The Newbie team had been crammed into the overloaded Suburban for the trip. Holly had taken to calling us the rainbow coalition team, since we had one white female, and males of the Black, Asian, and Other categories. All we needed was a lesbian and a guy in a wheelchair and we were ready to salve even the biggest liberal's angst. The others were sharing the second row of seats, and the driver was a talkative little Hunter named Gus, out of Hurley's team in Miami.

"Yeah, you guys should have seen it. Little town outside of Pensacola. Vampires nested all over the city works building. We're ready to go in and hit them fast and hard. We get stopped by the mayor for-guess what? You guys ain't gonna believe it…"

"What, Gus?" Lee asked in exasperation, not wanting to egg him on, but seeing no other way out. Gus had talked nearly nonstop since leaving the compound. Everybody dealt with the stress of an upcoming mission in their own strange ways, I supposed.

"She was a big Anne Rice fan. She wanted to 'reason' with them. She just thought that they were misunderstood. She wanted to open a 'dialogue.' " He took his hands from the wheel long enough to make quote motions with his fingers. I started to instinctively reach for the wheel as we began to hydroplane.

"I hate that sensitive romantic vampire bullshit," Holly said.

"Yeah, exactly. You wouldn't believe how hard killing undead got after those damn books came out. Every love-starved housewife out there started thinking of them as tragic homoerotic Fabio-looking things. Morons. Well, anyway, so the mayor goes and gets eaten and Hurley says to us-"

The radio cut him off.

"This is Harbinger. We've got to land the chopper. Storm is getting too bad to fly-even for Skip. We're putting down before Sylacauga." The radio went out.

"So, anyway, Hurley says to us-" Gus was cut off again.

"Pick us up. Clearing at the end of the road right before town. Skip will stay with the Hind. Hopefully the weather will clear enough that he can take off and provide some air support later."

I saw brake lights ahead. Gus swore and slowed down.

"What's the problem?" Holly asked.

"Shh," Trip hissed. He rolled down his window, letting rain in.

"What are you doing?" Holly asked.

"Hear that?" he asked.

"No," I answered. But it was no secret I had the worst hearing of the bunch.

"What is that?" Lee asked nervously.

"Tornado sirens."

"What's that mean?"

"It means we have a tornado warning. Weather is weird for them so it probably isn't just a warning on conditions. Means some have been seen in the area."

"How will we know if one is nearby?" Lee asked.

"It'll sound like a million freight trains. You'll know," Trip warned.

I noted with some concern that the clouds had turned green, a sick deadly color.