Of Those Chosen: The Twins - Chapter 18
Only one more chapter to go, and this is done.
What a crazy thought. I started this story before I started this Live Journal, even. It'll be strange not having The Twins as my big WIP, but I'll still have two more stories' worth of travels in this post-Chosen universe to keep me company. I'm really interested to see your reactions to both this chapter and the next one; I'm curious if any of you (other than littlefeltfangs, who knows pretty much the entire story, for months now; yay for bouncing ideas off others!) saw where I'm taking it. I'm a big fan of intentional foreshadowing, I've tried to be subtle.
Previous chapters have cancer on a deserted island somewhere between Antarctica and the North Pole.
Chapter Eighteen
The Fires Off Lake Erie
Faith, Rona, and Janet ran through the gate at a full sprint. Xander's plan -- to get in and create confusion by crashing the truck into the bay door -- was insane, but no one could think of any better way to take the attack to the vampires. His calm, detached reassurance, "The truck has airbags," wasn't very reassuring.
"Follow the truck straight in, hard and fast," Faith told the other Slayers as they ran. "I'll go high, see if I can spot either of our girls and maybe get them out, and play sniper if possible."
Janet and Rona just saved their breath and ran.
:#:
Xander had heard that an airbag's impact could be quite painful. Like most everything, though, he found that it was relative. One a scale of one to ten -- with ten being punched in the face by a Slayer, and one being kissed in the face by a Slayer -- he rated it about a four. Certainly not anywhere near as painful as being hit by a vampire, or even a padded sparring session with one of his Slayers.
Which was not to say that he wouldn't have a nice black eye or two the next day.
The airbags deflated, and he looked over at Robin. He looked just as stunned as Xander felt, but ultimately fine.
"That sure put a roller coaster to shame," Xander said.
Robin rolled his eyes and unbuckled his seatbelt -- and a vampire opened the car door and grabbed him by the shirt. The vamp turned and threw Robin out of the car and then jerked forward. Xander saw a crossbow bolt in its back before it exploded to dust.
Xander unbuckled his seatbelt and quickly reached around to the back seat, where Robin stowed the crossbows before the crash. He grabbed one and spun around just as the driver's side door was yanked open by another vampire.
Xander fired as the door opened, but the bolt struck the vampire in the left shoulder. The vamp's arm fell limp, and it snarled in pain. Xander grabbed a stake from his belt as the vamp reached inside the cab and grabbed him by the shirt, just as the other vamp did to Robin. It yanked him out of the truck, and Xander used his momentum to drive his stake home into the vamp's unprotected left side. The vampire screeched and turned to dust, but Xander still went flying several feet before he crashed awkwardly to the ground and rolled.
He rose quickly to his knees and saw that he was at the feet of a plainly-dressed young man with shaggy, fashionably-tousled dark hair. He looked to be about Xander's age, maybe an inch taller but of a much slighter build. He looked down at Xander calmly, with a slight smile on his face.
"Xander Harris," he said. His voice was soft and not very deep, but strong all the same. A dangerous voice, Xander realized immediately. "We'll avoid the dropping in puns, yes? I'm Cole."
Xander stiffened. He stayed low, on his knees but with his feet tucked back so he was in more of a defensive crouch than a supplicate position. He looked around the vampire, saw Audrey standing behind him and slightly off to the side, her throat slit and obviously risen as a vampire, and Katharine on the ground behind her, bleeding and sobbing.
"Katharine!" he said. She didn't move or respond.
"She's been fairly unresponsive since just after she got here," Cole said. "Perhaps she's just not cut out for all of this; not like you, of course."
Xander sprung up with no warning, his stake in hand and pointed right at Cole's heart. The vampire stepped to the side easily and drove his elbow into Xander's fist; Xander cried out and dropped the stake, and cradled his right hand in his left.
Cole sighed, as if the attack was nothing more than an inconvenience. "I've been watching you for weeks, now," he said. Xander surreptitiously flexed his hand; his fingers were badly bruised, but he didn't think anything was broken. "And I'm a bit fascinated with you, to be honest. That last ill-advised attempt on my un-life aside, you're quite unpredictable. The thing with the flare guns, that was just inspired genius."
"I'm flattered," Xander said, "but despite what you might've read on bathroom stalls to the contrary, I'm straight."
Cole laughed. "I'm not hitting on you, trust me." He paused. "I don't come off as defensive, do I? It's not that I have a problem with homosexuality, it's just not for me."
"Oh, I understand," Xander said. "I feel about the same way."
"That's good." Cole nodded. "One tries to be as even-minded about things like that as possible, you know." He sounded truly concerned about how Xander perceived him.
Xander felt uncomfortable, but realized that stalling was the best tactic he had now, and Cole seemed keen to talk. "Uh, yeah. You're definitely all enlightened." Xander indicated their surroundings. "Warehouse full of potential stakes, seems like a bad place for a vamp hangout."
Cole grinned, and this time, there was nothing amicable about it. "Not when there's no one to wield them."
:#:
Faith hopped down to the catwalk from a window and landed as softly as she could. The noises of the fighting below her drowned out her landing well enough, she hoped.
She ran down the catwalk, looking for a good vantage point to see the action down on the floor. Xander's truck had knocked a lot of the crates around on the floor and created a barrier of sorts, breaking the fight into two separate fights.
Robin, Janet, and Rona fought against a bunch of vampires on the passenger's side of the truck. They looked to be outnumbered a little more than two-to-one, but Robin held his own and the two Slayers fought with an aggressive fury that promised the vamps wouldn't be long for this world. Faith felt confident they were okay over there.
On the other side of the truck, she saw Xander and Katharine. They were obviously in trouble: Xander stood in front of a male vampire, unarmed, with one hand held in the other, and Katharine was on the ground, bleeding badly from her leg, with her sister poised over her in full vamp game-face.
Faith swore under her breath and swung her crossbows off her shoulders. She took a knee to get a more steady base -- a crossbow was not the most accurate long-distance weapon, a longbow would be much better for the situation -- and put the second crossbow down beside her, where she could quickly pick it up. She kept the Scythe in her left hand, she didn't really know why but it felt like the right thing to do.
She held the crossbow in her right hand, braced against her shoulder and balanced on her left forearm, and took aim on Audrey. She hesitated for a moment, then shifted her aim to the male vampire right in front of Xander. It wasn't that she couldn't shoot Audrey, she told herself; it just made more sense to kill the vampire by Xander, since he was in a better position to fight than Katharine was. With Xander free, he could hold off Audrey until either Katharine got up or another Slayer made it over there.
Unless Xander couldn't fight a vampire who had the face of a friend. Faith knew about Audrey's crush on him, but she had no idea if he knew. Either way, she didn't know how he'd react in a fight against the former Slayer. She shifted her crossbow again to Audrey's back and took a deep breath.
She heard running footsteps to her right and looked over just in time to see a large steel pole slam into her shoulder and chest. Both she and the crossbow went flying along the catwalk. She managed to keep hold of the Scythe -- or it kept hold of her, she wasn't really sure. She landed against the railing and tumbled, luckily, onto the catwalk rather than over onto the warehouse floor.
She looked up and saw a huge vampire, at least four inches over six feet, advancing on her. "You know, killing a Slayer used to mean something," he said, "until they bastardized the line and got all you ignorant amateurs."
He swung the steel pole -- a concrete breaker, Faith recognized; twenty pounds of solid steel -- and Faith raised the Scythe to block. She caught the pole between the haft and the blade and delivered a front snap kick to the vampire's sternum, a killing blow to a human but one that merely knocked the vampire back a few feet. He twisted the concrete breaker and slid it free of the Scythe.
"Bitch, I am the real deal," Faith said, "old-school calling and all. So now who's ignorant?"
The vampire cocked his head to the side and looked at her for a second, and his whole face seemed to light up. "Faith," he said.
Faith held her arms out to the side a little. "Come on. You didn't think this body belonged to anyone else, did you?" she said.
Donner grinned. "All I ever see is the neck," he said, and attacked.
:#:
Cole heard a clatter from above. He stepped to the side so he could keep Harris in his field of vision as he looked up to the sound. A single crossbow fell from the catwalk above and clattered onto a pile of broken crates.
Cole grinned and turned to Xander.
"Watchers have an impossible job, you know," he said, "and I mean that literally. A Slayer always dies. You can't circumvent that, you can just delay it -- or die yourself before it happens, I suppose." Xander's eyes flicked over to Katharine and Audrey; briefly, but not so fast that Cole missed it. "You tried to tip the balance, but now you just have more Slayers to fail, to get killed."
Cole walked around beside Xander, to his left, so he was to one side and the twins were on the other side. Xander looked straight forward, his attention divided between the two. "You're still young. Do you like to learn new things? I do."
Audrey stepped forward and grabbed Katharine by the hair. Xander jumped forward, but before he could take more than a step Cole grabbed him from behind and put him into a half-nelson headlock. Xander struggled, but couldn't move as Audrey sunk her teeth into Katharine's neck from behind and started to drink.
Katharine's eyes opened in shock, but Xander could tell she couldn't see him. Audrey drank slowly, to drag out the process as long as she could; Xander could see the struggle to control the blood lust on her face.
"Have you ever had a Slayer, Harris?" Cole whispered in his ear as Audrey drank. "Felt the way those legs just wrap around you and pull you deeper and deeper? She wanted to give you that, Harris, all of that and anything else. The girl loved you, and you let her die. And now the demon you let her become, she's going to take another of your Slayers, a girl who trusted you to keep her safe and teach her how to survive." Cole chuckled silently; Harris could feel the vibrations where his chest pressed against the Watcher's back, he knew. "Who knew that one person could screw up so much in such a short time?"
Even right up against him, even with super-sensitive vampire hearing, Cole could barely hear Harris whisper, "I should've known."
As Cole and Harris watched, Audrey pulled herself away from Katharine's neck while the Slayer was still alive, spun her around, and shoved her mouth against her own slit throat to drink.
:#:
Over a year earlier, Faith had fought with the Scythe in the depths of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. She remembered the feel of the weapon in her hands, the way it cut through her enemies, the way she felt faster and stronger with it in her hands.
Something was wrong. She still felt that way, felt the strength flow through her. And yet the vampire -- just a normal vampire, probably not even a full century old, certainly not an uber-vamp of any kind -- still stood in front of her, undusted.
That wasn't right, she knew.
He looked just as frustrated that she wasn't yet dead as she felt about his continued survival, and rushed her with a snarl. She twisted at the last moment and used his momentum against him, tossed him hard into the railing. The top bar hit him low, barely above his waist, and she pressed him hard. He slid down into a crouch, the bar still against his back, and shoved forward hard against her. Her balance was bad, over-extended high from pushing him, and she slammed back against the opposite railing hard enough to dent the top bar and maybe crack one of her ribs.
The vamp swung his weapon at her, shoulder height, and she leaned back and caught it with the Scythe. The bar slipped some more, loosened by her impact, and the vampire lurched forward at her as the entire catwalk swayed.
The vamp crashed hard into her, and his height and momentum propelled the both of them over the weakened railing.
:#:
She tried to resist. Her sister -- no, the vamp who stole her sister's body -- pushed her mouth up against the slit throat, and Katharine tried desperately to resist, brought all of her willpower to bear, but when the blood touched her lips she bit down and swallowed.
She hated herself for the weakness, even as her throat worked and more of the undead thing's blood entered her body.
Katharine remembered training with her fellow Slayers -- how Rona and Janet always joked around with one another and with her, and how Faith taught her about the code they used for hopeless situations. Them first, then you, Faith told her. Kill the humans rather than let the vamps turn them, then kill yourself. Katharine thought it was another joke, and the dead serious expressions on Janet's face and Rona's face caught her by surprise.
You can't resist, Faith said. You might even want to, but you won't be able to. Katharine hadn't believed her; after all, how could she know? No vamp ever made Faith drink. It was ridiculous.
She still had a bit of strength left, as Audrey held her by the neck and shoulder. Her left leg was useless, but her right was strong and whole, and her arms were fine. She tried to push away, but Audrey held her tight and was stronger. Even if she could push away, Katharine realized, she couldn't stop drinking -- she would just pull Audrey with her as she backed away.
The biggest act of defiance she could come up with was to keep her eyes open. She was going to die, her body was going to be possessed by a demon, and it was all her stupid stubbornness that was going to do it -- but she would face her fate like a true Slayer, eyes open and unafraid. Just like she knew Faith, Janet, and Rona would.
Suddenly, two bodies dropped into the pile of broken and overturned crates to her right. She felt Audrey's head jerk a little, but the vamp couldn't move much with Katharine fastened to her neck. Katharine could see what happened, though: Faith and another vampire fell from somewhere above, breaking a good number of crates with the fall. The vampire turned to dust, staked by a piece of broken crate--
--and Katharine noticed a chest-high piece broken off behind Audrey.
She couldn't pull away, but she still had strength enough in one leg to shove Audrey backwards. She continued to swallow Audrey's blood even as she tumbled backwards and the wood pierced her sister's heart. Audrey yanked her away from her neck by the hair and looked at her. "You b--" she said, and turned to dust.
The last of her strength gone, Katharine collapsed to the floor and waited to die.
:#:
Xander watched as Katharine drank from her sister's body, helpless in Cole's arms -- not that he would be any more help out of the vampire's hold, he thought bitterly. Just another name to add to the list of people he's failed: Katharine Beckford.
He looked up at the catwalk and saw another name on the list, Faith, slammed up against the metal railing hard enough to bend it. The scuffle continued, but Xander couldn't make out what went on -- until both Faith and the vampire both pitched over the railing and fell, still struggling against one another, nearly thirty feet into a stack of crates just behind Audrey and Katharine. Xander heard the vampire's scream intensify, then abruptly cut off, staked by the wooden crates in the fall.
Cole's grip on Xander tightened as the Slayer and vampire hit, but Audrey hadn't seen it coming and turned to look. Katharine shoved her backwards with just her one good leg, and drove the vampire into a chest-high wooden protrusion even as she still drank.
This surprise made Cole's grip loosen in shock.
Xander reacted immediately. He drove his heel down onto the inside part of Cole's ankle, and felt the shock of a snapping joint all the way up to his hip. Cole screamed. Xander spun and drove the point of his elbow right into the vampire's temple, and Cole dropped hard to the ground.
Xander didn't wait to see if he scored a lucky knock-out blow; either way, his stakes and crossbows were all gone, so he had no way to destroy him if Cole was indeed unconscious. Xander ran over to where Katharine sprawled on the ground, bleeding from her neck and leg, and slid to his knees beside her. He gently rolled her over and her eyelids fluttered open, just as Faith climbed out from the pile of broken crates she fell into, the Scythe in her hand.
Slayers were definitely tougher than they had a right to be, Xander thought.
"Is she--" Faith said. Xander nodded, and she scrambled over and knelt across from Xander, on Katharine's left.
"Yeah, she's right here, aren't you?" Xander said softly to Katharine. He gently lifted her up, his left hand behind her head and his right arm across her chest and under her shoulder.
His spine went cold as he realized her hair and neck was soaked in blood -- too much blood.
"I got her," Katharine whispered. Xander couldn't even hear her, her voice was so soft; he could only read her lips.
"Yeah, you did good," he said. He smiled, somehow. He wasn't sure how. He just did, for her.
"Got me, too," Katharine said. "You gotta burn me."
"What? No, Kat, you're--"
"S'ok," Katharine said. She turned her head a little, looked at Faith. "You were right, can't resist drinking. But I used that."
Faith nodded. "You did great, Lite Beer," she said, her voice unsteady.
"Burn the body, don't let them take it," Katharine whispered.
And then she died in Xander's arms.
He felt her go limp, the weight of her head fully settle into his hand, and he gently let her back down to the ground again. Faith reached out to close Katharine's eyes just as Xander did, and their hands touched just in front of her face.
Xander jerked his hand back. "Sorry, I--"
Faith reached out and grabbed his hand. Xander looked up at her, and she shook her head softly. Xander sighed, looked back down at Katharine, and together, hands entwined, Watcher and Slayer reached out to close Katharine's eyes.
They stayed there, heads bowed over Katharine's body, hands clasped together over her chest. They leaned forward together, her forehead on his right shoulder, and he reached up with his right hand and held her against him. Neither cried.
:#:
Cole watched Katharine die from the shadows, away from both the truck and the body. His ankle was completely wrecked -- it would heal fine, but not anytime soon -- and his allies were dust. Not a good time to attack.
He considered whether to stay and watch the end of it all, or to take off while everyone was distracted. If any of the Slayers found him in his condition, he wouldn't last long at all; in fact, it was doubtful that he could face down a trained Watcher.
None of the coming events were worth his life to see. As quietly as he could, Cole slipped away.
:#:
Robin, Janet, and Rona triple-teamed the last vampire on their side of the divide Xander's truck had created. It didn't last long; Rona drove her stake home at the same time Janet delivered a roundhouse kick to the back of its head.
Robin looked around quickly and saw the coast was clear. "We gotta get to the others," he said.
He raced over to the truck and climbed through the cab. Faith and Xander held each other above a body on the ground -- Katharine, he thought, although it was hard to see her because her feet pointed toward him. It wasn't a very optimistic view.
Rona poked him in the back, and Robin scrambled out of the truck's cab. He looked around the area, noticed the stake Xander dropped over by the truck's back tire, but there were no vamps around anywhere. Unless they planned a surprise counter-attack, the battle was done for the night.
"Yo, you guys okay?" Rona asked as she climbed out of the truck.
Faith and Xander jerked their heads up and turned to look at them. Faith looked at Robin and her eyes snapped wide open, and she jumped back away from Xander.
Robin felt his heart lurch as it all fell together for him: the awkward strangeness, the tension between him and Faith and Xander in all permutations. All of that, the stress on the relationship and everything, he realized he could trace it all back to the morning after Faith and Xander hid out together from the vampires.
He knew the realization showed on his face. Faith could see it, he knew. She opened her mouth and reached out to him slightly, but then let her hand drop and looked away.
"Oh my God -- Katharine," Janet said quietly.
Robin turned and watched the two young Slayers, neither even eighteen yet, slowly make their way over to Katharine's body. Faith stood as they got close to the body and blocked their path. "She got 'em," Faith said. "She was great."
Rona and Janet both nodded. Rona crossed herself and said something softly, too softly for Robin to pick up.
He looked at Xander, still on his knees by Katharine's body. As much as Robin hated him at that moment, he couldn't help but think of his words to Faith months ago: "It's hard being a Watcher, because you know that one of your Slayers will die. Even with the greater numbers, it's inevitable. Or maybe I'll die, as a Watcher -- and I gotta be honest with you, Faith. I hope that's the case with Xander. I hate it, but I really hope he dies first, because I can't even imagine how much losing a Slayer is gonna devastate him."
He could already tell that he was right.
:#:
"Burn me."
Katharine's voice echoed in Xander's head. He couldn't get past it all, even when Robin and his other Slayers found them. He'd failed, again. When she needed him most, he left her side, and now she was dead. A familiar refrain, but not one made any easier with time.
She hadn't gotten a memorial, except within him. She hadn't gotten a service or a viewing or a wake, no commerce done in her name. Nothing, except his aching heart to remember her by.
Not this time.
He got up and walked over to the truck. Robin glared at him -- don't blame you, Xander thought -- as he unlocked the toolbox behind the cab and pulled out a bunch of rags and a can of paint thinner. He opened the can and tossed the cap into the back of the truck, soaked the rags, and tossed them all into the stacks of crates. He poured paint thinner all over the floor, and emptied the bottle in a tight circle around Katharine's body.
"What the hell are you doing?" Robin asked.
"Slayer's last request," Xander said. His voice came out deep and cold, even to his ears.
"Audrey made her drink before Katharine staked her," Faith said softly.
Xander walked over to Faith and held out his hand. "Lighter?"
Faith nodded, and pulled her silver Zippo from a pocket. She looked at it for a moment, then flipped it open, lit it, and dropped it down onto Katharine's body. The paint thinner caught quickly, and the flames spread across the floor to the wooden crates nearby as it began to engulf the dead Slayer.
Xander's hand dropped to his side. He looked down at Katharine's body and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. After a moment, as the flames spread more and more, he shook his head and followed the others out of the warehouse.
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What a crazy thought. I started this story before I started this Live Journal, even. It'll be strange not having The Twins as my big WIP, but I'll still have two more stories' worth of travels in this post-Chosen universe to keep me company. I'm really interested to see your reactions to both this chapter and the next one; I'm curious if any of you (other than littlefeltfangs, who knows pretty much the entire story, for months now; yay for bouncing ideas off others!) saw where I'm taking it. I'm a big fan of intentional foreshadowing, I've tried to be subtle.
Previous chapters have cancer on a deserted island somewhere between Antarctica and the North Pole.
Chapter Eighteen
The Fires Off Lake Erie
Faith, Rona, and Janet ran through the gate at a full sprint. Xander's plan -- to get in and create confusion by crashing the truck into the bay door -- was insane, but no one could think of any better way to take the attack to the vampires. His calm, detached reassurance, "The truck has airbags," wasn't very reassuring.
"Follow the truck straight in, hard and fast," Faith told the other Slayers as they ran. "I'll go high, see if I can spot either of our girls and maybe get them out, and play sniper if possible."
Janet and Rona just saved their breath and ran.
:#:
Xander had heard that an airbag's impact could be quite painful. Like most everything, though, he found that it was relative. One a scale of one to ten -- with ten being punched in the face by a Slayer, and one being kissed in the face by a Slayer -- he rated it about a four. Certainly not anywhere near as painful as being hit by a vampire, or even a padded sparring session with one of his Slayers.
Which was not to say that he wouldn't have a nice black eye or two the next day.
The airbags deflated, and he looked over at Robin. He looked just as stunned as Xander felt, but ultimately fine.
"That sure put a roller coaster to shame," Xander said.
Robin rolled his eyes and unbuckled his seatbelt -- and a vampire opened the car door and grabbed him by the shirt. The vamp turned and threw Robin out of the car and then jerked forward. Xander saw a crossbow bolt in its back before it exploded to dust.
Xander unbuckled his seatbelt and quickly reached around to the back seat, where Robin stowed the crossbows before the crash. He grabbed one and spun around just as the driver's side door was yanked open by another vampire.
Xander fired as the door opened, but the bolt struck the vampire in the left shoulder. The vamp's arm fell limp, and it snarled in pain. Xander grabbed a stake from his belt as the vamp reached inside the cab and grabbed him by the shirt, just as the other vamp did to Robin. It yanked him out of the truck, and Xander used his momentum to drive his stake home into the vamp's unprotected left side. The vampire screeched and turned to dust, but Xander still went flying several feet before he crashed awkwardly to the ground and rolled.
He rose quickly to his knees and saw that he was at the feet of a plainly-dressed young man with shaggy, fashionably-tousled dark hair. He looked to be about Xander's age, maybe an inch taller but of a much slighter build. He looked down at Xander calmly, with a slight smile on his face.
"Xander Harris," he said. His voice was soft and not very deep, but strong all the same. A dangerous voice, Xander realized immediately. "We'll avoid the dropping in puns, yes? I'm Cole."
Xander stiffened. He stayed low, on his knees but with his feet tucked back so he was in more of a defensive crouch than a supplicate position. He looked around the vampire, saw Audrey standing behind him and slightly off to the side, her throat slit and obviously risen as a vampire, and Katharine on the ground behind her, bleeding and sobbing.
"Katharine!" he said. She didn't move or respond.
"She's been fairly unresponsive since just after she got here," Cole said. "Perhaps she's just not cut out for all of this; not like you, of course."
Xander sprung up with no warning, his stake in hand and pointed right at Cole's heart. The vampire stepped to the side easily and drove his elbow into Xander's fist; Xander cried out and dropped the stake, and cradled his right hand in his left.
Cole sighed, as if the attack was nothing more than an inconvenience. "I've been watching you for weeks, now," he said. Xander surreptitiously flexed his hand; his fingers were badly bruised, but he didn't think anything was broken. "And I'm a bit fascinated with you, to be honest. That last ill-advised attempt on my un-life aside, you're quite unpredictable. The thing with the flare guns, that was just inspired genius."
"I'm flattered," Xander said, "but despite what you might've read on bathroom stalls to the contrary, I'm straight."
Cole laughed. "I'm not hitting on you, trust me." He paused. "I don't come off as defensive, do I? It's not that I have a problem with homosexuality, it's just not for me."
"Oh, I understand," Xander said. "I feel about the same way."
"That's good." Cole nodded. "One tries to be as even-minded about things like that as possible, you know." He sounded truly concerned about how Xander perceived him.
Xander felt uncomfortable, but realized that stalling was the best tactic he had now, and Cole seemed keen to talk. "Uh, yeah. You're definitely all enlightened." Xander indicated their surroundings. "Warehouse full of potential stakes, seems like a bad place for a vamp hangout."
Cole grinned, and this time, there was nothing amicable about it. "Not when there's no one to wield them."
:#:
Faith hopped down to the catwalk from a window and landed as softly as she could. The noises of the fighting below her drowned out her landing well enough, she hoped.
She ran down the catwalk, looking for a good vantage point to see the action down on the floor. Xander's truck had knocked a lot of the crates around on the floor and created a barrier of sorts, breaking the fight into two separate fights.
Robin, Janet, and Rona fought against a bunch of vampires on the passenger's side of the truck. They looked to be outnumbered a little more than two-to-one, but Robin held his own and the two Slayers fought with an aggressive fury that promised the vamps wouldn't be long for this world. Faith felt confident they were okay over there.
On the other side of the truck, she saw Xander and Katharine. They were obviously in trouble: Xander stood in front of a male vampire, unarmed, with one hand held in the other, and Katharine was on the ground, bleeding badly from her leg, with her sister poised over her in full vamp game-face.
Faith swore under her breath and swung her crossbows off her shoulders. She took a knee to get a more steady base -- a crossbow was not the most accurate long-distance weapon, a longbow would be much better for the situation -- and put the second crossbow down beside her, where she could quickly pick it up. She kept the Scythe in her left hand, she didn't really know why but it felt like the right thing to do.
She held the crossbow in her right hand, braced against her shoulder and balanced on her left forearm, and took aim on Audrey. She hesitated for a moment, then shifted her aim to the male vampire right in front of Xander. It wasn't that she couldn't shoot Audrey, she told herself; it just made more sense to kill the vampire by Xander, since he was in a better position to fight than Katharine was. With Xander free, he could hold off Audrey until either Katharine got up or another Slayer made it over there.
Unless Xander couldn't fight a vampire who had the face of a friend. Faith knew about Audrey's crush on him, but she had no idea if he knew. Either way, she didn't know how he'd react in a fight against the former Slayer. She shifted her crossbow again to Audrey's back and took a deep breath.
She heard running footsteps to her right and looked over just in time to see a large steel pole slam into her shoulder and chest. Both she and the crossbow went flying along the catwalk. She managed to keep hold of the Scythe -- or it kept hold of her, she wasn't really sure. She landed against the railing and tumbled, luckily, onto the catwalk rather than over onto the warehouse floor.
She looked up and saw a huge vampire, at least four inches over six feet, advancing on her. "You know, killing a Slayer used to mean something," he said, "until they bastardized the line and got all you ignorant amateurs."
He swung the steel pole -- a concrete breaker, Faith recognized; twenty pounds of solid steel -- and Faith raised the Scythe to block. She caught the pole between the haft and the blade and delivered a front snap kick to the vampire's sternum, a killing blow to a human but one that merely knocked the vampire back a few feet. He twisted the concrete breaker and slid it free of the Scythe.
"Bitch, I am the real deal," Faith said, "old-school calling and all. So now who's ignorant?"
The vampire cocked his head to the side and looked at her for a second, and his whole face seemed to light up. "Faith," he said.
Faith held her arms out to the side a little. "Come on. You didn't think this body belonged to anyone else, did you?" she said.
Donner grinned. "All I ever see is the neck," he said, and attacked.
:#:
Cole heard a clatter from above. He stepped to the side so he could keep Harris in his field of vision as he looked up to the sound. A single crossbow fell from the catwalk above and clattered onto a pile of broken crates.
Cole grinned and turned to Xander.
"Watchers have an impossible job, you know," he said, "and I mean that literally. A Slayer always dies. You can't circumvent that, you can just delay it -- or die yourself before it happens, I suppose." Xander's eyes flicked over to Katharine and Audrey; briefly, but not so fast that Cole missed it. "You tried to tip the balance, but now you just have more Slayers to fail, to get killed."
Cole walked around beside Xander, to his left, so he was to one side and the twins were on the other side. Xander looked straight forward, his attention divided between the two. "You're still young. Do you like to learn new things? I do."
Audrey stepped forward and grabbed Katharine by the hair. Xander jumped forward, but before he could take more than a step Cole grabbed him from behind and put him into a half-nelson headlock. Xander struggled, but couldn't move as Audrey sunk her teeth into Katharine's neck from behind and started to drink.
Katharine's eyes opened in shock, but Xander could tell she couldn't see him. Audrey drank slowly, to drag out the process as long as she could; Xander could see the struggle to control the blood lust on her face.
"Have you ever had a Slayer, Harris?" Cole whispered in his ear as Audrey drank. "Felt the way those legs just wrap around you and pull you deeper and deeper? She wanted to give you that, Harris, all of that and anything else. The girl loved you, and you let her die. And now the demon you let her become, she's going to take another of your Slayers, a girl who trusted you to keep her safe and teach her how to survive." Cole chuckled silently; Harris could feel the vibrations where his chest pressed against the Watcher's back, he knew. "Who knew that one person could screw up so much in such a short time?"
Even right up against him, even with super-sensitive vampire hearing, Cole could barely hear Harris whisper, "I should've known."
As Cole and Harris watched, Audrey pulled herself away from Katharine's neck while the Slayer was still alive, spun her around, and shoved her mouth against her own slit throat to drink.
:#:
Over a year earlier, Faith had fought with the Scythe in the depths of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. She remembered the feel of the weapon in her hands, the way it cut through her enemies, the way she felt faster and stronger with it in her hands.
Something was wrong. She still felt that way, felt the strength flow through her. And yet the vampire -- just a normal vampire, probably not even a full century old, certainly not an uber-vamp of any kind -- still stood in front of her, undusted.
That wasn't right, she knew.
He looked just as frustrated that she wasn't yet dead as she felt about his continued survival, and rushed her with a snarl. She twisted at the last moment and used his momentum against him, tossed him hard into the railing. The top bar hit him low, barely above his waist, and she pressed him hard. He slid down into a crouch, the bar still against his back, and shoved forward hard against her. Her balance was bad, over-extended high from pushing him, and she slammed back against the opposite railing hard enough to dent the top bar and maybe crack one of her ribs.
The vamp swung his weapon at her, shoulder height, and she leaned back and caught it with the Scythe. The bar slipped some more, loosened by her impact, and the vampire lurched forward at her as the entire catwalk swayed.
The vamp crashed hard into her, and his height and momentum propelled the both of them over the weakened railing.
:#:
She tried to resist. Her sister -- no, the vamp who stole her sister's body -- pushed her mouth up against the slit throat, and Katharine tried desperately to resist, brought all of her willpower to bear, but when the blood touched her lips she bit down and swallowed.
She hated herself for the weakness, even as her throat worked and more of the undead thing's blood entered her body.
Katharine remembered training with her fellow Slayers -- how Rona and Janet always joked around with one another and with her, and how Faith taught her about the code they used for hopeless situations. Them first, then you, Faith told her. Kill the humans rather than let the vamps turn them, then kill yourself. Katharine thought it was another joke, and the dead serious expressions on Janet's face and Rona's face caught her by surprise.
You can't resist, Faith said. You might even want to, but you won't be able to. Katharine hadn't believed her; after all, how could she know? No vamp ever made Faith drink. It was ridiculous.
She still had a bit of strength left, as Audrey held her by the neck and shoulder. Her left leg was useless, but her right was strong and whole, and her arms were fine. She tried to push away, but Audrey held her tight and was stronger. Even if she could push away, Katharine realized, she couldn't stop drinking -- she would just pull Audrey with her as she backed away.
The biggest act of defiance she could come up with was to keep her eyes open. She was going to die, her body was going to be possessed by a demon, and it was all her stupid stubbornness that was going to do it -- but she would face her fate like a true Slayer, eyes open and unafraid. Just like she knew Faith, Janet, and Rona would.
Suddenly, two bodies dropped into the pile of broken and overturned crates to her right. She felt Audrey's head jerk a little, but the vamp couldn't move much with Katharine fastened to her neck. Katharine could see what happened, though: Faith and another vampire fell from somewhere above, breaking a good number of crates with the fall. The vampire turned to dust, staked by a piece of broken crate--
--and Katharine noticed a chest-high piece broken off behind Audrey.
She couldn't pull away, but she still had strength enough in one leg to shove Audrey backwards. She continued to swallow Audrey's blood even as she tumbled backwards and the wood pierced her sister's heart. Audrey yanked her away from her neck by the hair and looked at her. "You b--" she said, and turned to dust.
The last of her strength gone, Katharine collapsed to the floor and waited to die.
:#:
Xander watched as Katharine drank from her sister's body, helpless in Cole's arms -- not that he would be any more help out of the vampire's hold, he thought bitterly. Just another name to add to the list of people he's failed: Katharine Beckford.
He looked up at the catwalk and saw another name on the list, Faith, slammed up against the metal railing hard enough to bend it. The scuffle continued, but Xander couldn't make out what went on -- until both Faith and the vampire both pitched over the railing and fell, still struggling against one another, nearly thirty feet into a stack of crates just behind Audrey and Katharine. Xander heard the vampire's scream intensify, then abruptly cut off, staked by the wooden crates in the fall.
Cole's grip on Xander tightened as the Slayer and vampire hit, but Audrey hadn't seen it coming and turned to look. Katharine shoved her backwards with just her one good leg, and drove the vampire into a chest-high wooden protrusion even as she still drank.
This surprise made Cole's grip loosen in shock.
Xander reacted immediately. He drove his heel down onto the inside part of Cole's ankle, and felt the shock of a snapping joint all the way up to his hip. Cole screamed. Xander spun and drove the point of his elbow right into the vampire's temple, and Cole dropped hard to the ground.
Xander didn't wait to see if he scored a lucky knock-out blow; either way, his stakes and crossbows were all gone, so he had no way to destroy him if Cole was indeed unconscious. Xander ran over to where Katharine sprawled on the ground, bleeding from her neck and leg, and slid to his knees beside her. He gently rolled her over and her eyelids fluttered open, just as Faith climbed out from the pile of broken crates she fell into, the Scythe in her hand.
Slayers were definitely tougher than they had a right to be, Xander thought.
"Is she--" Faith said. Xander nodded, and she scrambled over and knelt across from Xander, on Katharine's left.
"Yeah, she's right here, aren't you?" Xander said softly to Katharine. He gently lifted her up, his left hand behind her head and his right arm across her chest and under her shoulder.
His spine went cold as he realized her hair and neck was soaked in blood -- too much blood.
"I got her," Katharine whispered. Xander couldn't even hear her, her voice was so soft; he could only read her lips.
"Yeah, you did good," he said. He smiled, somehow. He wasn't sure how. He just did, for her.
"Got me, too," Katharine said. "You gotta burn me."
"What? No, Kat, you're--"
"S'ok," Katharine said. She turned her head a little, looked at Faith. "You were right, can't resist drinking. But I used that."
Faith nodded. "You did great, Lite Beer," she said, her voice unsteady.
"Burn the body, don't let them take it," Katharine whispered.
And then she died in Xander's arms.
He felt her go limp, the weight of her head fully settle into his hand, and he gently let her back down to the ground again. Faith reached out to close Katharine's eyes just as Xander did, and their hands touched just in front of her face.
Xander jerked his hand back. "Sorry, I--"
Faith reached out and grabbed his hand. Xander looked up at her, and she shook her head softly. Xander sighed, looked back down at Katharine, and together, hands entwined, Watcher and Slayer reached out to close Katharine's eyes.
They stayed there, heads bowed over Katharine's body, hands clasped together over her chest. They leaned forward together, her forehead on his right shoulder, and he reached up with his right hand and held her against him. Neither cried.
:#:
Cole watched Katharine die from the shadows, away from both the truck and the body. His ankle was completely wrecked -- it would heal fine, but not anytime soon -- and his allies were dust. Not a good time to attack.
He considered whether to stay and watch the end of it all, or to take off while everyone was distracted. If any of the Slayers found him in his condition, he wouldn't last long at all; in fact, it was doubtful that he could face down a trained Watcher.
None of the coming events were worth his life to see. As quietly as he could, Cole slipped away.
:#:
Robin, Janet, and Rona triple-teamed the last vampire on their side of the divide Xander's truck had created. It didn't last long; Rona drove her stake home at the same time Janet delivered a roundhouse kick to the back of its head.
Robin looked around quickly and saw the coast was clear. "We gotta get to the others," he said.
He raced over to the truck and climbed through the cab. Faith and Xander held each other above a body on the ground -- Katharine, he thought, although it was hard to see her because her feet pointed toward him. It wasn't a very optimistic view.
Rona poked him in the back, and Robin scrambled out of the truck's cab. He looked around the area, noticed the stake Xander dropped over by the truck's back tire, but there were no vamps around anywhere. Unless they planned a surprise counter-attack, the battle was done for the night.
"Yo, you guys okay?" Rona asked as she climbed out of the truck.
Faith and Xander jerked their heads up and turned to look at them. Faith looked at Robin and her eyes snapped wide open, and she jumped back away from Xander.
Robin felt his heart lurch as it all fell together for him: the awkward strangeness, the tension between him and Faith and Xander in all permutations. All of that, the stress on the relationship and everything, he realized he could trace it all back to the morning after Faith and Xander hid out together from the vampires.
He knew the realization showed on his face. Faith could see it, he knew. She opened her mouth and reached out to him slightly, but then let her hand drop and looked away.
"Oh my God -- Katharine," Janet said quietly.
Robin turned and watched the two young Slayers, neither even eighteen yet, slowly make their way over to Katharine's body. Faith stood as they got close to the body and blocked their path. "She got 'em," Faith said. "She was great."
Rona and Janet both nodded. Rona crossed herself and said something softly, too softly for Robin to pick up.
He looked at Xander, still on his knees by Katharine's body. As much as Robin hated him at that moment, he couldn't help but think of his words to Faith months ago: "It's hard being a Watcher, because you know that one of your Slayers will die. Even with the greater numbers, it's inevitable. Or maybe I'll die, as a Watcher -- and I gotta be honest with you, Faith. I hope that's the case with Xander. I hate it, but I really hope he dies first, because I can't even imagine how much losing a Slayer is gonna devastate him."
He could already tell that he was right.
:#:
"Burn me."
Katharine's voice echoed in Xander's head. He couldn't get past it all, even when Robin and his other Slayers found them. He'd failed, again. When she needed him most, he left her side, and now she was dead. A familiar refrain, but not one made any easier with time.
She hadn't gotten a memorial, except within him. She hadn't gotten a service or a viewing or a wake, no commerce done in her name. Nothing, except his aching heart to remember her by.
Not this time.
He got up and walked over to the truck. Robin glared at him -- don't blame you, Xander thought -- as he unlocked the toolbox behind the cab and pulled out a bunch of rags and a can of paint thinner. He opened the can and tossed the cap into the back of the truck, soaked the rags, and tossed them all into the stacks of crates. He poured paint thinner all over the floor, and emptied the bottle in a tight circle around Katharine's body.
"What the hell are you doing?" Robin asked.
"Slayer's last request," Xander said. His voice came out deep and cold, even to his ears.
"Audrey made her drink before Katharine staked her," Faith said softly.
Xander walked over to Faith and held out his hand. "Lighter?"
Faith nodded, and pulled her silver Zippo from a pocket. She looked at it for a moment, then flipped it open, lit it, and dropped it down onto Katharine's body. The paint thinner caught quickly, and the flames spread across the floor to the wooden crates nearby as it began to engulf the dead Slayer.
Xander's hand dropped to his side. He looked down at Katharine's body and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. After a moment, as the flames spread more and more, he shook his head and followed the others out of the warehouse.
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