H.A.T. by Deacon Rayne, Book Two: Midnight, Chapter 7 - Assault
Summary: Like a stopper pulled, the retrieval of the Everstone has set loose a maelstrom of powers. Things not dared been mentioned in all the ages of the world, stir and awaken within their putrescent hives in answer to the Hellmouth’s call. Clawing their way free from the poisoned earth, they are driven towards a single goal - the capture of the Key and the destruction of all the world.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Timeline: Immediately follows Book 1: Dusk
Rating: TV-14 (nothing worse than on the show)
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Spike, Willow/Dusk(OC), Xander/Anya, Giles/Marlena(OC), Dawn, Faith, Angel, Dracula
Book One: Dusk (all chapters)
Previous chapter of Midnight
Banner created by edgehead73.
Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy: Revamped Edition
Book Two:
Midnight
Chapter 7
Assault
Angel, Spike, Faith and Xander stood before the police station with Willow in the lead, the redhead’s face washed in an eerie green glow.
A glow that was shining near blindingly bright as they stood before the squat four-story building.
Willow peered at the building, then back at the glowing badge before nodding and stuffing it into her back pocket. The sudden darkness felt oppressive, plumes of steam rose from the mouths of those that breathed. Those that did not remained cold and unmoving.
“All right. So, we know the plan?” Faith asked.
Spike nodded. “Make with the death, Terminator-Style,” he replied grinning despite himself.
Faith sighed; she wasn’t much of a tactician and this head on approach was the only thing she could come up with on such short notice.
“The others are getting the car, right?” Angel asked quietly.
Faith nodded. “We’re in, we’re out. Hit the place running and get out fast.”
“Sounds great,” Xander commented darkly.
Faith turned on him. “You got a better idea, X, let’s hear it,” she bit out.
Xander glared at her. “As a matter of fact…”
His voice trailed off as he spotted something over her shoulder that made his face light up.
“…Yes! Yes, I do!” he exclaimed and raced to the parking lot.
The rest followed, all looking puzzled.
A large black van, more of a truck actually, was wedged up onto the sidewalk, the letters ‘E.O.D.’ printed in yellow across it. Faith frowned as Xander struggled with the door lock excitedly.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Department of Explosives and Ordinance Disposal.” Xander turned to look at Faith. “They get the toys SWAT doesn’t,” he finished.
He growled in frustration, pulling hard on the doors.
“Except I can’t get them open,” he finished dejectedly.
Spike snorted. “Move!” he snarled.
Pushing the boy aside, he took both handles in his hands and twisted hard, the metal tearing apart as he ripped the doors open.
Two uniformed men tumbled from the truck to the pavement with a sickening crack. Willow yelped in fear as their dead eyes stared up at her. Horrified and yet oddly fascinated, she knelt down to peer into their eyes. If she concentrated, she could almost see the moment of their deaths in their eyes.
Angel knelt down to examine the cause of their deaths, a set of bullet holes in their foreheads.
“Shot by a small caliber weapon, possibly a .38”
“Police issue?” Spike queried, letting himself be shoved aside by Xander, who climbed into the back of the van excitedly.
“Yeah, could be,” Angel replied grimly.
Faith frowned. “They’re killing their own? What the hell is going on?” she asked.
“Yee-haw!” Xander cried out.
The rest turned to see Xander crawl out of the truck with a large satchel, which he handed to Spike, and some sort of monstrous cannon cradled in his arms.
“What the hell is that?” Faith asked.
Xander began examining the weapon.
“This is a tear gas grenade launcher, the technical name escapes me at the moment.” He displayed the weapon. “They used one of these in ‘Terminator 2’, the drum here holds several tear gas canisters,” he explained.
Angel nodded. “Or phosphorus rounds. I met some vampire hunters in Chicago way back when. Used to hot load these things and use them to burn up vampires, called it ‘Dragonsbreath’.”
Xander nodded.
“Yeah, well, I figured someone can cut the power and then we put a few of these through the windows, make it nice and uncomfortable in there, and get Dusk out.”
“Except that the windows have bars on them,” Faith pointed out.
Xander turned and looked, his shoulders sagging in defeat as he took in the wire box bars over all the windows.
“I can take care of that,” Willow told them quietly, shaking off her morbid obsession with the two dead men and standing up.
Faith looked at her; she knew the witch was powerful but she’d been acting kind of weird lately.
“Ohhh-kay, no problem, but that still leaves us stumbling around in the dark coughing up our lungs,” the Slayer informed Xander.
The young man grinned.
“You’re right, it would leave us stumbling around in the dark coughing our brains out.”
Faith got it instantly and she turned, as did Willow and Xander.
“What?” Spike asked.
Angel had already gotten the idea.
“Okay, so the blue wire here connects to the main fuses,” Xander murmured.
He was staring hard at the wire schematic etched into the back of the fuse cover of the police station power box, trying to determine which wires would result in a total blackout for the station when severed. He removed a pocket knife from his jacket, unfolded it, and carefully placed the edge of the blade against a green and yellow wire. He cast a final look at the schematic.
“Ohhh-kay, here we go,” he breathed and carefully, with agonizing slowness, drew his knife across the wire. It split apart and was severed.
Nothing happened.
“Uhhh… huh,” Xander frowned, looking once more at the schematic and the lights still on within the station. “Okay, that wasn’t it,” he frowned again.
Spike sighed. “One side!” he roared.
Xander hurriedly backed away as Spike reached into his jacket, removed his flask, and took a long pull of the contents.
“Oh shi-!” Xander cried out as Spike leaned in and spewed a mouthful of alcohol into the exposed wiring.
The whole box went up in an explosion of sparks, and within seconds, a large fire had burst into existence within the nest of wires. The scent of melted plastic filled the air as Xander tried to shield himself from the sparks and flames. Spike, paying no heed to them whatsoever, poured the remaining alcohol over the flames, causing them to shoot high into the air.
“Burn, baby, burn!” he cried out joyfully, making large whooshing gestures with his arms, grinning madly before capping his flask. He turned to the cowering boy and looked wholly demonic with his game face in place, grinning madly reflected in the firelight.
“Now, why is it I have to keep sacrificing my hooch to save this bloke’s ass?” he asked dryly, then clapped Xander on the shoulder.
“It’s Ouchie Time!” he yelled and dragged the stunned man away from the now-flaming ruin of the fuse box.
Viisq had never known pain before, never known fear. The blade, the bullet, the fist and claw and fang, these things could not hurt it.
But as it was propelled through the window of the interrogation room that it had spent hours torturing the young man in, it knew pain.
And as its blank, alien eyes took in the specter of the blood-covered Alec - floating six inches above the floor at the head of a vast wave of darkness stretching in all directions, hungry and black, coming for it - Viisq knew fear.
It tried to scramble away from the horrific apparition as a set of darkness tendrils wrapped themselves tightly around its legs, dragging it back into the dark room and the cold promise of oblivion that it contained. Viisq willed the flesh in his hips to part and, with a wet tearing sound, Viisq’s legs were pulled off and devoured voraciously by the dark.
Alec advanced on the simpering creature; his eyes were filled with darkness, devoid of any light, humanity or mercy, much like Viisq’s.
Viisq was snatched up by the darkness and bound in it over and over again; the creature wailed in terror, its inhuman voice shrieking at such a pitch to shatter glass before darkness forced itself down its throat, silencing it. Only its eyes remained uncovered, though even there the darkness crept along the edge of its eye sockets, like a cancer.
Alec brought the creature to eye level with him; it was a novel experience since being crippled had previously prohibited such a feat.
“Die now,” Alec rasped in a hollow, stony voice.
The darkness tightened around the creature.
Suddenly, the sounds of boots on floors, of men rushing, filled the air. Rifles were aimed and shotguns cocked. Alec turned his black eyes to spy a half-dozen men with weapons aimed. Viisq would have smiled if it could; he was still, after all, the master of these puppets and they would come to his call whether it was actually spoken or no.
“Kill him,” Viisq’s voice slithered through their numbed minds, long since reshaped into slaves by the Fleshdancer.
They raised their weapons… and the lights promptly went out and the entire station was shrouded in darkness.
Completely.
“All right, Red, you’re on,” Faith instructed, taking the sudden and total lack of light within the station as indicative of step one’s success.
Willow nodded as Spike and Xander rejoined the group. Angel tossed the satchel to the young man.
“Nice toys,” the vampire commented.
Xander nodded and set the satchel back down.
“Yeah, well, you never know when they’ll come in handy,” he quipped as he hefted the tear gas gun and took aim.
Willow began to chant; the numbing spell had taken a lot out of her but this next one had to be done. She raised her hands before her and, tapping that well of strength that came from love and concern for Alec, she closed her eyes and focused.
It began as a low hum, then a soda can near them flatted into a disk, people winced as their fillings began to throb and ache, car alarms went off, electrical wires began to sway crazily.
And with a screech of tortured metal and exploding stone, each and every grate was pried off the windows and hurled away. Spike whistled long and low.
“That bank job in Mexico would have gone a lot better with that trick,” he commented dryly.
Xander couldn’t comment; he was too busy trying to keep his fillings in his teeth and the gun in his hand.
“Now for the big finish,” Willow gasped out.
With a heave, the EOD van lifted clean off the ground and was hurled through the front door. The impact was like a small bomb as the van tore through the concrete of the entrance and left a trail of devastation well into the building.
“GO!” Faith cried out.
Xander needed no further prompting as he felt the gun go slack again as Willow went limp and fell into Faith’s waiting arms. Angel took off towards the debris that had been the front entrance as Xander fired round after round into the windows, covering first the bottom windows, then the second and third floors with near perfect aim.
“All those years playing Duck Hunt have finally paid off,” he commented as the last round of tear gas was shot into the building.
Faith only nodded as she passed off the exhausted witch into her best friend’s arms. Xander dropped the gun and lowered Willow to rest against a car door as Faith turned to Spike.
“Ready?” she asked.
Spike grinned. “Willing and able, love. Let’s do it,” he replied.
Faith tore ahead with Spike following, and stopped at the base of the wall.
“Alley oop!” she yelled.
Spike ran at the Slayer as she crouched low, hands cupped.
“God save the Queen!” Spike cried out as he put his foot in her palm.
With a grunt she heaved with every ounce of her Slayer strength and he flew up into the air. In mid air, the vampire braced his foot against the wall and pushed up and off, and with a loud crash, plowed through the fourth story window.
Spike landed and rolled across the linoleum floor. He stood up and shook off the glass, his vampire face peering out the window in amazement.
“Strong lass. Wonder what she’s like in bed…” he mused.
A meaty hand landed on his shoulder. Spike wasted no time, twisting the hand until he heard bones crack. Using it as leverage, he propelled a police officer hard into a wall; the man slumped to the ground as Spike grinned at the violence and the utter lack of chip-induced pain following it.
“Best present I’ve ever gotten.”
Turning, he dashed into the dark smoke-filled hallway, searching for his friend.
Viisq took advantage of the sudden darkness, liquefying his body and exploding out of the gap in the shadowy cocoon, splashing against Alec’s face and adhering to it with oozy tenacity. His concentration broken, Alec fell hard to the floor as Viisq smothered him. The other police officers were stumbling around blindly, coughing and choking on the tear gas that had somehow manifested out of nowhere.
Viisq felt a surge of triumph flow through its inhuman mind. This human was strong and possessed strange and disturbing powers, but in the end it was only human and thus susceptible to the myriad of flaws they inherit, including the need for oxygen.
Viisq forced its slimy essence down the young man’s throat, choking him, strangling him. It worked its way down, searching for the heart so that it may tear it out of his chest and be done with it.
But then something went wrong.
There was no heart to be found. Instead, the darkness within the boy found Viisq. Found him and then began to draw him deeper into the body, and with a surge of horror that rocked Viisq to its very core, it realize what was happening. No longer was he suffocating the boy.
Now the boy was… was eating him.
Viisq struggled to get away from this… abomination, this monster that somehow was more powerful than it.
Viisq tried to reach the boy's mind but the mind, like the body, was clouded in hungry darkness and could not be reached. Viisq clawed and wailed, trying to ooze and slither away, but it could not as the boy devoured it.
Suddenly, strong hands jerked the boy up, and with a gasping retch, Alec choked and vomited Viisq out of his body, gulping in great mouthfuls of air, his whole body reeling with horror. Viisq took no time in making good its escape and slithered across the floor, up a sink, and down the drain.
Angel hoisted Alec up and looked at him, his vampire eyes seeing quite clearly in the dark.
“Christ,” he muttered.
His alter ego, Angelus, prided himself on his torture techniques, but even he would be hard pressed to match the tapestry of suffering that had been etched onto the lad.
“Angel?” Alec croaked.
Angel nodded. “Yeah, it’s me, can you walk?” he asked.
Alec swallowed against the bitter taste in his mouth that had nothing to with the demon he had just tried to eat.
“No,” he replied.
Angel didn’t like the way that sounded but it would have to wait. Taking the damp rag he had had the foresight to bring with him, Angel wrapped it around the ruin of Alec’s nose and mouth.
“Here, try to breath through this,” the vampire instructed.
Alec grabbed his hand.
“There’s… a woman… inside there, she’s hurt. Needs help,” he croaked.
Angel nodded and, wrapping the man’s arm across his shoulders, carried him back towards a ruined room. He closed the door and braced a chair against it. Snatching up a table, he pressed it flush against a broken window that faced the hallway in an attempt to keep the tear gas out.
Finished with that, he went through the room, methodically tearing down metal grates and smashing open the windows that they covered. Cool night air filled the room, sucking out the tear gas. Angel knelt down by a slight form, crumbled upon the floor and turned it over. His eyes went wide with shock.
“Kate?” he breathed.
Kate opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Christ, I transfer all the way to New York and I still can’t get rid of you,” she rasped weakly, coughing.
Angel examined her wound, gently removing her hand. It didn’t look too bad, none of her vitals were pierced, but she had lost a lot of blood and would need medical attention.
“Can you walk?” he asked her.
She nodded as he helped to her feet.
“Better than your friend can at any rate, I assume you’re here for him and not just stopping by for a chat?” she asked.
Angel nodded. “Yeah, well, something like that. Kate, what happened here?” he asked her intently.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. I’m out undercover for a few weeks, I come back and everyone’s gone berserk.”
“It was Viisq,” Alec rasped. “Some kind of… demon-thing, took control of them and made them crazy,” he explained weakly.
Angel nodded.
“Yeah, we heard, DeGanon filled us in a bit. They’re called ‘Dahaka’ or more commonly ‘Fleshdancers.”
Alec coughed and nodded, bringing his arms across his chest as if to keep himself from shaking to pieces.
“Yeah, that fits,” he commented, gesturing to a strange lump on the floor.
Angel turned it over, revealing the mutilated face of the thin cop.
“Cute,” he commented darkly, tossing the thing away, then turned back to the two injured people.
“We gotta get out of here. Kate, I’ll help you, you help Alec, all right?”
Kate nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just like old times,” she commented.
Alec turned to her. “Do you know each other?” he asked.
Angel helped brace Kate as she pulled Alec to his feet and braced him against her.
“I tried to kill him a few times,” she commented.
Alec nodded, cracking his first smile in what felt like a lifetime.
“Ah, so you’ve dated.”
Spike knocked aside what had to be the twelfth cop in less than ten minutes. True, the beatings were making him feel better, though he missed being able to feel the pain of blows received. Quite unlike the pain of that thrice-damned chip, the ache from receiving and giving out a good beating was strangely invigorating. Reminded you that you were alive.
Well, sort of, he amended to himself silently, grinning.
As much fun as this was, he really did want to find Alec. He was gravely concerned about his friend. A group of no less than six police officers, their eyes streaming but still fixed upon him, came barreling down at him from the other end of the smoke filled hallway, batons held high, screaming in fury.
Spike grinned.
Oh well, back to it then.
“Step up, ladies,” he called out, then dove into them with glee.
Angel, Kate, and Alec hobbled down the hallway; the two that needed oxygen passed the wet rag back and forth.
“Angel, next time soak this thing in ether, it’ll make this whole rescuing bit that much more pleasant,” Alec commented.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Angel replied.
He turned to address them when some kind of huge shape lunged at him. Angel knocked it aside without conscious thought; the man plowed past them and collided hard into a wall, wailing in pain. Alec’s eyes widened.
It was Eddie.
The fat man peered at them, his face a mask of blood and tears, his eyes red and filled with unthinking rage.
“You!” Alec hissed, his voice filled with death.
Angel looked back between the fat man and Alec, and put two and two together. Carefully, he helped brace Alec against the wall and set down Kate, who tugged at his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she asked insistently.
“A favor,” he replied.
He gently wrapped Alec’s arm over his own shoulder and hoisted him towards Eddie, who snarled and spit at them both, coughing too hard to mount any kind of assault or even defense.
“Do what you have to do,” Angel said quietly.
Alec looked at Eddie, the man that had spent hours torturing him. Without even thinking, his hand became a long blade. Kate watched in shock as Angel steered Alec towards the coughing, snarling man.
Alec looked at Eddie for a second, Eddie looked back. There was nothing in his eyes, only hatred.
With a scream of rage and pain so bestial it made Angel wince, Alec lunged forward and buried the blade all the way into the man, so deep that the tip burst from his back and scraped the wall behind him. Eddie gasped as he looked down, uncomprehending, at the wound and the dark blood pumping out of it.
“DIE!!!!!!” Alec was trembling violently, held up only by the blade impaling his tormentor.
Eddie looked up at Alec’s eyes and Alec watched the fat man’s cheeks jiggle, tears streaming down his face. Alec screamed again and twisted the blade hard, tearing it out of him, causing Eddie’s blood to spray his face and body even as he fell painfully, rolling over onto his back.
The fat man’s eyes locked in shock and pain and fear before he crumpled to the ground beside Alec. For a moment, as they lay there, Eddie’s blood spilled out and flowing around Alec gave him the appearance of him making a snow angel in deep red snow. In the blood of his enemy, Alec looked somehow… content.
Angel shook the grisly image from his head and carefully helped the young man up. Kate spoke quietly as Angel helped her up, shocked by what she had seen.
“Here, we need to get out of here, this way is the stairway,” she choked out, her lungs handling the tear gas about as well as everyone else’s.
“Let’s do it,” Angel told them, his voice firm and full of purpose.
Carrying Kate, who was carrying Alec, the vampire headed down the long hallway beyond which lay a door clearly marked ‘Exit’. The red letters of the exit sign, though blackened by loss of power, still seemed to shine like a thousand suns, each one promising relief and sanctuary.
The hallway opened up into a wide space filled with desks and phones, dominated by a large trophy case which was filled with civic awards and other such memorabilia, proclaiming that, in normal times, this police station was filled with exceptional men and women who were protectors of the peace rather than psychopaths.
It was Kate, idly peering at the mirrored backing of the trophy case, studying Angel’s lack of reflection, who saw them first.
The next few moments became a blur. Kate shoved Alec away. He stumbled and fell to the floor back in the hallway. Angel whirled around as the men, who had on gas masks, came up from their hiding places behind the desks, weapons bared, aimed and firing.
The bullets tore through them both; Angel roared in agony as they tore apart his dead body, shredding his clothing and shattering bone. Alec watched in horror as Angel fell, blasted backwards through the window and into a three story drop.
There was an odd whimper followed by a strange thump, and Alec tore his eyes from Angel to see what it was.
Kate sank to her knees, her blond hair matted in blood; her blood. Her blue-green eyes were wide and she looked at Alec, whom she had now given her life for.
Their eyes met. Kate’s looked shocked more than anything; she looked so surprised.
And then she pitched forward, her now-sightless eyes facing nothing.
Ever again.
“NO!” Alec screamed a wail of rage and pain at Kate’s senseless death.
The cops, their weapons still smoking, rose up and prodded her body. Then they turned their weapons on him.
Alec had never seen someone he’d cared for cut down. It did something to him, opened some flood gate and sundered some last thread of restraint, of self control.
He rose to his feet, once again the blackness inside him and all around him filling him and spilling out. The men fired their guns at him and for each bullet that flew from their guns, a tiny tendril of darkness lashed out faster than the eye could see and sliced them apart.
The darkness supporting him, Alec raised his arms above him like some kind of dark god. A lattice work of shadowy darkness formed behind him, creating some kind of horrible web that supported his shattered body six feet off the ground. Purple lightening crackled all along his body and the web, the tendrils snaking along the floor, over the ceiling, up and down the walls. The police officers backed away, this chthonic sight finally making an impact within their broken minds.
It was too little, far too late. Without a word, Alec, his skin taking on a demonic bluish tinge, raised his hand…
…and pointed.
Spike sent another man tumbling head over heels down concrete stairs. Leaping over him before he’d even hit bottom, Spike tore down the stairs three steps at a time, twisted down the rail and threw open a metal door.
“Right then! Here comes, Spi…-”
His voice trailed away as his brain caught up with his eyes.
Eight men were caught up in ropy tendrils of darkness and each one was slowly being picked apart like petals on a daisy. Arms were pried off, legs ripped free, heads twisted off; the casual brutality with which they were murdered was staggering. The floor was stained black with the enormous amounts of blood that had spilt out of their mutilated bodies.
On the floor, a pretty blond woman was shot up six ways from Sunday.
As Spike very slowly traced back the origins of all this carnage, his mouth dropped.
Alec was suspended by what looked like a web of the stuff that stretched from one end of the room to another, his clothes were in tatters and the darkness poured out of his mouth, his eyes, even pushing its way out of his bare skin.
And he was smiling exultantly through it all. He was having fun.
“Yes, well, that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” Spike commented through a suddenly dry throat.
Slowly, Spike advanced on his best friend.
“Uhh… right then, mate. ‘Cops and Robbers’ is over, time to go.”
A tendril of darkness knocked him clear across the room to smash through the trophy case. Shocked, Spike shook the glass off his body and winced as he pulled a great shard out of his hand.
“Right. Well, this rescue isn’t going according to plan,” he groaned.
Getting to his feet, he tried to take it all in. It was like some kind of freakish nightmare made worse by the fact that it was his best friend responsible for the worst carnage he’d seen since China.
A door burst open at the other end of the room, causing Spike to tear his eyes away from the grotesque spectacle. Several other men barged in with gas masks and machine guns.
“How many bloody cops are there in this place?” he asked, amazed.
Spike quickly reached an inescapable conclusion: either the cops would fill his friend with lead or Alec would tear them apart. For a moment, he blond wasn’t sure which one disturbed him more but either way it was going to end badly.
Acting on impulse, Spike charged Alec, snatching up a shotgun and kicking a rolling chair out before him. Planting a foot on the desk, he leaped up and tackled Alec hard. Miraculously, Alec slumped in his arms, unconscious, the darkness dispelling, dropping the gory remains of the previous inhabitants wetly to the floor.
Twisting his body in mid air, Spike landed in the rolling chair. Throwing Alec over his shoulder, Spike twisted around and, with a scream, opened fire with the shotgun, using its force to propel him towards some broken windows while at the same time making the police keep their heads down. The seat tipped backwards and they fell. Spike twisted his body as best he could and pushed Alec off and away.
The screech of tires tore Faith away from her pacing. She was worried about what was going on inside; they had been in there too long. She could hear screaming, gunfire and only the occasional vampire roar to confirm that both vampires were still alive.
“Finally!” she snarled.
Reaching down, she helped Xander pick up the near-unconscious witch. Giles cut the car into a tight turn, and with an expert display of stick and brake, sent it screeching to a rest in front of the three. Dawn kicked the door open, showing Anya sitting in the back seat.
“Let’s go!” Dawn cried out.
Xander handed Willow off to Anya as Faith turned to regard the police station; Giles burst out of the drivers’ side door and came running to her.
“Are they out? Where are they?” he demanded.
Faith spun on him. “I don’t know!” she screamed as she turned back to face the building.
“They’ve been in there-”
With an explosion of glass and deafening gunfire, a form exploded from the window and sailed three stories down. The group reflexively ducked at the sound of firing; Anya, Dawn and Xander huddled inside the car.
The form landed hard on the roof of the car, the metal buckling as it caved in, glass exploding as the back window and windshield collapsed. Anya screamed in terror. Faith rushed over and gasped.
“Angel,” she whispered.
The vampire was unconscious and looked shot to pieces.
Faith dragged him to the edge of the roof, and with a grunt, heaved his form off the ruined car.
“Get him in the car!” she screamed.
“HOW?!” Xander screamed back, folded in on himself as best he could to keep from being crushed as he gestured to the doors, twisted into useless metal by the impact.
With a growl of frustration, Faith shoved her fist through the shattered windshield. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes as the glass cut into her, but she ignored it and tore out the glass windshield in one piece, hurling it to the ground.
“Here!” she yelled, handing Angel’s limp form through new opening.
Xander and Dawn took a shoulder and dragged him in.
“What about Alec?” Dawn yelled.
Giles spun on Faith, who was busy getting Angel’s feet into the car.
“I have no idea!” she screamed.
A series of shotgun blasts echoed through the night air. Faith jerked her head up and frowned, trying to peer up into the dark.
“INCOMING!” Xander yelled.
Faith frowned harder, then her eyes went wide.
“Down!” she cried out, tackling Giles and knocking him to the ground as what looked like a rolling chair smashed into the hood of the car and then rolled off.
There was a slight whistling of cloth and then, with an ear-splitting crunch followed by another yell of terror from inside the car, two forms landed on the machine - one on the roof, one on the hood.
“Spike!” Faith cried out.
The blond vampire groaned and lolled, rolling over onto his side from his resting place on top of the roof, before nearly falling off the top of the car. Faith caught him and dragged him inside the car. Willow was jostled to full awareness.
“What happened?” she asked groggily
“Alec!” an agonized voice cried out.
Faith turned and almost dropped Spike.
Giles was cradling his son’s head… at least she thought it was his head, it looked like nothing more than a bloody mass of tissue and bone.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Faith whispered, crossing herself for the first time in years in sheer horror at the sight.
Giles wept as he held his son’s body.
“Save the religion and the water works, your boy is still alive,” Spike spoke up, shaking himself free of Faith’s grip.
Giles took a pulse and then exhaled hard.
“He’s alive, barely,” he whispered.
“Help!” Xander’s muffled voice cried out from the car.
The final impact on the roof had nearly crushed them and even now seemed to be on the verge of doing so. Faith and Giles helped Alec off the hood of the car as Spike dug his hands into the machine, and with a roar of rage, tore the ruined metal roof clean off and hurled it away.
“Hulk smash,” Xander commented before he got a good look at Alec, which made him pale.
“Oh man,” he whispered.
Willow pushed her way past him. “Where is he?!” she demanded.
Xander tried to hold her back. “No. Wait! Wills!”
It was no use; she saw him and went rigid. He looked dead, he had to be dead.
“Alec,” she whispered, her voice filled with more pain and grief than Xander had ever heard in anyone’s voice.
Dawn scrambled around to get a better look and began to keen a wail of grief and agony.
“Oh, God. Alec,” Dawn whispered brokenly.
A gunshot cracked loud in the air, followed by another. The group ducked, Giles throwing his body over his son's as Faith and Spike hit the ground and those inside the car tried to huddle for protection.
All except Willow.
She tore her gaze from her mutilated lover and looked up at the window. Several police officers in gas masks were shooting at them. Raising her arms high above her head she began to chant.
“Uh-oh, the witch bitch is pissed,” Spike commented.
A burst of gunfire exploded near him, driving him down and away from Faith. Giles dragged his son back behind the car, seeking whatever meager shelter they could as Anya, Xander, and Dawn dragged Angel out of the car and down to join them.
Suddenly, the humming filled the air again, their fillings began to throb and several tiny shards of twisted metal began to float in the air. Faith was the only one, exposed and out in the open that saw this, saw the look on Willow’s face, a look that chilled her blood because it was so similar to the one she had had at one time.
The face of a killer.
Willow screamed out her rage, her thoughts filled with a pounding conclusion over and over. These men had killed her lover.
The metal fragments screeched up to the window, slicing apart anything and anyone in their path; they moved like they had a mind, seeking out each and every person in that room that wasn’t already dead.
Within moments, ten men were sliced into meat to join the remains of the eight that had already died and the one woman who had sacrificed herself to serve and protect another.
Willow slumped to the seat, unconscious; Faith just gaped in horror at what she had seen, trying to recollect the concept of mass murder with this seemingly gentle girl she had known for years.
“Let’s go!” Anya yelled out, breaking Faith out of her grim reverie.
Hoisting the mortally wounded Angel and Alec into the backseat, everyone attempted to pile into the car. Giles floored the accelerator, and with a screech of tires, he cut the wheel hard, twisting the car around before launching them away from this place of slaughter and torture and deep into the safety of the sheltering night.
“How is he?” Dawn yelled, near hysterical.
Miraculously, amongst all the swollen blood-encrusted skin and broken bones, a single damaged eye opened to regard the group in a blank haze of pain and puzzlement. Spike, perched in the front seat, turned to Alec and smiled, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Cheer up, mate, you’re rescued,” he quipped while lighting a cigarette.
“Alec,” Dawn whispered breathlessly, reaching out to stroke his hair back from his bloody face with a shaking hand, almost afraid that her touch could sever the young man’s tenuous hold on life.
As her hands touched his face, his eye closed gently, his breathing became a bit more steady, the lines of pain and fear smoothed, and within a few moments, he seemed to be resting quietly, if not comfortably.
Xander looked up at the young girl in awe. “How did you…?”
Dawn only shook her head as she gently stroked Alec’s face.
“I have no idea,” Dawn whispered.
“Dawnie’s got a gift,” a tired voice piped up.
Faith, sitting between Spike and Giles in the front, looked up into the rear view mirror to see Willow slowly rise up from the back seat. Keeping her expression carefully guarded, the Slayer instead turned her attention to the front seat as Willow brushed aside the snowy lock of white hair from her face and peered down at her lover.
“He seems to be doing better, but he really needs some patching up,” she whispered grimly.
Anya snorted.
“Yes and I’m sure that any hospital in the tri borough area would be happy to admit a fugitive half-demon,” she commented.
Willow sent her a very dark look as the tension in the car rose dramatically.
“He’s not the only one,” Dawn put in attempting to defuse the situation. “Angel’s shot up pretty badly.”
Spike nodded. “Yeah, looks like the great poof zigged when he should have zagged. Caught a gut-full of high caliber automatic weapon fire.”
Faith slugged him hard on the shoulder, nearly causing him to spill out of the car, his cigarette sent flying out of his mouth to dance across the speeding pavement below and spark flaming into the night.
“Bloody hell!” he roared.
Faith held up a warning finger. “Watch it, blondie,” she growled darkly.
Spike adjusted his jacket and ran a hand through his hair, regaining his cool and removing another cigarette from his jacket; he cupped it with his free to protect it from the whipping wind and lit up.
Faith turned her attention to Angel; he looked bad… again, it seemed like he’d just recovered from his ordeal in the Deadlands, now this happened.
What was it about heroes and copious amounts of injury?
Willow cradled Alec’s head in her lap, gently stroking the wounds on his face.
“Animals,” she whispered quietly, her voice full of black hatred.
Dawn looked up at her and shook her head.
“Victims,” the younger girl corrected, guessing who the witch was referring to. “Corrupted by the Fleshdancer. I don’t think they knew what they were doing.”
Willow looked up at her, her expression murderous.
“I don’t care,” she commented simply, chillingly.
Dawn swallowed and gripped Alec’s hand tightly. Her fear was washed away in a wave of quiet happiness when she felt his hand reflexively grip her tiny hand. She squeezed back just as tightly, blinking back tears. He was alive and that was all that mattered.
She could almost feel him; feel his life in his body. It was like a tiny spark surrounded by darkness. Dawn ran her fingers gently over his, touching him gently, lightly tracing the outline of a bad bruise. She could sense the damage, down to the cells and then beyond that, down to his soul.
Focusing slightly, she felt something inside her, her love for him, the way she felt, push forward out of her, just a little. The damaged skin of his hand began to smooth and within moments the bruise had faded. Dawn shivered in delight; for a moment, she and Alec were almost like one person.
The smile froze when she sensed that darkness surrounding his spark begin to stir and begin to stalk her, chasing her out of his body. She had a brief flash of a terrible and evil mind, vast and vicious. Then she tore her hand away with a gasp.
Willow looked up at her confused. “What is it?” she asked worriedly.
Dawn merely shook her head. “It’s nothing, hand cramp,” she lied.
Willow, too preoccupied with her lover’s condition, merely nodded.
Dawn examined her hand. It was bone white, just as if it had suffered severe frostbite, the fingers were stiff, the skin felt frigid. Cradling her wounded hand she settled back against the seat to stare into the dark.
Spike, watching from the rear view mirror, observed Dawn rubbing her hand and the condition it was in. He slowly shifted his gaze to Alec’s bloody and unconscious form. There was more than simple darkness within his friend.
There was evil.
Pure.
Hungry.
And all too real
God help us all, we band of buggered.
“His wounds are quite severe, but I believe with constant attention, some magic, and also time, he will recover partially,” DeGanon informed them.
The rescuers had made their way back to the sewer lair.
Giles frowned. “What do you mean, ‘partially’?”
Faith and the others, sans Angel who was also resting from his ordeal, looked also concerned.
“Let me show you,” DeGanon whispered, gesturing.
Leading the group into the make-shift infirmary, they passed Angel, who had had to have every bullet extracted from him and then the wounds bandaged, past Buffy, who lay resting, her bandages no longer leaking blood, to Alec.
Alec looked the worst. There wasn’t a square inch of his flesh that wasn’t stitched, bandaged or wrapped in gauze. Willow merely shook her head at the sight, grief and rage making her sick.
Dawn, however, remained troubled by what she had felt inside him, though she too was obviously affected. Willow leaned over to place a kiss on Alec’s head as DeGanon gently turned him over. Gently peeling back a bandage he gestured to a patch of skin at the base of his spine, spanning roughly one hand in size, completely smooth and almost glassy in texture.
“This is the mark of the Fleshdancer.”
Faith frowned. “You mean this guy put his hand inside his body…”
“…And fused his spine. He will never walk again,” DeGanon informed them grimly.
A loud crash jerked their attention away; Spike had kicked over a table in rage. Willow had tears in her eyes and Dawn was not far behind. Faith just shook her head in dismay.
“Oh man,” she whispered, remembering their sparring, how much he’d enjoyed it, how much he loved fighting against the evil.
And now he’d never walk again.
Giles sat down, aghast, and just shook his head over and over. DeGanon reapplied the bandage and laid the unconscious man back down.
“His other wounds are quite serious: he’s been shot, several bones in his face have been broken, one of his eyes has been ruptured, several ribs are broken as well, several more are cracked, so are bones in his arms and legs,” DeGanon concluded, looking at the sleeping man. “He was obviously tortured in addition to whatever happened beforehand.”
“I’m going to kill them!” Spike roared. “I’m going to go back to that police station and I’m not leaving till every single stinking person in there is a corpse.”
“Want some help?” Willow asked quietly, her eyes dark.
Dawn stepped in. “That’s enough,” she scolded.
“Mass slaughter isn’t going to solve anything and it’s certainly not what Alec would want,” she put in.
Wanna bet? Spike thought to himself as he scowled at her darkly and Willow merely turned her attention back to her lover.
“Hey D,” Faith chimed.
Dawn turned to her, ready for another argument. She was angry at what had happened to Alec, furious in fact, but she could not condone butchering people like cattle.
“Yeah?” she asked, lip stuck out defiantly.
“You’re right.”
Dawn’s defiance slipped. “Oh… okay,” she replied awkwardly.
Faith smiled at her. “Alec would be proud of you.”
Dawn blushed all the way to the roots of her hair; Willow smiled slightly, attempting to shake off her dark mood.
“She’s right. Alec’s a warrior, not a killer,” she told Dawn, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Spike sent them an unreadable look.
Giles stood up. “How long did Daenna say that they will be unconscious?” he asked.
DeGanon, his expression carefully guarded, chose his words just as carefully.
“Unfortunately, Daenna has gone missing, none of the tribe have seen her since the incident earlier,” he informed them calmly.
Spike’s eyes narrowed.
“Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the fact that she was the only one of the tribe that knew you had a Dahaka on your hands, would it mate?” he asked.
Slowly, all the eyes in the room fixed on DeGanon, who merely crossed his arms.
“I assure you, every effort is being made to find her and bring her home,” the gypsy chieftain replied coolly.
“Yeah, well, I have a sneaky suspicion that’s not going to work out too well,” Spike replied.
Stalking over to the bed, he dragged a chair between Alec and Buffy’s beds and sat down.
“What are you doing?” DeGanon hissed.
Spike looked up him casually.
“Making sure none of the other people who know about that flesh freak turn up missing,” he replied.
DeGanon’s dark features darkened further as he strode over to the chair to loom over the vampire.
“Are you implying-?”
“I wouldn’t call it an ‘implication’, mate,” Spike replied.
DeGanon moved his hands to the hilts of his kukri.
And stopped dead as the seated Spike produced a butterfly knife and, with a deft wrist movement, rested the tip of the blade lightly against the standing gypsy’s groin.
“Careful, mate, a flick of my wrist and I can put an end to your ham eating days,” he warned darkly.
DeGanon slowly moved his hands away from his weapons and regarded the vampire with raw anger.
Spike coolly refolded the knife and pocketed it.
“Your day will come, shimulo,” he warned darkly.
Spike smiled wryly. “Tougher men than you have said that, mate, think you’ll die as easily as they did,” he replied.
Flushed with anger, the gypsy stalked away muttering in Romani.
“Was that wise, Spike?” Giles asked. “Alienating our host can only result in confrontations later.”
Spike gestured with a finger at the departing gypsy.
“I don’t trust that bloke. You heard what he said - his ultimate loyalty is to the tribe and his master is Dracula. Put those two together and you get the fixings of a fanatic and the problem with a fanatic is that you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly stupid,” he commented.
“I know I’ve heard that line somewhere before,” Faith replied.
Spike nodded. “Yeah, works just as well for honest people.”
“I’ll take second watch,” Giles put in grimly.
“I got third,” Faith replied.
“I’ll stay for all of them as best I can,” Willow added. “If he comes at us with gypsy magic, you’ll need me.”
If he comes at us at all, they’ll be scraping what’s left of him off the ceiling, Faith thought darkly, the grisly results of the witch’s murderous prowess springing vividly to mind.
Dawn looked concerned.
“Are you sure, Wills? You haven’t been sleeping much,” she asked worried.
Willow nodded, her hair falling into her face.
“I’ll be okay,” she inhaled. “I’m a Rosenberg, we’re a tough breed.”
“All right then. Giles, Dawn, and I will get some Z’s, the rest of you keep your eyes open, your ears pricked…” Faith began.
Spike looked up and grinned at this, Faith shot him a wry look.
“I said EARS pricked, not the other way around.”
Willow giggled and Spike made a big show of ‘misunderstanding’.
Dawn frowned. “Okay, you lost me.”
Faith patted her shoulder. “It’s a play on words, I’ll explain later,” she assured the younger girl.
The dark-haired Slayer then turned to Willow.
“Go see if you can rouse Xander and Anya, maybe we can divvy up guard duty a bit more proportionately.”
Willow nodded. “On it.”
Faith sighed. “All right then, troops, you’ve got your assignments, let’s remain five by five and take care of our people.”
“What is it with this family and people barking out orders?” Spike demanded.
Giles chuckled quietly and rested a hand on his son's head.
“We have within us great strength, a quality trait in those who would become leaders of men,” he replied softly before leaning down and gently placing a kiss upon his sons head. “Rest up, son, you’re needed.”
“Damn straight,” Spike commented raising his now near-empty flask in toast to the sentiment.
Willow took up watch near the door, Spike near the beds; the others began to file out. Only Dawn remained, and she gently leaned over Alec and whispered in his ear.
“You’re needed,” she told him, her heart in her voice before moving away.
Willow looked up at her. “What did you tell him?” she asked.
Dawn looked embarrassed and laughed a little.
“Oh, nothing. Just wanted to wish him pleasant dreams,” she tried to mention lightly.
Willow nodded as Dawn left, wondering whether or not Dawn’s ability to fabricate a lie on demand would get better with more practice.
DeGanon cursed himself over and over as he stalked through the corridors of his domain. It hadn’t been enough to murder the old woman who had understood exactly what her fate would be once she learned of the Dahaka; hence her fleeing into the pipes. She had to die though, and in the end she knew that and had remained oddly passive when DeGanon caught up with her and held her head under the surface of a pool of raw sewage until she had stopped thrashing and the currents took her body away.
Her death was necessary to keep panic from sweeping through the kumpania, but now the cursed Slayer and her family were beginning to get suspicious. He wiped at his face with a white linen handkerchief and cursed in Romani. None of them knew how dangerous the Dahaka was, to the world and to the tribe. And, most of all, to him.
Wringing the handkerchief in worried agony, he frowned when it began to take on an odd texture. He looked down… and gasped in shock and horror.
The handkerchief was stained with blood, almost black. Racing to a pool of water framed by a nest of rusted pipes, he peered into the murky water.
There was no wound. DeGanon frowned in disbelief, staring at the bloody rag in his hands. Hurriedly, he threw the rag in the water, and immediately the dark water became red and thick, viscous and gory. The gypsy peered into the pool in shock, then screamed as a bone-white hand burst from the surface and grabbed at his shirt, trying to drag him into the pool.
Daenna’s face rose from the blood like a ghost, her expression twisted in rage as she clawed at her murderer. Twisting out of her grasp, he tore his kukri from his belt and with a single slash decapitated her. The head bounced and rolled across the wet stone floor. The rest of the body sank back underneath the red water and was no more.
Cautiously, DeGanon approached the severed head, which remained very real. Picking it up by the hair, he turned it to face him. The eyes shot open, a horrible milky white, and the mouth hissed at him.
“Dahaka, the sins of the Spaarti have returned! Your sin, DeGanon! Your sin!”
With a roar of rage and fear, DeGanon hurled the head high in the air; it sailed up and away and came to rest in a large pool of black water, quickly sinking into its depths.
But as it flew, the voice repeated its black mantra.
“Your sin.”
DeGanon, shaking and terrified, crossed himself. This was prikasa, bad luck, a sign of dark things to come. And dark things already arrived.
DeGanon watched as the last bubbles from the pool stilled and were no more.
(To be continued in chapter 8)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Timeline: Immediately follows Book 1: Dusk
Rating: TV-14 (nothing worse than on the show)
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Spike, Willow/Dusk(OC), Xander/Anya, Giles/Marlena(OC), Dawn, Faith, Angel, Dracula
Book One: Dusk (all chapters)
Previous chapter of Midnight
Banner created by edgehead73.
Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy: Revamped Edition
Book Two:
Midnight
Chapter 7
Assault
Angel, Spike, Faith and Xander stood before the police station with Willow in the lead, the redhead’s face washed in an eerie green glow.
A glow that was shining near blindingly bright as they stood before the squat four-story building.
Willow peered at the building, then back at the glowing badge before nodding and stuffing it into her back pocket. The sudden darkness felt oppressive, plumes of steam rose from the mouths of those that breathed. Those that did not remained cold and unmoving.
“All right. So, we know the plan?” Faith asked.
Spike nodded. “Make with the death, Terminator-Style,” he replied grinning despite himself.
Faith sighed; she wasn’t much of a tactician and this head on approach was the only thing she could come up with on such short notice.
“The others are getting the car, right?” Angel asked quietly.
Faith nodded. “We’re in, we’re out. Hit the place running and get out fast.”
“Sounds great,” Xander commented darkly.
Faith turned on him. “You got a better idea, X, let’s hear it,” she bit out.
Xander glared at her. “As a matter of fact…”
His voice trailed off as he spotted something over her shoulder that made his face light up.
“…Yes! Yes, I do!” he exclaimed and raced to the parking lot.
The rest followed, all looking puzzled.
A large black van, more of a truck actually, was wedged up onto the sidewalk, the letters ‘E.O.D.’ printed in yellow across it. Faith frowned as Xander struggled with the door lock excitedly.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Department of Explosives and Ordinance Disposal.” Xander turned to look at Faith. “They get the toys SWAT doesn’t,” he finished.
He growled in frustration, pulling hard on the doors.
“Except I can’t get them open,” he finished dejectedly.
Spike snorted. “Move!” he snarled.
Pushing the boy aside, he took both handles in his hands and twisted hard, the metal tearing apart as he ripped the doors open.
Two uniformed men tumbled from the truck to the pavement with a sickening crack. Willow yelped in fear as their dead eyes stared up at her. Horrified and yet oddly fascinated, she knelt down to peer into their eyes. If she concentrated, she could almost see the moment of their deaths in their eyes.
Angel knelt down to examine the cause of their deaths, a set of bullet holes in their foreheads.
“Shot by a small caliber weapon, possibly a .38”
“Police issue?” Spike queried, letting himself be shoved aside by Xander, who climbed into the back of the van excitedly.
“Yeah, could be,” Angel replied grimly.
Faith frowned. “They’re killing their own? What the hell is going on?” she asked.
“Yee-haw!” Xander cried out.
The rest turned to see Xander crawl out of the truck with a large satchel, which he handed to Spike, and some sort of monstrous cannon cradled in his arms.
“What the hell is that?” Faith asked.
Xander began examining the weapon.
“This is a tear gas grenade launcher, the technical name escapes me at the moment.” He displayed the weapon. “They used one of these in ‘Terminator 2’, the drum here holds several tear gas canisters,” he explained.
Angel nodded. “Or phosphorus rounds. I met some vampire hunters in Chicago way back when. Used to hot load these things and use them to burn up vampires, called it ‘Dragonsbreath’.”
Xander nodded.
“Yeah, well, I figured someone can cut the power and then we put a few of these through the windows, make it nice and uncomfortable in there, and get Dusk out.”
“Except that the windows have bars on them,” Faith pointed out.
Xander turned and looked, his shoulders sagging in defeat as he took in the wire box bars over all the windows.
“I can take care of that,” Willow told them quietly, shaking off her morbid obsession with the two dead men and standing up.
Faith looked at her; she knew the witch was powerful but she’d been acting kind of weird lately.
“Ohhh-kay, no problem, but that still leaves us stumbling around in the dark coughing up our lungs,” the Slayer informed Xander.
The young man grinned.
“You’re right, it would leave us stumbling around in the dark coughing our brains out.”
Faith got it instantly and she turned, as did Willow and Xander.
“What?” Spike asked.
Angel had already gotten the idea.
“Okay, so the blue wire here connects to the main fuses,” Xander murmured.
He was staring hard at the wire schematic etched into the back of the fuse cover of the police station power box, trying to determine which wires would result in a total blackout for the station when severed. He removed a pocket knife from his jacket, unfolded it, and carefully placed the edge of the blade against a green and yellow wire. He cast a final look at the schematic.
“Ohhh-kay, here we go,” he breathed and carefully, with agonizing slowness, drew his knife across the wire. It split apart and was severed.
Nothing happened.
“Uhhh… huh,” Xander frowned, looking once more at the schematic and the lights still on within the station. “Okay, that wasn’t it,” he frowned again.
Spike sighed. “One side!” he roared.
Xander hurriedly backed away as Spike reached into his jacket, removed his flask, and took a long pull of the contents.
“Oh shi-!” Xander cried out as Spike leaned in and spewed a mouthful of alcohol into the exposed wiring.
The whole box went up in an explosion of sparks, and within seconds, a large fire had burst into existence within the nest of wires. The scent of melted plastic filled the air as Xander tried to shield himself from the sparks and flames. Spike, paying no heed to them whatsoever, poured the remaining alcohol over the flames, causing them to shoot high into the air.
“Burn, baby, burn!” he cried out joyfully, making large whooshing gestures with his arms, grinning madly before capping his flask. He turned to the cowering boy and looked wholly demonic with his game face in place, grinning madly reflected in the firelight.
“Now, why is it I have to keep sacrificing my hooch to save this bloke’s ass?” he asked dryly, then clapped Xander on the shoulder.
“It’s Ouchie Time!” he yelled and dragged the stunned man away from the now-flaming ruin of the fuse box.
Viisq had never known pain before, never known fear. The blade, the bullet, the fist and claw and fang, these things could not hurt it.
But as it was propelled through the window of the interrogation room that it had spent hours torturing the young man in, it knew pain.
And as its blank, alien eyes took in the specter of the blood-covered Alec - floating six inches above the floor at the head of a vast wave of darkness stretching in all directions, hungry and black, coming for it - Viisq knew fear.
It tried to scramble away from the horrific apparition as a set of darkness tendrils wrapped themselves tightly around its legs, dragging it back into the dark room and the cold promise of oblivion that it contained. Viisq willed the flesh in his hips to part and, with a wet tearing sound, Viisq’s legs were pulled off and devoured voraciously by the dark.
Alec advanced on the simpering creature; his eyes were filled with darkness, devoid of any light, humanity or mercy, much like Viisq’s.
Viisq was snatched up by the darkness and bound in it over and over again; the creature wailed in terror, its inhuman voice shrieking at such a pitch to shatter glass before darkness forced itself down its throat, silencing it. Only its eyes remained uncovered, though even there the darkness crept along the edge of its eye sockets, like a cancer.
Alec brought the creature to eye level with him; it was a novel experience since being crippled had previously prohibited such a feat.
“Die now,” Alec rasped in a hollow, stony voice.
The darkness tightened around the creature.
Suddenly, the sounds of boots on floors, of men rushing, filled the air. Rifles were aimed and shotguns cocked. Alec turned his black eyes to spy a half-dozen men with weapons aimed. Viisq would have smiled if it could; he was still, after all, the master of these puppets and they would come to his call whether it was actually spoken or no.
“Kill him,” Viisq’s voice slithered through their numbed minds, long since reshaped into slaves by the Fleshdancer.
They raised their weapons… and the lights promptly went out and the entire station was shrouded in darkness.
Completely.
“All right, Red, you’re on,” Faith instructed, taking the sudden and total lack of light within the station as indicative of step one’s success.
Willow nodded as Spike and Xander rejoined the group. Angel tossed the satchel to the young man.
“Nice toys,” the vampire commented.
Xander nodded and set the satchel back down.
“Yeah, well, you never know when they’ll come in handy,” he quipped as he hefted the tear gas gun and took aim.
Willow began to chant; the numbing spell had taken a lot out of her but this next one had to be done. She raised her hands before her and, tapping that well of strength that came from love and concern for Alec, she closed her eyes and focused.
It began as a low hum, then a soda can near them flatted into a disk, people winced as their fillings began to throb and ache, car alarms went off, electrical wires began to sway crazily.
And with a screech of tortured metal and exploding stone, each and every grate was pried off the windows and hurled away. Spike whistled long and low.
“That bank job in Mexico would have gone a lot better with that trick,” he commented dryly.
Xander couldn’t comment; he was too busy trying to keep his fillings in his teeth and the gun in his hand.
“Now for the big finish,” Willow gasped out.
With a heave, the EOD van lifted clean off the ground and was hurled through the front door. The impact was like a small bomb as the van tore through the concrete of the entrance and left a trail of devastation well into the building.
“GO!” Faith cried out.
Xander needed no further prompting as he felt the gun go slack again as Willow went limp and fell into Faith’s waiting arms. Angel took off towards the debris that had been the front entrance as Xander fired round after round into the windows, covering first the bottom windows, then the second and third floors with near perfect aim.
“All those years playing Duck Hunt have finally paid off,” he commented as the last round of tear gas was shot into the building.
Faith only nodded as she passed off the exhausted witch into her best friend’s arms. Xander dropped the gun and lowered Willow to rest against a car door as Faith turned to Spike.
“Ready?” she asked.
Spike grinned. “Willing and able, love. Let’s do it,” he replied.
Faith tore ahead with Spike following, and stopped at the base of the wall.
“Alley oop!” she yelled.
Spike ran at the Slayer as she crouched low, hands cupped.
“God save the Queen!” Spike cried out as he put his foot in her palm.
With a grunt she heaved with every ounce of her Slayer strength and he flew up into the air. In mid air, the vampire braced his foot against the wall and pushed up and off, and with a loud crash, plowed through the fourth story window.
Spike landed and rolled across the linoleum floor. He stood up and shook off the glass, his vampire face peering out the window in amazement.
“Strong lass. Wonder what she’s like in bed…” he mused.
A meaty hand landed on his shoulder. Spike wasted no time, twisting the hand until he heard bones crack. Using it as leverage, he propelled a police officer hard into a wall; the man slumped to the ground as Spike grinned at the violence and the utter lack of chip-induced pain following it.
“Best present I’ve ever gotten.”
Turning, he dashed into the dark smoke-filled hallway, searching for his friend.
Viisq took advantage of the sudden darkness, liquefying his body and exploding out of the gap in the shadowy cocoon, splashing against Alec’s face and adhering to it with oozy tenacity. His concentration broken, Alec fell hard to the floor as Viisq smothered him. The other police officers were stumbling around blindly, coughing and choking on the tear gas that had somehow manifested out of nowhere.
Viisq felt a surge of triumph flow through its inhuman mind. This human was strong and possessed strange and disturbing powers, but in the end it was only human and thus susceptible to the myriad of flaws they inherit, including the need for oxygen.
Viisq forced its slimy essence down the young man’s throat, choking him, strangling him. It worked its way down, searching for the heart so that it may tear it out of his chest and be done with it.
But then something went wrong.
There was no heart to be found. Instead, the darkness within the boy found Viisq. Found him and then began to draw him deeper into the body, and with a surge of horror that rocked Viisq to its very core, it realize what was happening. No longer was he suffocating the boy.
Now the boy was… was eating him.
Viisq struggled to get away from this… abomination, this monster that somehow was more powerful than it.
Viisq tried to reach the boy's mind but the mind, like the body, was clouded in hungry darkness and could not be reached. Viisq clawed and wailed, trying to ooze and slither away, but it could not as the boy devoured it.
Suddenly, strong hands jerked the boy up, and with a gasping retch, Alec choked and vomited Viisq out of his body, gulping in great mouthfuls of air, his whole body reeling with horror. Viisq took no time in making good its escape and slithered across the floor, up a sink, and down the drain.
Angel hoisted Alec up and looked at him, his vampire eyes seeing quite clearly in the dark.
“Christ,” he muttered.
His alter ego, Angelus, prided himself on his torture techniques, but even he would be hard pressed to match the tapestry of suffering that had been etched onto the lad.
“Angel?” Alec croaked.
Angel nodded. “Yeah, it’s me, can you walk?” he asked.
Alec swallowed against the bitter taste in his mouth that had nothing to with the demon he had just tried to eat.
“No,” he replied.
Angel didn’t like the way that sounded but it would have to wait. Taking the damp rag he had had the foresight to bring with him, Angel wrapped it around the ruin of Alec’s nose and mouth.
“Here, try to breath through this,” the vampire instructed.
Alec grabbed his hand.
“There’s… a woman… inside there, she’s hurt. Needs help,” he croaked.
Angel nodded and, wrapping the man’s arm across his shoulders, carried him back towards a ruined room. He closed the door and braced a chair against it. Snatching up a table, he pressed it flush against a broken window that faced the hallway in an attempt to keep the tear gas out.
Finished with that, he went through the room, methodically tearing down metal grates and smashing open the windows that they covered. Cool night air filled the room, sucking out the tear gas. Angel knelt down by a slight form, crumbled upon the floor and turned it over. His eyes went wide with shock.
“Kate?” he breathed.
Kate opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Christ, I transfer all the way to New York and I still can’t get rid of you,” she rasped weakly, coughing.
Angel examined her wound, gently removing her hand. It didn’t look too bad, none of her vitals were pierced, but she had lost a lot of blood and would need medical attention.
“Can you walk?” he asked her.
She nodded as he helped to her feet.
“Better than your friend can at any rate, I assume you’re here for him and not just stopping by for a chat?” she asked.
Angel nodded. “Yeah, well, something like that. Kate, what happened here?” he asked her intently.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. I’m out undercover for a few weeks, I come back and everyone’s gone berserk.”
“It was Viisq,” Alec rasped. “Some kind of… demon-thing, took control of them and made them crazy,” he explained weakly.
Angel nodded.
“Yeah, we heard, DeGanon filled us in a bit. They’re called ‘Dahaka’ or more commonly ‘Fleshdancers.”
Alec coughed and nodded, bringing his arms across his chest as if to keep himself from shaking to pieces.
“Yeah, that fits,” he commented, gesturing to a strange lump on the floor.
Angel turned it over, revealing the mutilated face of the thin cop.
“Cute,” he commented darkly, tossing the thing away, then turned back to the two injured people.
“We gotta get out of here. Kate, I’ll help you, you help Alec, all right?”
Kate nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just like old times,” she commented.
Alec turned to her. “Do you know each other?” he asked.
Angel helped brace Kate as she pulled Alec to his feet and braced him against her.
“I tried to kill him a few times,” she commented.
Alec nodded, cracking his first smile in what felt like a lifetime.
“Ah, so you’ve dated.”
Spike knocked aside what had to be the twelfth cop in less than ten minutes. True, the beatings were making him feel better, though he missed being able to feel the pain of blows received. Quite unlike the pain of that thrice-damned chip, the ache from receiving and giving out a good beating was strangely invigorating. Reminded you that you were alive.
Well, sort of, he amended to himself silently, grinning.
As much fun as this was, he really did want to find Alec. He was gravely concerned about his friend. A group of no less than six police officers, their eyes streaming but still fixed upon him, came barreling down at him from the other end of the smoke filled hallway, batons held high, screaming in fury.
Spike grinned.
Oh well, back to it then.
“Step up, ladies,” he called out, then dove into them with glee.
Angel, Kate, and Alec hobbled down the hallway; the two that needed oxygen passed the wet rag back and forth.
“Angel, next time soak this thing in ether, it’ll make this whole rescuing bit that much more pleasant,” Alec commented.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Angel replied.
He turned to address them when some kind of huge shape lunged at him. Angel knocked it aside without conscious thought; the man plowed past them and collided hard into a wall, wailing in pain. Alec’s eyes widened.
It was Eddie.
The fat man peered at them, his face a mask of blood and tears, his eyes red and filled with unthinking rage.
“You!” Alec hissed, his voice filled with death.
Angel looked back between the fat man and Alec, and put two and two together. Carefully, he helped brace Alec against the wall and set down Kate, who tugged at his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she asked insistently.
“A favor,” he replied.
He gently wrapped Alec’s arm over his own shoulder and hoisted him towards Eddie, who snarled and spit at them both, coughing too hard to mount any kind of assault or even defense.
“Do what you have to do,” Angel said quietly.
Alec looked at Eddie, the man that had spent hours torturing him. Without even thinking, his hand became a long blade. Kate watched in shock as Angel steered Alec towards the coughing, snarling man.
Alec looked at Eddie for a second, Eddie looked back. There was nothing in his eyes, only hatred.
With a scream of rage and pain so bestial it made Angel wince, Alec lunged forward and buried the blade all the way into the man, so deep that the tip burst from his back and scraped the wall behind him. Eddie gasped as he looked down, uncomprehending, at the wound and the dark blood pumping out of it.
“DIE!!!!!!” Alec was trembling violently, held up only by the blade impaling his tormentor.
Eddie looked up at Alec’s eyes and Alec watched the fat man’s cheeks jiggle, tears streaming down his face. Alec screamed again and twisted the blade hard, tearing it out of him, causing Eddie’s blood to spray his face and body even as he fell painfully, rolling over onto his back.
The fat man’s eyes locked in shock and pain and fear before he crumpled to the ground beside Alec. For a moment, as they lay there, Eddie’s blood spilled out and flowing around Alec gave him the appearance of him making a snow angel in deep red snow. In the blood of his enemy, Alec looked somehow… content.
Angel shook the grisly image from his head and carefully helped the young man up. Kate spoke quietly as Angel helped her up, shocked by what she had seen.
“Here, we need to get out of here, this way is the stairway,” she choked out, her lungs handling the tear gas about as well as everyone else’s.
“Let’s do it,” Angel told them, his voice firm and full of purpose.
Carrying Kate, who was carrying Alec, the vampire headed down the long hallway beyond which lay a door clearly marked ‘Exit’. The red letters of the exit sign, though blackened by loss of power, still seemed to shine like a thousand suns, each one promising relief and sanctuary.
The hallway opened up into a wide space filled with desks and phones, dominated by a large trophy case which was filled with civic awards and other such memorabilia, proclaiming that, in normal times, this police station was filled with exceptional men and women who were protectors of the peace rather than psychopaths.
It was Kate, idly peering at the mirrored backing of the trophy case, studying Angel’s lack of reflection, who saw them first.
The next few moments became a blur. Kate shoved Alec away. He stumbled and fell to the floor back in the hallway. Angel whirled around as the men, who had on gas masks, came up from their hiding places behind the desks, weapons bared, aimed and firing.
The bullets tore through them both; Angel roared in agony as they tore apart his dead body, shredding his clothing and shattering bone. Alec watched in horror as Angel fell, blasted backwards through the window and into a three story drop.
There was an odd whimper followed by a strange thump, and Alec tore his eyes from Angel to see what it was.
Kate sank to her knees, her blond hair matted in blood; her blood. Her blue-green eyes were wide and she looked at Alec, whom she had now given her life for.
Their eyes met. Kate’s looked shocked more than anything; she looked so surprised.
And then she pitched forward, her now-sightless eyes facing nothing.
Ever again.
“NO!” Alec screamed a wail of rage and pain at Kate’s senseless death.
The cops, their weapons still smoking, rose up and prodded her body. Then they turned their weapons on him.
Alec had never seen someone he’d cared for cut down. It did something to him, opened some flood gate and sundered some last thread of restraint, of self control.
He rose to his feet, once again the blackness inside him and all around him filling him and spilling out. The men fired their guns at him and for each bullet that flew from their guns, a tiny tendril of darkness lashed out faster than the eye could see and sliced them apart.
The darkness supporting him, Alec raised his arms above him like some kind of dark god. A lattice work of shadowy darkness formed behind him, creating some kind of horrible web that supported his shattered body six feet off the ground. Purple lightening crackled all along his body and the web, the tendrils snaking along the floor, over the ceiling, up and down the walls. The police officers backed away, this chthonic sight finally making an impact within their broken minds.
It was too little, far too late. Without a word, Alec, his skin taking on a demonic bluish tinge, raised his hand…
…and pointed.
Spike sent another man tumbling head over heels down concrete stairs. Leaping over him before he’d even hit bottom, Spike tore down the stairs three steps at a time, twisted down the rail and threw open a metal door.
“Right then! Here comes, Spi…-”
His voice trailed away as his brain caught up with his eyes.
Eight men were caught up in ropy tendrils of darkness and each one was slowly being picked apart like petals on a daisy. Arms were pried off, legs ripped free, heads twisted off; the casual brutality with which they were murdered was staggering. The floor was stained black with the enormous amounts of blood that had spilt out of their mutilated bodies.
On the floor, a pretty blond woman was shot up six ways from Sunday.
As Spike very slowly traced back the origins of all this carnage, his mouth dropped.
Alec was suspended by what looked like a web of the stuff that stretched from one end of the room to another, his clothes were in tatters and the darkness poured out of his mouth, his eyes, even pushing its way out of his bare skin.
And he was smiling exultantly through it all. He was having fun.
“Yes, well, that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” Spike commented through a suddenly dry throat.
Slowly, Spike advanced on his best friend.
“Uhh… right then, mate. ‘Cops and Robbers’ is over, time to go.”
A tendril of darkness knocked him clear across the room to smash through the trophy case. Shocked, Spike shook the glass off his body and winced as he pulled a great shard out of his hand.
“Right. Well, this rescue isn’t going according to plan,” he groaned.
Getting to his feet, he tried to take it all in. It was like some kind of freakish nightmare made worse by the fact that it was his best friend responsible for the worst carnage he’d seen since China.
A door burst open at the other end of the room, causing Spike to tear his eyes away from the grotesque spectacle. Several other men barged in with gas masks and machine guns.
“How many bloody cops are there in this place?” he asked, amazed.
Spike quickly reached an inescapable conclusion: either the cops would fill his friend with lead or Alec would tear them apart. For a moment, he blond wasn’t sure which one disturbed him more but either way it was going to end badly.
Acting on impulse, Spike charged Alec, snatching up a shotgun and kicking a rolling chair out before him. Planting a foot on the desk, he leaped up and tackled Alec hard. Miraculously, Alec slumped in his arms, unconscious, the darkness dispelling, dropping the gory remains of the previous inhabitants wetly to the floor.
Twisting his body in mid air, Spike landed in the rolling chair. Throwing Alec over his shoulder, Spike twisted around and, with a scream, opened fire with the shotgun, using its force to propel him towards some broken windows while at the same time making the police keep their heads down. The seat tipped backwards and they fell. Spike twisted his body as best he could and pushed Alec off and away.
The screech of tires tore Faith away from her pacing. She was worried about what was going on inside; they had been in there too long. She could hear screaming, gunfire and only the occasional vampire roar to confirm that both vampires were still alive.
“Finally!” she snarled.
Reaching down, she helped Xander pick up the near-unconscious witch. Giles cut the car into a tight turn, and with an expert display of stick and brake, sent it screeching to a rest in front of the three. Dawn kicked the door open, showing Anya sitting in the back seat.
“Let’s go!” Dawn cried out.
Xander handed Willow off to Anya as Faith turned to regard the police station; Giles burst out of the drivers’ side door and came running to her.
“Are they out? Where are they?” he demanded.
Faith spun on him. “I don’t know!” she screamed as she turned back to face the building.
“They’ve been in there-”
With an explosion of glass and deafening gunfire, a form exploded from the window and sailed three stories down. The group reflexively ducked at the sound of firing; Anya, Dawn and Xander huddled inside the car.
The form landed hard on the roof of the car, the metal buckling as it caved in, glass exploding as the back window and windshield collapsed. Anya screamed in terror. Faith rushed over and gasped.
“Angel,” she whispered.
The vampire was unconscious and looked shot to pieces.
Faith dragged him to the edge of the roof, and with a grunt, heaved his form off the ruined car.
“Get him in the car!” she screamed.
“HOW?!” Xander screamed back, folded in on himself as best he could to keep from being crushed as he gestured to the doors, twisted into useless metal by the impact.
With a growl of frustration, Faith shoved her fist through the shattered windshield. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes as the glass cut into her, but she ignored it and tore out the glass windshield in one piece, hurling it to the ground.
“Here!” she yelled, handing Angel’s limp form through new opening.
Xander and Dawn took a shoulder and dragged him in.
“What about Alec?” Dawn yelled.
Giles spun on Faith, who was busy getting Angel’s feet into the car.
“I have no idea!” she screamed.
A series of shotgun blasts echoed through the night air. Faith jerked her head up and frowned, trying to peer up into the dark.
“INCOMING!” Xander yelled.
Faith frowned harder, then her eyes went wide.
“Down!” she cried out, tackling Giles and knocking him to the ground as what looked like a rolling chair smashed into the hood of the car and then rolled off.
There was a slight whistling of cloth and then, with an ear-splitting crunch followed by another yell of terror from inside the car, two forms landed on the machine - one on the roof, one on the hood.
“Spike!” Faith cried out.
The blond vampire groaned and lolled, rolling over onto his side from his resting place on top of the roof, before nearly falling off the top of the car. Faith caught him and dragged him inside the car. Willow was jostled to full awareness.
“What happened?” she asked groggily
“Alec!” an agonized voice cried out.
Faith turned and almost dropped Spike.
Giles was cradling his son’s head… at least she thought it was his head, it looked like nothing more than a bloody mass of tissue and bone.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Faith whispered, crossing herself for the first time in years in sheer horror at the sight.
Giles wept as he held his son’s body.
“Save the religion and the water works, your boy is still alive,” Spike spoke up, shaking himself free of Faith’s grip.
Giles took a pulse and then exhaled hard.
“He’s alive, barely,” he whispered.
“Help!” Xander’s muffled voice cried out from the car.
The final impact on the roof had nearly crushed them and even now seemed to be on the verge of doing so. Faith and Giles helped Alec off the hood of the car as Spike dug his hands into the machine, and with a roar of rage, tore the ruined metal roof clean off and hurled it away.
“Hulk smash,” Xander commented before he got a good look at Alec, which made him pale.
“Oh man,” he whispered.
Willow pushed her way past him. “Where is he?!” she demanded.
Xander tried to hold her back. “No. Wait! Wills!”
It was no use; she saw him and went rigid. He looked dead, he had to be dead.
“Alec,” she whispered, her voice filled with more pain and grief than Xander had ever heard in anyone’s voice.
Dawn scrambled around to get a better look and began to keen a wail of grief and agony.
“Oh, God. Alec,” Dawn whispered brokenly.
A gunshot cracked loud in the air, followed by another. The group ducked, Giles throwing his body over his son's as Faith and Spike hit the ground and those inside the car tried to huddle for protection.
All except Willow.
She tore her gaze from her mutilated lover and looked up at the window. Several police officers in gas masks were shooting at them. Raising her arms high above her head she began to chant.
“Uh-oh, the witch bitch is pissed,” Spike commented.
A burst of gunfire exploded near him, driving him down and away from Faith. Giles dragged his son back behind the car, seeking whatever meager shelter they could as Anya, Xander, and Dawn dragged Angel out of the car and down to join them.
Suddenly, the humming filled the air again, their fillings began to throb and several tiny shards of twisted metal began to float in the air. Faith was the only one, exposed and out in the open that saw this, saw the look on Willow’s face, a look that chilled her blood because it was so similar to the one she had had at one time.
The face of a killer.
Willow screamed out her rage, her thoughts filled with a pounding conclusion over and over. These men had killed her lover.
The metal fragments screeched up to the window, slicing apart anything and anyone in their path; they moved like they had a mind, seeking out each and every person in that room that wasn’t already dead.
Within moments, ten men were sliced into meat to join the remains of the eight that had already died and the one woman who had sacrificed herself to serve and protect another.
Willow slumped to the seat, unconscious; Faith just gaped in horror at what she had seen, trying to recollect the concept of mass murder with this seemingly gentle girl she had known for years.
“Let’s go!” Anya yelled out, breaking Faith out of her grim reverie.
Hoisting the mortally wounded Angel and Alec into the backseat, everyone attempted to pile into the car. Giles floored the accelerator, and with a screech of tires, he cut the wheel hard, twisting the car around before launching them away from this place of slaughter and torture and deep into the safety of the sheltering night.
“How is he?” Dawn yelled, near hysterical.
Miraculously, amongst all the swollen blood-encrusted skin and broken bones, a single damaged eye opened to regard the group in a blank haze of pain and puzzlement. Spike, perched in the front seat, turned to Alec and smiled, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Cheer up, mate, you’re rescued,” he quipped while lighting a cigarette.
“Alec,” Dawn whispered breathlessly, reaching out to stroke his hair back from his bloody face with a shaking hand, almost afraid that her touch could sever the young man’s tenuous hold on life.
As her hands touched his face, his eye closed gently, his breathing became a bit more steady, the lines of pain and fear smoothed, and within a few moments, he seemed to be resting quietly, if not comfortably.
Xander looked up at the young girl in awe. “How did you…?”
Dawn only shook her head as she gently stroked Alec’s face.
“I have no idea,” Dawn whispered.
“Dawnie’s got a gift,” a tired voice piped up.
Faith, sitting between Spike and Giles in the front, looked up into the rear view mirror to see Willow slowly rise up from the back seat. Keeping her expression carefully guarded, the Slayer instead turned her attention to the front seat as Willow brushed aside the snowy lock of white hair from her face and peered down at her lover.
“He seems to be doing better, but he really needs some patching up,” she whispered grimly.
Anya snorted.
“Yes and I’m sure that any hospital in the tri borough area would be happy to admit a fugitive half-demon,” she commented.
Willow sent her a very dark look as the tension in the car rose dramatically.
“He’s not the only one,” Dawn put in attempting to defuse the situation. “Angel’s shot up pretty badly.”
Spike nodded. “Yeah, looks like the great poof zigged when he should have zagged. Caught a gut-full of high caliber automatic weapon fire.”
Faith slugged him hard on the shoulder, nearly causing him to spill out of the car, his cigarette sent flying out of his mouth to dance across the speeding pavement below and spark flaming into the night.
“Bloody hell!” he roared.
Faith held up a warning finger. “Watch it, blondie,” she growled darkly.
Spike adjusted his jacket and ran a hand through his hair, regaining his cool and removing another cigarette from his jacket; he cupped it with his free to protect it from the whipping wind and lit up.
Faith turned her attention to Angel; he looked bad… again, it seemed like he’d just recovered from his ordeal in the Deadlands, now this happened.
What was it about heroes and copious amounts of injury?
Willow cradled Alec’s head in her lap, gently stroking the wounds on his face.
“Animals,” she whispered quietly, her voice full of black hatred.
Dawn looked up at her and shook her head.
“Victims,” the younger girl corrected, guessing who the witch was referring to. “Corrupted by the Fleshdancer. I don’t think they knew what they were doing.”
Willow looked up at her, her expression murderous.
“I don’t care,” she commented simply, chillingly.
Dawn swallowed and gripped Alec’s hand tightly. Her fear was washed away in a wave of quiet happiness when she felt his hand reflexively grip her tiny hand. She squeezed back just as tightly, blinking back tears. He was alive and that was all that mattered.
She could almost feel him; feel his life in his body. It was like a tiny spark surrounded by darkness. Dawn ran her fingers gently over his, touching him gently, lightly tracing the outline of a bad bruise. She could sense the damage, down to the cells and then beyond that, down to his soul.
Focusing slightly, she felt something inside her, her love for him, the way she felt, push forward out of her, just a little. The damaged skin of his hand began to smooth and within moments the bruise had faded. Dawn shivered in delight; for a moment, she and Alec were almost like one person.
The smile froze when she sensed that darkness surrounding his spark begin to stir and begin to stalk her, chasing her out of his body. She had a brief flash of a terrible and evil mind, vast and vicious. Then she tore her hand away with a gasp.
Willow looked up at her confused. “What is it?” she asked worriedly.
Dawn merely shook her head. “It’s nothing, hand cramp,” she lied.
Willow, too preoccupied with her lover’s condition, merely nodded.
Dawn examined her hand. It was bone white, just as if it had suffered severe frostbite, the fingers were stiff, the skin felt frigid. Cradling her wounded hand she settled back against the seat to stare into the dark.
Spike, watching from the rear view mirror, observed Dawn rubbing her hand and the condition it was in. He slowly shifted his gaze to Alec’s bloody and unconscious form. There was more than simple darkness within his friend.
There was evil.
Pure.
Hungry.
And all too real
God help us all, we band of buggered.
“His wounds are quite severe, but I believe with constant attention, some magic, and also time, he will recover partially,” DeGanon informed them.
The rescuers had made their way back to the sewer lair.
Giles frowned. “What do you mean, ‘partially’?”
Faith and the others, sans Angel who was also resting from his ordeal, looked also concerned.
“Let me show you,” DeGanon whispered, gesturing.
Leading the group into the make-shift infirmary, they passed Angel, who had had to have every bullet extracted from him and then the wounds bandaged, past Buffy, who lay resting, her bandages no longer leaking blood, to Alec.
Alec looked the worst. There wasn’t a square inch of his flesh that wasn’t stitched, bandaged or wrapped in gauze. Willow merely shook her head at the sight, grief and rage making her sick.
Dawn, however, remained troubled by what she had felt inside him, though she too was obviously affected. Willow leaned over to place a kiss on Alec’s head as DeGanon gently turned him over. Gently peeling back a bandage he gestured to a patch of skin at the base of his spine, spanning roughly one hand in size, completely smooth and almost glassy in texture.
“This is the mark of the Fleshdancer.”
Faith frowned. “You mean this guy put his hand inside his body…”
“…And fused his spine. He will never walk again,” DeGanon informed them grimly.
A loud crash jerked their attention away; Spike had kicked over a table in rage. Willow had tears in her eyes and Dawn was not far behind. Faith just shook her head in dismay.
“Oh man,” she whispered, remembering their sparring, how much he’d enjoyed it, how much he loved fighting against the evil.
And now he’d never walk again.
Giles sat down, aghast, and just shook his head over and over. DeGanon reapplied the bandage and laid the unconscious man back down.
“His other wounds are quite serious: he’s been shot, several bones in his face have been broken, one of his eyes has been ruptured, several ribs are broken as well, several more are cracked, so are bones in his arms and legs,” DeGanon concluded, looking at the sleeping man. “He was obviously tortured in addition to whatever happened beforehand.”
“I’m going to kill them!” Spike roared. “I’m going to go back to that police station and I’m not leaving till every single stinking person in there is a corpse.”
“Want some help?” Willow asked quietly, her eyes dark.
Dawn stepped in. “That’s enough,” she scolded.
“Mass slaughter isn’t going to solve anything and it’s certainly not what Alec would want,” she put in.
Wanna bet? Spike thought to himself as he scowled at her darkly and Willow merely turned her attention back to her lover.
“Hey D,” Faith chimed.
Dawn turned to her, ready for another argument. She was angry at what had happened to Alec, furious in fact, but she could not condone butchering people like cattle.
“Yeah?” she asked, lip stuck out defiantly.
“You’re right.”
Dawn’s defiance slipped. “Oh… okay,” she replied awkwardly.
Faith smiled at her. “Alec would be proud of you.”
Dawn blushed all the way to the roots of her hair; Willow smiled slightly, attempting to shake off her dark mood.
“She’s right. Alec’s a warrior, not a killer,” she told Dawn, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Spike sent them an unreadable look.
Giles stood up. “How long did Daenna say that they will be unconscious?” he asked.
DeGanon, his expression carefully guarded, chose his words just as carefully.
“Unfortunately, Daenna has gone missing, none of the tribe have seen her since the incident earlier,” he informed them calmly.
Spike’s eyes narrowed.
“Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the fact that she was the only one of the tribe that knew you had a Dahaka on your hands, would it mate?” he asked.
Slowly, all the eyes in the room fixed on DeGanon, who merely crossed his arms.
“I assure you, every effort is being made to find her and bring her home,” the gypsy chieftain replied coolly.
“Yeah, well, I have a sneaky suspicion that’s not going to work out too well,” Spike replied.
Stalking over to the bed, he dragged a chair between Alec and Buffy’s beds and sat down.
“What are you doing?” DeGanon hissed.
Spike looked up him casually.
“Making sure none of the other people who know about that flesh freak turn up missing,” he replied.
DeGanon’s dark features darkened further as he strode over to the chair to loom over the vampire.
“Are you implying-?”
“I wouldn’t call it an ‘implication’, mate,” Spike replied.
DeGanon moved his hands to the hilts of his kukri.
And stopped dead as the seated Spike produced a butterfly knife and, with a deft wrist movement, rested the tip of the blade lightly against the standing gypsy’s groin.
“Careful, mate, a flick of my wrist and I can put an end to your ham eating days,” he warned darkly.
DeGanon slowly moved his hands away from his weapons and regarded the vampire with raw anger.
Spike coolly refolded the knife and pocketed it.
“Your day will come, shimulo,” he warned darkly.
Spike smiled wryly. “Tougher men than you have said that, mate, think you’ll die as easily as they did,” he replied.
Flushed with anger, the gypsy stalked away muttering in Romani.
“Was that wise, Spike?” Giles asked. “Alienating our host can only result in confrontations later.”
Spike gestured with a finger at the departing gypsy.
“I don’t trust that bloke. You heard what he said - his ultimate loyalty is to the tribe and his master is Dracula. Put those two together and you get the fixings of a fanatic and the problem with a fanatic is that you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly stupid,” he commented.
“I know I’ve heard that line somewhere before,” Faith replied.
Spike nodded. “Yeah, works just as well for honest people.”
“I’ll take second watch,” Giles put in grimly.
“I got third,” Faith replied.
“I’ll stay for all of them as best I can,” Willow added. “If he comes at us with gypsy magic, you’ll need me.”
If he comes at us at all, they’ll be scraping what’s left of him off the ceiling, Faith thought darkly, the grisly results of the witch’s murderous prowess springing vividly to mind.
Dawn looked concerned.
“Are you sure, Wills? You haven’t been sleeping much,” she asked worried.
Willow nodded, her hair falling into her face.
“I’ll be okay,” she inhaled. “I’m a Rosenberg, we’re a tough breed.”
“All right then. Giles, Dawn, and I will get some Z’s, the rest of you keep your eyes open, your ears pricked…” Faith began.
Spike looked up and grinned at this, Faith shot him a wry look.
“I said EARS pricked, not the other way around.”
Willow giggled and Spike made a big show of ‘misunderstanding’.
Dawn frowned. “Okay, you lost me.”
Faith patted her shoulder. “It’s a play on words, I’ll explain later,” she assured the younger girl.
The dark-haired Slayer then turned to Willow.
“Go see if you can rouse Xander and Anya, maybe we can divvy up guard duty a bit more proportionately.”
Willow nodded. “On it.”
Faith sighed. “All right then, troops, you’ve got your assignments, let’s remain five by five and take care of our people.”
“What is it with this family and people barking out orders?” Spike demanded.
Giles chuckled quietly and rested a hand on his son's head.
“We have within us great strength, a quality trait in those who would become leaders of men,” he replied softly before leaning down and gently placing a kiss upon his sons head. “Rest up, son, you’re needed.”
“Damn straight,” Spike commented raising his now near-empty flask in toast to the sentiment.
Willow took up watch near the door, Spike near the beds; the others began to file out. Only Dawn remained, and she gently leaned over Alec and whispered in his ear.
“You’re needed,” she told him, her heart in her voice before moving away.
Willow looked up at her. “What did you tell him?” she asked.
Dawn looked embarrassed and laughed a little.
“Oh, nothing. Just wanted to wish him pleasant dreams,” she tried to mention lightly.
Willow nodded as Dawn left, wondering whether or not Dawn’s ability to fabricate a lie on demand would get better with more practice.
DeGanon cursed himself over and over as he stalked through the corridors of his domain. It hadn’t been enough to murder the old woman who had understood exactly what her fate would be once she learned of the Dahaka; hence her fleeing into the pipes. She had to die though, and in the end she knew that and had remained oddly passive when DeGanon caught up with her and held her head under the surface of a pool of raw sewage until she had stopped thrashing and the currents took her body away.
Her death was necessary to keep panic from sweeping through the kumpania, but now the cursed Slayer and her family were beginning to get suspicious. He wiped at his face with a white linen handkerchief and cursed in Romani. None of them knew how dangerous the Dahaka was, to the world and to the tribe. And, most of all, to him.
Wringing the handkerchief in worried agony, he frowned when it began to take on an odd texture. He looked down… and gasped in shock and horror.
The handkerchief was stained with blood, almost black. Racing to a pool of water framed by a nest of rusted pipes, he peered into the murky water.
There was no wound. DeGanon frowned in disbelief, staring at the bloody rag in his hands. Hurriedly, he threw the rag in the water, and immediately the dark water became red and thick, viscous and gory. The gypsy peered into the pool in shock, then screamed as a bone-white hand burst from the surface and grabbed at his shirt, trying to drag him into the pool.
Daenna’s face rose from the blood like a ghost, her expression twisted in rage as she clawed at her murderer. Twisting out of her grasp, he tore his kukri from his belt and with a single slash decapitated her. The head bounced and rolled across the wet stone floor. The rest of the body sank back underneath the red water and was no more.
Cautiously, DeGanon approached the severed head, which remained very real. Picking it up by the hair, he turned it to face him. The eyes shot open, a horrible milky white, and the mouth hissed at him.
“Dahaka, the sins of the Spaarti have returned! Your sin, DeGanon! Your sin!”
With a roar of rage and fear, DeGanon hurled the head high in the air; it sailed up and away and came to rest in a large pool of black water, quickly sinking into its depths.
But as it flew, the voice repeated its black mantra.
“Your sin.”
DeGanon, shaking and terrified, crossed himself. This was prikasa, bad luck, a sign of dark things to come. And dark things already arrived.
DeGanon watched as the last bubbles from the pool stilled and were no more.
(To be continued in chapter 8)