[center][h2][color=87CEEB]Tom Finch[/color][/h2]

[i]The Indo, Irish Pub[/i]

Day 1, Afternoon[/center]

Tom sat on the ladder he’d set up inside the barn. It was a simple repair job but he’d foolishly been focused on other things while he was hammering in the last of the nails. The hammer had caught his left thumb and while the smack had not been too bad it had cut his them on the nail he’d been holding. Sitting in the early autumn air he let the blood drip slowly to the dirt at the front of the Carrow’s Barn. The shoring for the barns main door would hold until he could get a couple guys to come out and help him replace the frame of the barn door. The wood was older and consequently it had fractured. Tom suspected that the wood which had been used originally was subpar but he hadn’t said anything to Ben Carrow, the owner of the property. The Carrow’s lived out in Wenham which wasn’t that bad of a drive and the pay was good but mostly he was doing it because Ben’s wife Lisa had helped one winter when Claire had been sick and Tom had been contracted by the county to do telephone pole repair work when they were short handed. This was largely a favor to the family. That and a quick paycheck as well as the promise of a proper job. 

As the bleeding finally stopped Tom picked up another of the nails and set it in the wood. Instead of picking up the hammer he simply focused on the nail and with an expenditure of energy he drove the nail deep into the wood with his magic. It was simpler and he didn’t risk smacking his hand again now that it was injured. Without bothering to pick up the next nail he simply picked it up with his mind and drove it into the next hole in the bracket. Tom was not a fan of using magic in such a fashion but the pain in his thumb was enough to annoy him and he wanted to go to a tavern in town before he went home for the evening. 

With the bracket complete, Tom climbed down from the ladder and started to fold it up. As he did so he happened to look at the ground and a cold chill climbed his spine. The blood droplets had run, but not in any natural pattern. It was an X a V and a line in the dirt. As Tom walked across the space between the barn and the house he shuddered. The blood in the dirt was not a good sign. Particularly since he was not sure what it meant. At least not yet. It might be time to tell Tracy but he wanted to investigate further before he brought anything up to the Hive’s leader. No doubt more signs would follow if there was something disturbing the flow of things, perhaps it was simply best to wait and see. 

--

The Indo had been in Salem since the 1800’s and Tom had hunted it down as soon as he’d moved back to Salem. It was traditional Irish and he loved it, particularly their cider since it was the taprooms own brew. Sitting at one of the tables beside the front window Tom contemplated his injured thumb. Lisa had wrapped it for him but the floor had seeped part of the way through the bandage so he could start to see the red. 

Salem had been less and less of a safe place to hide. Strangely for a few years it had been pretty safe to live in but of late it felt like the town was drawing more and more hunters as well as more unstable vampires and werewolves. The resident packs, Coven and of course the Witch Hive had probably been drawing the hunters in over the course of years. That and Tom suspected there was something else going on in Salem. It had been bothering him for the better part of a year but today seemed to confirm his suspicion that there was something going on. Some darker power, some disturbance in the natural flow of magic in and around the city. 

Harkin set down the cider Tom had asked for and it snapped him out of the thoughts. Looking up at the Vampire owner of the bar Tom raised an eyebrow to match the eyebrow that the Indo’s owner had raised at him. “What’s that look Tom.” Harkin’s accent had been carefully maintained since the man had arrived here in the early 1900’s though it had faded to something understandable by the residents of the town. Though Tom could still hear it in the length of the O’s in Harkin’s look. Shaking his head Tom waved the Tavern owner off. “It’s nothing to be worried about.” Harkin finished Tom’s thought for him. “..Yet.” Tom paused and eyed the strange green yellow eyes of Harkin it was clear that the vampire could feel it too. “Yet. I’ll let you know if you need to run. I just saw something strange today.” The owner nodded as though this were understandable and left Tom to his drinking. 

Taking out his cards the Warlock considered the worn Tarot deck quietly. If only he could read them like a true diviner. While he had plenty of general skill and could get a general idea from the cards, the patterns that a true diviner could see were lost on him. No matter how he practiced it he could never quite read the way he’d like to be able to. Though he had other talents elsewhere. Looking out the window Tom quirked an eyebrow as a light tap of rain caught his attention. They were five days from the 31st of October. This was going to be an interesting end of the year no doubt.