Of Those Chosen: The Twins - Chapter 17
Well, I thought this was going to take until at least tomorrow night -- but I got some serious good news tonight, and the good mood put me in the mood to write... Which, really, is interesting, as there is not a real wealth of good news that comes to light in this chapter. Oh, well. Such is life, no?
Next chapter is the climax, folks, and then it's just a little bit more until we wrap up The Twins. I have a couple other bunnies hopping around in my head, but I think that I'm just going to go ahead and write the next installation of the Of Those Chosen series as my next project. This one has been pretty big -- it's over 150 pages already -- and the next one will be just as big, but it's been a blast to write. To whet your appetite for it, I guess I'll tell you the current working title: The Dreamless. I think you'll like where it goes.
Previous chapters are signing a petition to outlaw all Christmas music played before December 1st, even though HJ doesn't much care one way or another.
Chapter Seventeen
Engagement
Willow sat alone in her office. There wasn't a whole lot of choice on the matter of company, though; she had several books open in front of her on the desk, along with her laptop, the thirty-inch widescreen HD monitor for her G5, and the Slayer's Scythe. The floor was covered with books, loose-leaf sheets of paper she made notes on and then discarded, and more books. Quite simply, there was no room for anyone else, not without serious rearrangement.
She worked on the problem of locating the new Slayers whenever she had free time. Not that she ever made any progress.
She studied different forms of locator spells, different ways to combine the essence of human and demon to increase strength, and anything else she could possibly think of that might deal with the creation and make-up of Slayers. Maybe if she understood them better, she would have an easier time finding them. Maybe.
Her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, and grinned. A nice distraction from the frustrations of the spells, she thought. She flipped the cell open and answered, "Hey, Xander. What's up?"
"Katharine's gone after Cole, the vamp who got Audrey," Xander said. Willow jerked up straight in her seat. "She's got ten, maybe fifteen minutes on us. Need you to get one of your locator spells ready for us, we'll be over as soon as we can."
"What? How'd she--"
"No time, Will," Xander cut her off. "Just get the spell ready."
"No problem, I'm right on it," Willow said. She had all the necessary supplies in the basement. "Don’t forget to bring something of hers."
"Already got it. See you soon." Xander hung up, and Willow did the same.
:#:
Xander wanted to force his way into the office, but Willow quickly nixed that idea. As she cast the locator spell, Giles called the two groups out on patrol from the living room, and everyone else pressed themselves as tightly as possible into the doorway to the office.
"Found her," Willow said.
Xander tried to push forward into the office. Willow thrust up a hand. "Stay back, Xander!" she shouted. "I swear, I'm gonna... turn you into a newt!"
"He'll get better," Giles called out. Everyone in the doorway turned and looked at Giles, who shrugged and turned his back on them to concentrate on the phone.
Willow not-so-subtly cleared her throat, and they turned back to her. "Okay, she's just getting to the warehouse district now. Assuming she has no idea we're onto her, she'll probably take her time to find the place and get in, so if we're lucky we should be able to catch up to her before she gets into trouble."
"If we're lucky," Xander said. His voice made it clear this was a luxury he doubted they'd have.
"Closest group is over forty-five minutes away," Giles said, "and appreciated my Monty Python knowledge far more than you ungrateful louts did."
"Unless you've got a Holy Hand Grenade, Giles, I don’t really give a rat's ass about Monty Python," Xander snapped.
Willow reached out and grabbed her desk for support; she felt like her world was coming unglued. Giles was making jokes to relieve tension during a crisis, and Xander was snipping at him for it.
Xander took a deep breath. "Sorry, Giles. That was out of line." Giles graciously nodded his acceptance of the apology. "All right, we're the closest, so we're going after her. We'll get weapons and I'll drive." The Slayers all nodded. "Giles, if you could hit the books, see if you can find anything on those two vamps Katharine mentioned, that would be great. Willow, keep on that locator spell and give us directions on the fly, I want to be en route before she finds what she's looking for. Robin--"
"I'm going with you," Robin said.
"Into the field with the Slayers?" Xander said. "Thought that was against the rules."
Robin shook his head. "I got your back, Harris. If you thought it was gonna be any other way, I guess you don't know me at all."
Xander grinned. "Thanks," he said, and shook hands with Robin.
"Oh my God, they're totally gonna make out," Rona said. "Janet, quick, dollar bills!"
Everyone laughed, except Robin and Xander, who both looked embarrassed. Janet said, "Harris, man, you steal Faith's boyfriend and she's gonna be pissed off!"
Xander glared at Janet. "Come on, joker, let's go," he said, and pushed past everyone. "Call when you got something, Will."
"Faith!" Willow said. Faith stopped, and Willow grabbed the Scythe from her desk and tossed it to her. Faith caught it easily, and Willow could see her posture change as the power flowed into her. "Get one for me."
Faith saluted with the Scythe's blade. "You got it, Red."
:#:
"No swords, no knives," Xander said as his Slayers lead the way down to the basement. "Just stakes and crossbows. If it can't kill a vamp, leave it."
Rona opened the weapons closet and started handing back crossbows to everyone else.
"Take two each," Robin said. "Once we're in there, I doubt we'll have much time to reload."
Rona passed the last crossbows out and closed the door. All five of them wore two crossbows slung over their shoulders, one over the right and one over the left, and a belt of stakes. "Let's move," she said.
"We'll take my truck," Xander said as they ran up the stairs. "Slayers in the bed so we can get out faster."
:#:
Willow watched as the dot on the map moved around: Katharine was still driving. She had the letter Katharine wrote Xander with her, and she moved back and forth between the two.
Giles stared at the letter in his hands, the one Katharine wrote him. Willow wondered about that, why she would write a letter to Giles. Perhaps it was because he was her sister's Watcher, but she really didn't know.
It troubled her that these girls were Slayers because of a spell she cast, but she barely knew anything about them -- or any of the newer Slayers, really, with the obvious exception of Kennedy. She knew their names, basic facts like age and city of birth, but her knowledge was clinical, factual, not personal. She kept her distance from the Slayers.
Fact was, seeing them made her feel guilty. It was her fault there were so many of them around in the world, unfound, probably frightened and confused because of the newfound strength and dreams in their lives. It was her fault she couldn't find them.
The dot still moved on the map at driving speed.
"Shouldn't you be researching?" she asked Giles. "Doing your book thing, looking for those vamps?"
Giles sighed. "We have no such books, Willow," he said softly. "All the research on existing vampires is either in the private collections of retired Watchers -- pompous prats like Windham-Price whom I have no intention of allowing near a Slayer, ever -- or spread with the ashes of the Council headquarters itself."
"You're pretty protective of the girls, aren't you?"
Giles hesitated before he answered. "I suppose I am." He folded up the letter and stared at the small rectangle in his hands. "It reads like a suicide note," he whispered.
"I don't think she meant for us to find these tonight," Willow said. "So of course it's going to read that way. She doesn't need a letter when she comes back early this morning before we wake up."
Giles nodded and removed his glasses. "Of course," he said. Willow could tell he wasn't convinced. She wondered what his letter said that Xander's didn't.
She looked down at the map; the dot had stopped at the outside edge of a warehouse perimeter, and settled down to indicate she had stopped for a few minutes.
"Giles, phone! She's stopped!"
:#:
Katharine turned off her car and looked at the warehouse through the fence. The gate was open, which seemed strange to her. The warehouse was not very close to the water, which probably meant it wasn't worth too much, and appeared to be somewhat rusted and worn down. The large bay doors went all the way down to the ground level instead of having a raised platform to load a trailer. The windows near the top of the building were boarded shut or painted black.
She knew this was the building from her dream. Slayer instinct, finally kicking in for her. About time, she felt.
She got out of the car. The open gate was too obvious an invitation; she planned to jump the fence where the lighting was dimmest and approach the warehouse from the side. She stuffed her knife and two stakes into her belt. She remembered Faith's lessons, how a knife was virtually useless when fighting vampires and actually a liability because the vampire could use it to kill a Slayer, but she didn't care. She felt more comfortable with the knife.
She hid her keys in the wheel well of the car -- she didn't care for the weapons advice of her Senior Slayer, but she agreed with the bit about needless items making noise -- and easily scaled the fence, despite barbed wire.
Time to go to work.
:#:
Robin navigated as Xander drove his truck as fast as he could without risking a speeding ticket. The three Slayers sat in the truck bed, faces grim as the wind blew their hair. They were all ready to fight.
Xander's cell phone rang. He grabbed it from the center console and quickly snapped it open. "Xander."
"She stopped," Willow said. "She's--"
"Hold on, tell Robin," Xander said. He handed the phone to Robin.
"Uh-huh," Robin said. He listened for a moment, then made a quick circle on his map with a pen. "Stopped just inside the north edge of the warehouse, by the bay doors. Got it. We're about three minutes out. Uh-huh."
Robin held the phone up to Xander's ear. "Bring her back, Xander," Willow said.
"Will do, Will," Xander said. Robin rolled his eyes and took the phone away.
They drove for a few minutes, and then the warehouse came into view down the street. Xander stopped the truck and looked at it for a moment.
"That the north bay doors Willow mentioned?" he asked.
"That's them," Robin said.
Xander nodded. "Open up that back window and get Faith -- change of plans."
:#:
Katharine could feel the vampires around her, even though she couldn't see them. She eased her stake from her belt as she crept through the maze-like floor of the warehouse. She was pretty sure, almost positive, that the vamps knew she was there -- the only reason for her not to see any so far was because they were hiding, and the only reason to hide was because they had a plan which called for her to go deeper into the warehouse.
All of which made no difference to her. She was going to go on no matter what; besides, she figured the easiest way to deal with a trap was to spring it and then wreck it.
The light inside the warehouse was very dim, barely enough for her to see by. Another disadvantage for her, she noted, which just further convinced her that they were waiting for her. She shrugged off her worries and concerns and continued through the warehouse warily, all her senses open and her reflexes completely on edge. She stopped thinking about an attack and let her Slayer instinct take over, ready for a fight, ready for whatever they had planned.
She turned a corner and saw Audrey, ten feet away, slumped in a chair. Her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, and her hands were behind her back. Her head lolled onto her right shoulder. Her hair spilled over her face and neck and shoulders. Her throat was cut, and blood stained her shirt and the floor around her.
Katharine stood there for almost a minute and just stared at her sister's body.
This wasn't what she expected, not at all. Of all the scenarios she played out in her head, everything she prepared for -- a risen vampire, a vicious battle against a demon with her sister's face, fighting against the vampires who took Audrey -- she never gave thought to finding Audrey murdered. It made no sense; why take her just to kill her? Was it Katharine they were after, and her sister was just bait?
She walked up to Audrey, slowly, and put her stake back in her belt.
"Audrey," Katharine whispered. She reached out and gently brushed her sister's hair away from her face, felt the cold skin of her temple. It all hit her then: her sister was dead, gone, for real this time. There was no sudden spell or miracle to save her. Katharine realized she expected that, to some extent, that after Audrey's accident a year ago and the Slayer spell which healed her, she expected her sister to survive again. But here she was, in front of her, dead and cold. Audrey wasn't going to survive; it was already too late for that. Time was up.
Katharine put her hands on Audrey's face and kissed her softly on the forehead. She tried to hold back tears, but they came anyway; she fought for control, held on to it, but barely.
"God, Audrey," she whispered. She pulled Audrey close against her chest and neck, and held her tightly. "I'm so sorry! I had a dream last night, I should have come for you then, not now, I'm so sorry I waited! I just, I don't know, God, I just wanted you to be safe and I thought you'd get out of it somehow like you did with the accident! And now you're dead, and I had that Slayer dream and I just ignored it and I'm the worst Slayer ever and I'm such a horrible sister--"
Audrey snickered.
Katharine let go and jumped back as Audrey looked up at her and laughed. Her sister was dead, she felt it, but she stood up and pulled her hands from behind the chair -- slip knots. Audrey stepped away from the chair, and Katharine took another step back.
"Audrey--"
"I'm so sorry!" Audrey mocked. Her voice was raspy, not at all like how she sounded when she was alive.
Katharine felt her control slip even further; she barely held on as she watched her sister laugh and rub her neck.
"You really a horrible sister, you know," Audrey said. "Pathetic. And as a Slayer--"
Katharine felt someone grab her knife from her belt, from behind her, and before she could react Cole stepped to her left side and slashed that hamstring--
"--you're definitely the worst ever."
The knife cut deep, and Katharine fell as her hamstring was severed. Audrey rushed forward and grabbed her by the jaw; her hand squeezed hard, and Katharine felt the bone close to breaking.
"The 'I had a dream' bit was touching, though, if a bit trite," Audrey said, and shoved her face-down into the cement floor. Katharine collapsed, helpless, as she lost control and sobbed, powerless to do anything against her sister.
Cole walked over to the chair and picked up some of the rope. He turned to Audrey and grinned. "So. Now what?" he asked.
"We got company!" Donner yelled from above.
Cole looked up at the overhead catwalk where Donner stood. "What is it?" he said.
"Three girls just jumped out of the back of a truck and passed the gate," Donner said. "Faith Covington, Janet Unger, and Rona Davies. The Slayer's got backup."
Cole glanced over at Katharine; the Slayer was on the floor, face-down where Audrey threw her, crying. She was out for the fight, he could tell. Audrey's ruse had worked, and completely broken her sister. Quite an interesting find.
"No Watcher?" Cole asked Donner.
"Probably in the truck," Donner said.
"Incoming!" another vampire shouted from the floor, behind Cole. He turned and saw the vampire running as fast as he could from the big bay door near them--
And then Harris's big truck plowed through the bay door and into the warehouse, ran into several of the massive stacks of boxes and pallets and other assorted storage units. Cole was once again impressed by Harris's ability to create chaos and confusion, even as he dodged falling debris and sharp, broken wood.
-:-
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Next chapter is the climax, folks, and then it's just a little bit more until we wrap up The Twins. I have a couple other bunnies hopping around in my head, but I think that I'm just going to go ahead and write the next installation of the Of Those Chosen series as my next project. This one has been pretty big -- it's over 150 pages already -- and the next one will be just as big, but it's been a blast to write. To whet your appetite for it, I guess I'll tell you the current working title: The Dreamless. I think you'll like where it goes.
Previous chapters are signing a petition to outlaw all Christmas music played before December 1st, even though HJ doesn't much care one way or another.
Chapter Seventeen
Engagement
Willow sat alone in her office. There wasn't a whole lot of choice on the matter of company, though; she had several books open in front of her on the desk, along with her laptop, the thirty-inch widescreen HD monitor for her G5, and the Slayer's Scythe. The floor was covered with books, loose-leaf sheets of paper she made notes on and then discarded, and more books. Quite simply, there was no room for anyone else, not without serious rearrangement.
She worked on the problem of locating the new Slayers whenever she had free time. Not that she ever made any progress.
She studied different forms of locator spells, different ways to combine the essence of human and demon to increase strength, and anything else she could possibly think of that might deal with the creation and make-up of Slayers. Maybe if she understood them better, she would have an easier time finding them. Maybe.
Her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, and grinned. A nice distraction from the frustrations of the spells, she thought. She flipped the cell open and answered, "Hey, Xander. What's up?"
"Katharine's gone after Cole, the vamp who got Audrey," Xander said. Willow jerked up straight in her seat. "She's got ten, maybe fifteen minutes on us. Need you to get one of your locator spells ready for us, we'll be over as soon as we can."
"What? How'd she--"
"No time, Will," Xander cut her off. "Just get the spell ready."
"No problem, I'm right on it," Willow said. She had all the necessary supplies in the basement. "Don’t forget to bring something of hers."
"Already got it. See you soon." Xander hung up, and Willow did the same.
:#:
Xander wanted to force his way into the office, but Willow quickly nixed that idea. As she cast the locator spell, Giles called the two groups out on patrol from the living room, and everyone else pressed themselves as tightly as possible into the doorway to the office.
"Found her," Willow said.
Xander tried to push forward into the office. Willow thrust up a hand. "Stay back, Xander!" she shouted. "I swear, I'm gonna... turn you into a newt!"
"He'll get better," Giles called out. Everyone in the doorway turned and looked at Giles, who shrugged and turned his back on them to concentrate on the phone.
Willow not-so-subtly cleared her throat, and they turned back to her. "Okay, she's just getting to the warehouse district now. Assuming she has no idea we're onto her, she'll probably take her time to find the place and get in, so if we're lucky we should be able to catch up to her before she gets into trouble."
"If we're lucky," Xander said. His voice made it clear this was a luxury he doubted they'd have.
"Closest group is over forty-five minutes away," Giles said, "and appreciated my Monty Python knowledge far more than you ungrateful louts did."
"Unless you've got a Holy Hand Grenade, Giles, I don’t really give a rat's ass about Monty Python," Xander snapped.
Willow reached out and grabbed her desk for support; she felt like her world was coming unglued. Giles was making jokes to relieve tension during a crisis, and Xander was snipping at him for it.
Xander took a deep breath. "Sorry, Giles. That was out of line." Giles graciously nodded his acceptance of the apology. "All right, we're the closest, so we're going after her. We'll get weapons and I'll drive." The Slayers all nodded. "Giles, if you could hit the books, see if you can find anything on those two vamps Katharine mentioned, that would be great. Willow, keep on that locator spell and give us directions on the fly, I want to be en route before she finds what she's looking for. Robin--"
"I'm going with you," Robin said.
"Into the field with the Slayers?" Xander said. "Thought that was against the rules."
Robin shook his head. "I got your back, Harris. If you thought it was gonna be any other way, I guess you don't know me at all."
Xander grinned. "Thanks," he said, and shook hands with Robin.
"Oh my God, they're totally gonna make out," Rona said. "Janet, quick, dollar bills!"
Everyone laughed, except Robin and Xander, who both looked embarrassed. Janet said, "Harris, man, you steal Faith's boyfriend and she's gonna be pissed off!"
Xander glared at Janet. "Come on, joker, let's go," he said, and pushed past everyone. "Call when you got something, Will."
"Faith!" Willow said. Faith stopped, and Willow grabbed the Scythe from her desk and tossed it to her. Faith caught it easily, and Willow could see her posture change as the power flowed into her. "Get one for me."
Faith saluted with the Scythe's blade. "You got it, Red."
:#:
"No swords, no knives," Xander said as his Slayers lead the way down to the basement. "Just stakes and crossbows. If it can't kill a vamp, leave it."
Rona opened the weapons closet and started handing back crossbows to everyone else.
"Take two each," Robin said. "Once we're in there, I doubt we'll have much time to reload."
Rona passed the last crossbows out and closed the door. All five of them wore two crossbows slung over their shoulders, one over the right and one over the left, and a belt of stakes. "Let's move," she said.
"We'll take my truck," Xander said as they ran up the stairs. "Slayers in the bed so we can get out faster."
:#:
Willow watched as the dot on the map moved around: Katharine was still driving. She had the letter Katharine wrote Xander with her, and she moved back and forth between the two.
Giles stared at the letter in his hands, the one Katharine wrote him. Willow wondered about that, why she would write a letter to Giles. Perhaps it was because he was her sister's Watcher, but she really didn't know.
It troubled her that these girls were Slayers because of a spell she cast, but she barely knew anything about them -- or any of the newer Slayers, really, with the obvious exception of Kennedy. She knew their names, basic facts like age and city of birth, but her knowledge was clinical, factual, not personal. She kept her distance from the Slayers.
Fact was, seeing them made her feel guilty. It was her fault there were so many of them around in the world, unfound, probably frightened and confused because of the newfound strength and dreams in their lives. It was her fault she couldn't find them.
The dot still moved on the map at driving speed.
"Shouldn't you be researching?" she asked Giles. "Doing your book thing, looking for those vamps?"
Giles sighed. "We have no such books, Willow," he said softly. "All the research on existing vampires is either in the private collections of retired Watchers -- pompous prats like Windham-Price whom I have no intention of allowing near a Slayer, ever -- or spread with the ashes of the Council headquarters itself."
"You're pretty protective of the girls, aren't you?"
Giles hesitated before he answered. "I suppose I am." He folded up the letter and stared at the small rectangle in his hands. "It reads like a suicide note," he whispered.
"I don't think she meant for us to find these tonight," Willow said. "So of course it's going to read that way. She doesn't need a letter when she comes back early this morning before we wake up."
Giles nodded and removed his glasses. "Of course," he said. Willow could tell he wasn't convinced. She wondered what his letter said that Xander's didn't.
She looked down at the map; the dot had stopped at the outside edge of a warehouse perimeter, and settled down to indicate she had stopped for a few minutes.
"Giles, phone! She's stopped!"
:#:
Katharine turned off her car and looked at the warehouse through the fence. The gate was open, which seemed strange to her. The warehouse was not very close to the water, which probably meant it wasn't worth too much, and appeared to be somewhat rusted and worn down. The large bay doors went all the way down to the ground level instead of having a raised platform to load a trailer. The windows near the top of the building were boarded shut or painted black.
She knew this was the building from her dream. Slayer instinct, finally kicking in for her. About time, she felt.
She got out of the car. The open gate was too obvious an invitation; she planned to jump the fence where the lighting was dimmest and approach the warehouse from the side. She stuffed her knife and two stakes into her belt. She remembered Faith's lessons, how a knife was virtually useless when fighting vampires and actually a liability because the vampire could use it to kill a Slayer, but she didn't care. She felt more comfortable with the knife.
She hid her keys in the wheel well of the car -- she didn't care for the weapons advice of her Senior Slayer, but she agreed with the bit about needless items making noise -- and easily scaled the fence, despite barbed wire.
Time to go to work.
:#:
Robin navigated as Xander drove his truck as fast as he could without risking a speeding ticket. The three Slayers sat in the truck bed, faces grim as the wind blew their hair. They were all ready to fight.
Xander's cell phone rang. He grabbed it from the center console and quickly snapped it open. "Xander."
"She stopped," Willow said. "She's--"
"Hold on, tell Robin," Xander said. He handed the phone to Robin.
"Uh-huh," Robin said. He listened for a moment, then made a quick circle on his map with a pen. "Stopped just inside the north edge of the warehouse, by the bay doors. Got it. We're about three minutes out. Uh-huh."
Robin held the phone up to Xander's ear. "Bring her back, Xander," Willow said.
"Will do, Will," Xander said. Robin rolled his eyes and took the phone away.
They drove for a few minutes, and then the warehouse came into view down the street. Xander stopped the truck and looked at it for a moment.
"That the north bay doors Willow mentioned?" he asked.
"That's them," Robin said.
Xander nodded. "Open up that back window and get Faith -- change of plans."
:#:
Katharine could feel the vampires around her, even though she couldn't see them. She eased her stake from her belt as she crept through the maze-like floor of the warehouse. She was pretty sure, almost positive, that the vamps knew she was there -- the only reason for her not to see any so far was because they were hiding, and the only reason to hide was because they had a plan which called for her to go deeper into the warehouse.
All of which made no difference to her. She was going to go on no matter what; besides, she figured the easiest way to deal with a trap was to spring it and then wreck it.
The light inside the warehouse was very dim, barely enough for her to see by. Another disadvantage for her, she noted, which just further convinced her that they were waiting for her. She shrugged off her worries and concerns and continued through the warehouse warily, all her senses open and her reflexes completely on edge. She stopped thinking about an attack and let her Slayer instinct take over, ready for a fight, ready for whatever they had planned.
She turned a corner and saw Audrey, ten feet away, slumped in a chair. Her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, and her hands were behind her back. Her head lolled onto her right shoulder. Her hair spilled over her face and neck and shoulders. Her throat was cut, and blood stained her shirt and the floor around her.
Katharine stood there for almost a minute and just stared at her sister's body.
This wasn't what she expected, not at all. Of all the scenarios she played out in her head, everything she prepared for -- a risen vampire, a vicious battle against a demon with her sister's face, fighting against the vampires who took Audrey -- she never gave thought to finding Audrey murdered. It made no sense; why take her just to kill her? Was it Katharine they were after, and her sister was just bait?
She walked up to Audrey, slowly, and put her stake back in her belt.
"Audrey," Katharine whispered. She reached out and gently brushed her sister's hair away from her face, felt the cold skin of her temple. It all hit her then: her sister was dead, gone, for real this time. There was no sudden spell or miracle to save her. Katharine realized she expected that, to some extent, that after Audrey's accident a year ago and the Slayer spell which healed her, she expected her sister to survive again. But here she was, in front of her, dead and cold. Audrey wasn't going to survive; it was already too late for that. Time was up.
Katharine put her hands on Audrey's face and kissed her softly on the forehead. She tried to hold back tears, but they came anyway; she fought for control, held on to it, but barely.
"God, Audrey," she whispered. She pulled Audrey close against her chest and neck, and held her tightly. "I'm so sorry! I had a dream last night, I should have come for you then, not now, I'm so sorry I waited! I just, I don't know, God, I just wanted you to be safe and I thought you'd get out of it somehow like you did with the accident! And now you're dead, and I had that Slayer dream and I just ignored it and I'm the worst Slayer ever and I'm such a horrible sister--"
Audrey snickered.
Katharine let go and jumped back as Audrey looked up at her and laughed. Her sister was dead, she felt it, but she stood up and pulled her hands from behind the chair -- slip knots. Audrey stepped away from the chair, and Katharine took another step back.
"Audrey--"
"I'm so sorry!" Audrey mocked. Her voice was raspy, not at all like how she sounded when she was alive.
Katharine felt her control slip even further; she barely held on as she watched her sister laugh and rub her neck.
"You really a horrible sister, you know," Audrey said. "Pathetic. And as a Slayer--"
Katharine felt someone grab her knife from her belt, from behind her, and before she could react Cole stepped to her left side and slashed that hamstring--
"--you're definitely the worst ever."
The knife cut deep, and Katharine fell as her hamstring was severed. Audrey rushed forward and grabbed her by the jaw; her hand squeezed hard, and Katharine felt the bone close to breaking.
"The 'I had a dream' bit was touching, though, if a bit trite," Audrey said, and shoved her face-down into the cement floor. Katharine collapsed, helpless, as she lost control and sobbed, powerless to do anything against her sister.
Cole walked over to the chair and picked up some of the rope. He turned to Audrey and grinned. "So. Now what?" he asked.
"We got company!" Donner yelled from above.
Cole looked up at the overhead catwalk where Donner stood. "What is it?" he said.
"Three girls just jumped out of the back of a truck and passed the gate," Donner said. "Faith Covington, Janet Unger, and Rona Davies. The Slayer's got backup."
Cole glanced over at Katharine; the Slayer was on the floor, face-down where Audrey threw her, crying. She was out for the fight, he could tell. Audrey's ruse had worked, and completely broken her sister. Quite an interesting find.
"No Watcher?" Cole asked Donner.
"Probably in the truck," Donner said.
"Incoming!" another vampire shouted from the floor, behind Cole. He turned and saw the vampire running as fast as he could from the big bay door near them--
And then Harris's big truck plowed through the bay door and into the warehouse, ran into several of the massive stacks of boxes and pallets and other assorted storage units. Cole was once again impressed by Harris's ability to create chaos and confusion, even as he dodged falling debris and sharp, broken wood.
-:-
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