exactly one teenage girl somewhere in the world, who gets - you know, strength, speed, toughness, and is supposed to use her powers to fight vampires. And I guess right now that's me. I can tell you the stuff that I know about vampires, if there's anything you don't already know, but - I don't know how to make you hit like a truck."

“God do that.” And a pause as she tried to figure out how to say more - “Strength is from God, but learn to fight also, so God strength go farther.”

" - yeah. I guess that would probably also be smart." Karen's formal combat training pretty much consists of attending some karate classes when she was nine. It's - kind of embarrassing that it hasn't occurred to her to sign up for more. But then she'd have to hide her powers or explain her powers, and those both sound terrible, so -

"Priest should teach us. Priest no teach us, we find old person fought vampires when young. And you teach me. And we teach everyone."

"That sounds... possible." It's possible that she means exactly the opposite of that. "I, uh, haven't actually met anyone else who believes in vampires, though? So I'm not sure if we'll be able to find an old person who's fought vampires."

"...believes in?"

"Uh. Thinks that they exist," she says, which sounds kind of insane because, uh, obviously everybody here seems to believe in vampires, but she's really almost sure that most people don't. Probably.

" - oh. ...so we take one alive, show everyone, then they know about vampires."

...this really seems like it shouldn't work, but it's kind of hard to explain why, because, you know, there's a sense in which it really ought to work.

"I don't know if people would believe it. Everyone knows what vampires are, they just think they're - stories. Monsters that people made up. So they get upset when people talk about them, like the priest, because they think that it's a joke."

" - maybe vampires use evil magic on priest, make him lie. We free priest from evil magic, he say vampires real, then everyone knows."

" - I don't actually know if people would believe the priest either. There's probably some way to give people in general enough evidence that they do believe it, I just - don't know what it is."

This must sound so ridiculous, if everyone you know believes in vampires. It's really an objectively ridiculous situation, isn't it.

"God would not let the priest lie!"

That's... debatable. "I think a lot of people might think he was confused, or sick. And - some people probably would think that he was lying."

"If the priest lie, God take his holy powers!"

"Maybe? I'm not actually sure if He would. - but, uh, a lot of people also don't believe in those." The main easily verifiable one she's aware of is creating holy water, and the main way of verifying it is using it on vampires, so....

"They don't believe priests have holy powers? Do they believe a sun in the sky? Or do they say, maybe demons only make it look there a sun in the sky."

"I think people mostly agree on the sun." Man, she wishes that she felt like miraculous interventions were as obvious as the sun in the sky. She's definitely met people who felt like that, but even with vampires wandering around and crosses repelling them, it still doesn't feel quite the same. "I don't really know how it happened. I - guess I have the impression that everyone used to believe, and then in the last couple centuries, people stopped. I'm not really sure how or why, though. ...I did not personally know that vampires were real until I moved to Sunnydale, but like I said, there are a lot of vampires in Sunnydale."

"The work of devils. To make people not know of God. And not believe about Heaven Hell right, that why devils want do that." She is actually considerably more upset about this than she was when complaining her friends were being eaten by vampires. "I need more English, or they not listen when I tell them - vampire -" because she hasn't actually stopped concentrating on Detect Evil. This one came in around the other side, and bothered to disguise itself, since these people were apparently surprisingly prepared to fight. Iomedae runs at him pointing her sword. "Vampire!"

"Hey, kid, I'm just here to return a lost wallet I found -"

She can't smite anymore but she can stab. Even if he were a human and she's sure he's not, a human powerful enough to have an Evil aura like a powerful undead would barely notice the being stabbed. 

Karen is no less prepared for this one. She can get tired, of course, but slayer powers don't run out. She'll knock him back, mostly automatically confirm that his body doesn't respond to the force like she's pretty sure a human one would, and then pull out her stake and - miss the heart, the first time, that's embarrassing, but she can always pull her stake out and try again, at which point the vampire dusts.

" - wait, how did you know that time?" Half a second later it occurs to her that the migrant workers obviously know each other and that one wasn't one of them, but it seemed like a sensible question when she said it.

"I sensing Evil. Also no one return wallet us but I no stab first if he not Evil."

"Right, that makes sense." ...well, the wallet part makes sense. " - how do you sense evil?"

" - holy warriors can sensing Evil. To help fight it. Not all evils but vampires definitely. And demons. And devils. And - dead things not die, and people if they in service of Evil powers, or great evil their selves."

"Oh. That's... useful. I don't suppose you could tell me how you learned to be a holy warrior."

"God picks holy warriors. You have to be - duty and good - always, so everyone know always that if there is a holy warrior they can be trusting them. And you have to learn fighting, so you - do more with strength God give you. And if you ever do bad, God take it away. - you can still make Heaven, God not take away that, but holy warrior powers, those God take away if you not good holy warrior."

....okay, she's gonna go ahead and not read too much into any of that, given the obvious language barrier in play. She doesn't think it's very possible for someone to never do any bad things, but she has approximately no idea whether that's what Iomedae is saying. It's almost definitely way more complicated than that. Maybe you can't commit any mortal sins. That would make sense, not that Karen thinks that means she could manage it.

"You didn't learn it from anyone else? Did you - learn from someone else how it worked, at least, or did God just - tell you." Man, God never tells her anything. - no, Karen, no getting jealous of the living saint before you who's apparently been granted miraculous gifts for being extremely pious and brave. That'd be some toddler level maturity, there.

“My - I don’t have the word -“ she consults someone with better English - “uncle was a holy warrior. He tell me the rules, the - things God give you, the things you promise. They’re holy orders for it, you go there and learn and give promises. I want a holy order, but my father say, too - not big enough. So I wait. But then God make me a holy warrior. I say to my father I am God’s, I go now even if young. He say of course obey God. So I go. 

God choosing feel like - instead of alone, not alone, never alone. And can see Evil. And can call God down on evil. And others can see if they know how that I have holy power. When stronger, can heal sick like saints. When very strong, can ask angels help. Strongest holy warrior walk into Hell save people.”

Man, Karen is really very confused about the general understanding of the supernatural in modern America. She's going to focus on how bizarre it is that there are people in Mexico going around living lives that echo those of the medieval saints, while a good chunk of other people simultaneously don't believe in God, or in vampires, or in anything supernatural at all, and NOT focus on how she kind of feels less special now. Karen doesn't even want to be the sort of person who goes on to have saint stories written about her, it sounds kind of enormously stressful. This is probably part of why she isn't one, which is probably why she can't detect vampires. 

"...what order did you join?"

“I going to my uncle order but I got lost and God led me here instead. So I have no order and do not know all the holy warrior things. Going ask here priest when enough English but priests here strange. No “believe in” vampires.”

"...yeah, I'm not sure if the priests here know about holy warriors, either. I think there's a convent somewhere near here? But I'm not sure what they know about any of this, either."

"I should talk them anyway. Not good for holy warriors to not be in an order. But - not right now. Right now vampires eat these people. Pretty sure God wants me learn from you how fight the vampires, right now. Maybe also learn other things from you, like the work of the devils who tell people God not real. - thank you. For saving us from the vampires."

"Yeah! I mean, it's my job, I guess. I'm just glad I could help." Wow that sounded obnoxious. "...I don't really know how to keep them from coming back, though, I'm pretty sure there are more."

"You kill them for good, if they turn to air? Or do they reform in their - evil place."

"I think those ones are gone for good. I just also think there are more of them out there."

"Vampires not stupid. If the ones that come here die, maybe they try not coming. I can sleep in day and do this night, if only I strong enough kill them. I have money to not work."

...she's gonna get eaten, if she tries to do it by herself. Probably. Maybe not the first time, maybe she'll get lucky, but what if there are two vampires? What if, instead, the vampire gets lucky?

This is so upsetting. These people would be safe if they had houses. She cannot give them all houses.

"It seems like a lot to do by yourself. I guess I probably can't stay all night every night, I have to go to school, but I'm still worried that doesn't solve the problem. Maybe we should be trying to find out where the right kind of holy orders are - I don't know of any but you'd think they've got to exist, with as big a problem as the vampires are - and - maybe they can help?"

This is a plan that distinctly doesn't have any concrete steps in it, she has no idea how to find vampire-hunting religious orders, but it feels better than accepting any of her other obviously inadequate plans.

"They help. Their job fight the dead not-dead. I no idea how to look, if not ask priest."

"Yeah. I don't really know either. ...do you know what order your uncle was in? I don't know if I can look it up, but it would be a place to start, I guess."

"Holy order of Menador. - Menador place name."

"Oh." She was kind of hoping he was part of a global order like the Franciscans or the Dominicans, except devoted to fighting vampires, but she supposes it makes sense for any openly vampire-hunting orders to be small ones. It would be hard to get really big if everyone thought you were crazy. "Well, I can look them up and see if they're, like, associated historically with anyone else, I guess." Ugh those are very impolitely big words. "Um, whether they - were connected to any other orders a long time ago. I guess there also might be some way to contact them even if they're in another country, and maybe they'd have advice?"

"Maybe. No one I ask know place names I from. I think it far. - they come here, I think, if they know about the devil work here."

"Well, that would be nice. I think the thing where people don't believe in vampires is - kind of widespread, though it's obviously not everywhere."

"I'll go to the library tomorrow, I guess."

"Thank you. I no can read English. Tomorrow after Mass I and people make stakes, train to stop vampires."

Oh, right, tomorrow's Sunday, she has to go to Mass. Is the library even open on Sundays? It's possible that she should also spend tomorrow afternoon sleeping, really.

This is such an unfairly big problem. She would like to go back to having smaller problems, please.

For now she can stay up all night and make sure there aren't any other vampires. This is not very long-term sustainable, but she doesn't have any better ideas right now.

There's one more, towards morning; she lifts her head from her very tired concentrating on Evil detection and points urgently in the relevant direction before taking off, this time, because she's noticed Karen is much more powerful than her.

(She still then tries to stab the vampire, because Karen being more powerful than her is no excuse to let Karen brave this alone.)

Karen is also very tired and has also not slept. Responsibilities were a mistake, life is deeply unfair, she is a tiny whiny baby who would like to go back to being ignorant, WHY does any of this have to be HER job -

- but she'll tackle the vampire and then stake it, of course.

She is so much better at it. Iomedae wants to be that good. 

(The vampire kicked Iomedae, once, only a glancing hit really, and her knee and lower leg now want to desert their duties by which she means she's barely still standing. It kicked Karen and pretty much nothing happened. She is well aware that is how 'being powerful' works, that the same blows don't bend you, but it's still something to witness it.)

She mutters a prayer for the departed ("forgive this soul the evil it did unwillingly, guard it in its travels, and let it find its final rest in the place it most desires", the only one of the prayers for the departed in a large book of them which did not frustrate her) and grits her teeth and limps back to optimal Evil-detection position. The sun's nearly visible; they'll be safe soon.

Karen regrets all of her life choices except for the part where they probably totally saved three people tonight. She wants to go HOME and go to BED but she's not sure she has time to even nap before Mass. Usually she goes to the late morning service, but maybe today  it makes more sense to go to the early service and be MISERABLE.

Iomedae is presumably also going to Mass and maybe she would be slightly less miserable if she tagged along with her. She would probably still be miserable but maybe it would take the edge off.

"You going to Mass, after this?"

- this cheers Iomedae up about the leg injury. " - yes! Let's go to Mass! - when priest say we leave church, he mean only then, not we have find other church for Mass?"

"...probably? I usually go to St Mary's, but I think it's a little further away from here." UGH she has to WALK all the way back to her HOUSE after this. "We could probably go to either, though, I don't think he'd get upset as long as we don't do anything weird this time."

"I not take the holy water if it is not allowed. Even though it would save people. I never have problem at Mass before. If everyone go, probably some will drive."

And she will go around asking everyone who's going to early Mass. It's pretty much all of them. Vampire attacks inspire religiosity.

...okay, she can probably afford to be slightly less miserable if she gets to sit in a car instead of walking. Sure. She'll go wherever they're planning on going, then.

They can all fit in the vans if they completely ignore vehicle safety laws, which they do. Everyone is anxious and babbling about the vampires. They are very glad to have had Karen's help, though, and varying from cautiously optimistic to reasonably confident that God has a plan.

Iomedae will sing holy songs in an unfamiliar language the whole way.

Ugggh she's supposed to say fifty Hail Marys still. She supposes she can do that. She's not really approaching this with the right attitude at all, because she's pretty sure that being quietly extremely annoyed with the priest for being annoyed with her even though she was TRYING to do the right thing is not at all the right attitude, and anyway it's not as if she didn't also have other things to confess.

She chills out a little bit around the twentieth whispered Hail Mary. At least it gives her something to focus on besides how nervous she is that she's going to do something stupid and embarrassing around all of these people she doesn't really know.

Then they'll go to Mass! Iomedae loves Mass! She always sits in the very front and spends the whole time raptly attentive. She doesn't really understand any of the words (she can generally follow an English speaker speaking slowly and clearly to her face about familiar topics; Mass is none) but God is good everywhere, except it's increasingly suspicious how His priests here don't have healing and lots of people don't....believe in...vampires.

(Most of the migrant workers stay near the back so it's easier to leave if there's a problem. They support Iomedae in her holy warrioring, especially now that it's visibly miraculous, but they aren't her.)

Karen will sit with Iomedae and try to be only invisibly grumpy about everything. At some points in the service she will even try actually not being grumpy about everything, but that's harder. She will avoid making eye contact with the priest at all costs.

Iomedae looks at the priest, when her head isn't bowed in prayer! She also to her own slight surprise has the desire to pull out all the hundreds of her dollars and put them directly in the collections plate while looking right at the priest. It is an unvirtuous impulse. She is not sure she'd fall for it, since technically it's totally doing Good, but she's sure it's not about doing God's will in the world and saving everybody everywhere. 

Karen will suffer and sing and deliberately go up for communion in one of the lines that ends with a eucharistic minister instead of with the priest, and soon after that Mass will be OVER and she will be FREE.

She thinks her body has temporarily given up on being super tired for long enough that she should be able to make it home by herself. She will... see Iomedae tonight? Probably? Is that cool?

"Yes! God go with you and the good people raised you strong and the people alive because you and all in Heaven who love them sing you praises!"

Wow she feels very weird about that. Maybe when she's slept she will have recovered enough patience and humility and maturity and stuff to accept comments like that gracefully, but right now she just feels very weird about it. She supposes she did save some lives and that was cool of her or something.

"I think the praises should probably mostly go to God," she says, although she feels about 90% less sincere than Iomedae sounds despite genuinely feeling really weird about this level of enthusiasm for anything she's ever done. "God go with you, too."

God does do that!

She will go home and sleep all day.

Karen will trudge home and stumble up the stairs to her room.

" - Karen! How'd it go?"

Karen will make a sound like a particularly discontented zombie. 

"I don't wanna be a superhero."

"Have you considered... not?"

Discontented zombie noise.

She goes upstairs and curls up and sleeps until mid afternoon, at which point she will wake up, eat something, remember that she was supposed to go to the library, discover after another significant walk that the library is, in fact, closed on Sundays, and then eventually make her way back to Iomedae's camp.

Making wooden stakes with a few of the other women. Still nursing a leg injury. "Karen!"

"Hey! I tried the library but they were closed. I can try again after school tomorrow, probably."

"I not know 'school', or 'tomorrow'. I probably know probably - I get it right??"

"Yeah! Yes, that's right. Uh, tomorrow is the day after today, and school is - uh, the place where you go to learn stuff. Math and English and science and so on."

"Benito should go to that, he smart." She discusses this with Benito's mother, apparently, then sighs. "We travel too much and she say sending him might draw la migra and I not sure I can fight more things."

"'La migra'?"

She shrugs. "Very bad. I not know much. At home no one fear them, maybe at home we not have them. But we came to Sunnydale because hearing other place had la migra, so you know how bad."

"Wow. I guess they do have way more deaths than a normal school. It would probably also be awkward in terms of, like, paperwork, and it being the middle of the school year, and... I don't actually know whether it's allowed." She actually has no idea whether it's more legal for illegal immigrants to keep their kids in or out of school.

"School only for children have papers?" She seems to think that's perfectly reasonable. "In Heaven even the poorest worker learn ten ten ten dozens things, because have forever. Is okay if not learn all the things right now." Stake-sharpening.

"...yeah, school might be only for children with papers." This is at least a marginally less awkward way of putting it than whatever Karen was going to come up with. "Kids who do have papers have to go, though, so I'll be there in the morning."

" - you a warrior."

"Yeaaaah, but the government doesn't know that. Gotta go to school until you're eighteen. ...Or at least sixteen or seventeen, maybe, if you drop out. I forget. You're not supposed to drop out."

"That so much school!! You need sleep this night, if you no can sleep in day?"

Wobbly hand gesture. "Maybe." Yes. "I probably can't stay up all night every night. I guess it might be better if we had a system for - you keeping watch and waking me up immediately when there's trouble, but I haven't practiced that and I don't know if I'll be fast enough. And - I don't want anyone to die, you know?"

"I no sure how fast vampire die someone. People also can't stay up all night every night, they have to work. - I going to not work in Sunnydale, live off money from work other places, but no can have everybody do that."

She stands up abruptly from the stake-making. Paces. "- I don't know. God tell you?"

" - uh. I mean. I can ask Him, I guess."

"I think we are small be deciding. Holy orders say how deciding this but I not in one and my tutors no."

This is... true... she's just never been very confident in her ability to hear and interpret what God is saying to her. Not that she doesn't have it! Just that she's not very good at it. Like proofs, or speaking Latin.

But she can try it. She can sit down and take off her backpack and close her eyes and pray about it.

Dear God. I don't know how to protect these people and also sleep. Also there are a bunch of other people I'm not protecting when I do this, but I'm not going to think about that because there's no way to protect the entire town and there seem to be more vampires here than anywhere else. Anyway. If I sleep during the night then someone might die, if I'm not fast enough to save them. And if I sleep during most of the day, I'll miss school. I guess theoretically school lets out around three thirty and sunset is at, like, six? That's only two and a half hours, which is not enough sleep. 

...I get that saving people's lives is more important than doing well in school. But I really am supposed to go to school, right? And if I don't go to school, the teachers will notice, and Azalea will get in trouble, and the cops could come looking for me, and that would get everyone else here in trouble, too! Admittedly if they were in trouble with the police they might be safer from vampires, but it's not very - trustworthy - to get people in trouble with the police because they asked you for help defending themselves and their children.

...there just aren't enough hours in the day. If we try to do it with just us, then people will die. We need more help. We don't have enough people.

....okay. So. Please send us people. I will look for people who can help us, tomorrow. Please help me find them.

"I think tonight I can stay up and do homework, which is less of a problem than being asleep. I did sleep during the day, today. Tomorrow, I think we have to look for people who can help us after school, because - eventually I am going to have to sleep. And if it's just us, then eventually we're going to lose someone. So - we need to look for help, and trust that God will help us find the help we need. I think."

"I don't know 'homework', but the rest make sense. And the people here learn fight, but slow learning, and vampires hard fight even with lots people, if they no warriors."

"The work from school that I'm supposed to do outside of school hours. And - yeah. We should definitely tell them about vampire weaknesses and - see if we can get some holy water from somewhere else - but I'm worried that you'll lose some people before they get very good at fighting them." If they get very good at fighting them. There are presumably ways of fighting vampires that normal humans can pull off, but Karen doesn't know them.

"Yes. That what happen fighting monsters too strong, some people get stronger and some die. I not strong enough save all. I think if we all fight better chance. We try while you do homework?"

It's a bit hard to practice staking things in the heart but she was thinking maybe they could use weak sticks that'll break before they injure the target and then spar with each other.

"You can try. Uh, let me know right away if any vampires show up."

Karen will... practice some Latin.

They practice trying to stake each other with sticks Iomedae's cut a ridge in so they'll break easily. They're not, in fact, good at it, but they're strong and in good shape and highly motivated to learn. When the sun sets Iomedae stops practicing because she needs to concentrate on Evil-detection, and most everyone else stops because they need to sleep. They offer Karen dinner again, the same dinner as last night. Iomedae hands someone three dollars for Karen.

There's no vampires, for the first few hours. Possibly they noticed it didn't work out well last night.

Karen hasn't eaten dinner this time and will accept food, even if the food is kind of meh. Possibly she should bring some money to pay for it next time. Actually probably she should pack herself a dinner to eat while she's out hunting vampires. 

Latin homework is dumb. Except that it's distinctly possible that knowing Latin will unlock the ability to learn a bunch of stuff about vampires, which isn't at all why she picked it but does mean that she kind of can't dismiss it as probably useless. Geometry is dumb, probably.

Around four in the morning there's two vampires coming together. Iomedae jabs Karen with her elbow and limps off to go try fighting them Karen-style with a stake. This gets her thrown hard against the nearest trailer, leaving a dent in the metal. 

Karen will fight two vampires alone, which isn't trivial even for her - she does get punched and thrown around a fair bit - but Karen can just get right back up, with very little obvious damage. Eventually she succeeds at ramming her stake into both of them.

...then she checks on Iomedae. "Are you okay?"

She is on her feet, which would not be true of most people. "Nothing broken, I think. They strong. Maybe need wood spears, stay out of reach."

"...yeah, maybe. I'm still kind of worried that if I'm not around they just win."

"Probably," she says flatly. "Holy water help. Maybe we try other church."

"Yeah. I feel like if you had a bunch of people spraying holy water and, like, some super soakers, or something? It would probably at least go a long way in making the camp a lot less of a soft target. ...maybe we should try the other churches, even if it might be more of the same."

"I just need know what to say. I no can lie to a priest, but can maybe say, two people die, we think it evil spirits, the holy water will make us know God with us, we think it make us safe, and not say vampires?"

"Maybe. I don't know. It - sounds a little less likely to get us kicked out. But I don't know if they'll believe that evil spirits kill people these days, or that holy water would help with it."

"Why even make holy water if you no think there is Evil and you no think holy water help??"

"You know, I'm not entirely sure. Mostly people use it for baptisms, and they dip their fingers in it before and after Mass when they cross themselves, but I don't know... why... we do this? I guess people think of it as a generic blessing that God can act through? Maybe? - probably a long time ago people knew it helped with evil things, and then they stopped believing that the evil things were still around, but they kept using the holy water for some stuff because it was traditional."

"Holy warrior no can let people die but I want not die of vampires so I can fix devil plot to evil Church. I think devil plot to evil Church more - more people."

"It does seem like if there is a plot by the devil to get people not to believe in the supernatural, it has been wildly more successful than the vampires have been." Oh that was probably too many big words. "But I don't really know what to do about that."

"...tell people of God?"

" - well, yeah! Sure! Just - the priests are already supposed to be doing that. I don't know how to do it in a way that's - more convincing."

"Well, if we not die, we grow very strong and holy, then they believe us. But have to not die first. If we find the holy orders, they can send great holy warriors, those people believe too."

"...maybe. But - it seems like the holy orders should already know that lots of people don't believe in the supernatural? I think it's pretty widespread? So - I'd expect them to already be working on it, and whatever they're doing doesn't seem to be enough."

"I guess." She chews on her lip. "If my uncle here, he just do miracle healing until people believe him."

"Well. That would be really convenient. I don't know how to do it, though." Possibly this is one of those things where it'll work for anyone if you believe enough, but trying to do it and failing sounds - mortifying, mostly. "There's probably someone who still can, but - nobody who's been able to show the people around here."

"It nearly morning. Maybe - you go school, and I sleep and then try train with spear, and then see you tonight?"