Chapter 14: Unfriendly Skies
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 14
Unfriendly Skies
A few hours into the flight, Alec was occupied with seeing exactly how much scotch he could drink without keeling over from alcohol poisoning so Buffy got up and went to check on some of the others. She came across Willow and Xander watching the in-flight movie. Anya was next to them snoring gently.
“Hey guys,” Buffy whispered quietly. Willow and Xander smiled at her approach and the redhead waved and beckoned.
“Come watch,” she said in a normal speaking voice. Buffy flicked her eyes over to Anya.
“Don’t worry about Ahn, she could sleep through the next apocalypse,” Xander commented, brushing her concerns away with a wave of his hand.
“Careful, we should be due for another one of those any day now,” Buffy predicted direly.
Xander blanched. “Okay, yeah, good point.”
Buffy just chuckled as she settled in amongst her friends, “What are we watching?”
“‘Cruel Intentions,’’ Willow replied.
Buffy scrutinized the screen. “I hate her hair,” she commented.
“That’s Kathryn, the evil bitch queen of the movie,” Willow put in helpfully.
“Well, her hair is a disaster. So what does this movie have going for it?”
“Really impressive cleavage,” Xander put in helpfully.
Buffy laughed and gestured at the screen, “What does she have that I don’t?”
“Way looser morals.”
“So she’s a slut?”
“Evil, manipulative, slut,” Willow put in helpfully.
“Oh, so she’s Cordelia.”
“Ouch!” Willow and Xander both exclaimed simultaneously. Buffy just grinned.
“Oh come on, do you honestly think Cordelia would ever surrender the crown of queen bitch?”
“I think we’d have a better chance of seeing her in a full spread in ‘Playboy’,” Xander replied wryly.
Buffy snorted, “Cordelia taking off her clothes in front of complete strangers for cash. Somehow I can’t picture that.”
“I can,” Xander said with a grin, “And, oh look, I’m picturing it again.”
“Pervert.”
“Prude.”
“Children….?” Willow put in warningly. Buffy and Xander fell silent and watched the movie in peace.
“What are you reading?”
Giles jumped and jerked his head up from his book and squinted a few times in the gloom of the dark plane interior. The bright ray from the top mounted light bounced off the pages of the book causing an almost blinding glare. For a moment, all he could decipher was a shape in the darkness, addressing him. He squinted.
“Son?”
“Who else?” Alec smiled and moved slightly and he came more clearly into focus, “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, it’s all right, I was just going over some material here.”
“Specifically?”
Giles lifted the book so the light now struck the cover of the book as opposed to the pages.
“Ah, the Codex, the one from earlier, you brought it with?”
“It has a small but serviceable amount of information regarding Aztec mythology, which as it turns out pertains to the Order of Teraka.”
Alec gestured with his head towards Dawn, who was curled up in the seat next to his father and looked to be asleep.
“Is she out?”
Dawn proceeded then to emit a tooth-rattling snore. Both men smirked wryly.
“Answers that question,” Alec commented quietly, “So, what have you discovered?”
Giles cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it isn’t a great deal of information. Apparently though, the Order of Teraka is actually a coalition of four families dating back to around the fourteenth century or so.”
“So, we’re talking Pre-Cortes here, Aztecs are still going strong?”
“Correct. Exactly correct in fact. The four founding families of the Order of Teraka were Aztec. More specifically, each family worshipped a different entity who held power in the region.”
“Oh goody, an ‘entity’, that usually translates into ‘demon’.”
“Local gods in this case, though based on some of their behavior the difference may be purely academic. While I have no doubt that some of the claims regarding the sheer scope and scale of Aztec human sacrifice may be exaggerated, I am not so naïve as to believe that they are entirely fictitious.
“Translation: blood gods, fantastic. Any names I’d know?”
Giles pursed his lips in thought, “Perhaps. As I said, the information here is limited but it makes mention of four specific deities: Tlaloc, some kind of water deity. Huitzilopochtli, a god of war and a sun god. Toci: an earth deity also known as ‘the eater of filth’ and ‘the woman of discord’ and finally Tezcatlipoca, a wind god often depicted as a jaguar or a combination of man and jaguar.”
“And these guys were serious bad news?”
“Some sacrifices honoring them numbered up to five thousand dead in a single day.”
“So that would be ‘yes’.”
“It’s important to note though that they weren’t ‘evil’ as you or I understand it to be. They possessed many different aspects, the ones mentioned here….” he gestured to the book, “…are simply those that came to be most well-known.”
“Yeah well, mass slaughter does have a way of gripping the public mind. Okay so, four blood gods, four mortal families.”
“Yes and apparently these families in particular were especially well known for the brutality of their rites, so much so that a significant population of the Aztec peasant caste, from whom most of the living sacrifices were taken from, rose up and united under the banner of Quetzalcoatl.”
“Hold up, I thought we already discussed him back at the shop and decided he was a bad guy.”
Giles shrugged, “Be that as it may, he apparently opposed these other deities. So it may be that while Quetzalcoatl could be considered a ‘bad guy’, these entities could be in turn considered far worse.”
“So my only choice in this pantheon of gods is ‘bad’ and ‘worse’? No wonder the Aztecs were such cheery folk,” Alec snorted.
“Try to remember son, we’re not dealing with conventional morality, especially not one resembling any kind of Judeo-Christian influence. We’re dealing with a system of beliefs that predates all of that by about two hundred years.”
“It still seems…wrong,” Alec struggled to put the words together in his head. He was having trouble thinking clearly for some reason.
Giles frowned at the tone of his son’s voice and at his rather clumsy choice of words, “Are you all right, Alec?”
“Ugh, yes I’m fine. Just tired. Haven’t been sleeping well.”
Or at all. Alec thought to himself.
“When was the last time you had something to eat? I understand they serve food on this flight.”
“You cannot be serious. Were I not already intensely nauseated from the raw terror that is flying, I got a good whiff of what’s on that tray and I have to say, it contained nothing that resembled ‘food’ as I understand it.”
Giles chuckled a little, “Yes well, try to take care of yourself; you look like you’ve lost weight.”
Alec rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. “You tell Buffy she’s lost weight, it makes her day. You tell me and it’s a medical emergency. Dad, relax, everything is fine,” he gestured back at the open book on his father’s lap, “You were saying?”
Giles cleared his throat and continued, “At any rate, the insurrection against the four families convinced them to unite into a single article and together, they put down the insurrection and slaughtered all they could capture in tribute to their gods.”
“How pleasant. What then?”
“Well, for a while they ruled openly, and then as emperors became the ruling norm, they ruled behind the scenes as advisors and aide-de-camps.”
“Power behind the throne types, huh?”
“Exactly so.”
“So, when did we go from politico blood cultists to assassins and bounty hunters?”
Giles frowned, “That part is a little vague. What is known is the fact that it was the duty of these four families to go out into the countryside and round up as many people as they could as sacrifices.”
“I got it, in other words, they were always ‘hunting people’ in a way, all that changed was the context: mass death rituals into contract killers and the cultists became bounty hunters.”
“Yes, it’s believed that they turned their interests into things like gold and silver with the arrival of Cortes and the discovery of silver in Mexico in the sixteenth century.”
“What about the name: ‘The Order of Teraka,’ where does that come from?”
Giles shook his head, “It doesn’t say, it’s been theorized that Teraka was a person that brought the four families together and united them under his rule.”
“Does it say whether or not the four families still maintain ties to those ancient blood gods?”
Another shake of the head, “It does not say so directly, but it may be inferred if for no other reason that the Order of Teraka seems able to draw upon demonic forces, such as the Insect Man that Xander and Cordelia encountered, whenever they wish.”
Suddenly Dawn’s chair jerked violently and she sat up with a grunt. She sighed, exasperated and turned up to look at Alec. Her frown of consternation quickly became a smile.
“Hi Alec.”
“Hey petite, what’s the story?” Alec asked, gesturing at her chair.
Dawn’s expression turned momentarily sour, “Some kid behind me keeps kicking my chair. It’s really bugging me.”
Alec casually looked behind her. Sure enough, a young boy, maybe eight or so: with porcine features and a general disconsolate look about him.
“One sec,” Alec reassured Dawn. She frowned in confusion as Alec stepped back to address the boy.
“Hello there,” he said in his most amiable tone.
The boy turned his head and looked up at him with all the disdain an eight-year old can manage.
“Go away, my mommy says I don’t have to talk to anyone I don’t want to and that I shouldn’t talk to strangers and you’re a stranger,” he sneered in a very grating tone that only the most spoiled of children can manage. He had a fat face and his cheeks jiggled when he spoke.
Alec gritted his teeth. Though he’d never met the man, the kid reminded him of the late Principal Snyder, whom the others had told him all about.
“Well, that’s good advice,” he admitted, “However, another bit of good advice is to try not to disturb the other people on the plane,” he gestured to the sit in front of him, “These guys up here are my friends and they’re trying to get some rest. If you could not kick the seat, that would be very cool of you.”
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. Mommy says so and you can’t make me!”
That tears it.
“Say Sport, tell me something: where is ‘mommy’ at the moment?”
“She’s gonna pick me up when we get there.”
“Ah I see, well, did she remind you to be careful of the Boogeyman while you’re here, alone in the dark?” he asked quietly.
That seemed to strike a nerve. The kid looked momentarily worried then he stuck out his lower lip in gesture of bovine stubbornness. “My mommy says there’s no such thing as the Boogeyman.”
Leaning close to the young boy’s face, Alec smiled slightly and lowered his shades, just a little. His eyes were swirling pools of darkness and oozy black tears slithered down his face like a thousand tiny spiders crawling down his cheeks.
“She lied.”
The little boy was now white as a sheet and making a soft, gurgling noise in his throat.
“You will shut up and sit still, is that clear?” he whispered in a very low, very dangerous voice.
The boy managed to nod.
“Smart boy,” Alec pushed his shades back up into the bridge of his nose and stepped away from the trembling youth.
“You should be all set now,” Alec reassured Dawn.
Dawn looked at him incredulously, “What did you do?!”
“Just…gave him a little incentive to behave, no big deal.”
Dawn turned to look at Giles the elder, but he had apparently missed the whole thing, engrossed as he was in his book.
“Okay well, thanks Alec, I guess,” Dawn said uncertainly.
Alec smiled warmly, “No worries.”
As Alec walked away, Dawn settled back against the cushions of the seat. Closing her eyes, sleep overcame her but not before something strange happened: for the life of her she thought she heard someone…crying?
Spike washed his hands and dried them with a paper towel. He exhaled hard, unnecessarily for one of his kind: he hated flying like this. Sure he knew that the flight was scheduled to land well before sunrise; that was the whole point of taking a red-eye. But something still gnawed at him.
He opened the door and was startled to see an impishly grinning Slayer standing in front of him.
“Love?” he asked in bewilderment.
Buffy stretched languidly and continued to grin up at him, “You know what I’ve always wondered?”
“What’s that, love?”
“You know that whole ‘Mile-High Club’ thing?” She asked. Spike felt a grin slowly creeping across his face.
“Yuh-huh,” Spike replied.
“I was just wondering: how do they manage things in these tiny little airplane bathrooms?”
Spike grinned and moved out of the way to allow Buffy entrance.
“Oh, let me educate you baby.”
Some time later, Buffy returned to her seat, looking just like the cat that ate the canary and feeling very…satisfied. She casually picked up a magazine from the seat pocket in front of her and flipped through it aimlessly.
Surreptitiously she shot a look over at Willow and Alec, both of them were asleep, leaning their heads against one another and looking completely out of it.
Home free. Buffy thought to herself. She turned and looked back at Spike who was now approaching the seat and looking equally satisfied.
“Your shirt is on inside-out,” Willow commented.
“Damn it!” Buffy cried out, taking a hold of the hem of her shirt and, sure enough, glaring balefully at the exposed label that gave her away.
“Busted,” Spike chortled.
“And you missed a belt loop,” Alec put in just as suddenly.
Spike laughed, a little confused at first, then he looked down.
“Oh…sod,” he growled.
“You’re a bad man,” Alec added.
“The both of you: completely without any shred of decency,” Willow followed up.
“All right, all right Miss Moral Superiority, get your shots in now,” Buffy said acidly.
“Oh no, I plan on milking this out for all it’s worth, we’re talking months of ridicule here,” Willow replied with a grin.
“Fantastic,” Buffy grumbled, then she nudged her brother, “I thought you were asleep.”
Alec sighed and shook his head, “Even if I could sleep for the numbing terror I am currently enduring, it’s still too bloody bright in here for me to get any shut eye.”
Buffy looked around incredulously, the cabin of the airplane was nearly pitch black, lit only by the track lighting along the floor, directing people to the emergency exits.
“You’re kidding right? Let me see those shades,” Buffy demanded with an outstretched hand.
Alec sighed and took off his glasses, keep his eyes shielded. Buffy put them on and gaped. She passed her hand in front of her eyes back and forth, bringing it right up to her nose.
“Bro, I can’t even see my own hand with these things on and you’re telling me it’s too bright?”
“And noisy, did I mention noisy?”
“What you mean nois-“ Buffy began to ask before noticing that her brother was sending her a very pointed, annoyed look.
“You’re a jerk,” she replied stiffly, tossing the glasses into his lab.
He laughed gently and replaced them on his face, “Love you too.”
“And life goes on,” Willow summarized, earning a pair of rolled eyes from her friends.
Xander woke up a few hours later in his seat with a muted groan of pain: these seats were killing his shoulder. He looked down; Anya was resting her head on his shoulder and snoring away contentedly. Xander smiled and placed a kiss on her head and then gently lifted her head up off his shoulder and rested it against the side of the plane. As he did so, he examined his new hand: it had darker skin than his other hand, small bits of black hair grew up from the top and knuckles and there were deep lines in it. It looked like the hand of someone much older than him.
Sure hope the spell eventually does something about this or else I’m going to look really weird, he thought to himself.
He made his way to the bathroom, attended to nature’s call, and washed his hands, looking at himself in the mirror. He needed a shave, badly and he continued to rub his shoulder.
“Man, these seats are really bad for you,” he muttered as he turned around and lifted his shirt looking in the mirror.
He froze, “What the hell?”
Five small splotches stained his back. The looked like bruises or burns and they hurt to the touch. What he had mistaken for acne or warts now looked like something else entirely: like black boils or something.
“Okay, not good. Not good,” Xander considered his options; he’d seen the way people were treating Alec, like he was some kind of freak, because of injuries and various maladies and he knew he didn’t want to do that. So he’d take care of this on his own.
First though he’d have to get rid of these things. He reached behind his back and dug his nails into the first one, trying to burst it. There was a moment of resistance and then a sudden release.
And Xander cried out in agony as his shoulder and his fingers began to burn. He brought his finger tips back around and stared at them in shock: they were coated in a yellow, foamy pus-like substance and it stank like death and was currently dissolving his finger.
He quickly gripped the faucet knob and turned it own, getting his finger under the water as fast as he could. Where his finger touched the metal of the sink, it corroded. The pain in his finger slowly eased though the pain in his shoulder was still quite intense. He grabbed a bunch of paper towels and pressed them to his shoulder. They quickly disintegrated but they seemed to help a little. Five handfuls of industrial strength paper towels later, the pain subsided. Xander heaved a sigh of relief and sat down heavily on the toilet lid.
“Oh man, what am I going to do?”
He got up, nervously, and looked at his shoulder in the mirror.
There were now four black welts and fifth large, angry red and black wound where the one he had torn open had been. Red streaks originated from the wound like cracks in the pavement giving it a thoroughly unhealthy appearance.
“Okay, not going to do that again. Just gonna patch this up and everything is going to be fine.”
As Xander finished cleaning himself up, he repeated this over and over out loud and eventually, he almost believed it.
Almost.
Slam!
That sound jolted everyone out of their seats. For a moment there was confusion, bleary-eyed sleepers came up back into consciousness, confused as to what had wakened them.
Slam!
Buffy leapt to her feet, Alec and Willow with her.
“Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?” Buffy asked.
“Sounds like something wants in!” Spike called out, coming up to join the others.
“We’re thirty thousand feet up!” Alec cried out.
“Maybe it’s a bird?” Willow put forth timidly.
Slam! Suddenly dents appeared in the metal of the airplane door.
“I don’t want to meet the bird that can dent the door of a jetliner,” Alec replied, “I thought they were extinct!”
Angel appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed the shoulders of the flight attendant who was just staring slack-jawed at all the chaos.
“Get everyone strapped in back there and find a way to close us off from the rest of the cabin.”
“But…but how? There’s nothing separating coach and first class but this!” she cried out and lamely held up a thin curtain.
SLAM!
“That’s not gonna do it,” Xander commented mildly. By now, everyone had assembled together.
“Coming through,” Faith called out, lugging one of the drink carts behind her.
“Uh, babe, I appreciate a good drink as much as anyone but is now really the time?” Spike commented.
“Spike is passing up a drink. That’s it, we’re all dead,” Giles commented deadpan.
“Get everyone back into coach,” Faith instructed. The stewardess, baffled, obeyed, taking the few remaining passengers in first class with her back into the rear of the plane. Faith then proceeded to lift up the cart and wedged it on its end in the narrow passageway. Tiny bottles of booze smashed in a shower of alcohol and tinkling glass.
“That’ll work,” Buffy commented with approval.
Suddenly there was an ear-splitting squeal of tortured metal and a loud whoosh as the door came free of the plane and inside became sheer pandemonium. Magazines, glasses, and luggage were ripped free and sucked out spiraling into the black sky.
“‘Nothing to worry about’ you said. ‘Safest way to travel you said’,” Alec growled at his sister.
“Oh….SHUT UP!” Buffy snarled back.
And then some…thing filled the doorway.
“What….the….hell?” Faith gaped.
The creature had huge feathery wings in a rainbow of colors. It was humanoid in shape, but it was covered in a multitude of iridescent black scales. It had huge, yellow claws and a snake-like head with a mane that looked like it was made out of the same feathers as was on the wings with a row of feathers running down its back like spikes tapering off upon a tightly coiled tail. It hissed at them and dug in its massive claws into the plane leaving huge rents in the steel.
“He’s going to tear the plane apart!” Xander cried out, gripping Anya frantically and trying to avoid being sucked out of the plane, much as the others were.
“The hell he is!” Spike called out wielding what appeared to be the food cart that had escaped being made into a barricade, “What’ll it be mate: chicken or fish?”
The winged creature hissed at him again and even as it attempted to enter the cabin, Spike let out a whoop and charged, turning the cart into a battering ram. They slammed into the creature hard, it cried out in rage and tumbled backwards out of the cabin, the cart propelling itself outwards into the night.
Spike grinned, satisfied, even as he worked to get solid footing against the shrieking, black vortex.
“Well, that was fu-“
That was as far as he got before the creature’s tail coiled around his ankle and dragged him down and out into the night.
“SPIKE!!!!!!” Buffy cried out hysterically. Only the cold howling of the night wind answered her.
“Not today, brother,” Alec commented. Painstakingly he made his way to the door. Buffy caught his arm. Alec turned to look down at her.
“I’m going in!” he called out.
“You’re coming back out!” she replied.
Alec grinned and nodded.
“Count on it,” he said with a grin. He tossed her his shades, “Hold these!”
And then, he jumped out of the plane.
Buffy had to stop herself from leaping after him, digging her hands hard into the metal of the doorframe as the wind whipped her blond hair around.
“I hate it when he does that,” Buffy growled.
Suddenly the entire plane jerked violently. Everyone staggered and eyed the open door warily.
“Wills! Shut the door, there’s a draft!” Buffy cried out.
Willow nodded and turned her attention.
“Xander, hang on to me, I need my hands free for this!”
Xander nodded and crawled over to her, soldier-style, and wrapped both his arms around her waist.
“Got you Wills!”
Willow looked down and smiled for a second then gasped.
“Xander, you’ve got me! Who’s got you!?”
Xander turned back to look and gaped, in coming out to help Willow, he’d given up his own secure footing.
“Oh shi-!” Xander cried out as he looked back at the open door. The pair of them were dragged forward just an inch before they came to a bone-crunching stop. Xander jerked his head back around.
Angel had his leg in a death grip and was hanging onto it with all the strength a vampire could manage.
“You’re solid Harris, help out Willow,” he said brusquely.
Xander smirked just a little, “Good timing, dead boy,” he turned his attention back to the witch, “Do your thing!”
Willow nodded and brought her hands up.
“Goddess Hecate, hear my plea. Work wind, work water, work air. I weave my will and weave a wall.”
She finished and waited. Suddenly the temperature in the cabin, already quite cold, dropped even further. Everyone’s breath began to steam as a small swirling maelstrom of blue and white light formed near the door. The air became arid, dry and hard to breathe as the maelstrom expanded. Where it touched metal, an immense groaning, cracking sound emitted forth. Within a span of heartbeats, a solid block of ice filled up the doorway. The sudden quiet inside the cabinet was deafening.
“Will that hold?” Giles asked, gently releasing Dawn from his grip.
“I think so,” Willow replied, wishing she could sound more certain.
.”Beats what we had before,” Faith commented, “Nice work Red.”
“Thanks.”
Without warning, the plane jerked and shuddered again.
“Okay, what’s the deal, who’s flying this thing?” Xander cried out.
“Good question,” Buffy replied, “Faith, if you’ll do the honors?”
“Do we knock?” Willow asked meekly.
“Do we care?” Faith replied easily and with a grunt she knocked the door down. The pilot, co-pilot, and navigator were all there to be found.
At least, what was left of them.
It was clear that whatever had attacked them back in first class had started at the cockpit. There were large holes in the ceiling and along the side, not large enough to cause the complete loss of pressure the cabin had suffered but enough for clawed hands to make it through to the people inside.
“Oh...I hate this,” Buffy commented direly.
“There’s no one flying the plane?” Anya asked agog.
“That would be what all the dead pilots here would be about, yeah,” Faith commented.
“You think it would cause panic if we asked if anyone on the plane knows how to fly one?” Willow asked.
“If they aren’t already IN a panic, they clearly haven’t been paying attention to recent events,” Buffy replied glumly. She turned to look at Angel, “Angel, you were in the war, did you ever…?”
“Yes, but flying a P-40 Warhawk is a little different than flying a jumbo jet,” Angel replied.
Willow whirled around on Xander, “Xander! You know how to fly a plan!”
Xander stared at her, stunned, “What are you talking about?!”
“Flight simulator! Back when we were kids, you played that game for hours on end. You must have put in, like, five hundred hours or so into it.”
“Wills, that’s a video game! That’s like saying I know kung fu ‘cause I played ‘Street Fighter’!”
“Well, I figure that plus your ability to handle big machines, like the RV, makes you our best bet,” Willow looked around, “Besides I don’t think anyone else has a better idea.”
“’Taking the train next time’ springs to mind,” Giles commented dryly.
“We are going to die,” Xander said quietly, but he turned his attention to the pilots chair. Unfortunately, it was currently occupied with the mutilated corpse of the pilot.
“Uh, guys, I really don’t think-“
Growling in frustration, Faith stalked over the corpse and with a sharp shove, deposited the body onto the floor like so much meat.
“Sit down. Fly the plane and save all our lives,” she commanded simply.
“Right, no problem,” Xander gulped before gingerly lowering himself into the seat. There was a long, protracted squishing sound as he did and he felt something saturate the bottom of his pants.
“Oh…I have no words for this,” Xander said trembling, doing his best to not look at the little rivulets of blood that had been squeezed out of the seat like water from a sponge.
He gently put his hands on the control column of the aircraft, it was sticky with blood and he did his best to ignore that. He had to wipe flecks of…stuff off the cockpit dashboard so he could read them.
“Okay, uh, fuel is good, oil pressure looks okay, ummm….we appear to be more or less level,” Xander rambled on as Buffy leaned over to Willow.
“Just how good at this video game WAS he?” she asked worriedly.
Willow chose her words carefully. “Well, like I said, he played it a ton and it was very realistic.”
“And out of all those times he played it, how many times did he successfully land?”
“Ummm….a couple, for certain…..I think.”
“Oh,” Buffy said mildly, “We’re all going to die.”
“Alec…” Dawn spoke up casting a look behind in dread.
Buffy sent her a sympathetic look, “Yeah, I know. We can look forward to killing him when he gets back.”
“Get in line,” Willow said through gritted teeth.
Cold wind buffeted Alec’s face as he plunged through the night. The experience was oddly liberating.
Remember, its not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.
Wind brought stinging tears to his eyes as he tried to peer about the night sky for his friend.
“Shouldn’t be too hard, just look for the lunatic who’s brawling with a ten-foot monster while plunging at terminal velocity,” he commented darkly and then he sighed, “And let us not forget his idiot friend who is chasing after him.”
There. A little bit ways off beneath him, he could almost hear….
“Come on you bloody poof! Is that all you’ve got?!”
Yup. Found him.
He focused, summoning his sword, and suddenly his hand was filled with steel. Now armed, he streaked towards the pair like a guided missile.
Spike had time to register surprise for a moment before Alec plowed into both of them. The creature hissed and snarled. It couldn’t disentangle itself from the lunatic that had somehow managed to grapple it all this way and now a second one had manifested and the three of them now clawed and spit at each other as they continued to plunge down through the night.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Spike screamed.
“Well, you know you made it look like so much fun!” Alec called out.
“Arse!”
“Idiot! Grab my coat. I’m going to get us out of here!”
“What about peaches here?”
“You two have played enough!” Alec winced as the creature dug a claw through his leg but fortunately couldn’t penetrate enough to gain any kind of purchase. Alec struck the beast with his sword again and again, slicing scales free and severing the connective tissue of the wings. The creature wailed and raged as blood welled up from numerous wounds.
Finally Alec maneuvered himself to the creature’s back.
“Here, hold this!” Alec called out. For a moment, Spike thought he meant himself, only to find that Alec was addressing the creature for he plunged his blade deep into the beast’s back. It screeched in agony. Reaching down, Alec got a solid grip on the bloody tissue that held the beast’s wings to its body.
“And now we PULL!” Alec strained and growled, even as the beast spun back and forth rotating and diving trying to do something, anything, to get this insane monster of its back. Ultimately that proved to be fatal as the creature’s thrashing gave Alec the additional force he needed. With a wet, tearing sound, the beast’s wings came completely free and fluttered off into the night.
The creature got in one last, long wail of agony and then plunged into the night, now without even the slightest impediment against gravity. It disappeared from sight.
“You mentioned leaving?” Spike called out.
“Right, good plan. Close your eyes.”
“If you say ‘Click your heels three times’, I will personally find a way to strangle you before we hit,” Spike yelled to be heard over the wind.
Alec grinned for a moment, then the expression was wiped from his face when he got a good look at his surroundings.
Wow, that ground’s coming up awfully fast was his last thought.
And then there was no more time for thought.
Alec closed his eyes and focused…
“How are we doing? Buffy asked Xander who was still seated at the controls.
Xander didn’t take his eyes off the instruments or the view in front of him, “The flying part is relatively easy, it’s pretty much just go in a straight line. The crew had the course set before they….uh, well you know,”
Buffy nodded, “What about landing?”
Xander winced, “That’s going to take a little bit more doing.”
“Something to look forward to,” she turned to Angel, “How are the passengers?”
“Frightened but for the moment, we’re the only ones who know that the crew is all dead,” he replied, “I suggest keeping it that way.”
“With you on that,” Buffy replied.
Abruptly there was a burst of static from one of the headsets, followed by rapid fire Spanish.
“Okay, what’s that?” Buffy asked.
“That’s probably from the control tower wanting an update,” Xander replied, “Either that or it’s the local radio station, I have no idea.”
“Well, what are they saying?”
“Again, file that under ‘I have no idea.’”
“Oh for…” Anya grumbled and then shoved her way past the others, “Move!”
The others, confused, got out of her way as she nonchalantly pushed the corpse of the navigator off the seat and plunked down into it, ignoring the blood and gore. She gingerly picked up the headset, wiped it off and put it on her head. And then she proceeded to speak in fluid Spanish, going through a series of question and answers with whoever was on the other end.
“Okay, that IS the control tower, they’re telling us that they’ve been alerted to the cabin depressurization and they want a status update, they also want an explanation as to why we’re only flying at half our expected speed,” Anya informed them. Then she got a good look at the others expressions of surprise.
“What? I’m over eleven-hundred years old; you think I can’t pick up Spanish?”
“You told me you flunked Spanish,:” Xander said.
“Not Spanish: math. God, you never listen. See, this is why-“
“Ahn, so not the time,” Xander cut her off, “Tell them, I dunno, tell them whatever you think they’ll believe so we can land this thing,” then he added as an after thought, “Just run it past Buffy first,” he added, remembering how his beloved could be somewhat…tactless at times.
“Fine,” Anya grumbled as she turned her attention back to the radio.
Buffy turned to Willow, “Any sign of…?”
Willow just shook her head, she was sitting with Dawn and the pair of them looked absolutely despondent.
“He’ll be here,” Willow replied with determination.
“Absolutely,” Buffy replied with confidence that she didn’t really feel. But it was better than dealing with that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and the awful truth it represented.
“Any sign of who?” a voice called out.
Everyone (who wasn’t involved in the operation of a jumbo jet) whipped their heads around to see Alec and Spike stagger out of a dark corner and collapse onto the floor.
“Alec!” Willow cried out, leaping into his arms. Alec held her tight and kissed her head Dawn was not far behind her as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly.
“Miss me Slay-?” Spike was interrupted by Buffy as she devoured his mouth with hers in a fiery kiss. It stretched on forever and then she quickly broke it off and slapped him across the face.
“You. Be more careful,” she growled.
Spike chuckled, rubbing his cheek, “Yes ma’am.”
Buffy shifted her glare to her brother, “Goes double for you.”
Alec held up his hands, “No argument there. Next time I go skydiving, parachute is mandatory.”
“Son, how did you survive?” Giles asked quietly, his voice shook only a little. His son’s reckless act had terrified him, but he had done his best to keep his composure.
“I shadow-stepped my way back up to the plane,” he held up his hands flat and then stacked one on top of another, over and over again, “Once after another until we made it back in here.”
“That sounds exceedingly dangerous: a single teleportation has been known to be very draining and risky for you, several in a row…”
“Seemed less of a bad idea than hitting the ground,” Alec countered.
“I’ll second that,” Spike put in, “Damn eerie experience though.”
Alec nodded, “Home sweet Hell, the plane of elemental darkness can be like that.”
“Remind me to never attend any housewarming parties you ever host, better safe than sorry.”
Suddenly there was a small beeping sound that filled the cockpit quickly.
“That can’t be good,” Willow put forth, “Xander?”
“It’s nothing coming from me,”
“It’s coming from your watch, Buffy,” Angel pointed out quietly.
Buffy started and then looked down; sure enough, the digital readout read six-thirty.
Sunrise in thirty minutes.
Buffy jerked her head up, “Guys, we got sunrise on its way fast,”
“Oh fantastic, I thought the plan was to have landed BEFORE the sun became an issue,” Spike growled.
“That was before we had to cut our airspeed in half because something ATE the flight crew,” Xander shot back.
“Okay, okay, let’s not have a hiss-fit,” Buffy said placating, “Where can we put you guys that’s out of the sun?”
“Cargo hold, with the luggage,” Angel said quietly.
“With the luggage?! We go from first class to luggage?!” Spike exclaimed.
“Would you rather go from ‘first class’ to ‘ash tray’?”
Spike muttered but didn’t argue the point further.
“Okay then, you guys get down to the cargo hold. Is there a way to get to it from inside the plane?”
“If there isn’t, I’ll make one,” Angel replied.
“Sounds like a plan. Faith, go with them, something tells me that their act of radical reconstruction might need some slayer muscle behind it,” Buffy added.
Faith grinned, “Man these guys are going to have one humongous repair bill for this thing. I’m on it,” With that, the three of them headed towards the back.
Buffy turned her attention back to the view in front of her and to Xander.
“What now?”
“Now, we make a gradual descent through the cloud cover and proceed to have a smooth and orderly landing,” Xander replied.
“Uh huh and in the land of reality?”
“We pray to our great and fuzzy gods that we don’t explode in a ball of flame or crash like a stone.”
“Got it.”
Slowly, with agonizing care, Xander gently leaned the yoke forward and the plane began its final descent.
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 14
Unfriendly Skies
A few hours into the flight, Alec was occupied with seeing exactly how much scotch he could drink without keeling over from alcohol poisoning so Buffy got up and went to check on some of the others. She came across Willow and Xander watching the in-flight movie. Anya was next to them snoring gently.
“Hey guys,” Buffy whispered quietly. Willow and Xander smiled at her approach and the redhead waved and beckoned.
“Come watch,” she said in a normal speaking voice. Buffy flicked her eyes over to Anya.
“Don’t worry about Ahn, she could sleep through the next apocalypse,” Xander commented, brushing her concerns away with a wave of his hand.
“Careful, we should be due for another one of those any day now,” Buffy predicted direly.
Xander blanched. “Okay, yeah, good point.”
Buffy just chuckled as she settled in amongst her friends, “What are we watching?”
“‘Cruel Intentions,’’ Willow replied.
Buffy scrutinized the screen. “I hate her hair,” she commented.
“That’s Kathryn, the evil bitch queen of the movie,” Willow put in helpfully.
“Well, her hair is a disaster. So what does this movie have going for it?”
“Really impressive cleavage,” Xander put in helpfully.
Buffy laughed and gestured at the screen, “What does she have that I don’t?”
“Way looser morals.”
“So she’s a slut?”
“Evil, manipulative, slut,” Willow put in helpfully.
“Oh, so she’s Cordelia.”
“Ouch!” Willow and Xander both exclaimed simultaneously. Buffy just grinned.
“Oh come on, do you honestly think Cordelia would ever surrender the crown of queen bitch?”
“I think we’d have a better chance of seeing her in a full spread in ‘Playboy’,” Xander replied wryly.
Buffy snorted, “Cordelia taking off her clothes in front of complete strangers for cash. Somehow I can’t picture that.”
“I can,” Xander said with a grin, “And, oh look, I’m picturing it again.”
“Pervert.”
“Prude.”
“Children….?” Willow put in warningly. Buffy and Xander fell silent and watched the movie in peace.
“What are you reading?”
Giles jumped and jerked his head up from his book and squinted a few times in the gloom of the dark plane interior. The bright ray from the top mounted light bounced off the pages of the book causing an almost blinding glare. For a moment, all he could decipher was a shape in the darkness, addressing him. He squinted.
“Son?”
“Who else?” Alec smiled and moved slightly and he came more clearly into focus, “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, it’s all right, I was just going over some material here.”
“Specifically?”
Giles lifted the book so the light now struck the cover of the book as opposed to the pages.
“Ah, the Codex, the one from earlier, you brought it with?”
“It has a small but serviceable amount of information regarding Aztec mythology, which as it turns out pertains to the Order of Teraka.”
Alec gestured with his head towards Dawn, who was curled up in the seat next to his father and looked to be asleep.
“Is she out?”
Dawn proceeded then to emit a tooth-rattling snore. Both men smirked wryly.
“Answers that question,” Alec commented quietly, “So, what have you discovered?”
Giles cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it isn’t a great deal of information. Apparently though, the Order of Teraka is actually a coalition of four families dating back to around the fourteenth century or so.”
“So, we’re talking Pre-Cortes here, Aztecs are still going strong?”
“Correct. Exactly correct in fact. The four founding families of the Order of Teraka were Aztec. More specifically, each family worshipped a different entity who held power in the region.”
“Oh goody, an ‘entity’, that usually translates into ‘demon’.”
“Local gods in this case, though based on some of their behavior the difference may be purely academic. While I have no doubt that some of the claims regarding the sheer scope and scale of Aztec human sacrifice may be exaggerated, I am not so naïve as to believe that they are entirely fictitious.
“Translation: blood gods, fantastic. Any names I’d know?”
Giles pursed his lips in thought, “Perhaps. As I said, the information here is limited but it makes mention of four specific deities: Tlaloc, some kind of water deity. Huitzilopochtli, a god of war and a sun god. Toci: an earth deity also known as ‘the eater of filth’ and ‘the woman of discord’ and finally Tezcatlipoca, a wind god often depicted as a jaguar or a combination of man and jaguar.”
“And these guys were serious bad news?”
“Some sacrifices honoring them numbered up to five thousand dead in a single day.”
“So that would be ‘yes’.”
“It’s important to note though that they weren’t ‘evil’ as you or I understand it to be. They possessed many different aspects, the ones mentioned here….” he gestured to the book, “…are simply those that came to be most well-known.”
“Yeah well, mass slaughter does have a way of gripping the public mind. Okay so, four blood gods, four mortal families.”
“Yes and apparently these families in particular were especially well known for the brutality of their rites, so much so that a significant population of the Aztec peasant caste, from whom most of the living sacrifices were taken from, rose up and united under the banner of Quetzalcoatl.”
“Hold up, I thought we already discussed him back at the shop and decided he was a bad guy.”
Giles shrugged, “Be that as it may, he apparently opposed these other deities. So it may be that while Quetzalcoatl could be considered a ‘bad guy’, these entities could be in turn considered far worse.”
“So my only choice in this pantheon of gods is ‘bad’ and ‘worse’? No wonder the Aztecs were such cheery folk,” Alec snorted.
“Try to remember son, we’re not dealing with conventional morality, especially not one resembling any kind of Judeo-Christian influence. We’re dealing with a system of beliefs that predates all of that by about two hundred years.”
“It still seems…wrong,” Alec struggled to put the words together in his head. He was having trouble thinking clearly for some reason.
Giles frowned at the tone of his son’s voice and at his rather clumsy choice of words, “Are you all right, Alec?”
“Ugh, yes I’m fine. Just tired. Haven’t been sleeping well.”
Or at all. Alec thought to himself.
“When was the last time you had something to eat? I understand they serve food on this flight.”
“You cannot be serious. Were I not already intensely nauseated from the raw terror that is flying, I got a good whiff of what’s on that tray and I have to say, it contained nothing that resembled ‘food’ as I understand it.”
Giles chuckled a little, “Yes well, try to take care of yourself; you look like you’ve lost weight.”
Alec rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. “You tell Buffy she’s lost weight, it makes her day. You tell me and it’s a medical emergency. Dad, relax, everything is fine,” he gestured back at the open book on his father’s lap, “You were saying?”
Giles cleared his throat and continued, “At any rate, the insurrection against the four families convinced them to unite into a single article and together, they put down the insurrection and slaughtered all they could capture in tribute to their gods.”
“How pleasant. What then?”
“Well, for a while they ruled openly, and then as emperors became the ruling norm, they ruled behind the scenes as advisors and aide-de-camps.”
“Power behind the throne types, huh?”
“Exactly so.”
“So, when did we go from politico blood cultists to assassins and bounty hunters?”
Giles frowned, “That part is a little vague. What is known is the fact that it was the duty of these four families to go out into the countryside and round up as many people as they could as sacrifices.”
“I got it, in other words, they were always ‘hunting people’ in a way, all that changed was the context: mass death rituals into contract killers and the cultists became bounty hunters.”
“Yes, it’s believed that they turned their interests into things like gold and silver with the arrival of Cortes and the discovery of silver in Mexico in the sixteenth century.”
“What about the name: ‘The Order of Teraka,’ where does that come from?”
Giles shook his head, “It doesn’t say, it’s been theorized that Teraka was a person that brought the four families together and united them under his rule.”
“Does it say whether or not the four families still maintain ties to those ancient blood gods?”
Another shake of the head, “It does not say so directly, but it may be inferred if for no other reason that the Order of Teraka seems able to draw upon demonic forces, such as the Insect Man that Xander and Cordelia encountered, whenever they wish.”
Suddenly Dawn’s chair jerked violently and she sat up with a grunt. She sighed, exasperated and turned up to look at Alec. Her frown of consternation quickly became a smile.
“Hi Alec.”
“Hey petite, what’s the story?” Alec asked, gesturing at her chair.
Dawn’s expression turned momentarily sour, “Some kid behind me keeps kicking my chair. It’s really bugging me.”
Alec casually looked behind her. Sure enough, a young boy, maybe eight or so: with porcine features and a general disconsolate look about him.
“One sec,” Alec reassured Dawn. She frowned in confusion as Alec stepped back to address the boy.
“Hello there,” he said in his most amiable tone.
The boy turned his head and looked up at him with all the disdain an eight-year old can manage.
“Go away, my mommy says I don’t have to talk to anyone I don’t want to and that I shouldn’t talk to strangers and you’re a stranger,” he sneered in a very grating tone that only the most spoiled of children can manage. He had a fat face and his cheeks jiggled when he spoke.
Alec gritted his teeth. Though he’d never met the man, the kid reminded him of the late Principal Snyder, whom the others had told him all about.
“Well, that’s good advice,” he admitted, “However, another bit of good advice is to try not to disturb the other people on the plane,” he gestured to the sit in front of him, “These guys up here are my friends and they’re trying to get some rest. If you could not kick the seat, that would be very cool of you.”
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. Mommy says so and you can’t make me!”
That tears it.
“Say Sport, tell me something: where is ‘mommy’ at the moment?”
“She’s gonna pick me up when we get there.”
“Ah I see, well, did she remind you to be careful of the Boogeyman while you’re here, alone in the dark?” he asked quietly.
That seemed to strike a nerve. The kid looked momentarily worried then he stuck out his lower lip in gesture of bovine stubbornness. “My mommy says there’s no such thing as the Boogeyman.”
Leaning close to the young boy’s face, Alec smiled slightly and lowered his shades, just a little. His eyes were swirling pools of darkness and oozy black tears slithered down his face like a thousand tiny spiders crawling down his cheeks.
“She lied.”
The little boy was now white as a sheet and making a soft, gurgling noise in his throat.
“You will shut up and sit still, is that clear?” he whispered in a very low, very dangerous voice.
The boy managed to nod.
“Smart boy,” Alec pushed his shades back up into the bridge of his nose and stepped away from the trembling youth.
“You should be all set now,” Alec reassured Dawn.
Dawn looked at him incredulously, “What did you do?!”
“Just…gave him a little incentive to behave, no big deal.”
Dawn turned to look at Giles the elder, but he had apparently missed the whole thing, engrossed as he was in his book.
“Okay well, thanks Alec, I guess,” Dawn said uncertainly.
Alec smiled warmly, “No worries.”
As Alec walked away, Dawn settled back against the cushions of the seat. Closing her eyes, sleep overcame her but not before something strange happened: for the life of her she thought she heard someone…crying?
Spike washed his hands and dried them with a paper towel. He exhaled hard, unnecessarily for one of his kind: he hated flying like this. Sure he knew that the flight was scheduled to land well before sunrise; that was the whole point of taking a red-eye. But something still gnawed at him.
He opened the door and was startled to see an impishly grinning Slayer standing in front of him.
“Love?” he asked in bewilderment.
Buffy stretched languidly and continued to grin up at him, “You know what I’ve always wondered?”
“What’s that, love?”
“You know that whole ‘Mile-High Club’ thing?” She asked. Spike felt a grin slowly creeping across his face.
“Yuh-huh,” Spike replied.
“I was just wondering: how do they manage things in these tiny little airplane bathrooms?”
Spike grinned and moved out of the way to allow Buffy entrance.
“Oh, let me educate you baby.”
Some time later, Buffy returned to her seat, looking just like the cat that ate the canary and feeling very…satisfied. She casually picked up a magazine from the seat pocket in front of her and flipped through it aimlessly.
Surreptitiously she shot a look over at Willow and Alec, both of them were asleep, leaning their heads against one another and looking completely out of it.
Home free. Buffy thought to herself. She turned and looked back at Spike who was now approaching the seat and looking equally satisfied.
“Your shirt is on inside-out,” Willow commented.
“Damn it!” Buffy cried out, taking a hold of the hem of her shirt and, sure enough, glaring balefully at the exposed label that gave her away.
“Busted,” Spike chortled.
“And you missed a belt loop,” Alec put in just as suddenly.
Spike laughed, a little confused at first, then he looked down.
“Oh…sod,” he growled.
“You’re a bad man,” Alec added.
“The both of you: completely without any shred of decency,” Willow followed up.
“All right, all right Miss Moral Superiority, get your shots in now,” Buffy said acidly.
“Oh no, I plan on milking this out for all it’s worth, we’re talking months of ridicule here,” Willow replied with a grin.
“Fantastic,” Buffy grumbled, then she nudged her brother, “I thought you were asleep.”
Alec sighed and shook his head, “Even if I could sleep for the numbing terror I am currently enduring, it’s still too bloody bright in here for me to get any shut eye.”
Buffy looked around incredulously, the cabin of the airplane was nearly pitch black, lit only by the track lighting along the floor, directing people to the emergency exits.
“You’re kidding right? Let me see those shades,” Buffy demanded with an outstretched hand.
Alec sighed and took off his glasses, keep his eyes shielded. Buffy put them on and gaped. She passed her hand in front of her eyes back and forth, bringing it right up to her nose.
“Bro, I can’t even see my own hand with these things on and you’re telling me it’s too bright?”
“And noisy, did I mention noisy?”
“What you mean nois-“ Buffy began to ask before noticing that her brother was sending her a very pointed, annoyed look.
“You’re a jerk,” she replied stiffly, tossing the glasses into his lab.
He laughed gently and replaced them on his face, “Love you too.”
“And life goes on,” Willow summarized, earning a pair of rolled eyes from her friends.
Xander woke up a few hours later in his seat with a muted groan of pain: these seats were killing his shoulder. He looked down; Anya was resting her head on his shoulder and snoring away contentedly. Xander smiled and placed a kiss on her head and then gently lifted her head up off his shoulder and rested it against the side of the plane. As he did so, he examined his new hand: it had darker skin than his other hand, small bits of black hair grew up from the top and knuckles and there were deep lines in it. It looked like the hand of someone much older than him.
Sure hope the spell eventually does something about this or else I’m going to look really weird, he thought to himself.
He made his way to the bathroom, attended to nature’s call, and washed his hands, looking at himself in the mirror. He needed a shave, badly and he continued to rub his shoulder.
“Man, these seats are really bad for you,” he muttered as he turned around and lifted his shirt looking in the mirror.
He froze, “What the hell?”
Five small splotches stained his back. The looked like bruises or burns and they hurt to the touch. What he had mistaken for acne or warts now looked like something else entirely: like black boils or something.
“Okay, not good. Not good,” Xander considered his options; he’d seen the way people were treating Alec, like he was some kind of freak, because of injuries and various maladies and he knew he didn’t want to do that. So he’d take care of this on his own.
First though he’d have to get rid of these things. He reached behind his back and dug his nails into the first one, trying to burst it. There was a moment of resistance and then a sudden release.
And Xander cried out in agony as his shoulder and his fingers began to burn. He brought his finger tips back around and stared at them in shock: they were coated in a yellow, foamy pus-like substance and it stank like death and was currently dissolving his finger.
He quickly gripped the faucet knob and turned it own, getting his finger under the water as fast as he could. Where his finger touched the metal of the sink, it corroded. The pain in his finger slowly eased though the pain in his shoulder was still quite intense. He grabbed a bunch of paper towels and pressed them to his shoulder. They quickly disintegrated but they seemed to help a little. Five handfuls of industrial strength paper towels later, the pain subsided. Xander heaved a sigh of relief and sat down heavily on the toilet lid.
“Oh man, what am I going to do?”
He got up, nervously, and looked at his shoulder in the mirror.
There were now four black welts and fifth large, angry red and black wound where the one he had torn open had been. Red streaks originated from the wound like cracks in the pavement giving it a thoroughly unhealthy appearance.
“Okay, not going to do that again. Just gonna patch this up and everything is going to be fine.”
As Xander finished cleaning himself up, he repeated this over and over out loud and eventually, he almost believed it.
Almost.
Slam!
That sound jolted everyone out of their seats. For a moment there was confusion, bleary-eyed sleepers came up back into consciousness, confused as to what had wakened them.
Slam!
Buffy leapt to her feet, Alec and Willow with her.
“Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?” Buffy asked.
“Sounds like something wants in!” Spike called out, coming up to join the others.
“We’re thirty thousand feet up!” Alec cried out.
“Maybe it’s a bird?” Willow put forth timidly.
Slam! Suddenly dents appeared in the metal of the airplane door.
“I don’t want to meet the bird that can dent the door of a jetliner,” Alec replied, “I thought they were extinct!”
Angel appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed the shoulders of the flight attendant who was just staring slack-jawed at all the chaos.
“Get everyone strapped in back there and find a way to close us off from the rest of the cabin.”
“But…but how? There’s nothing separating coach and first class but this!” she cried out and lamely held up a thin curtain.
SLAM!
“That’s not gonna do it,” Xander commented mildly. By now, everyone had assembled together.
“Coming through,” Faith called out, lugging one of the drink carts behind her.
“Uh, babe, I appreciate a good drink as much as anyone but is now really the time?” Spike commented.
“Spike is passing up a drink. That’s it, we’re all dead,” Giles commented deadpan.
“Get everyone back into coach,” Faith instructed. The stewardess, baffled, obeyed, taking the few remaining passengers in first class with her back into the rear of the plane. Faith then proceeded to lift up the cart and wedged it on its end in the narrow passageway. Tiny bottles of booze smashed in a shower of alcohol and tinkling glass.
“That’ll work,” Buffy commented with approval.
Suddenly there was an ear-splitting squeal of tortured metal and a loud whoosh as the door came free of the plane and inside became sheer pandemonium. Magazines, glasses, and luggage were ripped free and sucked out spiraling into the black sky.
“‘Nothing to worry about’ you said. ‘Safest way to travel you said’,” Alec growled at his sister.
“Oh….SHUT UP!” Buffy snarled back.
And then some…thing filled the doorway.
“What….the….hell?” Faith gaped.
The creature had huge feathery wings in a rainbow of colors. It was humanoid in shape, but it was covered in a multitude of iridescent black scales. It had huge, yellow claws and a snake-like head with a mane that looked like it was made out of the same feathers as was on the wings with a row of feathers running down its back like spikes tapering off upon a tightly coiled tail. It hissed at them and dug in its massive claws into the plane leaving huge rents in the steel.
“He’s going to tear the plane apart!” Xander cried out, gripping Anya frantically and trying to avoid being sucked out of the plane, much as the others were.
“The hell he is!” Spike called out wielding what appeared to be the food cart that had escaped being made into a barricade, “What’ll it be mate: chicken or fish?”
The winged creature hissed at him again and even as it attempted to enter the cabin, Spike let out a whoop and charged, turning the cart into a battering ram. They slammed into the creature hard, it cried out in rage and tumbled backwards out of the cabin, the cart propelling itself outwards into the night.
Spike grinned, satisfied, even as he worked to get solid footing against the shrieking, black vortex.
“Well, that was fu-“
That was as far as he got before the creature’s tail coiled around his ankle and dragged him down and out into the night.
“SPIKE!!!!!!” Buffy cried out hysterically. Only the cold howling of the night wind answered her.
“Not today, brother,” Alec commented. Painstakingly he made his way to the door. Buffy caught his arm. Alec turned to look down at her.
“I’m going in!” he called out.
“You’re coming back out!” she replied.
Alec grinned and nodded.
“Count on it,” he said with a grin. He tossed her his shades, “Hold these!”
And then, he jumped out of the plane.
Buffy had to stop herself from leaping after him, digging her hands hard into the metal of the doorframe as the wind whipped her blond hair around.
“I hate it when he does that,” Buffy growled.
Suddenly the entire plane jerked violently. Everyone staggered and eyed the open door warily.
“Wills! Shut the door, there’s a draft!” Buffy cried out.
Willow nodded and turned her attention.
“Xander, hang on to me, I need my hands free for this!”
Xander nodded and crawled over to her, soldier-style, and wrapped both his arms around her waist.
“Got you Wills!”
Willow looked down and smiled for a second then gasped.
“Xander, you’ve got me! Who’s got you!?”
Xander turned back to look and gaped, in coming out to help Willow, he’d given up his own secure footing.
“Oh shi-!” Xander cried out as he looked back at the open door. The pair of them were dragged forward just an inch before they came to a bone-crunching stop. Xander jerked his head back around.
Angel had his leg in a death grip and was hanging onto it with all the strength a vampire could manage.
“You’re solid Harris, help out Willow,” he said brusquely.
Xander smirked just a little, “Good timing, dead boy,” he turned his attention back to the witch, “Do your thing!”
Willow nodded and brought her hands up.
“Goddess Hecate, hear my plea. Work wind, work water, work air. I weave my will and weave a wall.”
She finished and waited. Suddenly the temperature in the cabin, already quite cold, dropped even further. Everyone’s breath began to steam as a small swirling maelstrom of blue and white light formed near the door. The air became arid, dry and hard to breathe as the maelstrom expanded. Where it touched metal, an immense groaning, cracking sound emitted forth. Within a span of heartbeats, a solid block of ice filled up the doorway. The sudden quiet inside the cabinet was deafening.
“Will that hold?” Giles asked, gently releasing Dawn from his grip.
“I think so,” Willow replied, wishing she could sound more certain.
.”Beats what we had before,” Faith commented, “Nice work Red.”
“Thanks.”
Without warning, the plane jerked and shuddered again.
“Okay, what’s the deal, who’s flying this thing?” Xander cried out.
“Good question,” Buffy replied, “Faith, if you’ll do the honors?”
“Do we knock?” Willow asked meekly.
“Do we care?” Faith replied easily and with a grunt she knocked the door down. The pilot, co-pilot, and navigator were all there to be found.
At least, what was left of them.
It was clear that whatever had attacked them back in first class had started at the cockpit. There were large holes in the ceiling and along the side, not large enough to cause the complete loss of pressure the cabin had suffered but enough for clawed hands to make it through to the people inside.
“Oh...I hate this,” Buffy commented direly.
“There’s no one flying the plane?” Anya asked agog.
“That would be what all the dead pilots here would be about, yeah,” Faith commented.
“You think it would cause panic if we asked if anyone on the plane knows how to fly one?” Willow asked.
“If they aren’t already IN a panic, they clearly haven’t been paying attention to recent events,” Buffy replied glumly. She turned to look at Angel, “Angel, you were in the war, did you ever…?”
“Yes, but flying a P-40 Warhawk is a little different than flying a jumbo jet,” Angel replied.
Willow whirled around on Xander, “Xander! You know how to fly a plan!”
Xander stared at her, stunned, “What are you talking about?!”
“Flight simulator! Back when we were kids, you played that game for hours on end. You must have put in, like, five hundred hours or so into it.”
“Wills, that’s a video game! That’s like saying I know kung fu ‘cause I played ‘Street Fighter’!”
“Well, I figure that plus your ability to handle big machines, like the RV, makes you our best bet,” Willow looked around, “Besides I don’t think anyone else has a better idea.”
“’Taking the train next time’ springs to mind,” Giles commented dryly.
“We are going to die,” Xander said quietly, but he turned his attention to the pilots chair. Unfortunately, it was currently occupied with the mutilated corpse of the pilot.
“Uh, guys, I really don’t think-“
Growling in frustration, Faith stalked over the corpse and with a sharp shove, deposited the body onto the floor like so much meat.
“Sit down. Fly the plane and save all our lives,” she commanded simply.
“Right, no problem,” Xander gulped before gingerly lowering himself into the seat. There was a long, protracted squishing sound as he did and he felt something saturate the bottom of his pants.
“Oh…I have no words for this,” Xander said trembling, doing his best to not look at the little rivulets of blood that had been squeezed out of the seat like water from a sponge.
He gently put his hands on the control column of the aircraft, it was sticky with blood and he did his best to ignore that. He had to wipe flecks of…stuff off the cockpit dashboard so he could read them.
“Okay, uh, fuel is good, oil pressure looks okay, ummm….we appear to be more or less level,” Xander rambled on as Buffy leaned over to Willow.
“Just how good at this video game WAS he?” she asked worriedly.
Willow chose her words carefully. “Well, like I said, he played it a ton and it was very realistic.”
“And out of all those times he played it, how many times did he successfully land?”
“Ummm….a couple, for certain…..I think.”
“Oh,” Buffy said mildly, “We’re all going to die.”
“Alec…” Dawn spoke up casting a look behind in dread.
Buffy sent her a sympathetic look, “Yeah, I know. We can look forward to killing him when he gets back.”
“Get in line,” Willow said through gritted teeth.
Cold wind buffeted Alec’s face as he plunged through the night. The experience was oddly liberating.
Remember, its not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.
Wind brought stinging tears to his eyes as he tried to peer about the night sky for his friend.
“Shouldn’t be too hard, just look for the lunatic who’s brawling with a ten-foot monster while plunging at terminal velocity,” he commented darkly and then he sighed, “And let us not forget his idiot friend who is chasing after him.”
There. A little bit ways off beneath him, he could almost hear….
“Come on you bloody poof! Is that all you’ve got?!”
Yup. Found him.
He focused, summoning his sword, and suddenly his hand was filled with steel. Now armed, he streaked towards the pair like a guided missile.
Spike had time to register surprise for a moment before Alec plowed into both of them. The creature hissed and snarled. It couldn’t disentangle itself from the lunatic that had somehow managed to grapple it all this way and now a second one had manifested and the three of them now clawed and spit at each other as they continued to plunge down through the night.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Spike screamed.
“Well, you know you made it look like so much fun!” Alec called out.
“Arse!”
“Idiot! Grab my coat. I’m going to get us out of here!”
“What about peaches here?”
“You two have played enough!” Alec winced as the creature dug a claw through his leg but fortunately couldn’t penetrate enough to gain any kind of purchase. Alec struck the beast with his sword again and again, slicing scales free and severing the connective tissue of the wings. The creature wailed and raged as blood welled up from numerous wounds.
Finally Alec maneuvered himself to the creature’s back.
“Here, hold this!” Alec called out. For a moment, Spike thought he meant himself, only to find that Alec was addressing the creature for he plunged his blade deep into the beast’s back. It screeched in agony. Reaching down, Alec got a solid grip on the bloody tissue that held the beast’s wings to its body.
“And now we PULL!” Alec strained and growled, even as the beast spun back and forth rotating and diving trying to do something, anything, to get this insane monster of its back. Ultimately that proved to be fatal as the creature’s thrashing gave Alec the additional force he needed. With a wet, tearing sound, the beast’s wings came completely free and fluttered off into the night.
The creature got in one last, long wail of agony and then plunged into the night, now without even the slightest impediment against gravity. It disappeared from sight.
“You mentioned leaving?” Spike called out.
“Right, good plan. Close your eyes.”
“If you say ‘Click your heels three times’, I will personally find a way to strangle you before we hit,” Spike yelled to be heard over the wind.
Alec grinned for a moment, then the expression was wiped from his face when he got a good look at his surroundings.
Wow, that ground’s coming up awfully fast was his last thought.
And then there was no more time for thought.
Alec closed his eyes and focused…
“How are we doing? Buffy asked Xander who was still seated at the controls.
Xander didn’t take his eyes off the instruments or the view in front of him, “The flying part is relatively easy, it’s pretty much just go in a straight line. The crew had the course set before they….uh, well you know,”
Buffy nodded, “What about landing?”
Xander winced, “That’s going to take a little bit more doing.”
“Something to look forward to,” she turned to Angel, “How are the passengers?”
“Frightened but for the moment, we’re the only ones who know that the crew is all dead,” he replied, “I suggest keeping it that way.”
“With you on that,” Buffy replied.
Abruptly there was a burst of static from one of the headsets, followed by rapid fire Spanish.
“Okay, what’s that?” Buffy asked.
“That’s probably from the control tower wanting an update,” Xander replied, “Either that or it’s the local radio station, I have no idea.”
“Well, what are they saying?”
“Again, file that under ‘I have no idea.’”
“Oh for…” Anya grumbled and then shoved her way past the others, “Move!”
The others, confused, got out of her way as she nonchalantly pushed the corpse of the navigator off the seat and plunked down into it, ignoring the blood and gore. She gingerly picked up the headset, wiped it off and put it on her head. And then she proceeded to speak in fluid Spanish, going through a series of question and answers with whoever was on the other end.
“Okay, that IS the control tower, they’re telling us that they’ve been alerted to the cabin depressurization and they want a status update, they also want an explanation as to why we’re only flying at half our expected speed,” Anya informed them. Then she got a good look at the others expressions of surprise.
“What? I’m over eleven-hundred years old; you think I can’t pick up Spanish?”
“You told me you flunked Spanish,:” Xander said.
“Not Spanish: math. God, you never listen. See, this is why-“
“Ahn, so not the time,” Xander cut her off, “Tell them, I dunno, tell them whatever you think they’ll believe so we can land this thing,” then he added as an after thought, “Just run it past Buffy first,” he added, remembering how his beloved could be somewhat…tactless at times.
“Fine,” Anya grumbled as she turned her attention back to the radio.
Buffy turned to Willow, “Any sign of…?”
Willow just shook her head, she was sitting with Dawn and the pair of them looked absolutely despondent.
“He’ll be here,” Willow replied with determination.
“Absolutely,” Buffy replied with confidence that she didn’t really feel. But it was better than dealing with that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and the awful truth it represented.
“Any sign of who?” a voice called out.
Everyone (who wasn’t involved in the operation of a jumbo jet) whipped their heads around to see Alec and Spike stagger out of a dark corner and collapse onto the floor.
“Alec!” Willow cried out, leaping into his arms. Alec held her tight and kissed her head Dawn was not far behind her as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly.
“Miss me Slay-?” Spike was interrupted by Buffy as she devoured his mouth with hers in a fiery kiss. It stretched on forever and then she quickly broke it off and slapped him across the face.
“You. Be more careful,” she growled.
Spike chuckled, rubbing his cheek, “Yes ma’am.”
Buffy shifted her glare to her brother, “Goes double for you.”
Alec held up his hands, “No argument there. Next time I go skydiving, parachute is mandatory.”
“Son, how did you survive?” Giles asked quietly, his voice shook only a little. His son’s reckless act had terrified him, but he had done his best to keep his composure.
“I shadow-stepped my way back up to the plane,” he held up his hands flat and then stacked one on top of another, over and over again, “Once after another until we made it back in here.”
“That sounds exceedingly dangerous: a single teleportation has been known to be very draining and risky for you, several in a row…”
“Seemed less of a bad idea than hitting the ground,” Alec countered.
“I’ll second that,” Spike put in, “Damn eerie experience though.”
Alec nodded, “Home sweet Hell, the plane of elemental darkness can be like that.”
“Remind me to never attend any housewarming parties you ever host, better safe than sorry.”
Suddenly there was a small beeping sound that filled the cockpit quickly.
“That can’t be good,” Willow put forth, “Xander?”
“It’s nothing coming from me,”
“It’s coming from your watch, Buffy,” Angel pointed out quietly.
Buffy started and then looked down; sure enough, the digital readout read six-thirty.
Sunrise in thirty minutes.
Buffy jerked her head up, “Guys, we got sunrise on its way fast,”
“Oh fantastic, I thought the plan was to have landed BEFORE the sun became an issue,” Spike growled.
“That was before we had to cut our airspeed in half because something ATE the flight crew,” Xander shot back.
“Okay, okay, let’s not have a hiss-fit,” Buffy said placating, “Where can we put you guys that’s out of the sun?”
“Cargo hold, with the luggage,” Angel said quietly.
“With the luggage?! We go from first class to luggage?!” Spike exclaimed.
“Would you rather go from ‘first class’ to ‘ash tray’?”
Spike muttered but didn’t argue the point further.
“Okay then, you guys get down to the cargo hold. Is there a way to get to it from inside the plane?”
“If there isn’t, I’ll make one,” Angel replied.
“Sounds like a plan. Faith, go with them, something tells me that their act of radical reconstruction might need some slayer muscle behind it,” Buffy added.
Faith grinned, “Man these guys are going to have one humongous repair bill for this thing. I’m on it,” With that, the three of them headed towards the back.
Buffy turned her attention back to the view in front of her and to Xander.
“What now?”
“Now, we make a gradual descent through the cloud cover and proceed to have a smooth and orderly landing,” Xander replied.
“Uh huh and in the land of reality?”
“We pray to our great and fuzzy gods that we don’t explode in a ball of flame or crash like a stone.”
“Got it.”
Slowly, with agonizing care, Xander gently leaned the yoke forward and the plane began its final descent.